Day 103: 13/4/13
I was wrecked this morning after the late night chatting to Laura. I'd woken up at half four aswell and couldn't go back to sleep for ages. As if I wasn't tired enough!
Amber was late again this morning. She did turn up for an hour yesterday and she met us on turf again today. Doug gave out to Chloe for letting Amber get away with that and letting her walk all over her all week, by not bothering to sell anything! Amber spends her time chatting to people and gets offered food and drink in a lot of houses so she just chills with the customers and doesn't bother selling much at all. She came home with two frozen fish the other evening- delighted with herself!! I don't know how people offer her so much stuff! Anyway, Doug ate Chloe while we were eating lunch and Malou and I were sitting there not knowing where to look! God help Chloe next week because I'm going to be gone and Andrew probably will aswell! She'll definitely be given out to!
We were in a really Rough area tody. Chloe and Doug were saying how great it would be as the people here don't know what's going on and it's easy to sign then up. It wasn't the case!! Most people that answered were sick of hearing about electricity and just had no interest. Other houses looked abandoned and like a dump but I think people lived there. You'd be wary of knocking on some doors!! That's the first time I felt like that! I passed one woman sitting on the side of the road with lots of bags, vomiting- a great sight!
Andrew put up a message early enough saying how he had just passed a house with a Xmas tree fully set up. He was wondering how lazy these people are!! Sure enough the next three doors I came to had a Christmas wreath on the door, an angel on the meter and cards in the window! I was beginning to wonder if it was actually Christmas!!
I made one sale anyway today. The people were Vietnamese and didn't have great English. The bill they had was more expensive so they understood that it would be cheaper to change and they were happy to do that. Just as the verification person answered the phone, the customer said something about already changing and I was afraid then that she was in her cooling off period with someone else as we can't sell her if she is. It went through vero anyway and everything seemed okay. I asked her afterwards what she had been trying to tell me and she said she now gets her bills from Energy Australia. She had been with Simply Energy and she hasn't gotten a bill from them in 6 months. She then got bills from Energy Australia addressed to a man who she has never heard of, but its her address. She didn't pay them because it isn't her but now they're saying they'll turn off the power. I couldn't figure it out! The only thing I can think of happening is that this man was signed up while outside her house or something. He had a foreign name too so perhaps someone signed him up without him knowing what was going on at all. Nothing surprises me! She said she never left Simply Energy but she hasn't gotten any other bills from them so someone has cancelled it! Hopefully it will be sorted now when they try to change over to Alinta! I don't know what's going on with the poor woman! I met another woman also today that was with energy Australia and then started getting bills from AGL- she obviously signed up without realising or something. She rang energy Australia to go back to them and they sent her out a letter welcoming her but she's still getting her bills from AGL!! Lots of dodgy things going on with bills in this area!!
I kept knocking for ages after that but couldn't seem to sell anything! We had been given a knock-off target but I don't think we reached it! There was no talk of them collecting us early! It was near 5 I when I was reknocking that I spotted Andrew. He was on a street near mine just sitting playing with the iPad. So I spent the last hour or so talking to him instead of knocking. I had all the doors knocked anyway, I was too tired to go reknocking again and I probably wasn't going to make another sale anyway. As the week stands its much of a muchness whether I'm on base wage or not so another sale wasn't vital! Andrew hadn't sold any so he had just given up!
We were collected by another team that were in the same area. All our team went in their van and Doug went off somewhere in our van. It shows how small both our teams are!! After dropping off the iPads and things I walked to the station with Malou and Andrew. Malou wasn't too happy when she heard that neither of us would be back on Monday!! Chloe knew I probably wouldn't be back but she didn't know anything about Andrew. On the train on the way home she texted him to say she was sorry he hadn't had a good week and that she hadn't been able to help him much as she was sick. She said she felt she had been a bad manager and shed help him out next week! So then he felt really bad and was wondering would he go back after all!!
After that I just went back to the hostel. It was already nearly 8 when I got back and got something to eat. I Skyped home then. I don't think they had any major news.