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I can't make this shit up.

So on Monday night, Rob said to me that we might drive together to work.

A little back story on this.  Rob and I work in the same business park about a half an hour away.  Recently, my office switched hours from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM with an hour lunch break to 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM with a half an hour lunch break.  It was something we all agreed on as employees to get an extra half an hour of our non work lives back.  This has been going on for about a month now I think and I love it because I get to sleep an extra half hour in the mornings.  So before the hours changed, Rob and I would frequently carpool.  However, since he usually wakes up with the sun and I tend to sleep in, we haven’t been carpooling a lot.

So on Monday night, when Rob said that, he also added that he might not even set his alarm, in hopes that he could sleep in with me.  With that in mind, I set my alarm an extra half an hour early just in case.  He was sleeping when I went to bed so I didn’t clear it with him, just did it.  How I usually work my alarm is to set it for a half an hour before I need to wake up and then snooze it until I can’t milk it any longer.

Tuesday morning rolled around and Rob was once again, up with the sun.  My alarm went off twice and I snoozed it both times before Rob came in and said he changed his mind, he was going to head in to work and we would take separate cars.  In my sleepy haze I had forgotten about setting the alarm a half an hour earlier and thought it odd that he couldn’t just wait another ten minutes for me to get in the shower and get dressed but didn’t question it.  I kissed him goodbye and fell into a light doze until my alarm went off again.

When it did, I grabbed my phone and checked my email for a few minutes.  This is my normal morning routine.  Snooze, sleep.  Snooze, sleep.  Snooze, play on phone until alarm goes off again and then get up and shower.

I did this as I normally do.  Got in the shower, got dressed and headed out the door to work.

I noted that the traffic was a bit different that morning, but didn’t think much about it.  Got into the work parking lot, and tried to open the front door but it was locked.

My supervisor Julie came running up looking at me like I had three heads and unlocked the door.  She said: “Yeah, I don’t normally unlock it until 20 minutes to 9.  I looked back at her like she had five heads and said: “Am I early?”  In my head I only had five minutes to clock in.  She said that I was indeed quite early and pointed to the clock on the wall behind my head that read 8:25 AM.

My mind did a quick spin around and I recapped the events of the morning.  I got up and played on my phone -that CLEARLY displayed the time.  I got in the shower, where we have a CD player that has a clock.  I checked that clock several times to see if I had time to shave my legs and NEVER NOTICED I was a half an hour earlier than I should be.  We have a talking clock that goes off every hour in the kitchen that we never reset after the time change.  While I was getting dressed, I heard it go off saying: “It’s nine o’clock AM” and I laughed to myself, saying out loud: “No it’s not you liar, it’s only eight.”

SO MANY instances that I should have noticed that the time was off, and  yet I didn’t notice a single one.

As I relayed this to Julie, she had a good chuckle but I was truly disturbed.  How in the world did I never notice?

Thankfully, she let me start early and leave at five, but I was seriously mystified at my own lack of attention to the time that morning.  Is this how dementia starts?  I know I am mentally disturbed, but is it going to be certifiable now?

I got home and relayed the story to Rob.  He laughed for a while and then made me feel better by pointing out that I have had the same schedule for ten years before it recently changed.  I was simply on auto pilot, having not remembered that I changed my alarm the night before.  I guess it makes sense, but damn.  I felt like a bit of a buffoon on Tuesday.

Anyhoo, have a great Holiday weekend everyone.

Who Does That??

I do promise a trip report eventually but since I’m already forgetting the sequence of events it might be a while.

In the meantime I’ll share what happened today at work.

On my morning break I had my breakfast that I had cooked up this weekend.  I was feeling particularly hungry so I microwaved a bag of rice.  You know the kind, they are in the aisle with all the different kinds of rices.  They are in a little pouch, precooked but don’t need to be refrigerated.  Zap ’em for 90 seconds and you are good to go.

I ate half the bag with my breakfast, folded it in in half and placed it in the fridge to eat the other half for lunch with my chicken and green beans.

At one, Paula and I headed off to Walgreen’s instead of walking(bad Kelly!) and picked up a couple of things. When we got back the lunch room was full and there was a line for the microwave but I started getting my stuff from the fridge to get in line.

I grabbed my chicken and green beans and reached for my rice but it wasn’t there. Hmmm…odd. I moved things around and looked behind items thinking someone must have just moved it. Nope. No where to be seen.

Well, maybe I had a brain fart and put it in the other fridge even though I NEVER put anything in that fridge. Checked that one and no sale.

I started to get vocal. It is not an unheard of thing to people eat other peoples food at my work. Unfortunately, it isn’t something that is exclusive to my place of employment. I have seen evidence of this happening at pretty much every job I have had in my adult life. I don’t understand it and I don’t approve of it and it’s kind of sad that I’ve grown to accept that it happens.

As I’m grumbling about how I can’t believe someone ate my rice people start asking me what is wrong. My response was met with a chorus of “NO WAY!” and “I don’t believe it!”

Finally someone said: “Check the trash! If they ate it they had to throw it away.” So I looked into the garbage and there it was, covered in coffee grounds with the RICE STILL IN IT!

It’s not that I approve of or condone eating someone else’s food at work but I guess if someone is STARVING and has no money or no food…but even then, ask someone! I have no problem sharing my food. But to just take someones food and throw it in the garbage? WTF????? It was neatly folded up and had only been cooked two hours prior. It was plain rice so it’s not like had a smell to it. Why would you do that? I don’t get it!

What did the rice do to you to make you want to throw it in the trash? Was it mocking you? Calling you names? Saying particularly bad things about your family members?

Seriously??

Ug.

When dealing with Customer Service…

I am in the customer service industry. Thankfully I am only in the customer service industry over the phone. I’ve done the face to face bit and there is nothing worse. At least I can mute the phone and give out a primal scream if the need should arise.
At any rate, over the last three years I’ve dealt with my share of mean and nasty customers. To be fair I have also had the pleasure of dealing with many funny and wonderful customers that put a smile on my face and make me realize that my job isn’t all that bad.
I thought I would put together some of my favorite gems that customers use…and by favorite I mean the things that you say that make me secretly laugh at you and then mock you once I have you off the phone.

So here is a sort of “what not to do when dealing with customer service” list:

When you are calling a corporation never accuse the person who answers the phone of doing something. Example: “You shipped my order to the wrong location!” “You overcharged me!” No, I can assure you that I did not do that. It’s very likely that I didn’t even take your order in the first place. I just get the pleasure of picking up the phone and getting yelled at for something I didn’t do. The same goes for referring to You People. In fact I would prefer being falsely accused than hearing the phrase You People. My people are from Ireland and I’m pretty sure they had nothing to do with your order either.

Do not use a term of endearment when referring to me. I am not your baby, sweetie, doll, hon or cutie pie. While I may be all of these things to my husband, I am NOT to you. I am a human being and deserve to be shown the same respect you would want someone to show your daughter or your mother.

I realize that you are angry when something has not gone your way. However, you should realize that my desire to help you resolve the situation gets greatly reduced when I am being berated and yelled at. I am fully aware that a trained monkey can do my job, but telling me that does not exactly make me want to bend over backwards to help you…and I don’t think the monkey would either.

In the same vein, swearing is NOT an option. I may cuss like a sailor in my every day life but I do not get paid enough to hear you cursing into my headset. The occasional “damn, I forgot to get my credit card.” aside, I will give you one warning and if you continue to swear at me I will disconnect the call. There is a fine line between being a good customer service representative and taking abuse and since all my calls are recorded, it only makes you look like an ass if you call back and try to get me in trouble.

Do you really think I am interested in hearing your jokes? I’m not. I will listen politely and give you a fake chuckle when you deliver the unfunny punchline but when we hang up I will make fun of you to my co-workers so I can have a real laugh at your expense. Since you fancy yourself a comedian, I don’t figure that you would mind.

Yes, we value our customers, but you are NOT any more important than any other customer. I’m sure in your world, you hold a lot of clout but in mine…not so much. Asking me if I know who I am talking to will result in me reading off your name and address from my computer screen, not make me bow and scrape because you are in fact “kind of a big deal.” If you were that big of a deal with our company, I can assure you that I, a lowly customer service representative would not be taking the phone call.

Do NOT try and engage me in a conversation about religion or politics. I am not being paid to discuss my views on such subjects and chances are, you wouldn’t agree with them anyway, so it’s best we just don’t go down that route. Telling me “God bless you.” if I sneeze is fine but asking me if I have accepted jesus christ as my personal savior is not.  Yes, I realize the economy is in the crapper but that has nothing to do with whether you want expedited shipping on your order or not.

We are not friends. My goal is to get you off the phone, hopefully satisfied with the transaction, as fast as possible. I do not need to know, nor do I care that your sister’s friend’s cousin’s hairdresser once visited Monterey and found it to be just lovely. I know what this story is…it is a gateway story and it will lead to harder and more powerful stories. It is best just to not tell any stories at all. If you don’t start, you don’t have to go through the pain of quitting cold turkey.

I realize that you are lonely but there is probably a reason your family stopped talking to you. You are boring. Now if you will excuse me I have to take another call. Have a wonderful day.

Romie’s ear doesn’t appear to be any better. The infection itself is but that ear filled with blood thing is just as full as ever. Rob took him back to the vet because we can’t stop him from shaking his head.  The doc said just keep doing what we are doing. The only other option would be for him to lance it and for it to bleed out over time all over the place, put Romie in a cone and that means that he can’t get in or  out of the doggie door. So we wait.


I got a disturbing message from K on my answering machine the weekend before last. It was after I had gone to bed and I didn’t even realize the message was there until Wednesday that week. It starts out with her crying and saying “Please [her son’s name] please!” and you can hear him yelling in the background. His voice gets  closer and then he finally takes the phone (I assume) and he yells  something that I can’t understand and the phone is banged into something  several times (I’m guessing the table) and then the line goes dead.

What. The. Fuck?????

Is that not scary? I have no idea what it means. She called me the other night while I was online and said she would get online so I set up my yahoo messenger and waited for a couple hours but she never came on.

I called her this weekend but didn’t get an answer. I’m not sure what the hell is going on there. I’m afraid to find out.


I thought I would get out of bill close this month being in training and all…yeah, should have known better. We have been released from training today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Everyone else is calling on meters but I am working on billing. Which I don’t mind in the least. I have no problem helping out U and R…there is however one person on my team, we’ll call him D, that I will be very upset if I end up staying late on Tues and Wed to clean up his work. I have checked his reports every day and he has done next to nothing. He’s had all month to clean it up like R does and I did when I had my own type, but he HASN’T! R said he has seen him over at his desk drawing tattoos and reading magazines. As if that isn’t bad enough, he is a smart ass and gets on my case like I don’t know anything. Hello? I’m still very new and I’m finally getting training but at least I know how to have a successful bill close with my reports!!!!! It’s called actually working all month long instead of sitting there with your thumb up your ass.

Right before I went into training I pulled D’s reports and was going to work them because I knew that we’d be stuck at end of month doing his work after hours if I didn’t. R told me not to. He told me that they are keeping a record of every ones daily reports and looking at what goes up and what goes down and supposedly he’s going to shoot himself in the foot by not doing anything. I don’t know about all that but if it doesn’t get recognized I’m gonna have a fit. R said he already talked to our manager about it so she is supposed to be keeping an eye on it.

Who knows? But you can bet you’ll be hearing a rip-roaring rant this week if I have to stay very late to work on his shit!

Whew. Now that that is out of the way…

The traffic after work has gotten so much worse. I can only imagine it is coming from the fact that we have hired so many more people but damn! It takes me about fifteen minutes to get from my building to the end of the street (this would probably equal to be an eighth of a mile). There are days when we are in training that our trainer lets us out five or ten minutes early and it is pure heaven! Zip-zip and I’m on my way! I’m hoping that once school lets out it will make a bit of a difference. I know it will on the way to work but I’m not sure about home.

Work Gripes

No updates for a while…sorry bout that. I’ve been writing them in my head at work, but by the time I get home, all I want to do is crash out. It’s a good thing though. It means that my job is challenging me and making me want to do my best. Last week was bill close, so the week went by very fast.

We stayed until eight on Friday even though my department had our reports clean by noon. We had to stay to help out the lazy–oh I mean not so fortunate billers. I have no problem with staying to help; I am a total team player. However when I watch people stand around talking every time our supervisors go into a meeting instead of doing their work ESPECIALLY when it’s bill close week, it makes me kinda angry.

Oh well, so this week is the slow week, but it is also a week of changes. Oh yes. They change shit here more often than they ever did at my old job.

We were told mid month that our supervisors would be going away. Some will take management positions; some will take senior specialist jobs. Either way it won’t take place for a couple of months. In the mean time, they decided to shake us all up and give us new marketplaces and new supervisors. This was set to happen today, but of course it hasn’t really.

I’ve barely met my new sup and our reports haven’t changed so we basically had very little to do. And I’m sure my new sup is a nice person but I am going to miss the hell out of M. She was the coolest. Loud obnoxious and fun, just like I like it. She is also incredible at what she does which, I’m sure is part of the reason for the moves. I don’t want to toot my own horn but our team under M has kicked ass! A lot of the other teams, yeah not so much with the asskicking. So I know the change has to happen for the good of the whole billing team blah blah blah, but I don’t have to like it!

I got recognized today in an email. Three of us from my team did. R, P and I and two other folks for our great report cleaning on our bill close. It made me feel especially good because I still haven’t had any formal training. Work has pretty much been my world lately so I don’t have much else to report.

Oh! The dog has a new talent! 🙂 He has proper etiquette for eating edamame. For those of you that don’t know what that is (because I didn’t until we took an Asian cooking class), it’s these tasty little soy beans in a pod. You basically squeeze them out of the pod with or without salt and you don’t eat the pod. Well Rob and I had some on Sunday and there were some left over on the stove. Rob said something smartass (big shock) so I grabbed one and threw it at him. It bounced off his arm and hit the floor. We laughed and each assumed the dog would eat it up whole.

About a half an hour later I heard Rob in the kitchen laughing. I walked out and saw him staring at the empty pod halves on the floor. He asked me why I would do that, and I said I didn’t. We both looked over at the dog who stared back at us with his usual “Duh.” expression.

Keep in mind that this is a dog that will eat ANYTHING. He’s ingested a plastic string cheese wrapper before because there was a tiny piece of cheese left in it. Rob grabbed another bean and tossed at the dog. The dog gobbled it up and Rob and I shrugged assuming that we were delusional. The next thing we know three bright green soy beans shoot out of Romie’s mouth followed by the empty pod halves. He then greedily ate the beans, nosed away the pod and looked at us for more.

I’m sure it really is a “you had to be there moment” but Rob and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world!! We gleefully fed him the rest of the edemame while tears of laughter leaked down our cheeks. Yeah, I know. We need hobbies.

Overtime

My first paycheck from my new job will have overtime on it! This may not seem like a big deal to you but when you come from working where I worked before, it is. At my old job, even if you worked OT you couldn’t claim it. Big nono.
Yesterday was end of month at the new job so we had to get everything squared away and make sure all the invoices would go out. It was kind of hard for me since I still have no official training and have only picked up on a couple of things here and there. But they gave me enough work to keep me busy until seven at night. My very first ten hour work day. Heh. My sup actually told me I could go home around six or so and I said that if there was more stuff that I could help with than I would so she loaded me up. 🙂
I certainly didn’t mind since finishing last night meant I didn’t have to go into work today.
I have one complaint about my new office building. The bathrooms are numerous but they all only have three stalls. That’s it. In a facility that houses 500 employees, the bathrooms have three stalls. It’s like Grand Central Fucking Station in there!
I am the type of person that when I have to go, I have to GO. I am all about the courteously flush and all that but these toilets have zero water pressure. You have to flush two or three times just to get the toilet paper to flush down sometimes. So every time I go in to do my business there are people in there or they walk in right after I get in there. I hate it. But I guess if that’s my only complaint so far it’s not too shabby.
I know I’ve gushed about the break room before but I discovered that one of the vending machines is for frozen foods. Frozen dinners, ice cream bars…YUMMY! And they have this neat little hot cocoa machine that you just press a button and you have a piping hot cup. Yeah, so I’ve led a sheltered life but this to me is very cool.
So overall so far the job is good. The people I am finding are a bit indifferent. I smile. It’s what I do. If I pass you in the hallway, even if I don’t know you, I will smile at you and maybe say hello. It’s in my nature. A lot of the people in my new office don’t smile. They just stare blankly at me when I walk by them and smile at them. It kind of creeps me out. I mean, how much of an effort does it take to smile? *sigh*
I’ve been managing to get to work on time every morning despite the horrific traffic that I now face. It’s been kicking my ass at night though. I get home and just want to crawl into bed at six thirty. I am the kind of person that will sleep an entire weekend away if you let me so this getting up at six thirty in the morning shit is for the birds. I do it though. Rob said last night that he was very impressed and proud of me that I have been doing this.
“It’s almost like this job is making you…responsible!”
Very funny wiseguy.
If you don’t know me…let me fill you in. I am the Queen of late. I was born two weeks late and my mom said it set the pattern for the rest of my life. I worked in my former job for four years and was probably on time a handful of times. The new job has a very strict policy on tardiness. It’s going to take some getting used to but I will. I have to. I really like this job and I want to stay there.

Sooooooo….I started the new job. I’m not sure where to begin.

I go there on time (if you know me at all, you know this is a major feat for me), and  must have looked very lost as a gentleman approached me and asked if I was a new hire. I said yes and he directed me towards a meeting room.

I spotted Kat and DD right away and scurried over to them to sit down. DD told me she had been worried since “we are the queens of being late”, but we both managed to be on time.

We were handed folders and paperwork that needed to be filled out. There were about fifteen of us in there I think…maybe more. As we filled them out we broke off in groups of four to get our ID badges. Already it is quite a switch from my old job where I didn’t get a picture badge for like four or five months. After a horrid picture we went back to the room and continued to fill out paperwork while everyone else got to get their badges.

I was a little concerned initially that after the trainer I had at my old job I would find the trainers to be stuffy, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. There were four of them. G, C, K and R. G was the head of the trainers and led most of the training that day. They were all very funny and they joked with each other constantly. You could totally tell they love what they do and enjoy people who are a little chilled out and not so rigid about the whole “new job” thing. It was nice.

They briefed us on the “mission” of the company and all that good stuff for about an hour and then we played “bingo”. It was basically a break-the-ice-and-get-to-know-you game. The bingo sheet consisted of questions like: “Who has size 6 feet?” or “Who is left handed?” That sort of thing. We had to go around to all the other new hires and ask them the questions and then write their name down on the square. Once we had them all filled out then we got “bingo”. It was actually fun. There were only two people that admitted to snoring (that was one of the questions) and I was one of them. 🙂 After we were all done we went around the bingo board and we all shouted out the names to the questions and if there was a story behind it, it was told. It was quite fun.

We took a fifteen minute break and then it was back to the training. They covered the list of the higher ups and managers and the departments and then we got a tour of the place. It’s really a lot larger than I thought it would be. The break room was enormous!!!! They have like six or seven vending machines. One for sandwiches, one that had things like hot pockets and ramen noodles (of all things!), one for bottled soda, juice and milk, one for canned soda, one for snacks and one that I cannot remember what was in it. Two industrial sized fridges, seven microwaves and all sorts of other gadgets and gizmos.

The place is a bit of a maze but I am starting to get used to it now.

After the tour we broke for lunch. Kat, DD, our new friend Mel and I all went to a Mexican place nearby and got a bite to eat.

Back at the office we switched meeting rooms and went through some more training. I think they saw after an hour or so that we were going a little stir crazy because they said we should play another game.

We played “hot potato” but with a koosh ball instead. Basically we picked a topic and then had 30 seconds to name an example of the topic and pass the ball to the next person. The person holding the koosh when “time” was called was out. DD whined that she didn’t know anything so she didn’t want to play and we all laughed.

The topics ranged from fruit to movie stars. I was called out on the president’s category. I froze when I was told my guess had already been said.

The last two came down to ID and DD. The category was actors and actresses and DD got a major case of the giggles when she couldn’t guess anymore and blurted out “EMILIO ESTEVES!!!!” I thought for sure she was going to lose because she couldn’t stop laughing but she managed to pull out a victory! YAY!

Of course the trainers started to joke with her that there was clearly an Emilio Esteves story that we hadn’t heard yet. DD told me later that the real reason she got the giggles was because in her mind she was thinking of Ally Sheedy and she just couldn’t bring herself to say it. 😀

Anyway she won this calculator thingie that opened and folded itself up automatically, a little spiny jelly animal and a tiny eraser.

By the end of the day I was just soooo tired. I guess all those days of doing nothing but surf the net really didn’t prepare me for an eight hour day again.

My training class was comprised mostly of one department. There were only three of us not going in said dept; DD, another guy and I, all of us in a different one. So today the three of us sat in our own departments and watched others do their job while the others trained for their own department.

They stuck me with a guy that really wasn’t into training me or anyone. He had taken Monday off and was behind in his work and he clearly didn’t want to be slowed down by having to teach someone. So I watched him for an hour or so just do his work with out much explanation.

He would get up and his cube neighbor Pat would talk to me. She was fairly new too. Just out of training and she wanted to let me know that she was there if I needed her. She told me that when she first came out of training and even before, no one would even speak to her. She made a huge effort to try and help me.

Finally DD grabbed me for a smoke and when I came back the guy I was training with wasn’t at his desk. Pat went over to the sup and when she came back she said: “Kelly you can sit with me. I don’t know it all but I will try and explain it as best I can.” So that is how I spent the rest of the day before the HR meeting.

My boss came along and assigned me a desk so the rest of the time was spent clearing out this old person’s desk. Poor Pat was saddled with most of that.

I went to lunch with Kat, DD, and Mel again and then we went for our H/R meeting. It was long but the HR lady was super cool and nice. We were all itching to get out of there and she let us out early after she covered the class.

So far I think it is going to be a good experience…and I hope to prove myself right. Wish me luck!

About Me

 

I am a 50 something married woman living in California.
I enjoy music and traveling, watching crap movies, snuggling with my two adorable dogs and trying to be a good person.

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