Inspiration...

There reaches a point in everyone's blogging where you will inevitably, eventually, horrendously run out of ideas. Thinking today about the multiple blogging ideas I could write about: The 12 year old kid with DOPE written on a baseball cap who came into work today. I even know where you can buy a hat like that. Or maybe I was thinking about telling you my parents were off to Yorkshire. Again. Which might be interesting, but it probably won't be. Or I could even tell you about the worlds most amazing potato wedges that I created tonight, but that I can see is just as boring!

You can see where my lack of inspiration comes from really. I mean all I have really done today is go to work and play candy crush, then cook potato wedges. Actually on the Candy Crush front, I have managed to finally crack level 25... I know not impressive, but from humble beginnings... I have only been playing it for 3 days...

So as many of you may know, I am off to university in just a couple of weeks. This means that I am going to have to give up the job I currently hold at The Co-op. While this news may appear to be sad for me, I really don't think I will miss it. And I am not going to start complaining about the opportunity I have had to have a job, and earn decent money doing it, which has set me for many things, not least of which is running ad maintaining my car, working at a shop like the Co-op can have a lot of things compared to Candy Crush.

The frustration. You spend your entire life trying to make things work which are just not going to work. I think the problem with working in a retail shop is that they are all set out to be the same, and therefore the systems are just not adaptable to different situations. In trying to think of the best way to explain this, it is like trying to fit a ball into a cube shaped box. It doesn't fit in nicely. I mean you can get it in with a bit of squeezing and pushing, but it is not perfect, in fact in many ways the ball is now ruined.

This is the same with the shop. When it was a newsagents before, everything worked, because it was designed to work in that situation. A small shop with a limited access and limited stockroom space in a 60's prefab row of shops. Stock came to the shop in the owner's Citroen Belingo van, people only bought a paper and a bag of humbugs and everything ran smoothly. Now deliveries come in on huge lorries, in cages and trolleys far too big to fit in the stock room and at one point in the shop the aisles aren't even wide enough to fit a trolley through. How are people supposed to shop for their groceries in a shop which is barely big enough for 4 pints of milk and a loaf of bread?

I suppose you have to treat everything as a learning opportunity, and there have been some parts of the job that I have really enjoyed, like the colleagues I have had,  and other things that I hope will be part of my future career: the mindset of business, predicting what people will buy, helping customers out and advising them on what the best product is. But there are many things that, a week on Saturday I will be more than happy to wave goodbye to.

Oh and check this, in my tea break in writing this article, I managed to get to level 28! Watch out Dad, 32 here we come!

Thanks for reading!

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146

The Trials and Tribulations of Running A Radio Station: Part1

As part of Alrewas Radio, we experience the highs and lows of any community project, and while the satisfaction and accomplishment of what you end up with at the end is something that cannot be compared to with anything else, there are 2 main issues that you always find within these things.

The first is time. The point with community run voluntary projects is that people do them over and above what they would be doing on a day to day basis. This means that these projects are never anybody's first priority. Whilst it is great to get people involved, this does cause a lot of issues with actually getting stuff done. I mean I have been off school and doing basically nothing else with my life and I still haven't managed to get everything done that I wanted to!

This leads to another problem. When people don't have time to do stuff, they often don't have time to be in constant email contact either. This proves difficult when trying to get stuff done. You try and contact a person but they are busy doing other things, so you can't do that thing and everything ends up working it's way further and further down the job list.

Don't get me wrong though. I absolutely love getting involved with things. I like being busy, and I like helping people, I like making a difference. It is that which gives us the drive and determination to achieve something, whether it be a little radio on a boat or wether it be a massive jam packed arts fetsival across an entire 9 days, it is all worth it and good fun in the end. To see a whole community pull together to actually make a wonderful event is something which is so amazing to see, and is what I would say is the best in human nature.

Thanks for reading,

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146

Highlights Of The Day 23/03/2013

As the same as pretty much everyone in the country, I woke up this morning to a complete white over. Now snow is great, don't get me wrong. But not at the end of March. The first day of spring was technically 2 days ago and yet still, I can see the reflection of snow falling in the reflection of my computer screen.

I was out the house at 5.30 this morning and I could just tell from the minute I walked out the door that today was not going to be a good day. When I arrived at the paper shop, fully expecting the papers to be late, I set about drying off all the parcels of supplements which had gotten damp from the leaking roof under the stairs, and made them ready for when the papers finally arrived. I went and stood out in the shop and had a chat with the owner and a few customers about who is dead, who is nearly dead, who is sleeping with who, that kind of thing that goes on at 6 'o' clock on a Saturday morning.

Still by 7 the papers hadn't arrived. And when they finally did arrive and I got out on my paper round, trying to pull my trolley out was a nightmare! The wheels soon turned to snowballs and I was incredibly frustrated when I got back to the shop.

When I got in, I made a round of coffees, and the owner presented me with a bundle of letters. Now to get you up to date, the newsagents in which I work is closing down in 2 weeks. It is being bought out by a well known large supermarket chain, as an expansion to an already existing shop next door. This is something which has a mixed reception among customers and staff alike. The main worry amongst staff was that untill this morning, we hadn't found out anything about being transferred as employees next door (Under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, of which I have become an expert on in the last few weeks) and so are getting understandably anxious. Not that this becomes too much of an issue for me, with my livelihood not depending on my job, but for some of the other staff this is an altogether more serious issue.

But nonetheless, I have been presented with a Payroll Form, a form to check I am not an asylum Seeker (which I am not, just for the record) and a sheet to fill in about what size uniform I need. So from that I can only assume they are taking me on as an employee, but I have still not had anybody actually tell me that for certain. Nevertheless, it is steps in the right direction.

In a lot of ways I will miss working in the newsagents where I currently work. The manager and his wife run the business on a very flexible basis. If there is ever any issue about getting to work, or you need time off for something they are more than accommodating. The interactions with other staff and the boss himself is very enjoyable and it will be missed by all. Not only that, but I have felt like I have had a very big part to play in the delivery of the newspapers in the village, holding a paper round for over 5 years now, and progressing up the ranks to take on more and more of the responsibility. Upon the takeover, the newspaper deliveries will stop being sent out from the shop and it will be somebody else's responsibility to do it, from his own house. And those responsibilities will be lost.

I have always said to myself I want to feel as if I am actually doing something productive in a job, not just standing at a till and scanning peoples loaves of bread. However, the money I have earned has lead me to maintain, insure and run my pride Morris Minor Traveller, and many other things along the way, all of which I am grateful for, because they are things which I wouldn't have had if I hadn't have had a part time job. 

Also there is an added bonus of the possibility of a transfer to a store near where I end up at uni, which will definitely be very useful and would be something I didn't get if I was still working where I do currently. 

I think the paper shop is a hub of the village and will be sorely missed by everyone, but it is something which has got to happen. Change happens, and seeing as that paper shop has stood for 50 years under the same name and management, and by the age of the tills and fittings, probably the same technology, so it is well overdue it's time for change. It will just be a great shame. I might do a sit-in, and use the money I have stashed away from my paper rounds to make a better bid that the supermarket chain and rename it as "Tom Peach Newsagents." Somehow I don't think £16 a week will quite be enough to pay a mortgage even if I could get one.