Crappy Customer Service

Composed!

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Shot by yours truly.  What does it reveal?  You figure it out.

Keep Fucking That Chicken!

December 17 – Lesson Learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

It's something I keep on learning:  That you must come out of your own shell.  If you don't raise your hand and speak up, nothing important will ever be said by you.  I watched this great TED talk on why there aren't more women leaders and I was nodding along the entire time. 

December 18 – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

A friend of mine once told me that she was amazed by my fearlessness.  She noticed that I would shrug and take on any task, no matter how ridiculous or intimidating, and if I failed, it didn't seem to be the end of the world.  Of course she only sees me from the outside - on the inside, I am kicking myself in the ass every moment and chickening out a million times.  But I have learned to give the negative self-talk little importance when the chips are down! 

Again, I am doing something I am intimidated by next year (Financial Accounting).  I am going to try and not listen to my negative self-lecture about that.

December 19 – Healing.

What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?

Huh?  Um...what healed me?  Well, I always say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  But Mr. W and I went for physicals this year as a part of preparing to join the gym.  I am disgusted to report that, in spite of all his unhealthy habits, Mr. W is healthy as a horse, whereas I, the careful one, have to watch my shit.  But it was nice to see that we are basically fairly healthy at a certain age.

December 20 – Beyond Avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

What kind of people do they think are answering these questions?  A bunch of super busy scaredy cats?  People not "living" their "authentic" "lives"?  I think these guys watch too much Oprah. 

The one thing I didn't do enough was garden.  By the time the season rolled around, I was back at work and too busy.  But I should've taken a half-hour to weed and water in the evenings so I could enjoy it more.  I know I won't have much time to do it this year either, between school and work.  I do miss it.

Mush!

December 14 – Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

Is it against the spirit of this whole navel-gazing exercise to say Money?  I appreciate Money most?  OK, how about Compensation?

After decades of being underpaid, I am finally making a living wage.  I have my own benefits and a pension.  I work in a place with a wellness program. I can't tell you how happy I am to have wound up here.  I want to say I'm lucky, but my inner voice says that luck plays only a small part.  I clawed my way up from the ground, learned to play by the rules, made mistakes and wasn't afraid to look like a dumbass or change what needed changin'.

Now, in gratitude, I must pass this torch to my husband, who is underpaid and undercompensated for his incredible skills.  It is time for him to change what needs changin'.

'Cause The End Of December Approaches.

December 13 – Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

Here's something I hate more than the gym - school!  Anyone who thinks school is fun needs their head examined.  I have a course in Financial Accounting coming up in January that I've been dreading for six months.  Math is not my strong suit and I find that when anyone talks to me about accounting, it turns into static passing my ears.  I understand my role at the beginning of the financial transaction very well, but the other end perplexes me.

Playing Catch-Up

Having been absent the Internet until school finally ended, I am now ready to power through Reverb 10 and catch up to the present date.

December 1st:  One Word

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word.  Explain why you're choosing that word.  Now, imagine it's one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My word for 2010 is Trial.  For some reason, even-numbered years are downers, and years ending in zero are full of crisis management.  I've looked back through my long life and found this to be true for as long as I can remember. 

This year I quit my job with about one month's slack to get a new one.  It was a matter of choosing my life and health over a toxic workplace.   My new job had six months' probation to get through, which I finished last month; let the idea of being fired with no notice hang over you for that long some time. Plus the whole aforementioned school thing.

Mr. W and I are finally recovering financially from my lost salary and a few major house-related purchases that we were forced to make.  Happily, my wages have increased by quite a bit in my new job so I'm hoping that next year's word will be Investing.



Woman, Caucasian, Easy to Please

Mr. W likes to make me smile.  He even says so.  When our dryer squeaked its last breath and refused to continue on, he spent most of his day off scouring the city for a new one. 

As with all our large purchases, we squeezed the Internet for research and reviews until we turned out a few item numbers that had the features I wanted at the right price.  Mr. W then spent his day off walking into appliance stores with these numbers, which confuses a lot of salespeople.  They are accustomed to having people show up scratching their heads (or worse), asking the salesperson to help, not having a clue.

No one stocks large appliances for quick sale anymore, so he was striking out all over until he found an extremely slightly-dented floor model on my list for $200 off. 

Before I started my research I didn't even know that Samsung made washers and dryers.  They are very highly reviewed and all that, and so far so good. But what REALLY makes me smile is this dryer's mood.

It is a happy Japanese appliance.  It sings a happy tune whenever you hit any button or turn the knob, which has lights that flash around the dial.  When the cycle is over and you open the door to get your stuff, an even sunnier tune plays.  I'm waiting for it to giggle.

Blah?

While I like to brag about myself as a great conversationalist, I'm really just fantastically good at keeping up an inane stream of chatter with anyone.  It's a skill that's come in handy a lot recently, what with going on interviews, jumping jobs and meeting the populace.

I find myself in a lot of situations where this skill is essential - the moments before a meeting begins, for example.  A bunch of strangers are sitting together, maybe waiting for the chair to show up.  Should we sit around and make awkward-turtle gestures at each other?  Or should we turn this into a party?

I don't meet a lot of people with this skill.  When I do spot someone across a boardroom table who can help with the conversational heavy-lifting, I feel as though they are a kindred spirit.  I've also noticed that it is a well-developed skill in people who climb high in their careers.  I ask you to keep an eye out for the likes of us who are "naturals" and maybe pick up a corner of that burden.

That Sound Still Haunts Me

PlazaJen's latest post reminded me of something that I accepted/railed against, depending on which day it was, while working at The Sporting Company.  It sure did piss me off back then.

I've mentioned the crazy ass building The Sporting Company used to house their production facilities.  The one tippy-top thing that used to drive me batshit about it was that the A/C and the heat were on, simultaneously, year 'round.

Let me be even more clear:  The building was heated by a combination of forced air and radiant heat.  So TWO heat systems and the A/C were on, all at once.  And my desk was under a vent.  So random blasts of hot/icy air would be farted into my office without any warning but mysterious bumping/crashing sounds that resembled those of a greased Groundskeeper Willie chasing Santa's Little Helper through the ducts.  It was just the fucking capper on my day. 

In an attempt to control the climate chaos, my supervisor and I spent half a day going up a ladder, opening the dropped ceiling and turning the hex keys attached to the ducts, thus closing them in our area.  This caused a hurricane-force blast of A/C in another area of the building, which we didn't know about until a blue-tinged cow-orker turned up on our office doorstep.  The gale was so loud she couldn't even hear her phone ringing.

It was a disgusting waste of resources, time and money.  But I can laugh now.

No wait!  The real capper was that they sold the building to some other poor sucker for around $2 million.

And Another Thing....

Those of you who collect Shoppers Optimum points pay attention.  They are revamping the program as of July 1st.  On that date, your points will be worth less than they are right now.  Check out the Shopper's Drug Mart link I just posted for details.  Having examined the current program, I will say that you will get quite a bit less in redemption dollars.

Briefs

• Things are settling in nicely at work, although I am having to get used to not working at a crisis-level breakneck pace; I figure it'll take about a year.

• I bought these Goody Hair Things to try for an up-do decent enough to be seen outside the confines of my yard.

• Don't be scared about the scary scary headlines in your local paper about the deregulation of electricity rates in our province, because most of your bill is fixed delivery rates.

• Hot/cold cycles this spring have made my garden pretty blah by killing the delicate flower buds.

• I am the last person in the world to get an iPod touch...which I managed to finally justify with my bus commute.