Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Contractions

They were 15 minutes apart she said, but gone now.  We hope they stay gone for another few days.  Work won't reimburse me for my classes if I take off work for my son being born.  Granted, given that we are about to add another human being to our household that almost seems like the least of the worries.  I try hard at work, but sometimes I worry about making it another month without being fired.  Getting sales involves a lot of person skills on the emotional level that I simply don't have, the product isn't really all that unique, the market is saying just about anything I'm touching is borderline obsolete, and they just doubled the official sales requirement.  After we stashed away the last tax return this is the first time since we've been married when the emergency savings fund was fully funded.  Would be nice to keep it that way, for a while at least.  Now we're about to have a baby with a HSA account making sure we pay up through the nose for anything they do.  Granted, the math seemed to say that once the coverage actually kicked in it would be so much better that we'd be better off in the long run.  Meantime, I guess I can kiss the emergency savings fund being fully funded goodbye for a while.  Maybe next year's tax return will fill it up again.  The government seems to think that if we are this poor we don't deserve to pay many taxes.  Maybe in a year or so I will have completed enough classes to get some kind of job that uses the skills I'm building with all these classes, and I can get away from customer service work.  Not that I mind helping customers, but sometimes I feel like I'm less helping them and more giving them a guided tour to a house of horrors.  Yes Mr. Customer I know you think its nothing to do with me personally but you hate our collective guts.  And if you could please hang up soon I'd appreciate it because whether I can put food on the table another day is partially dependent on being able to get you to go away quickly before my average call length goes through the roof.  Occasionally I simply know the answer to their problem off the tip of my tongue  and I can bask in the admiration of callers who enjoy having their problem solved fast.  But its equally likely that the solution is one that goes beyond their technical skill to implement and somehow that is our fault.  From a service perspective I can see why they'd feel that way when they don't have anyone else they can think of to turn to, but there is sometimes nothing I can do about that.  If only solving my life problems were as easy as claiming that it was all the fault or responsibility of the first group that came to mind.

1 comment:

sleepyhamster said...

It reminds me a lot of when I was working at CVS. People would yell and scream at us even though we couldn't do anything to help them. Then they would call their insurance and yell at them. They would say they couldn't help and they needed to call their doctor. Then they would yell at them. They would blame us and the cycle would continue. Sometimes I could help them and I felt happy about it. But the times when I couldn't made me feel so helpless. And they would want to vent, but I needed to help other people in line. I cared about their problems, but sometimes I couldn't help and couldn't listen either because I needed to help the other people. I was good about knowing they weren't (always) directing their anger at me and they were mad at their insurance but we were standing there. Customer service is difficult enough without also having to really work very hard on your people skills as it were. I feel for you and I hope Lionel(?) Waits for you to finish up and that all goes well. I love you.