ahhh
so this year has been a year of me trying to make changes to my life for the better. however none of them seem to be working out very well. I started out the year with the idea of returning to school to finish my bachelors degree in graphic design.Previously I had only ever seen associates degrees offered for graphics(which i already have) So when i saw there was a new program started at Collins College for an actual Bachelors I was excited. I thought this was a sign of how to proceed! This was also at a time when a lot of drama was going on at "the maxx". There was a rumor going around that they were going to "clean house" of as many of the assistant managers as they could because hiring people from unemployment would give the higher ups a tax break or a bonus of some sort. Well at first I thought that's ridiculous, they wouldn't do that. Then suddenly myself, my counterpart and several other ASMs through out the district started getting write-ups for very generic reasons. I found this alarming, especially since me and my counterpart were both given IDENTICAL write-ups...word for word....strange since we both have completely different responsibilities. So given the option I decided that instead of being fired for political fake reasons I should take a chance on school and just step down out of my management position. So I started school at Collins which was super expensive and took out some student loans. Finished my first class which was fun but nothing I had not already done, and was a little pissed about having to pay so much for a class I really didnt need to take. Now at the beginning of this adventure everyone was told you start your computer classes in your 3rd grouping of classes about 12 weeks in, thats also when you get your computer. Well the day before my second group of classes begin, I see that my schedule had changed, and I had a computer class, specifically Adobe Illustrator. I was excited about this because it was an interesting class, however I still did not have the computer or the software. Soo I go to the class on the first night and am asked "where is your computer, you need that for this class" and I say I haven't been issued one yet, why was I put in the class? I then talked to the dept chair and he says he can get me the computer early. about 2 days later i have the computer, mind you that i have now missed 10hrs of class time for Illustrator which is all follow along-learn the program type instruction. I go and pay $500 for adobe software suite, race home after work to install the software so i can go to the next class and attempt to catch up, only after putting the disks in to install, i get a message saying "this software is registered to someone else, registration code denied. I contact Adobe, and they tell me to take it back to where i got it from, WHICH WAS THE SCHOOL! I take it back, now missing a 3rd day of class/instruction and the school tells me "oh yea we purchased a bad bunch, contact this lady and she might be able to get you a new copy." horrified i attempt to get a hold of this woman who has very specific hours when she is around(all of which are when I am going to training for my new job at godaddy) I leave her and her supervisor messages pleading to get a hold of me. No response ever from either of them. Finally on day 5 of the class the teacher says Ive got a surprise for you, and gives me a new copy. I have now missed 25hrs of class time and the dept chair will not let me drop the class. The teacher has told me to go to the library and teach myself. Well if I am going to teach myself, why am I paying you guys??? So very frustrated, I attempt to get a hold of my counselor person, which I sent several emails to, called and left messages for (this all starting on a WEDS) and did not get a response back until the next Monday when I was even more upset and sent a message to her supervisor...strangely enough i got an email back from her a mere 2 mins after sending an email to her sup. "she had been sick, and just got the email"and that is when i decided to quit school there before they stole anymore of my money...Now to backup a little bit, during this time I had also decided to quit the maxx altogether because i got an email back from Godaddy for employment. I passed the 2 interviews and the 2 tests they make you take before you get hired and decided that instead of stepping down and getting sent to another store only to have my boss be someone I had trained which was extremely humiliating I would take a chance and make a change and try something new. I also thought that this would be a good way to learn more about the field and that it would be easy to do this new job and go to school at the same time. So I quit the maxx and started this new job. Working in a call center is much different than I had ever imagined. First off There is sooooooooo much to learn. Godaddy has over 60 products,plus learning how email works with a thousand different clients ,hosting, domains,servers, and how all these things work and interact with things outside of the company. You have to know about all different types of cell phones and how they all work,and you never know what someone is going to call about which is dreadful and most of the time when they call they are already upset or something is broken. Nowthe part I enjoyed was the learning piece. I enjoyed learning all these different things and putting the pieces together, however, the metrics for this job are completely unrealistic. you need to take a min of 32 calls per day. Inside of each call you need to first get into their account, figure out their problem, fix their problem, find out their technical goals, and long term business goals, offer them products and sell them products, set up the products, if they have unused products advise them about them and set them up as well, also address any account alerts, which is mostly walking them through updating and deleting old payment methods they have on file and this all needs to be done in about 15mins. which doesnt SEEM to be that hard. but when it takes someone 5 mins just to locate there account info to even just verify into the account. thats where this gets awful and also prepare them for "the next steps" or things that could come up in the future.ALL IN UNDER 15mins!!! also most people dont know what they are talking about. when i have to clarify and explain what a "period" is by explaining its that thing that comes at the end of a sentence, there is a problem. now i can deal with stupid people no problem, what i cant handle is if a call goes long and having 3 supervisors harassing me to finish the call and after explained the situation and asking for help on how to "hurry up the call" they dont have any advise because its just a dumb customer. I cannot handle that extra level of stress on top of an already stressful situation. I would not choose to spend that long on a call but the customer should come first. If they need help they should get it until they understand. And selling....wow did i think that would be different. also not what i expected. being forced to pitch something on every call, also not something i was good at. lots of people just want there problem fixed, they dont want to talk about other stuff and buy something. This job was not what i envisioned at all. It was extremely stressful, made me painfully aware of how dumb a large % of the population is, and also when i picked my shift which was 5am-130pm didn't think about the fact that means I have to get up at 340am every day and go to bed at 9pm. after having lots of bad experiences over the last few weeks there were about 5 situations in the last week that pushed me over the edge, and i had what i think was a nervous breakdown. after toying with the idea of looking for a new job i had filled out some applications and turned them in. after a particularly awful day I saw I had a voicemail from Old navy wanting me to interview. I was so upset with the current job and comparatively I think i hated retail less than the call center, I called them back and said i would go to the interview. I was offered the job at a moderate rate(good for retail) but slightly less than what i was currently making. I decided to go for it,my original plan was to try and work both jobs for a few days to kind of "test the waters" however when i went back into the call center on my "monday" we had switched seats again, and the only remaining computers were one that would not sign onto windows, and another which had all the cords ripped out. something snapped inside of me and the thought of taking another call ever again was unbearable, so against my usual overly rational i decided to quit right then and there(since i had already taken the other job and was starting there that evening). So I am now an old navy employee, which Im not sure was a good idea of not. Last night was my first night and although it was more tolerable than taking calls, it does pay less, and the hours are not guaranteed. And also I am starting the week of black friday, which is depressing in the fact that i couldnt even escape black friday out of retail for even one year. I would have had to work it at the call center as well along with thanksgiving either way but just the fact that i couldn't miss one is sad. also what worries me is that thanksgiving will only be my second day and they haven't really given me any training, just kinda thrown me out there, which is the typical retail way, and i have plenty of retail experience, but a tour of the store or any kind of details would have been nice. but i guess as long as i can fold,say hello, smile and make up believable sounding answers to questions, i should be okay. my future plans if i end up not getting enough hours include looking into bathing dogs partime to potentially get into grooming, a random thing i have always been interested in but never really had the opportunity to pursue. maybe go back to community college and take a photoshop class or creative writing class. something so i dont feel like such a failure at life. I have continued to deejay, which i guess is going moderately okay. im not amazing but im not awful and i dont think anyone hates me. so we will see.