Unemployed again! (Relieved, dismayed, hopeful and delighted)

Well, Her Majesty's back-room folks did a bang-up job with their new web site that went live at the end of August. As a result of carefully-orchestrated propaganda ("Use the web site or else"), based on various management samples, web site traffic was up 60% and call volumes down 2,000 a day. Now let's say an agent might normally take 50 calls a day. You can see where I am going with this. Whu'oh! We need to lose 40 agents!

So, after several weeks of explaining to web-duffers how to do their thing, and then a week mostly sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, I was actually relieved to hear that my term of employment would be curtailed. Hooray! No more web-duffers! Boo-hoo! Goodbye extra moulah!

As the boo-hooh boomer custodian of The Cook Millions I am somewhat dismayed by this turn of events, but I am also hopeful of finding a new source of discretionary income soon. One door closes and another one does something else, they say. Don't let it hit you on the way out.

Slow far, slow good. Since Convergys Winnipeg closed it's doors in March 2010, a new job has turned up about every three months, and I have worked about 33 weeks in the span of 83. Is this the life of Riley or what?


Since I am not overly gifted with tolerance for web-duffers, nor even for plain old-fashioned sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, I am also delighted. I shall not miss the "corporate culture" one little bit, and now I can catch up on my reading, dick around with my new Mac Mini and OSX Lion all I want, stay up late, sleep in, and go for long walks in the fine Winnipeg fall weather. How'd ya like them apples? OK, so I may have to cut down on groceries, eating out, and other entertainments. For example, no more dropping $150 at Chapters' book store on a whim! Yes to eating less and getting a lot more exercise! Overall, this is very good for me.

P.S. My new Mac Mini is the base $599 model with Intel i5 2.3 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive, and Intel HD Graphics 3000. I went straight ahead and self-installed 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM for only another $59, and now the beast runs like a train. Who needs a fancy graphics adapter and 2.5 Ghz processor for an extra $200? Not me.