Very sparkly...

So, I'm sat here, chilling out in the new recreation room at work.
I have to say, for a company that used to have an astronomical turnover rate and very low morale, it's impressive. I'm sat on one of four new computers, with LCD monitors and mostly unfettered internet access, while across the room, my colleagues are either sat chatting round tables, watching the huge (easily 35"+) flatscreen tv on the wall, or playing on one of three Xbox 360's against the back wall.
There are sparkly chairs and cappucino machines, cool blue accent lighting, new carpets, striking blue/white walls, and decent first-floor/second floor (the floor above the floor on the ground) views out over the car park and the wildlife reserve, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is actually a pretty decent place to work.

Which is, I suppose, fairly subjective. Every job has its pros and cons, and I spose this is at the moment, the biggest pro the building has going for it. And while the rec-room is slowly increasing in popularity (it's a bit of a badly kept secret at the minute, no company wide newspoint mention or anything) work is proceeding on getting the rec room downstairs to a similar standard.

Which I suppose is important, because you have to bear in mind that as with any call center job, while you're sequestered inside your own secure office inside a secure building with a secure car park, you're also exposed to the madness that everyday people seem to suffer from, and choose to inflict on other people. My longest call today? Thirty four minutes. Thirty one minutes of which was the caller repeating themselves. I progressed right from "okay, well I'll get xyz to give you a call, thanks" to "I've got to go now" and then right up to "i'm going now" before cutting the caller off mid sentence, if only to save my own sanity - and her phone bill, which she spent 15 minutes complaining about.

Pets? I don't think I'll ever get one again. Not when they seem to cause people this amount of trouble.

So what else have I been up to? Well, I've recently had one of my photos accepted by fotolia, a photography agency that sells royalty-free images. The basic concept is that I take photos, upload them to fotolia, and if they're good enough to pass quality checking, they go up for sale. Money is divided in a 70%/30% split - them and me, respectively. Might not sound like a lot, but the more photos you have and the longer you're a member, the higher the cut you get.

There you go, please buy my photo.
There's serious money in online photo sales though, and the beauty of it is that as you expand your portfolio, your income increases, so unless a client site goes down, your income only ever goes up. Maybe one day in the distant future I won't need a job. Who knows.

Anyway, I'll write more tonight, I've got to be back on the phones in 7 minutes, so time to work my way to the office at the other end of the building. Hopefully the afternoon will be over as quickly as the morning was.

Have fun!