Subjective Shit Hits the Figurative Fan
Did not intend the alliteration... Sorry. I think.
Where was I? Oh yes.
March 2003: My entire life I though my parents had a pretty good relationship. Sure, they argued sometimes, but what couple doesn't. And I do recall times when my mother would be upset at my father for one reason or another, and they would sit down and talk about it. But for the most part, they got along well enough. Apparently I was wrong.
It was mid-March (I think this month is becoming cursed for me...). I remember because I had called my Dad and asked him what date Ash Wednesday was so I could start my Lenten sacrifice. (It's a Catholic thing.) When I called him, he sounded like he was not in the best of moods. I didn't really think too much of it; he does get like that sometimes and usually, at least I thought, that doesn't last too long. Not even three days prior, I had spoken to him to let him know I was visiting and he seemed perfectly fine. The day I'm going to visit (March 24th), I call my Mom and let her know an approximate time of my arrival. She says it's not the best time for me to be coming over. I then proceed to tell her that I told Dad I was coming, but if this isn't a good time, I could stay home. At this point, she pretty much insists I come down. OK. Fine. Nothing fazes me. I'm thinking Mom and Heather had plans of some sort, or something. I'm all psyched up to see everyone, maybe go down to the pier with my Dad and play some Harvest Moon at 2am while my sister spent time with her then-boyfriend. (Opps, I wasn't supposed to say she stayed out so late!) I get there, and put my stuff in the guest bedroom, say Hi to Millie, my Mom's Italian Greyhound, and I figure Dad's in bed already because was about 11pm. Once I get settled, I'm sitting in my room, and Heather comes in and says hi and she wished she had more notice that I was coming.
"I told Dad, like, two weeks ago that I wanted to come over. Didn't he say anything?"
"Oh, well, Dad's not around anymore."
Apparently, he had one day about a week prior rented an apartment on his own, picked up some of his stuff and left. He at least had the courtesy to leave a note. My sister continued to ramble about something she was doing with one of her friends; I can't really remember. She also got pissed at me the next day because I hadn't paid attention. You try paying attention to fluff after that kind of news. I went out maybe an hour later to get something to drink and my Mom explained what she knew, which at the time wasn't much. She didn't know where he was, and most of the note, according to her, was stupid shit that didn't really matter anymore like stuff she did or failed to do when my brother and I were growing up. She said some stuff was personal, and I didn't think it was appropriate to ask to read the note even though I desperately wanted to. Heather had, but she was also the one who found the note. Mom made many efforts to do stuff with me that weekend. I don't know if she was trying to keep her mind busy or if she wanted me to have a good time while I was there. It was actually at this point that I started to really get to know my Mom. I mean, I know her of course, but I was able to see what I kind of had taken for granted my entire life.
April 2003: Test group is no longer a department where I work. It has become the Loyalty department, where we call customers and ask how they like services and try to sell them stuff they quite often don't really need or want. And of course, there is no commission still. I told myself upon taking the job in April of 1999 6that if they ever made me do outbound calling, I would leave. I didn't leave. I couldn't afford the pay cut due to all of my debt (credit card, car, etc, and now I have lots of monthly bills to pay). So I bit my lip and called people. I hated it from the start. Ok, maybe it does generate revenue for the company, but I can't do it. I tried. Not for me. I did have my mentorship to look forward to coming up on June. I think throughout April that's the only thing that kept me going, and later, around May-time the only thing that kept me there. I managed to convince myself for a bit that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was. And, no it's not difficult. I like to be able to leave the customer happy, and all I seemed to be doing to the majority of the customers was pissing them off. Or I really did think they needed a particular service, and they were too stupid to believe me. (Such as they keep going over their allotted time and paying $50 extra and don't believe a higher allotment costing $15 more than their current one will save them money.) Or they would gripe and threaten to cancel service, and I would have to go into Retention mode. Have I told you how much I hate Retention? But I would rather be doing inbound Retention then outbound calling of any sort. Only 2 months to go.
I visited my Mom. She had gotten together with Dad to talk and he did not yet have a telephone yet, but he gave her his address and I don't know anything else they talked about. Heather was preparing for graduation in May, and she was an officer in three different clubs including some sort of student politics thing (I don't think it was SGA, though), Drama, and Honors Society or something, on top of all of her normal schoolwork, so she was quite busy. Of the three days I was there, Mom came home early two and didn't go to work one. (It was Sunday...) She seemed quite lonely already, even though my sister was still at home. I think we went shopping one day, we went to the Aquarium on the corner on day, just general quality time together. By this time, Heather had been accepted to University of Richmond (Go Spiders!.. and she's arachnophobic!), and she was going to be to only one of us to go out of state for college.
I did eventually finish my game of Harvest Moon, with a pretty bad score...
May 2003: I'm starting to get depressed with the situation with my parents and my crappy job and everything. My sister graduated in May, and I made the trip to see her. I made sure I had it off as soon as I found out which day it was. That was the first time I had seen my dad since February or January, or whenever I had last seen him. I didn't say anything, and even though I was thoroughly pissed, I was still glad to see him. He was quite cordial. He sat quietly in the background while my Mom and brother talked about things like work. That's always how it's been, and, I could be completely off on this, but I think that is part of what had made him so upset. I have lots of theories. None of them have yet been clarified. My sister's graduation was outside on the football field, so we had to sit in the bleachers, which were quite uncomfortable. And it was LONG. My Mom actually couldn't sit through it all. As soon as Heather got her diploma, we got up. We had reservations at a restaurant for Graduation dinner, but we had to be done by I think 10:30 so Heather could go to a lock-in party at school or something. We left at 9:15, and the ceremony wasn't over until 9:45, and it didn't help that it started 30 minutes late due to rain. And yes, we actually left. I think Mom was really the only one who wanted to leave outright, I think because of the reservation. I don't blame her for wanting to get off the bleachers (we were not the only ones), but I still think we should have stayed. I suggested to Andy that the two of us stay, but he declined at first. He did end up staying for her, which was a good thing because he had her keys. We worked it out. The waitress was waiting on us to finish so she could go home. We thanked her and gave her a huge tip. Heather got to her party before the doors locked, and slept 'til 2 the next day, got up to get ready for another party. Except for Dad not staying with us, all was right for the time being.
June 2003: My job pisses me off again.
To be continued.
We are born cold, hungry and wet. Then, things get worse. - (I got this from an) Ann Landers (column, but I don't think this is actually hers. I could be wrong.)
Where was I? Oh yes.
March 2003: My entire life I though my parents had a pretty good relationship. Sure, they argued sometimes, but what couple doesn't. And I do recall times when my mother would be upset at my father for one reason or another, and they would sit down and talk about it. But for the most part, they got along well enough. Apparently I was wrong.
It was mid-March (I think this month is becoming cursed for me...). I remember because I had called my Dad and asked him what date Ash Wednesday was so I could start my Lenten sacrifice. (It's a Catholic thing.) When I called him, he sounded like he was not in the best of moods. I didn't really think too much of it; he does get like that sometimes and usually, at least I thought, that doesn't last too long. Not even three days prior, I had spoken to him to let him know I was visiting and he seemed perfectly fine. The day I'm going to visit (March 24th), I call my Mom and let her know an approximate time of my arrival. She says it's not the best time for me to be coming over. I then proceed to tell her that I told Dad I was coming, but if this isn't a good time, I could stay home. At this point, she pretty much insists I come down. OK. Fine. Nothing fazes me. I'm thinking Mom and Heather had plans of some sort, or something. I'm all psyched up to see everyone, maybe go down to the pier with my Dad and play some Harvest Moon at 2am while my sister spent time with her then-boyfriend. (Opps, I wasn't supposed to say she stayed out so late!) I get there, and put my stuff in the guest bedroom, say Hi to Millie, my Mom's Italian Greyhound, and I figure Dad's in bed already because was about 11pm. Once I get settled, I'm sitting in my room, and Heather comes in and says hi and she wished she had more notice that I was coming.
"I told Dad, like, two weeks ago that I wanted to come over. Didn't he say anything?"
"Oh, well, Dad's not around anymore."
Apparently, he had one day about a week prior rented an apartment on his own, picked up some of his stuff and left. He at least had the courtesy to leave a note. My sister continued to ramble about something she was doing with one of her friends; I can't really remember. She also got pissed at me the next day because I hadn't paid attention. You try paying attention to fluff after that kind of news. I went out maybe an hour later to get something to drink and my Mom explained what she knew, which at the time wasn't much. She didn't know where he was, and most of the note, according to her, was stupid shit that didn't really matter anymore like stuff she did or failed to do when my brother and I were growing up. She said some stuff was personal, and I didn't think it was appropriate to ask to read the note even though I desperately wanted to. Heather had, but she was also the one who found the note. Mom made many efforts to do stuff with me that weekend. I don't know if she was trying to keep her mind busy or if she wanted me to have a good time while I was there. It was actually at this point that I started to really get to know my Mom. I mean, I know her of course, but I was able to see what I kind of had taken for granted my entire life.
April 2003: Test group is no longer a department where I work. It has become the Loyalty department, where we call customers and ask how they like services and try to sell them stuff they quite often don't really need or want. And of course, there is no commission still. I told myself upon taking the job in April of 1999 6that if they ever made me do outbound calling, I would leave. I didn't leave. I couldn't afford the pay cut due to all of my debt (credit card, car, etc, and now I have lots of monthly bills to pay). So I bit my lip and called people. I hated it from the start. Ok, maybe it does generate revenue for the company, but I can't do it. I tried. Not for me. I did have my mentorship to look forward to coming up on June. I think throughout April that's the only thing that kept me going, and later, around May-time the only thing that kept me there. I managed to convince myself for a bit that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was. And, no it's not difficult. I like to be able to leave the customer happy, and all I seemed to be doing to the majority of the customers was pissing them off. Or I really did think they needed a particular service, and they were too stupid to believe me. (Such as they keep going over their allotted time and paying $50 extra and don't believe a higher allotment costing $15 more than their current one will save them money.) Or they would gripe and threaten to cancel service, and I would have to go into Retention mode. Have I told you how much I hate Retention? But I would rather be doing inbound Retention then outbound calling of any sort. Only 2 months to go.
I visited my Mom. She had gotten together with Dad to talk and he did not yet have a telephone yet, but he gave her his address and I don't know anything else they talked about. Heather was preparing for graduation in May, and she was an officer in three different clubs including some sort of student politics thing (I don't think it was SGA, though), Drama, and Honors Society or something, on top of all of her normal schoolwork, so she was quite busy. Of the three days I was there, Mom came home early two and didn't go to work one. (It was Sunday...) She seemed quite lonely already, even though my sister was still at home. I think we went shopping one day, we went to the Aquarium on the corner on day, just general quality time together. By this time, Heather had been accepted to University of Richmond (Go Spiders!.. and she's arachnophobic!), and she was going to be to only one of us to go out of state for college.
I did eventually finish my game of Harvest Moon, with a pretty bad score...
May 2003: I'm starting to get depressed with the situation with my parents and my crappy job and everything. My sister graduated in May, and I made the trip to see her. I made sure I had it off as soon as I found out which day it was. That was the first time I had seen my dad since February or January, or whenever I had last seen him. I didn't say anything, and even though I was thoroughly pissed, I was still glad to see him. He was quite cordial. He sat quietly in the background while my Mom and brother talked about things like work. That's always how it's been, and, I could be completely off on this, but I think that is part of what had made him so upset. I have lots of theories. None of them have yet been clarified. My sister's graduation was outside on the football field, so we had to sit in the bleachers, which were quite uncomfortable. And it was LONG. My Mom actually couldn't sit through it all. As soon as Heather got her diploma, we got up. We had reservations at a restaurant for Graduation dinner, but we had to be done by I think 10:30 so Heather could go to a lock-in party at school or something. We left at 9:15, and the ceremony wasn't over until 9:45, and it didn't help that it started 30 minutes late due to rain. And yes, we actually left. I think Mom was really the only one who wanted to leave outright, I think because of the reservation. I don't blame her for wanting to get off the bleachers (we were not the only ones), but I still think we should have stayed. I suggested to Andy that the two of us stay, but he declined at first. He did end up staying for her, which was a good thing because he had her keys. We worked it out. The waitress was waiting on us to finish so she could go home. We thanked her and gave her a huge tip. Heather got to her party before the doors locked, and slept 'til 2 the next day, got up to get ready for another party. Except for Dad not staying with us, all was right for the time being.
June 2003: My job pisses me off again.
To be continued.
We are born cold, hungry and wet. Then, things get worse. - (I got this from an) Ann Landers (column, but I don't think this is actually hers. I could be wrong.)