New Shift Monday

Here it is, the day I've been dreading for the last few weeks: I start a 5-day, 8-hour shift, instead of the 4-day, 10-hour that I've had since I started working here. Actually having to work with customers instead of simply transferring them somewhere else. It's going to be a rude awakening.

With the changeover, I'm told that there are now no more reps handling the old ComX system which we were converting people away from. I'm not sure quite how wise this is, as I have no doubt there will still be people whose claims that they already paid their bills can be adjucated only with reference to their old ComX account which shows an erroneous credit balance—I had one of those just a couple of days before the end. I don't know how anybody's going to be able to find those if there are no more reps who can pull the information up. Oh well. It's no longer my problem anymore.

I finished Max Payne last night—the day after I started it. It really didn't take that long at all; if I'd paid more than $20 for it I might have felt gypped. Still, it had a great storyline, and was a lot of fun while it lasted. I wish I could afford Max Payne 2 but $50 is way too much for a game of that length.

I guess the one good thing about my new shift is that I'll have my evenings back and can spend them online with my friends. I'd been kind of limited to the weekends under the old 10-hour. I have to find the bright side somewhere, after all.

Anyway, I'd better go ahead and get ready for work. Want to arrive a half hour early to have time to box up the stuff at my desk, and to look for my cellphone which apparently got left there on Friday. At least, that's the only place I think I could have left it, and I didn't find it anywhere at home or in my car...

I sure hope it turns up. I'm not sure what I'll do without that phone.

First Day of New Work

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

The new supervisor, Susanna Barrett, has proved to be a very nice older lady. She says that she doesn't have to work, what with her husband's job, but she does it because she enjoys "helping other people make money," as she put it, and also the recognition that comes from having a top team. I don't think she's the supe I thought she was, who I'd heard bad rumors about.

I just got off the phone on a fruitless 30-minute call. Without going into the details, suffice it to say that by the time I got off the phone I was 20 minutes into my 30 minute lunchbreak. "Just go to lunch and skip the half hour of training afterward," she told me.

Sheesh, thirty minutes for lunch. I can't get anything done in just 30 minutes. I used to have time to eat and then noodle around on the Internet for half an hour or so. Not anymore! Oh well, at least that's another half hour I get to spend at home.

Put your nose to the grindstone too much, and you'll end up with half a nose...

Wearisome afternoon so far. All my calls, it seems, have been long ones. Well, at least they're no longer rating us by how fast we can get rid of calls, so there's time to go in-depth to help the customers as much as we need to. If a 3-way with SBC needs to be done to resolve it, and they put me on hold for ten minutes, I can do so without that sinking feeling that I'm being penalized for doing my job anymore.

Looking forward to being home. And for the first time, I'm truly thankful for the shortened shift. I guess I can put up with working five days a week when I no longer have to do as much of it at a stretch.

How to find your cellphone without even trying

I have developed a flawless technique for finding lost cellphones.

That method is to call the company and report it missing. You'll find it as soon as you hang up.

Seriously. I'd tried everything to find it—including borrowing a neighbor's phone and turning the lights off in here to see if I could detect it by the flickering light when it rang—and then nothing. I was starting to believe it could have been anywhere, so when a friend suggested I'd better call and report it missing, I did so. I was even ready to place an order for a $25 Nokia 3595 web-enabled phone and switch over to GSM service.

And then, as I went to the door to hand back the phone I'd borrowed from the neighbor, I happened to glance down, and there it was, sitting on top of the pet carrier next to my door. So I had to call again and get it turned back on.

I suppose that, in a few weeks, I probably will go ahead and make that upgrade anyway—it's certainly a better phone than this old one in every respect—but for now, money's tight and I want to make sure I can make ends meet first.