If Time Stood Still

You know how God stopped time for Joshua and the Israelites while they battled the Amorites? Well, I wish He would stop time for me today. I'll try not to give too many details just because I know how long I can go on, just giving the details about something. Here's the deal, I work in an office environment. My job is to support the sales representatives of my company. I only have four actual reps that I personally deal with on a daily basis, however, these four reps provide me with more work than what some of my coworkers receive from their Six or more reps. Anyway, on top of the work from the reps, I also have to answer an untold number of emails each day (my daily average of emails I send is around 30), fill out spreadsheets, and assist my coworkers with work that I may know more about than they do. This all said, I'm busy from the time I begin my work in the morning until 3:30pm when I leave for the day. I do work a full eight hours each day, if not more since I am at my desk each morning by 5:30am. Those are the details of my job. This is my problem: Two of the reps that I deal with are all from one group known as Seattle because the group originated in Seattle. This group does an enormous amount of work and should technically have their very own dedicated operations (that's me) person. They are also VERY picky. and Impatient. They seem to forget that they are not the only reps in the world. They want all of their billing and new orders taken care of the very day that they are sent in. Unfortunately, what they don't see is all of the other work that I have to do each day. This past week, it came to light that I was two weeks behind in my work and let me just tell you that my supervisors have NOT been happy. At the same time, neither one of them cared to listen to my side of the issue. The side that deals with a massive amount of work each day. Now here's where it gets fun. These Seattle people are very on top of their orders. Not a bad thing in the least unless you're already bogged down with other work. There are only eight hours in a work day and no matter which way you push or pull, twelve hours of work is not going to be completed in eight hours. No way. No how. So, because I got behind, Seattle went to the Vice President of my company and complained to him. And you wanna know who is getting all the blame for this mess? Me. The person who has more work than there are hours in a day. And what did my direct boss have to say about it? "I realize you have alot of work, but how are you two weeks behind?" I really didn't even try to explain. It just would have sounded like I was trying to make excuses for being lazy.

So, what would I do if time stood still? Depending on the time that God gave me, I'd get completely caught up on my work then I'd go look for another job and I'd quit my current one before time started again. And I would NOT look back.

Why do I have to be SuperWoman?

My coworker was let go last night and I inherited her work. Now, instead of supporting eight sales representatives (including the two MOST Demanding!), I support seventeen. Yay. Yes, I'm complaining. I'd rather complain here than put my extremely overworked boss through the wringer because she has to hear me complain at work.

Let me explain the complaining. There is this particular sales team that is highly demanding. Everything has to be done by them, approved by them, sent through them. I can't do my own job because they HAVE to do it for me. Why? Because they honestly don't think anyone else can understand their orders. They've told me that to my face. That I can't do my job. Ooookaaaay. Whatever. Anyway, because this team is like this, the easiest way for the Operations team (my work group) to handle them is to have only one person handle everything of theirs instead of splitting everything up like we do with everyone else. (One person in our group does invoicing and billing, while I do order processing and random questions answering and all the other little stuff.) No, since this group is so special, I have to handle all the processing and random questions for all my other sales reps on top of doing EVERYTHNG for this one group. Just an example of how much work Everything is...I spent 10 of my 11 1/2 hours at work today taking care of just the invoices and billing requests for this one group. I didn't even get to the urgent order that needed to be processed for another sales rep or even the normal everyday order from another rep. That ANNOYS me! Really. Why do people have to be so selfish!?! The work could be done just as well, if not better, if this group would just let my group do our jobs!

I know I sound bitter, and that's partly because I really am. I just don't understand how one person can be expected to be Superwoman and accomplish 2 weeks worth of work in 8 hours. Yet, that is my job. To be the one that everyone depends on. Without complaining. *sigh* I just keep telling myself..."26 more piano students and then I can quit my job. Just 26 more."

You wouldn't happen to know anyone in the Chantilly, Virginia area that is looking for a piano teacher, would you?

What else can go wrong?

This morning I forgot my badge and my keys for work. First time ever. I had to "sneak" into with someone else and then after logging on to my computer ourside the elevators, I IM'd my former boss, who, since it is Monday, was in the office early. David came up to the front of the office and let me in, but I was still without keys. I quite actually sat at another person's desk for two hours this morning, working while waiting on Adam, our IT guy, to come in and unlock my actual office. While I was waiting, I managed to tear a huge hole in my nylons.

My day managed to right itself within a matter of moments once I made it into my office. BUT, then I found myself starving by 10:30am. For LUNCH. At 10:30am. So, I ate lunch, Chicken Noodle Soup, at 10:45am.

The remainder of my day at work went by without any more hiccups.

When I got home, I needed to give Rocky a bath. Consequently, I bathed Rocky then proceeded to clean the bathtub and my shower since Rocky gets his bath in the master bathroom's bathtub. Unfortunately, while I cleaned, my wonderful puppy decided that he needed to pee. Right on my carpet.

Other than all that...my day really was fantastic.

How was yours?

The Work Monster

I really don't know that I want to write about work, but I just have to share with everyone a little bit of my pain. Hopefully, just writing about it will help the pain to ease. To start out I suppose I need to give a brief run down of my job. I process orders from the government for IT products. In order for me to send an order to a vendor (such as Dell) for a product, I first have to send it to our management company so that the order can be added to the "system". One girl, in particular, is in charge of adding the new order to the system. She is the work monster (WM). She does things on HER time. It does not make a difference to her if the government requires the products to be delivered next week or next month. She will still take her time. Those of us in order processing will mark an order Urgent if we need it as soon as possible. Seems to me, that those are the orders that tend to take the longest to be added. See, we expect a time delay of about one week for any particular order, but Urgent orders are supposed to be added within a matter of hours. WM MIGHT get to our Urgent orders in 24 hours. MIGHT. Not one hour after receiving the order...no...24 hours. Yeah, that's urgent alright! Anyway, I know this means nothing to any of ya'll, but I had to get this off my chest. i'm tired of deflecting questions from the sales reps and the customers about status updates just because someone REFUSES to do her job. The worst part...we can't do anything about it. Everyone has tried.

Okay, I can't say I feel alot better, but I do feel a little better.
Please don't think that my entire job is like this. There are days when WM is having a great day and we get order entered within minutes of sending them to her so this isn't an EVERYDAY occurence...just most days.

Anyway, I'm done complaining now. thanks for bearing with me. I'm still working on how I'm going to change my life when it come to WM. Will I confront her about her inconsideration of other people or will I continue to keep my mouth shut and let her continue to make our lives more difficult?

Using What I've Learned

I called my mom today to get ask her to pray for a girl I know who has been having all kinds of problems for the past year. Anyway, as I talked to my mom, I heard, as I usually hear when my younger sister is home from college, about how Rachel isn't helping my mom out. Of course, this means that I then have to talk to Rachel about needing to help Mom. Rachel usually has some kind of excuse and today was no different. Except that she tried to turn it around on me and tried to tell me that I needed to stay out of it. I hung up on her. After a few minutes of thinking, considering what to say and how to say it, I called Rachel back. I got her voicemail and left a message. Not too long after I called again and actually got her. So, getting to the point...since I've been having problems with my supervisor at work, I've learned quite a bit about handling different issues. The issue that crosses from work into personal life right now is this...Rachel and I are typical of our family...therefore we both have slight problems with communication or miscommunication, as it were. See, we tend to act on what we know needs to be done, but fail to ask what the person in charge would like us to do. In Rachel's case, that would be Mom, in my case, my boss. I have been learning that the best way to deal with this in the workplace is to keep my boss in the loop. It's not so much that she needs to tell me what to do as much as she just needs to know that I am letting her know that I'm working on something. I shared this with Rachel this evening. Told her that if she goes to mom with something already in mind, then she just needs to tell Mom this and give Mom the option of what Mom wants Rachel to do. Basically, cover yourself by putting the ball into your boss's hands. Yes, it is, in essence, a cop-out, but if it keeps Rachel from getting in trouble and out of a lecture from Alicia or I again, then it has worked. We'll just have to wait and see whether or not Rachel will act on my advice.

What do you think? Is it too much of a cop-out or do you think it might work?

I'm so Excited!! *Edited*

I actually got through to get Twilight tickets this morning! One of D.C.'s radio stations is giving away tickets to a 12:01am showing of Twilight for tomorrow. Yes, that's after midnight so I won't even get home until just before the time I would be leaving for work so I'll be headed straight to bed when I get home from work today. I can't just call off work. No sick days and I'm not willing to use a vacation day just because I decided to go watch a movie. Plus...that's just not honest or a good policy. I'm not okay with that.

Anyway, I'm not one of those raging Twilight maniacs, but I DID enjoy the books immensely. My older sister, Alicia, got me into them. I have to admit that since I read the vampire/fantasy genre consistently, the Twilight books weren't THE BEST BOOKS EVER! to me, but they were still very intriguing. I will recommend these books to any readers that enjoy fantasy or vampire stories.

*Edit* I'm not going to go. I know. How is following all the rules changing my life? Well, some things shouldn't change, I suppose. Joseph, my husband, and I are trying to pay off some bills so any extra money is going straight to that. You might be thinking, 'But, the tickets are FREE, Hannah,' and you're correct, but gas isn't free. Unfortunately. We would have to drive almost an hour away just to get to the theater. (get this...the theater is about two minutes away from where Joseph works.) By the time the movie lets out, it would be around 2:30, 3:00am...drive another hour home and that makes it time for me to go to work and time for Joseph to wake up and get ready to drive another hour Back to his work. Useless waste of gas. I hate being sensible sometimes.

One of those days

You know those days where you just don't want to do anything? That would be me today. I really didn't want to work. I suppose the change of life today would have been to convince myself to be upbeat and happy, but I just couldn't. I'm so tired. I've been tired all week. See, I don't sleep well. The only time I've managed to sleep well through the night is after drinking a Venti size mug of Sleepytime tea using local wildflower honey instead of sugar. Yeah, I've been out of honey all month.
Do any of ya'll have any tips for sleeping well through the night?

Looooong Day

It is only 5:47pm but to me it seriously feels like 8 o' clock to me. For some reason this day has been unbelievably long. I woke up three minutes after my alarm went off, only I never heard my alarm this morning. (my body is crazy like that.) Anyway, I start work latest by 5am each day. Yes, that's wicked early, but I like it that way. I prefer the early morning hours before anyone else come in because I can get more work done in those four hours than I can in the remainder of my day. Anyway, I was fairly well caught up with everything from last week so today I was actually looking for things to do. It was so bad that I even took some work off LaDonna's desk since she was out sick today. I'm not your average office worker in any sense of the definition, but I usually enjoy my work. I guess the weather caught up with me. There may have been a beautiful sunrise this morning, but the clouds didn't take long to show up. This is probably the most rambling blog post ever, but I wanted to write something about the length of today. Hmmm. I suppose you could say that the long day just made me crazy. Yup. It helped anyway.

They Really do Love Me

Inside: You're not spoiled. You're entitled!
Heather's card

My co-workers, I mean. I knew they liked me...or, at least, pretended to. But then, I went to work this morning. First time this week. I was greeted by a VERY decorated desk and work area. LaDonna (my work BFF) went in on Sunday and put up Happy Birthday signs and Balloons all around, above, and on my desk. Such a wonderful surprise. Then, all throughout the day I received warm belated birthday wishes and greetings along with, surprise of all surprises, presents! Tina started off with hers. "I didn't have a gift bag, so I had to use Christmas wrapping paper." Are you kidding! You're giving me a PRESENT! I don't care WHAT it's wrapped with. (wasn't she wonderful!?!) It's Martha Stewart Chocolate Cake mix. Doesn't that cake on the front look delectable?? (see below)
Diana was next with the tastiest chocolate cake ever! Gina followed a few minutes later with two, count them...TWO boxes of chocolates.LaDonna treated me to lunch from Willards. Best BBQ sandwich EVER!!!! Then, because apparently a cake wasn't enough, Diana and her sister, Rosa (my supervisor) finished everything off with a Coach wallet. COACH. I am now convinced that the days AFTER a birthday are better than the actual birthday. Oh! then...I get home and I had a birthday card in my mailbox from my favorite Maryland friend, Heather.

My new COACH wallet.

Cake mix from Tina

Best Birthday after college. Period.