The Saturated Sponge Effect

Wow, nearly two weeks since I last updated, (more on that in a moment!), and what a two weeks it has been. Serious inter-brain debating on what job prospect to go for, a couple of very good football matches to take charge of and ultimately, the first week of my new job. It's been a hell of a ride and, of course, I am only just beginning the journey.

However, I'd like to take you back to Saturday 21st January. I typed out a blog post, thinking that the group of friends who avidly read it will comment on a job well done, and I will attempt to get to sleep. I seem to recall it was 4am and I had to awake at midday for my latest game. As an after thought, (to be honest), I thought I'd tweet the link to this very blog to a few celebrities, looking for a re-tweet but not very hopeful that any would bother. After taking another good two hours to fall asleep, I awoke at 12 in a grumpy mood. I was not looking forward to my game that much, but after logging into Twitter to see the latest, I saw a barrage of messages from strangers. Messages of support, messages of understanding and messages commending my bravery and writing skill. Among these messages were 40 odd retweets, 32 more followers and a lot more favouriting my blog link, all because Alistair Campbell had retweeted. Tony Blair's former "spin doctor", a known sufferer of depression, had told his 120,000 followers about my silly little blog in the far reaches of the World Wide Web, and it had exploded. By the end of the day, (after an average match where my mind was not focused at all!), I was basking in the glory of getting over 9,000 views on a single post. My views of a whole 2 years of posting silly little things had doubled in the space of 12 hours. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

At the start of the following "working week" however is when the serious story begins. I was literally about to pick up the phone to register for my 3rd go at registering for Jobseeker's Allowance, when the phone rang. It was my good friend Saggers, who is a manager of some sort at a charity called Sports Traider. In short, there was a new charity store opening in Watford, and it needed an Assistant Manager come opening time in a couple of weeks. I was amazed, and I told him to keep me updated. 2 hours later, I received another phone call, this time from a lovely lady called Sue who offered me an interview with the Post Office. Only a part-time position, but a position none the less. The interview was scheduled for Friday. What's that story about London buses?

Friday came around alarmingly fast, and things had stalled somewhat with the job opportunity in Watford. There were complications, along with the distance problems and accommodation, it seemed the Post Office opportunity was going to be my first choice. I went along, safe in the knowledge I had the "maybe" choice of Watford to fall back on and gave it my best shot. The way Sue was talking, it seemed as if I was going to be offered a job there and then, but she didn't. She did 2 hours later though, and before you could say "Kermit the Frog", I was an employee at Martin McColls, working in the Post Office at the back of the store on Queens Drive. I started on Monday.

I appreciate I am telling this story alarmingly fast, but if I gave you all the details, I'd be here until daybreak and after the week I have experienced, taking in knowledge and methods, prices and procedures, my brain feels heavy and saturated like a sponge that has been submerged into a deep bath tub.

However. Before I could worry about starting the new job, I had a big weekend of refereeing to complete. Much more my comfort zone, and on Saturday, I was at Turvey who had a top of the table clash with Bromham Utd. Somewhat of a local derby aswell, it wasn't going to be an easy game. After the first half, I thought the 2nd half was going to be a long one, but it all seemed to calm down after I made a couple of brave decisions including turning down a strong penalty appeal, and then giving one 5 minutes later, both of which were 100% correct. It finished 2-1 to Turvey, who stayed top of the table. After that exhausting 90 minutes, Father Mitten then made me go to work with him, shifting round HUGE loads of raw meat to be stored in the chillers for the next weeks preparation, but also included a bit of free sampling. It wasn't what I needed after a fast-paced game, but it was sort of good, as it meant I was tired enough to sleep well before Sunday's cup semi-final.

It was a cracking game. And the first game in a long while where I was given 2 neutral assistants, one of which did a great job and the other, not so great. I did well though and thoroughly enjoyed the occasion. Kempston won 2-1 with a last-minute winner, which was good news for me as I was knackered and didn't really want extra time!

(Again, apologies for the lack of detail. But I am falling asleep here!)

Right. The main event. I turned up at the Post Office on Monday morning, completely petrified. I hate first days. I'm sure everyone does, but me being me, meant that I had had hardly any sleep and was extremely nervous. I don't mean "extremely nervous" in the usual sense. I mean "extremely nervous" in the sense that I was feeling physically sick. I was introduced to Relief Manager, Janice and also Sally, who is to become my regular colleague after I am trained well enough to leave on my own! They were really nice ladies, taking me through the different things to remember, knowing full well I was only taking a small percentage of it in, but before I knew what was going on, it was 1.30pm, and it was time to go home.

I never knew there were so many ways in which you could send a letter or a parcel. An incredible amount of services for sending packages, all complete with certain weights and stamps to remember at different times and certain labels to attach to certain types of parcel, I was sure my brain was going to explode. Even then, this part of the Post Office is about 5% of the whole business. Different services, all complete with different leaflets, and different procedures to follow for each service for each customer. Banking, cheques, giros, gas and electric, phone top up, ISAs, insurance for everything you can think of, saving schemes, premium bonds, currency exchanges and loads of other things that have simply gone straight over my head, (none of which I'm allowed to recommend), on top of the monstrous amount of information to remember about sending different types of parcel and letter and packet. And this is before you get to the paperwork and admin side of things. By Wednesday, I was genuinely thinking if it was at all possible, with me being me, that my head was going to cope with all of the knowledge.

My new colleagues however have been great, (so far!) They appreciate there is so much to learn. So much so that Sally, who started at the beginning of November, is still asking questions galore. The "Front Office" bit, (which is all of the paragraph above), is just half the story. The "back office" includes money transfers, currency ordering, Lottery and scratchcard processing, AP's (whatever the hell they are!) and loads more that I simply haven't remembered because my brain is already at full capacity. I am much better at the moment in remembering and providing all the services to customers, (which I suppose is the main thing), than I am at all the "admin" side of things. I do reckon it will take a lot more time to remember the procedures for getting everything to add up in the "back office" when it comes to the end of a long day remembering what the hell to do when customers ask certain things.

I have to keep telling myself that I am new, and I am not expected to remember everything at once, straight away. On every occasion, with anything, I expect way too much of myself. My main fear at the moment though is that I still won't be able to remember a couple of months down the line, and then things really will be irritating for everyone involved. As soon as this thought gets into my head, my brain, with its unique way of interpreting these thoughts, spirals out of control before I am in a state of no repair. I have been there a few times this week. Crying, more through terrible, terrible nerves more than anything else, plus not really getting any sleep, but I have literally forced myself to walk to work every morning. I tell myself that I will learn eventually, as with anything, and it will be fine once I get there, which I suppose it was.

Interesting times, certainly. Some of what I typed might well be nonsensical rubbish, but that is simply because the writing skills that I apparently possess in some form, have been pushed out the side of my brain by procedure and a flurry of special delivery stamps and their subsequent labels.

I have a headache.