1) The guy who actually brushed his teeth, with an electric toothbrush, with a hands free cellular phone headset on, while his computer was starting up, with me on the phone. He thought it was pretty funny. If I hadn't been so cranky yesterday morning, I might have been mildly amused, but we'd already spent 5 minutes trying to accomplish a simple task, and he kept jumping a step ahead so we had to start over. I'm running out of patience. There's a reason why I said I'd never do phone support again but somehow, here I am.
2) The guy who a) couldn't troubleshoot the connectivity issue he was calling about because someone else was on that phone line when he called, and b) couldn't find his system CDs. As he was searching for them, he put his toddler on the phone with me and said, "Talk to the nice lady". Gee, thanks. I'm scared of children. I don't know what to say to them. But I had to say something, because I didn't know if I was on speakerphone or not, and I don't want to get in trouble for not talking to a customer's baby. Eep. If the child had been slightly more lingual, I would have had him troubleshoot the computer.
As of April 6th, I'm working Sunday-Thursday, 11:30-8:30, which sucks in multiple ways. I am taking Sunday the 7th off, so I won't have a 1 day weekend during the schedule transition. They originally denied that time off request and I almost blew a gasket, but luckily it's been fixed. I need to not let it get to me, but I'm there 5 days a week, for 9 hours a day, which is pretty much the majority of the time that I'm not sleeping, so I'd prefer it not to suck.
3.24.2002
yay party
As usual, I was stressed about dealing with a bunch of strangers (hurray for social anxiety) and as usual I had a damn good time in spite of myself (hurray for beer and nice people). Rog hosted Dock's party, and did a great job of it. I brought way too much veggie chili, but people ate about half of it, so if I hadn't doubled the recipe, it would have been perfect. Rog's cats got into the leftover chili, so it ended up being dumped, but that's okay, because you know that you made damn good veggie chili if cats will eat it. People from work who showed up: Leslie, Sean, Joshua, Ben, Ty (briefly) and I feel like I'm missing someone. Apparently I'm being actively recruited for the next zombie hunt (I skipped the last one) and the zombie hunt folks are super nice and cool too. I got to meet one of Rog's cats, the other one hid from me. I had way too much beer (what's new?) and listened to great music because Elizabeth and other musical friends were there. I'm currently just lazing around and my critters are hanging out in the exotic territory known as "the porch" (though Darby keeps coming in to fuss at me). No haircut (and if that doesn't work, try this and it's on the last row, the first one on the left) yet, since after all, I'm 50% lazy.
3.23.2002
just kidding
I completely wimped out on the skirt thing. Don't expect to see me in a skirt any time soon. I decided that I should lose another couple pounds before attempting the leopard print velvet one I wanted to wear, anyway. I'm just excited that I managed to fit into a size 6 again, even if it was a little tight. I'm back in the usual Dickies work pants and blue camo t-shirt. Oh well, so much for being girlie.
friday at the carousel
I made it through another week, and celebrated by pretty much pounding beers at the Carousel last night. J. Dock was celebrating his birthday, and Josh (who happens to be a fellow isca-ite) came too. Sean didn't make it because he got stuck on a call until nine. The Carousel was more fun than it's been in a while, but they still close pretty damn early, so I got to bed at a decent hour, I think. I woke up at 6am and decided it would be a good idea to drink the last beer in the fridge (it wasn't) and then I went back to bed. At 10am, my brain decided it was time to get up so I made phone calls, took a bath, found a haircut that I think I like and decided that that was enough effort, it was time for a nap. Dock called and woke me up twice, Sean called and woke me up once, and finally around 3:30 I decided to get out of bed. Since then, I have gone grocery shopping and made chili, so I can veg for the next couple of hours before the chili party. I still haven't decided whether I'm wearing a skirt or not (don't faint).
In other fun news, apparently they're having a pizza war in my neighborhood. When I left for the store there was a Pizza Classics flyer on my door, and on all the other doors in sight. When I got back from the store, they had been removed and replaced with Texas Pizza, Pasta & More flyers. I wonder if they have to start going out later and later in an effort to get their flyers out there after the other guy...
3.19.2002
another monday down
Another Monday. I was busy all day, but at least that means my stats are on their way back up. I took 25 calls today, and that's more like my usual pre-education department call volume. It looks like I'm not mentoring this week, apparently they've gotten a bug up their butt about how many edu folks have been given mentoring duty and they "fixed" it. I'm bummed, I was enjoying mentoring, and I don't enjoy all that much about this job, really. On top of that, I got a service provider call rolled to me today, and I haven't been trained for that queue at all, so that was a shocker. Here's to hoping Tuesday is "normal".
For once, I'm not going to drink to excess to celebrate, because I have to go to work tomorrow. For that matter, I have to go in to work today. I forgot to do my mentoring evaluation sheet, and I should email the HR folks the questions I have about the health benefits before I forget. I'm not used to having 4 different health plans to choose from and I have no idea which one to pick. So what, exactly, am I doing to celebrate today? I'm depositing my first larger paycheck! Woo! At least that makes me feel lucky, if not more Irish.
Current reading material: The Plague by Albert Camus. You can't go wrong with a book that features a graphic description of a rat twitching and projectile-vomiting blood on page 8, and it only gets more disgusting from there. I may have to reconsider reading it on my lunch break, since I can only afford to lose about 5-10 more lbs.
3.16.2002
dejection: an ode [excerpt]
"A grief without pang, void, dark, and drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear--"
depression, anyone?
3.11.2002
cruelty is in the details
Some of you probably remember the Red Lobster ad parody I submitted to www.allyourbrand.org. I was reminded of this tonight when I saw yet another terrific ad from the folks at Red Lobster. This one features a guy mooning over a lobster in a tank, and they're playing all the lovely Hallmark moment music to indicate that he's in love. Once they're done with the live lobster, they switch to shots of people ripping into lobster meat, etc. Now, you can roll your eyes and call me a crazy vegetarian, but it's not just the meat ads that bug me. Okay, the current round of "A meal just isn't a meal without dead flesh" ads are bugging me, it's true, but I don't freak out and lecture people, I just let it slide. The thing is, it's more than the meat. There was a whole series of M&M ads where they had people biting chunks out of "living" animated characters, and it was supposed to be funny, and the Pepperidge Farm goldfish ad features a theme song with the lyrics, "the wholesome snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off". I don't think I'm completely unhinged, I realize that goldfish snacks and M&Ms are not alive, but it just seems odd to me that there's this much random cruelty in advertising. Watch a Teddy Grahams commercial some time. What are we teaching kids? Bite the heads off of things that smile?
3.8.2002
the usual work post
Yes, the usual. That means that there are more surprises. Well, just one. I'm mentoring next week. Luckily, I'm not mentoring education queues, since I'm way too new at that. There's going to be someone, possibly more than one someone, watching me take calls, or taking notes while I take calls, or taking calls while I take notes. My current manager is not the one who suggested me for this (though he said he would have) so it was one of the last two. It's amazing how little warning one gets. I'm not sure whether I'm just doing week 2 (which the email was labeled) or weeks 2 and 3, or whether this is actually week one of this class's mentor experience (since there are two classes that started around the same time), but it should be interesting and I kind of get off the phones, depending on which calls they can take. Either way, it looks like I might actually have to do an evaluation or something. I do well on the phones, but I'm a little nervous about helping someone else do well on the phones, even though I've trained people before. It's been a while. Also, I'm working OT on Sunday, and apparently they're putting us in the Tier 2 queues on weekends, so that should be just great. Just great. And my manager said tonight that I never seem to get stressed out. That would be because by the time I go to talk to him about it, I've had a cigarette and a few deep breaths and either gone into shock or accepted the inevitable. The thing about all this is that none of this change has been bad, but it's all so sudden, and all at once. I guess maybe it's teaching me to cope with change, but if I haven't learned to do that yet, I don't think I'm going to. A friend and coworker has started referring to me as Angel, as in "Apple's lil' Angel" and is predicting that I'll be his eighth manager (he's on #4 right now too). I would be surprised.
serendipity
Does anyone remember the Serendipity Books? There are a few more listed here. I used to love these when I was 6 or 7, when I ordered them through the Troll book company forms they handed out at school. They're sappy, and have a kind of hippie morality/innocence to them that I kind of miss. I bet they're still at Mom and Dad's someplace...
3.4.2002
never a dull moment
I certainly can't complain that my job is predictable. About two weeks ago, I got moved onto a new team with a new manager and moved to a new cube. That would be manager #3, and I've only been on the phones since October. Friday I found out I got badged. Today I found out I'm moving to the education department. For those keeping track, this makes manager #4 (though he was also manager #1, before he got moved to the education department). This was not completely unexpected, though, since I had let them know I was interested. I'm hoping they don't decide to physically move me again for a while, though. I get training tomorrow morning, so it looks like I won't be spending all that much time on the phones tomorrow, since I've got orientation, too. I have to go in 1.5 hours earlier for the training, and I get paid overtime. This looks like it's going to be a good week.
3.3.2002
i got the job
Effective Monday, I'm an official Apple employee. This means more money, good benefits, being able to login from home sometimes, all that good stuff. I know I'd already heard unofficially, but it was exciting to find out on Friday that it was real. I've been fighting a nasty cold for a good two weeks now, so the health benefits will definitely be appreciated. I'll be finding out about all that good stuff on Tuesday, and I'll get a couple hours off the phone, so that's always nice. A bunch of friends also got badged in this round, so that was really good news too. Hopefully more will be next time around.
In other news, I dyed my hair (again), it's a dark red (again) and I think it looks nice. I tried the Clairol Herbal Essences hair dye this time, we'll see if it sticks. The Feria washed out a lot. You would think with all the bleaching I've done in the past year that my hair would soak the stuff up like a sponge, but no such luck. Also, even though the red looks nice, I'm starting to get sick of it, so the next time around I may be trying blue or green again.
[New! You can now make comments on my blog posts. I just know I'm going to regret this...]
