Bad: Waking up at 2AM.
Worse: Not being able to get back to sleep until around 5AM.
Friggin’ awful: Realizing there is no coffee in the house just before you go back to sleep and having to get up with enough time to get to the store and buy it in the morning…
I almost didn’t start work on time, but there is now coffee in the house.
My race in 2 weeks:
The [formerly 10K] race is now an 8K due to problems in creating a course acceptable to all government agencies.
They’ve only been doing this race for 17 years. They altered the course in 2003 due to security, and they were going to use that course again and now even that isn’t acceptable. WTF? Granted, this is the hazard of a race in downtown DC, but still…
So, instead of 6.2 miles with 2 water stations at 2 & 4, it’ll be 5 with one at the halfway point. Not a huge issue per se, I’ve gone near 4 miles w/no water (the New Year’s Day run), but it’s mildly annoying anyway. (Yes, I could take a water bottle with me and do my own 2/4 water breaks, but I was hoping to avoid that.)
That and I have absolutely no clue what I am even going to do timewise on this run. I’ve not been focusing much on speed lately, just distance endurance, so this should be interesting to say the least trying to get my body to “be friends with my fast” cause I only have to go 5 miles.
Yes, I really am up at this insane hour - did my last distance run for the half, came home, crashed hard and woke up around 2 AM. OK, gonna try to go catch a couple hours of sleep before I have to be at it again…
Can you say “losers”? I thought you could!
Everyone seems to be having a suck Monday in my group, it’s the only other explanation besides “losers” for the fact that the front line isn’t picking up new calls, people are trying to IM me when I have my “I’m at lunch, STFU and go away” flag up and generally not making it easy for me to try and whittle down my 47 calls. (Which sadly, is a vast improvement over this time last week.) It’s not like I can yell, “How the hell am I supposed to quit my job if you don’t let me get my calls closed!” Well, I could, but I don’t think it would go over terribly well.
Weekends just don’t cut it anymore for recovery time, and frankly, I’m hating the fact that I have a conscience right now. I can’t bail while things are still such a mess, but at least I can get my corner of the chaos cleaned up before I go.
Ah well, such is life.
Final grade in class: A!
3 weeks til Shamrock, 2 until the St Pats Day 10K. Still need to get one more distance run in for Shamrock. Note to self: No more early spring half marathons, distance runs on treadmills suck. Basically, I need to find a July half marathon. Nevermind the heat stroke, at least I’d be able to train outside.
Class is finished, waiting on one last grade posting. A- at a minimum.
Found several more potential races while procrastinating on classwork last night, including one more sprint tri. So, plenty to keep me out of trouble this summer.
For your amusement (yanked from another forum, apparently yanked from Dave Letterman)
Top Ten Signs Your Kitty Is A Genius
10. Meows in six languages
9. He’s the only one in your family who could assemble your Ikea coffee table
8. His whiskers are Bluetooth enabled
7. He only purrs when “Meet the Press” is on
6. Won 28 grand on Jeopardy’s “Kitty Week”
5. He rigged it so he’s got 10 lives
4. Earned the 2005 Nobel Prize in yarn-related sciences
3. Keeps putting the dog on Ebay
2. Not only calls 911 for you, also calls Z-100 whenever you need your Aerosmith fix
1. Winces everytime he hears George W. Bush say, “Nuke-yoo-lar”
There is very little good news in the world this week, however,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060224/ap_on_sp_ot/bkh_what_a_night
http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_054093634.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/23/earlyshow/main1339324.shtml - w/video
Work safe.
Edit: Not actually depressing, just a feel good thing that if you’re emotional already, you’ll be a mess.
Settling an estate is a pain in the ass. The annuity company sent the paperwork god knows where, so they have to send that out again, there was apparently a miscommunication with the broker and they’re trying to cash out my brother’s half of the IRA, which is NOT what we want, so I have to make calls tomorrow to try to undo that.
And I could have sworn there was a payoff amount for the mortgage on the bank’s website, and apparently, there is not.
The assignment states “limit your essay to 450-550 words”… I’m over. I don’t care, I’ll take the hit on it if he wants to ding me for it, I like the paper the way it is. So there. I’m such a rebel.
But, it’s done! All that’s left is the rewrite of the board discussion that spiraled out of control into a beer rating thread, and the final exam.
Just having a blech night. Still tired, resentful over losing such a chunk of my day to work, and generally meh. Totally disorganized these days, which isn’t necessarily unusual, but it’s a lot worse than normal - work is literally driving me to distraction.
It’s happening to my boss, too - while I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, it was nice to hear I’m not the only one…
Maybe some more sleep will help. Can’t hurt, right?
Oh how I love working weekends… Yeah, I realize half the world ends up doing it, but it still kinda sucks. It’s been very slow, only 1 call, and they weren’t even there when I called, nor did they call back… Kind of a waste of 6 hours.
At least I have Monday off. When they put out the call for volunteers, I said absolutely not.
I am just beat all to hell today, and I don’t know why - I wasn’t out late last night, got a decent night’s sleep, but I still feel like I could go sleep another few hours. Which I may do.
It’s not exactly been a stellar week, and I get to work tomorrow too.
You see Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.
Don’t… don’t care?
It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime, so where’s the motivation? And here’s another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.
Eight?
Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation - not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
The decision is pretty much made, it’s just a matter of when and how to execute it properly. Someone once told me, “Are you leaving just to get away from something, or because you’re actually going towards something else?” It’s a little of both. I’ll fully admit I’m burned out because we’ve been so short staffed and I’ve been doing my job and half of someone else’s since about this time last year when we lost 3 people in one month. I’m not fond of the direction the company is going in since the new exec management team came in - they’re all about sales and marketing being what makes a company great - nevermind how you’re going to actually support those sales later.
I want to get back to school on a full time basis, learn something different, and be able to really dedicate the time and energy to it that it deserves - which I can’t do now, given that the job sucks a good 10 hours out of my day and immeasurable energy.
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean that’s what you should be doing. (those wise words were from
I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch.
What’s that?
Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh… it doesn’t really matter. I uh, I don’t like my job, and, uh, I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.
You’re just not gonna go?
Yeah.
Won’t you get fired?
I don’t know, but I really don’t like it, and, uh, I’m not gonna go.
So you’re gonna quit?
Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh… I’m just gonna stop going.
When did you decide all that?
About an hour ago.
An hour ago… so you’re gonna get another job?
I don’t think I’d like another job.
Well, what are you going to do about money and bills and…
You know, I’ve never really liked paying bills. I don’t think I’m gonna do that, either.
I would just like to state for the record that
That is all.
These papers that we’re doing are basically nothing more than a spot check on “do you need remedial English” and that’s fine, but my god, each and every one of them I’ve been beating my head into the wall trying to get words on paper. And this is just an outline…I just need one decent summary sentence and it’s finished, but I’m just a tad stuck.
In an attempt to distract myself and hopefully shake loose some coherent thoughts, I went and registered for the Reston Tri on September 10th… Registration opened at 7 and was full by 7:32. It is a very popular event, and only has 600 slots. Apparently in years past they did it over 3 nights w/ preference for Reston residents - this year they tossed it out on active.com and BOOM, full - and several emails on the TriRats mailing list saying how this was SO much better than last year. I totally got in under the wire - my registration confirmation email is timestamped 7:31.
OK, need to go yank one more sentence out of my head somehow…
(SFW unless your boss hates things that might possibly make you smile…)
I am so over this.
It’s only Tuesday, and I am barely functioning on the work front. I’m taking a break right now because I literally cannot think anymore. I’ve got calls that should be relatively simple and I am sitting here and staring at the data and just absolutely cannot absorb it at all.
We’re taking a new approach on queue management tomorrow - front line is responsible for new incoming calls, end of story. Each of the seniors is assigned one or two front line people. I have one really good person that will probably not ask much at all, another one that is coming along nicely, and a third person on Fridays only.
I am praying that if the front line is actually tending to new calls, I might be able to actually work my own calls. I don’t know about anyone else, but it would sure help me.
Today though, I don’t see how I am going to manage anything at all in the next hour and a half…
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Consider yourself smooched.
OK, I manage to forget an entire section in my career research paper (the summary paragraph…) and I still get a 94 on it. WTF? Hell, I’ll take it, I’m certainly not going to argue the point, but damn.
But he did say I seem to have a good handle on it and he enjoyed reading it.
A musing posed to my coworker this morning: Looking at the queue, and looking at how fried everyone is, I can’t help but wonder if by continuing to show up for work, we are perpetuating a myth to management that somehow these are acceptable working conditions.
Sadly, I think rats learn faster than we do on some things.
Note to self: Get call count down, get townhouse sold.
Paper is done. Topic and scratch outline for next essay is done. Topic: The need for a completion and exit strategy for military deployments.
No gym today, felt like crap most of the day. Hoping it’s not the stomach flu that’s heading through the office.
Cleaning service comes tomorrow and the place is a total hole. Much to get out of their way before bed, cause I don’t see myself getting up early to tend to it.
Men’s downhill on now - I’m getting dizzy just looking at the mountain they’re on… Holy crap, how do they DO that? (This is not helping with the housework…)
OK, to watch #4 in the men’s cross country pursuit go from dead last with a busted ski to the silver medal is quite something. This in a field of over 70 competitors. His two teammates managed to get to the front of the pack and slow it down while he caught up.
The 15K womens cross country is much better when you mute it and don’t have to listen to the commentators. (Can probably be said of most events)
Getting some traction finally on the paper - fortunately, it’s a fairly short one, I’ve just had a bad case of writer’s block on it. Then I need to come up with a scratch outline for a persuasive essay - any subject. That’s the problem - I have no subject as of yet. At the moment, I have no overwhelming need to persuade anyone of anything, and I doubt the prof will accept a treatise on why Guinness is the preferred beer of cool people everywhere… (Already started a shitstorm with that… We have to rewrite a discussion board because something I mentioned made the thread just disintegrate into beer comparisons… One of my classmates even said, “Poor Cynthia, she writes an extremely detailed response with great insight on imagined versus real obstacles and we turn it into a forum to discuss beer.â€)
Did have a flash of brilliance and dropped the English class for the moment - even though it’s just a 1 month overlap, it’s not gonna work right now - fortunately, it’s within the penalty-free-no-harm-no-foul-here’s-the money-back†period, and there is still the chance I can comp out of it and skip it altogether, if the fine folks over at the College Board can still locate my AP scores from 15 years ago…
Work is still weighing heavily on my mind - and dammit, it’s the weekend, it shouldn’t do that.
It’s not that I hate the work, or the company, or the people. It’s just that a body can only take so much, and I am just about done.
We started the year with 165 open tickets. We now have 335. This is with 10 people working full time. Not good. The problem is that the newbies don’t know what they’re doing yet and the old timers are rapidly hitting the point of non-functional.
I started the week with 40 tickets assigned to me, ended with 53, and still closed 104 in between, but we only managed to close 566 in total this week. My goal literally has been to just end each day with 1 ticket less assigned to me than I started with - obviously, that didn’t work so well this week. Even if I can manage that, it will take me until the friggin end of April to clear things out.
So, yes, I have 53 tickets in a 335 ticket queue, and of those, only 258 are actually assigned. Yes, I am carrying over 20% of all assigned tickets. Yes, that is hugely fucked up. Yes, I am kinda tired. It’s also a lot of stupid little things, too - my last call on Friday one of the newbies had picked it up, put a note in it of “will call in a sec” and then threw it back into callbacks and never called, so I get stuck with someone who starts the call with “I don’t know anything about billing…†that really should have been handled by someone else. I near put the phone through the window.
There is part of me that wants to just walk into the director’s office tomorrow morning and say “I’m done. You created this disaster, you deal with the aftermath, I’m tired of cleaning up after your unbelievable lack of foresight.” But, that’s also admitting defeat, which I absolutely hate to do.
As much as I’d love to stride out in a blaze of glory after cold-cocking my dingbat coworker*, it’s probably not the best idea.
So, I need to figure some things out.
1) How to deal without losing my mind in the short term and keeping work from continuing to negatively impact the rest of my life.
2) An exit strategy.
I am willing to give it a little more time and see how things shake out. But right now, I can’t see myself sticking around for yet another busy season, not if it’s going to even remotely resemble this one.
*Dingbat coworker is trying very hard to stir up shit. She does not realize how close she is to being very, VERY successful at it and getting her ass dragged out to the parking lot and having the crap beaten out of her while I quote Shakespeare. As many times as I have had to pull her butt out of the fire, bitch can take her superior attitude and shove it.
Looking out at the back deck, I’d say we got about 10-12 inches of snow last night.
However, the road in front of the house is totally clear - plows came through a good 6 or 7 times last night - VDOT seemed to really be on top of it this time around.
And, yippee!! The neighbors took care of the sidewalk for me! (They have a snowblower thing, so fortunately I don’t have to feel terribly guilty, but I’m still gonna bake something up and take it over to them.) Screw the driveway, that’s why I have 4WD.
Of course, this has absolutely no impact on work, since I’d work at home anyway even if it wasn’t my week for it. I like my Jeep more than I like my job, and I don’t like getting out on the roads with idiots.
Wow, this game is really, really painful…
I’m flipping back & forth between the game and Olympic coverage. Just watched one of the US lugers (how do you spell that? It just doesn’t look right) - got up to 88 miles an hour. I expected fireworks and a time-space portal to open - quite disappointing.
No fate but the fate you make for yourself.
