And now, to lighten things after the previous post where I found myself in the midst of my very own psychological thriller, I'm going to introduce a new category of post: Customer Service. You see, I've worked in call centers for six years before landing myself in a more techish position where I don't talk to the humorous ones as much. But during that tenure, I've acquired a plethora of stories that perhaps you can learn not to do when you call in and talk to someone in customer service.
To open, I'd like to tell two of the Queen's favorite stories. She knows these by heart and anytime I talk about customer service to anyone, she requests these.
Our first tale comes from the realm of cell phone activations. These are the types of phones where you go into a store of some kind, buy the phone in a box, and then take it home to activate it. Stores love 'em because you can stick any idiot behind a counter to hand these phones off to whomever wants them. All they need to be able to do is reach the phones and point to the brochures. Real easy.
So, I worked in the department that activated these phones, and I came to a realization while talking to people in that some people are so mechanically un-inclined that you can make them do something that is incredibly funny if you lead them on just right. I made a game of this after awhile because I found it so humorous, and I got at least three people to fall into this trap.
Phones have a number called an Electronic Serial Number that is unique to each unit. They're actually going to a different type of number now, but back then, it was all about the ESN. This magic number was located on a white sticker under the battery on every phone we had back then, and customers had a knack for taking the phone out of the box, and immediately misplacing said box which also has the ESN on it. So here follows that conversation:
Me: Can you give me the electronic serial number (gotta avoid the jargon) off the phone please?
Victim: Where do I find that?
Me: It's on a sticker underneath the battery on the back of the phone.
Victim: Oh, ok.
(Click!)
Always made me laugh. Ideally, I should have mentioned that they shouldn't actually be talking on the phone when we're trying to activate, but that would spoil all the fun. That's one of the first questions they ask now, but it wasn't required back then.
The next story involved a prepaid phone. These are the phone where you have to put money on the phone's account before they will work, and really there are a myriad of varieties of this phone. Some have a set number of minutes every month built in like regular credit accounts do, while other allow you to pay by the minute without expiration of those minutes.
Our next victim paid by the minute, and on this occasion, his account was quite empty, so he was unable to make a phone call, and when they call with this problem, they always have to make a "very important call." I know I seem a little desensitized to this, but in all my time with these people, I've only allowed one three way call for a prepaid customer because her description made it sound like an actual emergency (and when she relayed the short version to her husband, it actually was very serious; she should have called 911).
So when I wouldn't give him a "payment arrangement" (something that is actually not possible on a prepaid account, since they run off of a balance or minutes, not off of any kind of suspension of service), he got very, very upset with me. He screamed and yelled and carried on for a good while hoping to browbeat me into "changing my mind." To be honest, all I was able to do was repeat myself, since what he was requesting wasn't a possibility with his account type. The system wouldn't allow it.
Anyway, he got to the point where he asked me, "You ever heard a phone fly out of a window?" What could I say to that? "No," I said. He replied, "Well, you have now."
At this point I heard a loud whoosh of rushing air and then a crunch before the line went dead. And so he went from regular angry customer to a legend in one fell whoosh.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Single White Female
So... let's talk about this Allison person who's come up a couple of times. Obviously, I don't wish to devote a lot of time or space to this individual, but since she filled up a good portion of the next year and a half (i.e. the space between the Army and The Queen), she's about as worth mentioning as the Third Reich is in German history. Yeah, the Germans don't like talking about that either.
Once I got out the Army, I was completely clueless as to what to do. I lived at home, but had bills left over from the Army, so I had to work. Trouble is, I hadn't the first clue as to how to get a job, much less one that paid some kind of decent wage or something I wanted to do. I started by looking through the paper for music jobs...yeah, just guess how that turned out.
My first stumble was into a multi-level marketing company called Equinox. My first experience with that sort of thing, and being that the people putting it out there were good and selling whatever, I was hooked into the too-good-to-be-true deal. I pulled money off one of my credit cards and was in...yeah, no. I failed miserably at it, and quit rather quickly that much further in the hole.
Next was the Salvation Army as a bell ringer, but not a bell ringer, exactly. Remember, I was looking for musician jobs, and the Salvation Army had a captain who played trombone and thought it would be cool to have someone play Christmas carols instead of ringing the bell. So through that season, I stood outside stores and played Christmas carols on my trombone (and occasionally saxophone, which made people ooh and aah) to get those wonderful donations.
I actually did really well. The pay for this job was minimum wage plus a bonus percentage based on how many donations you receive, so technically speaking, I made a pretty decent wage for that month...that I blew relentlessly since I didn't know how to spend or save properly. But people at the stores just loved me and I got free soda and such quite often. Nevermind that a mouth full of liquid candy is about the worst thing you can drink before playing any instrument, but ah well.
Following this stint, I was out of work again, though I did agree to teach the young trumpet class at the Salvation Army for $10 an hour (read, $20 a week). I was considering pizza delivery, since it looked easy and I'd seen a help wanted sign at one point while driving around (in my 86 Camaro). I had previously registered at the employment office and was dropping in occasionally to use their job search computer (yeah, I had no clue what to look for, so that didn't work for me either -- did I mention I'm kinda stubborn and don't like to ask for help?).
So on that fateful day in January so long ago, I had gone into the Employment Office in Broken Arrow that is no longer there, and looked on their computer for a job. When I approached the terminal, a girl stopped me and said she knew me. This happens to me more times than I could begin to conceive of where people know me and I don't know them. But she said she knew me from high school, and I probably said, "ok." Being how I was then (that being so incredibly introverted that she was likely lucky to get even an "ok" out of me), I went to the computer and plopped down to search.
I came up empty as I always did (apparently people with open musician jobs don't post them with the employment office), so I got up to leave. About that time, she came back in to the office and stopped me. She said she never did this before, but she wanted to give me her number and asked me to call her sometime. She had written it out on a paper scrap along with her name. I took it, and said, "ok." I was a man of few words. She left. I left.
Note that during this time, I was very much hung up over Juliet back in Colorado. I had called her on Christmas to say hi, and we'd had a nice chat then, but that was the last time I'd talked to her. Also during this period, I was participating in the play "She Stoops To Conquer" more or less observing how everything worked backstage and occasionally helping out. I dressed up as one fellow's missing dancing bear for the curtain call, so I was driving downtown as well.
But one evening not long after meeting the girl in the employment office (what a great hangout for singles, eh?), my curiosity got the better of me and I called. Even now, I wished I'd lost her number, but God help me, I called. Someone answered and I asked for Allison. This person said she'd "check" to see if she was home. My thought was "goodness, how big a house to they live in that they aren't sure if someone is home or not?"
Allison got on the phone, so we chatted about how she knew me. Apparently, once upon a time when I was in 10th grade, she had noticed me in the lunch room. She told her friends at the time (the people she referenced were the popular crowd) that she was going to try and talk to me. They told her I wouldn't say anything to her, but she was going to try anyway. She walked over to where I was hunched over my cheeseburger (lunch of champions and geeks), and said hi. I looked up and stared at her. She didn't even get an "ok." She walked away to the laughter of her friends who their "I told you so's" in.
I had no idea I was that way in school, but after she told me that, I got to thinking about it, and it was true. I was very closed off, even at that point where I'd begun to open up. This continued to align later when the Queen told me how I was back then (i.e. very quiet), so my introversion was in more than full force all the way through school. Allison said she'd been going through her yearbook only a few days earlier and spotted my picture and wondered whatever happened to me.
Now, to justify that title up there... If your mind went straight to a psychological thriller from 1992 with Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, then you're on the right track. You see, Allison had a "sister." Not a biological sister, you see, she was a sort of a foster sister, but not an official one. Hedy latched onto Allison in school, and Hedy's mother dumped her on Allison's mother to care for. While Hedy saw her mother every once in awhile, she lived with Allison.
Hedy was very dark (personality, not skin tone) and seemed very angry most of the time. I did not at any time see Allison without Hedy tagging along and when I'd called the first time, it was Hedy that answered the phone. It made for a really strange relationship, and to make matters weirder, it was Allison who showed me Single White Female, and even said people she knew related Hedy to the Hedy in the movie. This begged the question, "why is she still here then?"
Oh, but there be an answer to that one. I wouldn't learn the full extent of that answer for quite some time, but little by little I got enough to learn what the real deal was between these two. In fact, the whole thing turned out to be one huge drama that I would never have willingly put myself through because it not only involved me and Allison and Hedy, but Juliet as well.
As I said, I never would have done it willingly, I never want to go through anything like that again, and I just wished I'd lost her number to begin with.
Once I got out the Army, I was completely clueless as to what to do. I lived at home, but had bills left over from the Army, so I had to work. Trouble is, I hadn't the first clue as to how to get a job, much less one that paid some kind of decent wage or something I wanted to do. I started by looking through the paper for music jobs...yeah, just guess how that turned out.
My first stumble was into a multi-level marketing company called Equinox. My first experience with that sort of thing, and being that the people putting it out there were good and selling whatever, I was hooked into the too-good-to-be-true deal. I pulled money off one of my credit cards and was in...yeah, no. I failed miserably at it, and quit rather quickly that much further in the hole.
Next was the Salvation Army as a bell ringer, but not a bell ringer, exactly. Remember, I was looking for musician jobs, and the Salvation Army had a captain who played trombone and thought it would be cool to have someone play Christmas carols instead of ringing the bell. So through that season, I stood outside stores and played Christmas carols on my trombone (and occasionally saxophone, which made people ooh and aah) to get those wonderful donations.
I actually did really well. The pay for this job was minimum wage plus a bonus percentage based on how many donations you receive, so technically speaking, I made a pretty decent wage for that month...that I blew relentlessly since I didn't know how to spend or save properly. But people at the stores just loved me and I got free soda and such quite often. Nevermind that a mouth full of liquid candy is about the worst thing you can drink before playing any instrument, but ah well.
Following this stint, I was out of work again, though I did agree to teach the young trumpet class at the Salvation Army for $10 an hour (read, $20 a week). I was considering pizza delivery, since it looked easy and I'd seen a help wanted sign at one point while driving around (in my 86 Camaro). I had previously registered at the employment office and was dropping in occasionally to use their job search computer (yeah, I had no clue what to look for, so that didn't work for me either -- did I mention I'm kinda stubborn and don't like to ask for help?).
So on that fateful day in January so long ago, I had gone into the Employment Office in Broken Arrow that is no longer there, and looked on their computer for a job. When I approached the terminal, a girl stopped me and said she knew me. This happens to me more times than I could begin to conceive of where people know me and I don't know them. But she said she knew me from high school, and I probably said, "ok." Being how I was then (that being so incredibly introverted that she was likely lucky to get even an "ok" out of me), I went to the computer and plopped down to search.
I came up empty as I always did (apparently people with open musician jobs don't post them with the employment office), so I got up to leave. About that time, she came back in to the office and stopped me. She said she never did this before, but she wanted to give me her number and asked me to call her sometime. She had written it out on a paper scrap along with her name. I took it, and said, "ok." I was a man of few words. She left. I left.
Note that during this time, I was very much hung up over Juliet back in Colorado. I had called her on Christmas to say hi, and we'd had a nice chat then, but that was the last time I'd talked to her. Also during this period, I was participating in the play "She Stoops To Conquer" more or less observing how everything worked backstage and occasionally helping out. I dressed up as one fellow's missing dancing bear for the curtain call, so I was driving downtown as well.
But one evening not long after meeting the girl in the employment office (what a great hangout for singles, eh?), my curiosity got the better of me and I called. Even now, I wished I'd lost her number, but God help me, I called. Someone answered and I asked for Allison. This person said she'd "check" to see if she was home. My thought was "goodness, how big a house to they live in that they aren't sure if someone is home or not?"
Allison got on the phone, so we chatted about how she knew me. Apparently, once upon a time when I was in 10th grade, she had noticed me in the lunch room. She told her friends at the time (the people she referenced were the popular crowd) that she was going to try and talk to me. They told her I wouldn't say anything to her, but she was going to try anyway. She walked over to where I was hunched over my cheeseburger (lunch of champions and geeks), and said hi. I looked up and stared at her. She didn't even get an "ok." She walked away to the laughter of her friends who their "I told you so's" in.
I had no idea I was that way in school, but after she told me that, I got to thinking about it, and it was true. I was very closed off, even at that point where I'd begun to open up. This continued to align later when the Queen told me how I was back then (i.e. very quiet), so my introversion was in more than full force all the way through school. Allison said she'd been going through her yearbook only a few days earlier and spotted my picture and wondered whatever happened to me.
Now, to justify that title up there... If your mind went straight to a psychological thriller from 1992 with Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, then you're on the right track. You see, Allison had a "sister." Not a biological sister, you see, she was a sort of a foster sister, but not an official one. Hedy latched onto Allison in school, and Hedy's mother dumped her on Allison's mother to care for. While Hedy saw her mother every once in awhile, she lived with Allison.
Hedy was very dark (personality, not skin tone) and seemed very angry most of the time. I did not at any time see Allison without Hedy tagging along and when I'd called the first time, it was Hedy that answered the phone. It made for a really strange relationship, and to make matters weirder, it was Allison who showed me Single White Female, and even said people she knew related Hedy to the Hedy in the movie. This begged the question, "why is she still here then?"
Oh, but there be an answer to that one. I wouldn't learn the full extent of that answer for quite some time, but little by little I got enough to learn what the real deal was between these two. In fact, the whole thing turned out to be one huge drama that I would never have willingly put myself through because it not only involved me and Allison and Hedy, but Juliet as well.
As I said, I never would have done it willingly, I never want to go through anything like that again, and I just wished I'd lost her number to begin with.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
It's all fun and games... Part 2
Darkness.
Something was over my eye. A bandage?
Movement.
My mother is sitting in a chair to my left. She noticed I'm awake.
I'm not.
I wake up again. It's lighter now. That day is very, very fuzzy in my memory.
I don't deal well with anesthesia. In fact, it makes me sick afterwards. But I learned that I was under for about 5 hours and I spent the next day drifting in and out of consciousness. Everyone came in at one time or another to see how I was doing. The Queen had gone into work, and they told her to go home.
It was probably 10 that evening before I was cognizant enough to talk to anyone. I ate something light that the hospital gave me. I hadn't eaten, you may recall, in almost two days by this point, as the last time I'd eaten was Sunday night, and it was now Tuesday evening, but they urged me not to eat very fast since I'd gotten sick off the anesthetic. I know I talked to the Queen for awhile that evening, and while I don't remember everything we talked about, I imagine it centered around what happened.
I was in the hospital through that Friday, and in my typical fashion, I bounced back fairly quickly. By Wednesday, I was very coherent, and while I was getting drops in my eye every 4 hours, I didn't feel bad. I didn't know the true state of my eye because it was swollen shut, so trying to see if I could see was out of the question. They had to pry it open to get the drops in.
There were a couple of highly amusing incidents while I was in the hospital involving the Queen and I. While I was interred there, they loved to take my blood pressure. Seemed like they did the blood pressure more than they did the eye drops. Anyway, I probably became known for faulty readings now and then because of The Queen.
On one occasion, I was hooked up to the blood pressure deal and they had the pulse and everything going. Well, the Queen walked in, and all the readings changed. The nurse freaked for a moment, and then figured out what happened. She walked in and my heart rate jumped, so there's medical proof of her effect on me.
On another occasion, she was already in there, and they barged on in to do the blood pressure thing. Well, we'd been kissing and when they did the blood pressure, the nurse freaked again since my readings were way off. Again, though, she assessed the situation and figured it out. The Queen was no longer allowed to be around when they did blood pressure. I guess they wanted my resting rate.
After the hospital stay things move a bit quicker. There are times in a relationship where its strength is put to the test, and these next few months tested us to the limit. I had gone home, and since my bed was the top bunk of a bunk bed (yes, I was engaged and slept in a bunk bed), my parents made up the day bed in the living room so I didn't have to climb to sleep, and they could do my eye drops more easily.
I was ordered to sleep on my stomach because of something having do to with my eye, which is not normal for me. I sleep very much like a corpse -- flat on my back. Not that I stay that way on most nights, but I have been comfortable like that for quite some time.
During that first month, I went to see another doctor who was a retina specialist of some kind. He had examined me and wanted to put a gel bubble in my eye to try and re-attach the retina or at least keep it in place. I was set for another surgery at the end of the month to not only do that procedure but to do a cornea transplant, since mine was still damaged with stitches across the middle of it (yeah, how many people do you know that have had stitches in their eye?).
So under the anesthesia I went again, but in a more prepared manner this time. Got there in the morning and 10...9...8...
I woke up in I guess some kind of post-operating room in that little cramped bed. I remained semi-conscious until I was in a room with a more comfortable bed, since the only way I was able to lie on that bed was to cross my arms on my chest, which I didn't want to do. However, that wasn't the most unpleasant part of that experience...you see, I don't react well to anesthesia, and this is where I found that out with a vengeance.
I woke up, and immediately threw up. A nurse in the room got something for me to puke into, but since I hadn't eaten the previous evening, I didn't have much to throw up. This retching continued to occur until I was able to rest comfortably.
This stay was shorter than the last one. I was still getting drops every four hours or so twenty-four hours a day, and both doctors checked me out thoroughly over my brief return to the hospital, but I was quickly discharged with another bandage over my eye and a fair supply to keep it bandaged.
My eye actually stayed bandaged for most of that first three months starting with a shell over the bandages taped to my head, moving to having a patch over the bandages. When the bandages came off, I wore a patch to keep the light out of my eye so it could continue to heal.
Right after that surgery, when I was able to open my eye (it was still very swollen) I could make out some blurry objects, so I felt there was hope, but only time would tell since I really couldn't open it that well. I could perceive light differences without a problem, but without a lens and iris, would I be able to see anything?
The Queen visited as much as she could, but I was quite homebound for a little while. It's amazing how much the eyes work together so that when one of them is damaged, the other will respond sympathetically. I was actually very, very light-sensitive for 3 months after the accident and couldn't drive or anything during that time. The Queen and I never ventured far, and she always drove during that time, so our wild dates were on hold for a bit.
But she stuck with me. Some people said they wouldn't have been able to deal with such a traumatic event, especially since we were only engaged, and she could have gone at any time. We continued to talk about the coming wedding and tossed around possible dates from November of that year to the date we'd discussed earlier which was April of the next year.
An amusing aside to these three months was that Allison (bless her warped little heart) called my parents house while I was sleeping in the living room...at 1:00 in the morning. This was fortunately the last time I actually spoke with her because she was going on about how she was working in Dallas or something and knew people and told them about my work and was helping me get my stuff going (can't help but notice nothing ever came of that...oh wait, I expected that). The best part of that whole conversation was when she spouted, "if I help you with this, I'll be damned if I can't come up to you, shake your hand, and say 'good job'." So I told her, "Ok, you can come up to me, shake my hand, and say 'good job'." The conversation ended quickly after that since I wasn't very communicative with her to begin with (after all, my father was a bit miffed about being awakened at 1:00 in the morning by a phone call). And my life has been Allison free ever since...well, there were a handful of emails later, but those are another completely pointless story.
I started trying to drive after about 3 months, and it was hard to both adjust to my light sensitivity, which was getting better, and driving with one eye. My eye hadn't healed enough to know for sure whether there was any hope for it, so I was still working to do everything with monocular vision. You never really appreciate depth perception until it's gone, and with my eyesight, I had some killer depth perception. But I learned that depth perception is only good up to about ten feet. After that, everything looks about the same to everyone.
One of the changes to my behavior due to my loss of depth perception was how I pick things up. Most people just reach for something and lift it. Mine is a subtle change that most people won't notice unless I tell them outright what I'm doing. It's easier to perceive height than distance, so I lower my hand to the height of the object I want to pick up, and then move my hand towards it until I touch it. I've gotten to the point now (ten years later) that that action is imperceptable to anyone watching, but I still have to pick up things that way.
After two more months, I was getting weary of my 70% Worker's Comp pay and felt it was time to be getting back to a real job again. Now this is where I really screwed up more than just whacking my eye to begin with. You see, without depth perception, I could not reasonably work on a rooftop, so I could have and should have taken the option to be trained in something else. Should have, should have, should have.
I would have taken whatever computer classes they deemed necessary to bring myself up to speed and gotten into the industry I'm in now ten years ago. And it's not like I didn't know or wasn't told either. The Queen and her family were all suggesting it, but I felt some level of warped obligation to the fireplace boss that definitely didn't pay off at all. Oh well.
Something was over my eye. A bandage?
Movement.
My mother is sitting in a chair to my left. She noticed I'm awake.
I'm not.
I wake up again. It's lighter now. That day is very, very fuzzy in my memory.
I don't deal well with anesthesia. In fact, it makes me sick afterwards. But I learned that I was under for about 5 hours and I spent the next day drifting in and out of consciousness. Everyone came in at one time or another to see how I was doing. The Queen had gone into work, and they told her to go home.
It was probably 10 that evening before I was cognizant enough to talk to anyone. I ate something light that the hospital gave me. I hadn't eaten, you may recall, in almost two days by this point, as the last time I'd eaten was Sunday night, and it was now Tuesday evening, but they urged me not to eat very fast since I'd gotten sick off the anesthetic. I know I talked to the Queen for awhile that evening, and while I don't remember everything we talked about, I imagine it centered around what happened.
I was in the hospital through that Friday, and in my typical fashion, I bounced back fairly quickly. By Wednesday, I was very coherent, and while I was getting drops in my eye every 4 hours, I didn't feel bad. I didn't know the true state of my eye because it was swollen shut, so trying to see if I could see was out of the question. They had to pry it open to get the drops in.
There were a couple of highly amusing incidents while I was in the hospital involving the Queen and I. While I was interred there, they loved to take my blood pressure. Seemed like they did the blood pressure more than they did the eye drops. Anyway, I probably became known for faulty readings now and then because of The Queen.
On one occasion, I was hooked up to the blood pressure deal and they had the pulse and everything going. Well, the Queen walked in, and all the readings changed. The nurse freaked for a moment, and then figured out what happened. She walked in and my heart rate jumped, so there's medical proof of her effect on me.
On another occasion, she was already in there, and they barged on in to do the blood pressure thing. Well, we'd been kissing and when they did the blood pressure, the nurse freaked again since my readings were way off. Again, though, she assessed the situation and figured it out. The Queen was no longer allowed to be around when they did blood pressure. I guess they wanted my resting rate.
After the hospital stay things move a bit quicker. There are times in a relationship where its strength is put to the test, and these next few months tested us to the limit. I had gone home, and since my bed was the top bunk of a bunk bed (yes, I was engaged and slept in a bunk bed), my parents made up the day bed in the living room so I didn't have to climb to sleep, and they could do my eye drops more easily.
I was ordered to sleep on my stomach because of something having do to with my eye, which is not normal for me. I sleep very much like a corpse -- flat on my back. Not that I stay that way on most nights, but I have been comfortable like that for quite some time.
During that first month, I went to see another doctor who was a retina specialist of some kind. He had examined me and wanted to put a gel bubble in my eye to try and re-attach the retina or at least keep it in place. I was set for another surgery at the end of the month to not only do that procedure but to do a cornea transplant, since mine was still damaged with stitches across the middle of it (yeah, how many people do you know that have had stitches in their eye?).
So under the anesthesia I went again, but in a more prepared manner this time. Got there in the morning and 10...9...8...
I woke up in I guess some kind of post-operating room in that little cramped bed. I remained semi-conscious until I was in a room with a more comfortable bed, since the only way I was able to lie on that bed was to cross my arms on my chest, which I didn't want to do. However, that wasn't the most unpleasant part of that experience...you see, I don't react well to anesthesia, and this is where I found that out with a vengeance.
I woke up, and immediately threw up. A nurse in the room got something for me to puke into, but since I hadn't eaten the previous evening, I didn't have much to throw up. This retching continued to occur until I was able to rest comfortably.
This stay was shorter than the last one. I was still getting drops every four hours or so twenty-four hours a day, and both doctors checked me out thoroughly over my brief return to the hospital, but I was quickly discharged with another bandage over my eye and a fair supply to keep it bandaged.
My eye actually stayed bandaged for most of that first three months starting with a shell over the bandages taped to my head, moving to having a patch over the bandages. When the bandages came off, I wore a patch to keep the light out of my eye so it could continue to heal.
Right after that surgery, when I was able to open my eye (it was still very swollen) I could make out some blurry objects, so I felt there was hope, but only time would tell since I really couldn't open it that well. I could perceive light differences without a problem, but without a lens and iris, would I be able to see anything?
The Queen visited as much as she could, but I was quite homebound for a little while. It's amazing how much the eyes work together so that when one of them is damaged, the other will respond sympathetically. I was actually very, very light-sensitive for 3 months after the accident and couldn't drive or anything during that time. The Queen and I never ventured far, and she always drove during that time, so our wild dates were on hold for a bit.
But she stuck with me. Some people said they wouldn't have been able to deal with such a traumatic event, especially since we were only engaged, and she could have gone at any time. We continued to talk about the coming wedding and tossed around possible dates from November of that year to the date we'd discussed earlier which was April of the next year.
An amusing aside to these three months was that Allison (bless her warped little heart) called my parents house while I was sleeping in the living room...at 1:00 in the morning. This was fortunately the last time I actually spoke with her because she was going on about how she was working in Dallas or something and knew people and told them about my work and was helping me get my stuff going (can't help but notice nothing ever came of that...oh wait, I expected that). The best part of that whole conversation was when she spouted, "if I help you with this, I'll be damned if I can't come up to you, shake your hand, and say 'good job'." So I told her, "Ok, you can come up to me, shake my hand, and say 'good job'." The conversation ended quickly after that since I wasn't very communicative with her to begin with (after all, my father was a bit miffed about being awakened at 1:00 in the morning by a phone call). And my life has been Allison free ever since...well, there were a handful of emails later, but those are another completely pointless story.
I started trying to drive after about 3 months, and it was hard to both adjust to my light sensitivity, which was getting better, and driving with one eye. My eye hadn't healed enough to know for sure whether there was any hope for it, so I was still working to do everything with monocular vision. You never really appreciate depth perception until it's gone, and with my eyesight, I had some killer depth perception. But I learned that depth perception is only good up to about ten feet. After that, everything looks about the same to everyone.
One of the changes to my behavior due to my loss of depth perception was how I pick things up. Most people just reach for something and lift it. Mine is a subtle change that most people won't notice unless I tell them outright what I'm doing. It's easier to perceive height than distance, so I lower my hand to the height of the object I want to pick up, and then move my hand towards it until I touch it. I've gotten to the point now (ten years later) that that action is imperceptable to anyone watching, but I still have to pick up things that way.
After two more months, I was getting weary of my 70% Worker's Comp pay and felt it was time to be getting back to a real job again. Now this is where I really screwed up more than just whacking my eye to begin with. You see, without depth perception, I could not reasonably work on a rooftop, so I could have and should have taken the option to be trained in something else. Should have, should have, should have.
I would have taken whatever computer classes they deemed necessary to bring myself up to speed and gotten into the industry I'm in now ten years ago. And it's not like I didn't know or wasn't told either. The Queen and her family were all suggesting it, but I felt some level of warped obligation to the fireplace boss that definitely didn't pay off at all. Oh well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
