Chit Chat

Last day!

I have to schedule the content for the rest of the week, and monitor the pages for the rest of the day, and then I'm done.

I've learned a lot from this experience. Firstly, as much as I love my sister, I can't work with/for her - even from another province. Also, always get everything in writing. I was hired to do a specific set of tasks, but they just kept shoving more and more stuff my way, so that towards the end I wasn't getting to the stuff I was initially hired to do and they were getting hiffy about it. But mostly, I can't work for my sister.

I'm hoping to hear from the people at the other job I applied for in the next day or two. It's a pretty important thing that I find out soon because it impacts where we need to be looking at houses/apartments. I don't drive, so if I get this job then FI and I need to be looking here in the village and NOT in town where FI works, because that would mean he'd have to drive me from town to the village in the morning, drive back to town for work, drive back to the village to fetch me in the evening, and drive back to town again, which would double our fuel costs (more than, actually, because a lot of the time FI drives to work with FFIL).

Also, I've had my eye on a property in (well, near) the next village over pretty much since we moved down here last may. It's an old building, 4 bed, 2 bath, decent garden, pets allowed. We were a little wary at first because the property was listed on two classifieds sites, and we have a HUGE problem with scammers on those sites, and when it seems too good to be true, it probably is. I couldn't see the angle on it, though, but better safe than sorry. It was originally listed at R4200pm (around $420), which we could afford - but there was only a cellphone number on the listing and we've had a big problem with scammers disguising VAS numbers as ordinary cell numbers and then you get charged R50 a minute when you call them. I kept checking one of the sites, eventually the listing was taken down and recreated, with more pictures and more information, but still only the cellphone number - but they'd dropped the rent to R3900pm.

Yesterday I checked the site again, and there's a new listing for that property, even more pictures and information, and an email address - AND the rent is now R3500pm. So I did some digging (Google is your friend). The email and cell number belong to the same woman, a British lady who has been running a guesthouse here (well, in the next village) for years. So I dug some more, and I found that the house she wants to rent out IS the guesthouse. She wants out of the hospitality industry, and I don't blame her. I did some more digging and found the house itself on Google Maps, and "streetviewed" it. It is really a great house, old and maybe a little run-down (it's clear from my search that it hasn't been used as a guesthouse in a year or more), but a really nice house with lots of potential. BUT... it's the old station-house. Which means it's right across the street from the townships. Which means it's not safe without fencing, and there's no fencing. So there goes that...
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Re: Last day!

  • Good luck with the property and your new adventures in your career!  I couldn't work for my sister either.  I love her dearly, and as much as we can be alike in things, we can be polar opposites too.
  • Thanks!

    OMG this day cannot end soon enough. First, this morning our network went down - exactly the same as it did two weeks ago (to the day, and almost to the minute). FI called the ISP who said they were aware of the problem and were working on it, but couldn't say when it would be resolved.

    So I packed up my office and had FMIL drop me off at a café where I know I'm always welcome to use the wifi, even if I don't order anything on that specific occasion, because I usually eat there at least once a week. My phone connected to their network automatically, but my computer didn't want to even recognize the network, let alone connect to it. So I got FI on the phone and he said it was still on his fixed IP address settings, so I needed to change those. Changed the IP address settings, and it connected - to Skype and email, but I still couldn't browse. It took us an hour to get to that point, and another hour to figure out that he forgot a step in the IP address settings, so one of the ports was still blocked or something. 20 minutes later, FMIL messaged to say network was back up and stable so I'm now back home, having gotten today's scheduling done but not even having started on Thursday and Friday's yet.

    Whatever, I got a milkshake and cake out of it!
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  • Good luck and I hope the rest of your day goes more smoothly (went more smoothly?).
  • Woo hoo, milkshake and cake!  ;)  Today will be over soon (if it isn't yet for you) and you'll be all done.  I can't work for my sister either.  My brother, yes.  Sister, no way.
  • Thanks ladies. I'm officially done, but technically still working because all the internet drama took 3 hours out of my day so I'm still trying to catch up on all the scheduling that needs to be done before I leave. They've pulled one of the girls from the call center and they're putting her on the company's training course (which I never got to go on, btw) so that she can take over from me - but the course runs tomorrow and Friday, so I've got to be on standby in case anything melts down while she's being trained.

    I had a long talk with my sister this afternoon and she's agreed that the conditions were not ideal and the workload was (is?) impossible for a single person to handle, but she wanted me to know that even though they weren't happy with my network issues and not being able to get to client meetings etc (which they knew when they hired me) they were really happy with my content, all my writing and graphics were great. It just really is not a position for a remote/satellite worker - they do actually need someone there to meet clients and do all that stuff. Which I'm not good at in any case.
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