So glad I split from the office scene.

First Day.

A photo journal of the bunnies and me, our first day on the job.

Had to wake up at the crack of nine. Not bad since training forced me up at 5am. In case you are wondering, yes I showered and yes I did shave my legs. Although these pictures do not make it look as if I did. But you older folk out there will recognize poor circulation when you see it.

This is us, working hard.


And here we are, taking a coffee break. This required us to swivel in our chair about 14 degrees. It was an exhausting trip through mid-morning traffic.



Most of the day, however, the bunnies stayed under the desk. They like it there, they play pinochle and chat quietly. And of course keep my tootsies warm.



Then a bit of lunch.



I will let you know how I manage this hectic schedule.

And another thing...

Just an update. Got my pension papers in on Wednesday (built up pension contributions from Undisclosed Customer Service Center™) and they deposited the money in my account this morning. They had told me 3-5 days and it was exactly 3 which blew me away.

I went out tonight to get an obnoxiously comfy chair for my office. I wasn't able to find the chair I could really be happy in, so I ended up getting this one.

About time.

Bunny slippers arrived last night.

Shhhhh....they are sleeping.

UPDATE: New start date, October 25th.

Are you kidding me?

I have two days left before I terminate my employment with the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™ and my manager picks tonight to put me on employment review for my attendance. I kid you not.

He is reading the form letter to me. "This letter is just to inform you that we are concerned about your attendance..."

I give him my best whinny voice, "But I promise I will do better." And just as fast, switch it off, "Oh wait....no I won't."

Gives ya a warm and fuzzy feeling, don't it?

I think I might call in sick on Friday.

The end is nigh.

Well I am creeping up on my last day at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™. While I will miss working for Bill, I will not miss the bullshit that is cubic hell.

Seems like this week people are just trying to make me go postal? And not even people that usually irritate me. People who I usually get along with famously are taking this opportunity to get on the absolute worst side of me.

When call volume is low, they take us off the phones so we don't fuck up the service level. You see the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™ does not get paid for 100% service level, its more like 75, but if we go over we don't get paid more. On the occasions when we are above 75% and there are no calls coming in, they have to take us off the phones to force the service level down. They can't send us home for fear that call volume will spike and there is no one there to take calls so the came up with this program that barfs out useless, politically correct customer handling training. Stuff like proper breathing and stretching, positive attitude...blah, blah.

In our department we deal with a lot of students and summer is our down time so you can imagine we have been in more than out of these knowledge sessions. We are long past having any left to actually do, so when they tell us to go into this mode they pretty much know that we have no courses left to do and that we will just be sitting there doing nothing.

Don't get me wrong, we love that shit. Sit around and get paid for doing nothing, but after a while it gets boring.

Back to the 'going postal' thing. Most of us are going into this knowledge session when one of the managers comes up to me and says, in his best Nelson Muntz voice, "You are banned from knowledge sessions." I was half expecting him to point and say, "Nah Ha!" It was a totally juvenile moment.

"Why would you give a shit if I take a call or not? Does it effect you in any way?" He thought he was being funny, but he was just stomping all over my last nerve.

Now these last few days, they are not letting anyone go home early and no long lunches. What this means is we all sit on the phones and do nothing. They couldn't even put us in the knowledge thing because the server was not responding. So we sit. And sit.....with nothing to do.

I doubt I will last through my last shift.

Separation of church and state.

I think I might start another blog just for the work-at-home gig. You know, something I might actually be able to show my employer.

This blog pretty much chronicled my whole stint at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™ although I had to take great pains to make sure upper management did not get wind of it.

I often though it would have been a better idea to separate the work shit from the personal stuff. But by the time I thought of it, it was way too much work to separate it.

So, I am thinking I will start the new blog with my first day of training. Put out some info on how it really is to work from home. Keep it clean, for the employer and then tell you how I really feel here.

This also might be a good opportunity to try one of the other free blog hosting outfits.

So, my questions for you:

What should I name this new blog?

Any suggestions on the blog host? Who do you use and how do you like it?

Just a matter of time.

Half a second after I hit SEND on the resignation letter, the Big Giant Head sends for me. "He wants to see you."

"Wow, that was fast. Has he read the email?"

"Don't think so , he has been standing over there the whole time." He indicates the rows of empty cubes.

As I approach him, my sister intercepts. She is carrying something. "Here's a pen for your new desk!"

"Hello? I haven't even told him yet."

The Big Giant Head raises and eyebrow, "Why am I always the last to know?"

"I don't know, read your email."

He tries to recover, "I actually knew this yesterday."

"Really? Cuz I only found out this morning."

"Maybe it was earlier today." He has his finger on the pulse.

Then he goes into his schpeil:

BGH: He spreads his arms wide, "How could you give all this up?"
ME: "You're kidding me, right?"

BGH: "But you are giving up all this tenure with ..."
ME: "Tenure isn't doing me any good." It really is the least beneficial in the grand scheme of things. Except that I know where all the bodies are buried.

BGH: "But its a smaller company..."
ME: "It's a Maritime company. It has been around since Jesus was a carpenter and it will be around long after I am gone."

BGH: "But you will be taking a pay cut."
ME: "Forty cents. And the Undisclosed Internet Service Provider™ awards raises by skillset. They train me for something new, I get a raise. If they did that here, I would be making more money than you."

BGH: "But..."
ME: "Look, I have been trained and worked in every department in this joint. The way it stands here now, there are people who are trained for one job (customer service) who are, and will always be, making more money than me. The only thing I have not done is the ISP support, and if I am going to do that, I might as well be doing it in my bunny slippers."

BGH: "I see, well if you decide you can't stay for the full two weeks, let me know and there will be no negative repercussions."
ME: "Aside from the fact The Boy would starve? Thanks anyway, I will be here."

I GOT IT!

This just in. I got the job! She called me at an ungodly hour but I managed to sound chipper.

Film at Eleven.

Who can wait for eleven?

Now we are so happy, we do the dance of joy!

Maybe I can win the lottery?
(Written, but not posted, on 8/25/07)

The most wondrous thing happened to me Thursday night. I will probably not post this until after I find out if I got the job at the Undisclosed Internet Service Provider™, just in case the wrong people read this. (this may or may not make sense later)

So my cousin Potsie and I get early release from work and decide to get a bite to eat on the way home.

It is important to note that Potsie is gay. Not just gay, openly gay. In fact he will throw you in front of a bus just to chat up the cute driver as they bag and tag you. He really doesn't care what team you play for, he figures he can recruit you.

But I digress. We stop at a local pizza joint and I notice my old boss' van out front. "Oh great, just what I need." We didn't exactly part on good terms.

As we walk through the door of the crowded pizzeria, the boss is walking out. He nods at me, "Hello." Very civil. I nod back and mumble a hello. Then he notices Potsie, "Well hello, Potsie!"

Potsie and I stop dead in our tracks, and as the boss walks out the door we say, in unison, "How do you know Boss?" He grins.

"AH HA! I KNEW IT!" Even in the busy pizza joint people stopped and stared. I was bursting with joy, I could hardly contain myself. I could not wait to get out of that place so I could pump Potsie for more information.

Later as Potsie chatted up the boss in the gay chat room, the boss was pretty much shitting a brick. You see, as he was informing Potsie that he was 'very discrete', Potsie dropped the bomb that I was, in fact, his cousin.

Holy shit. I need to buy a lottery ticket. My luck has certainly changed. I can't wait to call him and ask him for a reference.

And another thing...
(Added Today)

Still no word about the job....no news is good news I guess.

Who says that? That is just bullshit. No news is not good news, it fuckin' sucks.

I can't win the lottery, but maybe...?

I applied for a job with the local Undisclosed Internet Service Provider™ to do tech support from home.

Unfortunately, everyone else at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™ had the same idea and there are only 15 openings. What would be really cool is if they hired everyone that applied. We could all do a stampede out the door at the same time. Trampling the Big Giant Head on the way out. (A girl can dream)

I would kill for this job. The mere fact that I could smoke at my desk again would convince me to take a cut in pay. Not to mention the whole 'bunny slipper' aspect of the job.

They supply you with a dedicated phone line, high speed internet, computer, phone, the works. Some reports say desk and chair, but that is not confirmed. Factor in that as an employee, you would get a deal on your internet, cable and phone service and that alone justifies the cut in pay. Their base salary is only 40 cents less than I am making now.

The cutoff for applications was on Wednesday and people were already getting callbacks yesterday. I, of course, was not one of them but there is still hope.

Fingers and toes crossed.

Update!

I had a 25 minute phone interview at noon today. The interviewer said he was impressed with my resume and how I handled myself on the phone.

There is a catch, however. He wants my last employers name as a reference. That would be the one that fired me. You would think this would be an upsetting turn of events. But alas, the planets have aligned themselves for Evel and this particular turn could not come at a better time. (All will be revealed in a later post)

Anyway, I have a face-to-face next Wednesday with another person who will grill me on the technical.

Just a little nervous.

THE END?

Ok. I have had time to process and I would like to explain what happened on Friday.

I arrived at work shortly before 9am. All was pretty normal, not much different than any other day. The boss had me type up a few letters and fax them off, then I finished the payroll and was about to dig in to my data entry, it was about 10:30am. He came down the stairs and was looking for something so I helped him find it.

Then he sat down. Here is our conversation:

�We are going to be making some changes around here. And unfortunately, they will not include you.�

Just like that. I was stunned for a minute. �Are you kidding?�

�No�

�Just like that?�

�Ya, just like that?�

�As of when?�

�Right now�

�No notice?, Nothing?�

�What would be the point in giving notice?�

�Oh, I don�t know. Maybe I could find something else?�

�No, it has to be today, in fact you can pack up right now and go if you like.�

At this point I am still stunned, I don�t know what to do. All that is going through my head is the fact that I am self employed, which means, no unemployment insurance, no severance. I have been working for this guy for 7 years. Then I realized that I wasn�t upset. Which was strange, I was suddenly out of a job with only the pay check in my hand to my name, but I was not upset.

The truth was, I hated my job. I would go to bed on Sundays with dread about having to go to work in the morning. I really hated the thought of going back. But I suppose if this had not happened I would have suffered through a few more years, I probably would have never left on my own. But now, here it is Monday and I feel great.

I have enough work with my other clients to get me through a couple of months while I find something else. In fact I think I will take this opportunity to try something else. I have been in the same line of work since I left high school (about 18 years) and I am ready to try something different. I have updated my resume and have dropped off some in town, and am looking into going back to school.

It�s not an ending, it�s a beginning and I have to tell ya��.it feels good.

AHH Spring. In Canada it is what we live for. It is how we measure time. "God, I can't wait till spring", "It feels like spring" "Spring feels like it is just around the corner". When you are Canadian, spring means the end of your misery, spring is better than Christmas. Snow is pretty to watch, but unless you are a skier or a penquin, it gets old really fast. Today was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, ...ok...they weren't singing, they were shitting on my car...but who cares...as long as it isn't snow.

Spring also means Home Show season, and thankfully my boss, in his infinate wisdom, believes that he must participate in every single one. "What does this mean for Evel?" you might ask. Well it means my boss will be GONE, out of my hair, far away from me. A stress free time for me. You see I don't "do" the home shows. I don't know enough about the product to be able to demonstrate it and answer any and all questions put to me. Thank God my boss hasn't connected the fact that I prepare all the promotional material with the knowledge that I might have retained some of that information in the nine years I have worked for the company. And to make sure he never does, I have prepared a few inane questions to ask him about the product. In fact I remind myself to ask one at least once a month, I mark it on my calander. This keeps me safely away from the home shows, and tucked safely in the warmth of my jammies in front of the tv all those weekends while he is drumming up business. Do I feel guilty? Let's just say I don't lose sleep over it.

Spring has sprung, all is right with the world.

March 20, 2002

Who exactly IS the boss?

What a fantastic week I am having.....I came back to work on Monday to find my boss had left for Ontario for the week ;-) I thought "this must be the luckiest day of my life".

As the day wore on, however, I came to the realization that my boss had neglected to sign any paychecks, actually he didn't sign anything. Ok....not a problem, his father is authorized to sign checks, I just had to track him down.

Tuesday afternoon I swing by his house, his truck is there....no answer at the door. Hmmmm....I get back to the office and one of the boys says " oh....isn't he in Ontario too?" NO FREAKING WAY! Yes it was true. So, we are left with no paychecks.

But don't cry for us.......with a little creative accounting I will make sure we get paid. This job is nothing if not challenging. Ok....its also stressfull, infuriating, stressfull, exasperating, did I mention stressfull? Which was the whole reason I had to take a vacation in the first place, my doctor said that the reason the side of my face was going numb could be my job stress......ya think?

Oh well we can't all be ice cream tasters at Ben & Jerry's, we have to take what we get. And it's not that bad of a job, even if my boss sometimes bangs his head against the wall when he talks to me...or at me. There are benefits. How many bosses can you call if you have a flat...who will come and change your tire. (or at least send someone to fix it). Everything in life is a trade off. You have to weigh the pros and cons. What's a little face numbing compared to being stranded on the side of the road. I may take a stroke.......but they can lay me out in the back of my car and get me to my funeral on time.

The Vacation is over!

Was it worth it? I think so. I had some relaxation time, I got some things done that I had been putting off. (not much mind you, after all...it was a vacation) And miracles of miracles my boss only called the once. I think I may have scared him. Whatever the reason I am rested. But I think that it will just make going back to work that much more undesireable.