Wednesday, September 30, 2009

coffee in the morning

highlight of the day: one of our CSRs gets extremely hyper on caffeine on a regular basis, on top of being a crazy person in general. therefore, a neighbor of hers decided to email said CSR's mother to warn her against the dangers of coffee in the morning and to plead with this mother for the sake of the department.

the mother in question replied and is now known as mama rita in Customer Service.


word of the day: discretion

Monday, September 28, 2009

all dressed up and nowhere to go

once upon a time, everybody showed up for their interviews...

and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

imponderable

i really like google. i like random facts. for example, did you know that houseflies hum in the key of F? i read that in a book in a Barnes & Noble once, and it just stuck with me.

i also really like imponderables. like, why do you park in a driveway and drive in a parkway? and silly things like that.

one of my customer service co-workers pointed out one of the exclusions in one of our policies is for "competitive sports." that's all it said. so, because we're insurance nerds -- it happens, you just can't help it -- we posulated... of course that includes regular sports like football and soccer and even tennis. but does that include chess? i mean, it is a competition. what about internet hearts? what if a hypothetical person were to be hypothetically injured by a tragically hypothetical accident, perhaps including a keyboard? what if it ended in blood? and a trip to the emergency room? while they were being competitive?

yeah, it was a busy day today and i wasn't paying attention to any funny things going on, so that's all you're going to get today.

The Office is on tonight at 9! yay!

MLIA of the day: Today I was playing Call Of Duty 4 when the connection got interrupted. The person's gamer tag who interrupted the connection was "xxKanyeWestxx". MLIA

i'm glad we don't play Call of Duty here. if my office played a game together, i think i'd want it to be a physical activity, something that gets us outside instead of sitting inside staring at our computers all day. but that's imo.

p.s. there is STILL a table of treats up for grabs!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

NO TIME!

what a crazy busy day! i'm still trying to catch up, and i only have 15 minutes left... ok, i know that writing this right now isn't helping my production, but i've got to post a couple of things before i forget!

poor pregnant girl #2 had a really, really bad day. every other call was an angry person who just needed a punching bag - and she happened to be the one to pick up the phone. i tried to help by showing her notalwaysright.com. it's really nice to know that other people deal with these kinds of things, too. check it out. it's a really nice way to spend your lunch time. :)

word of the day: unreadable

spanish word of the day: coqueto

p.s. there are STILL leftover treats in customer service, so if anybody is reading this and just needs a really good sugar fix, come visit!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

sugar highs and lows

today, customer service had the best spread of autumn-themed desserts i have ever seen, complete with leave decorations and orange paper plates. if i was smart, i would have brought my camera to take a picture and post it here. but i was not thinking about pictures this morning. i'll remember to bring my camera for our next smorgasbord.

this morning, everybody was wired on coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, apple crisp, apple bread, shoo-fly pie, pecan pie, munchkins from dunkin donuts, mini-muffins, chocolate chip cake...

we all got hyped up on sugar... and then sugar crashed around lunch time. i took my lunch at 2:30 and almost fell asleep. even now, i'm very tempted to close the door to my office, turn out the lights, and nap until time to go. too bad i have this thing called a conscience.

MLIA of the day: I left the Philippines on Monday at 10 pm. I arrived in California on Monday at 8 pm. It was an 11 hour flight. I can now cross "time-traveled" off of my list of things to do before I die. MLIA.

because i've totally done this! my mom is from the philippines, and my family visited for a month during christmas/new year's of 2006/2007, right before i got married. it was awesome! and it ties into this entry because i have a filipino cousin named Sugar.

Monday, September 21, 2009

S.W.A.G.

S.W.A.G. = Stuff We All Get

but we're not at a conference. no, we get this free stuff from the kitchen. and the rule is, if it doesn't have your name on it, it's up for grabs.

for example: today, i scored half a bag of potato chips from panera bread because someone started eating them and decided they were full.

on friday, i made a list of all the free stuff available in the kitchen:
  • potato chips (not the ones i had today)
  • pleather datebook/planner with an unnecessarily bright blue ribbon to mark the day
  • various coupons for random things
  • 2010 Women's Health Planner (thanks, Aetna)
  • Jewish apple coffee cake (perhaps in celebration of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which was Saturday?)
not to mention the order forms for random fundraisers that everybody's children are doing at school. and the various magazines that have piled up over the past 3 years...

and all the various dishes and baskets of candies at strategically located places in the office, which force me to take an equally strategic route to and from the restroom.

tomorrow is the first day of Autumn. therefore, customer service is having a party. everybody brings in snacks, desserts, drinks, etc. and we pig out. this is why customer service is the best department in the whole company -- we have parties for any reason we can think of. the rest of the company is jealous. they know it. but we're awesome -- we share.

i'm bringing apple bread from the apples i picked off trees yesterday at an orchard. :)

somewhat office-like situation of the day (but not quite): apparently, one of the cleaning guys tonight looks a little like the guy from "office space," which i don't remember, but my co-worker insists that this is accurate.

currently listening to: hanson.  *don't hate

Friday, September 18, 2009

Gossip

fridays are usually slow days in the office. it's understandable - people would rather procrastinate their work until monday, thus giving themselves a kind of extended weekend. slacking on fridays seems to be a nation-wide thing, because even our west coast line stops ringing around 4. from this i conclude that the work week mentally ends at lunch on friday. we may be here in body, but that doesn't mean we're actually doing anything.

when customer service is having a slow day (and sometimes when we're busy), we get to back up the mailroom. one of our CSR's counted 19 envelopes that had the wrong address but somehow got to us. one of them put the town and the state/zip on two different lines... i thought they taught you how to address an envelope in second grade. seriously, i googled it.

also, as a follow up to the snake story: one look outside proved our theory wrong. there are no tree branches overhanging the building, and so it couldn't have dropped from a tree branch onto the roof. it was quickly decided that an eagle must have picked up the snake to eat it, but since the snake was so slithery, it wriggled out of the eagle's talons and fell onto the roof of our building. so, at least part of the original story is definitely true. anyway, here is our retarded snake:




by the way, last night's episode of The Office (entitled "Gossip") was AWESOME. i took the idea and ran with it, spreading a rumor that the Pam in our office is pregnant, and it got picked up that our Jim Halpert called one of the CSR's stupid. by the end of the day, he was racist.

and Pam really is pregnant. but we knew that. 

so it's really like The Office.

promise.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Jay-Z, the snake, and the office premiere

it was a busy enough day that i spent most of my day answering calls like a rep. it was nostalgic and a lot less intense than being the supervisor. i liked it. interesting things happen when you talk to nearly 50 people in a day.

today, i asked a caller for their first name. she said it was Jay-Z. i didn't even bother to clarify. i typed "Jay-Z" into my call log and let it make my morning. MLIA

random office situation: there was a snake found in the office. it was a little garden snake, and we took it outside at once, but i've been trying to figure out how it even got in the building, let alone into one of the perimeter offices... here is our theory, as told by trish:
it was originally in a tree, minding its own business, when a strong wind blew it onto the ceiling of our building. it found a hole, slithered into the darkness, and found its way into the building's heating and cooling system. when it found a little patch of light in the floor, it tried to go toward the light but ended up falling through the vent in the ceiling of one of the offices, hid under the desk until the next day, and when all the lights were on, it tried to escape. but the escape attempt was thwarted by the tall blonde lady who threw it out the back door and back into the woods - i mean, the evolve environment.
ok, so it wasn't a bat, and it didn't bite anybody and give them rabies, but it's darn close enough! too bad i didn't get a picture.




office premiere countdown: 3 hours! w00t!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

hello goodbye

woah!  random turn of events: one of our customer service reps just up and quit on us! well, her "official" last day is friday, but she interviewed last night, got an offer today, and wrote up her resignation letter - all within 24 hours! good for her. i must admit, we're all a little jealous. ok, i'm a little jealous. her new job is only 5 miles away from home, as opposed to this one, which is about 30 miles from home. not kidding. plus the turnpike tolls, which add up to about $80 a month. and that's for her. they're more for me, since i live an exit or two farther away. ok, i'm a lot jealous. honestly, if another job comes up that is closer to home, i would seriously consider it - even if it paid less. those gas and toll prices are killer.

also, our walking medical diagnosis has returned to us, a little stitched up, but alive and with really funny stories. that's always a good thing.

MLIA of the day: "Today I was having some ice cream and the first bite was so cold it hurt. Without thinking, I blew on the second bite before eating it. Then I remembered it was ice cream. MLIA"

office premiere countdown: 2 days and 2.1 hours

Monday, September 14, 2009

monday, monday

it was a beautiful day outside! i only got to see it once during my work day, when i took the long way back from the bathroom (by going outside, walking down the parking lot, and entering through the front door).

in other news, congrats to our latest pregnant chick, who just found out she's having a boy!! relatedly, i started knitting a baby boy hat (for the already established male that's coming). i'll make two. :)

in more other news, a co-worker didn't come in today because his heart is too big on one side (or so i'm told, because i haven't been able to look up the story on facebook. that will have to wait till i get home) so he fell over and had to visit lots of doctors. so, no, he wasn't hit by the boss's car while the boss was driving it... but it's dramatic enough for an otherwise boring monday. seriously, i didn't send out hardly any emails.

new addition: please notice the newest addition to this page. only you can prevent swine flu.

office premiere countdown: 3 days, 2.5 hours.
if you know where i live, you're invited to a party to watch The Office season premiere!

Friday, September 11, 2009

doppelgangers

in preparation for the new season of the office, and in response to conversations with a couple of my co-workers, i've been thinking about the characters in my office and how similar they are to the characters in The Office. this is the list of people i'm sure we have in our office:
  • Angela (the stickler, not the cheater)
  • Dwight
  • Stanley (minus the crossword puzzles)
  • Phyllis
  • Roy (plus a few tatoos)
  • Meredith
  • Toby
  • Pam (could be split among a few people here)
  • Jim
  • Ryan the temp (not Ryan the jerk)
  • Michael Scott
yup. that's my very solid list. i'm excited, because i just figured out who Dwight is! and i'm a little iffy on David Wallace, but it's kind of there. Jan has too many schizophrenic qualities to be any one person here. who else...?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

vernacular

today would probably not be an episode of the office. i taught one of my co-workers what the word "collate" means because it just wasn't in her vernacular. well, now it is. and i've pulled her a little more into the world of medical/insurance terminology. and it does happen. in my experience -- and it really depends on the person -- it usually takes about a month for a person to feel comfortable in a new place. it's only a few short months after that that they become part of the new place.

in this place, you can tell these people from their conversations: the new people talk about their likes, dislikes, plans for the weekend. you know, normal stuff.

on the other hand, there are us nerds who know the terminology and, worse, we use it in everyday conversation. we use words like "collate." or, (those of us in customer service) "please bear with me." or we answer our cell phones, "thank you for calling customer service, how can i help you?"

true story: a co-worker of mine was handing out flyers on the street to raise awareness for Invisible Children. when he held out the flyer, he said, "thank you for calling customer service, how can i help you?" ummm... classical conditioning?

funny quote of the day: "i don't understand the difference between past and future."

office premiere countown: 7 days and 1.25 hours

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

the A/C is fixed!

and tonight is the REAL premiere of season 6 of so you think you can dance. after that is the series premiere of glee, which i'm very curious about because it seems like high school musical in a tv series... and i like that idea very much. :)

there's really not much going on today... i had leftover corn on the cob and steak for lunch. i got a splinter on the bottom of my foot yesterday and it bled (two different things, i think) so i couldn't go running this morning like i had hoped. there is a mini reese's peanut butter cup on my desk that i keep looking at. i'm trying to decide if i should eat it before or after my pudding that's been in the fridge since last week (sorry to whoever has kitchen duty. ((they call it "KP" and i've never understood why...)) also, sorry to the kitchen nazi.)

see? not a very exciting day.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

update from the sauna

as was previously stated, it feels like a desert island in customer service -- and not in a good way. if you walk into the department at a casual pace (about 2.5 mph), you will notice that, the moment you cross the threshold into the box that is customer service, the temperature spikes to about 85 degrees Farenheit. except, it doesn't spike. it sits up there until you leave the sauna.

apparently, the A/C compressor went haywire. there's cold air sitting in the vents; it's just not being ushered into the room. at least my office has a nice little Hawaiian Breeze fan that blows air around. it helps a little. i feel bad for the 2 pregnant girls who had to sit in this all day.

but really, it's so hot i'm gonna have a heat stroke.

and i forgot to put deodorant on this morning.

labor day

yesterday was labor day. in honor of this holiday, i did not have to work. instead, i went to school! i joined thane in all of his classes which, being a monday, lasted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. i have to admit, it's a really long day. but i learned so much! makes me really excited to take classes again, which i plan to do this Spring.

last night, there was a coffeehouse-type thing in the Eagle's Nest, which is the cafe on campus. i absolutely love the atmosphere of a coffeehouse. i also absolutely love my sister, who came with me. we chatted over coffee about the singer-songwriter on stage and decided that he sings like ben gibbard (from death cab for cutie and the postal service) but plays guitar like john mayer with hints of jack johnson and jason mraz. but, since he plays an ibanez, the sound off his guitar is woodier than the above.

it was a very refreshing day. i almost didn't labor at all! oh, to be back in school again...

in other news, i've recently discovered the site mylifeisaverage.com and i can't get enough of it! hilarious stuff.

also, the climate in customer service changed considerably over the long weekend: it feels like a sauna, as opposed to the average temperature of antarctica. i'm not sure how i feel about this yet.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

hand sanitizer

as i was walking back from the printer today, i noticed that our cozy little customer service department as grown a Purell hand sanitizer dispenser. it's attached to the wall on one end of the room. now, i may not be the most observant person in the world, but i would swear that i have never seen it there before! my co-worker even pointed out another dispenser attached to a wall randomly sitting in the hallway near reception... we also have one in the kitchen by the sink, and by the door to the bathroom, and  by the back door (i.e., the smokers' door). that's FIVE hand sanitizers, beside the little stick-it-in-your-purse ones that every other person has at their desk. are we really that dirty? i mean, we work at an office! what are people doing on their way back from the printer that they need to pass two hand sanitizer dispensers? (also, as a warning, they dispense a lot of that stuff, so be careful.)

incidentally, my manager and i were having a conversation about hand sanitizer a couple weeks ago in which we both agreed that kids were made to get dirty, not be bathed in anti-bacterial stuff every 5 minutes. this senitment was repeated to Bob in Accounting (no, really, he exists), who retorted, "yeah, but kids are also made to wash their hands."

and that's all i have to say about that.

funny quote of the day: "The ozone is a myth." - Dale in IT (aka Jim Halpert)

and a retraction: last night was not the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance. it was just a highlights show from the last 5 years. i guess to bring people up to date since they're going from a summer show to prime time. my bad. the real season premiere is next wednesday. w00t!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

hump day

so you think you can dance season 6 premiere is tonight. i've found that finding things to look forward to really helps break up the monotony.

also most of today wasn't even spent doing my job. it was spend doing data entry/paperwork stuff... my boredom + my Acheiver-ness = finding something to do, even if it is equally as boring as my real job. (btw, yes, i know my top 5 strengths: acheiver, connectedness, input, belief, empathy. how do i know these so well? they stare at me, hanging from my office door's handle. that's right, they're printed on a door hanger. i think maybe one day i'll take a picture and post it here to give you the right idea.) but if i make a game of the data entry (how fast can i type out this information?), it's not so bad. and really, it's been slow enough the last 2 days that i can take breaks when my eyes hurt too badly.

speaking of hurting, today's office drama: one of the Customer Service Reps realized her peanut allergy today and spent some time doubled over in tummy pain in the kitchen. i was on lunch at the time, so i ran over to the local pharmacy (aka the Administrative Department) and got some Rolaids. One of our wonderful Claims people offered her saltines, and our HR lady said that an old Lithuanian woman told her to sip on warm lemon water for an upset stomach. i just love how our family comes together when someone is in need. so, yay for the office!

funny office moment of the day: i had let our temporary receptionist borrow my Staples "easy" button for the week. the President of the Company was coming out of a meeting and hit it! (it's probably only funny if you know her. or if the president of your company is a very intimidating woman.)

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

the light bulb

i just had a brilliant idea! i am going to blog about my office. now, i will not be giving out personal identifiable information, thus violating HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 - look it up). ever since they blocked facebook in the office, we have had nothing to do. most of us in my department picked up twitter, but you can only tell the world what you're doing a few times a day before you look self-obsessed... or really, really bored. which is what i am.

therefore, i am starting an office blog. i'm kind of excited.

today's topic: young, energetic people with good ideas who hit a ceiling when they try to contribute something. seriously. now, i am only 23 years old. i know i'm not the wise woman i hope to someday be, but i do believe that, every once in a while, i have a good idea. and i get shot down. or i have an opinion. that gets shot down even faster.

i know i'm not alone. there are several people (mostly 20somethings who, like myself, are too creative not to be bored with the desk jobs they have) who see problems but who don't really have a say in the Company and don't have the right strings (or blood relations) to get a say. it's really frustrating.

ok, that's all the time i have for now. i'm sure i will be posting again soon.

office moment of the day: finding out that the season premiere of The Office starts at 9pm on 9/17/09, and setting it as a meeting in my Microsoft Outlook and inviting my department and a few choice Office fans. i guess there are a few things about my job that i truly enjoy.