Occupational Hazards

There is never enough time, and I wind up just wanting to do things that I don't have time for.

-Neil Gaiman

Hello there kiddies! It's me again, and I warn you... I'm not feeling too great.

I'm currently at work during a lull before my department meeting noshing on a blueberry muffin and drinking a small coffee/hot chocolate mix.

Before I go any further, let me get the update stuff out of the way.

• Penelope is at part eighteen with Here One Minute...

Yeah. Impressive, eh? (sarcasm) That's all there is since yesterday was...

Yesterday was kind of crappy for me. I had to come to work at 7am which was fine since this time it wasn't a weekend shift, and I wasn't alone in my department until 2pm. THIS time the next person came in an hour later, and it wasn't until after that things started to happen.

The first thing that happened was the internet went down. We have a couple computers that work off a wireless router, but neither are bluetooth tethered to the printers so we couldn't print anything out for our drivers. The two of us were fine but then we had two other girls coming in at 11am and noon so I wanted to get the internet issue situated before they came in since yes... it was slow, but to have four of us here and only one real working computer in our department? (We could have used the one in the back of the building, but there was no phone hooked up there so we wouldn't have been able to really do our job back there.)

I had just received an email from my new department manager saying to contact her (and not the boss of the company) for assistance/guidance if anything should happen. I was hesitant to call her since it was an IT-question, but I did anyway just to be sure. She suggested I call bossman. The lady I was working with didn't think I should bother him so I tried calling our actual "IT-guy" (I was told I could call him or bossman for tech support if they weren't in the office). Got IT-guy's voicemail. Then Leddy M (who was working dispatch that morning) called him and left a message... to which he emailed us back some time later. I ended up having to essentially (after finding the correct box in the server room) "turn it off then turn it back on". I had to chuckle at that since I love the series The IT-Crowd (if you're familiar with the show, then you'll know what I mean).

So with the internet back up and running, the other girls came in and then I went to lunch.

It wasn't until after I came back from lunch, the dumb thing happened.

So there are these out of state/country orders we have to take care of when we're the opening person. Everything autofaxes, so all I have to do is call and confirm the faxes were received. And I did. But the pickup place called and said the driver was late, and one of the other girls asked me what was going on since my name (from confirming the faxes) was the only name on the order.

In a nutshell, there were a few orders/deliveries that were "exceptions to the rule" over the holidays that needed manual edits the day before versus the default settings. There was an email sent out about it from one of the other department heads, but that was sent a few days before Christmas and was since buried in my inbox. Instead of recalling the email, I asked the ladies I was working with if they'd come across a situation like this, and they said no. I had no other numbers than my manager and my boss, and I couldn't get a hold of either of them. My boss called back and asked if I had called my lead (the one that deals with the Canada orders), and I said no since I didn't have anyone's phone numbers. He gave it to me. I called him. The connection cut the calls off. Finally I called him one last time, and we came up with a plan to handle things. (Turns out he should have changed the times on the order on New Year's Eve - per the email and a day I wasn't working - but he forgot to.) In the end, it was all taken care of, but I was so bothered with the whole mess that it lingered with me after I left work to this morning before our meeting. Apparently it was all good since it wasn't even brought up, but I talked to my lead and we sorted stuff out which now we have actual contact numbers for the frakkin Canada drivers instead of trying to get a hold of them via phone, fax, email, text... and NOTHING!!!

And then I checked my work email last night and this morning and guess what? The IT-guy (you know, the one I can call for tech support?), emailed back to say he was offline most of the day but was glad we got things taken care of. *rollseyes*

There was also an email from my manager including a department phone list. (Gee, this would have been nice to have yesterday.)

But I feel that things are getting better in the office since her arrival. For example, we were informed in our meeting that they are furniture shopping. So of course I asked what it was for. Apparently they are trying to get us all desks. (HOLLA!) In my department, there are six work stations (including my mananger's). When I first got here, we all shared desk space. It was a first come, first serve kind of thing. Each desk had a bottle of Purell and a tub of Lysol AntiBacterial wipes. We were all trying to be careful about the workspaces since we shared them... tried to keep them clean and germ free. The two leads have their own desks which are all decorated with personal stuff, but when they're not here, the rest of us can sit at their desks if we need to.

So the chairs that were there when I was hired were "old and busted". There was one that would snap forward at a 15-degree angle, another that sat at a slant, and another that would slip down an inch very slowly until you sat almost face to face with the keyboard and desktop.

New chairs were purchased (we had our choice of two), they were assembled and labeled and Voila! - we all had our own new brand new chairs. But we didn't have any place to stash them when we weren't working where they wouldn't get in the way.

So the fact that they're looking at giving us our own desks is a good thing. Woot!

What else?

Someone set out a big bowl of candy canes in the break room (of which I took several). That was an upside to my day... which is nice since I am closing a lot of nights though tonight while I was working my final hour with Monica D (who was actually closing), I was talking about a couple things that had come up that I wanted to do, but I couldn't because I was working those days.

First is Alithea S is coming to town for a visit, and her parents invited us to dinner at their new house so we could hang and visit with her. Unless I can find someone to swap with me, I won't be able to make it since I close that night. Monica D is under the impression that I will be able to find someone to take the shift or switch with, but I'm doubtful since most of my department (which is only about eight people big) is starting school of some kind... which has led me to have a lot of evening shifts. (I also got a message from Jim G that he had passed to go see Warm Bodies - a movie I'd like to see, but will have to decline his invitation since the day of the passes I work until 8pm and the movie starts at 7pm.) Of the two events, the movie is less important, but still... bummer for me.

Oh how I miss the days where I had a Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm gig. I didn't miss as much.

But then Monica D mentioned something tonight which left me wondering about my schedule for the next few months. She said she doesn't start her classes until next month to which she put in a request to work all closing shifts. She and I already predominantly close, but that makes me wonder if I'll get fewer closing shifts. (One would think, right? Well, it's at least a possibility at any rate.)

I close the next two nights, then I'm off for the next three days. Ideally I'd head to Fresno to see my family, but I can't really afford it. As it is, I have to deal with my phone issue. (I need to walk into a Verizon store and have someone explain to me what the deal is with my bill since the paperbill, the website and the app on my phone all say different stuff. And there was some things that changed on one bill, but when I was reading it - online, I think - they were billing me for a month ahead which I didn't pay when I paid my phone bill last month due to me not having used my phone for that time period yet. The bill at that point was twice my usual monthly rate which would leave me to believe the regular amount - which it looks like that weird billing thing has stopped - would be due the next (this) month by the 7th. But guess what? It's showing that I owe three times my usual rate.

Now I can understand the increase for being late, but I'm not. In fact, when I was unemployed, my service was interrupted because I couldn't pay my bill so I wasn't billed for that time. Then I paid the balance in full mid-October, and my phone was revived anew. Every time I checked the app and online, one said I owed nothing while the other said I owed $5.00. My phone bill is always due by the 7th with a few days window (due to my actual paydays), so I let the $5.00 flow over to December. Somewhere between $5.00 and now, the bill mutated into something strange and psychotic, but I haven't had time with work and lack of sleep to go into the store near me and ask "WTF people?!?!?"

I may do that this weekend. I won't be able to pay anything until next week on payday, and hopefully they can work with me on that. Aside from not being able to call or text anyone, my mom goes cray-cray when she can't get a hold of me. She assumes that I've gone all emo and quoth the raven as I sit in the dark slicing my wrists to the melody of Morrissey songs.

My mom... the Olympic Gold worrier. (Is there something better than gold? Is it platinum? Cuz my mom's medal would kick a gold medal's ass.) I try to talk to her about managing her stress and worry. I keep failing to put it into the right words. I'm not denying her the right to worry. She's a mother and a grandmother. It comes with the territory, but damn... just... damn.

But I digress.

I really stop babbling and post this. After all, I only had one story blog update. Sheesh. Plus, it's almost time to leave work.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae