Mewsings from Lowecat (aka Indianacat)

My rants, ravings, and overall 'mewsings' on life, the universe, and everything.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Tired of Being a Disappointment to Those I Love

Wednesday started out like any other work day, with me havin' no idea of what would cause the bottom to fall out of my somewhat delicately balanced psyche.  By 1030AM, just an hour after the work day began, I was bein' uncermoniously escorted out of the buildin' by a security guard, and watched by same until I rode off into the day.

So what the Hell happened in that one hour?  Sherman, set the way back machine to yesterday evening, between 530pm and 6pm, when I handled a call for which there was no guidance to be had anywhere, and vented on my wordpad, where I take notes for the call for documentation.

The caller was checking on a weekly payment they receive, and was very perturbed that I had no idea what she was talking about.  Ninety percent of the calls have to do with claims status, so naturally my mind went there.  The caller got a 'wee' bit snarky about my questions, as it was the first time I'd ever heard of this kind of payment.

Still, it shouldn't have been a problem, as the employer provides an on line guide for handling many situatios.  Note, it shouldn't have been a problem except that the on line guide had NOTHIN' about this situation in it.  The next thing I did was ask a coach, which is a tenured rep who one can go to for assistance.  The coach had never heard of the situation either!  Like me, the coach thought I was asking about a claim.

The caller wasn't happy about the number of times I asked her to hold while I was investigatin' the matter.  "What's the problem?  I call every week and get my question answered right away!  Are you that stupid?"

"No,ma'am, just want to be sure I'm giving you the right information."

You guessed it, I vented on my notepad and usd an uncomplimentary adjective rhymin' with witch to describe her.  The call document history was little help, but I eventually figured out what she was talking about on the caller profile payments tab.  There, at least, was a listing of the previous weeks payments, and with the help (FINALLY!) of my supervisor, figured out what type of payments the caller was referring to.

That led to a whole new problem; the payments for this week weren't posted on her profile.  She wanted to know why.  Guess what, I didn't have an answer to give her!  The call ended with her
informing me I'd been of no help to her at all, and that she would contact her corporate rep the following day.

End of shift, no more calls after that one, so copied my notes to transfer to the call report.  Dumbass that I am, forgot to edit out the colorful metaphor, saved the notes, and ended the day.

now the way back machine is whiskin' us back to Wednesday mornin', and my supervisor (not, incidentally, the one that had humiliated me in May) comes to my cube and asks me to come with her.  She's very serious, and I ask her what's goin' on.  "Just come with me."  I had a very bad feelin' about it.

I figure she's probably doin' the monthly one on one's that hadn't been done in a couple of months, lock the computer and follow her. She leads me through the call center to a corner office where the aforementioned security guard is standing in the 'at ease' position near the office door.   The bad feelin' increased.  

Inside the office  is a gentleman I'd never seen before, who tells me to have a seat and shoves a sheet of paper in front of me.  "Do you remember this?"  The paper is a screen shot of my documentation from the final call the day before and of the colorful metaphor..  My heart dropped into my stomach.  Only the first few lines of the documentation were shown on the paper, but it was enough for me to recall the situation.

So I explained what had happened, and Mr. Big Shot makes notes on the back of the screen shot.  I'll give my supervisor credit for backing me up about there being NO information in the on screen guide for the situation, and that I'd done the best possible to assist the caller.  It wasn't enough.  Mr. Big Shot, who'd casually tossed off my inquiry about the security guard standin' outside with "I had to talk to him about something before you came in," told me that I was being suspended for one day - with pay - pending termination for being unprofessional by documenting an uncomplimentary comment about the caller in the record.

I brought up the lack of professionalism in the sense that no guidance existed for the situation, which only fueld the caller's frustration which fueled my own, hence the venting in wordpad.  "I just wanted to get out of here, and completely forgot about double checkin' the document before savin' it."

"You admitted to putting it there, you intended to leave it there. That's not acceptible and unprofessional and won't be tolerated.  There's no excuse for it."

"So it doesn't bother you that I had little to no assistance in getting this call properly handled via the on line guide and the coaches and supervisors?"

"That's no excuse.  HR will contact you in 24 hours with the result of their investigation."

"Seems to me all y'all have already made up your minds," I retorted, getting up and striding back to my desk to get my vest and other stuff, followed by my supervisor and the security guard.

Before the supervisor had come to get me, I was taking an on line training course, and using my own earphones to hear it.  When I unplugged the headphones, the guard reached out to take them from me, as if I were stealing company equipment.  "These are mine!" I hissed.  "I bought 'em right across the street from Cycle Gear!"

"Got a receipt?"

The supervisor spoke up for me.  "I know what kind of head sets we give out.  Those are hers."

I pulled out my lunch bag and stated quietly to the guard,"This is mine,and everything inside it is mine, as is this coffee cup on my desk, and the vest on my back."  While emptying the second drawer, where I kept snacks, some change, and aspirin, I held up each item before stuffin' it in the lunch bag and statin' to him, "This belongs to me."  If it didn't belong to me, it stayed in the desk.

The supervisor was kind enough to give me a plastic bag to put my framed pic of Robert and another framed pic I kept for inspiration in to carry on the bike.  Maybe it was the drama queen in me, but I held 'em up to the guard and stated, "This is also mine, though I can't prove it with a receipt.  However, my name and image is captured on 'em!"

The supervisor was hiding a laugh behind her hand.

Once packed, I strode past my stunned team mates with my head held high to the elevator.  The guard right on my heels.  He rode down the elevator with me, and accompanied me to Tig's parking space.

"Hurry up and get going.  I have to make sure you leave the premises without damaging anything."

"Then you're just gonna have to wait for me to get things loaded, and that's not somethin' I'm gonna hurry through, buster!"  I deliberately took time to load things very carefully, double and triple checking the straps on the saddle bags and tie downs while he stood in the sun.  Petty of me?  I guess in retrospect it was. Accuse me unnecessarily and I'm gonna find a way to pay ya back.

When I eventually climbed onto Tig and backed him out of the parking space, the guard was still watching me.  It took every ounce of restraint in me not to 'accidentally on purpose' attempt to run over him.  

Something led me to stop at my church on the way home, where I'd not been since Daddy died.  As my luck would have it, the minister was on vacation for the week, but a couple of the office staff knew me, and counseled me.  I think had it not been for them, I would've done a Jax into the rear end of the nearest semi.

As most of y'all know, I've battled depression for years.  I'm not suicidal by nature, but the last few months employment track record has not been kind.  All y'all who matter know what happened with the job before this one and the bullyin' manager, and the temporary job prior to that where a bad case of cellulitis (blood poisoning) cost me that position, plus the unhappy circumstances at the job before that.  Frankly, since Daddy died, me and permanent employment have been ships passing in the night.

I feel pretty bad, as we really need my income to stay above the water line.  I feel like a failure to the cats and the husband and really believed for a few hours that they'd all be better off without me in life.  At least for the one day, I still had life insurance coverage....desperate thinkin' by a very depressed individual.  Not to worry, there's no chances of me flyin' into the back end or front end of a semi.

Instead, after a nap and another good cry, I got on line and began the task of job huntin'.  Contacted a couple of places that had shown an interest in me while gainfully employed.  One doesn't have anything, but another wanted my resume today to forward to a potential positio; it's temporary, but it beats nothin'.

I firmly expect that HR will decide to terminate me, despite the fact that I played by the rules, often staying 30-45 mins past the end of the shift to clear the que of waiting calls. I would work to find my own answers before asking for help, and didn't spend time being a social butterfly.  I cared about the work done, and can count on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left of the number of escalated calls experienced after graduation from training class.

Should the powers that be surprise me andoffer to let me come back under the condition of a final warnin', I can't help wonderin' if it would be possible to walk back into that call center without feelin' like a target is on my back where Mr. Big Shot is concerned.  Additionally - not that I give a rat's ass what the co - workers discuss, I know damn good and well they'll have their wide eyes and big ears on me.  I could really do without the attention.

So that's the whole sordid story.  If I'm comin' off like a victim, that's not the intent, though I kinda feel like one at the moment.  It was wrong to put the colorful metaphor in the notes.  The notepad is really the only way to vent, but there are drawbacks to it, as one can see.

Anyway, thanks for readin' this little epistle.  Thanks for carin', and for bein' supportive.

 


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