Art by MeddygonThere is a fine line \ Between genius and madness. \ It is called timing.

Forbes published an article about the company I work for.

They got a few things wrong in that first paragraph.

Last Saturday, my son woke up around eight at night with some goobers in his eyes. Turns out he had pinkeye. Got some eye drops for him and it cleared up. I warned my coworker who had come over that day with her daughter to watch out for it in case her kid got it.

Last Monday, I went to the doctor because my back was killing me. For my lower back, he cracked it and all was good. For my upper back, he wanted me to start taking my muscle relaxants again. I stopped taking them due to breastfeeding, so now I just get to live with the pain and hope Tylenol will work.

Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling as if I’d swallowed barbed wire. I called off work and slept in. Eventually this great glob of blood and mucus came out of my nose, ( gross) straight from my sinuses. It came out while I was breathing normally, no coughing or blowing. I felt better for a while.

Last Wednesday, I went to work feeling one hundred percent better than I had on Monday. I had to leave early, though, because my son had a fever.

Last Thursday, the guy who sits next to me at work called off. I started having coughing fits. My husband stayed home with our son since he couldn’t go to day care.

Last Friday, I was having coughing fits pretty regularly. I felt fine, except for the coughing.

Yesterday, I couldn’t sleep through the night due to the coughing. I waited until my husband got up and slept fitfully during the morning.

Today, I’m up again for the same reasons, except now I have pinkeye.

There seems to be this theory at work that “Tech I”s will do nothing but monitoring all day every day. I don’t think I’ve ever done that here. This means, when a supervisor or program manager, or even the department head asks me, “On average, what percentage of your day is spent on [customer]?” I can’t answer truthfully.

There are days where I don’t even monitor them. There are days where I only monitor and handle emergencies. There are days when I spend all day on them. Because I cannot dedicate my day to the customer, I will never “finish” their alarms, nor will I ever be “caught up.” I simply cannot get them a valid answer to the question.

Without an answer to that question, I cannot answer their next question. (Note: Today is not the first time they have asked me this series of questions.) “If you were able to monitor the alarms using [new software], how much faster do you think you could do the same number of alarms?” No baseline, no way to compare to other customers. Really. Can’t answer that question.
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I usually go about my life assuming that people do not care about me or what I do. This is easy for me to handle because the amount of people who could possibly care account for such a minuscule fraction of the total population. Knowing this, I am usually content. However, this mindset assures me that I should not share with others what I am feeling, as they will most likely not care. If they do not care, then I would be telling them for the purpose of receiving attention. I do not care for insincerity.  This writing is intended for the internet with no target audience other than those who may stumble upon it and take interest. You don’t need to care. I don’t expect anyone to.
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I feel like utter crap right now. I have a headache so bad that it hurts to focus my eyes (yet I still came to work today). I find myself staring into nothingness for indeterminate periods of time, which is severely reducing my productivity. Then, I start thinking that there are people I work with who behave like this every day. Do they have headaches constantly? Or do they just get the stupid effects without the pain? I can’t possibly imagine living like this, even without the pain, every day of my life.

What I thought was allergies over the weekend fucking with my head has culminated into something more sinister. My stomach feels to be in knots, or having difficulty passing a bowling ball through my intestines or something. By gum, this is WORSE THAN MENSTRUAL CRAMPS, and that’s something, oh boy. I once described cramps to my husband as feeling like someone grabbed my insides, just behind the naval, with needle-nose pliers and was twisting for hours.

I truly despise being ill. Not only am I going to miss a day of work, I am mostly incapable of doing anything around the house. Back when I worked as a wage-slave drone at a grocery store, I was thankful of days I was really sick. I have problems lying just to get a day off. Now that I work somewhere that actually benefits from my attendance and productivity at work, I feel terrible missing a day.
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Jorenko’s in Germany on a business trip, attending a trade show. He spent today being a tourist and send me some pictures.

Behold the open-index goodness.

I have a job. Finally.

$12/hr answering phones for an HVAC systems company.

Looks like I won’t be working for Radio Shack after all. Fucking heartless corporation.

*ring*
“Is this Amanda Schroeder?”
“Yes, may I ask who’s calling?”
“This is [name] from the district office of Radio Shack, calling to schedule you for a second interview on Wednesday.”
“I’m currently out of town until Sunday.”
“Oh. Okay. Bye.”
“Wait! Isn’t there a way we can schedule for next week?”
“No.” *hangs up*

…

FUCK YOU RADIO SHACK. Every job I ever try to get doesn’t go through … this is horrid.

Hello, shitty day.

I had a job interview at 6pm today.

Six in the evening.

SIX.

I leave my appartment at 4:30, and get on a bus out to the blue line.

I get on the blue line to go to Cumberland.

Great, 30 minutes to get there, and it’s only 10 blocks away.

I get out of the blue line station to see the 5:40 bus I needed leave five minutes early.

I had to wait until the 6 bus.

I got to the interview five minutes late.

Five minutes after six.

Five minutes …

“Maybe you should have put the effort into getting here on time,” the bitch said.

…

MOTHER OF FUCK. I’m five minutes late, and suddenly, she’s speaking to me as if I’m some fucking slacker. She’s never met me, she’s never seen me before.

But you see, just because I’m five minutes late, I didn’t put any effort into this job interview.

So I walk to the next bus stop to get back into town. I’m way out in the suburbs right now.

Fuck, I hate the suburbs.

I walk to Irving Park, which is about halfway between Belmont and the Cumberland blue line station. I catch the IP bus there.

“Oh, sorry, I’m only going to Central.”

“Whatever, I’ll catch something else there.”

Put the card in, whoops, invalid.
Put the card in, whoops, invalid.
Put the card in, whoops, invalid.

“The thing’s good ’till October, man, just check the back.”

Driver checks back, nods, gives me card.

I get to Central, which is about 1/4 of the way in. Meh. Central bus to Belmont, Belmont bus to home.

Pull up to Central just as Central bus leaves. Next bus, 15 minutes.

Well, bugger.

While another guy and I are waiting, I go into the nearby convenience store and buy a bottle of water. I walk out, guy’s gone. I missed the early Central bus.

SOD.

I see another IP bus coming. I cross the street, this one’s going all the way to Lake Shore.
Whee.

Put the card in, whoops, invalid.

Driver looks at card, “As long as the date’s still good, don’t let anyone kick you off.” Nice drivers exist. Hooray!

IP bus to Brown Line station.

Put the card in the till, whoops, invalid.
“Code 13: See attendant”

“The reader says my card’s invalid. It says it’s a code 13. The card is good until October.”

Hold up card.

“Izit deant?”

“What?”

“Izit deant?”

“Pardon?”

“Yo card, iz it deant?”

“Dent? Hell no, the thing’s flat.”

Show the flat card.

Attendant rolls eyes, and slowly opens gate to let me through, behaving as if it’s some sort of horrid task to do her job.

I get up the stairs in time to see the brown line train leave. Next train, 15 minutes.

8 pm, I walk into Dennis’s Place for Games, and rip the hell out of any song thrown at me.

In a dress.

If I get a job at Radio Shack, I can’t come home for Christmas.

I need a job.

The last three job offers I’ve gotten are looking pretty absent.

I could always work at taco bell, but to them, part time means 39 hours a week.

Every other place I apply at doesn’t call, doesn’t call, doesn’t call.

Every interview I’ve had has been sorry, sorry, sorry.

Everything to do with my school is shit, shit, shit.

It was wrong of me to dream.

I went to bed early last night – early by my usual, that is. 1am. Yay. I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach cramps. I don’t know what was causing them, and I really didn’t care. I was so tired that I just changed position in bed and went back to sleep. When my stomach discovered that it could hurt me in that position, I woke, and moved again. I repeated several times, just waking and falling back to sleep.

I finally get up and stay up at about 9am, because the maintenance guys are cutting a hole in the ceiling of my bathroom. It goes nicely with the hold they cut in my closet last week. The bathroom light is full of dust.

I get dressed and head out to Marshall Fields for the group interview. Of course, they tell me that they have nothing to offer me, even though over the phone they loved the fact that I have much food service experience.
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I finally learned by example how the mind can fatigue the body.

At work, I was tired as hell, but I still did my job. I had no physical reason to be tired. I hate my job, though.

I got off work at 10pm. I walked to Dennis’ Place for Games and played Pump it Up . . .

. . . for three hours straight. No breaks. Not many others were playing, so it was just me, me, me.

Then I walked home, as if I hadn’t expended any energy.

As for the dance scores – I’m getting S’s in Monkey Magic (level 3), Take On Me (level 4), and, of course, Save Us (level 2)

1. Jorenko came out for the weekend. I called off “Sick” from work. I really was sick on Sunday, though.

2. They want proof I was sick. If they’d like to pay for my medical bills, I’ll get their sodding doctors note, but as it stands, I cannot afford it. I can, however, afford to not have a job at Taco Bell.

3. Why can I afford to not have a job at Taco Bell? It interferes with homework. I would like to get things done without having to stress.

4. Once I get things done, I will play games. Such as Pump It Up. Woohoo, workout.

5. Go to hell, fast food.

Well, tonight was good. One of the people who decided not to listen to me when I told him what to do was thrown out of the Bell. :)

Schroe Dot Org (1:58:26 AM): “Daniel” is the shitface who gives me trouble. He was doing it again tonight.
J Jorenko (1:58:40 AM): At TB?
Schroe Dot Org (1:58:44 AM): Yes. Threatened to file a grievance against me, just because I asked him to make one fucking taco supreme while he was standing around doing shit and I was cleaning my line.
J Jorenko (1:59:37 AM): Dear arse.
Schroe Dot Org (1:59:49 AM): It took him five minutes to make it.
J Jorenko (1:59:49 AM): If he’s wrong, what the hell can that do, anyway?
Schroe Dot Org (1:59:53 AM): Nothing.
J Jorenko (1:59:57 AM): Good.
Schroe Dot Org (2:00:40 AM): While he was making it, another order came up. And he just stood there, doing nothing, again. And I was still cleaning. Everyone else was just standing around, too. Read the rest of this entry »

YAY First time back behind the counter of a Taco Bell in 7-8 months. I still got the speed, I still got the skills, and I hate it that there’s people there who can’t wrap 1/6 the speed of me.

I work at Taco Bell again. One week after starting, I will be training to be a Shift Manager.

I repeat:

I GOT A JOB.

I applied for crew, but from what I gather, I’m going to be a shift manager, possibly opening shift. They really liked that I’m available on weekends for any hours. If they have me closing, I don’t mind at all.

Mmm, free tacos . . .