Busy week.
Pfeh. So the week has been fabulous. Last weekend I came to this unfortunate realization that my checking account was overdrawn and made an emergency infusion from my savings. This has caused me to revise my current financial strategy (such as that is.) With a little bit of extremely joyous luck, I shall get an income tax return, and that shall be applied wholly to my credit cards, and it'll reduce my balance, and things will be great!
Oh yeah, speaking of income taxes, I called the IRS on Monday. They will be sending my former employers a notice to get my my damn W2, and me a sort of substitute type form that I can use on the chance that they do not get me the appropriate form. I have all of my documents stacked up right here on the table so that as soon as I get that last piece I can file online and have my refund direct deposited.
Also speaking of financial stuffs, I have recorded all my stuff into Quicken, categorized every transaction from the last YEAR for my credit cards and the last six months for my bank account, and taken a look at where I stand. It ain't pretty; right now I have $1082 in my checking account, $702 in savings, and owe $4500 on credit cards. Most of what's in my checking account is spoken for. However, the situation is starting to look up. shoecollar has finally terrified Blockbuster into giving him his damn job. I'm done paying off the rent credit I owe to timeshaper, so we are once again sharing equally in the bills of the apartment. I figure it can only get better from here. At least I fucking well hope so. When I'm just paying for myself again, things should go uphill rapidly.
My new assignments at work seem to be going relatively smoothly. On mature reconsideration and sufficient sleep, I don't really mind the extra responsibility. With all due modesty, I'm an intelligent person who is capable of working very swiftly (when I feel like it.) And what I'm doing is quite interesting, honestly. I dislike taking the extra calls, but the other stuff is kind of neat. Being a trust contact basically means I write a couple e-mails every morning. Life insurance workflows are functionally pretty simple: query client as to exact amount and beneficiaries, write letter, done. (Though finding info on beneficiaries can be a royal pain in my ass.) And returned mail is just great. The names some people have! I find that to be interesting because I come across unusual names which spawn character ideas. This is never bad.
The one thing that's REALLY annoying me--well, no, there are two things. One is that they are still cutting our breaks on Mondays. Granted, they are ordering us lunch to make up for the 15 minutes cut off our lunches, but it still aggravates me. Monday is our worst day for service level because everybody and their monkey's left ass cheek has to call in having had the weekend to review their 401(k), and thus makes the most sense to cut the break from so we have more people answering phones. However, it is also the worst day to cut a break because it's the most stressful for us, and we need that extra time.
The second thing is taking calls for an additional team. I don't like being reliant on a chat room to answer my questions when people are busy, and that team just has some damned strange policies. It also makes my life so much more busy than it needs to be. I spent 4 hours today queueing for calls because they're understaffed; my home team queued only twice for about 5 minutes.
Oh, that reminds me of the amusement of Wednesday. I got stuck on a call right through my break, so ended up taking my break 45 minutes late. I get back from break, log on to the phone, and the fire alarm goes off. We all get to hang up on our callers and shuffle outside. We stand in the snow, then get ushered back in and spend the next hour fighting down the queue that sprang up while we were all off the phones. Yeah. Fun and joyous.
Mreh. I spent some time last night revising Wyrdborn. I also have been playing Neverwinter Nights. I'm about halfway to two-thirds through Chapter Three. Soon it will be done and I can return to console gaming.
All right, enough, I'm done. Off to find some foods.
Oh yeah, speaking of income taxes, I called the IRS on Monday. They will be sending my former employers a notice to get my my damn W2, and me a sort of substitute type form that I can use on the chance that they do not get me the appropriate form. I have all of my documents stacked up right here on the table so that as soon as I get that last piece I can file online and have my refund direct deposited.
Also speaking of financial stuffs, I have recorded all my stuff into Quicken, categorized every transaction from the last YEAR for my credit cards and the last six months for my bank account, and taken a look at where I stand. It ain't pretty; right now I have $1082 in my checking account, $702 in savings, and owe $4500 on credit cards. Most of what's in my checking account is spoken for. However, the situation is starting to look up. shoecollar has finally terrified Blockbuster into giving him his damn job. I'm done paying off the rent credit I owe to timeshaper, so we are once again sharing equally in the bills of the apartment. I figure it can only get better from here. At least I fucking well hope so. When I'm just paying for myself again, things should go uphill rapidly.
My new assignments at work seem to be going relatively smoothly. On mature reconsideration and sufficient sleep, I don't really mind the extra responsibility. With all due modesty, I'm an intelligent person who is capable of working very swiftly (when I feel like it.) And what I'm doing is quite interesting, honestly. I dislike taking the extra calls, but the other stuff is kind of neat. Being a trust contact basically means I write a couple e-mails every morning. Life insurance workflows are functionally pretty simple: query client as to exact amount and beneficiaries, write letter, done. (Though finding info on beneficiaries can be a royal pain in my ass.) And returned mail is just great. The names some people have! I find that to be interesting because I come across unusual names which spawn character ideas. This is never bad.
The one thing that's REALLY annoying me--well, no, there are two things. One is that they are still cutting our breaks on Mondays. Granted, they are ordering us lunch to make up for the 15 minutes cut off our lunches, but it still aggravates me. Monday is our worst day for service level because everybody and their monkey's left ass cheek has to call in having had the weekend to review their 401(k), and thus makes the most sense to cut the break from so we have more people answering phones. However, it is also the worst day to cut a break because it's the most stressful for us, and we need that extra time.
The second thing is taking calls for an additional team. I don't like being reliant on a chat room to answer my questions when people are busy, and that team just has some damned strange policies. It also makes my life so much more busy than it needs to be. I spent 4 hours today queueing for calls because they're understaffed; my home team queued only twice for about 5 minutes.
Oh, that reminds me of the amusement of Wednesday. I got stuck on a call right through my break, so ended up taking my break 45 minutes late. I get back from break, log on to the phone, and the fire alarm goes off. We all get to hang up on our callers and shuffle outside. We stand in the snow, then get ushered back in and spend the next hour fighting down the queue that sprang up while we were all off the phones. Yeah. Fun and joyous.
Mreh. I spent some time last night revising Wyrdborn. I also have been playing Neverwinter Nights. I'm about halfway to two-thirds through Chapter Three. Soon it will be done and I can return to console gaming.
All right, enough, I'm done. Off to find some foods.