Lighter than Air

I've been having fun with trying to put my life in order. A little too much fun. And I can't just blamethank the caffeine because I haven't had any for two days. Looks like this mood boost is more due to a mental shift than legal stimulants, which makes me happier still.

I'm taking steps, and it's awesome. I've spent the past three mornings singing my heart out, which so far is giving me a bit of a rough throat because I'm not as used to constant singing as I used to be, and on the last song of my personal set this morning my voice broke hideously when I tried to hit an ending high note. As I said on Facebook, it sounded like I was trying to squeeze a toad to death. More warm-ups next time, I think, and maybe not so many vigorous songs until I've had some tea. Or at least until I've made some tea. Urban Zen's apple green tea is a great way to start the morning, and really soothing, but it doesn't seem to penetrate deep enough to really fix where the problem is.

But fewer voice breakings will come with time and practice.

Still working on lyrics, and writing down snippets of whatever comes to me. Whether or not I'll end up using anything I jot down is another matter.

Yes, I'm actually taking the plunge here. I'm going to take the advice of a friend and actually put my songs out there for others to listen to. I've envied others for people able to do that, for having the courage to do it. I watch and listen to professional musicians with envy, thinking to myself that I know I can do their songs, hit those notes, sing well enough. And I just never have. Why? Because I'm a coward. Because I'm too afraid of recording a song and letting the world listen and then having people I know come up to me and say, "Hey, so I heard your song." I don't want them to know what I can do because then they can judge it, and they can judge it badly, and I can face rejection.

Wait, scratch it all. Change the verbs to past tense.

I'm tired of being afraid of that. I'm tired of keeping all I can do inside because I'm too afraid of what people might think if they know what I can do. I'm tired of living in envy of the people who took that step and are doing what they love while I sit in an office taking phone calls all day, waiting for my shift to end so I can have a little bit of freedom before I start it all over again.

Want to know what I've figured out? When you have a hobby, a passion, and you let it out and work with it, mundane work stops being such a chore. Before, work was the thing that consumed my day, made me hate it and myself for doing it, and the only relief came when the day ended and I didn't have to be there, so then I'd go home and sit on my ass and dread having to go back the next day. Now, it's different. It's a thing that takes up my time, sure, but it's more like a minor annoyance that just happens to interrupt me from doing the things I love. I still get annoyed by it, but I don't suffer through it the way I used to. It's not a dark consuming terrible thing that exists solely to devour my soul. It's a thing. I do it. Then I go away and enjoy myself and actually feel like I'm living life for a while.

I don't ever want to lose this feeling. And if not losing it means I work at my music and put what I do in front of others and let them judge it, then so be it. It's worth it. Even if I try and I crash and burn, it'll have been worth it to have lived like that for a while, to know what life is supposed to be about, and to say that I tried, I followed my heart and did what I love.

It's a work in progress. But it's a damn fun one, and I don't regret what I'm trying to do.

So it's not so annoying that right now, I have to take a little break from my singing to actually go to work. Sure, I wish I could stay home all day and work my voice like I've done the past couple of days, but a nice deposit in my bank account reminds me why I really can't. *chuckle*

Yesterday was a terribly frustrating day all around, but mostly when it came to work. Cue bitching? let bitching commence.

Right off the bat, my first call of the day was from a guy who said that he and his family had finally narrowed down where they wanted to go for vacation. Their choices were California, Florida, or Mexico. Anywhere there. And it had to be a family-friendly resort. Can I do some research on places for him and email him what I find?

Rageface. I vehemently dislike this kind of person. This kind of person usually thinks they're doing the best thing, being flexible with their destination, their dates, all that stuff. They think it actually makes it easier on the travel counselor they talk to. In actuality, it does the exact opposite. Rather than telling me he wants to go to Miami on August 3rd, for example, which is something I can easily find flights and hotels for because I find hotels and flights by looking up specific locations on specific dates, telling me he wants to go to Florida some time in August means that I have to look up flights to and from multiple potential cities for multiple potential dates. Something like that can turn a 15-minute call into a 2-hour research session, and all because people think they're being flexible and helpful.

You want to be helpful? Try actually narrowing down where and when you want to go somewhere. It's not arrogant to know these things and tell them to me.

I swear, this is the sort of thing that makes me want to start a vlog about my various experiences in call centres. I could entertain and rant for hours, I really could.

So the next anger-inducing thing came when my supervisor sent me an email about 3 things that needed following up on, that apparently had been in my queue and my queue buddy "was made to take care of."

Excuse me? Let me put this all in a timeliney perspective. I worked until 8 PM on Friday, September 28. I called in sick on Saturday because I was in so much pain and discomfort from my stupid period. I then had 2 scheduled days off, and next worked my scheduled shift on Tuesday, October 2. My queue buddy worked this stuff on October 1. Anything that came into my queue between me leaving on Friday and me coming back on Tuesday is stuff that I couldn't possibly have actually seen!

This is why we have a queue buddy system. So that anything urgent can be followed up on while any given agent is on their days off.

So my supervisor sends me this email yesterday. Two days after my queue buddy worked on the cases, and my second day back after my days off. There were 3 cases. One I had cleared up yesterday. One couldn't be cleared up because I couldn't reach the client. The third was fully taken care of by my queue buddy and there was nothing left for me to do. I had already done what I could in my queue on Tuesday.

I sent an email back to my sup saying as much. Also explaining to him that I can't do anything in my queue while I'm off work, and it's not like I just left complicated stuff in my queue for someone else to handle. I really resent that implication, and there was no need for my queue buddy to email my sup to start with about this unless she was actually implying that was what I did.

Third thing? Finding out that as much as I'm currently rocking my stats and goals, the whole team's schedule adherence is at an all-time low. Schedule adherence, for those who don't know, is basically the percentage at which we all log in and out for our breaks at the correct time. We had never dipped below 92% before. Now we're at 82%.

And I know this is my fault. A large chunk of it, anyway. Right now, because of my fucked up period, I have to run to the bathroom frequently. I can't always wait for my breaks. Sometimes I have to go twice in an hour. I'm not going to sit there and bleed all over my chair just to save a team stat.

And I feel guilty over it. This is one case where I agree with my therapist, that guilt is anger turned inward when it should be turned outward. I feel guilty, but what I feel more than that is anger that there's such a lack of understanding, of flexibility. I know that a stat is a number and a number can't be changed, but it bugs me that my health problems are dragging down the whole team and that there's no way to change it or get and exception or anything like that.

I sent an email to my sup about that. I apologized, said I know it's mostly because of me, and left comment that said, "Yes, it's because of the health issues I discussed with you a few weeks ago." I know his goal wasn't to guilt-trip me, but I want him to know that I'm not just fucking around, and that I have a legitimate reason for doing what I'm doing. If he's got any better suggestions, I'd like to hear them. But I'm angry about it, because this is just another example of the way this centre works.

The numbers matter more than the circumstances. It doesn't matter that I'm in too much pain to move. What matters is that my attendance gets worse. It doesn't matter that I'm bleeding from my crotch so fast that I can barely keep up with it and have suffered from dizziness due to the accompanying anemia. What matters is the schedule adherence stat.

I thought at first that this company actually cared about its employees, more than other companies I'd worked for. Certainly more than the company I'd previously come from. But no, like so many other places, that's just the nice mask they put on before you get sucked in. Then it's all stats and goals and numbers and figures and you're reduced to a piece of data while still being told to convey yourself to others as a human being. An extraordinary human being, of course, who can and will bend over backwards for the client, who will deliver excellent service not so that the customer's happy, but so that they customer sends back a survey rating how happy they are, so that the company can assign a number to you that tells you your worth.

This is why I desperately want to be self-employed. Being self-employed like that would mean that for one thing, I'd be doing something that I could actually enjoy, and play to my skills and strengths. Which would be something I could do from the couch if I'm feeling ill or sore. Something that would allow for that kind of health-related flexibility. Something that, obviously, would treat me like a person rather than a faceless number.

I don't wonder why I suffer from stress. And I know that if I can endure this for just a few more years, and save up money in the meantime, then things will get a lot better.

I hope that today will be better. I hope that today I get some easier calls so that I can salvage my abyssmal talk time (again with the stats! The goal is to have an average of 20 minutes per call, including after-call work; yesterday, my average time was 40 minutes because of all the complicated calls and research that came my way), that maybe it won't be very busy and I can get some off-the-phone time for research and catching up.

I just keep telling myself, only today and then 2 more shifts until my days off. I can make it.

Hopefully without raining Nahadoth's vengeance down on people. (Hence the icon for today's post. Feeling smitey!)

Work has a new scheme to save themselves some money. Unsurprisingly, the ones impacted the most are the employees.

See, their insurance provider has recently hit on a great new deal. For them. Instead of giving us semi-decent coverage on any medications we purchase, they've decided to make a couple of tweaks. Now, I'll grant you, so far the most detail I've heard about this is via angry rumours from coworkers, but what little official release info I've been given from management backs this up, so until I hear otherwise, I'm going with it.

Previously, we could get our prescriptions written, take them to the nearest pharmacy, have that pharmacy put our insurance info on file, and walk out with our meds 15-30 minutes later. Standard deal. Now, they've decided that pfft, fuck that whole "ease of access" shit, we're going to do it our way!

Now, the idea is that instead of walking out of the doctor's office with a prescription in hand, we get our doctors to fax the scrip to the company's central dispensing agency. Who fills the order, and then sends the medication to us via FedEx within 24 hours.

Where do I start with the logistics problems?

First of all, while people might be able to convince their family doctors to adhere to this scheme, it'll be a royal pain in the ass to convince doctors who work at the local after hours clinic. Or the urgent care department of the hospital. Or the emergency department of the hospital. Those guys have enough to do without the added annoyance of making sure stuff gets faxed on time.

Second, I have to trust that the fax will get from person A, properly through the lines without error, and then that Person B on the other end will do their job. This is all out of sight from me. Doctors get busy and forget stuff, and I'm betting that some scrips will get forgotten when the patient's not right in front of them. And I refuse to be a jerk and stand around until I see them fax it to the correct number, because everyone at the hospital has better things to do.

Third, FedEx packages have to be signed for. I CANNOT SIGN FOR MY PACKAGE WHEN I'M AT WORK AND NOT AT HOME! I can have the package delivered to work, sure, but all they can guarantee me is that it will arrive within 24 hours, and there's no guarantee that I'm going to be at work when the package gets delivered. I can, in theory, set it up so that someone on site can sign for the package, but even aside from the logistics problems of not knowing who the hell's going to be onsite at any given time, with the track record that place has had, I don't trust a single damn one of them to sign for important medications.

No, you see, I much prefer being able to walk 10 minutes to the pharmacy down the street to pick up my medication rather than waiting for it to be shipped from halfway across the country because the company I work for is more concerned with saving a couple of dollars rather than actually providing decent employee coverage. This smacks of a skeezy mail-order med scheme, and I don't trust it, let alone like it.

So I want to know if I can opt out. I'm currently paying a little over $50 a month for coverage, and yes, while that does include vision and dental coverage too, I use those rarely enough that they're not hard to save up for and pay on my own. (Besides, at this rate they're likely to tell me I have to get new glasses shipping from a dispensing company too after my optometrist faxes them the strength details...) Depending on how much coverage I actually get, if I can keep my medical expenses under about $75 a month (hard, but doable, depending on the month), then I'll be just as well off by getting rid of the ridiculous policy than if I kept it. Hell, even if I end up losing $10 a month by opting out, I'll be tempted to anyway, just as a protest to tell them that they can't con people so easily with their bullshit money-saving ideas.

And with that, I'm going to play 15 minutes of Dark Summoner and then go to work. At my supper break today, my week will be half over, and I can look forward to my weekend.

Thankfully, no referral to the neurologist. Nope, instead I've been told to increase my daily dose of antidepressants to see if that helps cut down on the tic attacks, and talk about this with my psychiatrist when I start going back to group therapy next month.

I was going to go back to work after my doctor's appointment, but instead, I think I'm going to take the rest of the afternoon to relax a bit. Maybe make some tea. My doctor reccomended taking a little 5-minute break every hour at work, get up and walk around, go outside, just do something else so that I can feel as though I'm not confined to a desk and so can relax myself a little. He thinks that'll help with the outbursts. I agree, but I told him that work's going to have a hard time accepting that, because every moment that we're not on our scheduled breaks and lunch, we're to be at our desks, taking calls or working on something for a previous caller. Logging out to go calm myself down? Not acceptable.

He looked at me like that was the craziest thing he'd ever heard, and said, "I don't understand why jobs like that even exist. You should at least be allowed to get up every hour and go stretch your legs."

I wish.

But rather than go back to work for the remaining couple of hours I'd be there, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, down another partial pill of Celexa, do some embroidery, and watch a little TV. Snuggle some kittens. Get into my pajamas and read a book. Whatever it takes to relax my body and convince my muscles that they don't need to go haywire anymore. Then tomorrow I'll go back and try to take my doctor's advice to heart, and try to get up and even just go to the bathroom every hour or something. Walk around the building. Actually, no, I probably can't do that last one, because it would involve leaving the building on paid company time. But something.

Be much more relaxing if they'd let us have books or craft supplies on the floor, to work on between calls. That would keep me happier. It's how I survived two and a half years at another crappy job, after all.

So I'm going to try to be more positive here, too. I really ought to post some pictures of the craft projects that I've worked on, or something. Give people something interesting to read other than health gripes and work woes.