AQA – 6 months and 5000 questions later….

And suddenly, have had the sack from the text answering service, AQA, due to not being able to apologise sufficiently enough for being flippant:

Question: If your skin becomes a bit scaly when it gets wet and your gums are hurting and bleeding a lot then what might be wrong with you?

Answer: AQA is fairly sure you are turning into a crocodile. For an accurate diagnosis, you need to contact your GP or telephone NHS Direct on 08454647.

Apparently having a previous review score of 96.4 does not help. Giving the customer correct advice does not help and trying to inject a little humour along the way doesn’t help either. That wasn’t the only reason but it was the ‘big one’. AQA are very good at presenting a chummy, cheery, we-can-help public image but they treat their researchers like galley slaves. Make one mistake too many and you’re out on your ear. Fail the apology-session and you’re out. Contract terminated. Of course, there’s no problem as there are wannabe galley slaves falling over themselves to be accepted; sweating over their SPGs (spelling, punctuation, grammar) for the grand sum of 30 pence per answer.

I sound bitter but I’m not really. It feels like being let out of school. It feels like freedom and it also gives me my evenings back. So I can journal, write and blog to my heart’s content. And, in case anyone is wondering how I can survive without my 30p per answer, my dear step-dad has given me enough work, with more promised at double AQA’s sorry hourly rate.

So what else? Bumpy walls gone. Living room finished apart from new floor (ordered & paid for) and decorative touches such as a new blind and houseplants (later). The bloke I live with has started painting the outside of the house, so much gratitude (& encouragement) being sent his way. DIY is not his sort of thing. Until now.

We’ve had some great weather recently; the children & I spent the day at the beach yesterday. Today, the weather wasn’t great so we had a day indoors. Some other children came round to play after they’d finished school and I was very encouraged to see my unschooled kid reading a story to the schooled one. After she finished the story, she read out the questions at the back (meant to be asked by the teacher) and made her little friend answer them.

Here’s a new page – at last:

~ by theraggededge on June 11, 2008.