Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.
Let's see, there's been a lot of stuff going on lately. It's all been minor stuff though, nothing earth shattering.
Eden and I have been doing well. We've been hanging out a lot more and actually getting out of the house. Eden's mom is still around of course. It's still stressful but she's been making a better effort to stay out of our way. She's even caught up pretty well with the rent, which really, really helps. It'd be nice if she did more around the house though. It annoys the hell out of me to watch someone force a piece of trash into the can instead of just taking it out or emptying it. She knows where the compacter is and she goes over there all the time to hang out with a friend of ours in another apartment.
Work is just insane lately. I've said before how my job is one of the best and worst I've ever had. It's been really tough lately. We lost two very important people and we also moved recently. This has resulted in a major segment of our business practically shutting down. Basically we can't do any insurance billing at all. Since we deal in what's considered medical equipment, that's not a good thing. A large number of customers were mid-process when our rep left, so they're stuck. I'm not trained in insurance billing in any way, so I can't even tell them status. I hate having to lie to people and tell them shit's underway when it really isn't.
Financially the company is in a rough patch as well. We're having issues paying some suppliers which is causing order fulfillment to get delayed. This results in product not going out, which results in us not getting paid, which results in us not paying our suppliers... etc etc. This leads to a lot of happy calls as well from people wanting to know where their orders are. Fortunately, the owner's son is flying up on Monday. Adam is essentially the VP of the company and can hopefully work with Larry to get a lot of this shit straightened out. Meanwhile, I'm helping our customers as best I can.
I'd like to see us hire some more reps in the future as well if we stabilize further. I'm doing the work of about 5 people right now and it gets overwhelming sometimes. Let's see... my current duties include:
- preparing quotes
- placing orders
- invoicing orders
- opening repair tickets
- invoicing closed repairs
- troubleshooting technical support issues with our devices
- answering any emails or calls directed to 'customer service' (typically checking the status of the above)
- running the daily updates and backup server
- minor IT and admin tasks (setting up/troubleshooting network issues)
- rerouting/clearing/maintaining our voicemail system
- scouting eBay and other technical stores for cheap parts we may be able to use
- fixing any odd issue/emergency that Larry may come across
Being so central to the organization is definitely a double edged sword. I love having the power and responsibility to make decisions that can make some impact on the business, but at the same time, I'm essentially sitting under the funnel as well. I have no real wingman or department to defer anything to. It all pretty much comes down to me. Then again, this the only job I've had that allows me free reign of the internet. That certainly makes the hour long relay/tty calls a lot more bearable.
On the upside, the office move is finally settling down. I have my own office now, with a door and everything. I realized shortly after the move that a lot of the processes I followed seem to only be known to Debbie and I. I've continued to file everything the same way, as much for a sense of normalcy as everything else, but I don't think anyone else has any idea what's supposed to happen to any of the papers after I file them. There's definitely been a void since Debbie left in regards like that. She was working 70-80 hours a week and the two people who 'replaced' her hardly do 30-40 hours a week between the two of them. Debbie always said she'd come back by, but she never has. It's a mixed blessing though. While she had a lot of processes that were vital, it seemed a lot of it was extraneous as well. She was always the buffer between Larry and the money side of the business. I don't think he ever realized how tight things were getting, or at least he didn't want to. Now, I'm forwarding orders directly to him every day so he can see exactly where everything stands. Between him and Adam, I think we're finally starting to get somewhere.
We re-signed our lease last month. We're a long ways from getting a house, and until Eden starts driving, we can't really move. The commute can be rough. There are some really bad days when I can spend 2-3 hours in the car over the course of one day. I've had jobs where I lived less than five minutes away and I really enjoyed the amount of extra time I seemed to have in the day. There are benefits to the commute though. It's amazing how easily I can get rid of the day's stress and forget about work in the 45 minutes or so between Eden's office and mine. We tend to talk about work on the way home, but it's usually a one way conversation. I pick her up right at the office, so her day is still fresh. Meanwhile, I've mostly forgotten or written mine off.
lol I started writing this last week sometime. I finally got a chance to finish it up and post. I've got a couple other posts in the pipeline i may be able to get to some day soon.