I've figured out the root cause of my stress problem(s) at work.
It is not the workload, it is not the juggling of projects or even the fact that I juggle two different call groups (I'm on the customer care team and I also handle a hotel reservations program), or helping out our returns team.
It's the team lead (hereafter referred to as 'TL') who sits next to me. She hounds people who have their cell phone on but yet by our director's rules, cell phones are not to be on at all in the call center...but said team lead seems to be exempt from that rule as she spends in excess of 90 minutes per day on her cell phone and most days it's closer to 2 to 2.5 hours. Same applies to the dress code as her brightly colored flipflops are okay for her but the rest of us are to wear dress shoes or something appropriate for "business casual" dress.
I am a back up most of the time for the hotel reservations program. My primary "line" is the customer care line and emails related to it. Mz. TL is also trained for the reservations program but she can't be bothered from 30 minutes personal conversations with a team member or from the numerous long running conversations with her kids, husband, sisters, and who knows who all else. She likes to just tell me to get those calls and any thing that's given to her to spread to the team. No, it's in my in basket. I exist to do her work it seems. If I'm not taking reservation calls, it's because I have two director-given projects on my desk, a stack of returned orders to get down to the returns department, and other projects directly related to the customer care side of my job. The PRIMARY JOB that I'm hired for...
The worst of it is that she is all worried about my morale and making things better...and loves to poke at me when I'm in a foul mood. One of these days...I'm going to pull her into a conference room and I'm going to unload the entire litany of things that she does that make me &*($%! angry. I'm starting to think about talking to other co-workers and see what they have to say (or have noted/logged) about the TL behavior.
It's to the point of when she's here, I generally hate my job. As soon as she leaves, the day seems to pick right up.
Monday through Wednesday, the closing TLs are much more calm, rational, and actually work. Thursday and Friday, it's all the TL from hell. Right up until 7pm. When she's around, I'm usually working through my breaks and my lunch. I have so much crap shoved onto my desk, my only chance to keep from starting a snowball of "do it tomorrow" is to work through my breaks and my lunch.
Now if I do that, Mz TL will ride me about how I'm entitled to my lunch break and how I should go outside and get away and not think of the place. Hell, if I'd walked out of the building today to take my lunch break, I'd not come back. I get angry enough to shake at times when she's around.
Yeah, as much as I love my job here and I'd actually like to make a career here at BI, but damn Mz TL is making it hard to stay here.
I know I'm not supposed to let it get to me and we're all a team and ... &*$#@&$*(@& that... we are not a team so long as we have a TL who can flout her rules violations and who pays lip service to those who are not her pets.
I really do love my job and realizing that it's just one person who makes me hate it has be thinking along two lines.
1: Document every thing she does and work to get her fired.
2: Find another job.
*laugh* Option 1 would likely get me promoted to take her place and option 2 is okay, but I really do like my job here. It's stressful during the holidays, but it pays well and aside from the TL from hell...I really do like it here. The only thing I'd change (and I am planning on changing here at the end of my lease) is the 23 mile drive to/from work every day.
31 July 2007
29 July 2007
Another wasted weekend...
Ugh.
It's going to be an interesting week.
One of my roommates is going to be gone all week. The same roommate who has major hygiene issues. The smell that wafts out of his room is awful at best and nauseating at worst. While he's gone this week, I'll be donning my hazmat suit and going in with two bottles of bleach, rubber gloves, and Pine-Sol. I'm going to be cleaning his room regardless of whether he likes it or not.
Now the other roommate, whom I share my life and space with, has his own issues that need to be brought up and resolved. Okay, he's young but I'm sick of cleaning up after him. I understand that he works 40 hours a week in fast food. Ya know, I've been there.
I work 40 hours a week, add in another 5 hours for my commute...and then I am supposed to take them to work or run them all over town for stuff. Okay, I don't have a problem with running to the grocery store or Wal-Mart to get stuff. The grocery store..you want to keep cold/frozen stuff in that state. Wal-Mart is a few miles away across town.
In some ways, I feel more like the father of two boys than I do anything else.
It's amusing how the first roommate mentioned that I'm always crabby and that it seems like all I ever do is clean the apartment and that I should take time to relax and just do nothing. I'm so stressed out from taking care of these two (and myself) that I've lost all sense of creativity. My writing feels completely foreign and nothing will flow. I've tried working on websites I maintain. I don't care about them any more. I'm just frazzled out of my mind.
I nearly hit the ceiling. If I didn't do the dishes, vacuum and dust, clean the cat box, take out the trash, and all the other things that no one else in this apartment ever does...we'd be knee deep in trash and cat feces. I know that cleaning the cat box isn't "fun" but it has to be done and is it really that hard/complicated/difficult to unload and load the dishwasher? It must be as I wind up doing three loads of dishes every Sunday. Just like how I wind up picking up all the plates, glasses, and assorted food wrappers and containers out of the living room on Saturday afternoon. I won't even begin to discuss the Foreman grill or the grease that just gets dumped into the sink. Pardon me while I take some deep breaths and try to relower my blood pressure.
*aaaaaah*
Last night, I told the one roommate that he has to start picking up his room and cleaning his bathroom. (He's not cleaned his bathroom....in six months. The toilet was bleached once...I did it.) When I'm done cleaning his room, it will be clean and it won't smell like it does now. I'm working on the other roommate, he'll just take longer. He's one of those people who is just slow to adapt.
Through it all, I have a whole new respect for parents, especially those families where both parents work. How the hell do you do it? I'm only about three months into the current state of insanity and I'm ready to push one out and start some seriously intensive behaviour modifcation techniques on the other. I need a few days of vacation with no one home or I need to spend a few days away from home. Sadly, I know that if I go away, I'll be wondering what the state of the house is while I'm gone. I have a long weekend in two weeks. I'm going camping with friends. I'm going to take the Thursday off ahead of that as well so I can clean the house before I go.
It's a test. If the house is picked up, vacuumed, and clean when I leave...and it's a hellpit when I return. There will be a roommate who is asked to leave.
I have scheduled off the last full week of August. I'm off from evening of the 24th and I don't have to be back to work until the morning of September 4th. Part of me says that I should work it anyway and bank the money. The other part of me says, I need the vacation to get away, see friends, and not think about work or the roommates.
We'll see after the 10th through 13th and my camping trip. Maybe the lessons will sink in. I can only hope.
It's going to be an interesting week.
One of my roommates is going to be gone all week. The same roommate who has major hygiene issues. The smell that wafts out of his room is awful at best and nauseating at worst. While he's gone this week, I'll be donning my hazmat suit and going in with two bottles of bleach, rubber gloves, and Pine-Sol. I'm going to be cleaning his room regardless of whether he likes it or not.
Now the other roommate, whom I share my life and space with, has his own issues that need to be brought up and resolved. Okay, he's young but I'm sick of cleaning up after him. I understand that he works 40 hours a week in fast food. Ya know, I've been there.
I work 40 hours a week, add in another 5 hours for my commute...and then I am supposed to take them to work or run them all over town for stuff. Okay, I don't have a problem with running to the grocery store or Wal-Mart to get stuff. The grocery store..you want to keep cold/frozen stuff in that state. Wal-Mart is a few miles away across town.
In some ways, I feel more like the father of two boys than I do anything else.
It's amusing how the first roommate mentioned that I'm always crabby and that it seems like all I ever do is clean the apartment and that I should take time to relax and just do nothing. I'm so stressed out from taking care of these two (and myself) that I've lost all sense of creativity. My writing feels completely foreign and nothing will flow. I've tried working on websites I maintain. I don't care about them any more. I'm just frazzled out of my mind.
I nearly hit the ceiling. If I didn't do the dishes, vacuum and dust, clean the cat box, take out the trash, and all the other things that no one else in this apartment ever does...we'd be knee deep in trash and cat feces. I know that cleaning the cat box isn't "fun" but it has to be done and is it really that hard/complicated/difficult to unload and load the dishwasher? It must be as I wind up doing three loads of dishes every Sunday. Just like how I wind up picking up all the plates, glasses, and assorted food wrappers and containers out of the living room on Saturday afternoon. I won't even begin to discuss the Foreman grill or the grease that just gets dumped into the sink. Pardon me while I take some deep breaths and try to relower my blood pressure.
*aaaaaah*
Last night, I told the one roommate that he has to start picking up his room and cleaning his bathroom. (He's not cleaned his bathroom....in six months. The toilet was bleached once...I did it.) When I'm done cleaning his room, it will be clean and it won't smell like it does now. I'm working on the other roommate, he'll just take longer. He's one of those people who is just slow to adapt.
Through it all, I have a whole new respect for parents, especially those families where both parents work. How the hell do you do it? I'm only about three months into the current state of insanity and I'm ready to push one out and start some seriously intensive behaviour modifcation techniques on the other. I need a few days of vacation with no one home or I need to spend a few days away from home. Sadly, I know that if I go away, I'll be wondering what the state of the house is while I'm gone. I have a long weekend in two weeks. I'm going camping with friends. I'm going to take the Thursday off ahead of that as well so I can clean the house before I go.
It's a test. If the house is picked up, vacuumed, and clean when I leave...and it's a hellpit when I return. There will be a roommate who is asked to leave.
I have scheduled off the last full week of August. I'm off from evening of the 24th and I don't have to be back to work until the morning of September 4th. Part of me says that I should work it anyway and bank the money. The other part of me says, I need the vacation to get away, see friends, and not think about work or the roommates.
We'll see after the 10th through 13th and my camping trip. Maybe the lessons will sink in. I can only hope.
20 July 2007
Delayed update
Well, there's not going on, so I've not felt particularly pushed to update.
Worked all of last week. I started out Saturday taking a lazy drive to Stevens Point. I wound up crashing with my friend Mikel and then having a very fun session of LARP with the Stevens Point Garou game. I officially joined their game/sept.
I drove back and got in much later on Sunday night (ok ok, it was Monday morning) and got into work on time, but on about three hours of sleep. I was tired but it was a much needed get away from things. It helped to clear my mind and recharge me so that I'm not in a morose funk.
It's been a fast week at work this week. It's been fairly slow and we're missing assorted people due to vacations and days off. Strangely, we've managed our call volume just fine and service levels are still doing well.
Tonight I'm going home to do laundry and finally play some hard core World of Warcraft. I've been having problems for the last two weeks with WoW randomly crashing/hanging/locking the entire system. It would randomly happen from the time I started the game up to about 20 minutes of playing. There was no pattern or trigger that I could see. I reinstalled WoW and all the patches then I downgraded from WinXP to Win2000 and reinstalled again. I pulled out the Nvidia 7600 GS/512MB out and went back to the onboard SiS UniChrome video. WoW was playable...at 2-4FPS, even at the lowest settings and all effects turned off, it was struggling to get 18FPS. Finally, last night, I was so frustrated with it that I was considering cancelling my account and uninstalling WoW. I decided to check and see if there were any BIOS updates for my motherboard (there were two, but nothing for the AGP issues, mostly to support newer CPUs) but what else did I find. There was an upgrade to the VIA Hyperion Pro 4-n-1 drivers...including an update to the AGP driver. I waited very very impatiently for it to download and installed it...and rebooted after putting the NVidia card back in the machine. Started Windows and started up WoW. 90 minutes later, I was still playing at full settings with no problems at all. I'd solved the problem!
Tomorrow is the St. Paul Garou game which I'll be going to as a semi-visitor. I'm technically still a part of the St. Paul game for paperwork purposes, but as a player, I'm a member of the Stevens Point game (more on that in another post). I'm going to be maintaining an LJ for my Garou character and posting all kinds of juicy goodness there.
Sunday is my day to do absolutely NOTHING. I am planning on sitting in the AC and either coding up the new Garou Nation website design or writing. I would like to get the Garou Nation site up to date and up to speed. I need to email the Head Storytellers of most of the games to make sure that I have the most up to date information for each game.
Well, it's 1:30pm and we're currently running 20-30 minutes between calls. I'd actually ask to go home early but I need the money and I know that we are short staffed late tonight. I'll be here until 7 bells.
I'm going to get back to faking work.
Worked all of last week. I started out Saturday taking a lazy drive to Stevens Point. I wound up crashing with my friend Mikel and then having a very fun session of LARP with the Stevens Point Garou game. I officially joined their game/sept.
I drove back and got in much later on Sunday night (ok ok, it was Monday morning) and got into work on time, but on about three hours of sleep. I was tired but it was a much needed get away from things. It helped to clear my mind and recharge me so that I'm not in a morose funk.
It's been a fast week at work this week. It's been fairly slow and we're missing assorted people due to vacations and days off. Strangely, we've managed our call volume just fine and service levels are still doing well.
Tonight I'm going home to do laundry and finally play some hard core World of Warcraft. I've been having problems for the last two weeks with WoW randomly crashing/hanging/locking the entire system. It would randomly happen from the time I started the game up to about 20 minutes of playing. There was no pattern or trigger that I could see. I reinstalled WoW and all the patches then I downgraded from WinXP to Win2000 and reinstalled again. I pulled out the Nvidia 7600 GS/512MB out and went back to the onboard SiS UniChrome video. WoW was playable...at 2-4FPS, even at the lowest settings and all effects turned off, it was struggling to get 18FPS. Finally, last night, I was so frustrated with it that I was considering cancelling my account and uninstalling WoW. I decided to check and see if there were any BIOS updates for my motherboard (there were two, but nothing for the AGP issues, mostly to support newer CPUs) but what else did I find. There was an upgrade to the VIA Hyperion Pro 4-n-1 drivers...including an update to the AGP driver. I waited very very impatiently for it to download and installed it...and rebooted after putting the NVidia card back in the machine. Started Windows and started up WoW. 90 minutes later, I was still playing at full settings with no problems at all. I'd solved the problem!
Tomorrow is the St. Paul Garou game which I'll be going to as a semi-visitor. I'm technically still a part of the St. Paul game for paperwork purposes, but as a player, I'm a member of the Stevens Point game (more on that in another post). I'm going to be maintaining an LJ for my Garou character and posting all kinds of juicy goodness there.
Sunday is my day to do absolutely NOTHING. I am planning on sitting in the AC and either coding up the new Garou Nation website design or writing. I would like to get the Garou Nation site up to date and up to speed. I need to email the Head Storytellers of most of the games to make sure that I have the most up to date information for each game.
Well, it's 1:30pm and we're currently running 20-30 minutes between calls. I'd actually ask to go home early but I need the money and I know that we are short staffed late tonight. I'll be here until 7 bells.
I'm going to get back to faking work.
17 July 2007
Job Hunting
It's official.
I am looking for a new position with a different company.
I have now advanced through two "three" (each with a new set of *ahem* training) lines, so I have had *four* training experiences inside my department that were considered to be major training opportunities.
My initial training was decent. My first "upgrade" training was actually pretty good. From there, it's been a tobaggon ride downhill with flames coming off the sled rails.
My promotion to 741/Care Line was a half-ass training that left me taking calls by myself when I had no idea what I was doing. I was flubbing calls that involve some of our biggest (and most profit-laden) customers. There are only about 20 subprograms that go along with the 741/Care Line. I've updated many of the "hand outs" that we use as job aids. There are still documents that aren't updated and no one is quite sure who we should ask to get the update information ... on our own programs?!
I've been on 741/Care now for about a year and two weeks ago, I was asked about becoming a backup for a different line. My training on this new line was/is a joke. I'm sitting here shaking in rage because I'm getting half-assed trained on parts of the new line AFTER having dealt with an issue involving it AND after the participant has become very upset/frustrated/angry.
All we hear from our department VP and from our director is about providing MEMORABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Now, just speaking for myself, when i hear a customer service rep who obviously is stumbling and doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of what is happening or how to use the system(s) needed to do their job. It is indeed a memorable customer service experience. I remember it quite well and do not want to deal with that company again.
I understand training and new people and all that jazz. You do not expose someone to something for 90 minutes and then expect them to be able to handle the job on their own.
I feel like I've been tossed to the wolves, but the wolves have been starved and I'm covered and fresh animal blood.
At this moment, the only reason I am at work and at my desk is because it is a paycheck that I desperately need. If I had the spare money or another job lined up. I'd be out the door. Right now, I need a good tranquilizer to make it through the day. It will only take one more disaster call like I've had the last few days and I will get through the call. I will make sure the order/issue is resolved. I'll log off my phone and my computer and then walk down to Associate Resources and give them my keycard for the building and walk myself right out.
I'm sick of the bullshit double standard from the team leader that I share a cube wall with and I'm sick of the piss-poor state of training.
I need a PAID vacation. I need to get away from this job for a week without having to stress over missing 40 hours of work and bills will get paid if I were to do something other than sit home. Hell, I know that almost nothing that hits my desk would get done if I'm not in the office. I've proven that many times.
Is it quitting time yet? Oh, no it's not. I've got 5 hours and 13 minutes. Not that I'm watching the clock.
JT out.
I am looking for a new position with a different company.
I have now advanced through two "three" (each with a new set of *ahem* training) lines, so I have had *four* training experiences inside my department that were considered to be major training opportunities.
My initial training was decent. My first "upgrade" training was actually pretty good. From there, it's been a tobaggon ride downhill with flames coming off the sled rails.
My promotion to 741/Care Line was a half-ass training that left me taking calls by myself when I had no idea what I was doing. I was flubbing calls that involve some of our biggest (and most profit-laden) customers. There are only about 20 subprograms that go along with the 741/Care Line. I've updated many of the "hand outs" that we use as job aids. There are still documents that aren't updated and no one is quite sure who we should ask to get the update information ... on our own programs?!
I've been on 741/Care now for about a year and two weeks ago, I was asked about becoming a backup for a different line. My training on this new line was/is a joke. I'm sitting here shaking in rage because I'm getting half-assed trained on parts of the new line AFTER having dealt with an issue involving it AND after the participant has become very upset/frustrated/angry.
All we hear from our department VP and from our director is about providing MEMORABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Now, just speaking for myself, when i hear a customer service rep who obviously is stumbling and doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of what is happening or how to use the system(s) needed to do their job. It is indeed a memorable customer service experience. I remember it quite well and do not want to deal with that company again.
I understand training and new people and all that jazz. You do not expose someone to something for 90 minutes and then expect them to be able to handle the job on their own.
I feel like I've been tossed to the wolves, but the wolves have been starved and I'm covered and fresh animal blood.
At this moment, the only reason I am at work and at my desk is because it is a paycheck that I desperately need. If I had the spare money or another job lined up. I'd be out the door. Right now, I need a good tranquilizer to make it through the day. It will only take one more disaster call like I've had the last few days and I will get through the call. I will make sure the order/issue is resolved. I'll log off my phone and my computer and then walk down to Associate Resources and give them my keycard for the building and walk myself right out.
I'm sick of the bullshit double standard from the team leader that I share a cube wall with and I'm sick of the piss-poor state of training.
I need a PAID vacation. I need to get away from this job for a week without having to stress over missing 40 hours of work and bills will get paid if I were to do something other than sit home. Hell, I know that almost nothing that hits my desk would get done if I'm not in the office. I've proven that many times.
Is it quitting time yet? Oh, no it's not. I've got 5 hours and 13 minutes. Not that I'm watching the clock.
JT out.
04 July 2007
Wierd idea for a story...
I'm cross-posting this to
I was cleaning my truck today and heard the song "(Nothing But) Flowers" by the Talking Heads.
It got me to thinking about global warming, climate change, and also the ever increasing pressure from humankind.
What if "Mother Nature" that we've all talked about and anthromophized, really does exist...and is she pissed.
Slowly but surely, the plants and animals start becoming more sentient and more aggressive, slowly thinning out the overpopulation of humans. Plants start aggressively taking over and "reclaiming" parking lots and subdivisions. What would happen if plants started growing faster and within weeks, whole subdivisons were covered in greenery slowly starting to pull apart and pull down the homes and other structures built there.
Would there be a balance or would the Earth revert to a Garden of Eden of plant and animal life undisturbed by humankind?
Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it's nothing but flowers
There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
you've got it, you've got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you've got it, you've got it
Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong
Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it
This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it
Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle.
I was cleaning my truck today and heard the song "(Nothing But) Flowers" by the Talking Heads.
It got me to thinking about global warming, climate change, and also the ever increasing pressure from humankind.
What if "Mother Nature" that we've all talked about and anthromophized, really does exist...and is she pissed.
Slowly but surely, the plants and animals start becoming more sentient and more aggressive, slowly thinning out the overpopulation of humans. Plants start aggressively taking over and "reclaiming" parking lots and subdivisions. What would happen if plants started growing faster and within weeks, whole subdivisons were covered in greenery slowly starting to pull apart and pull down the homes and other structures built there.
Would there be a balance or would the Earth revert to a Garden of Eden of plant and animal life undisturbed by humankind?
Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it's nothing but flowers
There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
you've got it, you've got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you've got it, you've got it
Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong
Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it
This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it
Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle.
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