My birthday is coming up, but when it comes to parties, I have some of the worst luck. I've already touched on my tendency to get sacked at a time that amounts to right before my birthday, but fortunately, the party side has been really good in recent years. When I was younger, I could never get anyone to come to my birthday parties because people tended to go on vacation immediately after school got out...which fell right on my birthday. My parents' church does church camp, which also tends to fall right around my birthday, and they've missed it because they've left for it before.
This year? Oh, I figured having it early combined with it being an all day, come when you like, Star Wars movie marathon lasting from 7am to nearly midnight would help some of the complications people have with showing up (at all). No, this year, a new kink gets thrown into the mix. Like any bloke who needs money, I like lapping up as much overtime as I can muster, and Optimus Prime is much the same way. Occasionally, my workplace will schedule a weekend work day to catch up on tickets. Guess when they decided to schedule a mandatory workday...
Yup... right on my marathon day. Now, we've both been forgiven that day for having a prior commitment, but you know, I kinda coulda used the $150 it would have been worth to come in that day. It would have been nice. I know he would feel the same way, so rather than a total day of freedom, we are freed for the day, with the idea hanging over us that if only I hadn't scheduled my day of fun, we would have worked. It's one freakin' crappy feeling.
I wish that just one year everything would go so perfectly in every regard that I could enjoy the day 100%. Even this year, my parents' church adjusted their church camp schedule and The Engineer is leaving town on the 31st for church camp. I thought for sure I had that missed, but instead, they did it earlier. Seriously, what do I have to do?
It's an annual frustration, and maybe this is why some people give up on parties after awhile. It's not even a matter of being important enough for people to show up. I'm a perennial victim of unlucky scheduling. It's not The Engineer's fault that the camp schedule is early...or really anytime they schedule it. It's not anyone's fault but my own I get sacked. And no one at work asked if anyone had conflicts with the 31st, but assumed most could make it.
I'll get over it, sure, but I'll always remember that fate threatened my party for one more year. Maybe next year will be better.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Finale to the World's Largest Retailer
And it's over. No fanfares. No celebrations. Nothing special. 6:00 rolled around on Monday morning, and I left. That was that.
I was allowed to complete my final two weeks at the world's largest retailer and stock the shelves like I'd been doing for nearly a year. I filled out a sort of exit interview paper showing why I was leaving, and I got a lengthy story about the manager trading in his truck, but that was about much ceremony as there was. I turned in my discount then, and my badge and knife on the way out after I'd clocked out.
My final night went much as all the other nights had gone before except that I knew it was coming to an end. I got hugs and handshakes throughout the night, and was repeatedly told how valuable I was and that I would be missed. One guy kept telling people I was leaving, and that I was the hardest worker there.
One of the women got me and the family a chocolate truffle cake. She walked up to me at one point and said, "Do you like chocolate?" I said yes. She asked, "Does your family like chocolate?" I said yes. I knew what she was up to, but she didn't say any more at that point and walked off. Shortly thereafter, she tracked me down and said she'd gotten me this cake and wanted to give it to me on my aisle instead of in front of "those greedy people" in the break room. I stashed it quickly.
It was overall kind of nice to be in control of when I was leaving a job as opposed to being fired (which is what commonly happens to me). This is one of only two jobs that I left voluntarily instead of being sacked. The other was my term with a security company as a dispatcher (which was an interesting experience as well, though my departure wasn't as warmly met as with the WLR).
As I left for the last time, the air was a bit sweeter and the world a little bit freer. I felt almost reborn knowing that I would only be doing one job instead of two and have my weekends free again to spend with the Queen and Princesses. My first free weekend, as intended, is Memorial Day weekend so I'll have three days off in a row for the first time since Labor Day last year, which I took off from the WLR without pay to head to Missouri where the Queen's family likes to camp and fish.
The Princesses are super excited, though, about having me available on the weekends, and the Queen equally so about not having to sleep alone for three nights out of the week. I plan on more movie times with them, working more with Rock Girl on her guitar, practicing my guitar more, playing more on the Wii, finally playing some of those games that the Queen's father got for me, watching a few more movies, and just being able to rest for a few hours here and there as opposed to having to sleep to regain my strength. It will be very, very nice.
In addition to playing, this will also give me the chance to finally work on the house. When you move into a new house, you spend a year getting adjusted to everything and making sure all the important stuff works. In your second year, you can finally start getting it all put together just the way you want it, but for my second year, I lost my job and started working an ungodly amount to make sure we can keep said house. So all that post-move-in stuff hasn't been done yet, and I'm anxious to get started on it finally. It'll be nice to get it all together.
So that's life as it is at the moment. My crew enjoyed the finale of Dancing with the Stars last night. They've been glued to it all season. I tried to watch Stealth at the same time, but discovered I got a bad disc. Oh well. Not that I'd heard anything good about it anyway. I watch my Alfred Hitchcock Presents instead, I guess.
I was allowed to complete my final two weeks at the world's largest retailer and stock the shelves like I'd been doing for nearly a year. I filled out a sort of exit interview paper showing why I was leaving, and I got a lengthy story about the manager trading in his truck, but that was about much ceremony as there was. I turned in my discount then, and my badge and knife on the way out after I'd clocked out.
My final night went much as all the other nights had gone before except that I knew it was coming to an end. I got hugs and handshakes throughout the night, and was repeatedly told how valuable I was and that I would be missed. One guy kept telling people I was leaving, and that I was the hardest worker there.
One of the women got me and the family a chocolate truffle cake. She walked up to me at one point and said, "Do you like chocolate?" I said yes. She asked, "Does your family like chocolate?" I said yes. I knew what she was up to, but she didn't say any more at that point and walked off. Shortly thereafter, she tracked me down and said she'd gotten me this cake and wanted to give it to me on my aisle instead of in front of "those greedy people" in the break room. I stashed it quickly.
It was overall kind of nice to be in control of when I was leaving a job as opposed to being fired (which is what commonly happens to me). This is one of only two jobs that I left voluntarily instead of being sacked. The other was my term with a security company as a dispatcher (which was an interesting experience as well, though my departure wasn't as warmly met as with the WLR).
As I left for the last time, the air was a bit sweeter and the world a little bit freer. I felt almost reborn knowing that I would only be doing one job instead of two and have my weekends free again to spend with the Queen and Princesses. My first free weekend, as intended, is Memorial Day weekend so I'll have three days off in a row for the first time since Labor Day last year, which I took off from the WLR without pay to head to Missouri where the Queen's family likes to camp and fish.
The Princesses are super excited, though, about having me available on the weekends, and the Queen equally so about not having to sleep alone for three nights out of the week. I plan on more movie times with them, working more with Rock Girl on her guitar, practicing my guitar more, playing more on the Wii, finally playing some of those games that the Queen's father got for me, watching a few more movies, and just being able to rest for a few hours here and there as opposed to having to sleep to regain my strength. It will be very, very nice.
In addition to playing, this will also give me the chance to finally work on the house. When you move into a new house, you spend a year getting adjusted to everything and making sure all the important stuff works. In your second year, you can finally start getting it all put together just the way you want it, but for my second year, I lost my job and started working an ungodly amount to make sure we can keep said house. So all that post-move-in stuff hasn't been done yet, and I'm anxious to get started on it finally. It'll be nice to get it all together.
So that's life as it is at the moment. My crew enjoyed the finale of Dancing with the Stars last night. They've been glued to it all season. I tried to watch Stealth at the same time, but discovered I got a bad disc. Oh well. Not that I'd heard anything good about it anyway. I watch my Alfred Hitchcock Presents instead, I guess.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
People who make problems
Some people just want to make problems where none exist. Maybe they didn't get enough attention as children; maybe their kids ignore them every day; maybe they're not beaten as much they feel they should be. Whatever the reason, they dig and look for things to be wrong, and if nothing's wrong, there must be something they aren't noticing, so they create something.
Such is the case with one of the people I work with now. This particular individual had someone come to them and say there was a problem in our magic little elgibility checker because when the birthdate was run through, it came back invalid and said the person, who was born in 1985, was born in 1885, but this claim went ahead and went with the errored birthdate.
This being a little weird, I went ahead and dug in to find the problem. First thing I did was see if it would break again, but strangely, it didn't. I checked the screens in the eligibility system and the birthdate matched what was on the claim. The first oddity I noticed, though, was that the "screen shot" they'd sent in showing the 1985 birthdate was the screen where you ENTER the information; not the one that spits the correct patient info out. I would think that screen would have to show exactly what you enter into it...since it is manually entered.
Well, given that the birthdate on the claim was right, I looked at the screen where we actually do make the birthdate comparison and output the error if it doesn't match. Well, that screen only has a 6-digit birthdate: mmddyy. No century. This would mean that we can't be using the 18 vs. 19 as a comparison; in fact we only pop that in as an output for their benefit. I checked out the code and sure enough, it's a legit bug. But that means this didn't cause the birthdate not to match either.
Finally, I ran our favorite report in the entire world: Claim Changes History - All Fields. You see, the beauty of this report is that it gives every single change that was ever made to any claim. I ran it on the claim in question and - gasp! - the person who made the complaint changed the birthdate based on what we pulled back from the eligibility system three hours after it ran. This means our system worked just fine; they just wanted attention.
To shift back to cell phones...
I rather enjoyed this guy who had no problems whatsoever that called to say that the two phones he'd purchased and activated just that day wouldn't ring when someone called them. He stated you could make calls on them, and if you called the other phone, the voicemail would pick up but the phones would ring.
To "prove" this to me (while I'm blindly listening on the other side of the phone line), he made a call from one phone to another and held the phone up to the phone he was talking on to le me listen to the voicemail. Swell.
After the second listen, I asked him what screens show on the phones being called when they're being called (to see if they're "ringing," but maybe the ringer's off). He responded with one of my favorite responses: "You mean they have to be on?"
Um, yeah. To function, an electronic device must be "on."
Next to finally, there was the guy who called in to argue about his bill. Now, I got lots of these calls, and it was always convincing the person that the bill being $400 higher than normal is actually correct. This one was a bit different.
I had a guy call in and tell me that he has charges on his bill that he paid for, and he doesn't owe them. My answer? I agree. He didn't owe them. He did pay for them. He wanted a credit for them. Huh? He insisted that he did not owe the $250 his bill showed was due. I agreed. He only owed $70. He didn't believe me.
This argument went on for 30 minutes with my completely agreeing with his assessment of what he owed, but not crediting the charges he already paid. It was the only time I've ever had to try and convince a customer that he owed less than he thought he did. To make this just a bit more amusing, would you believe he never accepted my explanation? But he did agree to pay only $70...and no more!
And now the final one... Sometimes the queue time for customer service is a long wait. On this particular day, it was 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes you'll never get back. This joker not only waited the 20 minutes, but once on the line, he asked for a supervisor, and so I got him. What did he want?
"I just wanted to let you people know that your logo on the bill should be in black and white - not color." He just wanted to let us know we could save money by not printing the logo in color. How nice...
And he waited 20 minutes to tell us that.
Such is the case with one of the people I work with now. This particular individual had someone come to them and say there was a problem in our magic little elgibility checker because when the birthdate was run through, it came back invalid and said the person, who was born in 1985, was born in 1885, but this claim went ahead and went with the errored birthdate.
This being a little weird, I went ahead and dug in to find the problem. First thing I did was see if it would break again, but strangely, it didn't. I checked the screens in the eligibility system and the birthdate matched what was on the claim. The first oddity I noticed, though, was that the "screen shot" they'd sent in showing the 1985 birthdate was the screen where you ENTER the information; not the one that spits the correct patient info out. I would think that screen would have to show exactly what you enter into it...since it is manually entered.
Well, given that the birthdate on the claim was right, I looked at the screen where we actually do make the birthdate comparison and output the error if it doesn't match. Well, that screen only has a 6-digit birthdate: mmddyy. No century. This would mean that we can't be using the 18 vs. 19 as a comparison; in fact we only pop that in as an output for their benefit. I checked out the code and sure enough, it's a legit bug. But that means this didn't cause the birthdate not to match either.
Finally, I ran our favorite report in the entire world: Claim Changes History - All Fields. You see, the beauty of this report is that it gives every single change that was ever made to any claim. I ran it on the claim in question and - gasp! - the person who made the complaint changed the birthdate based on what we pulled back from the eligibility system three hours after it ran. This means our system worked just fine; they just wanted attention.
To shift back to cell phones...
I rather enjoyed this guy who had no problems whatsoever that called to say that the two phones he'd purchased and activated just that day wouldn't ring when someone called them. He stated you could make calls on them, and if you called the other phone, the voicemail would pick up but the phones would ring.
To "prove" this to me (while I'm blindly listening on the other side of the phone line), he made a call from one phone to another and held the phone up to the phone he was talking on to le me listen to the voicemail. Swell.
After the second listen, I asked him what screens show on the phones being called when they're being called (to see if they're "ringing," but maybe the ringer's off). He responded with one of my favorite responses: "You mean they have to be on?"
Um, yeah. To function, an electronic device must be "on."
Next to finally, there was the guy who called in to argue about his bill. Now, I got lots of these calls, and it was always convincing the person that the bill being $400 higher than normal is actually correct. This one was a bit different.
I had a guy call in and tell me that he has charges on his bill that he paid for, and he doesn't owe them. My answer? I agree. He didn't owe them. He did pay for them. He wanted a credit for them. Huh? He insisted that he did not owe the $250 his bill showed was due. I agreed. He only owed $70. He didn't believe me.
This argument went on for 30 minutes with my completely agreeing with his assessment of what he owed, but not crediting the charges he already paid. It was the only time I've ever had to try and convince a customer that he owed less than he thought he did. To make this just a bit more amusing, would you believe he never accepted my explanation? But he did agree to pay only $70...and no more!
And now the final one... Sometimes the queue time for customer service is a long wait. On this particular day, it was 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes you'll never get back. This joker not only waited the 20 minutes, but once on the line, he asked for a supervisor, and so I got him. What did he want?
"I just wanted to let you people know that your logo on the bill should be in black and white - not color." He just wanted to let us know we could save money by not printing the logo in color. How nice...
And he waited 20 minutes to tell us that.
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