#459 Let Me Bore You To Sleep - “I FOUND A LOVELY LITTLE BIRD” Jason Newland (26th July 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

Now, as I am recording this, I'm going through some quite physical stress symptoms, which is weird. And I'll tell you about it a little bit. I won't go too much details, the physical side there.

And it started happening about a year ago. I actually called an ambulance because I was coughing continuously and my heart palpitation, stuff like that. And racing, everything's kind of racing a bit.

It's like panicky, but it's not quite the same. Anyway, when the ambulance actually arrived, the paramedics, they checked me out and said I was absolutely fine. Nothing at all physically wrong with me, which was annoying, which is strange, isn't it? You're like, well, that's brilliant news.

But at the same time, you know, I just called you out for nothing. But I kind of got the same thing happening now. But I know why it is.

Basically, when something happens out of the ordinary, just suddenly out of the blue, and I'm rushing around and I kind of don't know what to do, this seems to arise. So it's a case of just relaxing. So maybe you can relax with me.

And you may be thinking, well, what's happening, JJ? It's nothing like major, not really. But basically, what happened is I took Andre out for a walk. This is about half an hour ago, maybe 40 minutes, 45 minutes ago.

Took him out. He'd been hassling me for ages to take him out, just a standard Sunday evening thing. Took him out.

There's still light outside-ish. And we get to the park. And it looks, there's something moving on the floor.

And it looks to me like it's a bit of dog poo. It's blowing in the wind. But nothing else was blowing in the wind around it.

So I picked it up to test if it was dog poo or not. And I realized I was licking a little bird. So there's this tiny little bird, like tiny, tiny little bird in my hand, looking up at me.

First of all, it sort of tries to get away from me, but it can't fly. But it doesn't look injured. It just looks too little to fly.

So, I picked it up. And just, you know, I had my gloves on as well. And I didn't know what to do.

Because I know that the park, this whole surrounding area, has got lots of cats. Lots of cats. It's a hunting ground for cats.

I mean, we've got fields and everything, also the park. On my first night turns, there were about five or six of them. And I just don't know if that little, little bird just stayed there.

It was going to get eaten. And I just didn't know what to do. So I brought it home and put it in the microwave.

No, I didn't. I put it, I brought it home. Brought Andre home.

He didn't, he wasn't happy because he'd only got as far as the park. He was dragging himself. So I had to pick him up, carry him.

And I wish I'd filmed it actually, because I put him down when I got inside, so he could walk up the stairs himself. I'm pulling him gently. He can walk up the stairs.

Yes, it's not an issue. It's not a problem for him. He's just lying there, being pulled up the stairs.

Refused to use his legs at all. But he was maneuvering his body so it didn't hurt him, because he's quite bendy. So he was just moving his head.

So his body just slid up the stairs. And then once we got inside, straight away scratching the door. So I'm thinking, what am I going to do with this little bird? So I've got it home.

Well, it's not his home, but you know, temporary, hopefully. And I've got lots of boxes. And the first thing I was going to do is put it into like a plastic container.

So I could watch it, make sure it's okay. But a friend of mine phoned me. And she said, perhaps put it into a box, because if it's damaged itself, maybe banged into something, and it might be disorientated.

So it might just need to be in a dark space till it's ready to fly off. So maybe that's what's needed. So I put it into a box with a little like a bed throw thing, just through it to sort of be in under, on top rather.

And the other part of the box, I put a tiny little container with some milk in, another tiny little container with some water in, and also some bits of bread, tiny little bits of bread and stuff, because I've got no food for birds. I don't know. I don't even know how.

I don't know what they eat. Well, you know, I think they eat worms. And it seems that I'm gonna have to get up really early.

You have to get up, you have to be really early, haven't you, to catch the worm. I did that joke with my friend on the phone, and we both just, we agreed we'd never mention it again. Like, I can't believe you said that.

It's just really sad. Yeah, fair enough. And so now I've got this volvic bottle box.

You know, it's one of those boxes that hold about 12 tiny bottles, like small bottles. 500 litres or I don't know, I forget. Anyway, millilitres, milligrams.

It's in there. It's got a gap in the side, both sides of it, but not big enough for it to get through. There is a gap at the top that's big enough for it to get out.

But I'll put something to cover that. And I don't know what to do. I mean, it's tiny.

It's absolutely tiny. Now, I don't know how big it's supposed to be. It's fully formed.

So it's not, you know, it's got, sounds like I'm trying to do a profile on some dating site. Trying to write one out. It's fully formed.

It's a miniature size though. And I, it's got feathers and legs and eyes and it looked intact. But it looked like it maybe hasn't learned to fly yet.

Or maybe it can fly and it's injured its wing. What I might do is take a picture of it, stick it on Facebook and maybe anyone can have a look and sort of tell me what kind of bird it is. Because I don't know.

I've really, I know about blue tits, robins, blackbirds, pigeons, crows. Actually, I'm not sure between the blackbirds and crow. Eagles.

You know, I know sort of the main, like the, I'm not, I have a book on birds, don't I? Wait a minute, I'm going to press pause. I want to grab it. I want that now.

I've got a pocket garden bird watch book. Let me see if I can find the bird book. I kind of want to know what the bird's type, don't I, really? Right.

It's not a sparrow. Oh, it might be a yellow-brown warbler. No, that's from Siberia.

I wouldn't travel all the way here from Siberia. I'm a little bit colorblind when it comes to birds. They kind of look quite similar to me.

Fieldfare, maybe? It might be a thrush or reed bunting. Siskin. I would say it's definitely, it might be a wren.

Oh, it's not a goldfinch. It might be a house sparrow because it's so little. Either it's little or it's a baby.

Do you know what I mean? It's little, but it might, like, well, I'm little, aren't I? So it might be just a little version of a human, like me. Blackcap. Nope.

Chiffatch. Chiffchaff. Chiffchaff.

Oh, that's a good name. Long-tailed tit. Um, I don't think it's a long-tailed tit.

No, I'm pretty sure it's not a long-tailed tit. Songthrush. Red wing.

No, no, no, no. I think it might be easier if I, if he's still alive. I mean, you know what I figured out, and it's a weird kind of decision.

I figured it'd be better if it's going to die, to die safe. To die, it's got food, it's got water, it's got milk, it's got shelter. You know, it's not being eaten alive, you know.

I know it's grim, but I think that's just got to be better for it. I don't know, it's, but quite often I wouldn't do that. I'd try and move the animal to a different, especially in the fields, I wouldn't pick a, probably wouldn't pick a bird up if it was in the fields, because I'd assume that the, because a lot of birds, they live in the fields, don't they? So I'd probably just leave it, or maybe move it to the side, because this was in the park.

No birds live in the park, in trees, but not on the ground. What I might do tomorrow is go back to the spot and see if there's a bird hanging around, you know, like another bird, maybe a mother bird or a puppy, papa bird, not puppy as in dog, or maybe knock on the door of the house, because it might have fallen out of the tree. So they might know, they might be bird lovers themselves, and they might be, the bird might have fallen out of the nest.

It might be a wagtail, green woodpecker, wow, imagine if it's a green woodpecker. You know what, one thing that these birds have got in common, I don't know, I just don't like to say it, but it feels a bit silly. They're just so beautiful.

They're just so beautiful. Birds are just so damn beautiful. And the only thing, the only bird that really annoys me, only two birds that really annoy me, two types of birds, not to the extent of sort of anger or hatred, you know, not that sad, but seagulls, very aggressive, I've seen seagulls be very aggressive in the past.

I once saw a seagull try and eat a pigeon. I'm seriously, just bullying it and then try it. It's like, no, not having that.

So I shot it. And on beaches, the way, you know, kind of a little bit, there's that behavior that you wouldn't enjoy in humans. I know they're not humans.

And also I used to go to, well, I don't live near a duck pond anymore, but I've lived in places where there's been duck ponds, duck, duck ponds. And this is one of my, it's something I did when I was quite young, from the age of seven to the age of, well, during my childhood years onwards, from seven onwards, we used to walk up to the duck pond. It was quite a walk, but sometimes we'd have like a family dinner at my nan's.

And we'd all walk around and it'd take probably about half an hour, 40 minutes to get there. Probably less, I don't know. But my granddad would walk in about a mile ahead of everyone.

I think that was his bit of peace and quiet. I could never understand, there's a nan, nanny, nanny Newland. Why's granddad Newland walking so far ahead? And she looked down at me and she said, and because you keep talking, Jason.

And I said, be harsh. She didn't say that. I'm grey heron.

It's not a sparrow hawk. I'm scared to look in the box in case he's, you know. I mean, if I have to catch him a worm, I'll catch him a worm.

But you know what? I don't. I almost don't feel that different, much different towards the worm that I do towards a bird. It's another living being, you know.

And I love birds. It's weird. And then the, what was this? Is it tail shape? No, that's little about tail shapes and sizes.

I can't figure it out. What I'm going to do, I'm going to get it. I'll bring it over here and I'm going to describe it to you.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. So I've got him in my arms now, in my hands. She's done a big poo all over me.

Oh, do you want me to put you back? I'm going to put him back. That wasn't a good idea. Now I have to wash my hands.

So, I just had to put him back. I pressed the pause button, by the way. I'm not just moving really quickly.

And he just squirted all over me. It's good that his bum's working, I suppose. But that might have meant that he was scared and I just, it upsets me a little bit.

I think Ondrej might want my attention. Ondrej? Ondrej? There we go. There you go.

I give you lots of attention. Sorry our little walk didn't last very long. I think he would have preferred it if I hadn't seen it, so he could have just eaten it properly.

That's what he'd do in the wild, he'd eat little birds and stuff like that. I don't think he would now. I think for him, if he came across something like a little bird, it'd be more of an experiment.

He'd be like, what's that? So it wouldn't be out to hurt. He hasn't got that. You know, and he's not hungry.

He's always got food, haven't you? Yeah. You're a beautiful boy. He said to me, when are you getting rid of the bird? I've only been here for an hour.

Yeah, but I don't want it here. There's no room. You haven't got room for it.

It's taken up this little box. He said, yeah, but it's not fair. I didn't get to go for a walk.

He did get to go out for a little bit though, didn't he? Give daddy kisses. You are beautiful. Yes, you are.

You're the most beautiful boy in the world. Next to Milton. Milton, the little bird.

You're my second favorite now. I'm not joking. I didn't mean it.

I didn't mean it. Yes. Good boy.

I had this, when I was in London, I had this landlady and she loved me. And then, I mean, yeah, she liked me a lot. And then this man moved in called Bernard.

His name was Bernard. And he was basically, he just tried to take control of the whole house. Bernard.

In the end, I had to move out. I couldn't stand it. He was like, he used to try and sort of tell me what to do.

Try to tell me what to do. I was like, I don't know. I want to get in there.

Get in there for a bit. Let's see. Go in there for a bit.

Go on. Get in my jacket. You would if we were walking.

One more kisses. His eyes just shined. You know, a bit like a cat.

Yeah. That's it. Bugger off.

Yes, so I've got that bird. Andre's frustrated and angry with me. Had a bath earlier.

I made a video last night. I didn't post it. I did a Jason Chats video.

And I looked at my hair in the camera, the back of my head. It's a bald patch. There's still hair.

But it's bald. It's a bald patch with hair. Now, the bald patch doesn't notice when I'm bald.

Which might sound like a weird thing to say. But when I shave my head off, not shave, when I shave my hair completely to the bone, completely off. Well, yeah, I do look bald.

But that particular part of my head, right? It's the crown, isn't it? That part. The longer my head gets, the more prominent it is. The more prominent the bald patch is.

And for years, I've been fooling myself, or been telling myself, you know, since I was 32, I don't care if I grow bald, I shave my head. And I shaved my head probably hundreds of times over that time. Probably not hundreds of times, actually, but many times.

There was a time where I shaved my head every week. Every Sunday afternoon, I'd watch... What's the TV show, Superman show? Not Springfield, it's named after the town that he lived in. Is it Strangeville? Supermanville? Something like that.

Smallville. That's it, Smallville. Smallbox.

Smallville. So I used to watch Smallville on Channel 4 on Sunday afternoon. And I would get my shavers out, and I would shave my head.

Admittedly, it wasn't to the bone, but it was as close to the bone as possible without a wet... I didn't use a wet shaver. It was dry. But it was, you know, as close as you can get.

It's like the shortest, shortest it could possibly be. Without being, like, bald. But still bald, you know.

Anyway, I used to do that. I used to... I tell you what I used to quite like. I'd do that every day, every Sunday.

And I would... I had this moisturizer that I used to put on there. And it really smelled nice. Really smelled nice.

I mean, proper. And I used to use it for my face as well. So I just have this moisturizer on the back of my neck.

Because if you shave yourself, especially your neck and stuff, you can end up getting a bit of a rash. So I used to try and make sure that I was nice and moistured. And I know some people I've seen in the past when they shave their head, especially if it's like a crew cut, if the person's got any dry skin, it's more prominent because you can see it.

Because right there, you know. So I used to try and make sure that my scalp was nice and wet, moisturized, greasy, I don't know, whatever you want to call it. Now, I didn't do many favors because I look awful with a crew cut.

You know, I look better with hair than without hair. But I was going, you know, I was sort of getting into Buddhism and I don't know what it was. I just, there's something quite therapeutic about shaving my head, my hair off sometimes.

I've done it, as I said, so many times. These days, I'll do it and then it will be three months or four months to the next one. So I might only shave my head three or four times a year.

But I would prefer not to do it anymore. Go to the hairdressers, but I can't do that. I'm not, I can't sit in the hairdressers with a mask on.

I'm just, nah, mind you, at least the hair isn't going to get up your nose, are they? Or in your mouth. So that could be quite good. But I want to see what my hair looks like with my face.

I don't have to wait till I get home before I can see what my hair looks like connected to my actual face, you know, unless I take a picture of my face. I have that on a piece of paper and then just hold that up. Maybe on a bit of card, hold it up.

When they said, is it okay if I hold it up in front of me? I said, oh yeah, that's all right. Just maybe just above my lips and below, you know, sort of down to my chin. Yeah, that looks okay.

Or maybe even doing something even funnier and add a mask to it, then it'd be pointless, wouldn't it? I said to my brother months ago, I said, honestly, I said to him, look, if you want to make some money, sell masks. And he said, oh, golly bothered. I said, what do you want to do? He said, I want to make money.

Sell masks. He said, oh, that's just short term. I said, look, it's only a matter of time before masks will be, you'll have to wear them on public transport, you'll have to wear them in shops.

You'll probably end up having to wear them in the street. And he said, oh, because this is before we had to wear them. They weren't compulsory at all.

And I was saying to him for weeks, just put a website together. It's easy. Do that.

Sell novelty masks, you know, ones with like a face on or something, because it doesn't matter. As long as you've got a mask or face covering, it doesn't matter. I've seen people in professional situations wearing masks or face coverings with teeth, you know, like a mouth on it.

I saw yesterday a boxing referee had one on. And, oh gosh, this is really funny. Oh, I was watching boxing on, I think it was Saturday morning, early hours.

And honestly, there was probably, I'd say 20 people in the audience. They were probably just girlfriends, family, you know, they were spread out. So it was just a few people.

And it's being televised live on DAZN. And so I got a free membership for that because I'm one of the beta testers, which is quite cool. So I have to fill a survey in every time I watch it to tell them how good it was.

And so, you know, the two boxers, of course, they can't wear masks. They also can't keep social distance either, although, you know, that depends really. All boxers get too close to each other.

The idea is to not get too close, not to sort of like dance with a person. And the referee was wearing a mask with a part of the mouth, looked like he had a part of the mouth missing, but it wasn't. It was a drawn on kind of grin, or something like that.

And also quite a lot of people had those similar face coverings on with those masks. And one of the presenters, one of the, I guess he's big in America, I'm not sure, but I don't really know him. He, I know most of the ones in the UK, the sports presenters.

It's all for boxing and that. But this bloke, I couldn't believe it. He had a mask on, and he had protection gloves on, these big rubber gloves on.

And he was holding a microphone. And he was introducing the next, you know, the next fight. And on one of his fingers over the glove, this massive ring, like, you know, really expensive ring, expensive looking.

It just looked ridiculous. It looked really, really silly. I mean, really, if anything, I would say he probably had to get that ring extended and made bigger so that he could wear it over the plastic gloves, because they weren't small gloves.

They weren't the sort that you could do surgery with. They were more like the ones that you clean a toilet with. Couldn't believe it.

It was so, wow, wasn't that funny? Now I think about it. Seemed funny at the time. So yeah, there's, I said to my brother, it's going to be so much call for these masks, it's going to be compulsory.

And it's become compulsory, bit by bit over time. And it's only a matter of time, I reckon, before you can't even walk through the street without them on. And you might say, well, why didn't I do that? Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not really about the money.

I'm not motivated by money. I wish I was, because my life would be a lot easier. And when I set my mind for something, I pretty usually get results, especially sort of with jobs and, you know, when there was sales and stuff, I was good at sales.

But I don't, I go through periods, I go through these periods when, like another bill comes through, another payment is due, and it's like, and I'm thinking, what could be, I could be getting four or five hundred dollars a month from the adverts, and then that's not enough for me to earn a living. You know, I can't do that. You know, that's a nice little part-time job added on to a full-time job, extra five, six, seven, eight hundred dollars as it goes up gradually over the months.

I mean, that'd be a nice, a huge, you know, yeah, it could change my lifestyle dramatically if I was working, because then I could have that as a part-time business, but as a part-time job. But then I won't be able to make as many recordings. Yeah, just remembering when I was working, and I worked for most of the time that I'd been making these recordings, you know, not these, let me bore you to sleep ones, but when I did, by the way, I feel a lot more relaxed now.

Thank you, thank you for asking. I, because when I started this in 2006, I was working full-time until 2007, summer. I was working full-time until, I think, September 2006, and then I went part-time because I'd been ill with stress and stuff.

So I went, but I wanted to keep the job. I didn't want to lose a job. I liked the job, actually, and I went part-time, and I could afford to live on the part-time wages.

So I was, it was a win-win for me because it gave me extra time to do other things. So I was able to volunteer more at the drug, rehab, alcohol charities, as well as see people for the chronic pain relief, as well as make recordings as well for the internet. And then in, I think it's, I think it was June 2007, my boss called me into the office and said, you need to go either full-time back, back full-time or leave.

Now, I don't think, I'm not sure if he actually had the power to do that, but, you know, their HR department was one lady, very lovely lady, by the way, but one lady sitting on a chair, a little desk outside the manager's office, and my desk was right behind hers. So she was a wonderful, I really liked her a lot. But I think for an HR department, I mean, she was lovely.

She was really, if you ever want to meet someone that's just really nice, she was, I can't remember her name, but she was really, really nice person. I forgot about her until just now. Yeah, she was great.

And so, because I used to see her every day, because she'd be sitting there. So she was part of my team, even though she wasn't, you know, she was in charge of the HR, human resources. But she just did what, you know, what she was told.

And I don't know if it was, I don't know if it's allowed to push someone to go full-time when they are going part-time due to illness. And I was on medication, I was on Prozac and stuff. Anyway, what happened next changed my life.

Because that's what it's gonna really, isn't it? Whatever you do next changes your life, maybe, but it was, I liked that job. I haven't liked many jobs that I've had. I liked that job because it suited my skill set.

Because one thing that I didn't realize I was good at until I did that job is listening. I can listen. And my job was to listen to calls, listen to all the people who worked there.

And it was split between two of us. And maybe a third person if we got couldn't do all that. We listened to, I think, I think it was something like four calls for each person that worked in a company.

That was in the customer service, renewals and sales. There wasn't that many, it wasn't a huge amount of people. We had all month to do it.

So I don't know how many I'd do a day. But it, you know, it'd take basically the length of the call plus maybe twice the length of the call if it was a complicated one. Have to keep rewinding it because perhaps the person didn't speak clearly.

Or, you know, sort of, did they ask the question correctly? And so it was sort of a very responsible job in a sense of people that worked there, if they didn't do their job properly, they'd lose money. And because they'd be on a bonus and they'd lose their bonus or part of their bonus by not doing the thing. I didn't like that.

I didn't like that part of it. Because I've been in a position, I've had my bonus taken away and I felt like I'd been mugged, really. I lost, I think, in my last sales job.

I can't remember what the circumstances were, but I wasn't in a great, great space at the time. But anyway, yeah, I'd failed one of the things that they did. I didn't ask something in a certain way that I was supposed to.

They kept changing the rules and it wasn't clear on what the rules were. And I lost, I think, £200 off of my bonus for the month, which was probably, at that time, probably about half my money, half my bonus rather, because the bonuses weren't very good at the time. It wasn't particularly busy.

I might have the facts wrong. It might not have been that much. It might be more.

And at the time, they were laying people off. The whole department was leaving because of the redundancies and all that kind of stuff. And so it was a really weird time.

And then to take that money off me. And I said to my boss, I feel like I've been mugged. I feel like he just mugged me.

Not mugged me off, but mugged me, literally took the money out of my wallet. So he took me into a room and he told me off. That's how I felt.

At one time, he actually did take me into the room. He's a cucumber, isn't he? He sat me down and he said, I said, what do you want? What's wrong? He said to me, you look like you're going to punch me. Well, I wasn't happy with the situation, but this bloke was about twice my size, ex-boxer and a rugby player.

I mean, I probably I was going to punch him. Yeah, right. It was funny.

I started laughing. I said, come on. I'm like a little child compared to you.

We kissed and cuddled. It's just, you know, I was like, no, I don't get like that when I'm at work. I was just mildly peeved.

Losing money is, especially with a job in sales, it's hard work. It's not easy. You know, sales, for those that are earning nothing, it's easy work.

For those to actually try and are aiming to earn money bonus, then it's hard work. You know, it's, it's the, it's the lowest paid, easy job you'll ever have. If you can get away with it.

But it's the hardest, it's one of the hardest paid jobs you'll ever have. High paid jobs, because you really have to work really hard if you want to make the money. I never, I never really got financially rewarded properly, I don't think, for what I did.

You know, I think I worked out I was selling about half a million pounds worth of car insurance a year. And my bonus was about 12,000 pound. Worked that out.

I don't know, it's ridiculous. I should be, I should have been on, as far as I'm concerned, I should be on 10%, I should be on 50 grand. Any salesperson that sells double-daisy and does sales stuff, they're on a percentage.

Normally you would get about 5, 10, 15, 20% even. So I should have been on 50 grand a year. I could have had people working with me.

I could have employed people to work with me. Yes, I've now flown off into a different universe again, sorry. But anyway, this manager, Phil, his name was, he was a nice bloke.

I think his name was Phil. And he said, basically what happened is my manager, my line supervisor, there was only three of us working together, him and me and Pam, Pammy, that's it, Pammy. And we worked together, me and her worked closely together.

And then he was sort of in charge of us. And he'd do the overflow. And he'd also, he'd remark.

So he'd listen to recordings that we'd marked to make sure that we were doing our job properly. Or if, this happened quite a lot, is a salesperson, well actually sometimes it was customer service, one particular person. But I loved her so much, I didn't care.

And a couple of people in the renewals department would really, because they were high achievers, they used to get good bonuses. But they didn't always do their job properly. In a sense of asking the correct questions and getting the correct information.

And they'd come back, they'd either come up themselves and start making a fuss. Or that's the team leader would come up and say, that's not right, he's gonna lose 200 pound. And I could, I'd never lost money before until after that, you know.

So I'd never really experienced it before. Now I have experienced it, I can understand how frustrating it is. But because when I was working at this place, I was the most compliant person that ever had.

Seriously, when I was in sales at this company that was, I can't remember the name of the company. Anyway, I was in sales from August or was it September 2004 until December 2005. It was August 2004 to December 2005.

I worked in the sales department. And then from December 2005 until June 2007, I worked in the compliance department, which is the one I liked doing. And when I was in sales, I was a top compliance person.

So I would, there was one other person that used to, I used to duel with, and she wasn't nearly as good as me. It was touch and go. Sometimes she'd take it.

But I'd say, you get, I think it was 25 quid for each compliance that was 100%. So you'd literally, you'd tick every single box. Not many people did it.

You had to, I think the pass mark was 60 or maybe 65. You know, you got nothing for passing. You just, but if you got below that, you'd lose a percentage of your bonus.

I never lost any percentage of my bonus ever. I wasn't, you know, not until I went to the last job I had and then, oh wow. And anyway, me and this other, I forget what her name is.

I was in love with her and everything. And I remember she asked me if I'd do some hypnosis with her. It was on a night out.

It was like a, it was, you know what? As far as the company goes, it was quite a good company. I got on really well with the people that worked within sales. And then I went down into the compliance, or up into compliance, I can't remember which floor it was on.

And because I'd always still been friends with the people from the sales, a couple of people seemed to have the arm with me. But not one person ever sort of got aggressive with me or anything, even though I'd mark someone and they'd lose like 300 pound for the month, because I'd marked their things. And some people had got disciplinaries and everything.

But not one person ever came up to me and says, never. And so, and I think part of the reason for that is because, it might be different reasons, but I'm just a nice guy, man. I'm just nice.

It's because I proved myself as being the most compliant person for over a year in the sales department. No one could touch me. I was getting 100% in practically every, every one I did.

And I think we had, yeah, there was, I think it was four, that's it, it was four. Four were done a month. And so that'd be 25 pound for each 100.

So anyone that got 100% would get 25 pound bonus cash. And we'd get our bonuses weekly in cash. And our salary monthly.

So the salary was 12 and a half grand back in 2004 on the sales. 12 and a half grand, 12 and a half thousand pound. And I was earning 25,000 with the bonus.

So again, it's not a lot of money, but it still doubled, doubled my money, as I did with Churchill as well. That was 12 grand and I've got 24 grand a year. Should have been 50.

Anyway, this bonus, because I wasn't, the sales wasn't as easy there. It was really, there was better salespeople there than me. At this new company, the company I started working at, at Churchill, there's only one person better than me.

Although that person was also at this other company. He's the one that got me the job. So he'll always be better than me.

I think he's just, he's just brilliant. I used to listen to him at Churchill because I feel, I don't know why, but I was allowed, I got permission to listen. Oh no, sometimes the team leader would get me to listen to other people's calls to check they're doing them right and everything.

Especially because they'd like help, I'd be doing a bit of training, maybe to sit someone next to me who was new. And whoever sat next to me became better just by sitting next to me. I think it was Eva, they got, they absorbed the sales thing.

You know, that's why I said to my manager, I feel like that's the reason. And he said, no, the reason why they get better is because we tell them as soon as they become better at selling, they can move away from you. That's nice.

And I did it to a different building. Oh, lovely. Different town.

Okay, you can stop now. And different country. And I'd listen to their calls.

Sometimes I'd actually be on the call and I'd take it over. I said, just pass it on to me or tell them what to say. So just, just keep them talking.

She can tell, I don't know, sometimes like all you need to do, someone wants to take it out. All you need to do is just talk. Just keep talking.

Not horribly, not, but just nicely, just keep talking. Eventually they just give it. Eventually they said, well, you know what? I don't want to spend the next three hours talking to someone else.

Really weird. These glasses I've got on. These are for my reading and the television's on.

And there's the bodyguard's bodyguard or something. And the faces are distorted with these glasses on. They look like masks.

They don't even look like real faces. Isn't that weird? Anyway, so yeah, I used to, I talked about this before, but I had quite the minimum I ever got as a bonus for the being compliant. That's about the sales.

The sales were a separate thing. The compliance would be, because I didn't used to have it when I first started working there and people were so bad and they realized that salespeople generally don't, they're not motivated by losing money. Funny that, isn't it? But they decided they'll motivate people by giving them money for doing well.

They'd get to a hundred percent, knowing that most people wouldn't even attempt it. But then they'd lose money if they got under the 60% or 65%, which is quite hard to do really. You know, especially if you're doing something all day long, it's the same thing, a little bit different customer service, but for renewals, sales, maybe renewals have got a little bit more.

No, actually I'd say renewals have got less. They've probably got more scope for price. You know, they've got little offers they can do in different ways.

They can reduce the price in order to sort of keep a customer, you know, because all they basically get renewals is customers phoning up and saying, yeah, I've got my renewal form through and it's 90 pound more than it was last year. And I've got one more year's no claims bonus. So shouldn't it be 30% less or whatever? And the renewals would say, nice, that'll be the price.

It's 90 pound. Do you want to get that set up for you now? No, it's too much money. And eventually they'll get a price that's a lot cheaper depending on how much fuss the person's willing to make.

Salespeople generally, in my experience, it might change now. It wasn't like that. You got a price and that was kind of it, you know, you could sometimes get reduction in the company I was with, they sometimes do discounts.

It's the same script. It's the same stuff over and over again with each call. So in order to not do it properly, it almost takes effort.

You know, it's, I don't know, it's in order to, in order to brush your teeth with a different hand would take effort to do that, wouldn't it? Because we're used to our routines. I've got a certain way that I wash the cutlery. Sometimes, you know, sometimes I wash it first.

Sometimes I flush a toilet first. I mean, you know, I've got different, but you know, it's generally, it's pretty much the same way most times. But if this, I suppose it's hard to explain because this might be out of kind of a weird concept, the whole like selling car insurance, but millions of people do it and millions and millions of people work in call centers.

Doing the equivalent really, you know, answering the phones, customer service, and dealing with complaints and yeah. But so I was given my boss, my immediate supervisor, a lovely bloke, really, really nice. And I thought he was going to be there forever.

He'd be there, he'd be getting into work about 7.30 or 6.30 in the morning. And he'd have half the day's work done before I even got there. And then one day, we got, me and Pammy got called into the office with the, well, the big manager, the boss.

Clare, you should do our work here, he said to me. I said, okay, yeah. He said, don't mock me.

That's how I actually talk. So you're not talking like that now, are you? He said, well, yes. Very confusing.

And he said, oh, by the way, what's his name? He's leaving. Nick or Bob or whatever his name was. Oh, he's leaving.

He's given his notice in. And I knew then that my part time position was going to be under threat, because he was taking on the overflow as it was needed. But I was coming in, when I was doing full time, I'd just potter by, I'd just take it easy.

When I turned part time, I'd come in and I'd work straight through. I'd get pretty much as much done in my part time hours as I was full time. And then I was called into the office myself, just after he left, saying, yeah, part, you have to go full time or leave.

So I think on reflection, the fact that I had a doctor's note, and I had gone bankrupt due to my illness. So a a judge in court recognized the fact that I'd been put on part time hours due to my illness. The judge recognized that, but my boss didn't seem to.

So I don't know, I'm sure there would have been something, I could have done something about that, but I couldn't be bothered. And I kept going backwards and forwards, because I liked the job, really did like the job. I liked the people I worked with, although the place was going down the swanee, and it did, the whole place just crumbled.

About a year or so after I left, the place closed. But it happened to the one, my last one as well. I think it's the building is now flats.

Seriously, it's just, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of these places just start working from home. So I think it's just, it's not the same. It's that even I'm not, you know, a big socializer, perhaps.

I don't necessarily feel too comfortable, but I get used to it. It takes me ages. And you know, I start getting used to things.

The only time I've ever really made friends was at work, or outside of work. Just generally at work, or I suppose during the comedy years, I've made friends there. But technically, I guess that was at work as well, kind of.

The Buddhist Center, I made some friends. And I've made a few friends living here, made a few friends, you know, living in places. But I've moved around a lot.

But I don't, you know, I don't go to clubs. I'm talking even when I was younger, I didn't, not allowed in clubs at my age, I don't think. But I didn't go to clubs hardly ever.

Only a few times when I was in my 20s. But, or even pubs, I just always found pubs too aggressive, just because I didn't drink. If I'm drunk, I didn't care.

That was the weird thing about it, I think. And it's easy to be around drunk people if you're drunk. That's, that's all I always found that I was drunk, I didn't just, it was easy.

Because I just, I'd be probably as obnoxious as they are. So I don't need to be drunk to be obnoxious. I'm naturally, I'm just noxious.

And, yeah, oh, so I left, I just, I was gonna stay. When I said I was gonna, I was gonna leave, then I said, I'm gonna stay. And Lady HR was so excited.

I was gonna stay. Honestly, she's lovely. And then I thought about it.

And I thought, no, no, I'm gonna apply for a university course. And I think I'd already applied. I mean, in my mind, I was going to do the university course and work part time.

Sort of, I think in my mind, but I thought, no, let's go for this university course. I never thought I'd ever be able to do that. I never thought I'd ever be able to go to university.

Genuinely didn't think it was possible. And I applied for this counselling course, this counselling degree. And I got the information from guidance and everything from the charity that I was volunteering in.

Because I really loved the counsellors were so nice. I thought, if I can be like that, I can just be nice, be a nice person. I wonder what that would be like.

So that's why I kind of wanted to become a counsellor, but not the only reason. I've been reading counselling books and studying counselling since, wow, 98. So yeah, so nine years before I've been studying reading.

In fact, I read, I think I was 17 when I read the book on Floyd's life story, massive book, reading it on the beach when I was 17. So I've always had an interest, I guess, in psychology and psychotherapy and that kind of stuff. I didn't expect to get onto the course.

I genuinely didn't. I didn't expect it. And I did go.

So wow. And when they accepted me, I then had to go to what I needed to fill in the UCAT, I don't know, the student loan grant thing. And I didn't know how to do it.

And I went into the college and I said, can you please help me to fill this in, because I don't know how to fill in forms. And sometimes my brain freezes when I get to fill a form and it's just how it used to be. And this lady sat there, and she was so patient with me.

And we did it all there and then, applied for everything, grants, loans, anything that was available, really, just standard stuff. I didn't know what I was doing. And I ended up, yeah, I remember I received a letter saying, yep, you've got the loan.

And I think it was even the same week as being, no, it wouldn't be the same week. I don't know. But anyway, I've got, it's a bit muddled.

I haven't got any of the letters now. I should have kept them, shouldn't I? That's one of the problems of moving around a lot. I don't have, not having had the stable place to live, I've not been able to collect as much rubbish as I would normally.

Yeah, a lot of paperwork. I do now, I'll keep pretty much all my paperwork, bills and all that stuff. I've got bills for the last five years here.

Although things are gradually moving more and more online. It's just, I just remember it was like, wow. Because at the time, I'd just started dating a new lady.

Well, she wasn't new, she was, I think she was the same age as me, maybe older. No, younger. She was probably 32, something like that.

So she wasn't new, but she was new to me. And she was in charge. She was my volunteer supervisor at one of the charities.

And then she left. And then we started going on this course together, which was a befriending course. No, she was still there when we did that, went on a befriending course.

And we used to travel up to Norwich, I think once a week for about four, five, six weeks. And when we first started traveling up there, I'd hide from her. Because it's true.

Because the idea of traveling on the train and having to talk to somebody for the journey didn't really thrill me. Because I was tired. It was early in the morning.

I'd get in the fare paid, but still it was too early. So I wanted to just sit on the train. And then we used to sit on the choo-choo and just close my eyes.

But I couldn't do that with her. Because we'd chat to each other. So I traveled up, I think the first time together, second time I kind of avoided her.

And then every time after that, I kind of was with her. And then we ended up dating, ended up going out together with each other. So everything was falling into place.

I had a lovely girlfriend, she had about 100 children, but you know, she's just really funny, really funny person and like humorous, made me laugh. And then I got a job in Sainsbury's for Christmas, which would have I reckon led to a proper job, part time. If I'd have done a job properly.

I needed a part time job in order to get by really in three years of full time education. I had the grants and everything, it was basic to cover rent and food. Everything other than that was kind of needed money for.

I had somewhere to live that was cheap in the Buddhist community. So I was able to work part time and live there and still be able to afford the rent. And then I started the university course.

And everything went sour in where I lived. One of the people who lived there started behaving very, very strangely. So I had to move out.

I had to get out of there. And I couldn't find anywhere I could afford in that town. And my girlfriend, she said to me, why don't you call up the college and see if they've got any student accommodation, private, you know, you can, they can give you numbers for.

So I said, I'll do that, did that. And they, the college was in a different town to where I was living. And I found a room in a different, in the same town, you know, the new town, which was cheap, was the cheapest one I could find and the only one I could afford.

So I moved. My girlfriend was upset. So we split up, even though it was her idea.

Maybe she wasn't upset. Maybe it's her way of splitting up with me. I couldn't do the part-time job because I've moved to a different town.

I lost contact with all my friends. And yeah, it was really weird. So I was in this town, didn't know anybody, a couple of Buddhists, because the Buddhist Center here as well.

So I started going to the Buddhist Center. I knew a couple of people that I'd met previously, the previous years. One I was very good friends with, but then he moved to the other town.

So I said, what if he moved to get away from me? And so, yeah, and then I sort of started to make friends in the Buddhist Center and made friends with some people in the college course. And that was it. Ended up staying there, finished the college course, the degree.

In fact, I finished the diploma after the second year. I became self-employed. So I was self-employed during the third year of the degree.

So I was working with clients, getting paid, as well as, not many, but as well as studying and doing the dissertation and all that stuff, as well as traveling up to London twice a week. So I had this little job up there as well. In the comedy club.

So I'd be going up there twice a week for, yeah, for about six months. Because the third year, there wasn't much classroom time. It really was about the dissertation.

There was other stuff. There was psychology, but it was very much dissertation, dissertation, dissertation. A few modules, essays, but it's mainly dissertation.

That's what it was about. So that was a really, that was the hardest year, the third year out of all, you know. And then, and that's weird.

And then I get, so I'm staying in this place, this room. I finished my course in 2010. I get my graduation in November, I think it was 2010, or October, November.

And then January, 2011, I get evicted. So I'm like, oh, great. I'm like, well, and then I leave, and then I move to one other place.

Then I move to another place. And then I move here. Yeah, I move here.

Oh, yeah, here. Yeah, here. Oh, that's so cute.

I know. So yeah, and that was five years ago. On 5 April, May, June, July, five years and three months.

And that was probably one of the most boring recordings I've ever done. But it's supposed to be boring, isn't it? It's Spanish to me. So it kind of ticked.

It ticked the boring box. But it might not have ticked some of the other boxes. But hey, you can't fill all the boxes.

You can't fill every box up at the same time. Can't, you know? I don't know what that means anyway. I'm gonna go now.

I'll have to check up on the little bird. So take care of yourselves. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy.

Do something kind for yourself today. Lots of love. Bye.