Confessions of a One-Track Mind

As Kat used to say, "I don't know whether I've been shot at and missed or shit at and hit"...although given the number of times I was up during the night, and the reason, I'm inclined to suspect the latter. Ugh.

And because of said nocturnal interruptions, I apparently turned my alarm OFF instead of hitting 'snooze'...woke at noon. made a dash for the computer, was reassured by Tigger that I was okay, managed two hours and logged out, still feeling bloated and headachy.

I'm also hungry, although I'm not sure I *should* eat right now, and I don't feel particularly motivated to cook.

Maybe instead of lying in bed feeling wretched, I'll plug in a movie. I finally got around to hooking up the speakers that go with my new desktop (because the new Iron Man trailer just wasn't cutting it as a silent movie) and whoa! THAT'S what I call a sound system!

Maybe some crackers? I really hope this is just a passing bug; Friday is Mb's birthday, and we're planning a canasta get-together at her place. (This is a big deal, because it's always been at J's. But these days, TRT and her SO are living there---in the living room---and the last couple of games have not gone well. So, change of venue to ensure the birthday girl has a good time.) The plan calls for me staying til Sunday, doing some baking and catching up on DVR stuff. I'm looking forward to all these events.

Crackers, definitely.

TTFN.

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Had an excellent day mining for leads--I more than doubled my spreadsheet, and found several directories to give to Dolly for future prospecting. I stumbled on a way to find more listings, and it really paid off. I got in a full 25 hour week (the max I can work) and am off to Mb's shortly.

I hope you all have a great weekend, I'll be back Sundayish (or Monday after the food bank---it remains to be seen!).

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Today, I completed my first five hour workday (and it only took me seven hours to do it). Had a really productive day, tho'---didn't have any meetings to interrupt my focus. Stamina? Working on it...it's getting better.

Tomorrow, MarketingExec is going to pick me up and we'll go to the library for our previously scheduled training. It isn't ideal, but there is *no* bus route that goes near the library, which I find shocking. (Nearest stop to it is over a mile away AND in a really seedy neighborhood.)

It's amazing how my back stopped hurting quite so much when I closed out of the last work-related window and Opened up MY stuff. I've got a couple WIPs on my desktop...it never fails to surprise me how I get MORE productive the more I have going on in the rest of my life!

Dinner sounds like a good idea, too.

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God, if I have any credit with you at all, any good kharma in the bank, PLEASE let me get the job I just turned in a resume for. I don't care that it's in Satellite Beach, because it's that OMG juicy. It's more than just phones, it sounds like it might actually be a career instead of just a job, I'm not going to go into detail because it's kinda pointless unless I get it, but---PRAY FOR ME!!! Not just becaue I need the money, but because this is a job that actually sounds stimulating.


( Would you give this woman a job? )

One of the beneficial side-effects of the call center job (aside from the upgrading of my wardrobe) was getting over my Fear. When I started, I got physically nauseous when I thought about the commute. I'd start getting queasy about noon when I had to go in, and I'd go out into the parking lot at 11:40 (after a quick use of the restroom) and hyperventilate. Gradually, that wore off. There were occasional close calls, but after going back and forth for months on end, in all kinds of weather, the terror eventually left me. Churchill was right; now, from a distance, I remember how paralyzing the fear was, how every car that whooshed past me made me catch my breath, how sure I was that every car I saw was being driven by some reckless idiot who was going to try to kill me. I remember it---distantly. I don't feel it anymore.

All good things must come to an end. I didn't particularly want my job to come to an end---it was the best phone job I've had---but they decided to persecute me for my handle time, saying I needed to have a shorter call time. Never mind that my sales numbers were excellent, or that I regularly got customer compliments. Nope, handle time was too high, bye-bye.

The timing was good, I have to say that, because within a matter of weeks, GK and I were informed that Kat's cancer had gotten more aggressive. I was needed to liase with the doctor's office, as she was also showing signs of dementia...she had been exhibiting aphasia for a while, but chalked it up to side effects from her chemo. It was heart-breaking, watching her decline. Her younger son got married in October, and we didn't think to oversee her packing, so she ended up with the clothes she was wearing and the suit for the wedding and nothing else. The night before she left for Texas to visit her 96-year old mother in december, I went over and packed for her...only to find out from GK, who flew in and met her plane and drove her to G'ma's, that Kat had repacked my packing. *sigh*

Not the greatest year I've ever had, that's for sure.


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Still doing medical billing...working there had its moments. Every Friday morning, there was an office meeting. And if you came in for it, you could take an hour lunch instead of a half-hour, so I missed very few office meetings. It was especially nice on alternate Fridays---payday!---because we were a short drive from a WalMart, where I could do some speed spending, as I called it.

There was an office Christmas party every year...I was on the planning committee one time, and it was trickier than you'd think. For starters, the place would have to be big enough for 30-35 people, AND it had to serve alcohol AND not be too far off the beaten track. I personally would've been fine without the booze, but a bunch of those gals, the way they whined at the thought, you'd think they were being deprived of air.

There was the usual Secret Santa nonsense, and decorating the office---although not to the extent that they did for Halloween. (One of the supervisors, upon viewing the cobwebs, jack o'lanterns and skeletons one year pronounced that "It looks like Hallowween threw up in here.")

I mentioned the costume contest---there was also a decorating contest, in which the building was divided into sections, and each section did their own mini "haunted house" schtick. There were dungeons, insane asylums, weird zoos, and my own personal favorite---the Mothership. One of the gals got an alien mask and voice synthesizer, there were star charts and alien lifeform specimens---doll parts in mason jars covers with green shampoo (thriftily reused by the gal who brought it in). I was the trailer park abductee, and I had a little set piece about how "I thought I heard raccoons out by the garbage pails, and I ran out, and there it was! Just a-hoverin' and a-spinnin'! And then they beamed me up, and they probed me!* And I had lunch with Elvis---fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches!" I was in a nightgown and fuzzy leopard print slippers and had my hair up---I had the part down to a tee, it was a blast.

While the social part was fun, not everyone was suited for the rest of it. We had people who'd start, leave for lunch and not come back. Or not come back for Day Two. I wish I had a dollar for every broad that didn't last out the first 90 days, I'd have enough money to fill my gas tank and then some.

The location was good: It was near enough that on more than one occasion, I woke up with less than a half-hour before I had to be to work, slithered into my clothes and had time to hit S'leven on the way in. (It helped that you weren't officially late unless it was more than 15 minutes past your start time. I wish everywhere was that civilized.) It was also a short block from a nice used bookstore (since closed), several cafes, and a full-service gas station---THAT was awesome, but the guy who ran it retired some months before my termination.

Personal life...church, basically. A little visiting with friends on weekends. I was still phobic about driving in bad weather, after dark, too far from home---it helped when I got new glasses---my old prescription was "off" enough that between that and my less than stellar night vision (no pun intended), it added to my anxieties.

Big shockeroo---one morning, Mb informed me that HWSNBN had gotten married. Small, private affair, a few close friends...what bugged the crap out of me (aside from the fact that of course he wasn't supposed to bounce back, he was supposed to pine for me and realize what a shithead he'd been), was the fact that I ended up hearing about this marriage from like, six or eight mutual friends before he deigned to tell me. And in fact, he and she showed up on my doorstep one Saturday morning, no warning at all, and I gave him shit about that. (She was all, "You didn't tell her? What do you mean, you didn't tell her?", which shows that she's got some class, regardless of who she's married to.) What the hell, better her than me.

Stay tuned.

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* Which was why I about doubled up and peed myself at the frat boy's tale in "Tall Tales". (SPN, Season 2.)

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Gimme a break. Okay, for starters, the Melbourne segment was the only part I'm qualified to comment on (although the rest was certainly enlightening). From the entrance to the breakroom and everything in between, I could pretty much tell you where they were standing to take every shot.

I was wondering how they were going to pass him off as a CSR, because you have to be really proficient in five or six different programs to work that job, and basic training takes a week. Instead, they put him on E-Team (Escalations, or "I want to talk to your supervisor."), which I've never actually done, but I could've told him that tentative is NEVER the right answer. Grovel early, grovel often! The first guy he sat with looked familiar, but not anyone I knew personally. They were in a different vertical (department), sports, which was at the far side of the building from where I worked in apparel. The scene in the breakroom amused me; I spent so many hours in that breakroom, it probably adds up to weeks---but the sound on the TVs was turned down---usually it's blasting!

The second rep he sat with, I didn't know her either, but damn! I'm torn between feeling sorry for her---one bad call and all of American gets to see her getting chewed out for it---and being pissed that I worked my ass off as a CSR and gave terrific service for them and I got canned for "taking too long". Kind of ironic, since he got fired for the same thing when he worked as a packer!

The problem that touched off the call with the fireworks, IE credit after the fact on a sale item, is standard practice, and always has been. There is NO WAY to make the computer change the regular price on an item back to the sale price. Unless he creates some kind of brilliant new work-around, that's how it's always going to be, too bad, so sad, but every caller thinks the universe revolves around them...the news that it *doesn't* has to be broken firmly, but more gently than she did. So they "retrained" her and now she no longer works for the company? Uh-huh. Cheer up, honey. Misery has company.

All in all, I still don't think he got as close a look at the hardest job out there, but it raised his awareness a little, and a few people directly benefited from it. Good for them.
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According to Yahoo News, "The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits dropped last week, and the number of people remaining on the rolls also fell, evidence that layoffs have eased."

Yeah, right. Leave it to me to buck a trend like that.

Still no answer about my benefits, although I got a lovely card from socialhermit with polar bears and a president. Thanks, honey!

I'm officially terminated. I've been expecting it for the past couple of weeks; I'm just glad to finally have it over with.

Come on, ask me what I wore.

Nothing has changed on the job front. AI has given me some food for thought about how to handle the exit interview when it comes, which I'm plotting to defer until next week. Meanwhile, please continue to think good thoughts for me, but I'm really burned out on the subject.

I stayed home today---at least this way I know I'll get paid for that much of my personal time!---and slept, a lot. Usual overnight, 3:30-11:30. Got up, dragged around, called out of work, napped again for an hour. Got up for a cold drink, then slept for a couple more. I don't feel sick, aside from leaving my a/c'ed bedroom in the middle of the day, just so tired I had to lie down. I fell asleep with my glasses on and a book facedown on my chest....

Got a little more written (longhand) on the Jericho WIP. Of all the stalled stuff I have in the works, I don't know why that one seems to be getting the most attention. It's two obscure characters and an OFC in an adventure set after the chronology of a dead cult series. Although it's one of those rare things where I could theoretically change the names and have it stand alone with the premise of a post-apocalyptic western.

It's the middle of the night and still 84F. And another six weeks before I/we can expect any substantial relief. Guh, Florida.

I'm up early because I have to be at work at 10. For training, according to my schedule, but I called yesterday and got my numbers from Sweetie Boss (Current Boss was out), and I'll fall over if they keep me. It was NOT a good week, and they already extended me once. I imagine I'll get herded into HR five minutes after I show up...it's a waste of two gallons of gas, going and coming, but what can you do?

On the off-chance that I do get to attend training, I have on a black and white skirt with an Art Nouveau-ish pattern, a sleeveless, solid light blue button-up shirt with ruching at the bust and two necklaces---blue beads and pearls. Let them say whatever they want about my call handle time, they can't bitch about my sales or how I present myself.

Got to go, the traffic's sure to be a bitch....

Saturday was...odd. I detoured to Fashion Bug before work to see if they still had a dress I'd been fancying. No, but who should I bump into but AI. Brief tandem shopping followed.

Work...nobody too horrible, but I found out that my A/C angel had been fired on Wednesday. Exchanged email addys with a couple folks "just in case". My last call of the night---and possibly my career, who knows?---was fittingly from Trendicrap. I say fittingly, because I know full well that I've handled more calls for them than anyone else. Driving home, I kept wondering if I was ever going to have to do that long midnight drive again.

Sunday...church featured a special guest appearance from ang5fam and an interesting talk on personal safety by StormValkrie. She also gave me a brief but blissful backrub. Later at SUPPER club, she and AI and CapeGypsy elected themselves my party organizers. Local f'list may be getting email invites, so keep an eye out.

It's going to be tea-partyish, and the theme is "I Feel Pretty"...which can mean whatever you want it to mean. Whatever makes YOU feel pretty---your "good" jewelery, the outfit you got for that "special" occasion and haven't worn since, a hair experiment, sparkly nail polish---just because I'm contemplating a new hat for the occasion, doesn't compel you to don one, although you're certainly welcome to.

Today I've been out of it...queasy, back and forth to the can, took an afternoon nap and still feel icky. And my bedroom door has decided to sag on the bottom hinge, and I've got it roughly knocked back together, but hurt my shoulder doing it.

I have tomorrow off and go in early Wednesday, where I will either have Posh Brits training, or get hauled into HR. At this point, I'm hoping for HR. I'm over all this run-around, and I want to get off the merry-go-round for a while. I'm so knotted up with stress, it's no wonder I'm always stiff and sore.

Haven't done shopping yet or fully gassed up the car, because if I don't have to worry about running back and forth to Melbourne, what's in there will last me for a while. And if I'm not going to work every day, I can stock something other than canned soup.

I just want this over with....

I still don't have word from HR as to what's happening with my job. I'm supposed to find out tomorrow. Major thanks to everyone who's offered prayers and support!

My muffler started dragging as I left the library yesterday to go to work---had to get an emergency fix on that---third time I've had that done! That's the trouble with having an ancient car, it's always something.

The Fluevogs have arrived! The image online looked more grey than black, but they are black, and lovely, and beautifully package with pretty aqua tissue paper in the box with a dustbag and a personalized card signed by John Fluevog himself (which I've already framed). *sigh* If they were pretty in the picture, they're even prettier in person.

My time on the computer is about to run out, but hopefully I can get the cable people paid on Friday and have it back on in the next 48 hours or so.

I'm on my way to work to find out whether or not I still have a job. Cranberry red shirt, black and white polka-dot skirt, sequinned ruby slippers. Colorful and brave, at least that's the idea.

I'm at the library, and I need to hit the road like, now, so I don't have time to answer any of y'all's encouraging emails. Thanks.

Wish me luck.

In my professional opinion, the economy is recovering. Last year, back-to-school shopping was very subdued (and everyone was demanding free shipping). This year, they're in there spending and there's less nickel-and-diming. My sales have been excellent over the last few days (Parts of Louisiana start school the first week in August.) and I think I may get the highest average-sales-per-call next week, too. I'm averaging about 4 items per call, which may not sound like much, but it may help save my ass....

Most of it is Trendicrap, which does a booming business in uniform wear. To help boost the dollar amounts, I've had a few sales from Butch Boots and Old Baggage and the ubiquitous Executroids (whom I hate, loathe, despise and abominate. Those people are crazy. I'm still getting over the $200 ice bucket!). I never thought I would miss Geezer Britches; compaired to some of the cretins from Executroids, the GB callers are almost rational.

It's good being back getting LeSnobbi, though. Their fall collection made me swoon a couple of times, and they're supposedly going to be having a huge sale in a few weeks. *le sigh* With my luck, it'll be the week between paydays.

I didn't sleep well; a well-padded brick is still a brick. Woke with my shoulders screaming, though they've settled down some.

The C's gave me an unexpected treat: a gift card to Outback. I plan to save it for my birthday week---I'll go treat myself to a rack of lamb. I get lamb maybe twice a year---even less often than salmon---and Outback does it with a really awesome dipping sauce. Yes, I *will* go alone: I'm told that when I commune with lamb, it sounds fairly obscene, so it's better that I not make a spectacle of myself.

Incident last night at work:

I pwned a woman who called to ask if her son's Butch Boots sandals could be washed. They're advertised as "water-friendly" so I said they should be fine. She said good, because they were filthy and stank.

I said, "If they've reached that stage of decrepitude, you might just want to replace them. We *do* have them in stock."

"Did you just say 'decrepitude'?"

"Uh, yes, ma'am."

"I love it!"

She was still chuckling at the end of the call, and it was the high point of my day, too....

Came back to the C's by way of WalMart...got the director's cut of Watchmen. No surprise there. Also had a wild hair and snagged season one of Leverage---if for no other reason than to free up a few hours on my DVR. Well, that and I missed a few eps the first time around because my memory is swiss cheese.

Current plan calls for me leaving in the next few minutes so I can a) drop off some books at the library, and b) drop off the programs for church at StormValkyrie's place. PJ printed them up before they left, not knowing that I'm going to be working on Sunday and have not mastered the fine art of being in two places simultaneously. And since she lives about two blocks off US1 on my way to work, I'm going to hand them off and be on my merry way.

And away we go....

Work yesterday was chock full of time-wasting idjits; I got calls back-to-back for about seven hours, with enough stoopid peeple to thoroughly fuck up my handle time. Although I *did* find out that I had the highest number of units per sale in our group last week. Told Current Boss that my handle time may suck but clearly I *do* pull my own weight in other ways.

I'm looking around trying to figure out what to take for the week (I hate running back and forth; I tend to get situated and Stay There, which is kinda the story of my life, I HATE change.) and making a note that the C's have that WalMart right up the road and I think I can manage to part with enough lucre for The Watchmen.

I am cursed with the need to do good deeds, apparently: One of my coworkers needed/wanted day-after-tomorrow Sunday off---her son is being dedicated at church---and I agreed to take it for her. Cause something like that? Is a special event, and she ought to be able to rejoice in it instead of having to worry about cutting it short to make it to work to deal with idjits. It's only a 4 hour shift and I can definitely use the money, plus it's during the afternoon, so I'm not going to be half-asleep in either direction.

And now to get my ass in gear and go dump things at the C's....

Work was DEAD today. I was there for 40 minutes before I got my first call, and I swear I didn't have 20 calls all night. Which would've been boring, except I had my steno pad with me and scribbed 18+ pages of the Jericho WIP (only progress I've made on it this week). That's a lot to transcribe, but it'll give me something to do tomorrow after church.

I'm tired, but that may be because the Excedrin is wearing off. I've finally figured out how to compensate for the sleepiness caused by the muscle relaxers: Take it with a couple Excedrin (contains caffeine) and follow it up if needed by a couple more 4 hours later. Except I'm ready to crash, so the booster caffeine isn't needed.