Day One hundred and sixteen - The loss and curse of reverence

I started looking for a new job straight away - it being the high summer, and me having just come off what I thought would be a pretty good job to have on my CV, and as such, people would be in a rush to hire me, I actually found it shocking that nobody did. At least not straight away. And this time, even moreso, I decided not to be picky - I found myself applying to a bunch of places I'd never really thought I'd be interested in working in, like surf shops or clothes stores... really, I was just looking for anything and everything that would hire me. I did go to a bunch of interviews - I guess this was one of the times in my life where I went to the most interviews - but I'd only be called up for a spot in November that year. Until then I had to make do with whatever savings I had.

It was just a temporaty thing, I was told, to cover for the coming christmas rush, but depending on my performance there was a small chance a longer term contract could be offered. It was for a mobile phone store, selling phones, accessories, gadgets, insurances and what have you. Part of me thought that I'd be done with that whole thing in a month or two, and then I'd move on to something else - hopefully something better - but twenty years, I'm still in the telecoms business, though on a decidedly different part of it.

But this was a - dare I say it - life-changing experience for me. Because not only did I find out that I actually really liked my new job and that I was really good at it, I was also lucky enough to start my journey there with an amazing team that taught me everything I needed to know and who, without exception, were an asbolute pleasure to work with. Unfortunately, it was quite a long way away from where I lived, and I had to wake up every day around 5 a.m. to get ready for work, and that just wasn't an easy thing to do long term. By the time my temp contract was up, I was offered a long term contract, with the option of going to a store much closer to me. It really hurt leaving that team, but getting up so early every day just wasn't feasible for me. I moved to a different store - and a new team who I really didn't gel with, bar for a couple of guys. My stay there wasn't long - maybe a couple of months only. I was ny leagues the best sales rep there, and this didn't sit well with them, so they tried to oust me. There was a team meeting with the regional manager, and they had it in for me, but it backfired spectacularly for them - impressed by my numbers and my performance, I was sent to the highest performing store in the company. As the regional manager relayed this info to my now previous team, they just stood there slack-jawed.