Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Changes in perspective.

My car died halfway through my hour-long commute, so I'm enjoying a half a day off of work. But while I'm waiting for someone to give me a ride home, I'm sitting at my former place of employment. I was here last week to see people, and I'll be honest .... Coming back has crossed my mind. I'm so burnt out at the call center.

I think there are three main reasons. One, the goddamn drive. Two hours a day is a lot. And I LOVE to turn on my music, roll the windows down, and sing away a long drive. But I've been having a ridiculous amount of car trouble the last few months. I've had two flat tires, a blown-out tire, a fuel pump that went out, run out of gas five fucking times, and then today's smoking-car fiasco. This is between three different vehicles, and here's the kicker: none of them were my fault. Truly. Even the running out of has was due to malfunctioning gauges, fuel leaks, etc. It's fucking retarded. And oy vey, the cost of gas! I make 11 an hour before tax once you subtract gas.

The second reason is that I feel like I spend my days having the same conversation, over and over and over. My calls tend to fall into three categories: "why should I pay to replace your equipment" (because it's been in YOUR possession for two years maybe), or "you're too expensive, I'm switching to Competitor!" (who in 99% of cases is NOT cheaper after the first year and is in fact more expensive), or "I want something free." And it gets old, bitches, older than people bitching about their food.

The third reason is feeling socially isolated. I work with some nice people, but I hardly get to talk to them. Our breaks are at different times, we can rarely talk between calls, and after work all we want to do is get the fucking hell out of there. Plus when we do talk, I have to really restrain myself. I spent years in an atmosphere where I could pinch Mistress J's boobs, slap Work Wife's ass, and tell Lapdog to fuck off all in the same trip through the kitchen. This place is exceedingly strict about sexual harassment, as any corporate place would be. Sexual stuff aside I can't even toss out my usual sarcasm or I'll get talked to (again). It's fucking stifling. Plus there's a lack of physical contact. I didn't realize until the boy dumped me how empty of human contact my life is without my friends here. We were always hugging or casually touching. And when I first changed over to the new place, I had the boy. Now .... If I don't see a family member or friend, which because of schedule is a rare thing, I might go weeks without so much as brushing another person. I didn't realize how much it affected me.

I guess there's another reason - schedule flexibility. I've never had a job before where I couldn't request an unpaid day off. Even when I was salaried, I could shift my hours around and make it work. But this place is totally hard-nosed about it. You can't swap shifts. You can't work overtime one day to cover the next. You can't pre-schedule a day unless you have paid time available. I'd like to know what exactly their fucking problem is with NOT paying me. But it's really difficult to see friends, see family, bake, etc.

And somehow all of that adds up to considering the possibility of dealing with Chicken Little again. I know, it's freaking insane. But I think I would feel differently about it, because I would be choosing it this time.

I don't know. I'm just kicking it around right now. But I don't think I'll find anything but serving that will give me the schedule flexibility I desperately want and the income. If I were making enough to be saving up, to be getting ahead ... If I were able to save up enough to pursue my actual dreams, I could look at it as a stepping stone. But I'm still just scraping by. If I'm going to scrape, I'd like to at least do it more on my terms.

And then I thought of something add and went to the trouble of downloading a blogger app and starting to edit this.... And now can't remember it.

I know, I know ....

I just have a mental block every time I sit down to write. It doesn't help that's it's blazing fucking hot 24/7 here. Oh, and half my goddamn state is on fire and I'm close enough to one to feel like I've started smoking a pack a day. All I want to do is lay under a fan!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

People are just goddamn ridiculous.

I haven't had any crazy extreme calls lately. It's been an endless stream of minor, crazy crap:

 "Your technician was supposed to be here by noon, but he didn't get here until 12:02! How are you going to compensate me for my time?"
(Thirty minute call.)

"I don't have your service but I heard you're getting rid of channel X. I just want you to know that's terrible!"
(Fucking idiot.)

"I've had your service for six years! I don't understand why I should still have to pay for it!"
(Double fucking idiot)

"I called to cancel my account six months ago. Why am I still getting bills? Well how should I have known it wasn't cancelled? Just because I was getting a bill!"
(The notes said he called, yelled "Cancel my account!" and hung up. Then didn't answer when we tried to call back. And without verifying who we were talking to, of course we couldn't cancel the fucking account.)

"We didn't add that there HBO and Cinemax. We saw it on the bill but we just thought it was a mistake and you'd fix it. You're just trying to take advantage of us because we're senior citizens!"
(Those channels just HAPPENED to be added the same day they called about something else.)

"I'm not paying the contract termination fee. I told you at the start that I'd sign it but I wasn't paying any termination fee!"
(Sound thinking, there.)

"I'm supposed to mail my equipment back? You won't come get it? Tell you what, ma'am, I'm throwing your fucking shit in the fucking garbage!"
(Good job. Then you'll be charged for the equipment.)

It's burning me out, faster than any restaurant ever has, truthfully. Twerp is turning out to be an okay guy -- 22 with a wife and four kids, which makes me feel very sorry for him -- but I think just a little socially awkward. I think he means to be funny most of the time. His boss is still kind of a dick. Oh well. Life rolls on!


Sunday, June 3, 2012

We're in charge of everything.

"Thank you for calling, my name is--"
"What the hell kind of organization are you people running anyway!" the crotchety-sounding old man on the other end of the phone snarled.
I was taken aback for a second. "I'm sorry sir, I'm not sure what you mean."
"Well, somebody just called me from your company! She said she was doing a survey!"
I scanned the account notes quickly. "I'm not showing a record of us contacting you, sir. What was the survey about?"
"I don't know." he growled. "She asked for my credit card so I'd be eligible to get some damn prize and that just ain't legal now is it!"
"Well," I stammered, "I don't think it's illegal to ask--"
"Of course it is! I want to know what you're going to do about!"
"I'm sorry, sir." I tried to sound confident. "It sounds to me like it was some sort of scam. Did you give this person your card number?"
"Hell naw! That ain't legal!"
"That's good. It definitely sounds to me like a scam. I think the best thing to do would be to contact the local police and tell them about this call, because it definitely wasn't anyone from this company."
"I already did that," he grumbled.
"That's good, they should be able to handle it."
"But I want to know why you allow people to do this!" he demanded.
Great, now I get to try to explain free will to this old hillbilly? "It wasn't anyone from our company, and unfortunately we can't control if someone uses our name. Did she specifically say Company Name?"
He hesitated. "Well, I don't really remember." Aha! "But why can't you stop people from making those kinds of calls! It's not legal and it's not right and you shouldn't be letting people do that!"
Sigh. "There are unscrupulous people out there, sir, it's just an unfortunate fact of life."
"But why do you let them make phone calls?"
"Sir .... we can't control who uses the telephone." I tried not to add you idiot on to the end.
"Well, why the hell not! Why don't you stop them from using the phone!"
"Because we're your cable television provider, sir. We don't have anything to do with the phone company."
Silence. "Oh. This is Company, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir." I would have thought the multiple times our automated phone system said the name, and me saying it at the beginning of the call, might have clued you in.
"Oh." Click.