How do you feel today? v. 3.0

Post by **Damelon** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:16 am

Learn something new every day. I ran across an article on the Smithsonian webpage The Top Ten Books Lost to Time. I had never known that Homer was credited with writing a comedic epic in antiquity, or that Shakespeare apparently co-wrote a play based on Cervantes.

Post by **Cameraman Jenn** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:28 am

That's awesome about the kitty, Sorus.

I had another good day at work although I must say that the antiquated counting machine in the office is a piece of crap. Kin had a good time laughing at me struggling with it. I have a list of things I need to do tomorrow not the least of which is try to make some progress in the copy closet. I failed to do it these past few days. I also need to make sure to sit down with Kin and order the stuff on my supply list. On the happy notes, at the end of the night I had the group gather and talked about customer service and the management conference call that I sat in on today. Oddly, Rick our Regional VP used something I had dealt with in Berkeley as his example of the wrong thing to do. I realize this is not a "happy" note thing but he left out quite a few details of what actually happened including that the woman was a nutter. This woman came in and wanted to return a keyboard she claimed to have purchased a few weeks ago in the Berkeley store. She had no receipt and no box. I tried to match it to the keyboards we carried in store but no match. I told her to try to call her credit card company so we could try to find the receipt. I tried to help this woman for over an hour. I was extremely patient and tried everything I could to return the item for her except I couldn't without an item number or even a clue as to how much she might have paid for it. What he did mention was that in the letter she wrote she talked about how helpful I was and patient I was and how she understood that without any usable information I could not take back the item but she wondered if there was anything corporate management could do, he read about that from the letter itself. Rick also mentioned that it was later found that she had purchased the item at Staples, which he also said was beside the point. The gist of it came down to him telling us all that I should have taken the keyboard back regardless of the fact that we don't even carry it in stores and just made up a price for it and thus made a lifetime customer. I was actually pretty pissed knowing it was me even though Rick changed the names and did not mention store number to "protect" the employee. I bent over backwards for this crazy woman and she writes a letter that is NOT complaint about me, just wanting to return an item she didn't even purchase at our stores and I get held up as a poster child for bad customer service. REALLY??? I would have loved to see him in action when faced with Granny screw loose and her eau de cat pee and her repeated over and over explanation of how she tried for over a month to adjust to the keyboard and how she had purchased it three weeks ago and how she was sure she purchased it here even though we didn't carry that model....Also, according to my conversation with her, she paid with a credit card, thus my repeated attempts to locate the transaction through not one, not two, not three but four follow up phone calls in which I spent at least 1/2 an hour each time trying to help her and then I find out in her letter to corporate she claims to have paid with cash. ON TOP of which, she told me she paid $49.99 for the keyboard and in her letter she said it was $24.99. GRRRR... I pride myself on giving excellent customer service and so this really rubbed me the wrong way. It's not MY fault the woman is a nutter. I know Rick was just trying to prove a point but still a huge part of me is like, he doesn't even know the whole story, and what he DOES know, he's changed up to suit his purposes, made me feel like shit and cop a WTF attitude. Not cool. Now that I have vented I can let it go.

Anyway, back to the happy part. Kin seemed to really enjoy and be into me grouping everyone and talking about customer service and making mistakes and learning and using your best judgement and if in doubt calling a manager to take over. He was backing me all the way and when I talked about myself being the poster child for bad customer service he was the one qualifying my decisions and mentioning the stuff that Rick glossed over. I had a talk with Bryce earlier in the day because he was really upset about misquoting a copy job and offered to pay the difference himself. I told him that it didn't matter and that now he knew how to quote it right and we just move on, no worries. He continued to be over apologetic until I was forced to say, "I realize that you have had different managerial styles in the past that might have purposefully made you feel bad for an honest mistake but I've already told you, it's ok. I don't dwell on it, we all make mistakes, next time you know, I'm letting it go so please, let it go too." So anyway, at the end of the night I purposefully talked about the conference call and my role in the letter so he would realize that I meant what I said.

On other weird notes, I think our store has fleas or some weird invisible insectoid biting parasites. I have amassed several inflamed bug bites during the course of my work days both yesterday and today. Derek joked that receiving had fleas but seriously, I have three swollen bug bites on the back of my left hand, right wrist and right hand that look like the mosquito/flea/alien parasite had to have a probiscus the size of pencil lead and they itch like heck that I got today. Yesterday I got them all around my right knee and in the soft part of the back of my knee, one of which I scratched bloody in my sleep last night.

Post by **Avatar** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:07 am

Murrin wrote:Odd, that. Here, the test includes three maneuvres, out of four possible ones: Reversing round a corner, three-point-turn, parallel parking, and reverse parking. Most tests skip the reverse parking (probably because it'd mean finding a car park to do it in) and do all the others.

But then I've always had the impression that it's pretty easy to be allowed to drive in the US.

Here, the test is divided into 2 sections, a yard test, and a road test. In the yard test, you have to pull off from a steep incline without rolling back, (automatic fail if you do), perform a 3-point turn, parallel park from the left and the right, (automatic fail if you touch one of the poles marking out the parking bay, take more than 3 moves, or don't finish entirely in the bay, at the prescribed distance from the curb), reverse park from the left and right, (same fail conditions), and carry out a full pre-trip inspection. Full observations are required at every stage of each manoeuvre.

If you manage all that, then they take you onto the road, which must include all the usual traffic stuff, as well as highway driving, all accompanied by the required observations of course.

(It should go without saying that this is all done with a manual transmission. If you do it in an automatic, then your license shows you are only allowed to drive an automatic. And the majority of cars here are stick-shifts.)

Almost everybody fails more than once. Many people require multiple attempts. There are many accusations that it is made deliberately difficult and that examiners deliberately fail people because license tests are a source of revenue to the municipality.

--A

Post by **race2three** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:53 am

Damelon,

Thanks for the link to the "lost books" site...I really enjoyed it.

Post by **sgt.null** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:23 am

Damelon wrote:Learn something new every day. I ran across an article on the Smithsonian webpage The Top Ten Books Lost to Time. I had never known that Homer was credited with writing a comedic epic in antiquity, or that Shakespeare apparently co-wrote a play based on Cervantes.

excellent story - i stole a line from the text and will be using it the fable. i am currently outlining where it goes next and hope to stutter step some chapters starrting tomorrow.

work is deplorable. we have run out of soap to clean things with. no idea how this gets fixed - as captain is in school this week and her 2nd seems unwilling to fix the problem. he is ina mad power struggle with her and seems bent on teaching her how valuable he i sby doing nothing whatsoever in her stead...

Post by **Cagliostro** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 12:08 pm

Cameraman Jenn wrote: On other weird notes, I think our store has fleas or some weird invisible insectoid biting parasites. I have amassed several inflamed bug bites during the course of my work days both yesterday and today. Derek joked that receiving had fleas but seriously, I have three swollen bug bites on the back of my left hand, right wrist and right hand that look like the mosquito/flea/alien parasite had to have a probiscus the size of pencil lead and they itch like heck that I got today. Yesterday I got them all around my right knee and in the soft part of the back of my knee, one of which I scratched bloody in my sleep last night.

A word to the wise - you might just check the folds in your mattress. I had the same thing at one point, and thought it was happening at work, and was horrified to learn that our newest neighbor had brought along some bedbugs with him when he moved in. And that sounds almost exactly like what I found on myself. Even if you are sure you got them at work, just look and make sure. They are fat little brownish bugs, and they are extremely nasty. Thankfully we only endured a couple months of them before we moved out, and heavily dosed the mattress with bleach water before moving, and I never saw them again. It was awful.

Edit: Here's what you are looking for.

Post by **DukkhaWaynhim** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:11 pm

Cagliostro wrote:
Cameraman Jenn wrote: On other weird notes, I think our store has fleas or some weird invisible insectoid biting parasites. I have amassed several inflamed bug bites during the course of my work days both yesterday and today. Derek joked that receiving had fleas but seriously, I have three swollen bug bites on the back of my left hand, right wrist and right hand that look like the mosquito/flea/alien parasite had to have a probiscus the size of pencil lead and they itch like heck that I got today. Yesterday I got them all around my right knee and in the soft part of the back of my knee, one of which I scratched bloody in my sleep last night.
A word to the wise - you might just check the folds in your mattress. I had the same thing at one point, and thought it was happening at work, and was horrified to learn that our newest neighbor had brought along some bedbugs with him when he moved in. And that sounds almost exactly like what I found on myself. Even if you are sure you got them at work, just look and make sure. They are fat little brownish bugs, and they are extremely nasty. Thankfully we only endured a couple months of them before we moved out, and heavily dosed the mattress with bleach water before moving, and I never saw them again. It was awful.

Edit: Here's what you are looking for.

Thank you both - you have preprogrammed my next nightmare.

Post by **Cameraman Jenn** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:06 pm

I looked, no bed bugs. It has been really warm for SF these past few days so maybe I've been got by mosquitos. I am that person that can be in a crowd of 100 people with one mosquito and that damn bug will search me out.

Post by **lorin** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:18 pm

Cameraman Jenn wrote:I looked, no bed bugs. It has been really warm for SF these past few days so maybe I've been got by mosquitos. I am that person that can be in a crowd of 100 people with one mosquito and that damn bug will search me out.

as one very well aquainted with bedbugs and fleas (no I don't have them but my clients do) use your hair dryer and run it along baseboards, furniture cracks and mattresses. Throw all your clothes and bedding in a dryer for 1/2 an hour. Bleach doesnt kill bed bugs or fleas, heat and ice does.

Post by **Seareach** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:26 am

If I remember correctly: if it's bed bugs, you usually get a kinda trail of bites. Like, you wouldn't have one bite on your arm but quite a few in the near vicinity of each other.

Post by **Cameraman Jenn** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:15 am

Sorus confirmed it's mosquitos. They have gotten her too. Sneaky bitches.

I had another good day at work. We were slow in the early part of the day but the copy center got hopping towards the end of the day. I had to stay 45 minutes late to get a couple of jobs finished for the morning. I've got business cards to set up first thing when I get in tomorrow and I left a stamp making job for my morning person. Should be a slamming day tomorrow and we are just getting started since there is a medical convention rolling into town this weekend and a lot of my jobs this evening were from early convention arrivals. I sure hope my fuser assembly for my color printer comes tomorrow otherwise it might not be such a good day. The color printer started jamming so when I did one job which was 220 double sided six page booklets, I had to run them through separately because if I tried to run more than one at a time it would jam. The guy at Xerox said I should have it by Thursday most likely but Friday at the latest. That should be a big help. Anyway, I am tired tonight. I think I might go to bed nice and early.

Post by **aliantha** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:41 am

Got my fingers crossed for the timely arrival of your printer part, Jenn...

Work has been interesting this week. As you may recall from our last exciting episode

, back in the spring, I was complaining about supporting three partners and being overworked -- but it was gonna get easier when one guy left for his gummint job and the woman went on maternity leave. Well, the baby came on schedule but the guy's appointment didn't (the Senate might vote on him tomorrow...), and then in the meantime, Secretarial gave me two associates to support as well. Now, maternity leave is drawing to a close for my female partner, and so all 5 of them have been around and, y'know, keeping me kind of busy.

Got that? So okay, I am on a team of three secretaries, and one of them left on sabbatical Monday. She is supposed to have a replacement, but the replacement can't start 'til next week. So what does Sabbatical Secretary tell her two partners? You guessed it -- "if you need anything, call aliantha." Not "call aliantha or the other team member," but "call aliantha." Seriously, WTF?

I don't mind job security, but this is kind of ridiculous.

Anyhow, today had a good ending. Magickmaker and I met up for dinner with dlbpharmd, who's in town for a conference.

Post by **MsMary** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:05 am

Does dlbpharmd still post? I can't recall seeing anything in a while, unless we're just posting different places.

Post by **aliantha** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:02 pm

MsMary wrote:Does dlbpharmd still post? I can't recall seeing anything in a while, unless we're just posting different places.

He's been away for awhile -- tied up with RL stuff, he said. The nerve of the guy!

Post by **Cagliostro** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:33 pm

Cameraman Jenn wrote:Sorus confirmed it's mosquitos. They have gotten her too. Sneaky bitches.

Glad to hear it. They were awful, and from my experience, they were all over the place on me.

Post by **lorin** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:29 pm

Cagliostro wrote: Glad to hear it. They were awful, and from my experience, they were all over the place on me.

Yeah, I know. I attract sneaky bitches too. But I just tell them I don't go that way.

Post by **DukkhaWaynhim** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:54 pm

lorin wrote:Yeah, I know. I attract sneaky bitches too. But I just tell them I don't go that way.

So, Ali - are we going to have to issue you a cape? Or a straightjacket?

Hope the added work doesn't stress you out too bad.

I did interval sprints this morning. They felt good. I'm pleasantly tired, with a slight endorphin-y headiness. As long as I don't strap on a big feedbag of carbs at lunchtime, I might just make it all the way to the end of the work day before I fall asleep.

dw

Post by **aliantha** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:16 pm

DukkhaWaynhim wrote:So, Ali - are we going to have to issue you a cape? Or a straightjacket? Hope the added work doesn't stress you out too bad.

Thanks! I may have to alternate between the cape and the straitjacket...

Post by **Holsety** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:37 pm

I'm feeling fine.

Post by **Cameraman Jenn** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:30 am

Ok, I know I mentioned Sorus and I and our Harry Potter themed joking we have going on at work about how to enter the magical furniture pad, anyway, I was joking around with Mike and Russell tonight and asked them if they knew how to get into the furniture pad on the second floor. They looked at me like I was nuts. I told them the story and told them about the joke about Derek being Hufflepuff but then after I left work I realized, he's NOT Hufflepuff at all, he's CORMAC MCLAGGEN. His real life last name even starts with Mc. I don't know how I didn't see it before, it's so completely obvious. Anyway, we all started to discuss which HP characters we would be and Russell and I both looked at Mike and said, "Neville!" Mike was all like, "I don't want to be Neville, Neville sucks." and I was like, "ARE YOU KIDDING??? Neville is one of my favorite characters in the whole series." I decided that I got to be McGonagal and dubbed Russell as Ron. We all agreed that Gilbert is Prof. Flitwick and Kin is Mr. Weasley. We dubbed Caitlin with the Hermione title, not for personality but rather because she has the exact hair Emma Watson was sporting in the first movie, Sorcerer's Stone. I also suggested Francisco was Mr. Ollivander and they loved that. Later on I teased Mike that if he didn't want to be my favorite he didn't have to be and he then agreed to be Neville. Russ told him he totally caved and I corrected Russ by pointing out that he did exactly what Neville would do when asked to do something by McGonagal and that he unselfishly put aside his own misgivings and took one for the team. Russ was pretty impressed by that perspective. All in all it was a fun evening at work. After work I headed to our big store on 16th and picked out my new shelves for the display books for the copy center products and got some peg hook stoppers for our store. It was nice to see some of my first crew and we exchanged gossip and made guesses as to what might happen in the stores with management voids.

Now I am home, paid some bills online and am just planning on chilling out for the rest of the evening, probably early to bed again. I did a bit more on the copy center storage room today but I can't seem to find my groove in there so tomorrow Caitlin is going to take a crack at it. I find that I get in there and start digging and just get pissed off at Ryan and lose my concentration. What set me off course today was finding another stash of useless crap that Ryan pulled from Sorus's clearance bins that will never get used and now can't be sold. GRRRR. I shredded another couple hundred bucks of crap he horded today. Very frustrating. Anyway, Caitlin is actually looking forward to getting in there and organizing and I gave her free license to be brutal about throwing crap out to the point that I told her that if she wanted to douse the stuff with gasoline, shut the door and walk away then sweep out all the ash and start fresh I would be cool with that. She thought that was pretty funny.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

How do you feel today? v. 3.0