I know, it has been over a month.
the Partner operations job has been a big undertaking. It has kept me very busy. It has had some good things in it for me. I’ll explain now. I have been able to go to every home playoff game for the Phoenix Mercury. WNBA – I know, not something I am into. I went for a regular season game because they were giving out the suite tickets – so I figured why not. Then they offered every playoff game. I went and was impressed. One game was pushed into overtime and they won. All of the tickets I got were lower level (not cheap). Considering that the company just gave them away – I felt that the least I could do is go.
And go I did. They had a game where 1 courtside ticket was available. I took it + my other tickets with my family. We all traded off sitting courtside during the WNBA finals. Quite the experience. Very cool…
The first picture is from courtside- the other was taken a few moments after they won the championship. Indiana was the other team in the finals. We got to see Lisa Leslies last WNBA game and the Mercury successfully take out the Los Angels Sparks and the San Antonio Silver Stars before taking out the Indiana Fever in game 5. You can click on the picture and it will make it bigger…
Anyway.. moving on to life. Right? That is what I should be talking about. But there is more sports for me to talk about. Yes! How Sweep it is! Yankees swept the Twins and advance to the championship series before the World Series. The Cardinals won tonight and the Redsox blew a 9th inning lead, with 2 outs and 2 strikes. They really blew it. The Blazers are playing preseason… all of it makes me happy…..
Work.
I was apparently given this job as a temporary assignment (and if they liked me it would become permanent). A week or so ago Tom informed me he would be applying for another job. He got that job. so that means that nobody else will be doing my job- but me. That should be good for me, right? I should be an automatic in for the job. It isn’t quite so easy. Mary (the director) said she was opening up the position to everyone and asked if I would be applying for it along with others. I told her I was interested in getting the position but ugh. There is a lot more to this work drama, but I simply am being lazy and don’t want to type it all up.
They have yet to publish that job posting and tomorrow will be the first day that the position is mine? Even though it isn’t mine. I halfway want to go back to my old job and leave them with nobody – but I realize that wouldn’t be a good career move. haha..
I wish I could just move back to Portland. I can’t – and really with the WNBA playoffs keeping me distracted things have been crazy busy. A good busy, I suppose. Time just flies. It has been moving so quickly. I am doing pretty well at my job.. at least I have others telling me that I’m doing good. I just don’t know. My finances are pretty tight right now (when you take into consideration the bills in Portland that I don’t use) plus trying to pay off the car and small things here and there. I will survive, I am keeping my head above water (easy to do in a desert hahaha) but it will just take longer for me to be financially stable until JJ finds a job that will support the bills.
I hardly every hear from that kid. I know we don’t always have a lot to talk about – but still. Just keeping in contact -keeping me in the know of what is going on in his life. I send him messages and contact him by phone every so often but it stops at that.
I had planned on going to Portland for Christmas to visit my brother with my family, but I asked Mary if I could take a week off in December to do so – and she told me no. In fact, I may only get Christmas day off (which is still up in the air). Ah well, no biggie… as long as my parents are still able to go and visit my brother I am sure he will be fine.
I know there is probably a ton of stuff I am forgetting in this update, and can you really blame me? So much time has went on …. a lot of the stuff going on with me has been feeling overloaded with work and frustrated with how the job is coming along. But that is life….
I guess I’ll leave it at this for now. I will update again, soon? Well, don’t hold your breath – but I’ll try.
just Pray
Another post.
I am in my bed, typing away. Thankfully my keyboard lights up in the dark, otherwise there wouldn’t be much hope of an update tonight.
The past two weeks? It doesn’t feel like two weeks – that’s for sure.
On Thursday of that week was a pretty normal day. I worked as normal on Friday until Steve came up to me. “Congratulations. You got the position.” A few minutes later the director walked by. “Congrats on the job…” then she continued. I wasn’t sure at first you were serious for the position so that’s why I wanted a lot of detail on your application.
Huh… great. Like the lion king.. “can you feel.. the love tonight…”
hah.
The side of the story I didn’t tell you about – was on the Friday prior I applied for the job but when I turned in the paper telling why I was going for the position and what I was seeking out of it- it was returned to me by my manager. I didn’t know why. He told me they wanted some further detail. Okay. I wrote beyond the space that was given to me, off to the side and kept explaining. Turned it back in. He went to check if that is what they wanted to hear. A few minutes later he came out and told me, they needed more. I looked at him and told him that I didn’t know what they wanted, I said why I wanted the role – and I wouldn’t know what else to add.
Then he told me what to put. Much appreciated. Why did it come to this? Why did I have to write out more and more and even more on the application? Well.. I’ll tell you why.
The day where I went to have the side by side, I was talking to someone offhand at the office about why I was at the corporate office. I offhandedly mentioned that my position leaves much to be desired and that I was pretty bored with my role. I guess this same person went to the director after I was done- telling her that they had major concerns about me coming to corporate.
Drama.
Anyway… the same person greeted me with a smile when I started last Monday. It has been pretty crazy how much the time has slipped by. It is already September.
So what has been going on with the job? The first day I started everything was cool. Crazy busy- but cool. I was loaded with a few hundred accounts to handle right off the bad. Fresh and ready to go. Well, I guess they underestimated me. By a long shot. I was able to do a couple hundred accounts in less than a week. The person who is giving me work said that he assumed that one of the accounts would have taken me the rest of the week to complete – and I had finished in a matter of a few hours.
Good? Maybe. Why isn’t it a sure answer? Well.. by the end of the week I was out of work. On Friday I didn’t have too much to do. On Monday I talked to him (this past Monday) and he said that he was all caught up for now. So what do I do? I twiddle my thumbs now and wait for more work to come in. That is kinda crap if you ask me. I know that I doing this job for far less than anyone else in that office and yet I can get tons more done? How is that? It isn’t hard work. They were backlogged with some accounts from June- yet now they are current.
Blah. It is rather frustrating, but also out of my hands. I can’t do anything about it. I have been trying to pace myself. Thankfully some of the other departments come over and ask questions so I am proving useful in that respect. I am also helping enroll partners who have technical difficultly doing so.
Lifelock has lost in its court case against Experian. A court has declared that a third party setting fraud alerts on behalf of an individual is illegal. However; LifeLock was long preparing for this and already has a bigger system rolling out as we speak. It will be good. When I first came back the new project was so under wraps that some people were worried about us closing down.
That won’t be the case- at least not anytime soon.
I am sure I have more to update about – but right now… it feels like it has just been work the past couple weeks. Not that fun….
hopefully it will improve!
just Pray.
When you are working the time speeds by- but I’m sure that will change.
Time was already going quickly before I came back here – now its been a week.
Lets talk about work. Okay then.. so I walked into work on Thursday and surprised a lot of people. I guess nobody expected to ever see me again – Jennifer and a few others gave me a hug. She was the most surprised of them all…
It turns out that the day before I returned someone in our team moved into my desk. He rummaged though my stuff and other people took what they wanted. I walk in to work missing a phone. Haha, I am still borrowing someones while they find out where mine is. If they ever find it – if not then I suppose I will just have to get a new one.
What else.. I returned to a ring of 500+ emails. I took me practically all day to go through them. Then on Friday I returned and started finding out about the new systems they had rolled out (in the months I was gone). It was easy.. I expected as much.
Then the weekend- ah yes. I got a surprise by having Michelle talk to me for the first time in months. Among that my car was barely making it through the few days I was going to work – she was in bad shape. It would be quite costly at this point to repair her for anything long term. I decided to go car shopping. My family and I went to check out a few and after finding out that we couldn’t see all of the one’s we had planned on – we went to the one that was probably the least likely for me.
It was at a Chevy dealership. I know. Two things are like smoke alarms. First it’s at a Chevy dealership- second.. its at a dealership. No bueno- at least not when buying used. I met the saleslady, she looked at my parents – looked at me and said “is this going to be Your car?!” I told her it was. She said “how exciting, your first car!” and I looked at her and asked her to guess my age “maybe 16?” haha. So anyway my dad checked out the car and said it was very good mechanically- worth what they were asking. So I asked them how much I could get for my car (if anything). After spending what became most of the day in the dealership – at about 4:00 on Saturday we left with my new-ish car. A Ford Focus.
Yep, she is a 2005 two door zx3 SES edition. It was a car that I had been looking into for well over a year. This one happened to be a great fit and had everything I was looking to have in a car. Reliable, good on gas and not stripped to the bone. I got it, and I am pretty impressed with her. She is a nice car – leather seats, sun roof and a sound system I like listening to music on. haha. I am done with sports cars for now – Probes are not in my future (the car)..
It has been a highlight in my otherwise kind of drab week of being back. It’s been hot – and work has just been unloading bad news. What bad news? Well I won’t have any vacation time at all until next year. Any time I take off for the rest of the year will be unpaid. If I leave the company anytime before next year I will have to pay the vacation time back – and that would be quite costly.
They are transitioning our team for Customer service more than the back end administrative work we had been doing for the whole time I’ve had this job. The past four days everyone on my team has been on the phones- and it is only a matter of time before I’m on them as well.
I went for a new position within the company – on my second day of being back I learned that they had an opening. I would have the same director (hold that thought), different manager – and a slightly different job function. It would be further away from the phones. More of being a liaison between the legal department, sales, and member services. I think I could handle that- now it is just a matter of time. If I get it – great. If not? Well.. then I have other things in store for me.
The director. Ah yes, I was at the corporate office checking out the job on Friday when she stops and looks at me. “its great to see you!” and I smiled. She said “but I have to ask, can you get any skinnier?” I said “no, probably not” and she said “do you eat anything at all? I mean really – look at you” and I just smiled and nodded. She then said “oh.. maybe its because I’m not wearing my heels so I am looking at a different part of you than normal” yep – that’s probably it…
I got a letter from an very close friend which ended “I realize that life is better off without you in it..” and that wasn’t nearly the worst thing said.
And I was planning on visiting Leah but ticket prices went up this week. I was planning on visiting Hyun but there is a likelihood I won’t be able to do that – depending on how far north in Cali he will be.
Things are always changing. JJ is still looking out for a job but I have probably talked to him a few sentences through text since leaving…
Tomorrow I will resume the rat race. The hustle and bustle is here.. *sigh*
Se la vie…
just Pray.