I heart Frat Boy.

I wanted to hug Frat Boy the other day. I was in a bad mood from the start, although now I can't remember why. But people were just pissing me the fuck off. And it just got worse and worse. People had just taken extra stupid pills or something.

Now, I almost never pawn calls off on a supervisor. But one guy ... there was nothing I could do for him. He was throwing an absolutely motherfucking fit. And why? Well, a technician had been to his house and swapped out some equipment. The tech then took the old equipment with him. Well, the tech didn't enter the equipment into the system promptly, so our system automatically sent an empty box so the customer could return it. So the guy called; we apologized, made sure he would not incur any charges, and told him basically not to worry about it. This was all noted on the account by the department with final authority on these situations. So basically, there was no reason for this fuckface to be calling me.

But, being a fuckface, he was. And he was completely freaking out ... because when he got home that day, he had a "Sorry we missed you!" sticker from UPS, attempting to pick up the box. He wasn't home when UPS came; it in no way inconvenienced him. But this idiot was yelling at me about how incompetent our company is, why can't we get this right, etc. I assured him again that he would not be charged, as that's most peoples' concern. Oh, he didn't care about that. He just went on and on about how he was spending hours and hours of his time on the phone because "you're incompetent." After ten minutes of this, I was at my wit's end. I wanted to ask him what the fuck he'd like me to do. Instead I politely asked if he could hold for a moment.

"I won't wait long!" he snapped. I didn't even respond, just put him on hold and went to Frat Boy. "This guy won't stop yelling at me. There's nothing we can do, he's just pissed off UPS stopped at his house, but he won't get off the phone. Will you talk to him?"
"I can't do anything, but sure."
"I know, he's just an ass." I shrugged and went back to the phone. "Thank you for holding, sir. At this point I'd like to get you over to my supervisor."
"Why?"
"Because you don't seem to be satisfied with the information I can give you," I said kind of impatiently.
"Oh fine, I'll just explain this allllllll over again. You people are ridiculous."
I just transferred him .... and then sat in after call to listen to Frat Boy talk to him. I laughed my ass off when I heard "Thank you for holding, this is Frat Boy, how can I ....." and then in his most disgusted possible tone, "don't tell me what I'm going to do."

The guy hung up and Frat Boy just grinned at me. "The first thing he said was 'this is what you're going to do!' What a jackass."

But that was nothing compared to a call I got a couple of hours later. I don't know if this man was drunk, or stupid, or mentally challenged, but I couldn't understand any of his inarticulate screaming. About the only thing I could understand were the swear words. After several minutes of him ranting and not letting me speak, I was able to discern he was having a technical issue of some type -- "this goddamn fucking piece of garbage is broken!"
"I'm sorry you're having trouble sir, let's find out what's happening. Can I get your name please?" I said as calmly as possible.
The response I got was a roar of "LISTEN, BITCH!" and some more incoherent bitchery. Most days I'd have at least attempted to calm him down, but I was sooooo done. I waved at Frat Boy and once I caught his eye I said very loudly, "Sir, if you call me a BITCH one more time, I will hang up on you."

Oooooh, Frat Boy did not like that. His eyes bugged out, his jaw clenched, and he said, "You send him to me right now!"
I tried to tell the jackass I was going to transfer him, but he wasn't listening. I sent him over.
Frat Boy did his greeting, and then said, "I understand you're having problems. But the next time you call, you will be polite. You will be professional. And you will not yell or swear at my agents. If you do, I will lock your account and you will no longer by welcome as a customer. Do you understand me? Good." And he slammed the phone down!

Even better, Frat Boy kept checking the guy's account regularly to see a) if he called back and b) if there were any notes about him being rude. The guy did call, but apparently behaved himself ... that time. Frat Boy still has the account number and he's keeping an eye on him.

I was so grateful to have somebody sticking up for me that I almost cried.

I cannot focus worth a fuck.

The good news is that things my life, personally, are pretty okay. Fuckers at work are making me go into retention training next week, which seriously chaps my ass, but on the other hand I got my schedule changed so I don't have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn anymore. Except for the ten days of retention training of course. Shitty thing about that is Frat Boy isn't my boss any more, and he displayed so much awesomeness the day before my schedule change that it was almost worth the early morning hours. But working 2-10:30 is so much more my speed.

The boy is sort of around. I managed to borrow and scrape together the money to get my bankruptcy going before I get any more garnishments - I feel like a failure giving up on paying my debts, but after eight years of fighting .... yeah. Anyway. Stuff in my life is okay. Stuff in the lives of the people around me .... not so much. It ranges from simple (broken ankle, fired from job) to sad but inevitable (someone my mother cared about dying of cancer) to something I can't write about here, but that I would do literally anything to have prevented if I could have.

So even though I'm okay, between worrying about my family, and some of them piling endless drama on me, and adjusting to a reversed schedule, my focus is shot.  To quote a blog I fucking love, this has left me "almost completely useless for anything other than consuming nachos and surfing the internet like an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP."

But I will write about the aforementioned Frat Boy awesomeness soon!

As always, the stupid burns.

This woman called up today with a fairly standard technical problem. Wanting to find out if I could help or if I had to scoot her along to the next tier, I asked if it was happening on all her televisions.

"Uh! I only have one."
"Oh, okay. Well, I see you have two receivers. Is the other in an RV or--"
"I do not!"
Sigh. "Well, I see here a model (extremely ancient) that you've probably had since you first got the service."
"Oh!" she laughed. "That thing's been in our attic for about six or seven years now. We bought this new one and chucked that one upstairs."
Oh holy Jesus. I hate having to tell people they've been paying for something they haven't been using. "Okay, well let me just go ahead and deactivate that receiver since you mentioned that." Please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't .....
"Why? What will that do?"
Shit. "It will decrease your bill by $9 a month," I said pleasantly. "Now to fix the problem with your receiver, we need to--"
"Nine dollars a month? I've been paying nine dollars a month for something I wasn't even using? For how long?"
"Since whenever you unplugged it and put it in the attic, ma'am." I knew what her next words were going to be.
"Well, that's not fair! I want my money back! Why should I pay for something I wasn't using!"
"I totally understand, but it's been printed on your bill every month for the last six years, and we had no way of knowing you were no longer using it."
"Of course you did, don't lie to me! I want my money back! Or I'm just going to cancel my service!"

At least at that point I could transfer her over to the retention team, not that they can do anything for her. A few months, we can fix. But six years? Now, I'd want my $650 back too, but I would also not have been so fucking stupid as to have paid a bill for six or more years without ever looking at it.

Here's the bad news .... at the end of the month I have to go into retention training, so those kinds of idiots will be transferred to me instead of away from me. Oi.

More on the personal.

I know, I know; I'll get back to bitching about customers eventually. Promise.

I just wanted to answer what SkippyMom and DMT said in their last comments about seeing a doctor about my exhaustion/depression. I've been on Prozac for about nine years, I'm basically non-functional without it -- depression and anxiety run in both sides of my family. And I've been going to doctors every so often for my fatigue for the last twelve years. It always goes something like this ...

"Oh, well, you're fat, so you probably have diabetes, that's why you're tired." Then they check my blood sugar and it's fine.
"Well, your thyroid is probably sluggish, that's why you're tired AND fat." Then they check my thyroid and it's fine.
"Well, overweight people often have sleep apnea, so you probably have that and that's why you're tired." For years that's where it stopped, because I couldn't afford a sleep study. Then I had insurance and went through the pain in the ass and expense of a sleep study and nope, no sleep apnea.
"Well ..... you're fat." And of course they don't fucking believe me when I tell them that losing weight does not help my fatigue. Because I'm a lying fatty, right? I just didn't get skinny enough. Never mind that dropping fifty pounds had no fucking effect on how I felt.

(No, I'm not bitter at all. Not after years of being told everything wrong with me ever was because of my flubber. Got allergies? No you don't, you just feel crappy because you're fat. Can't breathe through your nose? FAT. Depressed? Maybe you shouldn't be so fat. Burning pain in your stomach? Must have gall bladder disease, fatass. Except, oh wait, turns out I'm allergic to fucking everything, I had a massively deviated septum and malformed sinuses, a family history of depression, and a fucking peptic ulcer that went untreated for years. Ahem. Sorry.)

My ENT did think that my sinus surgery would help, and it did, sort of. But my personal theory is that something in my immune system was damaged when I had mono twelve years ago, because that's when this shit started. Before then I'd sleep four hours a night and run around like a crazy person. After that, I spent months sleeping 18 hours a day and failing classes because I literally could not wake up. Since then, I just never have any energy. I literally do not remember the last time I felt like I slept well, or the last time I felt like I had non-caffeine-induced energy. But I've basically given up because I've literally lost count of the number of doctors I've seen who've had no suggestions.

Tattoo

Since this one is kind of generic enough to share!

Intolerable.

That's how my job has felt the last few weeks. Every time my headset beeps I grind my teeth. And I'm not 100% sure why. I've never burnt out on a job this fast before. And I didn't get the great job I interviewed for last week and really thought I had in the bag.

I think a lot of the problem is that we're not allowed to do anything between calls now. If I could spend the thirty seconds to a minute between stupid people and their stupid questions reading, I wouldn't feel like I'm going insane. Instead all I can do is stare at the wall, and it's pissing me the fuck off.

Not to mention that it gives me too much time to think, by which I mean worry. About my family, about my completely fucked up financial situation, about the boy (although that's changed a lot, to sum up my feelings have cooled and he's not using me for anything I'm not using him for if you get my drift).

I'm glad I have a job. It's not that bad. But the last couple of weeks I feel like I just can't take it. I just have to hold on another couple of weeks and then I can request a schedule change - part of my issue is having to be up so damn early. It just kills me. Going on five months here and it's not getting better. If I can just get on a later shift, with shorter hours, I think it'll be easier on me. God I hope so, or I might end up waitressing again.

In less whiny, happier news, I got another tattoo!

I have not drowned myself in alcohol or lard.

Yet.

Thank you for all your supportive comments on my last post. I'm still struggling; I still feel weak and stupid; but I'm pushing on and trying to not be too morose. My success on that varies. Being in touch with the guy in question again doesn't really seem to be helping much but I also don't seem to be able to tell him to go away.

And checking my bank balance today and discovering a collection company put a $1700 garnishment on my bank account, with no notification, and since the money wasn't actually there they'll likely be going after my paycheck next .... that was just awesome. Especially since this is the week I'm meeting with a bankruptcy attorney to prevent shit like that from happening.

Then I got home today and half my backyard fence has blown down. Hilarious.