Yesterday morning I had the assessment centre for the call centre position I applied for. I had been up all night Monday night, so I couldn't drive into town and ordered an Uber instead. It picked me up a little after 7:30am. The assessment centre was at 8:45am for a 9:00am start, but I wanted to beat the traffic and get there early.
My Uber driver was incredibly impatient, weaving in and out of traffic and taking what I'm sure he thought were shortcuts. Mostly, they seemed to create more of a headache and annoy other drivers. Despite his efforts, I was in the CBD by around 8:00am and was dropped off right outside the building.
With plenty of time to spare, I wandered into an arcade next door and found somewhere to eat. There were no croissants, so I settled for a tomato and cheese sandwich before making my way to the ladies, where I was treated to a spectacular little work of art: the sign for the women's bathroom had a beautiful arrangement of Braille underneath it. I took a quick photo while a woman walking past looked at me rather suspiciously.
I then made my way back to the building where the assessment centre was being held, which is also the office of the company the job is with. It was a huge building that housed the offices of a large number of organisations. Two escalators led to the first floor, where the recruitment agency had told us to wait.
At the top was a large reception area filled with big, beautiful chairs and tables in front of a marble-looking reception desk. You can see the reception desk below.
It was actually a really interesting spot to position yourself between 8:15am and 9:00am because loads of people were arriving for work. I took notice of who greeted the receptionists because I've been a receptionist in so many different places, and you always remember the people who take the time to say good morning.
It got me thinking that reception is the only sort of employment I've had in offices like these. I've never had the sort of job where you arrive at an office, sit down at a desk and have some level of flexibility in what you're doing. I've worked in call centres, but just like reception, you're bound to the phone.
Most of the people I saw arriving for work yesterday morning looked like they were under 40. I saw the odd older person, but I was surprised by how young the workforce seemed to be. The receptionist was kept busy, mostly issuing swipe cards to employees and directing those of us there for the assessment centre to take a seat and wait for the recruitment agency to come and get us.
The job itself is with a company, but the employment is through a recruitment agency, so it's essentially a temp job, albeit one they seem to take very seriously when deciding who to place with the company.
At 9:00am a roll was called. I would say there were around 15 of us, again mostly young, although there were noticeably a few older people and I was one of them. We were issued temporary swipe cards and name badges before making our way into the office space where the assessment centre was being held.
There were introductions from the recruitment agency and the company, and then we got down to business. We had a series of spelling and listening tests followed by a group activity.
At previous assessment centres, I can recall being given tasks like choosing from a list of professions who you would take to Mars if you were colonising it and had to populate it. You might be given a list of hairdressers, doctors, lawyers and plumbers and have to decide who would be most useful. Although I always feel that something they don't stress enough in that particular activity is the need for fertile young women to physically bring the new population to life.
Anyway, yesterday we had to put a series of emergencies in order of priority and explain why. Our group started with a multicar accident and then ended with a cat stuck up a tree. They weren't just interested in our answers, but in our reasoning and how we worked together as a group.
I made the joke that I wanted to put the cat up the tree as the first priority, but when you looked at some of the other options, including someone who had stopped breathing and suspicious activity around a school, it became pretty hard to defend.
We had a break and I got talking to another candidate. She was lovely and a lot younger than me, but it was interesting because she told me she had applied for the night shift because she was an insomniac. I shared my own experience with her and we talked about that for a while.
Then came the bit everyone was waiting for: the one-on-one interviews. I was last of the lot, and while I was waiting, I snapped the photo below of the view from the room where we had been conducting our activities.
My interview was with a man from the company and a woman from the recruitment agency. By this point, I was so tired that my interest in the position had become secondary to my need for sleep. But I managed to string a few sentences together when they asked about my customer service background.
I was confident, assertive and sounded very sure of myself. This is a far cry from how I usually present at interviews, and in this one I probably came across as a little too sure of myself.
They asked me what area I thought I might struggle with. I told them that in my previous employment it had pretty much been mandatory to be nice and friendly as part of the role. The call centre I was applying for is not the sort of place where it would be appropriate to be overly friendly, and I told them I might find that difficult to adjust to.
Then they asked me how I would manage that, and I told them my professionalism would carry me through. And then, for some reason, I kept talking.
"To be honest, with your previous question I was grasping at straws. I don't think I would struggle with anything because I feel confident stepping into any call centre environment."
I instantly stopped myself and corrected what I'd said.
"I know that sounds incredibly arrogant, but I feel at home in a customer service environment."
I really felt that the blatant arrogance I had just demonstrated to my interviewers would have disqualified me from any claim to one of these jobs, so I thanked them for their time, finished up and caught a taxi home.
When I got home, I told Mum about the morning while trying desperately to keep my eyes open. I eventually made my way to bed and fell asleep, only to be woken about an hour later by a phone call from the recruitment agency.
They told me I had been successful in getting a role on the night shift at the call centre.
I couldn't believe it.
The version of myself I presented during the interview didn't feel like who I really am, and in many ways, I was embarrassed that I had spoken that way. But I thanked them for the job, and they told me the offer was pending one final reference.
I needed another reference from a supervisor, so I contacted a man I used to volunteer for, and he said he'd be happy to fill in the form.
The lady at the recruitment agency explained that training will be from 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, for one week. After that, the rest of the training will be done on the night shift schedule, which starts at 8:00pm and finishes late.
While I was at the assessment centre yesterday, I was so tired. I remembered them telling me that the initial training would be held during the day, and as I sat there, I kept thinking, I don't know if I can do it. I couldn't do it with Lifeblood, and I don't know if I can physically manage a week of training while struggling so badly with my sleep.
But if I can just get through that one week, I will have the perfect job.
So, I've made a decision. If the job goes ahead, meaning there are no problems with my spent conviction or anything else that might pop up, I am going to get a hotel room in the CBD for the duration of the training. I'm going to take four or five alarm clocks with me, sleep when I can and force myself to get up when I have to.
I've thought about the implications of leaving Mum at home without me, and it's not something I want to do. But I will still be available to her whenever she needs me, and I really feel this is the only way I'm going to get through that week of training.
It's funny, isn't it? With all the trouble I've had with sleep deprivation, I know that when I turn up to these assessment centre type things I probably just seem completely normal, like it's just another day. It makes you think about how little we really know about what other people are going through. You never really know what it took for someone to be there on any given day.
It's currently 4:16am and I'm sitting here at my computer under the heater this morning. Usually I have the cool air on, but it was so cold I couldn't bear it. It's Wednesday 12 August and there is no escaping Sunday 16 August, which is my birthday and the point in my life when youth really will be completely gone.
It was already gone probably at 40, but every day after 45 is one step closer to 50 and then, all of a sudden, I'm a senior citizen!
In saying that, in my heart I don't really feel old. I feel misplaced within society. I have none of the markers that seem to come with age. I'm unmarried, I don't have children, I don't even have a partner, I don't own a house and I don't have a job, although I've just been told I have one with a reputable company, albeit as a temp. Sometimes I feel like the years went by and I have nothing to show for them.
On the cusp of my 45th birthday, I am reminded of my 21st. Mum arranged this big dinner at what was then the Radisson Playford Hotel. All of my family was invited and all of Nanny's grandchildren were there, but as far as friends went, they were few and far between.
I had spent the previous year at business college, where I'd made a small group of friends. They were mostly girls from the country and we'd all become quite close, but they were new friends. I invited four or five of them to my 21st, along with two of my old good friends. And that was it.
I also invited a few of my brother's friends, some of Mum's staff and some of her friends, but there was no big group of girlfriends surrounding me. It felt strange because I think my friends from business college probably assumed I had a whole other group of friends somewhere, but the truth was that they were really it.
I think a lot of that came from all the moving around I did as a kid and then, as an adult, from temping. As I changed schools and workplaces, my groups of friends changed. I was still on good terms with the people I'd moved on from, but they weren't part of my day to day life anymore. At that particular moment, my friends from business college were my current friends.
I didn't have a close best friend to stand up and make a speech either, so Dad made one. It was a really awkward speech. He talked about how I went horse riding as a child and I was so scared I started crying. It was weird, and at the time I was embarrassed by it, but looking back now I think Dad got me.
He was a bit of a loner himself. I remember when I lived in Sydney, he told me he wanted to pay my rent because he knew I was all alone and lonely over there. I think he understood something similar when he looked at me at my 21st birthday party.
The other thing is that Dad was so used to making speeches, and yet this one was a little weird and uncomfortable. But he just did not care. He couldn't have cared less what anyone thought of him. He made that speech for me, and my whole family placed enormous importance on my 21st birthday. But I didn't.
As soon as the formalities were over, I was picked up by this boxer I was seeing. He took me down to the beach at Largs Bay and we just talked all night. But make no mistake, I left an entire party full of people at the Radisson Playford on my 21st birthday and went off with this man.
That should tell you something about how desperate I was to be loved then. It's not a feeling I have now.
It wasn't long after my 21st that I started to make two new groups of friends. The first was a group of really dodgy characters. I had gone to school with one of the girls and her brother, and a whole group of them would hang around at her parents' house.
The other group of friends I made was through the Young Liberals. I never really fit in with them. They were all university educated or still studying, they had good jobs and they were also incredibly conservative, although I didn't really understand that back then.
I became heavily involved with the dodgy crowd for a while, but eventually broke away from them and pretty much hung out exclusively with Young Liberal types. I had two boyfriends through the Young Liberals, and my second boyfriend, Nick, had a lot of friends, so together we formed quite a crowd, even though some of them were technically in different factions.
I don't know whether I did this to prove something to other people or to myself, but I decided to have a big party for my 26th birthday. I had it upstairs at the Historian Hotel and I literally invited everyone I think I'd ever met.
There was a whole stack of Young Liberals and conservative politicians, but I also invited people I'd worked with in call centres. I remember my mother's personal assistant coming up to me and subtly pointing out the different socioeconomic backgrounds of some of the people in the room. She said only I could pull that off.
I know she wasn't trying to be a snob, but it was an incredibly snobby comment. She was right that there were very different types of people there, but I said it back then and I'll say it again today: I genuinely believe we are all equal. We're all the same. We all have the same value, and money or the lack of it means nothing to me.
At the party there were two big white screens, and I projected the movie Little Shop of Horrors onto one of them. There were no speeches, and even though there were a lot of people there, it was actually a little uncomfortable. But I think I felt good that I'd managed to get such a big crowd together.
Dad told me the next day that he thought there had been a good number of people there.
If I had a party like that now, I'd be lucky to get ten people there. But I think it would take more than a large attendance at a party to make me feel good these days.
I was so disappointed that I didn't get a job with the Census, but I guess now I have this opportunity in front of me with the call centre job. It's just going to take everything I've got to get through that week of training.
