Sandra bought a bottle of wine and some edamame for us all to share. The four of us stayed there chatting for about an hour, then we went next door and upstairs, where the dance studio was conveniently located. Sandra had previously told me she and one of her dance partners had won first place in a recent dancing competition. However, she was always so modest when talking about her dancing. So, when it came time to watch Sandra actually dive into some of her freestyle modern jive, I was not at all prepared for how spectacular it would be! Wow! That girl can DANCE! It was quite fun to watch her and the other 40 or so dancers just busting out their moves. One of the guys, Anthony, tried to get me to go out on the dance floor with him at one point. I kindly declined his offer, as I was not about to make a massive fool of myself by dancing amongst all those professionals haha. It was a fun night though. I think I met around 15-20 new people, including a couple of Sandra’s dance partners, and everyone was really friendly.
The next day was supposed to be the last day of work for all the temps at AMP. Earlier in the week, our department had even thrown a ‘morning tea’ for all of us as a thank you for our hard work (and might I add that I had one of the best brownies of my life). However, we had previously been told that there would be a potential opportunity for one temp to stay on a bit longer, but working in another department. Well, we never heard anything else about it, so we just assumed it had fallen through. Then, at the very end of my last day right before I was scheduled to leave, a woman came up to my desk and in a whisper, asked me if I would be interested in staying longer. Let’s see…would I be interested in continuing to work at a company where I’m spoiled with tons of free stuff, I get paid well, and I can walk to from my flat? I’m going to have to say yes, yes I would.
The only problem then was the fact I’d already accepted the 2 Degrees job through the other temp agency, scheduled to start the next morning. Eek! As one would expect, my phone call to that temp agency that afternoon was not particularly pleasant, but at least I know I made the right choice by staying at AMP instead =) That night, I went out with one of my backpacker friends Stuart from England. He and I had been in contact since before I ever arrived in New Zealand, having met on the same New Zealand backpacker board that Sontsa and I originally met on. He too lives in Auckland and was a big support when I was trying to find a job, texting me job leads every week. Before that night though, we had never met in person. So, it was good to actually meet up. We went to Cassette to grab a beer and stayed there for a couple of hours chatting before calling it a night.
The next day on July 1st, I officially started my new job in the Life and Legacy department of AMP. I was kind of sad to leave the Kiwisaver department; my two weeks with them had been great, and I had made some new friends—Sandra, Melissa, and Chris. Luckily, however, the Life department is literally just around the corner on the same floor, so I can still see my buddies every day (except for Sandra sadly because she found temp work elsewhere). My new temp assignment was scheduled to last at least a month, so that was sweet. I met a ridiculous number of new people in the new department, including Chhaya, Denise, Kavita, Kezia, and Hajra from India, as well as locals Karlene, Debbie, Jessica, Vik, Donna, Fiona, Amy, Lyn, Chelsea, Ervin, Ian, Linda, Izanne, Sian, Brent, and Hamish. Plus, I already knew a couple of the others, Phillip and Pierce, just from randomly talking to them while working for the Kiwisaver department.
Three of the women I work closest with are Chhaya, Denise, and Debbie. Chhaya is the sweetest little Indian woman ever & just love her to death; Denise is super adorable, with a laugh that always brings a smile to my face; Debbie is wonderful, very much into Astrology and Zodiac signs, always gives me dating advice, and just generally cracks me up. My first day working for the Life team, Brent (a Maori who I later learned is the office clown)did some verbal training with me, basically just introducing me to the different life insurance and investment policies that the Life department covers. While in serious training mode, we suddenly heard some commotion outside of the meeting room and subsequently saw a man walking through the office wearing a dress haha. It wasn't anyone I knew, but it was apparently his last day of work and he lost a bet. =) Good stuff.
Since my computer access hadn’t been set up yet, I just shadowed a few people for the day after training with Brent. I watched Chhaya sort through some pending policies to make sure they had all the necessary requirements to process, then I sat with Phillip as he processed and paid out some life insurance policies that had matured. Shortly thereafter, I trained with Jessica for the rest of the day. My training time with Jessica was of particular importance because I was ultimately hired in order to take over her main job task, in preparation for when she started back at Uni two weeks later and went part-time.
My new job duties were similar to those at Kiwisaver: I sorted the mail first thing in the morning, then registered all of the items from the mail, as well as from email. However, unlike the Kiwisaver department , which was virtually paperless and had really nice software, the Life department was far from paperless and even used an ancient DOS system for its processing! I felt as though I had traveled backward in time a good twenty years by going from one department to the next haha. Besides doing the mail and registering, I also helped process life insurance policies as well. It’s funny—if anyone had ever told me a year ago that I’d one day be working in the insurance business, I would have just laughed. As it turns out though, I quite enjoy it.
Cheers,
Ash
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