Zombie Apocalypse

   So nothing really interesting happened to me this week so I'm going to talk about something a little out there for me, the Zombie Apocalypse. That means this is going to be a short one. I know a lot of people are obsessed with the possibility of the Zombie Apocalypse actually happening, but I find it to be ridiculous. People can't rise up from the dead and start eating brains. It's just not going to happen. So why sit around and plan out what you're going to do when it does happen. 
   The men in my life talk about it quite frequently. I kind of wish I paid close enough attention to their "plans" to give you some examples, but that's how turned off I am by the whole thing I don't even listen to it. 
   I don't even like watching Zombie movies. The only one I care for is Zombieland, just because I love Emma Stone and the movie is pretty hilarious. I just can't sit through a whole movie where this Zombie crap is taken seriously. 
   I'm going to end this too short post with a conversation I had with my husband last night.


Hubby: We should get a paper cutter.
Me: Why? I can use the one at work.
Hubby: Zombie Apocalypse.
Me: ....How would a paper cutter be useful in the Zombie Apocalypse.
Hubby: You can tear off the cutter and use it for a machete.
Me: Oh silly me, I should have known.
Hubby: Yeah you should have. You're off the Zombie Apocalypse team.
Me: I was never on it.Hubby: Good point.

Not What I was Expecting....

   I'm doing my best to stay optimistic here, I really am. Came across a posting for my own position today. Not what I was expecting at all. It was kind of startling and I was shocked that I wasn't given a heads up, but oh well gotta roll with the punches right? I'm applying for the position, even though it feels a little weird to be applying for a position I already have. 
   I feel like I'm abandoning my family. I talked to my boss today to tell him about my conflicting emotions and he said he appreciated me telling him the truth, but to trust him, everything will work out. I still found myself almost breaking down in tears in his office. I couldn't help it. I have grown to love everyone I work with and it's just all falling a part.
   I know a lot of people are applying for other positions to go with me as well, but I don't know if everything is going to work out. I mean how can I expect everyone to get the positions they apply for. In my eyes they're the most qualified for the position, but as you know from my last post the person making these calls isn't the most competent person in the world. Plus I don't know anything about the other candidates that are applying, some of these people might be very close to the person making the hiring decisions. 
   I just can't shake the feeling that not everything will work out the way I expect it to. I'm hoping that at least the things I can live with happen. They're certain people I work with that I can't imagine not working with them. However, I know at least three of those people are staying behind and that's depressing enough, but to think the people who are willing to come along might not end up where I want them too is heart breaking to me. 
   My life is going to change pretty drastically within the next few months, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. Until everything is for certain I get to go to work every day look at the people I love working with and wonder how much longer it's going to last. I'm just a bottle full of emotions right now...excited, nervous, upset, fearful, nostalgic, optimistic and pessimistic at the same time even. I'm not sure which one I feel the most.

Some People....

   As I mentioned in my previous post the client I support has expanded to another center. There is no one at the new center to really run things, so I have to try to do it from 600 miles away. This site has had the same old clients in the building for two years. So as you can imagine, they're pretty set in their ways there. Unfortunately most of their ways are wrong.
    The company I work for, just like many other companies, have set standards and policies. The site I work in follow most, if not all, of these policies and believe in the value of our standards. However, this other site changes the rules that matter and follow the ones that don't make the business run better.
   The Site Manager running this site is not suited for this position. She has no back bone, can't say no to anyone or anything, and runs the site based on feelings. She pissed off my client just this week because she told him that she couldn't hire for his account as quickly as before because she has a new account coming in. Um, rule number one of being a Site Manager, don't let your client feel like he is less important than another client.
   Today, I find out that this site has been coaching their reps on whatever goals they want apparently. So when I find this out from the TMs, I have a call with the Site Manager. She actually tried to justify to me why they lowered the goals.
   She tells me that they coach to a lower goal for the temp agents since they don't get incentive for meeting the goals like our normal employees do....what? What sense does that make? Why would you lower our standards for the temp agents? It doesn't really seem fair to the regular employees to hold them to a higher standard.
   Now the TMs there are all up in a hizzy, because I'm making them change their goals. Apparently most of them don't understand the reason for this metric we use called Adherence, which is the percentage the reps follow their schedule. Well we need to know when our reps will be on the phone, taking phone calls, so we have this awesome thing called a schedule. Silly me for expecting our reps to follow that schedule 94.5% of the time. Why would we even have TMs who can't understand the importance of that?
   I'm honestly not sure I can work at that site if she is going to be my manager. I need someone who understands the needs of the business. Not someone who ignore the important rules and enforce the ones that don't matter. Like the business casual for example. Our employees talk to customers over the phone all day. Why does it matter if they look professional while they do it? I could careless what my reps wear as long as they do a good job.
   Any way, on a completely different note. Please pray for the friends and families affected by the terrible tragedy in Connecticut.

Been Awhile

   Wow, has it been awhile. I haven't written one meaningful word since April 25th. I haven't touched my book since January. Time for me to sweep out the cobwebs and get to cracking. I have just finished reading my book and decided to just start all over. I got some good stuff, but I'm not completely happy with it. This time around I'm just going to keep writing and not look back. 
   I share my writings with a few people and I will accept their criticism and opinions, but I will not go back and correct grammar or mistakes until I'm done with the book. I'm tired of hiding behind my numerous excuses. Even if I never publish my book at least I can say I completed something. 
   So, what has happened in my life since April? Well lots of things actually. It's amazing to think how much my professional life and circle of friends have changed since April. I have washed my hands of a couple of friends and welcomed a couple more into my life.
   Now I have to think of nick names for the two new friends though...well one is one of Jamie's best friends, Aero, I think is a fitting nick name. His girlfriend, Teal,  moved up here from Texas to be with him. She and I became good friends over the past several months.
   Of course she isn't just his girlfriend anymore she is his fiance now and she asked me to be the Maid of Honor and my husband is the Best Man.  The wedding is this April and we still have lots of planning to do. We're going to do a bachelorette weekend in Minneapolis. We're all pretty excited about that. The wedding is going to be in Oklahoma and all of our friends here in Bismarck is going to be traveling there to attend the wedding. 
   In my professional life, the client I support has expanding their customer service into a 2nd location. So I'm heading both sites for now. Apparently they're some big and good changes coming, but that's all my boss will tell me. He even said don't tell anyone, but he didn't tell me anything. :P 
   Hubby and I have been doing great. We're working on planning for our future, but for now it seems quite uncertain where we will be this time next year. It all depends on what these big and good changes are. Hubby is starting to get a bit impatient with the unknown, but I find it exciting. We're on our way to being financially stable enough to support a family so I can't be anything, but ecstatic for what the future holds for us.

In Loving Memory

   Six years ago today, April 25th 2006, my father passed away. His life was cut too short. He was only 56 when he passed. I had just barely turned 20 years old. 
   I still remember the last conversation I had with him. He asked me when I was going to get married. At the time I wanted to finish college first, but after he passed college just didn't seem important anymore. I always wondered if he knew that was going to be the last conversation we would have.
   Here is what I remember most about my dad. He loved playing pranks and scaring people. He once hid in a closet, sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, to try to scare someone and ended up falling asleep. He did things like leave the wrapper on a slice of cheese on someones cheese burger. He even once convinced my friend, who was 6 at the time, to eat a dog biscuit with frosting on it. He told him it was a cookie. He had the best sense of humor and everyone loved him for it.
   Our favorite thing to do together was play board games, while eating peanuts, and watching TV. We always tried to get mom to play with us, but she could never sit still long enough to play more than one game. 
   Dad loved Elvis and his music. We even went to Graceland when I was really young. I don't remember much from the trip, but I remember the Jet and the Jungle Room of the mansion. My dad used to stay up with my mom till 3 or 4 in the morning listening to music and signing along with it. 
   My dad was a bit of a womanizer, but he loved my mom dearly. They always  showed PDA, which I thought was disgusting at the time, but I think it's sweet now. For anyone who can be together that long and still show that much love, you have to appreciate that. 
   He always gave me whatever I wanted and I took advantage of that all the time. I would always know to ask him things when he was immersed in a TV show or movie. My dad loved television. He would concentrate on the TV so intensly that he wouldn't even hear what I asked. He would just respond sure. Once in awhile I would tell him crazy things until he finally started to pay attention to me. He would always cry during the sad parts or laugh so loudly at the funny parts. You could hear his booming laughter across the house. I miss that. 
   He said things to me like, "We'll do that second Tuesday of next week." Or "Are you the Dad of the girl or the girl of the Dad?" I still have no idea what that means, but I always gave a different answer. 
   You know, I have been told that as time passes it doesn't hurt as much, but that's not true. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss him. It still hurts to know he will never know how I turned out or see his grandchildren.   

You Have to be 16 to Work Here Right?

   Because I'm pretty sure I'm running a middle school. There is some new kind of drama going on every week and if there isn't any new drama then the old drama is being dug back up. Today I discovered that the Drop cousins have been bickering back and forth and feel the need for mediation. Apparently one of them has been saying "mean things about his mom" to other co-workers...seriously, true story.

   You know the sad part is we have never been better business-wise, but the people within my business are driving me insane! I'm so over this month and it's barely half over. 

    I battled with myself all day on whether or not I should write this blog, but after today I can't let this build up inside of me any longer. The day started out fine until I was wasting some time out on the floor and stopped by a co-worker's office to say hello. I almost immediately could tell something was wrong. At first I thought it was a family issue, because she has been having a lot of those lately. I was way off; it was all about another co-worker who just won't stop with the drama. I'm starting to lose track of everyone I have nicknamed so I will just say the person I stopped to say hello to is named Tigger and the drama queen is Sin. 

   Sin is so full of drama that I have been advised by the HR Manager to have a witness present during any conversations I have with her. Tigger won't have a conversation with Sin without writing a statement afterward. There is so much more I could say, but we're going to stop there for now. 

   Tigger pulled out the statement she wrote about a conversation her and Sin had earlier today. Sin came in her office to confide in her about not being able to let go of the past. So actually I'm going to stop there and explain what it is she can't let go. 

   Back in January she applied for a training position. There were seven total applicants and we had a tough choice to make. Needless to say we didn't choose her and she is claiming her direct manager and I conspired against her to ensure she wouldn’t get the position. There is of course more to the story, but I'm going to leave it at that.

   She just absolutely refused to stop living in her own fantasy world. She wants someone to be reprimanded and people fired. She believes I hate her and as long as I'm in my position she will never get any further than she already is. Keep in mind I just recently made her Tigger's backup, but of course I only gave it to her to try to make up for not giving her the trainer position. 

   She also believes that my boss stayed locked up in his office last Thursday just to watch her aux usage. My boss wasn't even on site last week. He was out helping another site that's falling apart. He did call me to tell me she was sitting in ACW for 17 minutes, but he would have done the same if anyone that was sitting in ACW for 17 minutes. The average length someone should be in ACW is 1 minute. 

    So I find all of this out and get stressed out because it's all happening again. The month of January to the beginning of February was absolute hell and I don't want to go through this crap again.

   I really wish I could just talk open and honest with her, but I can't. She would probably sue us for emotionally scaring her, but this is what I would say:

"If you feel so angry, ripped off, used, and stepped on here, then just quit. I'm sorry that you feel that way, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to make you feel any differently. I won't be firing anyone and I'm certainly not going to be fired. So either get over it or quit those are your options, it's as simple as that. You're nothing, but a cancer to my employees and I honestly don't want you here anymore. End of story."

Balancing Act

   I feel like my life has been nothing, but one big balancing act lately. I have work, family, friends, and my writing but only 168 hours in a week. 
   Lately I feel like I'm letting my friendships go to the weigh side. Then again when I start hanging out with my friends more I feel like I'm neglecting my marriage. My work seems to take up a lot of my time, but it's really important to me to be the best at what I do.
   I sit around waiting for people to invite me to hang out with them because I suck at inviting people to go out with me. I'm always afraid, deep down, that they're going be too busy and say no. Then, foolishly, I feel rejected. For example, I sent a text, two hours ago, inviting all of my friends to go out with me for my b-day and I haven't heard back from even one person yet. I know they're all busy with their lives too, but I'm still freaking out a little bit.
  I know it's pretty stupid to feel this way, but I honestly can't help it. All of my friends work the late shift and I work during the day so it's really hard to find the time outside of the weekend to spend time with them. My husband and I only have Saturday nights and Sundays together. So I try to spend time with him on the weekends. 
   I know it sounds simple, why don't we all just hang out at the same time, but that's just too many people with too many opinions in one place. I have quite a few friends now, but I think I can only handle hanging out with no more than three or four at a time. 
   When I hang out with several friends at once I stop concentrating on myself and my own needs and start thinking about everyone else's feelings and needs. I try to make sure no one feels excluded or like an outcast. So I think it's really exhausting to spend time with everyone at once, but regardless I love them all and want to spend my birthday with them. Is that too much to ask? 

Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

   How about a third option? How about Proactive?
   All of these Pro-Lifers are so hell bent on passing these insane laws that ultimately violate many of women's rights. They spend all of this money to campaign it and fight abortion, but why don't we put all of these efforts into help preventing unplanned pregnancies in the first place.
   I know some unplanned pregnancies can't be helped, such as rape, but I believe most can be prevented. If we make sex ed mandatory in school and not allow the parents' close mindedness have a say in it. If we provide free birth control regardless of age, income, and parental approval. Maybe, just maybe we could stop this madness.
   I don't think the Pro-Lifers have stopped to think about what their bills are going to do to this economy. It'll be like a domino effect:

1. Increase the population.
2. Increase the number of the mentally unstable or children with costly disorders. 
3. Increase the number of children in orphanages.
4. Increase the number of single mothers.
5. Increase these orphaned children and single mothers dependent on the government to supply a living.
6. Increase unemployment rate.
7. Increase taxes.
8. Increase the number of homeless people.
9. Increase crime rate.

   I'm sure I could think of more, but this is the future we're looking at if these Pro-Lifers don't get off their high horse and realize what their fight it really doing to America. So I say lets stop fighting and get on the same page. The proactive page.

Torn

   This is a follow up from the previous post. Daggins has helped ease my mind tremendously by agreeing to pay for the gas during the trip and me paying him back when we return. So now I kind of hope I don't get my bonus check before we leave. 

   If I do get it Eleven and I are definitely going to go see Hairspray and everyone knows how much I want to see it but, I'll more than likely spend the whole thing in Minneapolis. Even though I should be saving it for my vacation in May.

   So now I'm just torn on what I really want, but thank you Daggins, you really saved me! 

Rolling With The Punches

...or at least I'm trying to.
   This last week was a bit exhausting for me. Had to be at work at 7 am to train in a new TM and still do my normal duties at the same time. So not only was I sleep deprived, but I was stressed out too. My head is already in Minneapolis, which causes me to lose focus on the important things.
   We leave on Friday and will be coming back on Sunday. I was really excited for the trip, but now I'm dreading it a little. I was originally thinking it wouldn't be too expensive, but it seems to be getting more and more expensive by the minute. 
   Eleven has now decided to take her car as well. So that means more gas money I'm going to have to pay. Especially if CPK and Daggins decides to go in her car instead of mine. So I was just budgeting for $60 in gas, but now I have the possibility of paying $150 or more in gas. 
   On top of which all of the things I want to do. They're a couple of museums and some exhibits I want to go to, but that costs money that I have to pay for two people to go to. I really want to go see Hair Spray at this awesome looking dinner theater, but it's $65 a ticket. 
   I should be getting my bonus check right before I go, but there is a chance I won't get it until the Monday after the trip. If I don't get it we'll only have about $350 to use for spending and gas money. Luckily the hotel and movie tickets are already paid for. 
   At this point the main thing I'm looking forward to is Hunger Games, which will probably be the least expensive part of the trip at $18 a ticket. Like I said I'm really trying to just roll with the punches here, but I'm finding it difficult to do.

Bitch Be Crazy!

   So I got woken up at 3:30 this morning by a very loud pounding sound coming from my awesome (sarcasm intended) downstairs neighbor's apartment. I reached over to make sure Hubby was safe in bed, but ended up waking him up too. I apologized and explained to him why I was making sure he was in bed. 
   About a minute after I explained to him what had woken me up the pounding started up again and this time it came with some screaming. Hunny gets up, goes into the living room, and looks out of the balcony door to see cop cars arriving. The pounding stopped, but I can still hear screaming. 
   A couple of minutes goes by and I hear Hubby open the front door and yell shut up, no one cares, go to sleep. Apparently this woman was kicked out of the apartment and was banging on their front door, screaming to get in. 
  Hubby claimed there were 5 cop cars outside when he finally came back to bed and the pounding and screaming had stopped. I was pissed when it was first happening, but now I'm curious to know what they were fighting about. What the hell made that chick flip out the way she did? My only conclusion is that bitch is crazy.

Procrastinator

   I had the worse case of procrastination ever today. I didn't have too much to do, but I had this really tedious task to complete by the end of the day if I didn't want to get behind in the rest of my work. I basically had to review over 300 customer accounts to make sure this report was giving me the right information. 
   It took me six hours to do it, but only because I was mostly slacking off and trying to think of ways to get out of doing it. I thought about delegating it to at least three different people, even considered having the new training class do it. They need the practice in the tool anyway right? 
  I even tossed around the idea of not doing it at all. What's the worse that could happen we overcharge the client and pay out incentive that wasn't rightly earned. Hmm...no I better do this.  
   I had to quit for about 45 minutes to go to a meeting at 9:30, which I purposely stretched out to be 45 minutes. It was actually over in 30 minutes. So I go back to this report and work on it until about 11:30.  I get some data I have been waiting on so I can write PEPs. I write those two PEPs and then go back to working on this report again.
   All this time I have been carrying on a conversation in IM with Juiz. We mostly talked about how much I don't like checking this report. At about 1 he comes into my office and gives me a bag of Skittles and starts to bs with me for about 30 minutes. This was probably the highlight of my very boring day. 
   I was supposed to have a call at 1:30, but it was canceled. So I had no choice, but to bare down and finish checking the dumb report. I finally finish it at 2:30, but then I had to send off another report using the data I just verified. I finally finished it all up and left at 4 to get my oil changed. 
   So for the most of my day, I was lazy, tired, and lacked motivation. Good thing I didn't have a ton of work to do and my boss is out of town or might have been in some trouble.

The People That Destroy This Economy....

   Hubby and I were in Dan's yesterday behind this lady who bought $82 worth of "groceries" and paid with an EBT card. I didn't really pay much attention to what she was buying, but Hubby sure did. He waited until we were outside to tell me what was bothering him. She had apparently bought very expensive steaks and chips with her EBT card. So clearly if that is what she is getting, she doesn't need EBT. 
   I like the program, I think it's great for the less fortunate people, but I think they need to do something to weed out the people who abuse it. How do these people even get approved for EBT? Let me guess she is a single mom and has a decent paying job, clearly has enough to support her small family, but since she has a child the government feels like they need to help her by supplying her with expensive steaks and junk food. Ridiculous.
   You know another broken government program they need to do something about it is Unemployment. My sister has been on Unemployment for 9 months and hasn't once looked for another job. I get it, she was pregnant, and then had a baby and couldn't work for awhile, but she is more than capable of working now, but doesn't care. She gets $400 in food stamps, and $200 a week in Unemployment. Her rent is a whole $150 a month, she has to pay for utilities, and cable, her car is paid for, and my mom pays for her insurance and cellphone bill. 
    You know with the way most of the economy is, with insanely high unemployment rates, they decided to allow people to feed off the government longer than the 6 months they have allowed in the past. Apparently they pushed it up to 18 months now! My sister is currently living the high life off her insane Federal Tax Return. I'm sure she got 4k or more because she is a single parent of two. So the unemployment rate has nothing to do with why my sister isn't employed. 
   Instead of increasing the number of months someone can have unemployment why don't they just come up with a program that will help people find a job. Even pay to relocate and their first month's living costs. The way the system is now it's only enabling America to be lazy. It's only putting a band-aid on cancer and something needs to be done about it.

I Need a Bigger Head...

...because I'm being forced to wear too many hats.
   
   I always find myself wondering what other AMs do to fill their day at a fully staffed center. My day is constantly go, go, go, all because I have to do other people's jobs. 
   Today for example looked completely clear until the day actually started.  First I checked my e-mail and saw that the Regional Recruiter e-mailed me asking for me to call some applicants to setup interviews because she won't have time to do it (HR/Recruiter job). So I flag them to remind me to take care of that later. I don't want to call anyone at 8 in the morning.
  Then I realized I didn't do the incentive report yesterday, which isn't actually due until Monday, but I like to get it done early (this is a part of my actual job). I get ready to do the report, but then realize the audit hadn't been done yet because the person that does that is training this week (wouldn't happen if I actually had a full time trainer). 
   I start doing this audit at 8:30. This involves going through 285 customer accounts and reviewing the comments to ensure the agent should receive incentive for that account. This took me almost four hours.
   It's noon now so I figured it's a good time to try to call the applicants. It's late enough in the day and if anyone has a job right now they're probably at lunch and can accept my phone call. Right as I'm about to pick up my office phone to dial the first number Ditsy, our HR assistant, IMs me and asked me if I was going to get on this call. I had no idea what call she was talking about. Apparently I was supposed to have been sent a calendar invite to a conference call talking about our hiring process. Again this isn't really something I'm supposed to take part in (HR/Recruiter job).
   So I jump on this call with no time to prepare. I just have to explain that I haven't had a chance to call any of the applicants, what we're doing for advertising, tell them that we have no training on the site we us to post jobs and pull application and tell them what they can do to help us recruit, which is pretty much nothing.
   After that call I call the seven applicants to setup the interviews (HR/Recruiters job). Then I took some time to eat lunch, which is unusual for me. At three a hop onto another call about the way our center hires and why we didn't plan for these classes (HR/Recruiter job). 
   Then I complete a PEP audit and a PEP with Dildo. Talk to my trainer and new hire for awhile and then completed Check Points with the floor reps, which I something I have been wanting to start all week. All in all, what started off as an easy day became a long and trying one. I didn't get home until 6 PM.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Clean

   I know it's not Wednesday, but it's been one of those days that deserves a blog. The very first thing I learned when I got to work was that the client expects us to hire 15 to 20 people by this Friday. Fat chance!

   It takes 15 business days just for a background to come back. We have been waiting on 8 backgrounds since the 18th. Fortunately, if the applicant didn't mark yes for background we can start them right away. However, apparently most of the population of North Dakota either have a DUI or some sort of drug charges. 

   I hired two people with no background concerns last Thursday, so I told them they would start today. Well come today and we still haven't gotten the drug test results. We cannot hire anyone before we get the drug test results back. We usually get them back within 24 hours, so I have no idea what's taking so long. 

   So after coming up with a game plan with the boss on how to hire a ton of people I have a meeting with an employee. He tells me that he is going to start looking for a new job if he doesn't get Christmas off. 1) Its f*****g February. 2) I get it Christmas is the most important holiday for most, but it's also the busiest day of the year for us. 3) Its f*****g February.

  I was somehow able to appease this employee. He ended the conversation with, "I'll be sticking around for quite some time." So then later I have a TM meeting and a conference call, which went fine. Then I had to go over the verbiage of a coaching for a very difficult agent. This very same difficult agent created a crap ton of drama for me just because I didn't choose her for the trainer position. She also had a meeting with my boss a couple hours before.

   One of my TMs delivered the coaching, but of course everything he coached her on isn't true and there is nothing wrong with her. So a few minutes later she wants to "talk" to me. I pull her into my office and she proceeds to cry and scream at me. My boss's office is right next door to mine. He said he didn't want to leave until he made sure I was okay afterwards.

   Long story short I had a crappy day. I worked 11 hours today and I felt mentally drained by the time I got home. When I'm mad or upset about something I have to clean. So that's what I did when I got home, I cleaned.

Logistics

   So as I mentioned before my niece is coming up for a visit during her Summer vacation. I didn't really stop to think about how that is going to work. Here are a few of the problems I need to resolve before May:

1. Where is she going to sleep for the two months she is here?
• Couch in the living room or computer room?
• If she sleeps in the living room I won't be able to have friends over late at night on the weekends and I would probably end up waking her up when I go to work early in the morning.
• If she sleeps in the computer room Jamie won't be able to be on his computer late at night and Dildo, the one that ones the couch, is probably going to need it back so I will have to buy a bed.
2. How am I going to entertain her?
• Jamie doesn't want her on his computer.
• We only have a Wii with limited games.
• I don't make a habit of hanging out with 13 year olds so I don't know who she is going to be able to hang out with.
• I can't afford to constantly be taking her out to the movies, bowling, or the water park.
3. How am I going to feed her?
• I know she can be a picky eater.
• She wants to learn how to cook...so she says...we'll see if that's true.
• I don't keep a lot of food in the house, very minimal actually.
4. How are we going to survive the 16 hour road trip?
• The longest I have been in the car with her is 2 hours and she had a friend with her. I'm not sure how she will be without someone her own age to keep her company during the road trip.

   So long story short, it's going to be a very interesting Summer.

All Work and No Play Makes RDC a Dull Girl

   I'm honestly surprised I found the time to write this post, but it's important to me to keep to my New Year's resolution. I haven't written one sentence of my book so far this week, but I know I spent more than four hours on it last week. I still plan on spending some time on it this week though. Probably not four hours; I have too much work to do.
   So between continuing my quest to hire 15 people, completing interviews to fill two training positions, making the client happy, and with merit review and invoicing coming up; I'm just overwhelmed. 
   HR is supposed to be doing more of the leg work with hiring, but they have hardly helped at all. I'm the one pulling the applications, I'm the one reviewing them, I'm the one calling the applicants and setting up interviews, and I'm the one completing the first interview. I even complete the new hire paperwork and do the drug test! My management team has been helping where they can of course, but they have their own job to do as well. They actually have a schedule to follow, I don't. 
   I'm constantly told how much I'm appreciated for doing more than my fair share of work, but it would be nice if they did some of their own jobs even if it was just calling the applicants, but that's not going to happen. We only have two people in HR and one is about to go on maternity leave. 
   I just spent the last two hours working on stuff I didn't get to finish at work. I'm going to have to work this weekend on invoicing and merit review because I'm training next week. Oh that's right I forgot to mention. I'm taking it upon myself to not only chose the two trainers, but to train them for their new position myself. 
   Maybe I have a control issue...maybe not, but I think if you want anything done right you gotta do it yourself. I don't like pulling my managers from their teams to train. I already had to pull my night manager from his team this week to train a part time class and I don't want to do that again. 
   The only other trainer I have is busy in her position, saving the company money by fighting fraud cases. She hates training and I hate it when she trains. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to have her cover for me on the first so I can finish up payroll. Since I'm doing most of it this weekend it shouldn't take me too long to do.
  I'm so glad Eleven invited me to the movies on Friday. If it weren't for that I would have ended up working non-stop all week...

Too Many Thoughts

   I have had so many ideas for a blog post in the last four days it's ridiculous. Most of them I can't remember though. I should really write this crap down. Any way I'm going to talk about a few of the subjects I actually remember.

1.    Right now I'm trying hire 15 employees as soon as I can. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong! There has been so many things that have gone wrong during this process. Any time I think I'm doing well and I'm definitely going to hit my goal of 15 I get knocked down. People I have hired either decline the offer all of the sudden, their number is now disconnected, they lied about their back ground, or they don't show up for their drug test. When I call applicants to schedule an interview I leave a message, but they don't call me back. Or I get the interview scheduled and they don't show-up. It's so irritating! I wish this oil boom would just go away already. I need employees and I need them now!
   
2. I can't stand talking to people who think they know everything! There is an employee who is a direct report to Juiz....hmm what should I call him? We'll go with Snaggle Tooth...I stole that nick name from New Boss. He has that nick name for a different employee, but it works just as well for this one. Snaggle Tooth is just a pompous asshole, I don't think there is any better way of describing him. I don't know anyone that can tolerate him on a social level. I had to ask Juiz to talk to him about interjecting himself into conversations when my managers are trying to get work done. On Monday I was talking to Juiz about the book that I'm writing while Snaggle Tooth was out of the room, but he came back before I got to finish the conversation. So he finds out I'm writing a book, when low and behold he is writing a book too! I tell him I just started switching my tenses from past to present and I originally had it written in 3rd person and now it's in first person. He proceeds to tell me that 3rd person and past tense is the only way to go. I told him that I have actually read several books in 1st person and they were excellent. He has the nerve to say that he doubts that! WTF! Thankfully the front desk phone rang and I had to answer it so I left the room to take care of the call and decided not to go back. Well, he freakin' tracks me down to finish the conversation! He then asks me how far I am, how long I have been working on it, and about my creative process. He pretty much tells me that my creative processes are all wrong and I should have written an outline containing every chapter and what I want in each chapter before even beginning on to write. Screw off Snaggle Tooth! Everyone's creative processes are different...
3. So I know I'm a hypocrite and probably a bad person for even thinking this. I just found out on Saturday that a classmate of mine who is 25, is engaged to a 42 year old. This just creeps me out. I have never once been bothered by age differences when I see it on TV or the internet, but I guess if I know the person it's a different story. I'll be truthful here, I used to have a huge crush on this guy in high school and maybe that's why it bothers me more. That and they're talking about having kids and stuff, but there is no way they can have a biological child, which is a shame because he has some excellent genes. It just saddens me to know that his gene pool ends with him. It should be illegal or something! Okay, so that's it for my petty and ridiculous line of thinking.
4. Obligatory post about SOPA and PIPA. They're dumb...and better not pass.

Belated New Year's Resolution

I have always thought New Year’s Resolutions were just silly. I mean who really achieves their goals? Most of the time people's goal is to lose weight. I myself half-heartedly made that same resolution years ago, but never even really tried. At what point are you just making a resolution just because it's the thing to do?

   Well I'm actually going to follow through with mine this year, because it's nothing like I'm going to lose 50 lbs this year. I'm going to work out every day and eat healthy....yeah I'm not doing any of those things. I'm going to start writing and reading more often.

   I know my new position has been keeping me from my writing a lot more than I should have let it, but I'm going to turn that around. Starting now I'm going to come out with at least one blog a week. I'm going to dedicate at least 4 hours to my novel a week as well.

   I also want to start reading more. I already joined Stayla's book club, so that should be a huge help right there. I'm currently working on reading two books at once and a work buddy of mine, we'll call him Juiz, loaned me a book as well. So I have a grocery list of books to read at the moment.

   So please wish me luck in my New Year's Resolution as I think I'm going to need it. I'm pretty sure between my new position at work and my niece visiting me this Summer my hands are going to be pretty full.