51/365 : Look Who Has A Job

This is where I spent 2 hours today but will soon be spending 8 hours a day, five days a week.

Note: I forgot my camera so I took this with my mobile phone. I was surprised at how nice it actually turned out and then I realized that my mobile has a 3 megapixel camera! Gosh ... I remember my first digital camera and it was only a 1 megapixel. Crazy!

Getting There
My Father-in-Law and I left at 12:00pm and it only took around 8 minutes to get there. The company is only about 6 miles down the road from where we are living and it's pretty much a straight shot. My appointment was not until 12:30pm but this is better than being late. I went ahead and went in and they were actually pleased and wanted to start the assessment right away.

The Tests
I was taken to a little room with a desk and a laptop. The first test that they had me take was for listening and data entry, this to me was the easiest but in the end I found out that it was the one that in my score I had the most trouble with. Turns out that I have not yet remembered how to spell places like Edinburgh and Scarborough yet. She said that with me being from the US they understood that I would not know how to spell all of the cities right away and they would not hold that against me.

The second test was a 10 minute timed literacy test. There were 3 pages and around 20 or so questions. For an example it would have a paragraph with missing words and then you would need to pick the correct word from 4 multiple choice options which were the same word spelt in different ways. Then there were missing commas and apostrophes that you had to catch.

The third test was a 10 minute timed numeracy test. It also was 3 pages and had around 20 or so questions. This is the one I was the most scared about, I am crap with numbers. Andy is excellent at this which is why I always leave the math stuff to him. In the end I did not get to three of the questions but she said I got everything else right so that was a nice surprise.

She then told me that I had achieved the benchmark on each of the tests and she walked me upstairs for the next bit.

Face To Face Interview
This only took around 35 - 45 minutes and the two women that were in the interview were so nice. I always forget that you are asked something like 'What is your biggest fault'.. that is the hardest question to answer! Not that I'm perfect but in an interview you are trying to show your best side and it always throws you for a loop when this question comes up. After the interview was over they walked me back down to the front doors and said they hoped to be seeing me again soon.

Car Park
I called my Father-in-Law to let him know that I was done and he said he would be there in about 10 minutes. I then sent Andy a text to let him know that I was done. I was hoping he would still be at lunch since I was right outside his office building he could come out to say hi but he had just finished lunch and was back at work. I let him know it well well and that they said they would let me know one way or another soon.

Well... About 5 minutes after I had walked out the doors I get a text message from the company thanking me for attending the assessment today that they enjoyed having me and then listed a number and asked me to phone the HR department. So I immediately make the call and after they answer I gave my name and she again thanked me for coming today and offered me the job!! WOO HOO!! She said that they would like me to start on Monday at 9am and to not to worry about bringing my lunch the first day as they will provide it for me. I had not even left the car park yet, how crazy is that?

I am so excited to be working for the same company as Andy. During the training I will also have 9 - 5 hours (same as him) but after that the call centre is open until 9:30pm so there will be some late nights. From what I was told today they do weekly shifts so one week I may have say 9 - 5 and then the next week I will have 11 - 7 and so on but they rotate evenly and I believe she said there are 4 rotations so it's not that bad. They do the schedule six weeks out in advance and if you have something planned (such as a concert) they will work with you and you will be able to trade that night. They do ask that you work one Saturday a week but in that week you can take another day off to make up for it. Can't beat that!

I know for those of you from the UK or those of you who are currently working in the UK the vacation time is not a shock but for those of you in the US ... hold on to your seats. I start off with 20 (yes that is 20) vacation days a year plus 8 public holidays. WOW! I still can't get over this. In the US you are lucky to start out with 5 days but usually you are made to work a full year before you even get that. Simply marvellous.