Mister What?

Today, a Mister Cwajgenbaum came for an interview... each time I have to call someone to annonce a visitor with a inpronouncable name, I just say that the "person for the itw has arrived and give his/her first name" because I would not want to laugh on the phone or anything else trying to pronounce those names.

Long time no write!

Long time no write! What a shame!

A lot (and so few at the same time) has happenned since July!

Work and love disapppointments (again and still), vacation in the South of France with my moto (that was a very nice thing!) and a new (crappy) job since mi-October.

I am currently working as a hostess in the head office of a bank in the business center of Paris La Défense. The conditions, the salary (and the bosses) are very pitiful but hey, one has got to pay the bills, the rent and survive. Apart from the (many) negative aspects, the good thing is that I work not very far from home, I have my weekends free as well as Monday afternoon from 1PM (French law about work contracts based on 35 hours per week), so I try to take advantage about this. But there will be a lot to talk about from work as weird/bad/silly/stupid things happen each day here because of the staff, the visitors or our bosses.

Today, Christmas trees have been placed in the welcome halls of the compagny buildings of the site. Green decoration, pretty but not gorgeous, green on green?...

This year has gone through so fast again! Xmas is only a month away!

A part of my job is to create badges for the visitors of the next day for the Executive Directors meetings and the Breakfast/Lunch/Cocktails salons invitees.

We, sometimes, also have to create badges for big meetings, colloquiums, , for 30, 50 or even 200 people. When we receive the list early that is fine but sometimes it is very short noticed and as i work alone the afternoon, it can really be a mess for me. I am supposed to received a liste of 30 invitess for tomorrow, I really hope I will not receive it late or that this meeting is not tomorrow!

July updates

Wow, it has been a month!... Shame on me... but I have been less on the Web lately, do not blame me ;)

For the latest news: Sisi has been operated, her ovaries and uterus has been removed in case of a tumerous status. I was very worried that such a small and fragile animal suffered had such a surgery, she stayed 48h at the vet clinic, it was weird to be on my own at home but I was glad to pick her up at the end of the week. She recovered well and is not back on her being-a-small-crasy-rabbit! lol Little heroine! ;)

I started to work at the fitness club I use to go to train on June 29 and it is soon over, already!

I really enjoyed working there, like the environment, the people I worked with are nice and I think I made new friends, the bosses too and I am sad they cannot offer me to stay more (it was just a fixed-term contract to replace a girl in vacation this month), it's the closed fitness club of the branch and it's my club... anyway, I will see where the wind takes me in September.

The good thing about this mission... I will leave the club with a little souvenir... Not single anymore :) On my first week there, a colleague introduced me to a friend of his that is a member of the club and apparently, liked me as soon as he saw me (we had never met before at the club even when I was also a member there before to work there). We managed to talk for the first time at the club and then met for a drink and another one - not easy because he is an air steward on long-distance flights - and we got along well. This brand new relationship is gonna be on a break for about twenty days because he has his last flight tomorrow and then leaves on vacation for two weeks and I also leave on vacation in the south of France for a couple of weeks.

More updates to come before I leave on vacation next week...

Thursday it ends.

Here it is, this is my last week of work.

Due to various reasons, I will be out of work at the end of this week.

The tests I was scheduled to take for the dream job on early May are postponned till the end of May or early June because of some personnal problems.

Indeed, I will take advantage of this free time to go as I want to the fitness club but will also try to find some temp work or hosting missions till then at least.

The bad news are that at the same time I lose this job, the government help I was receiving since last April, will be reduced from May till July because I have worked since January and files are reviewed every three-month. BAD TIMING!

It is going to be even harder that it already was, just spend money on rent, bills and grocery. No any luxuary, for now.

Right now, I am kind of stressed about that situation but also kind of relieved because the job was becoming a pain in the a**. I am so eager to be at the end of this week and be done with that and be able to go on a new path, but which one?

Hope to see you soon, Madam!

Yesterday, we made 1400 euros of turnover.

One of our customers, a forty/fifty something woman, spent 750 euros.

A 'Hole' Day

Since I have been working at Kookaï, a month ago, I have faced calm working days but never as this week! Since Monday, working days have been freaking calm and quiet!

There is this period between the end of the month and the beginning of the following one when people are expecting their pay, have paid their rent, bills for the month to come, there have been Christmas's spendings and last month, winter Sales began, people have spent all their money and are now waiting for the sun to rise again...

Each day, there is a costumer that brightens our day with a nice bill and few New Collection pieces (average price of the New Collection clothes 70 euros) but most people are still looking for the last pieces from the Sales, most common sizes are gone, the nicest pieces are gone too so most of them enter the shop and leave within 5 minutes, not much for us.

Our daily turnover objective for February now that Sales are almost over is 2,150 euros. Monday, we did 700, Tuesday 1,500 (thanks to a 240 euro sale to one customer) and today we only reached 910 euros... Far from the 2,000 to 6,000 euros we used to do per day last Month!

During the first weeks of the Sales, we also had a lot to do all day long, change the price on each price sticker - in the shop, in the drawers and in the storeroom - put new pieces bought by the customers from the storeroom into the shop, redo the clothes piles, put the hanging clothes back in the right order, take care of the deliveries and take care of the costumers. Sometimes, we did not have enough time to do all that. Now, we have too much time to just take care of the customers - because there are not many ones - and the shop - deliveries are much smaller now for the New Collection. There were four of us today, it was our boss's (the lady in charge of the shop) day off so we could chat, joke around, just chill and be bored but tomorrow, there won't be time for that... even if we have nothing to do.

I cannot wait to be tomorrow evening and done with this ghostly week!

How can I help you?

Yesterday morning, I went and did the weekly shopping at Carrefour (equivalent of Tesco in England or Walmart in the US...) and it reminded me when I was a salesperson there in December 2004. During the 1st year of the Business School (and 3rd year of studies), we had to achieve a field internship (indeed, not in an office), to learn the basics of sales.

I didn't wanted to go and work there but the salary was very good for one month (paid by a temping agency) and I got to work in the Carrefour of my town so I did knew it and it was close to home.

We were 5 people helping for Christmas sales (video games, music, video, books and one dealing with all the sections): I was in charge of the books section and it could not have been better because I love to read and I was more able to help and advice people on books than anything else.

It begins well because, as usual, the manager is not aware you actually begin your mission today, he/she is always very busy and will deal with you later, asks an employee to show you the lockers, but they are all taken, so for today you put your stuff in the reserve, in the dust and where everybody can have access to your personal belonging but you don't really have the choice. Of course, this situation will last the whole month.

Your mission is: advice customers, help increase the end-of-the-year sales (thus not hesitate to propose additional sales to the customers, that 90% of them will refuse, whatever... you are not paid at the commission).

You may have to advice customers about the other sections when one of your colleagues is having a coffee break or at the restrooms or having lunch... and of course, if you can't respond to the customer's question or request, you are judged incompetent or useless. On your good days, you will help the desperate customer and leave your co-worker and section alone, thus putting your job in jeopardy*. If you're lucky, you'll succeed in your short-term mission and please the customer.

As your section is near the escalator, you may have to turn into an information desk when some people will ask you where to find some items you have no idea they are within the three-flour superstore!

The nice part was to:

- advice and talk about books

- meet nice people, like grandmas willing to please their grandchildren

- pretend to work with a customer when a friend or a relative was visiting
- go on coffee breaks when the manager was not working (because more than a 5mins-break during the day was considered enough!)
- hide from customers and make them look for me (you have to find the fun somewhere!)

The less nice part was to:

- turn into a warehouse worker to rearrange a whole part of the books section (about four times during the month) because the "merchandising people" had worked on a new configuration (it took me 3 weeks to rearrange the pocket books shelves alphabetically)

- ask people not to read the magazines inside the store but buy them

- ask people not to seat on the books to read other books or magazines

- ask people not to eat food (sometimes coming from the store itself!) while reading the books/magazines/comics

- unpack regular deliveries (and broke a nail, cut a finger, break a bracelet, sweat like a pig at the end of the day ) and put the price sticker on each piece (it's fun for about 10mins)

- deal with unpleasant customers

- work next to the music section and hear all day long the same promotional DVD (try to listen to the 15 same songs, all day long, during 20 days, you'll hate them for a long time after that)

- work till 8pm on Xmas eve and NYE

Despite all the negative side, as a student job, it was a good experience, I worked in a familiar environment, for a short mission, got a good review from the manager for my internship report, but I would never make it a career.

*exaggerating to increase the seriousness of the situation!