(no subject)
Apparently I only write when I'm miserable. Usually that's while unemployed, but right now my job is making me so miserable I've found myself opening old Word docs and pounding away at the keyboard. I always thought it was the free-time aspect of being unemployed that led me to write, but now I see it's just the depression part. It's good to know how your own brain works.
I decided to start rewriting the book I began back in 1999. It's always haunted me, and I want to see it complete. I've written about 50K words of it previously, but this time I'll kick it out. I've abandoned the last one I was writing. I realized I couldn't work on it anymore because I had no passion for it, and that was affecting the quality of writing. No idea what will become of it. But I have no delusions of my first few books being of publishable quality anyway, so I'm not going to stress over it. I want to write because there's a story that needs to get out, not because I want it to pay my bills. That's backwards.
Job stuff. My roll was seasonal. We sell medicare products to people who are losing their retirement group coverage. That group coverage ends (usually) on Dec 31st, so we enroll them Oct-Dec. This is what I'll refer to as the "season." And September is spent contacting the retirees to set up appointments, and August is training. Supervisors tend to start in July so we're ready first. I started 7/19 this past year.
Now that you're all caught up, the seasonal roll ends for most benefit advisers at the end of December, and they are unceremoniously let go. (It's not a fun couple of days. It's handled SO POORLY.) The supervisors this past year did projects in January. Then February rolled around, and we literally did nothing. I surfed the web 8 hours a day for a full month. Come March we started what we call the "off cycle." This is a smaller group losing group coverage June 30th, meaning the enrollment period is April - June, with March as the appointment setting month.
Well, the good news was that even though they didn't need me as a supervisor, they kept me on as a benefit adviser. They had to put me somewhere, so even though I had never done that roll before, and they had let good people go who were excellent at it, I got the job. I HATE working phones. It causes me to be physically ill. That's not an exaggeration. My stomach aches, I sweat profusely, I can't sleep. But I figured I could suck it up for a few months as a BA before becoming a supervisor again.
Appointment setting is easy. (Technical term, Scope of Appointment, required by CMS and kept on file for ten years.) It's monotonous, but easy. I was hating life, but it was tolerable.
Then on the last Monday of March, my former manager, (and at that time, my boss's boss), pulled me aside to say that they had hired back a few agents to work as CSRs. And that she wanted someone else to be the supervisor because he needed the experience. They had decided, in their infinite wisdom, that for my long term growth with the company, they wanted me to get more experience on the phones. (She was letting me know because I clearly had the most supervising experience of any of the seasonal sups.) So I sucked that up, though it hurt, and kept on setting my appointments. Then a couple hours later, my supervisor told me that I would be switching to a CSR roll for some random reason that made no sense to me. I would not be getting training; I'd just have to start taking calls and do my best.
Needless to say, I got pissed. I was already having a bad day, and this was the proverbial straw. So I contacted workforce and told them I was leaving. I told them I wouldn't be in the next day, then I requested time off for Wed-Fri.
As you can imagine, this went over well with my manager. When I got back the next week, they presented me with a written "coaching." I think my manager wanted it done as a warning, but my supervisor did it as a coaching, which means (I think) that I'm technically not written up. Anyway, we had a nice confrontation in her office when it was presented, and it wasn't very productive.
Nextly, my appointments with all the national carriers are not complete. I'm still waiting on two of them. This means I can't sell, and can't act as a BA. So I'm still a CSR, and have been all April. I even moved teams to be with other CSRs while waiting on the appointments.
During this, I applied for another position at the company, Client Implementation Manager. It pays better than a supervisor roll, and MUCH better than a CSR. I got an interview, thanks to a friend who is currently on that team. The interview was last Monday, and it went well. It was a casual "getting to now you" type first round interview. Unfortunately, the last question he asked me was "who knows you best?" meaning, which person I've reported to most at the company could give him some feedback on me. That would be the manager who wanted me written up a few weeks ago. I gave him her name, begrudgingly, trying to spin it as if she'd say great thing about me.
And normally she would, since I was excellent as a sup during the season. But right now I have no fucking clue what kind of feedback she will give. I suspect that to be petty and exert her power, a reminder that no one goes anywhere without her say-so, that she'll tell him I have an attitude issue or some such shit.
So I'm waiting for that. Meanwhile, our Director sent out an email Thursday-ish to all the employees that they'd be hiring seasonal trainers and supervisors again soon. If I want it, I'll have to apply. (Also, I'm the only person I know who didn't get a copy of that email. I'm not sure why.) At this point, I don't want to be a supervisor again. I'm burnt out on the whole thing. The transition from supervisor to the phones was handled so poorly by management, that I really don't want to work with them.
I'm probably being childish and cutting off my nose to spite my face. But I KNOW that they'll need me this next season. This past season I was key in my department for helping all the new supervisors understand their jobs. This season, they'll probably be hiring like 30 supervisors, many of them inexperienced. They'll be relying on those of us who have done it before. (This would be my third season as a sup.) So I'm tempted, and strongly leaning toward, saying "fuck you" and staying as a phone agent.
If they want me as a supervisor, they can come ask me, and we can skip the farce of an interview for a job I've done well twice.
Man, I could ramble on and on more. But I won't. It's tedious to read, I'm sure, if you aren't living it. If you're living it, it's just a pain in the ass. Not like anyone is dying or anything. I'm leaving some annoying things out for brevity, so be assured that this isn't the whole story.
Right now, I really hope I get that CIM job. If not, I'll look for other things.
And I'm back to writing.
I decided to start rewriting the book I began back in 1999. It's always haunted me, and I want to see it complete. I've written about 50K words of it previously, but this time I'll kick it out. I've abandoned the last one I was writing. I realized I couldn't work on it anymore because I had no passion for it, and that was affecting the quality of writing. No idea what will become of it. But I have no delusions of my first few books being of publishable quality anyway, so I'm not going to stress over it. I want to write because there's a story that needs to get out, not because I want it to pay my bills. That's backwards.
Job stuff. My roll was seasonal. We sell medicare products to people who are losing their retirement group coverage. That group coverage ends (usually) on Dec 31st, so we enroll them Oct-Dec. This is what I'll refer to as the "season." And September is spent contacting the retirees to set up appointments, and August is training. Supervisors tend to start in July so we're ready first. I started 7/19 this past year.
Now that you're all caught up, the seasonal roll ends for most benefit advisers at the end of December, and they are unceremoniously let go. (It's not a fun couple of days. It's handled SO POORLY.) The supervisors this past year did projects in January. Then February rolled around, and we literally did nothing. I surfed the web 8 hours a day for a full month. Come March we started what we call the "off cycle." This is a smaller group losing group coverage June 30th, meaning the enrollment period is April - June, with March as the appointment setting month.
Well, the good news was that even though they didn't need me as a supervisor, they kept me on as a benefit adviser. They had to put me somewhere, so even though I had never done that roll before, and they had let good people go who were excellent at it, I got the job. I HATE working phones. It causes me to be physically ill. That's not an exaggeration. My stomach aches, I sweat profusely, I can't sleep. But I figured I could suck it up for a few months as a BA before becoming a supervisor again.
Appointment setting is easy. (Technical term, Scope of Appointment, required by CMS and kept on file for ten years.) It's monotonous, but easy. I was hating life, but it was tolerable.
Then on the last Monday of March, my former manager, (and at that time, my boss's boss), pulled me aside to say that they had hired back a few agents to work as CSRs. And that she wanted someone else to be the supervisor because he needed the experience. They had decided, in their infinite wisdom, that for my long term growth with the company, they wanted me to get more experience on the phones. (She was letting me know because I clearly had the most supervising experience of any of the seasonal sups.) So I sucked that up, though it hurt, and kept on setting my appointments. Then a couple hours later, my supervisor told me that I would be switching to a CSR roll for some random reason that made no sense to me. I would not be getting training; I'd just have to start taking calls and do my best.
Needless to say, I got pissed. I was already having a bad day, and this was the proverbial straw. So I contacted workforce and told them I was leaving. I told them I wouldn't be in the next day, then I requested time off for Wed-Fri.
As you can imagine, this went over well with my manager. When I got back the next week, they presented me with a written "coaching." I think my manager wanted it done as a warning, but my supervisor did it as a coaching, which means (I think) that I'm technically not written up. Anyway, we had a nice confrontation in her office when it was presented, and it wasn't very productive.
Nextly, my appointments with all the national carriers are not complete. I'm still waiting on two of them. This means I can't sell, and can't act as a BA. So I'm still a CSR, and have been all April. I even moved teams to be with other CSRs while waiting on the appointments.
During this, I applied for another position at the company, Client Implementation Manager. It pays better than a supervisor roll, and MUCH better than a CSR. I got an interview, thanks to a friend who is currently on that team. The interview was last Monday, and it went well. It was a casual "getting to now you" type first round interview. Unfortunately, the last question he asked me was "who knows you best?" meaning, which person I've reported to most at the company could give him some feedback on me. That would be the manager who wanted me written up a few weeks ago. I gave him her name, begrudgingly, trying to spin it as if she'd say great thing about me.
And normally she would, since I was excellent as a sup during the season. But right now I have no fucking clue what kind of feedback she will give. I suspect that to be petty and exert her power, a reminder that no one goes anywhere without her say-so, that she'll tell him I have an attitude issue or some such shit.
So I'm waiting for that. Meanwhile, our Director sent out an email Thursday-ish to all the employees that they'd be hiring seasonal trainers and supervisors again soon. If I want it, I'll have to apply. (Also, I'm the only person I know who didn't get a copy of that email. I'm not sure why.) At this point, I don't want to be a supervisor again. I'm burnt out on the whole thing. The transition from supervisor to the phones was handled so poorly by management, that I really don't want to work with them.
I'm probably being childish and cutting off my nose to spite my face. But I KNOW that they'll need me this next season. This past season I was key in my department for helping all the new supervisors understand their jobs. This season, they'll probably be hiring like 30 supervisors, many of them inexperienced. They'll be relying on those of us who have done it before. (This would be my third season as a sup.) So I'm tempted, and strongly leaning toward, saying "fuck you" and staying as a phone agent.
If they want me as a supervisor, they can come ask me, and we can skip the farce of an interview for a job I've done well twice.
Man, I could ramble on and on more. But I won't. It's tedious to read, I'm sure, if you aren't living it. If you're living it, it's just a pain in the ass. Not like anyone is dying or anything. I'm leaving some annoying things out for brevity, so be assured that this isn't the whole story.
Right now, I really hope I get that CIM job. If not, I'll look for other things.
And I'm back to writing.