Depression and rasta boy.

Wednesday 8th September 2010.7am-2pm

Another 3 hours on my own in the quiet unit.It was very disturbing because i started thinking about wasted opportunites and felt depressed.

This started out as a 3 month summer job to get out of the house and now i need to beg the king's assistant for a permanent full time contract.

Ebony starts at 10am every day but because its book day i stay on the till whilst she changes the books over.I managed to get her to open up slightly about her life but she is a very closed person.

So far,i have established that she is a single mum with a 19 year old daughter.She has a freelance hairdressing business from home which supplements her income.None of the management take the piss out of her because she's too scary for that.They leave her alone and she does the time and goes home on time.

The Algerian was in today after a 24 hour recovery at home.He's still unwell and wrapped up with fleece jumpers.It was interesting today because when i was having my break i managed to listen to the King and the Algerian talking about wage rises in the managers office.

I cupped my ear to the wall and had a good listen.The Algerian was being scolded by the king,in much the same way a father tells off his child for not listening,for not waering a tie to work.This discussion went on for about 3 minutes with the King suggesting he goes to a shop in Wembley Park to buy his ties.Then,they got down to business.From what i could understand,a supervisor can either take a maximum hourly salary of £8.12p or a percentage of monthly profit on the unit they manage.
The Algerian took the hourly wage and they finished the meeting laughing together.

The King has tremendous power over the supervisors and they are terrified of him.

At 1pm i went down to the usual unit and had 2 disturbing experiences working with rasta boy.

An elderly French woman was trying to purchase a copy of Le Figaro when i heard the following exchange of views,"You are very rude aren't you?" rasta boy said.
He continued with "Don't throw the money down on the till i deserve to be treated better than that,in this country we put the money in the hand not on the counter" he was furious and had lost the plot.
The poor woman didn't speak English very well and departed the unit in a state of shock.

Then 5 minutes later he did it again to a defenceless English toff.However,she wasn't going to take this abuse lying down.

"Oh my god,oh my god,oh my god you are supposed to be offering me a service" she said in shock.

"I don't care i'm not your servant,throwing the money on the till isn't acceptable" he answered aggressively.
"I'm going to tell the management immediately about your appaling behaviour" she replied.
"Good,my name is ........ and you can find a manager in the big unit down there" he hissed whilst swearing under his breath.

I had a brief word with him but he had become a different person.He is frustrated at being at the PLC so long and its affecting his mental health.I can relate to that already and i've been here 3 months.

After my shift finished i went to see the king's assistant and tried to negotiate a new contract.They can't give me a 30 hour/wk permanent contract just 24 hours a week for the next 4 weeks and then maybe a vacancy may have come up.

I can't allow them to keep me hanging on like a kid waiting for his weekly pocket money.Maybe its time to move on.