Gamer Girls

I don’t know where any of these jobs slot in time-wise. I don’t even know what my first paying job was. A lot of these “jobs” were for one day so they’re not memorable. But I’m going to try to only talk about jobs that I had during this period when I was in Wembley with these Sri Lankan guys.

After I got the reference from this volunteer job, I was able to get paying jobs through these parasitic job agencies that dominated the employment market. I’m thinking that the first job was a teaching assistant job.

I had a few sporadic days as a teaching assistant. A teaching assistant is something that they seem to have in England for like…I don’t even know the terms. But for children in grades lower than secondary school. So like middle school. Or elementary school. Whatever term you want to use. Children who are like 12 years old and younger.

Every class, seemingly, for this age bracket would have a teaching assistant. It was just somebody to help the teacher maintain order in the class. You’d stand in the back. So when the teacher’s back was turned to write something on the board, you could see if anybody is causing problems. And if somebody needed help with their work, you could help them? I guess? I don’t even know. This was part of the problem. I have no fucking idea what the job entails. This job does not exist in the US. I don’t know what the role is.

So I’d get there and just try to figure things out. Take it all in.

They didn’t like that. I was never invited to return for another day. I’ll have more to say about this teaching assistant bullshit later because I did this job, very sporadically, up until the time I got a proper job, which is like two years down the line.

I also did exam invigilation. Again, this is not a job that exists in the US. You just have to watch the students take some kind of exam. What’s the exam? I don’t fucking know. I think that it’s some kind of standardised test. They were like high school kids. You were just supposed to check for cheating and give people erasers (“rubbers” as they’re called) and shit like this. Sometimes you’d be there with a teacher, sometimes just by yourself. It was easy as fuck. I never saw anybody cheating.

This job went better but it’s tough to fuck it up. Nevertheless, I think that even with this job, schools were telling the agencies not to send me back there. So I’d do one of these exam invigilating jobs at a school for a day or two and then maybe a month later, I’ll get another day or two from a different agency, at a different school.

I also did a day of construction work. This was, of course, through an agency. I had no construction experience.

So I’m told that there’s a job on a building site and they need people to clean. They tell me that I need protective shoes to do the job. Fine. So I go to some shop that sells gear for construction workers (they’re called “builders” in the UK) and I get some shoes. They were like fifty pounds.

I go to the job. There are like twenty people who are also there for the same job. They needed twenty people for the job, apparently. It was a good mix of immigrants and just desperately impoverished English people. Maybe a 50/50 split.

So they send us out to different parts of this building and a manager comes and gives us all a vacuum cleaner (or “hoover” as it’s called in the UK, based on the Hoover brand of vacuum cleaners). He tells us to vacuum the various rooms.

I do my section. Then I do it again. Then I do it again. I’m looking around. How long should we keep doing this?

I don’t know what the building was, by the way. It was just a big, I assume recently built building.

I meet some African immigrant. He’s confused about this whole situation too. We’ve already cleaned everything three times. Should we look for the manager?

The manager comes over. “Are your hoovers not working?” Oh. So we cleaned everything again. And again.

This African guy starts telling me about Africa. How people don’t see Africa as a tourist destination. He asks if I would want to travel to Africa. I tell him that I don’t have any money now so I’m not thinking about travel. It was a shit answer but this is how I was. I didn’t want to have small talk especially while I’m always in this desperate financial situation.

Some guy comes up to me, he was from the Caribbean. A black guy. And he says, “Don’t you have protective shoes?” And I say, “Yeah, these” and I point to my shoes. He says that I need steel toed shoes.

So he got some other manager. Some Polish woman. And he said that I shouldn’t be working here. I need steel toed shoes. The Polish woman looks at the shoes and she says, no, it’s fine. This Caribbean guy looks really annoyed.

Then after I cleaned everything ten times, this Polish woman comes and gets us. She assembles everybody in a room. The twenty of us who were there at the start. And she’s talking about how there was some kind of delay with the work. That’s why we were cleaning the same area all day. But we’re going to need everybody to come back tomorrow.

Well, almost everybody. She takes me to a room and says that I don’t need to come in any more.

It was because of the shoes. I’m trying to remember what shoe-buying guidance I was given. I remember that there was a phone call from some guy at the employment agency. He may have specifically said that I don’t need steel-toed boots. And he must have given me the address of this construction shop because where else would I have found out about it? It was a shop that only sold gear for construction workers. And they only had one type of shoes. They were chunky, construction type shoes.

But I remember that they were £50 because that’s what I got paid for the job. So I made nothing from this job. It all went to those shoes.

There was a plastic keychain on the shoes. I still have this keychain on my keys today to remind myself of the absolute shit jobs that I’ve done. It helps to appreciate what I’m doing now.

Groundwork is the brand name of these shoes.

https://www.lyndhurstshoeco.com/featured/sk21.html

These were the shoes. They’re £40 on Amazon. And they apparently do have a steel toe. So I don’t know what the problem was. The guy just didn’t like the shoes. Maybe it was a fashion thing.

I never heard from the agency again, of course. That’s the way with these things. But there are so many agencies that it doesn’t matter. You just go to all of them. You can even go to a different branch in the same company.

The problem that I kept having with jobs, and interviews, is that I was, “Too quiet and won’t fit in.” So I started looking for jobs that don’t require any interaction with anyone. I was perfectly capable of having work-related conversations with people. I was capable of working in schools. I did all of this in the US and there was absolutely no problem. But in the UK, they’re looking for somebody “fun” to work with.

So I started looking for data entry jobs. You sit in front of a computer, you input the data, you go home. Don’t have to talk to anyone.

Even with these jobs, I had difficulty at interviews. I’m apparently too quiet and won’t fit in for a job that requires no social interaction at all.

But I did get a data entry job through an agency. They needed like forty people. The agent said that if I knew anybody who needs a job, let him know. He’ll take anybody. They were really desperate for people.

I quickly figured out why. The job was from midnight to 8.00 am. It was in some warehouse. It was a one hour bus journey from my home.

Almost everybody was an immigrant. I remember one South Asian British guy but everyone else was an immigrant. The boss was an immigrant. He was from Pakistan or something. A lot of the people there were South Asian immigrants. There were also some European immigrants.

The boss was a total asshole. He ran the place like a sweatshop. He would regularly yell at people. If you stopped typing for a short while, he’d tell you to get back to work. You had to keep working right up until 8.00. If you stopped even one minute before, he’d give you shit for it.

I don’t remember what data was being inputted. A lot of it was numbers. Some of it was words. It was filling in some forms.

One day, I was speaking to a German guy before work. And I said that this is the worst job I’ve ever had. Which may be true. I don’t know which was worse, here or the asylum. Anyway, this German guy just said that he’s had worse jobs. He just said it in a matter of fact, Teutonic way.

A lot of the people there didn’t speak English or their English was poor. So obviously they’re going to have difficulty with the job.

Also, I think that I was the only person there who knew how to type.

So this guy was a giant asshole to me, as he was to everyone, right up until he saw my work. A few days into the job, he was walking around and checking on everyone and saw that I was doing phenomenally. Then I became his favourite. He moved me to the back of the room where the best workers went. That South Asian British guy was there and some other people who used a computer before.

I was clearly the best worker there. Clearly. No question. I mean, the competition wasn’t good but it was overwhelmingly immigrants and I typed 80 words a minute. I was doing the work of ten of those people.

There was a guy there who was really bad at the job. Because he didn’t speak English. This was a problem with a lot of the people there. They didn’t speak English.

So this boss is going over this guy’s work and berating him. “How could you write that? That doesn’t even make sense.” Then he turns to this British Asian guy, reads what this other guy wrote, and says, “Does that make sense to you?” This British guy didn’t reply. This manager’s behaviour was absolutely abhorent and everybody knew it.

That guy didn’t come back. A few people probably got fired. I didn’t really notice. People probably quit as well.

I worked there for a month maybe. Maybe not that long. Then I had a job interview for another data entry job. I needed to take a day off to go to the interview. The interview was at 10.00 or something and because it took so long to get back from that job, I wouldn’t be able to get there in time.

So I called the agency.

Me: I can’t come in tomorrow.

Agent: Why not?

Me: I’m sick.

Agent: You’re sick.

Me: Yeah.

Agent: How are you sick?

Me: I don’t know. I have the flu or something.

Agent: You have the flu or something.

Me: Yeah.

Agent: I have to say that I have a hard time believing that.

Me: I don’t know what to tell you. Do you want a list of symptoms?

Agent: Okay, okay. Fine. You’re sick. I’ll let them know.

Then I go to the job interview, I’ll cover the details in another article, and I got the job. That day. The day of the interview.

So I called the agent up.

Me: I won’t be coming in.

Agent: What? You mean ever?

Me: That’s right.

Agent: Well…okay.

Absolutely deplorable agency. Deplorable job. Deplorable manager. And the job paid like £7/hour.

After these Hasidic Jews kicked everybody out of that dump, I moved to a place in Wembley, which is in North London. The place with the Jews was also in North London but Wembley is quite a bit further north. It possibly isn’t even in London. I never really figured it out. Anyway, it was way out there. It was either in some place called Middlesex or it was on the absolute outer fringes of London.

I’d say that 90% of the people living there were South Asian. At least in the nighbourhood I was in.

I get to the new place. The flat was above a luggage shop. It was on a busy street. You had to enter through the alley. It wasn’t pleasant.

The room was pretty big, though. If a family lived in this place, it would have been the living room. I shared this place with a guy from Sri Lanka who worked as an accountant. Then there were two other Sri Lankan guys who shared a small room. There was also an empty room, again, a small room, that they were looking to let out.

I think that the main guy owned the property. Or possibly he was just the head tenant and overcharged everybody, like in previous places. But this guy also lived in the property. He had his own room. It was a small room. It was like a box room. So at least he didn’t take the big room for himself. He was also an accountant. I don’t know what the other two guys did but they weren’t accountants.

The shower didn’t work. So rather than fix the shower, they just put a small plastic bucket in the shower. The idea here is that you’re supposed to fill the bucket with water and then wash yourself with it. Okay. Well, maybe this is how they do things in Sri Lanka. I don’t want to be offensive by complaining about this. And maybe it’s just temporary.

No. I lived there for at least six months. They never fixed the shower. I bathed with a bucket of water for the entire time.

The place was infested with cockroaches. I only discovered this when I put a bag of crisps in a lower cabinet. The next day, it was FULL of holes. It was disgusting. It had like 100 holes in it. There were probably cockroaches in there when I was holding it.

I don’t recall ever seeing any cockroaches, though. I didn’t really walk around at night, though. And the mice probably kept the cockroach population down anyway. The place was also infested with mice.

The roommate was fine. I didn’t talk to him. And looking back, I know that I should have talked to him, I know that I come off like an asshole, but it’s just how I was. I was in a difficult situation in terms of employment and money and even at the best of times, I would have hated having a roommate. It was nothing against this guy. He was a pleasant person. Whatever.

They were all Buddhists. Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country. So there was a picture of the parents (or some relatives) of this guy who owned the property. The picture was high up near the entrance of the flat. And every morning, this guy would do a little silent prayer in front of this picture. It’s fine, of course, just an observation. I found it interesting.

When I would leave for my volunteer job, I’d say “see you later” to this roommate. This was basically the only time that we would talk. And he would say the same.

Then one day, after maybe three months of me living there, he said “goodbye” instead of “see you later.” I thought that that was a little weird.

I never saw him again. He moved back to Sri Lanka. He didn’t tell me and he apparently didn’t tell anyone. The guy who owned the place was really surprised. “He wouldn’t just move without telling me.” Because they would talk. The other people in the flat all talked to each other. They were friends. But I don’t know. He just moved and he didn’t tell anyone.

He left his computer. I used it for a few days, looking for work and whatnot, so I didn’t have to go to the internet cafe, but then one of the roommates came to collect it. He said that he could have it. So whatever. It was an old computer and he probably did tell him that.

I got a new roommate after this but I’ll discuss that in a future article.

So let’s try to figure out the chronology. I started a volunteer job right before I left the place with the Brazilian guys and I had this job all through the time that I was living in that Hasidic Jew place. So all of the craziness that I had to endure there was going on while I was working. The four months or whatever when I wasn’t getting any benefits so had no money coming in was all happening while I was working here. And then when I moved to Wembley, I was still working there. Nevertheless, I think that I only missed one day of work. And I called in and told them ahead of time. I think that it was around the time that I was moving to this new place, having been illegally evicted with no notice given.

I think that I was living in that Jew place for…between four and six months. But I was definitely starting the job right before I moved into the Jew place and I still was doing the job when I moved into this place in Wembley.

I don’t know at what point I stopped working there. It was maybe a month after I moved to Wembley? Something like this. So I left the job within the timeframe of the events that I described in the first half of the article.

Anyway, the job was in the national headquarters of a political party. And on the first day, a guy who I would be working with was giving me a tour of the building.

The receptionist was a gay man. SUPER gay. And he was making some kind of joke about forcible sodomy. I wish I could remember the setup or the punchline but it was some completely insane and obviously inappropriate comment. It wasn’t directed at me but joking about fucking people in the ass isn’t really what you expect to hear in a workplace. So this guy who was showing me around quickly ushered me away from him and just ignored it.

It was a data entry job. You just had to input data. The name of the person who donated, their address, and how much money they donated.

There was another American who was also volunteering. So of course, this guy introduced me to her because this is what people think. “Oh, you’re an American. You must want to talk to another American.” No, frankly I don’t give a shit. If I wanted to speak to Americans, I’d still be in America.

She was in a different department. She was 300 pounds. She was a university student. I gave an awkward “Hello” and never saw her again.

Very occasionally, I got to do something other than input data. So one time, we were setting up for some meeting and it was taking place…fuck, I don’t know. I want to say in Buckingham Palace but could that be right? It might be. It was some big regal place, in any event.

I was doing the same job as this guy who showed me around the first day as well as a few other people there. But they were getting paid. I was doing it for nothing.

No, that’s not true. I got my travel costs reimbursed. So every Friday, I’d go to the guy who controls the petty cash tin, give him my travel receipts, and he’d give me £45 or whatever.

Oh, and I was working there five days a week, eight hours a day.

One of the people working there was a middle aged black guy. He was doing the same job I was doing, but he was getting paid. And he said, “You don’t have to sit there all day like you’re chained to the desk. You can get up whenever you want and walk around.”

But I don’t do that. When I go to work, I’m there to work. I’m not there to socialise, I’m not there to have a good time, I’m not there to take in the sights. I’m working straight out from 9.00 to 5.00, with the only break being for lunch. I don’t work during lunch.

They don’t like this in the UK. That’s one of the reasons why I had such a problem finding work. They’re looking for somebody fun to have around the office.

Compare this with the relative ease that I had finding work in the US. Employers in the US love drones like me who just sit there and do the work all day. They’re interested in productivity in the US. Not having a good time at work.

Let’s talk about the other volunteers.

There was an old man. He’d come in once or twice a week. Then he stopped coming in. He had a health problem or maybe he died.

There was a university student. He had autism or something. I don’t say this as an insult or speculating in any way. He very clearly had a neurological condition. He behaved in an odd fashion. He was really interested in the work and the politics. But then one day they told him not to come in any more because he said something to a girl that he knew. She was a member of this party and he saw her information on the database that we worked on. So he said, “Oh, I know where you live now” or something. It wasn’t as sinister as that, but it was some weird shit. So she was afraid and she filed a complaint and they had to fire this guy.

Then towards the end of my run, there was a guy about my age who started volunteering. And he was obviously looking for a paid job there. Always kissing everybody’s ass. Trying to get in with everyone. And it visibly annoyed the other people.

But this is what volunteering, at least for many people, in many sectors, is all about. It’s desperate people who are hoping to get a paying job out of this volunteer work. And these organisations prey on this.

Then one day, I was told that there’s an opening in the call centre. It was a paying job. And I was asked if I want to speak to the managers there. I said that I would.

Call centre is not a job that I wanted to do. I’m not good on phones. I’m not good with speaking to people. But it’s a job, I needed money, let’s try it out.

So I went down and spoke to these two guys. They were about my age. They were the managers of this department. And they’re just talking to me. It wasn’t really an interview. I didn’t take it that way, at least.

Then they asked if I wanted to do a practice call. I said okay.

They gave me a script. In the other room was one of the managers. The phone rang. It was the manager. He said whatever. I read from the script. The call ended.

So that’s it. They said that they’d let me know tomorrow.

Next day, this guy who showed me around on the first day asked how the interview went. I said that they said that they’d let me know tomorrow. He said that that didn’t sound good. Indeed.

So he went to speak to these guys. Presumably, he went there to put a good word in for me. Because I was excellent. I was the best worker that they had there. I was fanatical about working. I did more work than anyone there. Everybody knew it.

And I didn’t ask about this call centre job. They came to me. And they didn’t go to that fucking kiss ass who was doing his best at trying to get a job there. They referred me for the job because they knew that I was the world’s greatest worker.

The guy comes back and says that they said I did a good job on the practice phone call but they’re still not sure.

Later on, these two managers come by. They ask to speak to me. I got out in the hallway and they say, “We just don’t feel like we got to know you.” I said, “What are you talking about? I’m right here. You can ask whatever you want.” They said no, we’re just not going to give you the job.

Too quiet and won’t fit in. The same shit that I heard at every job interview that I had both in Dublin and London. In spite of the fact that I had been working at this place for three months already and yes I’m quiet but I fit in just fine. It’s not a fucking problem. We’re here to work. Not to make friends. This isn’t fucking high school.

So I go back to this guy who showed me around on the first day, tell him what happened, and he was disappointed. I told him that I’m leaving and I’m not coming back any more but would he be willing to give me a reference. He said that he would.

He was true to his word and this closed the chapter on this whole reference bullshit. No longer would I be unable to find a job because I don’t have a reference. Now I just had to find a job where being “too quiet” and “not fitting in” wouldn’t be an obstacle.

I was in the country for about two years at this point. I don’t know if that checks out with the times I’ve given for how long I’ve stayed in various places. But I know that it was two years before I found a paying job in the UK. And I got a paying job, of sorts, shortly after this because I had the reference now.