amatyultare

After not posting for almost a month, I have LJ post backlog - a ton of ideas that I want to write about and no energy to do so. Topics I want to discuss: the progression of office drama at work, how badly written my company's mission statement and core values are (seriously, they make me want to scream every time I see them), some books I've recently read, some movies I've recently seen. The probability that I will end up writing about any of these things? Who knows.

Instead, I want to tell a story that most of my P-town friends have heard, but my friends outside of the P-town area have not, yet.

Last Wednesday, I came home from RP night to find an envelope with my name on it on the kitchen table. I opened it up to find two pieces of paper. The first was a formal notice to vacate the premises by July 1. So of course I'm all flailing around "What did I do! I didn't do anything wrong! I pay my rent on time! I'm a good tenant!" and then I look at the second piece of paper. It's a letter from my landlord to all of the tenants saying we're great, he can give us good references, etc, but he's had some financial difficulties and is declaring backruptcy (!) and is selling the house (!!) and the new owner needs us out. (I'm guessing whoever's buying it is planning on just living in it as opposed to renting the rooms.)

Let me say that this is not in any way a disaster; I had already been thinking about the possibility of moving out and had started saving money. I wasn't expecting to do it so soon, but it's not going to be impossible for me. My sister would probably posit that this is actually the universe's way of getting me to move - I tend to be very cautious about life changes so who knows when I'd actually move on my own? (On the other hand, what kind of universe would make my landlord go through bankruptcy just so I'd move? So I am suspicious of this idea.)

So, I am now apartment hunting. Which involves me taking initiative and calling people I don't know, to set up appointments to evaluate/critique/possibly semi-haggle regarding available living spaces. Those of you who know me can imagine how easily I am taking to these tasks (ha ha). So many calls to make! And decisions! Should I rent an apartment on my own? Get a roommate? (Cheaper by far, but I am so tired of living with other people, you don't even know.) Get an efficiency, which is sort of like having a roommate inasmuch as I would only have a single room to call mine? Hmm.

And of course, because I am silly, I rediscovered Apartment Therapy and have spent a ridiculous amount of time drooling over design ideas that I could never actually pull off, but that look so amazing and fun. Apparently I have a frustrated inner interior decorator? Except I'd be terrible at interior design as I have no color or color-blocking sense. Sigh.

Wow, it's...later than I realized. Bedtime!

I've been feeling grumpy at work lately. But at least I am slowly making my way through my to-do list. My goal is to be completely caught up by the end of March - at which point our temporary office coordinator is leaving (since she's a temp and all) and I will need to go into overdrive again pretty much for the foreseeable future. Ah well. It looks like I may actually be on track - knock on wood - to have all outstanding projects and duties done before she leaves. I really hope I can make it, since that will leave me free to just handle calls, questions, and issues as they come in (until the next big project is dumped on my lap and I fall behind on all my day-to-day stuff...but, happy thoughts).

Meanwhile, I have continued playing around with makeup. So much fun! Tonight, I actually did a look I really like, but I don't have a way to take a picture of it. Sigh. To give you an idea, it involved: fully lining my eyes with black liner (including the waterline - difficult but looks awesome), black mascara, a LOT of You're A Doll! finishing powder in Metamorphosis, and eyeshadow in Hot Stuff (bottom left corner color). Oh, and also $1 lip gloss from Target that smells like Dr. Pepper./street cred Overall? Bright, but awesome.

Apropos to this, I've found that corals tend to look pink on me and therefore more natural than they look in the package. (Man, I cannot wait for my loveonyourside to come in.) Also, since the frames on my glasses are fairly thick, they automatically tone down any eye look. This theoretically means I could wear brighter/heavier looks to the office. On the other hand, this would involve me having to wake up earlier...I like makeup, but maybe not that much.

And speaking of waking up for work, I really meant to go to bed before 10 tonight. Oh dear.

Well, are you?

First real snow of the season today (if you don't have to shovel, it doesn't count as real snow), and I am reasonably pleased with my car's handling. Say what you will about Fords, but at least I can get up my street's hill and don't spin out every ten seconds like with the Volvo. But I'm still taking it very slowly and carefully of course. Friends in the P-town area or otherwise in bad weather, stay safe.

We decided to close the office today, so I am currently hanging out at the Westbrook Panera. Free wi-fi! Hot chocolate and really tasty mac & cheese! But I'm heading over to Julie's momentarily to watch her play WoW, hehe. It'll be good times.

I owe my friends list a real update, but I am a little too lazy at the moment. Maybe later? Short version: things are stressful at work but are otherwise good.

Color me exhausted. This morning, our boss called Provider Relations to tell them that there was some project due today. The department who needed this project had emailed HIM about it several weeks ago, but not the people in Provider Relations who'd actually be, um, doing the work. And our boss ridiculously busy, traveling all over the East Coast, so he missed the email.

Upshot: we all found out about this project, due tonight, THIS MORNING.

I'm not even in Provider Relations, but was drafted to help out and spent the day doing nothing but this project. The part that I was working on involved getting the NPI (National Provider Identification) numbers for all of our contracted providers - all 4,000+ of them. None of us took a lunch break - we sent Dave P out to pick up Subway for us and ate at our desks - and still barely finished that portion (there are other sections that just did not get done, because this was a month-long project's worth of work). I finally got out of the office at 8. Crazy times.

On the other hand, Maine Boffer Games this weekend, yay!

This is my first summer completely detached from the American school schedule (I was working last summer, but also living with Mom so I was aware of school breaks, when 'summer' started and ended, etc.) and it's very odd. Things seem to be going both faster and slower than usual; the week flies by but then I had to remind myself today that it's not yet August.

The BBQQ this weekend was wonderful. Awesome people+tons of delicious food+crazy card and board games+hilariously srs bsns whiffle ball+swimming+hanging out=good times.

I think I know all the words to all the songs on the album 'The Fame' by Lady Gaga. I am slightly embarrassed by this.

I keep meaning to type up a description of the work drama in my office, but more keeps happening. Luckily I am (mostly) out of it. In positive work news, my boss is actually in-state all the week, plus we may be getting a new mid-level manager for our office so I don't have to wait three weeks to get my boss's signature on a receipt to get it paid. Also, I *think* we are officially moving into our new office by Sept. 1. It'll be crazy, but what else is new? And choosing carpet and paint colors is fun. ^_^

Occasionally, when I am procrastinating online, I will reread some of my back entries in LJ. (Especially the tagged ones - I should just suck it up and go through and tag all of my posts.) And I always think that my LJ posts were much better 'back in the day'. Not the first few months I had it, but after that...yeah. My LJ has become extremely lame. Sadness.

Part of the problem is that I hardly ever post, which then makes me feel like I shouldn't post unless I have 'something big to announce'. It's hard to get back into the habit of just talking about what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis.

That being said, I am hardcore procrastinating on Script Frenzy (I should have 16.33 pages by today, and I have...3 *headdesk*) so welcome back to Ama's Excitingly Boring Life. And since I haven't been posting much RL stuff - it's going to be a fairly an extremely long entry.

Part I: Work Stuff

( Read more... )

Part II: Shopping!

( Read more... )

Part III: Progress on my New Year's Resolution

( Read more... )

Ack, it's almost 2 AM. Definitely past my bedtime. Night, all!

EDITED TO ADD: Something, again, stolen from cleolinda. As if the Caius thing wasn't weird enough, now the kid who played Anthony in Sweeney Todd may also be portraying...Grindelwald? Really? I mean, I know we pretty much only 'see' him when he's young and all, but...really? This is the second most...the guy who essentially seduced...I can't think of anything relevant AND non-spoiler-y to say about the character, but...REALLY? I don't see it, guys. (Although Cleo is right - if this is true, the kid has the best agent EVER.)

You know, not to beat a dead horse here, but every day this week I've gone into work thinking "It won't be as bad, today." And every day, I'M WRONG.

Today, we had very few people scheduled in (blame my manager) and everyone called in sick. It was literally one other person and myself on the phones by ourselves until 1 PM.

Remember that 'service level' I mentioned? The one we're supposed to hit 90%+ on? Service level is the percentage of calls we answer within 120 seconds. Calls that drop (they hang up before we answer the call) automatically count against us. Remember how on Monday, I was freaked out because we were hovering around 75%?

Hah.

Today, our low point was 5.3% service level. When I left, we were at a high point of about 22% since some people were scheduled in for the afternoon (and actually showed up, thank goodness). If we managed to hit higher than 30% for the day, I would be startled.

I have all these things I need to do at work, to tie up loose ends and so forth, and I don't have five minutes free at a time to do them. Oh, and my manager still hasn't picked my replacement, which I told him a week ago (and HIS manager too) was essential to do ASAP.

On another note, I finished Twilight. I am not at all enamoured of it--believe me, there will be much ranting, later--but I can see why some love it. For someone who believes in and daydreams about that kind of obsessive, utterly possessing and isolating 'love', such a warmly approving and relentlessly detailed account of it must be overwhelming.

I should get some sleep for work tomorrow...ugh. One more week....

Hence this will be a very short update. Life is going on in that on-going way it does, without much...um...going on. Oh, except the threat of Mom getting sued, but I very much doubt that's going to happen. It's a long story, which can be boiled down to: people are really stupid sometimes.

I've been doing very little lately--just work, reading (have I mentioned lately how much I love Terry Pratchett?), watching anime, etc. Life is boring, in fact, but that's okay.

And now, of course, ( Shocking Tales from Customer Service: True or False? )

And now I'm *really* tired. Night, all!

Ah, Mondays. There's nothing like being cursed at first thing in the morning to bring a song to the heart...actually, at this point, things like that mostly amuse me. I only really get upset when I feel bad for the person (which does not include, say, people who wait 14 months before contesting a $90 charge on their account or people who insist that they have a nonexistant version of an OS on their computer...)

I got Kiki’s Delivery Serivce from Netflix and watched it this weekend, as well as House of Flying Daggers. HFD was good, of course--well, it’s a Zhang Yimou film. Although, did the Chinese even use horses for military/police purposes before the Mongol invasion? *looks at K and R expectantly* Of course I had to look up that it was taking place during the Tang dynasty. I know that dynasty was famous for *something*... Gah, it’s been too long since Core China. And Kiki? Extremely cute, extremely well-done in that Miyazaki way. Of course there was no dramatic tension at all (what you could consider the major ‘plot’ happens in the last 15 minutes), but hey, it’s Miyazaki. Anyway, next up is Mahoromatic season two (yeah, I know it’s not supposed to be as good as season one, but I wanna see it!). Yeah anime!

And of course, it’s another Monday, so we have part two of Shocking Stories from Customer Service: True or False?!?

( First, the answer from last week )

( And Now, This Week’s Challenge! )

Also, NB: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. My sister has to be at Sarah Lawrence (about half an hour north of NYC) on the 27th. First years at Sarah Lawrence are not allowed to drive and Mom’s semester starts the week before that so she can’t bring E down, so I have been drafted. With that in mind--if I dropped by Colgate on the 27th or 28th on my way back to Maine, who would be there and at what time? I can always help people unload their cars, unpack, etc....anyway, all ‘Gate people who reads this, please comment!

I’m so not getting enough sleep during the week...okay, I’ll quickly check Nerudia, take a shower, and go to sleep. Later, all!

It feels like I haven't updated in forever, but it's actually only been a few days. Of course, a few days *is* forever when it comes to LJ...eh, whatever.

Things are going pretty well here, I guess. Both my and E's cars are having problems, but neither of us work on the weekends so hopefully we can get everything straightened out on Saturday. Work's fun, if stressful, now that we're actually taking calls instead of watching PowerPoint presentations six hours a day--even though I have to get up at 6 AM. *groan* I've been getting mostly good calls--some of my coworkers have gotten some wild ones though (a woman yesterday told the rep talking to her that she wanted Dell to track her stolen computer, and when he said they couldn't do that without special antitheft software. she responded that she knew that Dell had been reading her thoughts since she bought the computer so they could damn well track her computer...yeah). Tried to compare stories with B but I'm hampered because Dells aren't known for their aphrodisiac qualities ;-) Like I said, most of my calls have been great ( except for one )

On a lighter though still computer-related note...just as I was reading Ctrl+Alt+Del's storyline about Ethan becoming a 'Mac Panther' (hehehe), I read this story on BBC.com. Yeah Apple! I swear I'll get an iPod...eventually...

Meh, so tired...I'm gonna read a bit and then go to bed (I know it's strange to hear of me going to bed before midnight, but it's unavoidable--I start at 8 AM at least through next week). Later, all!