Potato Potato Tomato Tomato

Half days at work are AWESOME!!! I took the morning off to go get an estimate on some car damage, and to spend a little time with my out of town guests before they went home. It was so nice! Especially when I got to go back to sleep for a little while. Woke up at 6am to call in and get four hours off, then went back to sleep for a few hours. It was GLOR-E-US. If I could only work four hours everyday and yet still get paid for eight it would be a perfect world indeed! But since it's not... I'll be back to the 8 hour grind tomorrow.

On the one hand it will be nice to have things back to normal, but on the other it's been a nice break. Being taken out of the ordinary for a bit is refreshing, but to someone who tends to cherish routine it's nice to get back into the usual. It felt good to be back at my desk, getting stuff going again, seeing the familiar work faces doing the familiar work things.

Still, I dream of a vacation. And I don't really even want to go anywhere. I'd just like a week off to hang out at home, get things done, and just relax in my sweat pants and oversize directv t-shirts. I have about a thousand of them thanks to work, and they are perfect for lazy Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons with the PS2. I can really get a nice groove going with Guitar Hero in those t-shirts. Stand up, sit down, doesn't matter. Just jamming and having a good time.

After having guests over the weekend, the apartment is both nice and quiet, and horribly silent. I kinda miss company, but at the same time am glad to have a little space and quiet. I can read my book and blog and relax without worrying that I need to entertain someone. But it's fun to entertain. Still the quiet it soothing and just what I need at the end of my work day. I miss having someone to come home to, as I drove home Friday evening a lot more exciting than it usually is. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I guess I just can't make up my mind, but the nice thing is I don't have to.

Life is full of contradictions. People's needs are funny... we need a little of both sometimes. It's nice when you can get it!

Birthday

A brief retelling of a horrible experience from years ago... Enjoy!

I stood amidst the other twelve waiters and waitresses and impatiently tapped my foot. I had things to do. BETTER things to do. Tables needed more drinks, more salsa; a vast number of dining necessities and it was my job to see that they had them. Intead, there I was, tambourine in hand, waiting for the silly cocktail waitress to hurry up. ARG.

Birthdays at Muy Cliente's were just slightly more obnoxious than most. Being a Mexican restaurant, we had the added "benefit" of Mariachi Band instruments complete with sombreros of unusual size to use as props as we parade through the throngs of eaters to the table where we would embarass the new 40 or 35 but mostly 21-year-olds beyond reason and belief. I suppose they only had their friends to blame, but I blame their parents. They're the ones that have the kids in the first place. It's cause and effect. Have sex, get pregnant, have kid, hence kid has birthday. Ta-da.

So there I was, waiting with baited breath (not really) and poised to start banging that tambourine for all I was worth. Most people would shy away from such an instrument, being that it is a complicated and delicate one, not easily played with skill. You must hold it above your head (so as not to trip on the streamers) and bang it with the heel of your hand. It's important to keep a steady rhythm so that a few particular waiters (Tom and his friend Tim) are able to clap on the fight beats. Without that tambourine, I can safely and honestly say that it would be a disaster. Even if you still had maracas.

For me, playing the tambourine was the only bright spot to being forced into that mobile opression unit that is a clump of waiter and waitresses poised to sing happy birthday to some poor schmuck. I could brave the glares of the elderly with ease; with amusement really, since I knew they'd complain about it before they left. I didn't even feel as silly as I would have without it. After all, it wasn't ME who had to wear the sombrero.

After what seemed like years of waiting, we were finally assembled, ready to go and embarrass the poor idiot who had the misfortune to go out for his/her birthday dinner. Secretly, I hoped it was someone's 21st, mostly because when it is, they are typically smashed out of their mind. Often times so badly that they'l stand up, clap with us, and sometimes even dance. Truly making it a fiesta. Whee!

Damatically, I raised the ceremonial tambourine above my head. My hands slowly moved about a foot apart, trembled for just a moment, and then came together with a jingle and a crash. One, two, three, four... I pounded out a rhythm as we marched into the bar (which meant it WAS a 21-year-old!) Five, six, seven, eight! We were off to force merriment to everyone within a three table radius.

"Happy happy birthday! From all of us to you! We wish it was our birthday so we could party, too!" Shout, breathe, repeat! "Happy happy birthday! From all of us to you! We wish it was our birthday so we could party, too! OLEY!"

One parting bang on the tambourine later and the mobile opression unit once again separated into single units programmed only to serve. We were dispatched to regill drinks, salsa bowls, re-basket the chips, etc. As we accomplished these tasks, the leve of excitement (or dread, as appropriate) was dramatically reduced. Which was usual. No longer a fiesta, it was a pleasant dining experience once again. For everyone.

Until the next time some poor idiot was taken out to Muy Caliente for a birthday dinner by a "friend" and this "friend" whispers gently into the waiter/waitress's ear, "Do you guys do anything special for birthdays? It's my friend's birthday and..."

Troubles Like Bubbles

Yay replacement phone! For those of you tuning in regularly, you'll know that I've recently had some issues with my beloved cell phone. Losing it, having the touch pad go out, etc. Trauma trauma trauma. That's all I'm saying by way of recap. Quick update I got my new replacement phone in the mail, activated it, and am getting the ringtones I had to redownload credited back to my account. All is well in cell phone ville, thank goodness. Verizon came through regally and I thank them for it. In other news, I don't really have much. Work has been going downhill, but that's always redeemable. One Good Day washes away a week of horrible days. Just would be nice to have that One Good Day soon! I won't hold my breath, but will continue to wildly and desperately hope against hope against hope!

That is the one complaint I really have about my job. I have very little control over whether or not I have a good sales day or not. I don't care what the managers and trainers say. You can't make people buy things, especially when they have to feed their cars expensive gas. Therein lies the problem lately, I think. Granted everyone still NEEDS their internet service, etc. But what I'm getting is a LOT more shopping around. Which is smart, but I wish people wouldn't call me to ask about prices that they have printed on a sheet of paper in front of them. It then becomes my job to say, "yup, that's what it says doesn't it?" And honestly I do have better things to do.


I know it's my job to help people and give them both the information and service they need, but is it so much to ask that people actually buy new services from me each and everytime they call? Really??? Well... kind of is. But in a perfect world - or I should say, in MY perfect world. Ha ha ha. Anyway, it just frustrates me to work in a Sales Center, and yet have the bulk of my calls be transfers to repair, dsl tech support, and the credit management center so they can make payment arrangements. I didn't sign on to be an operator who transfers calls all day. Maybe if the automated system isn't working right they need to hire operators who can transfer the calls to the correct departments all the time. Then I'll get sales calls, repair will get repair calls, tech support will get tech support calls, and we'll all have a fry.


Part of the problem is cranky and impatient customers who are so eager to get to a person that they don't care who or what answers the phone as long as it's a human being. I can understand their frustration with the VRU because it can be annoying, but it's there for a reason. And if they were to slow down for a moment and take the time to answer the computer answering and routing their calls, they would go where they needed to go, and wouldn't have to go through me. They wouldn't waste my time, and wouldn't waste their own! Wow! Isn't that neat?


You may wonder why it annoys me so much. Well, they take my net sales revenue for the month and divide it up amongst the number of calls that I take during that month to get a gross revenue per call or GRPC. They do not remove from my GRPC the calls that are meant for tech support, or the business department, or even the calls that occasionally roll in that have no one on the other end. I get dinged for every call I get, regardless of sales opportunity or even if they have a person on the other end. And I must meet a certain level of GRPC in order to keep my job every month. Hence why I find it frustrating when a person says, "new customer" when they are in fact NOT a new customer and merely want repair, tech support, or to review their bill which they haven't read or sometimes even recieved yet.


Triple SIGH!


Can you tell that it frustrates me? I can understand the need for sales metrics, but given the call mix and the fact that there are many accounts that I can't even offer new services to, there's some serious tweaking that needs to go on in the system. Either by the way they measure our work performance, or by the way they route calls. And virtual slaps to everyone who's ever said "new customer" OR "transfer service" when they mean technical support or repair!!!


Take that!!!

Painful Separation and Anxiety

My phone died! My precious kakked it! Or rather the touch pad did... meaning the only way I can make calls in on my speed dials, the only way I can text is NOT AT ALL, and the only was I can listen to the music on my phone is by REMEMBERING IT FONDLY! Sigh. There's no water damage, it's only been dropped twice in a year, and it's hardly scratched. Fairly pristine. Sigh. I don't know what went wrong but thank goodness I got the extended warranty. I get a replacement phone for free. But until it comes in the mail tomorrow, I'm sad.

Double sigh.

I called immediately when my phone stopped working which FYI people is what you should do. Working for a phone company that sells cell phones I've learned a thing or two, and the sooner you report a problem, the less likely it is for a company to suspect fraud. I'm just sad. I may lose all my fun pictures and some of the sweet messages I got from some sweet people. Not that I won't get more, but it's not the same.

You never realize how dependent you are on a cell phone until you actually lose it or it breaks and you don't have anything to back it up. I DO have my old flip phone, and I suppose IF the new phone doesn't work I still have a back up. I've just never had an issue with any of my cell phones, and it's weird to try to deal with.

I think it's the not being able to check my text messages that bugs me the most. The music on my phone is on a memory card, so it'll be there. And regardless I am smart and back stuff up on my computer anyway. I guess I can back up my contacts list, too, but either way I have things written down in my address book. So the vitally important things are safe. Just still kinda sad about my pics going bye bye. I had some fun ones. Will just have to take more I suppose.

Perhaps I need a cell phone intervention... we've grown too close.

It'll be nice when life gets back to normal, and I can communicate in the way I've grown accustomed to for so long. It came on slowly, this dependency, but I can't go back again.