130 free days

I am obsessed with time at the moment trying to figure out how to best use my available time. This week I will be working about 54 hours, exercise for about 11 hours, sleep for 35 hours which means I have about 65 hours of free time. 65 hours is a lot of time when you think of it. This is the time which I am at home doing “nothing”. Now every week won’t be like this, it will be differences over a whole year, but let’s say I had 60 hours on average free time per week. That would amount to 3120 hours per year. That’s actually 130 days. 130 days where I don’t sleep, but 130 x 24 hours. It’s fair to say that with all that time, I could pretty much do anything I want and still have time to spare. If you had 130 free days per year, what would you do with them and why?

My ear still hasn’t cleared up, but I think it is a little better now. Could be that the doctors were right. Olive oil might do the trick. If it hasn’t cleared up by Wednesday I think I will go see the doctor anyway, just to see what they have to say.

34 days until I go to Indonesia and see Kei. Hehe I remember when it was 100. The time really flies. I’m so excited! Today is a bank holiday in England, but I still have to be at work. That’s fine, because the pay is really good. Speaking of, there will be no lunch at work today so I better go prepare something.

Number 80

What happens when you put an easy to please guy into a workplace with free vending machines? I am the victim of some sort of science experiment. It’s like a Big Brother show in there. It started innocently enough with some black tea, light, no sugar. That worked great the first few days, and hey, it’s free. So one day I wanted to try something different so I added a little strength to the tea and some sugar. It was good, different, but little did I know the evil path it lead me on.

There it was… Number 80 Tomato Soup. I thought why not and pressed it with an adventurous joy. In a standard white plastic cup came the sweetest of soups. The red liquid was almost hypnotizing and then I tasted it. Maybe it was something about that day, but it was simply amazing. During the next days there were a few more Number 80 Tomato Soup, and I was happy. Then someone whispered in my ear today: Psst, the soup is different in the various vending machines. My heart stopped for a second. Could it be? More soup delight?

Sure enough, in one vending machine there was Number 80 Vegetable Soup. As I sipped calmly to my Number 80 Vegetable Soup she told me a tale of another vending machine with chicken soup. It was like finding lost gold, does this goodness never ends I thought. The Number 80 Vegetable Soup was a great success and there will be songs of great tales about it. Later that day I had a chance to check out the Number 80 Chicken Soup. It smelled chicken, was a bit lighter in color than the Number 80 Vegetable Soup but it tasted almost the same. A bit disappointed, I thought my soup loving days were over. The same person who told me about the chicken soup came over to me and told me that the quality of the soup varies from machine to machine. Oh joy! And there are like 10 of them there.

Well today I came to a disappointing conclusion. It’s just because it’s free. I’m not really addicted to soup. If they charged me for it, I wouldn’t even touch the stuff.

Day one…

Yep, the pic is of the house I currently live in. Typical British I would say.

I got to bed at 9pm last night and got up at 5am, ready and excited about my first day at work. I ended up talking to my very good friend Rina, so I managed only to get a shower. Didn’t eat at all, but it was ok. I didn’t know when the bus came by so I stood out in the rain for about 20 minutes. I had an umbrella though, which I need to replace soon, because it’s barely keeping me dry at the moment (The weather was better during the day). The bus came and it cost me £2.50 to get to Wythenshawe bus station which is about 3 minutes away from work in walking distance. £5 per day is a bit expensive, so I bought a weekpass for £9. I can use it on any Arriva bus whenever I want for a whole week so I think it’s a good deal. The bus took about 20 minutes which is ok, but I would like something closer.

Speaking of closer, a Norwegian girl who also is new owns a house 2.2 km away from work. She lives there, but rents out the rooms. She has a couple of rooms available so during the week I will go check it out. If I like it, I might move next week. The rent there is the same as here, 80 GBP a week.

Let me tell you about the job! Well since this was my first day, I can’t really have a clear picture yet, but there are signs… and the signs are really good. Of course I compared this company to my last tech support job and the difference is huge. In my previous company they had absolutely no control, constant PC problems, and no follow-ups. This company has that and more. It feels like a real company. In both my previous jobs, it hasn’t been very inspiring, things didn’t work at all. That is the impression I got from the company.

What also impressed me was how happy everyone who worked there was. Not a sad face around. I thought it was weird. No one is that happy! So I checked around and it turns out that the majority of people there had worked there for 4, 6 or 8 years which is unheard of in a call center environment. There must be something wrong here, maybe they secretly drug the employees?

Just as I was determined to find out something bad about the place, I found it :P. Apparently Wythenshawe is a notorious crime area, the worst in Manchester according to people I spoke to. Don’t go there in the dark they warned me. Well, I guess there had to be something, yet the people there love to work there and since they have stayed so long, I guess nothing bad has ever happened to them.

And then, I’ve saved the best for last. It’s a free-for-all-party at work! Free lunch (which by the way is excellent, 3 warm dishes to choose from, lots of extras, take what you want… free soda. Oh, and the vending machines at work is free, so free tea, free hot chocolate, whatever you want. Crazy people!

Well that’s it for day 1. It can only get worse :P.

Oh, another negative thing about the job. I come home so late, so Kei had just gone offline when I came home. Time zones is an awful thing (sounds familiar). Also she gets my text messages, but I don’t get hers. Well I suppose that’s something :-).