Work

This morning I was actually smiling as I walked in the door to work. I wasn't really happy to see Monday morning, but I'd been thinking about something that makes me happy. I started work by getting lots of little stuff done in preparation for the big monthly thing we are doing in Wednesday. Right before lunch, I see an email from my boss' boss asking a guy in another department for some info on missing data, and I see the guy's reply. It is two terse sentences saying that there is no missing data. My immediate thought is, "What a dick."

We get several things from this guy's department and they are error-ridden and full of holes. I have heard rumors that he and a direct report don't reply to women via email. I've emailed them both about ten times in the past six months and never gotten a reply. I sent out letters with the wrong information in them because of this bad data. I am sick and tird of these jerks. I am also pretty sick and tired of the people in my department who should be dealing with this. It's not my job to deal with them, and if I tried to, I'd probably be reprimanded. Dicks.
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A+

I passed the 602, so now I have to get through the 601 on Tuesday

A Plus

Yesterday we found out we have an opportunity to take a class at work to get A+ certified. It was a last minute thing since today was the first class. This was very timely for me, since I'd been contemplating getting certified in something.
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Taking Calls

My job title is "Credit Representative", which means I take calls in the department that handles payments. Except that I haven't taken any calls in about seven and a half years. Instead, I am on a team responsible for reporting and administering worklists.

A month ago "they" decided that one of the groups in our department needed more people taking calls, and they asked for a person from my center. Instead of giving up a person, "they" decided to have each of us take calls for 4 hours each week.

At least, that is what we were told. Most of us suspect there is a more political motivation behind this decision. Regardless of the why, I will do what "they" ask of me. However, even though I am being asked to do 4 more hours of work each week, I am not getting any reduction in the other work I am expected to accomplish. Some weeks, I can get it all done, but others are so busy that I can't even get my stuff done much less 4 hours of another team's work.

There are several other issues we have with this, but basically it feels like we are expected to do plenty of extra things all the time and that suddenly that isn't good enough. Some of are going to stop going the extra mile, whether we realize it or not.

Anyway, today was my first day taking calls. It was pretty much what I remember, answering questions and not getting many payments. But there were several things I did not get done today because I only had about 5 hours to do them, and on a normal Monday I have at least 7.

AT&T Logo

Michael Bierut talks about the iconic logo (we call it the DeathStar) which will soon be replaced.

SBC to Purchase AT&T for $16 billion

My employer is being purchased. I'm sure today will be one of the lowest productivity days of the whole year while everyone runs around worried for their job.