Ancient treasure

I was a little strapped for cash yesterday and needed a little money to make it from Tauranga back to Hamilton, so asked my Mum if she happened to have any petrol vouchers lying around.

She did, as it turns out. I felt a little guilty asking for money (or its equivalent), but my guilt soon dissipated when she informed me the petrol voucher had been sitting in her glove box for ten years.

I don’t think she’ll miss it.

Now I feel like I’ve gone and spent a family heirloom or something.

Away with the fairies

When I’m under stress, I end up retreating to my own little world a lot of the time.

This week has been particularly stressful, with a whole lot of assignments to work on and another whopping power bill that apparently has something to do with our hot water cylinder heating the water too hot. My flatmate has said to me several times this week “you seem really out of it, Melissa.”

And I am. When there’s all this pressure to get all the schoolwork out of the way and to pull money out of nowhere, every little thing that’s slightly inconvenient sends me into an inner downward spiral. Outwardly I look peaceful, but it’s only because my mind has gone on vacation.

I never really realised that until now.

Shenanigans

In my final year at high school I found a cellphone that somebody had accidentally left behind on the bus. Being the responsible young woman that I was, I texted the guy’s mother to let her know her son had left his phone on the school bus. She asked me to get in touch with the boy’s girlfriend, as she went to my school. I did, and we arranged to meet up after our first class.

Seizing the opportunity while we could, my friend Janine and I spent the whole of that class filling his phone with silly photos of ourselves. I had crutches at the time because I had torn the cartilage in my knee, so when we set one of the photos as his wallpaper it showed me pretending to shoot Janine with the end of the crutch.

We were very pleased with ourselves when we gave the phone to that girl afterwards.

P.S I must be a super good person, because as well as giving that phone back, I once found $75 just lying on the ground and took it in to the school office. Tooting my own horn here but man, I’m great.

Alone and internetless

I discovered today that my laptop needed a new charger port, something that will cost $170. Luckily I have a wonderful boyfriend who doesn’t mind if I use his money. He often tells me not to worry about paying him back, but I can’t in good conscience borrow that much money and not give it back. It does take me a while to save it up though.

You see, it’s hard enough being a student. You try so hard to juggle studies, work and time with your loved ones, all while trying to scrape by on the bare minimum amount of money needed to live. What’s made it even harder is that our friend recently walked out of our flat with little warning, leaving us to cover his rent until we find a new flatmate, which we can’t do until we both come back from internships. As a result, Sacha and I are each paying an extra $60 a week, something that I can only afford if I live on rice crackers, chip sandwiches, and soup.

Anyway, I’m home alone for two whole weeks before my internship, so as you may guess it’s a little bit lonely and boring around here. Discovering that my laptop would need to be away for 3 to 4 working days means that I will potentially be without it for the next week, as I’m planning on going to Tauranga on Sunday night.

You can imagine my excitement when I remembered that Sacha had a tablet lying around somewhere that she hardly ever uses. After quizzing her over txt about its whereabouts, I quickly found said tablet. The charger for it was another matter. I had almost begun to despair when I pulled it out of a basket in Sacha’s room. I made a noise akin to that of a triumphant gorilla.

Now if only the stupid thing would stop throwing tantrums over every single web page I open…

The hard decisions

I’ve written before about a few would you rather situations my flatmate put to me, and how I and my other flatmate would handle them. Well, we’ve been at it again. Today’s question: would you rather go entirely bald for the rest of your life and be a billionaire? Or would you rather keep your hair and turn down the many squillions of dollars you could have had?

I’m afraid to say I simply don’t know the answer to this one.

On the one hand I’d have money for Africa – literally. Think of all the good I could do with that. Y’know, once I’d paid off my student loans (and probably the loans of everybody in my class), bought myself a nice house, bought my boyfriend his dream car, given all my loved ones enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, and maybe build a whole bunch of houses and earn money off rent payments. I couldn’t see myself letting billions of dollars sit idly in my bank account growing interest like an expensive mold. I couldn’t imagine having everything I need in life, seeing all the places I want to see and doing all the things I want to do, and then keeping all my money happily locked away, never to see the light of day. Think about the lives I could change. Think about the people who can barely get by, or whose children go to school hungry (granted that may sometimes come down to parenting).

But on the other hand, I’d be bald.

A little common courtesy

I work part time at a market research company. That immediately puts me in the decidedly un-elite list of generally hated people.

Sure, sure, I get it, you’re tired and grouchy, you just came home from work and want to relax for a moment. You’re pondering whether or not to start cooking dinner, but while you’re still mulling it over, the phone rings.

“Hi, my name’s Melissa from -” You hang up.

People actually do that. They can tell just by the tone of my voice and the way I introduce myself, even before I say where I’m from. They know what I am. 

So yeah, I get it. The last thing you want to do is a phone survey about how the customer service was the last time you called your insurance company. The thing that I don’t get is why people have to be so damn rude about it.

I’m a tertiary student. I’m poor. Market research is the only job I can have that will be flexible around class hours, as well as let me have weekends off to see my boyfriend, who lives in another city. The only shifts I can work are 5.30 to 8.30, the exact time when people don’t want to be called.

I am absolutely not sorry for disturbing anyone’s evening with a simple phone call, because when it comes down to getting in the way slightly of somebody’s relaxation time or being able to afford warmer clothes for Winter or maybe a pair of shoes without holes in them, I know that my situation takes precedence.

I had a man today who agreed to do the survey. I told him it was about ten minutes, depending on his answers, and I told him that it was about the customer service he received when he called a certain organisation which I won’t name. It wasn’t even as if I bullied him into doing it, he just said “go ahead” and that was that.

But after a few minutes he was sighing and grumbling, and after another couple of minutes he was saying under his breath “this is getting ridiculous”. About three quarters of the way through he was telling me, quite irritably, to hurry up already, and that he didn’t know why I was asking him ridiculous questions about something that happened a month ago. Knowing that I’d get in trouble if I skipped anything, I plowed steadily on, finally reaching the end of the survey and asking him if he’d like a number to call in case he had any questions about the survey.

“No I don’t want the number, I couldn’t give a stuff about it, this is ridiculous,” he fumed.

“Thankyou for doing the survey,” I said cheerily.

“This is ridiculous,” he repeated, “I won’t be doing this ever again.”

I don’t know if that old geezer didn’t realise that I don’t write the surveys, but it’s about time people wrap their heads around it. What’s more, he knew exactly what the survey was going to be about, he knew exactly how long it would take, and he had the option, at any point, to say to me that he’d rather not continue with the survey. Yet instead he sat there bemoaning the types of questions and the “tediousness” of it, and continuously told me to hurry up. I’m bewildered as to why he ever agreed to do the survey if he was going to throw such a tantrum about it halfway through.

People like that make this job more mentally taxing than it needs to be. People like that make me lose just a little faith in humanity, because if they’re this disrespectful to a stranger on the phone, then what kind of values are they teaching to others? To their children? To their grandchildren?

I once called a house and got a youngish-sounding girl, who then went to get a parent for me to talk to.

“Who is it?” I heard the parent ask.

“It’s one of those people you get to be rude to!” The girl replied excitedly.

Yeah. Hurrah. Fun times.

I think what I’m trying to say is that market researchers are people too. Just because we annoy you doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be treated with the same amount of respect as any other person. That goes for everybody. Maybe the Mormons showing up at your front door or the telemarketer trying to sell you things over the phone. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect. Just because we annoy you doesn’t mean we are suddenly the scum beneath your feet.

I’m ready for a change.

Unexpected moolah

After all my money troubles lately, things are finally starting to look up for me.

My flatmate and I should be getting the bond back from our old house in the next couple of days, which we’ve been chasing the rental managers about for the last few months now. As well as that, I’ve just discovered that my Dad opened a bank account for me when I was a kid, and I never knew about it. It had about a hundred bucks sitting in it, which is a nice surprise for a poor student.

And I found ten cents on the ground.

Woot! It’s a good day.

Making a pauper of me

I’ve never been the kind of person to break down crying in the bathroom at school – but there’s a first time for everything. Today was that first time.

For the past five or six weeks I’ve been broke. So broke, in fact, that I’m currently in debt to our flat account. The reason for this is that Studylink has given me the run around and told me they need more information about my father’s income. For some reason, it’s been a lot of information for his accountant to gather, hence the fact that it’s taken five or six weeks. Studylink needs this information to decide how much I get for my student allowance.

In the meantime they’ve been giving me a loan of $170 a week. After Rent, power etc payments come out of that, I have roughly $10 a week to spend on groceries. So yeah, I’ve been a little poor.

I’ve been so stressed that my eye has been twitching for a week and a half now, and I’ve been desperately hanging out for when Dad would get his information in and my allowance could get sorted. The previous two years I’ve recieved $210 a week for my allowance, which isn’t too bad.

Studylink called me today while I was in class. I walked out into the hallway to talk to them, and was told they’ve looked at all my parental income information and have approved my allowance.

Yay!

That’s what I thought, at least, until they told me the amount I’ll be receiving each week is $172. That’s with all the added benefits that I can possibly apply for. Apparently my parents (or just one of them) has been earning more over the past year, meaning my allowance is dropping $40.

That’s right about the time that all my pent up stress and frustration came crashing down on me, and after choking out a quick goodbye to the lady on the phone, I burst into tears.

People might say to me “That’s alright, just get a job.” Problem there is, I do have a job, the only job, probably, which is flexible enough to let me see my boyfriend in the weekends. I can’t take a weekday job because I’m studying at tech 9 -5 on most days, and need the spare time to work on assignments.

I am completely and utterly at my wit’s end.

Poor little me

You know you’re a dirt-poor student when you have to check the weather to see what shoes you should be wearing that day, because the majority of your shoes have holes in them and soak through the bottom when it’s wet.

Today I’m a little less poor and finally can afford some new shoes, after going the WHOLE of last year sitting uncomfortably in class with wet feet every rainy day.

That was not pleasant.