I’m in a funk. I know the economy is bad, I know I should be grateful that I even have a job. But I’m really hating my life right now. I don’t usually hate it this much, the occasional grumpy, rude customer doesn’t get me down, most are pretty happy with me because although I’m sometimes as much as the third or fourth person they’ve spoken to, I am usually the one who fixes their problem. Or, if I can’t fix it myself, over the phone, I resolve it by setting up for a technician to come out & fix it at their house. When you’re through talking to me 99% of the time, the problem has a resolution, one way or another. Also, since they put me back on the phones in June, I don’t charge people for stuff they’re supposed to be charged for, oh of course I tell them what the charge is, but if they give me any push back at all, like: “I’ve been a customer for 3 (or 2 or 10) years, I don’t think I should have to pay” I say ok & adjust the cost of a technician, or whatever they’re bitching about having to pay. It is a part of my job, to make the customer happy, not just fix the problem but give exceptional customer service & please them at the same time. This week however, thing have been going poorly, I’m fighting a sore throat, which may or may not be part of the H1N1 thing which is going on, I’ve heard that it starts in the ears, goes to the throat & then the nose, but I’ve also heard it’s more stomach flu with diarrhea. So I don’t know exactly & I resent the fact that most news organizations aren’t giving that info out, at my work they want you to describe how you’re feeling & let them determine if it’s H1N1 or not too, which is ridiculously unfair to me. All night tonight, I got yelled at because the customer’s perception was that it was our fault. Them having their tv on the wrong channel, the snow falling outside their windows (in more than a few states!) & their decision to rearrange their rooms & move their satellite receiver away from the connection in the wall which has a connection to the dish outside had no bearing on the situation whatsoever. (in their opinions at least) I was in tears 3 times before ‘lunch’ at 930 (yes, it could be somewhat hormonal, I admit) and spent my lunch enjoying the new book I’m reading & comforting myself with reminders that by 11 it would be quiet & I’d only have to take 3-4 calls an hour by then, that I only had to get through tonight & tomorrow night & I’ll have my 2 nights off for the weekend. I got back on the phone with renewed energy & vigor & at first it was great because we weren’t getting any calls, it had already quieted down & It was barely past 10 pm! Then I got a call, I barely got a chance to tell the guy my name & thank him for calling, he interrupted & ranted, shouted, swore & raged for 13 minutes, I got my mouth open to try to apologize & begin to rebutt his statements & he hung up on me.  Just slammed down the phone & was gone. After making threats about the BBB & that we had better get UPS out to his house to take back the box we had sent him which he didn’t want & had told us not to send.  Of course, since he was not on the phone anymore I couldn’t do much for him, I noted the situation, logged off the computer & told my boss I was sick. I went to the store to get a pumpkin carving set as I’d promised my kids that I’d pick one up tonight since Ms 19 got paid & paid me. Then I came home & read websites & looked at vintage halloween decorations to try to decompress. It’s helped a little but I still have to go back tomorrow & do another 8 & 1/2 hours. Not a good situation at all. After 8 years there, I know how to handle escalated customers, but also after 8 years there, the stupidity, the wilful immaturity, the general rudeness of people really gets to me, it builds up on me more & more & I’m getting less & less able to cope with it. There have been many times when I thought I wouldn’t make it much further with this job. Right now, when I know there is not just no other job which would pay so well, there are no other jobs period. I have to keep this job but I don’t know if I can.

Funny how the idea you have about something before you actually experience the reality is so far from the truth.
I’ve been on nights for nearly 8 months now.
I thought it would be great as it’s closer to my natural preference, to stay up late & sleep in, in the morning.
The whole reason I’m working nights is to free myself up to take ms 19 back & forth to work though, so I’m up at 7:10 to make sure ms 13 & mr 10 get off to school in a timely manner & don’t keep their bus driver waiting, then on ms 19’s work days (just lately 4-5 days per week instead of the 3 a week it was when we started this experiment) I’m up again at 8 to take her to work, back home by 8:45 & asleep again, usually, by 9:30.
Then I get up when I feel like it- this is supposed to be around 10:30 -11 but is often closer to noon & sometimes, 1pm. I schlep around, watch the news & daily show from the day before on DVR & then the noon news on DVR each day & often before I’ve finished that it’s time to go get ms 19 from work.
By the time we’re back home the younger kids have arrived home on the bus & I have under an hour until I have to leave for work- that’s at 4pm.
I work from 5 to 1:30 (except that at least twice a week & sometimes more often, they offer to send people home if they’d like to go & I’m really bad at resisting that offer!)
At home I often get online & read my email, play majongg on Lifetime & do surveys for survey spot. I often pull up the blog & even come all the way to this page, the one where I could write a new post.
This is where I bog down though, I’m tired, no one wants to hear about my day (or night) at work, I’m somewhat prohibited from discussing it anyway, can’t talk about technology (& after 8 hours of talking to people about why theirs is malfunctioning why would I want to?) I’m afraid to comment on the company’s polices both toward customers & towards employees. (99% steady signal indeed)
The kids are all old enough to know exactly what I’m doing when I’m at the computer & I’m routinely told “don’t blog this mom” I have strong opinions on politics & social issues, but I believe opinions are like asses, everyone has them & they all stink so it’s best left unaired.
So after a few paragraphs of what I can’t & won’t write about I’ll go ahead & share some stuff that has been happening.

We’ve been playing games every Sunday night for a couple of months now, it began when Chrissie & her daughter were still living here, she & I would play with my younger kids, then her daughter, ms 19 & ms 19’s BF started coming down & hanging out, we were pretty limited at first because everyone wanted to play rummy or Scrabble & though Chrissie, the kids & I tried, we had a lot of trouble convincing ms 19, the bf & Sami that Apples to Apples was a worthwhile game, we did it though & now ms 19 is the loudest one when we’re discussing what to play each week. I also bowed to pressure from mr 10 & taught everyone who didn’t know how to do so, to play poker, so we often do a little family gambling just for my father’s chips so far, no actual money has changed hands yet, but we’re talking about a nickle, dime & penny night sometime soon. I’m really glad we’re doing this, game nights used to be once every 3-4 months & though everyone always said we should do it more, we never managed, now I’m cooking a big meal to share with whoever is there at the time & we’re all having a lot of fun with it.

If you read this blog often (and there’s seldom much to read lately) you’re aware I purchased a new sink, new flooring & base wood for my bathroom, last weekend was the repair the bathroom weekend. Ms 19’s BF took over the whole project & did an awesome job. It happened to be my grocery shopping weekend so I couldn’t really help much Saturday, ms 19 & the BF pulled up the old floor, took out the old sink & toilet etc & replaced a section about 3×3 of the sub-floor too, then put down the new base floor. This is the floor while in progress, mr 10’s knees are in the picture because he refused to move.

Sunday morning ms 19 woke me up & said “lets paint the bathroom before bf puts down the new linoleum”. So we did. I’ve had maroon paint for a long time, it was originally for the dining room but multiple people convinced me that maroon in a windowless room was a bad idea (I’m quite happy with the yellow the painters painted it during the roof & other repairs after the tree fell on the house) So the maroon paint was just sitting there & my cousin has a maroon bathroom downstairs in her house (of course, lucky her, it’s a lavatory, they have 2 bathrooms at their house! Lucky lucky) so I had been thinking the maroon might look good- and it will, after I get the trim painted white- it’s currently mauve which is an unusual combination to say the least, I also purchased gloss paint when it was for the dining room, I had read a description in a much-loved book of a room painted that color with gold stencils & I was going to do the stenciling too in the bathroom. (before mr 10 discovered the stencil paints & ruined them all, I’ll have to purchase more gold paint before I can do so now). I don’t have pictures of the finished project because the sink isn’t installed yet, the BF ran out of time & our old sink has leaked for nearly a year so we’re all used to not having a sink in the bathroom (we just use the kitchen sink) & will continue until 19’s BF has time to install the new sink. This picture gives an idea of the color, it is a bit more magenta than maroon I think, but the kids like it & it was fun painting the room with them at least.

My love hate relationship with the Sirius satellite radio continues, they’re doing a week-long Halloween channel, I’m really enjoying it, I got to hear Christopher Walken read Poe’s the Raven on the way to work today & excerpts from Dracula on the way home. They also have scary stories, songs like the obvious “monster mash”, scary music, reminiscences of people who apparently work for Sirius about their favorite Halloween memories etc.   Pretty cool idea, I’m sure if it lasted much more than a week though, I’d tire of it.

I’m really enjoying the whole having a “real” weekend thing. Except for the part where I’m at work Friday night when most people are relaxing on Friday night as part of their weekend. Those months when I was off Friday & Saturday nights were so wasted, I wish I was still on that schedule, although it’s fun to be home on Sunday night with the kids & it’s useful in that it means I’m there to make sure they’re really all ready for school on Monday morning (trusting that to ms 19 has been rather frustrating I have to admit)

That said, it’s been enjoyable at work this week, not too terribly busy, (well,except for last night, but I just don’t want to revisit that horrible evening anytime in the near future so I’ll conveniently forget about it)

It has been a long day as ms 19 had to go to C’burg to a clinic to apply for birth control on a sliding scale, I had to take her as part of my current plan to not be a grandmother before age 50, Chrissie went along for the ride.  We left at 9 this morning, which required my getting out of bed at 8:45, I had not fallen asleep until after 3 last night so it was rough to say the least.

While 19 was at the clinic Chrissie & I walked around Lowes pricing the stuff I need to replace my bathroom floor & numerous other worn out things in the bathroom & around the rest of my house, I was planning to go to Home Depot to price the same items there but ms 19 finished sooner than planned, we ran a few other errands around C’burg & came home in time for me to take a 2 hour nap which helped but I was still falling asleep at my desk at work by 10:30 tonight.

I got a diet coke & drank it during my last break & I did ok all the rest of the evening, including the drive home & now I’m starting to feel sleepy again, but as I almost never seem to just write ‘normal’ blog entrys any longer I wanted to do so- especially since I won’t be home most of tomorrow.

Tomorrow is our general grocery shopping day, the one of two days a month we get to eat dinner out & the kids are especially looking forward to it.  Tomorrow is also the first home game of the Virginia Tech football season so we won’t be going to C’burg for this trip, it is so crowded, chaotic & crazy when there’s a game.

We’re going down to Roanoke, I’ve even bribed ms 19’s BF to take her to work & pick her up so I can sleep in & still go to Roanoke without worrying about getting her at 3 or anything (of course, part of the trade off is that I have to drive her both ways Sunday. It should be worth it though)

I’m especially excited to go to Roanoke because one of my favorite shops is saving me a bumpersticker for my car, I have one which says coexist with the letters shaped like all sorts of religious symbols, they’re saving me one which says tolerance in a similar way. I’ve seen quite a few of these but couldn’t find one to buy any where & this store said they had them on order & then called to let me know they’d hold one for me.

I’m hoping the trip to Roanoke is as much fun as going out with Chrissie & ms 19 was today, since it’s ms 13, mr 10 & I, it could go either way, we often get along very well, just the 3 of us but if ms 13 is in a bad mood or mr 10 is still not feeling well it could be rather unpleasant. Only time will tell.

Saturday we went to a beautiful location to swim, we’ve been before, but not for at least 2 years. It’s a drive from the house (34 miles one way) But still in or nearly in the county. There is a lovely place to ride down a waterfall & a deep pool below the fall. Mr 10 barely remembered being there the one time he’d been before, ms 13 remembered being there a few times before that (we used to live on that side of the county, back before mr 10 was born & right after he was born.

You can see the fall between Ms 13’s & Mr 10’s shoulders & then beside Chrissie, Kevin & the dog in this next picture. Ms 19 came too although Sami was at a friends house & so was Ms 19’s BF.  We went on the cheap with PB&J sandwiches, a bag of chips & some sodas. Everyone got well & truly tired out (including the dog) & came home sunburnt & happy.

Ms 19 was looking lovely in a very green bathing suit which was supposed to be mine but fit her better (I would not be comfortable with that much cleavage showing either- it must be so nice to be young)

Then today, we went to the valley to a deep swimming hole, I don’t actually go down into this one because it’s too steep, but Ms 19, the BF, Sami, 13 & 10 all enjoyed themselves greatly, until some horesflies bit them, then 19, BF & Sami went home & 13 & 10 came down to the shallower area where Chrissie & I had been sitting in the water & keeping cool (it was nearly 90 here today) chatting & relaxing. No beter way to spend a day in the summer that’s for sure. We’re planning to go back to the place we were Saturday with everyone on next Sunday, trying to cram all the summer we can in before school starts on the twentieth.

We do a lot of the same things every year so you could go back & read the vacation files & get a very good idea of what we did this year. Some changes were going to Boston on the ferry, not quite as much emphasis on the beach (more because it rained so much than by design) & no museum or historical landmark trips this year (just couldn’t afford to do Salem MA this year, hopefully next year!)

Ms 13 was enamoured of how she looked in the side view mirror while we were driving through VA on the interstate on the way to MA so she took a picture.

Our trip Sunday was to Newburyport to the Jabberwocky bookstore, Eureka Toys next door & a quick run around downtown Newburyport’s shopping area, looking for a store I loved in 1995 which is no longer there. We had a lunch/dinner at Skips & then went to Salisbury beach for the kid’s first swim. This was really the only warm, sunny swim they got for the whole trip!

Ms 13  at Salisbury beach displaying her true personality, as in: “There was a little girl, with a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead, when she was good, she was very, very good & when she was bad she was horrid” That is her to a T!

Mr 10 buried his sister first & then she buried him, for some obscure reason he decided to be buried face down very weird, when she was through he looked like a turtle.

After a few days with Ann, in which I somehow took no pictures at all, we met up with cousin J & went to lunch at Papa Ginos, then to Winnekenni castle so they could play on the playground for awhile, then for ice cream at the best homemade ice cream place in Haverhill (well, Bradford really) Carter’s!

Ice Cream was a very popular choice with all the kids as you can see here!

More another day, it’s getting late here & I’m ready to end the computer use for the night.

I am still alive, it’s not a robot posting the Thursday Thirteens & the Friday Fill in’s, I’m just not really feeling the writing thing right now, I’m still adjusting to being on the phones again at work  & while it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, it’s a lot more stress. At home with the kids during the day is ok, very distracting & often either mr 9 or ms 13 is on the computer already when I get up (if they’re not still asleep when I get up- as is the case today- everyone has become a night owl since Mom is a night owl now it seems) them being around definitely has a censoring effect on my blogging, they’re always coming up to me & asking what I’m doing, wanting to read over my shoulder & playing editor about what I can & can’t say about them. Summer school starts tomorrow though & hopefully I’ll have a little bit of quiet time in the late morning for the next two weeks at least.
The other thing which I’m heavily focused on is the vacation plans, I know I’ve said in other years that we weren’t going to have much money to go with, but this year is going to be even worse, in other years I’ve had $200. or $300. put away from the tax refund money to help fill out the vacation cash, this year, with next to no refund, I’m going to have just what I can keep out of my paycheck. I’m going to try to do some extra overtime in the next few weeks, but it will really, only matter on the 2 weeks before the paycheck I’ll collect on the day we leave on vacation, anything before that, for the next paycheck (just 1 more before the day we leave on vacation) will end up being spent, that is just the way it is, my expenses always seem to expand to fit the amount of available cash I have on hand.
I found last year’s check register in my bedside table drawer the other day (I’m still not at all sure what it was doing there) and found that I’d been just short of $1000. When we left for vacation last year, this year I will have just a little more than half that (If I’m lucky & If I crack down on myself & do some real overtime, not just an hour here & a half hour there) Of course, we went for 14 days last year, we’re only going to be gone 10 days this year. It will be interesting to see just how this goes, mr 9 & ms 13 are getting $100. each on the day we leave, they requested this instead of birthday gifts & I’m complying, I wonder how long they’ll be able to make their money last with purchases of fascinating things they can’t seem to find in VA.

Day one back on the phones at work was not, well, emotionally it was ok, however, if they were listening to me for quality purposes I’m going to be in trouble, my evening started off poorly as the day person who shares my desk was running late so I had to start at a desk other than my own, I had scripts taped to my computer monitor at my desk to remind me of what I’m supposed to say, but at this other desk- forget it!
They’ve changed the required opening & closing statements so many times in the past year that I had stopped keeping track, unless the new information specifically said that we had to use it on chat I didn’t pay attention at all. And of course, copying & pasting something into a chat box is very different from actually speaking it in a caring tone (another thing I suck at these days) to someone on the phone.
So my scripting was terrible, there’s also the fact that we take transfers & regular calls & it took me most of the evening to figure out which code came up on my computer as a call came in, for which type of call (something it seems my supervisor or someone in a supervisory position might have mentioned before I got on the phone last night- just sayin’)
Being out of sorts in general, even when I realized it was going to be a transfer call I flubbed the (different) greeting 75% of the time.
On the other hand, the evening flew by very quickly & the supervisor in training we have, who updates our stats was very impressed with how quick my calls were, of course, I’m  not all that thrilled because since going to this upper echelon the focus has been more about making the customer happy rather than getting them off the phone quickly. I like to think I do both, and I know in many cases I did so last night. However there were a few that went badly in general, I have forgotten, through not dealing with it on the phone for so long, the general public’s rage in not having television.
Needless to say, I won’t be answering my phone for a few days, I don’t want to talk to anyone, I’m doing enough of it at work.

More weird than funny, I admit.

My right shoulder has been stiff & sore for 3 days, I thought it might be too much holding the mouse at work (I don’t care for the angle of the seat I sit in, but since I share it now, I don’t like to change it either) I thought I might have slept on it wrong, then I started thinking it might be stress, back in 2006 I had the same thing happen, for no apparent reason except we were learning that horrible computer program that the company finally scrapped back in December ‘07 as a Christmas present to those of  us miserable peons who had to use it daily. I was extremely stressed then, not just because of the computer program either. Eventually it went away on it’s own in ‘06.  I have certainly been stressed lately, with money woes, bills skyrocketing, trying to determine if we can take our yearly trip to MA to see my mother, shooting my self in the foot figuratively at work & going back to the phone (starting Monday) there’s plenty of stress around right now.

Thursday when I left for work it was still painful. I had to mess with my seatbelt with my left hand, carry my bag with my sodas for the evening into work with my left hand, everything with the left hand.  On the way to work I was reflecting on the stress thing & made up my mind to start doing affirmations that whatever happened was for the best, stressing over it wouldn’t help change it & that I needed to accept the phone thing & everything else as just how it is. At 8 a supervisor came running around & made all of us on chat who didn’t actually have a chat at that time get on the phone & take calls because the phone agents were swamped (they have never done that before! I was surprised) I was not on a chat & so got on the phone. A preview of how it will be Monday, my boss had wanted me to check the headset etc Wednesday or Thursday night anyway so I took care of that at the same time. The phone wasn’t that bad, I’ve been off it 100% since July ‘08 & from January  ‘08 to July ‘08 I was only on it half time.

Well I took about 6 calls, the supervisor said only for an hour & he came back at 9 & said I could stop, it wasn’t really that bad at all, things are a little different than they were before where most calls are transfers & I just have to make sure the transferring agent did what they said they did, go further if there’s anything more that can be done & then discuss sending a tech out if it’s still not fixed.  At 930 I was scheduled for “lunch”  if I eat anything at work these days I eat it on my first break at 730-930 is too late to be eating even if I dont’ get into bed before 230! I realized when I got up (bracing for pain because I sprained my ankle Wednesday before work) that only the ankle hurt, my shoulder was fine again! Just like that.

Definitely stress related!

So I’m pretty pleased about the whole Schedule change at least, although working nights I was really ok about having weekdays off & working weekends, after all I get to spend much of the day at home with the kids anyway, of course, while it’s summer, it won’t matter too much what days I have off, except the waiting to go grocery shopping until Saturday. That’s going to be rough next week on the grocery front, I suppose I’ll have to go out on Friday to pick up a few things for the kids to eat that night. Transition is never fun.

More transition is on the way as Chrissie & her daughter may be coming back to stay with us for awhile, considering the issues we’re having with the cats (who are still supposed to be out all the time but keep slipping back in {the destroyed front door screen is definitely a help to them) & their refusal to use the litter box, I wouldn’t blame them if they changed their minds.

All up in the air though, nothing is ever written in stone, especially not around here!

This is the week it all comes down, I know I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I got myself in some trouble at work. This is my last week using the chat function, next Monday it’s back on the phones for me. I did say Monday, like the other phone people in my group I’ll have Saturday & Sunday off, which could be a nice schedule, except for the going in to work at 4pm. Of course, with Summer starting for my kids a week from Friday, it’s not really going to matter. I’ll see plenty of them & also, as an added bonus be around during the day to take them to summer school (the pleasure of their company has been requested in no uncertain terms for the 2 weeks they have it scheduled).

So I do get 3 days off this week at least, Since I have Friday off to complete this week’s schedule, then Saturday & Sunday on the new schedule, then Monday I have to get back on the phone – ugh. I have been compiling a list of things which are good about going back on the phone, the #1 thing is that no matter how busy it is at work, I will only have to talk to 1 person at a time. (On chat we are expected to handle up to 3 chats at a time- some people have volunteered to do 4 at a time in exchange for having lighter expectations in some areas, myself 3 was too many already so I wouldn’t agree to it.)

I’m trying to be positive about it, but my boss is killing me, he’s entirely too positive about it & is pushing me to embrace his ideas & attitudes too hard. I’m not some collge kid who’s passing through for 4 years at this job & has a malleable mind he can sway to his attitude & ideas. I’m 40, probably older than him, anti his whole millitary “do what you’re expected to or else” attitude & just generally subversive toward his whole way of thinking. I will do as well as I can, because I always do, but I will resent every second of it & will probably need to double my daily intake of St. Johnswort to keep from using unpleasant tone towards customers.

Anything’s better than being fired, that’s the way I have to look at it right now.

Sundays are rapidly becoming my day for regrets, I think of all the things I didn’t get done during my allotted time off & I regret it, not enough to get much done today (I have to leave at 4 & it’s 1 already after all). Mr 9 is determined that I’m going to shave his head for him today.  Having just showered I’m not all that enthusiastic about this but he’s been asking since March. Although I didn’t get everything done that I’d planned. I did manage to.
♥  Go through ms 12’s clothes to determine what fits & what doesn’t fit, we have a whole trash bag full of things which were too small.
♥   Do the grocery shopping for yet another 2 week stint. Over budget by $20.  of course, the kids & I have this tradition of getting Dibs or Dove Promises to eat on the way home, which would have saved us $3.
♥   Vacuum the living room.
♥  Watch the couple of shows which I watch regularly which didn’t have their season finale last week’s season finales on DVR.
♥   Take the kids to the river (after 3 weeks of mr 9 nagging me.
♥   Caught up on blogs I read regularly (or used to, until my terrible week last week threw me off track & I couldn’t concentrate)
♥  Try a new recipe, Chicken with 40 cloves of Garlic, I’d tried a crock pot option once, but this was an oven roast & was very good. I’d include the recipe but the kids threw the magazine it was in away & so I cobbled together a recipe out of what I remembered & multiple online recipes.
♥  Take ms 19 to work @ 5:30 this morning. 12 miles each way & we managed to have 3 arguments.
♥  Now I can add cut mr 9’s hair to the list.