So this week was a sad week because I lost my job at the Citizens Advice Bureau. In a lot of cases, I wouldn't have minded quite so much but in this case I did mind because it was interesting and most of the people there were friendly.
It all started when I came back from the Christmas break because I'd been ill and that had broken my body clock, so that led to me making a few errors because I got out of be that day having had no sleep. But then they started saying that I'd made other errors. So they got the person who supervised all the gateway assessors (who'd just come back after being treated for cancer) to assess me and because I did things differently to the way she did things, she criticised me far too much for some of the things I was doing, even though a lot of people were doing things I was doing.
One of the main things she criticised me for was for not being sympathetic enough when someone with a debt problem called. She said that I shouldn't have just said "I'll call you back", and that I should've given her more help before putting the phone down to see what could be done for her but the reason that I didn't do that was because I'd never dealt with or observed a call on debt before, and so I'd rather leave her with without any information before I called her back as opposed to giving information I wasn't sure of, and I think anyone else would've done the same. The worst part about it was that no one else had told me that that was a problem.
Then another person called with a issue regarding divorce/money, and I was going to use the same tactic I proposed using with the previous caller of finding out the relevant information and calling them back when I had the relevant information and she again criticised me for temporarily sending them away with no information. When we were discussing what to do, I made it perfectly clear that I knew what to do but she went around insisting that this was another person she was having to call back for me!
Part of the problem was that she was aggressive in the way that she criticised me and so it made me nervous and meant that I couldn't do the job properly.
So after my manager had talked to this person, he called me the next day and said that it's just not working out and that he's not comfortable having me on the phones. When I tried to say that this woman had caused some of the problems, he said that he felt that way even without her feedback but that can't have been true because he'd said 4 weeks ago, "I think you can do this", and in the last two times I'd been back in the four weeks after he said that the gateway assessor had been supervising me on both occasions, so it must have had something to do with her. And I can't help thinking that it seems rather contradictory to tell me that he had thought about it and then slept on it before deciding that he wasn't comfortable with me answering the phones. The worst thing about that phone call was that he didn't thank me for the time I'd given up to come in and help.
But I guess my father was right when he said that I'd "had [my] first taste of office politics" because really I lost my job because the gateway supervisor just didn't like me. I'm not going to deny that there weren't faults on my part that led to this but she made me sound worse than I was.
When I asked if I could do anything else in the office the manager said that there was nothing at present that he needed me to do but he said that he would call me if there were any other roles became available. If he'd given me something else there and then I probably would have taken the offer but if he rings me up in a few weeks/months and says that they need me to do something, I don't honestly know if I'd feel comfortable doing it after all that's happened even though it's good legal experience.
Saturday 26 February 2011
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Was I meant to take a gap year?
Since I last posted not much has happened but there was one particular event that took place in my village that was unlike any event we'd ever seen before here in the past few decades: 4 thatched houses caught fire and because the fire started in the roofs of the houses, the thatched houses couldn't be saved, so the roofs fell in and the residents of the houses had to move out. The fire was so bad that firefighters had to be called in from the neighbouring counties of Wiltshire and Hampshire and they had to stay there fore at least 36 hours and check on the houses for the next 2 days after that. It also meant that we had a power cut for 12 hours because the smoke from the fire was so bad that it took the electricians a long time before they could cut those houses off from the electricity supply.
Luckily because we're a small village of 200-250 residents, word of this incident could be spread easily and so we could get lots of help quite easily. Since the residents needed boxes in order to gather their things and take them elsewhere, I brought lots of boxes along in order for them to do just that. Admittedly I wasn't doing nearly as much as some people, who were actually helping to pack the resident's belongings into the boxes but it still was quite an important role.
One of the saddest things about these fires was that 3 out of the four houses were council houses and the residents of the other house had spent a lot of the last summer decorating the house. It was also rather sad on a historical note because these houses are houses that have been around since the late 1600s.
If there was anything that this fire taught me, it taught me that you should never buy a thatched house because originally the fire started in the roof of one of the houses but because they were terraced houses it spread to all four of the houses. Although I knew that there was a greater risk of a fire starting in a thatched house, I didn't realise that the insurance was also greater because once the fire starts in the roof, they can't stop the fire.
Because the electricity was still off at supper time, we had to go and have supper at the pub. When we got there, we met some other people from our village and so naturally we talked about the fire. One of the things that the mother/wife (who'd been helping the victims of the fire) said was that she was only able to help because she happened to be off work that day and when she said that I couldn't help thinking that it was just aswell I was having a gap year and I was there to help. So I couldn't help wondering if this was one of the reasons for which I was meant to take a gap year because it reminded me a lot of how there are much less people around than usual on a train/plane/bus, etc. or in a place than usual when accidents/tragedies take place, almost as if it were a premeditated order.
However, it's not just that incident that makes me think that I was meant to take a gap year. The other incident that makes me think I was meant to take a gap year, is something that happened at the Citizens Advice Bureau. Admittedly it was something small to begin with because it just involved me learning that at the moment because of the recession, a lot of employers will put their full time staff on part time hours/pay for 12 weeks and then make them redundant so that they have to pay them less redundancy money. But I happened to relay this fact to my family later on in the day, and it was just aswell I did because my mother is a public sector worker and so she's suffering the consequences of the budget cuts but coincidentally someone (who was ignorant about this fact regarding redundancy pay) had suggested that they all go part-time to save jobs, and the managers in her office very nearly did take the suggested action until my mother pointed this problem out. It's just aswell that she did point this fact out because the budget cuts are getting so bad that my mother has voluntarily made herself redundant and so if they'd made her part-time before hand, she would have been entitled to less redundancy money.
Admittedly taking a gap year has been beneficial to me in other respects but it's just so odd to think that there was a good reason for me doing badly on my maths exams in year 12!
Wednesday 2 February 2011
Picking a university
I haven't posted for a while since I've been busy doing exams but also because I've had open days and interviews to go to. But since my blog is about taking a gap year and deciding where to go to university, I shall give you my perspective and tell you of my experiences so far.
The first open day and interview (and in fact the only interview) I went to was at Essex University. I wasn't particularly impressed by what I saw of Essex. The first thing that put me off was the train I took there because it looked like something out of the 1980s with the faded seats and the yellow sides and as I left the train station my perceptions of Colchester/Essex University didn't really improve because in general the buildings in Colchester and the university were rather nasty modern buildings (office block type buildings, etc.). I looked at the accommodation and I just couldn't see it suiting me and during the open day I got the distinct impression that people were more focussed on the social side. However, what also put me off was the interview because they asked me really simple questions such as "Why do you support Britain's membership of the EU?" and they didn't really challenge my answers and for the first 5 minutes they were asking me of I wanted to do law combined with another subject. Apparently Essex University started doing the interviews for law this year as a result of the budget cuts but if they're asking those kind of questions then it makes me wonder what the average intelligence of people on the course is and what kind of people they're trying to root out. Nevertheless, I will say that the good things about the university are that the accommodation is very cheap, you can do courses to make yourself more employable and there are a lot of shops and banks on the campus, also the good thing about the law course is that they have a law clinic in which you help citizens around Colchester who need legal advice and they do compulsory work experience in the field of mediation.
The next university I looked at was Sussex. I was much more impressed by Sussex than Essex because they went into a lot of depth about what their law degree entailed, why they incorporated particular aspects into the law degree and they gave you a seminar in law so that you would be prepared for what was expected of you when you start a law degree. I also preferred their accommodation because a lot of it looked much nicer although admittedly the accommodation at the lower end of the scale is worse but the accommodation at the top of the scale was much better. I would say that the other advantage of Sussex is that there is more to do in Brighton (ie. the nearest city to the university) than in Colchester and you can do language courses in almost every language.
Today I looked at Exeter and I didn't find it as impressive as people often describe it as being. In a lot of ways I found Sussex more impressive because Exeter in a lot of ways seemed quite disorganised, for example during "self-catered accommodation tour", we were only shown one of the particular rooms and the person giving the tour said "You're not going to get much done in the first year" (I worry slightly that the latter might be a sign that people at Exeter might be too relaxed for their own good). I was also put off by their talk on law because unlike Sussex they didn't go into great depth about what the degree involved and they seemed a bit too focussed on the social side of the degree at that point aswell because they did a whole slide about what university was good for and how it was good for memories. On the other hand they showed us what a moot was like and they told us that Exeter was one of the top universities for mooting and Exeter also has a law clinic which allows you to apply the knowledge of law which you have learnt. And if you like sport, it's worth noting that Exeter has facilities for 170 different sports!
So at the moment I'm waiting to see if Queen Mary will make me an offer, and if they don't I'll have to decide whether I will put Exeter or Sussex down as my firm offer. If it does end up being a choice between those 2 for me it will be question of which university has the highest rate of 2:1s and 1sts for law, which university campus is cheaper to live on, which law degree is more practical, which university has the better reputation and which main city I prefer because as a girl who's grown up in the countryside, I really want to go to university in a big city where there's lots to do!
I was also rejected by Durham, most likely reason being that my LNAT score was actually worse than the first time when I did it but I'm not too bothered because I wasn't that keen on going up north and being so far away from my family, it's very cold there, it's a long way to take all your belongings and I just wasn't that keen on the university in general.
The first open day and interview (and in fact the only interview) I went to was at Essex University. I wasn't particularly impressed by what I saw of Essex. The first thing that put me off was the train I took there because it looked like something out of the 1980s with the faded seats and the yellow sides and as I left the train station my perceptions of Colchester/Essex University didn't really improve because in general the buildings in Colchester and the university were rather nasty modern buildings (office block type buildings, etc.). I looked at the accommodation and I just couldn't see it suiting me and during the open day I got the distinct impression that people were more focussed on the social side. However, what also put me off was the interview because they asked me really simple questions such as "Why do you support Britain's membership of the EU?" and they didn't really challenge my answers and for the first 5 minutes they were asking me of I wanted to do law combined with another subject. Apparently Essex University started doing the interviews for law this year as a result of the budget cuts but if they're asking those kind of questions then it makes me wonder what the average intelligence of people on the course is and what kind of people they're trying to root out. Nevertheless, I will say that the good things about the university are that the accommodation is very cheap, you can do courses to make yourself more employable and there are a lot of shops and banks on the campus, also the good thing about the law course is that they have a law clinic in which you help citizens around Colchester who need legal advice and they do compulsory work experience in the field of mediation.
The next university I looked at was Sussex. I was much more impressed by Sussex than Essex because they went into a lot of depth about what their law degree entailed, why they incorporated particular aspects into the law degree and they gave you a seminar in law so that you would be prepared for what was expected of you when you start a law degree. I also preferred their accommodation because a lot of it looked much nicer although admittedly the accommodation at the lower end of the scale is worse but the accommodation at the top of the scale was much better. I would say that the other advantage of Sussex is that there is more to do in Brighton (ie. the nearest city to the university) than in Colchester and you can do language courses in almost every language.
Today I looked at Exeter and I didn't find it as impressive as people often describe it as being. In a lot of ways I found Sussex more impressive because Exeter in a lot of ways seemed quite disorganised, for example during "self-catered accommodation tour", we were only shown one of the particular rooms and the person giving the tour said "You're not going to get much done in the first year" (I worry slightly that the latter might be a sign that people at Exeter might be too relaxed for their own good). I was also put off by their talk on law because unlike Sussex they didn't go into great depth about what the degree involved and they seemed a bit too focussed on the social side of the degree at that point aswell because they did a whole slide about what university was good for and how it was good for memories. On the other hand they showed us what a moot was like and they told us that Exeter was one of the top universities for mooting and Exeter also has a law clinic which allows you to apply the knowledge of law which you have learnt. And if you like sport, it's worth noting that Exeter has facilities for 170 different sports!
So at the moment I'm waiting to see if Queen Mary will make me an offer, and if they don't I'll have to decide whether I will put Exeter or Sussex down as my firm offer. If it does end up being a choice between those 2 for me it will be question of which university has the highest rate of 2:1s and 1sts for law, which university campus is cheaper to live on, which law degree is more practical, which university has the better reputation and which main city I prefer because as a girl who's grown up in the countryside, I really want to go to university in a big city where there's lots to do!
I was also rejected by Durham, most likely reason being that my LNAT score was actually worse than the first time when I did it but I'm not too bothered because I wasn't that keen on going up north and being so far away from my family, it's very cold there, it's a long way to take all your belongings and I just wasn't that keen on the university in general.
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