My first job....

In my second year in England, the economy back home was deteriorating. We were going through recession. And due to this, many scholarship students were called back. I asked my dad if I could stay, if they can afford for me to continue with paying for my fees. I made an "agreement" with them. They pay for my University fees and rent, I will sort out my food, bills ec cetera on my own.
My monthly money was therefore slashed quite a bit. I wasn't complaining as times were bad, back home. Luckily, the University also helped, with giving a bursary to the students who excelled, and even helped with giving a bi-weekly money to ASEAN countries students who were not under any scholarships. We were getting ₤75 for 2 weeks. Which can easily cover the food, gas and electric. (I was already living in a house with 3 others in my second year).
It was different in the first year, since we were living in a student flat, the payments were already made to the university, I basically didn't have to pay for anything except food. But ofcoure the rent which we paid were much higher then the ₤45 per week living in a house.

Anyway, since I needed to "survive", I managed to get a job with Ant Marketing. I didn't have a National Insurance number (yet), which is quite difficult to get a job at places like Safeways or Tesco's. (Telemarketing was not fun to do, but I didn't want to starve instead)
Anyway, I was getting paid something like ₤3 an hour compared to the normal rate of ₤3.80 per hour. The good news is, we were not taxed, but we were not allowed to work more then 20 hours a week. And if you manage to get 10-15 people who would agree to receive the free mags, you will get ₤3.20 per hour, and more then 16-24, you get ₤3.50 and if more then 24, you get a bonus of ₤10 for the hour.(which is HARDLY)

I don't really have much memories of the job, because it was not a nice job for me, to be ring people up to ask if they wanted to receive free magazines, sometimes to make sure the guest who says they will attend the party will in fact attend the party and there was once we had to make a VIP list for this unknown dates party- we had to speak to their PA's PA. But one thing that I remember was meeting Prince's sister.

When I was first informed that she was Prince's sister, I was like...which Prince? So if she was a princess, why does she need to work?
they all laughed at me.

And then they explained that Prince Naseem was at that point one of the best boxers, and he came from Sheffield.


*picture was googled.

Anyway, Sa'aba, I think, that was his sister's name, if I'm not mistaken. She was funny, loud, and very nice.

Working at Ant Marketing was interesting, coz I met many foreign students, and Local (Sheffield) people who wanted to earn quick cash and for people who didn't want to be standing alot.

I also remember that I learned if you speak with a smile on the phone, things will go much smoother. People seem to be nicer when I was smiling down the telephone.