News from the Great Beyond

Are you serious, lady?

I'm getting myself adjusted to my actual work schedule here at MOP#1 (we're #1, yay!), so I haven't had a lot to say in the last week or two...  I'm working four 10 hour days - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 6 AM to 4:30 PM and Saturday from 9 AM to 7:30 PM.  Yes, that's 6 AM.  As in, in the morning.   As in, the bane of my existence. 

And yes, as I confirmed to my boss the other day, I did pick this work schedule.  I like 4-10s, and I couldn't work on Sundays, so this was my best alternative over the Sunday-Weds late shift and the Monday-Friday with rotating Saturdays. 

Having worked it for 3 weeks, I have to say the Monday-Friday shift isn't bad.  I'd probably actually pick that shift if I had to pick all over again, because it gave me time to work out every day before work, as opposed to stumbling out of bed at 4:45 AM and rushing to get ready, pack a lunch, and leave the house by 5:30 at the latest to be at my desk and ready to talk on the phone at 6.

But, as Adam Again used to sing, "It is what it is (what it is)".  (That's a great song, btw.  Watch that video.)  And for better or worse, I'm getting adjusted to early mornings, albeit reluctantly.  This is why I'm writing a blog post before 6 AM on a Saturday, and why I tend to be utterly exhausted and ready to go to bed around 9 PM most nights.  On off days, I find myself staying up until 10.  Whee.   For an avowed night person, you must understand how much I hate this.  Normally I'd be feeling rather alive and alert in the evening hours, and it thoroughly sucks to be yawning at 8:00.  Just sayin'.

In any event, there haven't been a lot of customer stories that stuck with me enough to compel me to write lately, at least until the last couple of days.  Today's stories involve Ms. I'mNotCrazy and Ms. VeryInformedConsumer.

MY doctor would NEVER do THAT!

My family's not big on doctor visits - once I got past the mystifying illnesses of my younger childhood, I can't recall my mom even dragging me to a yearly checkup.  Unless we're actually feeling poorly for an extended period of time, or in severe pain, mostly we just take advantage of home remedies, common sense and prayer, and wait and see if it goes away.

I've certainly been healthy enough to avoid taking anything we in the mail order pharmacy business refer to as "maintenance medications".  The only time in my teenage or adult life I have been taking any prescription medication longer than a few days or weeks was the first two years I was married, when we decided on hormonal birth control pills as our solution to giving ourselves some time to get adjusted to married life and recover from the financial impact of the post-9/11 job situation.  Come to think of it, at the time I believe I got those through mail order, 3 months at a time.

So I haven't had a lot of personal experience with doctors and ongoing prescriptions and the like.  I've only been on the phones at MOP#1 (we're #1, yay!) for a month now, and already I'm accumulating baffling stories of doctor-patient interaction.  I'm sure the customer service reps who have been doing this job for a year or more could come up with some real doozies.

I'm sorry, can you spell that for me?

Back in the *mumbled decade*, when I was a youngun', I recall sitting in Sunday School and in Bible class in the various Christian schools I attended, and being forced to read aloud from the Bible.

The New Testament wasn't quite so bad for reading purposes, but when it came to reading the Old Testament aloud, just nearly every verse in some books contained a name or a place that required a feat of presumptive elocution (also known as a wild guess).  

Some names were long but eventually we heard them repeated enough to pronounce them comfortably:  Nebuchadnezzar... Melchizedek... Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego... But others would hang on the tongue like a fifty pound weight, causing much stammering and starting over, until most of the time we'd either brace ourselves to look stupid and hazard a guess or just give up and move on.

This childhood training is serving me well in my job these days.