In which the good and the bad are blended into something so astonishingly neutral that I probably could have slept all day and felt just about the same.
Today is my last day at the call center. I am so excited! Change! I’m changing jobs! I’m out of here! This seriously freakin’ rules!
I’ll get to learn and grow and change! This is so excellent!
I packed all my personal crap into a box before I left work last night, so today my desk is spartan and unfamiliar. I was deliberately late because I wanted to panic my supervisor into thinking I wasn’t coming in at all, but my joke backfired: he had to leave early for personal reasons – there’s been a death among his friends.
Then I went through the exit interview, which was little more than a brief chat with a review of the non-compete (I don’t know any trade secrets so I couldn’t spill them even if I wanted to), good luck, and a give-us-your-key-back. They said I can leave an hour early tonight since it’s my last shift. Very exciting! Best day ever!
But when I got back to my desk, Teh [now ex] BF IMed me to say that he’s taking the rest of the day off because he can’t cope.
I guess I sort of wanted today to be more about me, but perhaps that was both selfish and childish. I’m a grown woman; the world isn’t always going to be charmed with and for me when I want it to, I guess.
I feel horrible that Teh [now ex] BF is so uncomfortable with our break-up that he can’t even sit in the same building with me… I feel awful. I also feel a little pissed because I never meant to cause him pain and this is supposed to be a fun day for me, not one where I feel like an asshole all day long because I chased the man out of his own job. He’s been here for eight or nine years; I’ve been here for twenty months.
A brief synopsis of the breakup: A couple of months ago I was overwhelmed and unhappy and pulled back from the relationship. A lot. {{Paragraph redacted at Teh [now ex] BF’s request.}} We broke up two nights ago.
Now I’m sitting here waiting for my last Friday lunch meeting to start, and I’m both so excited and so sorry that the two emotions cancel each other out and I feel… well, just kinda sick.
Maybe I can just have my entire nervous system removed for health reasons. Then I wouldn’t have to feel this weird.
I left my phone at home. I need to go get it on my lunch break so I can call the new job and find out when to show up.
Update: I get a three day weekend! The new job is running a partial-holiday on Monday to honor the 4th, so I don’t start until Tuesday at eight.
In which Dallas rocked, Amma was wonderful, and I’m glad to be home.
There’s really nothing more kick-ass than coming home after a ‘net-free vacation–the hotel wanted $11 a day for wi-fi and I said screw that–to find one’s blog packed full of comments! I LOVE you bitches!
I’m very excited about the new job, and it seems my new employers are excited about me too (they made some of those comments, God bless ’em). I can’t wait to start over there next week. It’ll be so nice to be back at a real ISP again.
My bento article took up 2/3 of the Food & Lifestyle section yesterday and looked really cute; I’d link it here but it doesn’t appear to have made it into the U-B’s online edition you can read it here.
Dallas was hot. We never made it downtown because transpo was hella expensive. The airport is gigantic and covered in concrete. The Tex-Mex was gooooooood.
Seeing Mother was restorative and reaffirming and all the impossibly powerful and necessary things it always is; coming home though makes me feel a little nostalgic for Fairfield. If I gave someone here prasad from Mother (I brought home a mango) they wouldn’t have any idea what the fuck I was talking about. I ain’t moving back to BFE, no, it’s just nice to live in a community that groks your vocabulary – that’s all I’m saying.
Click here for the vacation set:
In which there’s really great news! Three times over!
Today has been the longest, slowest day ever. I’ve been here since ten and haven’t even been on the phone for two hours. It’s that dead in here.
Which means that the day has been dragging by with incredible slowness.
But when the day is over, I will officially be on vacation! Which is so awesome I can’t even express it.
But to make it all even better, this afternoon I got a job offer. And I accepted it! I GOT A NEW JOB! I GOT A NEW JOB! I GOT A NEW JOB! I GOT A NEW JOB! I GOT A NEW JOB! *snoopy dance* Whoo hoo!
Oh, and on Tuesday, my bento article will be in the paper – perhaps as the main feature in the Food & Lifestyle section of the Union-Bulletin!
by Oscar Wilde
“My dear boy,” said Lord Henry, smiling, “anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate.”
In which it went really well!
I had an interview today at 1:30 at an ISP/CLEC1. It’s about four blocks closer to my house than the company I work for now.
I did well in terms of enthusiasm and communication. I probably took a little too much control of the meeting overall, but I always do that when I’m nervous in interviews. They liked my résumé. They liked my experience. They’re growing, and there’s growth opportunity.
They said they’d let me know by Friday.
I think I may have flubbed up once: the leader was trying to end our overly-long meeting by explaining that they did have other people to interview. I replied, ‘Oh, of course you do, of course you do. It’s just that you’re not going to like them as much as you do me,’ and he kind of gave me a weird look.
But other than that, I think the interview went really, really well. I liked both of the guys who interviewed me, they more or less told me that I’m perfect for the job, and I’m certain the guy who would end up being my direct supervisor wants me in his department in the worst way.
Here’s hoping I get a call on Friday from someone offering me a new job!!!
—
1 ISP Internet Service Provider. CLEC Competative Local Exchange Carrier (small telephone company).
In which I’ve decided, in an effort to keep my mind from rotting in my head, to read, or in most cases re-read, the following works. This list is incomplete.
Shakespeare
Sonnets (in progress)
Oscar Wilde
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (done)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (done)
The Portrait of Mr. W.H. (done)
An Ideal Husband
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (done)
Plato
The Republic
Xenophon
Anabasis
The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates
The awesome part about reading public domain works is that I can download them (using Stanza on my iThing) from Project Gutenberg for free!
In which I give you a peek at an interoffice email I just sent.
This really happened, and I really sent this email to my boss.
Hello M—,
Friday evening I hung up on a customer. Twice. Here are my notes:
6/19/09 Cust put new CC on file. He wished to argue with me about how expiry dates work, I disconnected the call when he began to yell. He called back and told me I’m “full of shit” and that he intends to get me fired. I gave him my name and my supervisor’s name and hung up on him again. -mm
In the first call, I thanked him for putting his new card number on file and tried gently to terminate the call. He wanted to explain that his card had “never expired” (although in the same breath he told me he’d received a new one in the mail) and that B– is “the only company” who is unable to run charges against an expired credit card. When his pointless lecture escalated to the edge of abuse, I said I was not interested in arguing and that I was ending the call. Then I hung up.
When he called back, he told me I’m “full of shit,” said I didn’t know what I was talking about, called me “young lady” with contempt, and said he would “get me fired.” He proceeded to argue with me again about our stupidity in not being able to charge an expired card, and didn’t slow down at all when I asked, “Do you really not have anything better to do on a Friday night than yell at someone who makes minimum wage?”
I told him to call in Monday and report me to my supervisor. I gave him my name, and I gave him your name. I refused to give him my last name when he demanded it (or yours, for that matter). Then I told him I was ending the call, and hung up on him again.
He has called back in at least eight more times – and hit all the queues: billing, reception, tech, and sales. I have not answered any of them.
I forwarded the one voice mail message he left to your box.
Cheers,
—
Michelle M—–
Support Technician
B— M—— Internet
http://www.—-.net
(800) 485-XXXX xXXXP.S. …before I managed to send this, he called back YET AGAIN, this time from a different number. I answered with my name, and he said “Hello Michelle, I need to speak with someone in billing that’s NOT YOU.” I said, “There is no one else. I’m the only one here.” He said he’d call on Monday and hung up on me.
I’m sure he felt very powerful when he did so.
Of course I don’t actually make minimum wage. but he didn’t need to know that.
Seriously, how many people with MBAs yell at call center drones and don’t understand that you can’t run a credit card without the correct expiration date?
In which I do go on about vacation and Amma and work.
I will go on vacation in nine days. NINE DAYS. I can’t remember the last time I needed a vacation so very badly.
I can’t wait to zip up my rolly case and go to the airport. I can’t wait to get on the plane and turn off my electronic devices. I can’t wait for my Salt Lake City layover.
I can’t wait to check in to the Hyatt Regency at DFW and check out the hotel room and the hotel bed and the hotel shower. I can’t wait to wake up in another town with four days of vacation ahead of me, and get dressed in my whites and brush my teeth in the shiny hotel sink and take the elevator down to the program hall.
I can’t wait see Mother. I can’t wait to meditate near Her. I can’t wait to get darshan. I can’t wait to eat Indian snacks like pakoras and idli & sambar. I can’t wait for Devi Bhava.
I can’t wait to eat genuine Tex-Mex like a total freakin’ tourist.
In short, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of town for a few days.
…
This afternoon my employer began the installation of a web cam in the office. It will hang from the ceiling, and is a model that can be swiveled remotely to view all areas. It has audio pickups.
There was a cam here when I started. It’s been moved into another room, and as far as I know has never been online during my employment.
I have no idea why a camera should need to be installed at all, since the office can already be remotely observed a variety of ways. Nonetheless, there it is, a camera which really can’t have any purpose other than to allow members of management to observe employees.
When I worked at LISCO there were web cams there, but they existed so that people could look at equipment, not the other way around. Why on earth would you want to look at people sitting at desks staring at monitors?
The whole thing’s just creepy.
…
The day before yesterday I clocked a very satisfying 6.25 hours on the phone, but my average phone time lately is hovering around four hours per day.
To fill up the unused time I’ve been given busy-work: something loosely identified as “market research” (involving visiting phone book web pages and counting the number of hotels in particular towns), and a list of roughly 250 dial-up customers I have to call and switch to different access numbers.
Why, yes, thank you for asking: I actually did have a real job once, with root on many servers, where I had to understand subnetting and do network troubleshooting and hang out in data centers and go to customer prems and often had plug ends and jumpers and screws and cool stuff in my pockets.
But now? Now I’m calling dial-up customers to wheedle them into letting me walk them through changing to a new access number.
…
Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to the renewal of my upcoming vacation?
Update: The webcam is mounted on a wall pointing at nothing, and it’s made by the same company that makes the rest of the inventory so it’s probably just a test model. Surveillance fail!
VSCO
Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
