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| I've been staring at this page for years now, trust me when I say something isn't right |
As you can see, that is not the amount of time I expected to have accrued. Quickly I tried to run through the math: maybe they had calculated it wrong, or maybe they had added an extra month of vacation hours to the 20hours I'm supposed to get, but none of it made any sense. Then I realized what happened. I'm not sure how to describe what happened next. I know that it involved a lot of sighing, probably several f-bombs, spinning a couple of times in my chair: basically a childish tantrum was thrown for several minutes while I tried to figure out how I let this happen. You see, for a minute, I'd forgotten that the company has a tiered vacation accrual process: when you've been there for enough time, you move up to the next earning bracket. Basically, I'd just hit the 5 year mark and now earn 3.75days each quarter. Fuck!
To be honest (and I don't care, my co-workers don't read this) I never meant to hit the 3 year mark, much less the 5 year mark. When I started, my particular job was easy enough that I picked it up in less than a month. Even when they continued to tweak the procedures I was supposed to follow, I usually picked it up in a week or two. I knew when I started (or at least I thought I did) that I would eventually get bored, which I expected to hit around year 2. And at some times, I admit, it did. However, there were plenty of things that held my interest, which explains why I'm still here without an escape plan yet. I've been able to take almost all of the vacations and even days-off that I wanted (I should've taken more, especially while I'm still freeloading at home). There really hasn't been any stress to the job - I'm able to come in to work, do the job, and go home. It learned how offices work (my previous job experiences being the orchid farm and the University of Hawaii auto shop) as well as 85% of all the other jobs in this place just from helping to cover people when they're on vacation. Plus, I got all these stories:
One Monday morning, I found an empty energy drink can in my trash can. The clinic is open on the weekend, and sometimes my co-workers would come in too so I didn't think much of it. Just an empty can in my trash can. So I carried on with my day. If you know me, being observant is not one of my strong character traits (And if you really know me, you know that's a joke since I don't have ANY character traits). So, obviously, I'm not going to notice one of my co-workers glaring at me or maybe a tone in his voice that implies that he's mad with me. Later that day, another of my co-workers asked if I noticed, and of course I said, "no." Apparently someone had stolen one of his energy drinks from the refrigerator and, since the can was with my trash, he thought it was me. Except I hate energy drinks. Well, my other co-workers cleared up that mess and we eventually found the culprit ("I thought it was a community fridge," the doctor said... just kidding, he never apologized).
I never knew the importance of air-conditioning until I went to use the restroom at 3:00pm at our old office (Dammit Alan, another restroom story. what is wrong with you?). At the old office, the restroom was just 2 stalls (one with a broken door), a sink, and just a small window. At first, you're probably thinking "did that small window help to get rid of the smell?" and the answer would be a definite "no" but that's not the reason I bring up blessed A/C. The sun would actually shine right through that window for a couple hours every afternoon. Also, everyday, at about 2-2:30pm the janitor would mop the floors. The heated room combined with the mopped floors would essentially turn the restroom into a sauna. And, at about 3:00pm, I would usually take one last poop before hopping on the bus home. And so I'd sit on the toilet and literally feel the evaporation around me, on me. If I'd eaten anything for lunch that just didn't want to be there, well, when I finally got out, it looked more like I'd been sprinting a mile for the bus rather than just on my way across the street to catch the bus. Now that we've got A/C in the new office, not only does it help to filter out the smell, but my toilet-time has become much less stressful.
One fun thing I got to do was try to break the current scheduling system we are using. About a year or two after I started, the bosses decided we would start using a different online schedule provider (I think we're still working on developing our own). Anyways, when we got word that we were going to switch to it, we were told to test it out and see if you can find any faults with it (I interpreted it as "do what you want, see if you can break it"). I played with that thing way more than I should have, especially since back then I was still with the Processing Department and we rarely used the scheduling system. Most of my time was spent putting in Superheroes and Supervillains into the system, along with dumb case notes - my favorite being Clark Kent applying for a physical disability with a note that it is a possible fraud case (it made me laugh). I'm pretty sure they reset the system before we put it to use or else Bruce Wayne missed his psych evaluation, too.
I received a death threat/desperation letter in the mail once. I'm not sure if I ever told you, but I work for a company which assists the State of Hawaii in giving out welfare money. Well, if you're going to get the state money, you gotta follow state rules - whether it be seeing your doctor to check that thing on your foot or going to your psychotherapy evaluation once a week, you gotta go do it if you want the money to keep coming in. So, I guess this one client wasn't doing his treatment and, instead of submitting documentation that he was going to treatment, he decided to mail a six pages of hand-written folder paper, front and back, detailing his dire circumstances and blah, blah, blah I don't care (I've heard it all so no excuse surprises me anymore). Well, obviously this was reported and I think he's no longer allowed to be evaluated by our doctors anymore, safety reasons and all that. Unfortunately, due to HIPA compliance, I'm not allowed to share it here, but it was actually kinda interesting to read, like his thought process on why he shouldn't be cut-off and he quoted The Beatles for some reason. Now I have to go back and read it. Oh, did I mention that I kept it, the actual, physical letter. I'll probably have to throw it out when I leave, but, since I'm still with the company, I think I'm still allowed to have it, maybe.
Well, that's enough stories for now. Yeah, I've got other ones, some better, though not by much. Some I can't tell because of HIPA compliance (you should hear the names of some of these people), some involve my co-workers and I don't think they want to be named, or those stories told. A couple of them I'm saving for the Call Center stories post either later this month or else next month. Mostly that's all I want to type for now.
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