...'cause it's tearing up my heart and it's killing my soul...
i figured that since i have the time, now, i might as well begin writing in my journal again. i'll be resuming the the usual sunday posting.
okay, so i'll start with last saturday. that was a fun day. i got to spend the entire day on first marblehead. see, with the way things were, three people had to be on in the morning, then at about 2:00, they were going to switch so that the three that were on would be replaced by people that were on aegon for the day. dave was one of the people who was chosen to stay first, but he wanted to go to aegon, so they let him, and i volunteered to take his place. when the pulled the relief team from aegon, dave still wanted to stay on aegon, and i volunteered, once more. brenda okayed it, so i got to stay on the entire day. so, we didn't receive any more than about 28 calls, and i got about five of them. all of them were applications, so i left, that day, with a one-hundred percent conversion rate.
the second half of that day was the most entertaining. after all, in the morning, sherry byers and heather orford was also on marblehead. sherry is a wonderful gal, and we only talked for a little bit. heather, on the other hand, is mean and not at all easy to talk to. during the second half of the day, there was will young and pam craig. both of those two are -awesome- people. not to mention funny. that made the second half of the day go by faster.
speaking of funny, that day, after work, i went to 'the three mile' [ a local bar ], because, that night, they had jimmy flynn putting a show on, there. i sat up in the top balcony and watched him. it'd always been a secret hope of mine that i'd get to see a live show. either way, the show was awesome. my only complaint is that he tends to recycle way too many jokes... because i knew a fair bit of the punch lines before he even said them.
so, -immediately- after the show, i took a taxi home. after all, i don't honestly think it's in my best interest to be in a bar past 9:00, and that's when the show ended. when i got home, that's when i find out that my internet connection has been disrupted. so, i took a bit of much-needed sleep before jen came home. hoping that she knew what was going on, i asked her if she knew anything about the internet outage. apparently, rogers was having technical difficulties. it was up and down all night. the connection didn't gain any stability untill the following afternoon.
after having talked with marco, it made me want to work on my remaining spc page. see, the page is old, hasn't been updated in years, and since i have the free time to do so, i'll be updating it, and perhaps moving it to edoropolis.org, providing that purrcat eventually opens up registration for new sites. so, i was downloading the page, and then i came across some backup files i had on that site; my oekakis and sprites. all of the sprites i've ever made were in that ftp account. i posted the one i was most proud of; a pic of axl i did at barachan's oekaki.
i also got one of the seven pics i need to get done finished. this one was for bryan, and it took me a bitchload of time to do. that's the one problem i've been having with colouring pictures, lately. i've got the attention span of a goldfish, and i haven't been able to concentrate on a picture for any lengthy period of time. i've been prone to getting bored with a pic, and getting easily distracted. my attention-span is getting a little better, and i've got one less owed pic to show for it. however, because of that short attention span, i was able to find an -awesome- artist. the guy's name is drew gardner, and his art is incredible. i saw in his journal that he was taking art trades, and who was i to resist that sort of a request from an artist of -that- calibre? i threw a note his way, asking if he wouldn't mind doing an art trade with me, and i was sort of scared of the response. i -fully- expected it to be something along the lines of, "oh. furry artist. um. no." but no! i was totally surprised. drew is just as awesome a person as he is an artist. he said yes, and he wants a pic of his character dominique, so i'll be drawing -both- dominique and sammy [ alias miss adventure ].
and the finishing of bryan's pic has led me to continue on with marcos' picture. i chose him next, because when he asked for an art trade, he had -his- half done the next day. now, to someone like -that-, i feel obligated to finish his picture next. after marcos picture, it's onto dema's picture. i'll decide who's next when i start on dema's pic. it's most likely going to be a case of me finishing up the ones that are currently half-finished. or the ones who've paid their half.
okay. so i spend most of my day off drawing and doing other art-related activities. i even stay up until 3:00. and i finished sketching rouge for john. i got the opportunity to show him what i have so far, and apparently, he liked the sketch. the mature version of which will -never- be posted publicly.
the next day, at work, wasn't quite what like i'd call good. i only spent about an hour on marblehead. got one call, and one app out of it. that was the only time i'd been on aegon for that day, so when i left that day, for marblehead, i had yet another one-hundred-percent conversion rate. not that that i'm complaining about that. however, there's one thing i -would- complain about it. see, it was the fact that nancy plays favourites was made -totally- apparent. a guy on her team, a guy by the name of 'gordon hooper' was kept on marblehead for the entire day. the entire fucking day, when nancy said she'd try to keep the time everyone spent on aegon would be equal, or close to it.
so, then i spend an hour or so talking about the injustices at work over msn with candace, and then she starts complaining about the way they're treating her. see, the poor girl has had problems with her heart, and has been sick since she gave blood on the sixth. apparently, nancy has been giving her hell for doing that. not only that, she complained about having been sent to aegon for three days in a row. of course, a lot of the complaining was done for the sake of complaining. i know that nobody [ save for a few of us ] really wants to be on aegon, but she's not the only one with those problems, and that there are people who never get to see marblehead, for weeks at a time.
so, i bring up the bold idea of saying something to nancy. candace mentions that she's not a aggressive person. okay, so then i tell her that unless she speaks up and/or does something about her situation, things aren't going to change. something along the lines of, "i mean, if you're not going to take initiative, there's nothing to complain about." and then she hits me with, "i won't complain or burden you with my issues." and then blocks me... like it's my fault that complaining is getting her nowhere. fuck, sometimes, the similarity between what what one wants to hear, and what one needs to hear is coincidental. personally, i have no sympathy for those who complain about wanting their situation changed, but never want to seem to do anything about it. if you don't want to change your situation, don't expect it to just change for you. the world rarely ever caters to complainers.
you want it, bad enough? -you- take the initiative. i'm so sick of people bitching about things that need to be done, and not having the balls to do it. at least when i complain, i actually do something. case in point: i've rallied up a bunch of pissed-off coworkers, and have begun writing a letter to derek lamb [ who just happens to be -the- first marblehead sales manager ], and will address the issue, with statistics to back it up, courtesy of pamela craig… who gave me more reason to write the letter; she, being as pissed off as i was, confronted me. she, somehow found out that i had considered writing a letter, and had asked me if i wrote it. i told her that i thought about it, but then ditched the idea. she told me that if i was still willing to write the letter, she was willing to provide evidence that someone, indeed, was being unfairly favoured. not (gordon) to mention (gordon) any names (gordon).
i dyed my hair black, once more on monday. after being blonde for a few weeks, i decided to go back. i just wanted to give my hair a chance to breathe. i've had more people say that they liked my hair black better than they did when it was the blonde/brunette/redhead combo, and to be honest, so do i. this time, my hair colour is a blue shade of black; like the first time i dyed it.
not only did i get one of the hardest calls i believe i've ever gotten with first marblehead on wednesday, i got one of the most ego-inflating calls.
my first -really- tough call was this lady. she was applying as a co-signer for her granddaughter. all though the application, she kept saying, "-please- help me." and essentially, i'm sure she was trying to guilt me into giving her the loan, giving me the -entire- story of why first marblehead is her last option. joke's on her, because as soon as i submit an application, it's out of my hands, and i have no control over whether or not it gets okayed or rejected. it got -really- tough when i asked the lady for her granddaughter's school start date. that's when she began crying.
i -know- that since the grandmother wanted her granddaughter to apply on her own, i know that that granddaughter will be rejected because she didn't have two years of employment. i told her at the end of the application, when she asked about her chances, that it wasn't my job to approve or deny any applications, because i only take them and submit them to be processed. hell, after -that- portion of it is done, i have no more interaction with the application or customer. although i didn't lie and say she'd be accepted, and didn't exactly tell her the truth that she wouldn't be accepted, i just told her that it's not my job to say either way. in a matter of speaking, i told the truth, because i don't really know whatever became of that application. once it's out of my hands, i don't have -any- way of tracking what becomes of it.
after a call like the one i mentioned above, i felt a little bad. i had to take my fifteen minute break, and then coming back semi-refreshed, i took a call. it was from a guy who had been getting the run-around from first marblehead, and that the customer service reps weren't -any- help. see, the guy had gotten a student loan before from another company, and his experience with them had been wonderful. now, he decides to go through us, and the school slacks off with our paperwork, and to top that off, nobody at customer service could answer any of the questions he had to ask, and i answered every one of them.
see, his primary concern was that his school wasn't exactly reliable when it came to requested information. he asked for a type of loan that the school would have less involvement in, so i told him about the continuing education loan [ or what we'd like to cal 'cel' ]. the cel is a type of loan in which the funds are sent directly to the student, and don't exactly have that much school interaction. after having talked about and compared the standard undergrad and cel, the guy, no kidding, said, "you are -freakin'- awesome! i talked to customer service -so many- times about that, and nobody could answer that question," and ended up applying for the continuing education loan.
but, i have to admit, he's not the only one that has experienced problems with customer service. hell no. see, i've had a lot of trouble with people from customer service, and so have the other people from the saint john site. the customer service team has, thus far, been the biggest detriment to my conversion rate.
the only reason that customer service can transfer customers over to us is when they actually want to do an application over the phone. now, customer service representatives have been transferring people who want information only, instead of answering questions themselves. from the calibre of questions, i know that if they'd been taught -anything- about their company, they would already know the answers to the questions that are being asked. not only that, a lot of them don't bother checking to see where the student is going to school [ which is -very- important, because we only do over-the-phone applications for teri approved american and canadian schools. international applications are at a different number ]. not only that, they don't bother checking whether or not the student wants to apply on their own, or go with a co-signer. see, they changed the rules at the saint john site so that we need to be asking the person on the other end of the phone, and a lot of the time, that will scare them off. see, i'd rather them scared off at the customer service level. after all, if i mention the 2-2-2 rule, and -i- scare them off, it's a waste of my time, it's a waste of the customer's time, and it's a waste of the customer service rep's time. that's -completely- unacceptable, and it's bringing -us- down. see, as application specialists, our continuing employment relies on a calls versus application ratio [ we have a quota. they don't ], and by acting like a bunch of douchebags, they're bringing -us- down, and i'm getting sick of it.
i -was- having issues with this one rep. her name was rachel, and -twice-, she ruined my conversion rate by being stupid. she wanted to transfer a customer over to do an application, and then she told me her transfer button was broken, and then hung up on me. i told derrick about it, and he called the customer service department and told them to get a new transfer button for miss rachel.
and there was this one time, when a customer service fucking supervisor called to ask fucking question. despite my inner rage to kick the shit out of the nearest person, i was polite and helpful. the fuckhead asked me what the "title" field on the application is. of course, i answered him, "that's for the title that the applicant or co-applicant holds at their job... such as cashier, manager or accountant. it essentially describes what they do." and then, what does he do, he puts me on hold for two minutes, and then tells me he'll call back. i was tempted to ask, "you know, if -you're- a supervisor, why are you asking me? shouldn't -you- know? you know, before ruining our conversion rates, ask around. i'm sure someone there -might- have an iq of more than five and might know. don't bother calling unless you have an application to do." now, if a motherfucking supervisor doesn't know a simple question like -that-, i'd like to enquire about what it takes to be a supervisor, down there. i'm willing to relocate!
i'm convinced that the only reason that customer service is doing this to us is because we, at the saint john site, are making the people at boston massachusetts look bad. i personally believe that they're deliberately dragging us down, because we exceeded first marblehead's expectations. they wanted about a constant forty percent conversion, and we exceed that daily by about twenty percent. because of that, first marblehead is cracking down on customer service representatives, and they're coming down hard on them.
thursday was quite wild. the only person who could shut down the -entire- call center was on a business trip in virginia, so the day shifters had to stay until their shift was over. the co-general manager was able to shut down most of the center, so for people working on aegon and msn, they all got sent home at six-thirty. not marblehead, because of the weather. we only listen to gregg bannister, and like i mentioned, he was in virginia.
so, night shift had the day off.
in addition to working through a storm, to make things worse, teri.org was down. this meant that we had to take applications on paper, so i had to spend my breaks typing them up, the few breaks i had after the system was brought back from the dead. i had about seven applications to type up. one of them was for someone else. oh, and to add to this, this meant that none of the teri.org web tools, or even the interest rates were available. however, i wrote all of the interest rates down, so i was ready to dispense that information, if i had to.
since doing overtime on marblehead is usually forbidden [ hell, i could get written up if i were to work through my breaks ], i never expected to pull off a twelve-hour shift there. however, it was on thursday that, at half-past four [ which just-so happened to be a half-hour before my shift ended, that day ], nancy asked me if i wanted to stay and do overtime, which she knows i'm always available to do, since i have no life, and all. reason being that recent statistics have shown that, between eight and closing time, the first marblehead section of the site get -really- busy. with people leaving early because of the weather and the fact that busses were being pulled off of the roads at approximately five o'clock, they figured they'd need me to help out with the potential call load.
so, i stayed. the usual rush of calls didn't happen. at least not to the expected calibre. however, me being there prevented a few red lights [ the red light on our aspect phones mean that there are people waiting in the queue to talk to one of us, and making them wait too long, or them getting frustrated and hanging up is a -bad- thing ], either way, it was easy overtime [ i'd much sooner do that than do overtime on aegon ], and should make for a decent pay check. i -know- that i have well over eighty hours, this pay period.
either way, when his shift was over, jamie came over to see me. he demanded that if the weather was still bad, that i immediately go over to his house [ i didn't want him to wait up for me, because i didn't know when i would be heading home. brenda said i could leave at any time, but i stayed until brenda said that we could all go home ]. he was serious about it. when i was let go shortly after nine, i took a look outside and decided that the weather was fine enough for me to walk home alone. see, we had fully expected to shut down with the rest of the center at half-past six, but we stayed open until our usual time. so, of course, jamie messages jen. jamie was out on the streets of south saint john looking for me. apparently, he claims that both he and jen were worried about me because i stayed longer than anticipated.
whatever. i'm not -that- fragile. i can handle the cold, and i can handle myself, thankyouverymuch.
i also met a new friend, this weekend. i'm not sure if she has a set name she'd like for me to call her by, but i'll refer to her as imi, since that's what her aim name is. either way, she honoured me by asking me to become her teacher. imi, then, showed me a few of her characters, and i took a liking to her character ina, so i asked her if i could draw ina… she said yes, so i drew a sketch of her for imi, and she loved it more than i thought she would. after all, not all of my five-minute sketches turn out as well as that one did. strangely enough, imi reminds me of a certain mousie friend of mine, many moons ago.
as much as i miss nezumi, i'm also repelled by the way he pushed me away and then hurt me. it makes me cautious as to whether or not i should speak to him again. i want to. belive me. however, i don't think i can take another person snapping at me.
amanda and her boyfriend stopped by on saturday. this was my second time meeting jeremy. when amanda told me about him, he didn't quite expect the girl he met and hit on whilst at marks, one night. and to be honest, i don't think he was quite done hitting on me. after all, he kept patting me on the head, shoulder, and while we were standing around jenna's computer watching a few web-cartoons, he was rubbing up against me. and to be honest, i'm -not- about to tell that to amanda. fuck, she went and told me that she lost her virginity to this guy, the night before. i think it's in both her and my best interest to let it go. i trust that it's not going to happen again.
it's the cold i can handle. when it comes to the subzero. that's when i have problems. on sunday night,the winds picked up, and the worst snowstorm of the season, thus far, raped saint john. it was getting to the point where i was too cold and too doped up on coffee to curl up and sleep. it was the only thing keeping me from freezing my ass off. it'd been blistering cold outside, and the windows were much too drafty to keep the apartment warm. my only salvation, for most of the night, was coffee. i'd been talking to jamie over msn. somehow, he got it in his head to come and visit me, like he always does whenever a snowstorm is happening. i called him crazy to do that in such cold conditions. regardless, he did it, and i'm sure the reason he did it was because his long-distance girlfriend was ignoring him, he knew that jenna's boyfriend was doing the same to her, and somehow sensed that there was something wrong with me, too. being too tired and numb from the cold to resist, he ended up holding me until i fell asleep on my own. i managed to stay asleep for most of the night.
also, i'd been talking to jennifer, that night. it seems as if there's going to be a 10-hour all-night rave going on at the gothic arches, next saturday. with amanda moving in next saturday, something tells me saturday is going to take it's sweet time getting here. personally, i'm looking forward to it. this is -so- going to make up for the new year's rave i missed.
oi. this week is going to be so long...
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,mrl_kitty,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø
okay, so i'll start with last saturday. that was a fun day. i got to spend the entire day on first marblehead. see, with the way things were, three people had to be on in the morning, then at about 2:00, they were going to switch so that the three that were on would be replaced by people that were on aegon for the day. dave was one of the people who was chosen to stay first, but he wanted to go to aegon, so they let him, and i volunteered to take his place. when the pulled the relief team from aegon, dave still wanted to stay on aegon, and i volunteered, once more. brenda okayed it, so i got to stay on the entire day. so, we didn't receive any more than about 28 calls, and i got about five of them. all of them were applications, so i left, that day, with a one-hundred percent conversion rate.
the second half of that day was the most entertaining. after all, in the morning, sherry byers and heather orford was also on marblehead. sherry is a wonderful gal, and we only talked for a little bit. heather, on the other hand, is mean and not at all easy to talk to. during the second half of the day, there was will young and pam craig. both of those two are -awesome- people. not to mention funny. that made the second half of the day go by faster.
speaking of funny, that day, after work, i went to 'the three mile' [ a local bar ], because, that night, they had jimmy flynn putting a show on, there. i sat up in the top balcony and watched him. it'd always been a secret hope of mine that i'd get to see a live show. either way, the show was awesome. my only complaint is that he tends to recycle way too many jokes... because i knew a fair bit of the punch lines before he even said them.
so, -immediately- after the show, i took a taxi home. after all, i don't honestly think it's in my best interest to be in a bar past 9:00, and that's when the show ended. when i got home, that's when i find out that my internet connection has been disrupted. so, i took a bit of much-needed sleep before jen came home. hoping that she knew what was going on, i asked her if she knew anything about the internet outage. apparently, rogers was having technical difficulties. it was up and down all night. the connection didn't gain any stability untill the following afternoon.
after having talked with marco, it made me want to work on my remaining spc page. see, the page is old, hasn't been updated in years, and since i have the free time to do so, i'll be updating it, and perhaps moving it to edoropolis.org, providing that purrcat eventually opens up registration for new sites. so, i was downloading the page, and then i came across some backup files i had on that site; my oekakis and sprites. all of the sprites i've ever made were in that ftp account. i posted the one i was most proud of; a pic of axl i did at barachan's oekaki.
i also got one of the seven pics i need to get done finished. this one was for bryan, and it took me a bitchload of time to do. that's the one problem i've been having with colouring pictures, lately. i've got the attention span of a goldfish, and i haven't been able to concentrate on a picture for any lengthy period of time. i've been prone to getting bored with a pic, and getting easily distracted. my attention-span is getting a little better, and i've got one less owed pic to show for it. however, because of that short attention span, i was able to find an -awesome- artist. the guy's name is drew gardner, and his art is incredible. i saw in his journal that he was taking art trades, and who was i to resist that sort of a request from an artist of -that- calibre? i threw a note his way, asking if he wouldn't mind doing an art trade with me, and i was sort of scared of the response. i -fully- expected it to be something along the lines of, "oh. furry artist. um. no." but no! i was totally surprised. drew is just as awesome a person as he is an artist. he said yes, and he wants a pic of his character dominique, so i'll be drawing -both- dominique and sammy [ alias miss adventure ].
and the finishing of bryan's pic has led me to continue on with marcos' picture. i chose him next, because when he asked for an art trade, he had -his- half done the next day. now, to someone like -that-, i feel obligated to finish his picture next. after marcos picture, it's onto dema's picture. i'll decide who's next when i start on dema's pic. it's most likely going to be a case of me finishing up the ones that are currently half-finished. or the ones who've paid their half.
okay. so i spend most of my day off drawing and doing other art-related activities. i even stay up until 3:00. and i finished sketching rouge for john. i got the opportunity to show him what i have so far, and apparently, he liked the sketch. the mature version of which will -never- be posted publicly.
the next day, at work, wasn't quite what like i'd call good. i only spent about an hour on marblehead. got one call, and one app out of it. that was the only time i'd been on aegon for that day, so when i left that day, for marblehead, i had yet another one-hundred-percent conversion rate. not that that i'm complaining about that. however, there's one thing i -would- complain about it. see, it was the fact that nancy plays favourites was made -totally- apparent. a guy on her team, a guy by the name of 'gordon hooper' was kept on marblehead for the entire day. the entire fucking day, when nancy said she'd try to keep the time everyone spent on aegon would be equal, or close to it.
so, then i spend an hour or so talking about the injustices at work over msn with candace, and then she starts complaining about the way they're treating her. see, the poor girl has had problems with her heart, and has been sick since she gave blood on the sixth. apparently, nancy has been giving her hell for doing that. not only that, she complained about having been sent to aegon for three days in a row. of course, a lot of the complaining was done for the sake of complaining. i know that nobody [ save for a few of us ] really wants to be on aegon, but she's not the only one with those problems, and that there are people who never get to see marblehead, for weeks at a time.
so, i bring up the bold idea of saying something to nancy. candace mentions that she's not a aggressive person. okay, so then i tell her that unless she speaks up and/or does something about her situation, things aren't going to change. something along the lines of, "i mean, if you're not going to take initiative, there's nothing to complain about." and then she hits me with, "i won't complain or burden you with my issues." and then blocks me... like it's my fault that complaining is getting her nowhere. fuck, sometimes, the similarity between what what one wants to hear, and what one needs to hear is coincidental. personally, i have no sympathy for those who complain about wanting their situation changed, but never want to seem to do anything about it. if you don't want to change your situation, don't expect it to just change for you. the world rarely ever caters to complainers.
you want it, bad enough? -you- take the initiative. i'm so sick of people bitching about things that need to be done, and not having the balls to do it. at least when i complain, i actually do something. case in point: i've rallied up a bunch of pissed-off coworkers, and have begun writing a letter to derek lamb [ who just happens to be -the- first marblehead sales manager ], and will address the issue, with statistics to back it up, courtesy of pamela craig… who gave me more reason to write the letter; she, being as pissed off as i was, confronted me. she, somehow found out that i had considered writing a letter, and had asked me if i wrote it. i told her that i thought about it, but then ditched the idea. she told me that if i was still willing to write the letter, she was willing to provide evidence that someone, indeed, was being unfairly favoured. not (gordon) to mention (gordon) any names (gordon).
i dyed my hair black, once more on monday. after being blonde for a few weeks, i decided to go back. i just wanted to give my hair a chance to breathe. i've had more people say that they liked my hair black better than they did when it was the blonde/brunette/redhead combo, and to be honest, so do i. this time, my hair colour is a blue shade of black; like the first time i dyed it.
not only did i get one of the hardest calls i believe i've ever gotten with first marblehead on wednesday, i got one of the most ego-inflating calls.
my first -really- tough call was this lady. she was applying as a co-signer for her granddaughter. all though the application, she kept saying, "-please- help me." and essentially, i'm sure she was trying to guilt me into giving her the loan, giving me the -entire- story of why first marblehead is her last option. joke's on her, because as soon as i submit an application, it's out of my hands, and i have no control over whether or not it gets okayed or rejected. it got -really- tough when i asked the lady for her granddaughter's school start date. that's when she began crying.
i -know- that since the grandmother wanted her granddaughter to apply on her own, i know that that granddaughter will be rejected because she didn't have two years of employment. i told her at the end of the application, when she asked about her chances, that it wasn't my job to approve or deny any applications, because i only take them and submit them to be processed. hell, after -that- portion of it is done, i have no more interaction with the application or customer. although i didn't lie and say she'd be accepted, and didn't exactly tell her the truth that she wouldn't be accepted, i just told her that it's not my job to say either way. in a matter of speaking, i told the truth, because i don't really know whatever became of that application. once it's out of my hands, i don't have -any- way of tracking what becomes of it.
after a call like the one i mentioned above, i felt a little bad. i had to take my fifteen minute break, and then coming back semi-refreshed, i took a call. it was from a guy who had been getting the run-around from first marblehead, and that the customer service reps weren't -any- help. see, the guy had gotten a student loan before from another company, and his experience with them had been wonderful. now, he decides to go through us, and the school slacks off with our paperwork, and to top that off, nobody at customer service could answer any of the questions he had to ask, and i answered every one of them.
see, his primary concern was that his school wasn't exactly reliable when it came to requested information. he asked for a type of loan that the school would have less involvement in, so i told him about the continuing education loan [ or what we'd like to cal 'cel' ]. the cel is a type of loan in which the funds are sent directly to the student, and don't exactly have that much school interaction. after having talked about and compared the standard undergrad and cel, the guy, no kidding, said, "you are -freakin'- awesome! i talked to customer service -so many- times about that, and nobody could answer that question," and ended up applying for the continuing education loan.
but, i have to admit, he's not the only one that has experienced problems with customer service. hell no. see, i've had a lot of trouble with people from customer service, and so have the other people from the saint john site. the customer service team has, thus far, been the biggest detriment to my conversion rate.
the only reason that customer service can transfer customers over to us is when they actually want to do an application over the phone. now, customer service representatives have been transferring people who want information only, instead of answering questions themselves. from the calibre of questions, i know that if they'd been taught -anything- about their company, they would already know the answers to the questions that are being asked. not only that, a lot of them don't bother checking to see where the student is going to school [ which is -very- important, because we only do over-the-phone applications for teri approved american and canadian schools. international applications are at a different number ]. not only that, they don't bother checking whether or not the student wants to apply on their own, or go with a co-signer. see, they changed the rules at the saint john site so that we need to be asking the person on the other end of the phone, and a lot of the time, that will scare them off. see, i'd rather them scared off at the customer service level. after all, if i mention the 2-2-2 rule, and -i- scare them off, it's a waste of my time, it's a waste of the customer's time, and it's a waste of the customer service rep's time. that's -completely- unacceptable, and it's bringing -us- down. see, as application specialists, our continuing employment relies on a calls versus application ratio [ we have a quota. they don't ], and by acting like a bunch of douchebags, they're bringing -us- down, and i'm getting sick of it.
i -was- having issues with this one rep. her name was rachel, and -twice-, she ruined my conversion rate by being stupid. she wanted to transfer a customer over to do an application, and then she told me her transfer button was broken, and then hung up on me. i told derrick about it, and he called the customer service department and told them to get a new transfer button for miss rachel.
and there was this one time, when a customer service fucking supervisor called to ask fucking question. despite my inner rage to kick the shit out of the nearest person, i was polite and helpful. the fuckhead asked me what the "title" field on the application is. of course, i answered him, "that's for the title that the applicant or co-applicant holds at their job... such as cashier, manager or accountant. it essentially describes what they do." and then, what does he do, he puts me on hold for two minutes, and then tells me he'll call back. i was tempted to ask, "you know, if -you're- a supervisor, why are you asking me? shouldn't -you- know? you know, before ruining our conversion rates, ask around. i'm sure someone there -might- have an iq of more than five and might know. don't bother calling unless you have an application to do." now, if a motherfucking supervisor doesn't know a simple question like -that-, i'd like to enquire about what it takes to be a supervisor, down there. i'm willing to relocate!
i'm convinced that the only reason that customer service is doing this to us is because we, at the saint john site, are making the people at boston massachusetts look bad. i personally believe that they're deliberately dragging us down, because we exceeded first marblehead's expectations. they wanted about a constant forty percent conversion, and we exceed that daily by about twenty percent. because of that, first marblehead is cracking down on customer service representatives, and they're coming down hard on them.
thursday was quite wild. the only person who could shut down the -entire- call center was on a business trip in virginia, so the day shifters had to stay until their shift was over. the co-general manager was able to shut down most of the center, so for people working on aegon and msn, they all got sent home at six-thirty. not marblehead, because of the weather. we only listen to gregg bannister, and like i mentioned, he was in virginia.
so, night shift had the day off.
in addition to working through a storm, to make things worse, teri.org was down. this meant that we had to take applications on paper, so i had to spend my breaks typing them up, the few breaks i had after the system was brought back from the dead. i had about seven applications to type up. one of them was for someone else. oh, and to add to this, this meant that none of the teri.org web tools, or even the interest rates were available. however, i wrote all of the interest rates down, so i was ready to dispense that information, if i had to.
since doing overtime on marblehead is usually forbidden [ hell, i could get written up if i were to work through my breaks ], i never expected to pull off a twelve-hour shift there. however, it was on thursday that, at half-past four [ which just-so happened to be a half-hour before my shift ended, that day ], nancy asked me if i wanted to stay and do overtime, which she knows i'm always available to do, since i have no life, and all. reason being that recent statistics have shown that, between eight and closing time, the first marblehead section of the site get -really- busy. with people leaving early because of the weather and the fact that busses were being pulled off of the roads at approximately five o'clock, they figured they'd need me to help out with the potential call load.
so, i stayed. the usual rush of calls didn't happen. at least not to the expected calibre. however, me being there prevented a few red lights [ the red light on our aspect phones mean that there are people waiting in the queue to talk to one of us, and making them wait too long, or them getting frustrated and hanging up is a -bad- thing ], either way, it was easy overtime [ i'd much sooner do that than do overtime on aegon ], and should make for a decent pay check. i -know- that i have well over eighty hours, this pay period.
either way, when his shift was over, jamie came over to see me. he demanded that if the weather was still bad, that i immediately go over to his house [ i didn't want him to wait up for me, because i didn't know when i would be heading home. brenda said i could leave at any time, but i stayed until brenda said that we could all go home ]. he was serious about it. when i was let go shortly after nine, i took a look outside and decided that the weather was fine enough for me to walk home alone. see, we had fully expected to shut down with the rest of the center at half-past six, but we stayed open until our usual time. so, of course, jamie messages jen. jamie was out on the streets of south saint john looking for me. apparently, he claims that both he and jen were worried about me because i stayed longer than anticipated.
whatever. i'm not -that- fragile. i can handle the cold, and i can handle myself, thankyouverymuch.
i also met a new friend, this weekend. i'm not sure if she has a set name she'd like for me to call her by, but i'll refer to her as imi, since that's what her aim name is. either way, she honoured me by asking me to become her teacher. imi, then, showed me a few of her characters, and i took a liking to her character ina, so i asked her if i could draw ina… she said yes, so i drew a sketch of her for imi, and she loved it more than i thought she would. after all, not all of my five-minute sketches turn out as well as that one did. strangely enough, imi reminds me of a certain mousie friend of mine, many moons ago.
as much as i miss nezumi, i'm also repelled by the way he pushed me away and then hurt me. it makes me cautious as to whether or not i should speak to him again. i want to. belive me. however, i don't think i can take another person snapping at me.
amanda and her boyfriend stopped by on saturday. this was my second time meeting jeremy. when amanda told me about him, he didn't quite expect the girl he met and hit on whilst at marks, one night. and to be honest, i don't think he was quite done hitting on me. after all, he kept patting me on the head, shoulder, and while we were standing around jenna's computer watching a few web-cartoons, he was rubbing up against me. and to be honest, i'm -not- about to tell that to amanda. fuck, she went and told me that she lost her virginity to this guy, the night before. i think it's in both her and my best interest to let it go. i trust that it's not going to happen again.
it's the cold i can handle. when it comes to the subzero. that's when i have problems. on sunday night,the winds picked up, and the worst snowstorm of the season, thus far, raped saint john. it was getting to the point where i was too cold and too doped up on coffee to curl up and sleep. it was the only thing keeping me from freezing my ass off. it'd been blistering cold outside, and the windows were much too drafty to keep the apartment warm. my only salvation, for most of the night, was coffee. i'd been talking to jamie over msn. somehow, he got it in his head to come and visit me, like he always does whenever a snowstorm is happening. i called him crazy to do that in such cold conditions. regardless, he did it, and i'm sure the reason he did it was because his long-distance girlfriend was ignoring him, he knew that jenna's boyfriend was doing the same to her, and somehow sensed that there was something wrong with me, too. being too tired and numb from the cold to resist, he ended up holding me until i fell asleep on my own. i managed to stay asleep for most of the night.
also, i'd been talking to jennifer, that night. it seems as if there's going to be a 10-hour all-night rave going on at the gothic arches, next saturday. with amanda moving in next saturday, something tells me saturday is going to take it's sweet time getting here. personally, i'm looking forward to it. this is -so- going to make up for the new year's rave i missed.
oi. this week is going to be so long...
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