Old Ladies are Easy

Now, if you read my last post, you're probably wondering how my hypothetical trip to Ireland went. I'll go into that a bit later. I'd imagine you've worked out by now how that one ends in any case...

Angway, I have more important, and certainly less fictional tales to relate. Oh yes, for I had secured an interview for a job in a call centre, ripping old ladies off. No matter how you looked at it, I was suffering major career regression.

I have worked 3 shifts so far, before calling in to excuse myself from the following 2, which included Sunday and a hellish 10 hour Monday shift. This job is not, I've concluded, the way forward. I am going to work 4 hours tomorrow though, on the grounds that if I give up now I don't get paid for large chunks of my efforts. Unfortunately this single fact meant I had to choose option 2 when I phoned in on Sunday morning, which was by far my least favoured course of action.

Option 1 was:

"Hi, it's Max Plenty. I won't be coming in today because I can't face 7 hours of hoodwinking vulnerable people, old ladies and assorted other individuals who can't say no into renewing their contracts with what in my personal experience is the single least competent and cost effective telecomms provider in the history of the universe (and that includes NTL). I abhorr the total moral vacuum that exists in your call centre, and every fibre of my being rejects the way you treat both customers and employees like blocks of meat. You are everything that is wrong with this country in 2009. Plus, I'm actually earning less money than I did 10 years ago for doing exactly the same job, and the hours you have given me don't even pay my sodding rent. I don't blame you (the faceless sick-line voicemail) or the majority of your employees, because this is genuinely what you think life is like. But I know there is some evil genius behind your organisation, some deeply malevolent force for harm and hate who is coining it in from this sordid operation, and I sincerely hope they rot in hell forever."

As you can tell, the wounds are still fresh.

Anyway, I went for Option 2 after much, much (much) deliberation:

"Hi, this is Max Plenty. Sorry, I can't come in today - I think I've got food poisoning. Cheers"

Well, you've got to keep your options open, I figure...

So, how did I get back from Ireland then? Well I hitchhiked, theoretically, from the abandoned cottage to the centre of Dublin in the back of the sort of livestock wagon normally only used on the set of Stella Artois advertisements. In my first stroke of good fortune, my labouring progress meant it was already past the yardarm when I finally arrived, which meant I could go to the nearest bar completely legitimately for a spot of the black and a bit of Irish Stew. On entering the bar I immediately found myself surrounded by surly men in short-shorts, wearing Sombreros. After eyeing me up and deciding I wasn't dangerous, the lads started slapping me of the back, speaking some obscure dialect which I could only catch the odd word of.

After much consuming of Guinness, I established that I was daytime drinking with a lower league hurling team who had just got back from their summer holidays, which didn't give me much street cred by which certainly meant I was somewhat the worse for wear as daylight faded and evening drew in. Although my state of inebriation didn't help my predicament, a final twist of fate gave me an unlikely escape route. A man whose name I discerned was 'Spazza' (or something, again it's only worth a fiver this) handed me a small grimy business card, and the logo read upon the card read 'Dublin airport car hire'. I took it as a sign from the Gods, even though the business was probably run by his illigitamate half brother fathered by the family ass.

To cut a long story short, I was soon back behind the wheel and heading for home, albeit in a rather paraletic state and driving a vehicle which veered violently towards the kerb whenever I so much as brushed the brake pedal.. what could possibly, hypothetically, go wrong?