Disquietude
Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003 @ 4:10 p.m.

Disquietude

I should warn you, I'm in a bad mood. I'm back at work after a four-day weekend and I've got a head cold and I'm grumpy to the max. I'll get it all out of my system first, then hopefully, I'll find something funny in my brain worth writing about to reward you for reading my grump.

I woke up with a feeling of wrongness. Disquietude. When everything just feels a little off. It's the same feeling I have when I get in a fight with someone I love and it's not yet resolved.

Part of this has to do with today. A year ago today I was laid off from my sweet, perfect little job. I was four months in and just starting to feel like I was making good progress. I was happy, satisfied and relaxed. Oops. It's probably a really good thing I didn't know then that I'd still be looking for a job in my field a year later.

Part of the disquietude has to do with change. So much change happening all at once. The new job I don't particularly want, but need to take. The terrifying possibility of teaching a spinning class. My birthday last week, which brought me one step closer to grown-up-ness. How the hell am I 31? When do I get my inner-poise? When do I stop feeling like a nerdy 15 year old?

And then, the sad, sad news I got on Sunday, that my mother's wonderful little kitten (so loving and fearless and full of personality) let her curiosity get the better of her and paid for it with her tiny, fragile little life. My mother is devastated and I feel just awful. I hate unfixable pain.

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Actual highlights of the weekend include:

- a snow day on Friday
- kickass vegetarian chili I made (thanks to a recipe I got from Kate)
- my birthday dinner with Kenny at Mekong, followed by driving home in a crazy blizzard
- lunch with my sister and mother
- lovely birthday gifts I received
- fun and frou-frou coffee drinks with friends on Saturday night
- I saw Rabbit-Proof Fence, which I highly recommend
- I finished reading Pride and Prejudice, which I also highly recommend

Also, I had one of those moment-out-of-time experiences on Sunday. I'd gone downtown to drop off my timecard and (as usual for a weekend) it was a ghost town. When I got out of my car, I looked up to see a massive flock of tiny birds wheeling around and around in circles. It was right at sunset and they looked like tiny, pointy, black cogs in a giant living machine. The coolest part is, when they swept down and around, I could hear them. I could hear the collective swish of feathers and the air pulling under their wings. I watched for the longest time.

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I just ruined a complete stranger's day and it's totally not my fault. Before I explain the how and why, a little history:

When I started here, I wasn't trained. At all. No manual, no pamphlet, no notes written by the previous temp, nothing. I just asked a lot of questions (often getting conflicting and/or vague answers) and hoped for the best.

On a daily basis I use two fairly complex database software packages, but being that I wasn't trained for either, I only know how to do a handful of things on each. Naturally, this doesn't stop Milton from assuming I know how to do everything, and then acting perplexed and annoyed when I don't.

Software aside, there are other less-complex things here I don't know how to use, my phone being one of them. All office phone systems suck and are needlessly complicated and mine is no exception. In the past I've managed to figure them out with the aid of an instruction manual. This time? No manual. Swell.

Obviously the gang here is absolutely no help at all (when I asked if there was a phone manual, they all looked blank and shrugged). Hell, they didn't even know my phone's extension. It took, no lie, one month to get a number assigned to my phone. However, my phone rings maybe twice a week, so it's not been a big issue until today.

Today my phone rings and a customer on the other end is looking for someone named Carrie. He's annoyed because he filled out the loan paperwork months ago and can't get anyone at the branch to help him. Someone named Carrie called and gave him my number? I sympathized and promised to find someone to help him. My boss said to transfer him to her phone. I asked how (every phone system is different and I didn't want to disconnect him). She looked surprised that I didn't know how to transfer (why would I?) and said:

"Hit the transfer button, then dial my extension."

I do this, she picks up and I hang up. And disconnect him. Goddamn.

"What happened? What did I do wrong?"

"Well, you were supposed to hit the transfer button, dial my extension, then hit the transfer button again after I picked up the call"

WHY. DIDN'T. SHE. TELL. ME. THAT. THE. FIRST. TIME?

Who does that? Who gives you half the directions? Would you teach someone to drive but not tell them about the brake pedal? Jesus Christ. So, I ruined this poor, frustrated guy's day by promising to help, but hanging up on him instead. Sorry dude, wherever you are. Grrrraggh.

*************************************

It's not just me:

Working for The Man

Not My Desk archives

The Onion speaks the truth.

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