I was told today by a customer that called in that “I was the reason that people cancel their PC Mastercards.” I honestly was unaware that I had that kind of pull in this country, I mean I thought MAYBE if people in town knew that I worked there some might think twice before signing up, but to be the reason why everyone in the country are cutting up their mastercards? That’s an honor, so naturally I thanked her for calling President’s Choice Mastercard and to have a GREAT weekend. She called me a name and hung up. I’d tell you what it is but I honestly don’t remember, I believe it was either an idiot or a stupid moron, which might actually have a glimmer of truth involved since I can’t quite recall what she called me. On the other end of the spectrum I had a customer who made my day, well a couple because they were just so funny, the husband called but his wife was the primary user so I had to talk to her, he said she was out in the garden digging around so he yelled “Hun, he needs to talk to you ‘cuz you’re the prime..well the prim…you’re the breadwinner.” After I had verified everything I told her that I could either talk to her or speak to her husband if she wanted to make a run for it back to the garden so she told her husband just that “here, you talk to Tony now, I’m gonna make a run for it back to the garden” to which he replied “ok darling” then there was a short silence on the phone and he clarified “not you” I told him I assumed he was just trying to butter me up so he could ask me for something and he told me that he figured it might help get their interest lowered. All in all one of the better calls I’ve had since coming back to the call center, and I have to admit I was having a lot of fun egging on the first lady as well. Granted I was doing my job and wasn’t overstepping my bounds but by following the guidelines set in place by the company it just made her more and more frustrated.

We also found out today that as of July 1st, if we don’t use empathy we will get an autofail on our monitors, which simply put means that as of July 1st, I’m going to be autofailing a fair few of them. I have trouble having empathy for people when they are just dumb, like if someone loses their card, fine, I’m sorry to hear that, I know what that’s like it sucks. But if they lose their statement, all they have to do is call and get their balance or check online, I’m not sorry to hear you lost a piece of paper with information on it that you should keep a better eye on. Yes mistakes happen, and with some people they happen often but I don’t want to have to say “I’m sorry to hear that” every time I pick up the damn phone! Some of us were talking today about how by doing that they’re really just opening a can of worms because everyone is going to fight them on monitor scores because you can be empathetic without saying those 5 words but we all know that’s what they’ll look for, not the tone or anything else, just those. Now, when I looked it up, “empathy” is defined as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. No where in the definition does it say “must be conveyed by saying “I’m sorry to hear that”.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I miss Lost and here’s a song that encompasses why.

I spent the evening getting prepped for Toy Story 3 by watching the first two movies and then sitting and shooting the breeze with Ms. Kristi until the wee hours of the eve. T’was a good time and was enjoyed by all…well, both. Most of my day was spent at Denise’s house getting my hair straightened because a change was needed and I didn’t want to cut it all off so I went the opposite way and slightly lengthened it.

Since I’m currently in the process of getting ready for work I will stop here and pick up later in another post.

If a blog gets posted in cyberspace, and no one’s there to see it happen, does it make a sound?

The answer of course is no, unless someone has an alert on their computer that dings whenever I update, which would be odd because the only people who are that interested in my life are a close enough part of it that they would already know my goings on and it be more or less a repeat.  Regardless we’re not here to quibble over semantics we’re here to talk about my life, or rather for me to write about my day and a select few to read it and then sit back, stroke their chin and say “intriguing.”

Work was fairly uneventful apart from the fact that I was slightly late getting there, I thought I was supposed to start at 1:30 so I planned my morning accordingly and right before I jumped in the shower I had this notion that there was a change to my schedule when I looked at it at work but when I looked in my e-mail there weren’t any so I called none the less. Turns out they put me in for a review of our new program at 1 and had neglected to inform me so I had to haul ass and shower, eat and boot it up the hill. I swiped in on time but was a few minutes behind logging onto my phone, but I figure screw it, its like 3 minutes and I was stuck a little bit after work on a call too that I didn’t get paid for, so Davis and Henderson, lets call it even for today. Tomorrow may be a different story.

Had a few interesting calls today, once girl was my age and she was canceling an additional feature because she was a student and therefore poor and couldn’t afford it and I told her I knew exactly how that feels, once the student loan is gone and you have to start paying it back you start to think about what you spent it on. She informed me that she spent part of it on a tattoo and all I could do was chuckle and tell her that I did the same. To which she responded that we would be the cool people in the old folk’s home, I agreed stating that all anyone else there would be able to say was “Oh, I spent my loan on classes and tuition” to which we could say “Oh yeah? Well I spent mine on this!” They’d be jealous and then we would go do wheelies in the common area in our chairs. Looking at it now we had quite the conversation, I think it only lasted something like 9-10 minutes because I was doing some other stuff while talking to her. But she was easily my favorite caller of the evening. A close second would be a gentleman who lived about a block away from where I did when I lived in Kits back in ’08 so we talked about the neighborhood, he asked if I was the Tony who had the dog, I told him that unfortunately not, I was the Tony who had a hedgehog, apparently he doesn’t remember me…bastard. Either way I helped him out and sent him on his way.

I sat in a different spot today than I normally do with a different group of people, all of whom were female, I was estrogenerally outnumbered but I survived. Everyone I work with is pretty cool and if not I just don’t include them in the “everyone” of which I speak. I love the fact that for the most part the people I work with all run on the same level of sarcasm that I do so we all play off of each other rather well. Best part about all of that? I have the day off tomorrow so I get a break from it all, not that I didn’t for the three days I had off but that is beside the point, for those who missed it. The point is I don’t have to go in tomorrow. I plan to take a stroll to the other side of town, maybe hit up the duckpond, see how it goes. Either way I have plans in the evening to be incredibly freakin’ cool and watch Toy Story 1&2 back to back, and possibly since she’s never seen it, which is beyond me, Ten Things I Hate About You.

I’ve become more and more sidetracked by other things this evening, mostly music so I’m going to stop here before I start to ramble, I know some will quip “too late for that !” to which I say, Shove it! If you think I ramble don’t read the damn blog sir, or madam if that’s the case.

I’ll leave you with this, a great female group by the name of Garfunkel & Oates, if you like them as much as I do, subscribe to their channel on youtube

So, after three days of being sick I finally drug my ass to work and put in an entire shift. First thing I did was tell them that I would only stay as long as I saw fit but the point is I went in and I worked the whole thing, Go Team. I took 89 and most of them were pretty decent, now with every day on the phone you’re going to have a few that have their heads firmly lodged in their hind quarters but apart from those ones the people on the other end of the line seemed fairly nice, well those who spoke more than five words of english that is. The usual crew was there and even though we all came in at different times we all sat close enough together to talk. I must have flipped Beth off about twenty times by the end of her shift because every once in a while I would tell her I found something somewhere, like in my pocket, or under the desk and when she would ask what it was I would simply say “this” and flip her off. Childish I know, but when you’re in a call center from 1-10:30 you have to find simple ways to amuse yourself and flipping Beth off happens to be one of them. Tim and I are getting psyched about the two hour season three premiere of Leverage, which if I do this right should be at the bottom of this post.

Now I know I just name dropped a show yesterday but this one is also rather special to me, because its one of the best made shows I have seen in a long time. All the departments come together to make an absolutely amazing hour of television, what they do every week on the show could very easily be translated into a feature length film and kill at the box office. Right from the pilot episode the characters have all been completely three dimensional and jump off the screen, the actors are so completely adept at their roles at after watching two seasons (two or three times through) I feel as if I know these characters and I am with them every step of the way, I feel involved in the heist because thats what the show does. Its pulls you in and says, this is your team, they succeeded, you succeeded, you fail, they fail. There is not a single bone in my body that does not want them to come out on top every single time. Not once have I rooted against this ragtag band of ne’er do wells, not just because I would be backing a losing team but also because they’re just so damned lovable, flaws and all. The fact that they have flaws is what endears me to the show that much more, the characters aren’t perfect, everything DOESN’T always work out, its true to life.

I can see that this turned more into a post about my love for Leverage than anything about my day, but if it gets one person who reads this to start watching the show then I have done my job. As far as the rest of my day went, I had an appointment with my naturopath this morning, I love her to death I went in about stress management and when she noticed I was stuffed up while we were talking stressers and such she has me set up with a machine that she uses and was sending electric currents through my system attacking the bugs that were causing my headcold and I have to admit, I feel a lot better. She also did a EMDR which is a form of psychotherapy that was developed to resolve symptoms resulting from disturbing and unresolved life experiences. It uses a structured approach to address past, present, and future aspects of disturbing memories. It was a totally surreal feeling, again with the same machine sending pulses through my system, while this serene music played, which then changed to tribal drums and the awesome picture of a sunset was on the screen and I had to follow this ball with my eyes back and forth across the screen. There were little phrases and things that ran along the bottom to read as well and I feel so much more relaxed after having done it. She said that if I wanted later on in the summer I could go back and have an entire treatment on the EMDR instead of just the half that I had and I am strongly considering it. I love the fact that she has reasons behind everything that she gives me and has methods of giving me the right medication, as opposed to doctors that just throw perscriptions at you, she takes the time to explain whats in it and why you need it and what it will do for you. Long story short, if you have the opportunity to go see a naturopath, I cannot suggest it highly enough, it is so incredibly worth it.

In other news I got accepted to the NSCC for Business Admin and will be starting school again in September. Oddly enough Tim from work will also be in that class so we’ll either keep each other sane or drive each other batty it remains to be seen. I like to think it will be a bit of both.

I will leave you with this… If you always do what you feel is right, you can never be wrong.

Another day, another illness. My throat has cleared up for the most part but as if in some sort of internal bargain, my head is now stuffed up. So I spent the majority of my day on the couch, I watched a British flick called Lesbian Vampire Killers, they billed it as being like Shaun Of The Dead, but it was like the seriously classless and potty humour filled version, not that I was expecting an Oscar worthy epic given the name, but if you’re gonna name drop an Edgar Wright film, do it justice. Apart from that its been a fairly uneventful day, played some more Red Dead Redemption, had my horse keel over and die why I was riding it and got launched part way across the desert, which I still can’t quite figure out. I liked that horse, t’was a pride steed, now I’m stuck with a retard brown horse with a tan ass. I just keep riding it around the same area the first one croaked hoping for the best.

In other western related news, I watched the finale of Justified, and dear lord was it good! I’ve been hooked on the show from the first 5 minutes of the pilot but the finale left me not only wanting more but perplexed as to what I am going to do until the new episodes start. Now, for those of you wondering what show I’m talking about, and also for those who aren’t, Wikipedia explains it as “Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is a 19th century-style but modern-day officer, who enforces his brand of justice which puts a target on his back with criminals and puts him at odds with his bosses in the U.S. Marshals Service. As a result of his having eagerly shot a Miami fugitive in a “justified” shooting in his South Florida assignment, he gets reassigned to the district covering his rural Eastern Kentucky mining hometown of Harlan County.” Which is all well and good, I describe it as Timothy Olyphant playing the part he was seemingly born to play, as Raylan Givens, a somewhat trigger happy, sarcastically brilliant law man, forced to leave Miami and take up residence with the US Marshal’s field office in his hometown. Needless to say not everyone is happy that Raylan’s back, himself included. Perhaps I like this show so much because the main character was taken from a big city and forcibly made to return to his hometown, and is told to make the most of it because he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. That would make sense considering I just went through the same thing, except my superior officer is my health in this situation. Once again, much like Raylan I have grown accustomed to the place and have started to see its virtues and of course reconnected with old friends and made a few new ones. But at the end of the day a change is a change, and whether you made it willingly or you weren’t given any other option, you just have to roll with it. If you have no change in your life, I’d start checking your pockets for holes.

Yesterday I called in sick from life, today I called in sick for work. With this progression I can only assume that maybe tomorrow I’ll call in sick for house, or room, or maybe even self. Either way I’m downgrading, and will have to be somewhat productive, not that hanging out in the basement popping Halls like Pez isn’t.

Being confined to the house and all, can’t really be out and about in a town of 7000 when you call in sick to a job that employs a good third of them, I opted to play Red Dead Redemption and bomb around the wild west on a horse rather than sit and watch regular tv programming just to have my brain slowly ooze out my left ear. Keeping myself somewhat medicated with mug upon mug of hot water and honey, I must say it works fairly well, I’m not yelling and screaming and vocally carefree but its a step in the right direction.

Lately I’ve been on this Criminal Minds kick, going back through and watching the series from the beginning and I have to say, its FAR more interesting than CSI plus it doesn’t have a douche with shades busting out bad lines and walking out of frame. Can’t stand that guy, or that offshoot of the show. I watched the entire first season of it because Lucas from Empire Records was one of their agents, but he was a casualty of “we’re killing off one of our agents in our premiere, we all know you want Horatio dead, but instead we’ll kill of the dude Tony likes”. Now some may say, “I really don’t think they put as much thought into it as to figure out who you liked and then kill them” and to that all I can say is, prove me wrong. I’m not trying to be cocky or say that the majority of shows are garnered to suit me, because if that were the case…

Firefly would still be on the air.

Called in sick to life today. Woke up feeling a bit wonky, and was greeted by an uber sore throat, so I spent most of the morning on my couch. But I was fairly productive once I made it as far as the kitchen. I made myself breakfast, dinner, cooked my lunch for the next few days of work AND made two pans of date squares all while listening to lots of stand up and talking to a friend from work on msn. After having been in the kitchen and having the stove going on an already hot day I have completely drained myself of energy.

Its one of those nights were the day was productive but as the hours went by the motivation slowly spilled out my left foot and went under the fridge, because now all I want to do is sit here and listen to Weird Al, which I’m doing, but I have no real desire or drive to do much else. I say that yet here I sit, typing away updating a blog that as far as I know is only followed by one person, granted that person is pretty kick ass and I love her to bits, but I could save some time and just tell her about my day and save all you passersby the hassle of reading this post and then thing to yourself  “Well, there’s 2-7 minutes I’m never getting back.” I don’t know how fast you read so I decided to give you hitchhikers of the information superhighway a window of opportunity. You’re welcome.

(not from today, but its all I had for me in the kitchen)

So, this is what it feels like to have a blog huh? Not that much different from when I didn’t, except there are now slightly more words to type.

With this being the first post on this wall I figured I would add a picture of me with another famous wall.

Good Times. Good Friends. Dooley’s.