Mmm, comfy shoes.

So yesterday I had my first proper shift at work. I was ushering for the Premier's Seniors Concert. We had been told at training to turn up early to check out the sections we were in, and to bring black leather shoes to wear. I have black leather shoes, but they're a bit too shmick for work. They're wedding shoes not not work shoes. So I decided to invest in a sensible pair of leather shoes.

I went to Forbes Footwear on Saturday to relive childhood sensible black shoe memories, feeling good that I was so prepared that I'm not buying shoes at the last minute. I'm a master at forward thinking. The man showed me a pair with cooshy soles, "especially good if you spend a lot of time standing up." I was convinced so I paid a more than a week's rent and bought them.

Yesterday morning I got up at the crack of dawn, got ready, shaved and I put the shoes in a bag with my other bag, ready to take with me. And then I left to go catch the train. I slept on the train most of the way to Central but I woke up at Town Hall, looked down at my bag and noticed I only had one. I'd left my bag of shoes at home. All I had on were my holey DCs and I wasn't going be allowed to work in them.

There was nothing for it but to buy a new pair of shoes. I hung around Central till a shoe shop opened, walked in and bought the first, cheap, uncomfortable pair of black leather shoes they had then headed to work. I didn't arrive with enough time to check my section, only get changed and be there for the briefing. The Supervisor saw me and said "Tom, you decided to show up!"

Happily now I have a pair of shoes in my locker so I'm not going to lose them.

I did enjoy the work. I liked talking to the seniors. They're often pretty jolly. The people I was working with were friendly. The concert was full of pianos and I like pianos, so all up I was pretty happy with my work. Plus I worked enough yesterday to pay for one of my pairs of shoes. If this keeps up, there's a chance I could break even.

Last night I went to Bible Study. It was the first time I've been to a Bible Study for me (rather than run by me) for about 2 years. It was good. I realised I miss things like that.

Today I had some more job related testing for the train job. I got up early again and wore my new black leather shoes. Although not my newest pair of black leather shoes. They'd been safe in their plastic bag for 24 hours. I caught the train again, slept most of the way.

It's an interesting process this. I've now done eight separate tests for this job and no one has really given me any opportunity to ask any questions about the job that I applied for. Still I had a better time today than last time.

I did a role play where I had to pretend to be someone working for the railways. I was sworn to secrecy so I cannot tell you what was in the scenario. What I probably can say is that in mine the scenario was meant to be taking place at 4:55pm and I had an email to work with that had been sent to me at 5pm that day. I didn't point it out during the role play, but I thought it was impressive that I had an email that had been from 5 minutes in the future.

After the test I pointed it out the discrepancy to the examiner and he starred at it for a while and said something like "That's very interesting, thank you." Even though I tried he didn't seem to want to engage with me in conjuncture about time travelling rail employees. That was a sadness for me.

After the tests I treated myself to some sushi and a sleep because I'm worth it.