Trust Me

Wow, these weeks are really flying past lately. It only seems like yesterday that I was sending out the last e-mail. As is true of so much that I encounter over here, I am finding that everything changes a lot faster than one would think possible. There have been a few major changes in the last couple of weeks that have led to some good things. The biggest one is that I am no longer working for Hilton. They decided that my German language skills were not good enough to enable me to interact with the guests on an acceptable level. As I was on probation for the first 2 months they only had to give me 3 days notice which they availed themselves of a week before Easter. I still enjoyed the small amount of time I spent there even if it was somewhat short lived. It is a shame that I won’t get to use the hotel group for my travels but that’s life. Suffice to say, the demise of the Hilton Hamster.

I decided to use the last active week of my monthly rail card to go up to Frankfurt each day and walk around knocking on the doors of prospective employers but with everyone going away for Easter holidays the prospects were grim. I eventually did get lucky with a walk in interview at Trust International who handle the European Central Reservations Desk for ``Leading Hotels Of The World´´ . The company is owned by the Bertleman Media Group, which also owns AOL, Time-Warner and Amazon etc. My new job is to work in the center answering only English speaking calls, which in the main come from England. They have a fabulous Unix software program which is linked via broadband Internet to every hotel in the group so that you have instant access to the current room availability, rates and transport links for booking transfers. I have never seen anything quite as fast as this before. There is no waiting for pages to download to the screen, one click and it is right there in front of you. There are different desks for different languages in the office. One is the French / Italian / Spanish desk, one for Greek / Middle East countries, one is for Scandinavian countries, one for German / Slavic and my one is referred to as The Nordic Desk for American / English callers. The contract conditions are fantastic with lots and lots of holidays and bonuses as well as a good pay increase over the Hilton offer. No weekends or nights and no dress regulations other than, no blue jeans. It was as if it were tailor made for my immediate needs. No face-to-face customers to deal with and no horror hours. Every time the phone rings it displays the language of the caller on the other end. Only if I see ENG. on the display do I pick it up and handle the call. When there are no incoming calls you can read a book or surf the web. They are not into this call center monitoring where you are timed on the speed of your calls etc. Some calls can take 45 minutes, others just 5 and on the quiet days you can apparently have a lot of time to yourself. Fingers crossed that this job lasts a little longer than the last one. I start on the 29th of April so it has given me a few more weeks off to do other bits.

Oooo Thanks An Olympus Trip 35 !!

My birthday in February went exeptionally well and as Thomas here has his birthday only 8 days after mine we celebrated on the weekend in between with a host of various beers and friends. Thomas gave me a second hand Olympus camera which is identical to the one I got on my 10th birthday and which had long since ceased to function. This one however is in mint condition and takes fabulous pics just like my original. Way cool! Other wins included the Joanne Harris book, a copy of Simon Winchester´s, ``The Surgeon Of Crowthorne´´, as well as a basket full of premium German pilsner from various regions. Bettina gave me a lever arch file binder with a title preface which reads,``Learning By Drinking´´. It will be used to house all of the labels from the beer and wine bottles that I am collecting here. My German language lessons began here by reading the labels and getting translations from Thomas. This remarkable form of learning is not only building a great library of labels but I find myself enthused at all hours of the day and night to vigorously pursue my studies with a true thirst for knowledge and that which lies beneath.