91Èȱ¬

So many people have been asking how I'm getting on in Fife. It's kind of you all to care but I'm afraid you're going to be sorry you asked. Here's a muckle moan! (I won't bother with photos; I don't want to offend you with just how ugly this place is)

I made the colossal mistake of renting the house without seeing it. My boyfriend was in the area and I asked him to have a look. He told me it was fine and there was next to nothing else in Fife so like a fool I took it (he was only trying to help). So I'm privately renting an ex-local authority house on a massive estate. The walls are wafer thin so I can hear the neighbour’s bathroom habits and the drunks in the street all hours. Who has a drunken fight at 4.30am on a Tuesday morning? I was too confused that someone was shouting drunkenly first thing in the morning to be scared! Unlike most nights where the noise of people outside and shouting from either side scares me ridged. The walls are so thin I can't tell if it's someones walking about in my kitchen or the next house. For the first few days every time I heard someone doing the toilet (and I can hear people pooing!) I had to go and look. So far I haven't caught anyone having a whizz in my loo but I'm still not conviced I live next door to a horse, 'cause that's what it sounds like! I'm walking around constantly with the poker in my hand and there's not a fire in the house! It's never quiet; I can always hear someone’s telly or screaming at each other. I thought someone was being murdered a couple of evenings ago.

However despite having absolutely no sound proofing and massive picture windows so I have a lovely view of the flats and more to the point, they can see right in, The place is like an OVEN! No amount of fiddling with the heating controls work and I can't switch it off! Apart from early evening and 3am when it's freezing, it's unbearably hot the rest of the time. Which makes battling with the washing machine all he more infuriating. First it was leaking, now it won't drain and I can't pull it out to try to fix it! I just haven't got the muscles and the boyfriend isn't home for another two months if he hasn't binned me by then for being such a torn faced besom.

The only community activity seems to be hanging over the balcony of the flats next to the house with a fag, screaming abuse at the kids who perpetually batter a football off the garage doors. I presume these kids belong to the people in the flats but it's hard to make out the message hidden in the expletives. There are no posters anywhere for plays or fetes or gala days or anything! It is the summer holidays?

I tried smiling and saying hello to the neighbours. They stared at me then started sniggering to each other, nice. The fridge in the corner shop is full of special brew and the service is frosty to say the least.

I keep the revolting plastic blinds down so I don't have to see where I am.

I tried to sit out in the sun this morning but the woman next door sits on a bench looking into my garden and started asking really nosey questions so I went in. I say my garden, there's no fence and her bit is higher than mine and happily walkes down the steps and walks through my bit so maybe it's shared. That's the garden out of bounds then.

Then there's the job that I walked out of last Tuesday. I only started on Monday! The big boss was running the weeklong training course. The Sales Manager, not this guy, had interviewed me, so his language came as a shock. He couldn't manage a whole sentence without using the F word and just as we were starting to get used to that he threw a couple of C words in! He started a lot of diatribes with, "I'm not being sexist / racist / anti-puff but..." This was supposed to be a Business-to-Business sales course!

We were in the training room from 9.30am to 6pm every day without any breaks; we got a sandwich and a can of coke at lunchtime while we watched a presentation. At 6pm on Tuesday night he came in and threw our contracts of employment in front of us. Told us he'd signed them and to give them a quick read through, sign them and hand them back. First thing I noticed was the holidays, which we were told and had been advertised, as 25 days, were actually 20 days INCLUDING statutory holidays! So we'd only have 12 days to choose outside Christmas and bank holidays etc! The girl I was training with then pointed out they had our place of work as the office, it's supposed to be from home as it's a field sales position. This would mean having to pay for and be taxed on every 120 miles or so of every days journeys! The notice period was 1 month from me but 1 week from the company, no sick leave above statutory ever and other arbitrary nonsense. The car was supposed to be a Toyota Avensis, I got given.... go on guess.... yes, a Skoda! There was no pension scheme apart from a stakeholder thing and no health care despite the job being advertised as, " Excellent benefits package." Ha! What benefits? The best bit was when he came back and after an hour of arguing agreed to change the holidays although even then he's only go to 25, 5 of which we had to take for Christmas Day etc! I was still far from happy but was thinking, look it's an income until I can find something else, just put up for now, it might turn out ok. I didn't want to admit to myself that I'd left my lovely shop and island to live in a dump and work in a company with a sweatshop mentality.

So he asks us if there's anything else about the contract we have a problem with... We said no, as long as the changes we agreed are put in writing. He shuffles a bit then says, "So you're clear about working a month in arrears? I smell another rat... So I clarify by saying, " Yes, we started work on the 2nd of July so we get paid at the end of July." ..... "Nope, you get paid at the end of August..." Hence another argument. He thought he could just sit on a month of my wages, indefinitely and keep the interest! Eventually he said he's get us paid at the end of the month. He also said we were the only people to complain. Either that's nonsense or he's employed a complete bunch of Muppets!

I gave the girl who was training with me a lift back to her hotel. She seemed to think we'd won some great victory! I felt like I'd been totally ripped off! I knew I couldn't work for a company who behaves like that and couldn't send customers for training with a man who's going to F & C at them! On top of this a conversation came back to me from the interview. The Sales Manager had asked me how close I was to the agency that had organised the interview. When I asked what he meant he'd muttered that he wasn't very happy with them. I said he should take it up with them. He replied he might tell them he was making me a lower offer but the offer made to me that day would stand at which point I said I wasn't lying to the agency! He instantly said no, no, just a misunderstanding we'll just leave the offer as it is.

So I asked the girl I was training with and she said that she'd had the same thing and she's agreed to tell the agency she was getting £5K less and so had everyone else!

The next morning I rang the agency on the way into work and explained my concerns. I picked my up colleague up at the usual time and went to work on time. We got left hanging around as usual then just as I was about to go and leave my car key at reception the bosses wife came in. The girl I was training with was sent off to look at something and the bosses wife said her husband had asked her to speak to me about my attitude the day before. I said yes, I'd been waiting to speak to her husband. I wasn't happy and had made the decision to leave and handed her the car key back. She then asked, " What the F is your problem?" Charming! I started to explain that I felt the package offered by the agency and at the interview was misleading. She jumped up and yelled in my face, " Are you calling my husband a F'ing liar you B!" I was horrified! I said I didn't see any point in this conversation, I was leaving. She sneered, " If you're no intelligent enough to understand the F'ing contract you're no F'ing intelligent enough to work here, get the F outa the building!" Bizarre! She continued her filth as she marched ahead of me down the stairs and past the office where everyone was staring. Just as well she couldn't see that I'd started to laugh in amazement! As she slammed the door open she started to make threats in my face. I pushed her hand out of the way, walked past her and jumped in my friends’ car that was waiting outside. She turned and gaped, oh, dear god who was that? What a fishwife ( I would like to point out that this was my friends words, I know many fishermens wives and none of them would conduct thenselves so pitifully)! And to think they can't work out why their efforts to take their business upmarket are failing? They're dragging a good concept right into the gutter with them.

So I've spent the week sitting in that house, scared out of my wits at every noise, applying for every job in the paper. I've got an interview tomorrow lunchtime. Wish me luck? If I get a job I can enjoy and get my teeth into things might look brighter?

I've hardly been out because I'm scared, there's no privacy in the back garden and when I do nip out to the supermarket (no village shops with local fresh produce here) I have to drive back with it getting drearier and pass the boarded up shops, even the ones that are open have metal grills over the windows. Grey, rundown buildings, grimmer and grimmer as I get closer to "home", I'm close to tears by the time I put the key in the lock.

People write books and make films and programmes about being deserted on islands. I had wonderful friends, a great social life and a business I loved in a thriving community on a beautiful friendly welcoming island where people pass the time of day in the street. It's Kildonan Fun Week and the Viking Longship is back in the water on Arran!

I've never, ever felt as alone, deserted and trapped as I do tonight on the mainland.