the ongoing saga of my job

The State of Popular Music

It doesn’t just suck here. It sucks in the UK, too.

While reading yet another surfed-upon blog by a total stranger,
I learned that a cover of Barry Manilow’s 70’s hit Mandy has been chosen
as the UK’s Song
of the Year by a local
radio station in Kent. (For you Ohioans, that’s Kent in the UK, not Kent
as in Kent State. Just making sure.) Just out of sheer perversity, I fired
up WinMX and downloaded the tune, by a band called Westlife… and OMFG,
it sounds like some random pop singer(s) doing karaoke to Manilow. I posted
to the blog where I found the linkage, and informed her that popular music
in the UK must be as bad as here in the States, if a cover of Barry Manilow
can make Song of the Year.

In other news, I’ve been feeling like a neglectful Secret Santa
these past couple of weeks. All I got my person was the big gift she’s getting
on Wednesday, which cost nearly the full alloted $15 limit: a mixer. She
probably thinks I’ve forgotten her, especially since I’ve gotten gifts from
my Secret Santa every day since the thing’s been going on. So…
I went to Ben Franklin and spent some more on my person — another twenty
bucks more, actually. I got her a bunch of piddly crap, and the pixie/fairy
doll I bought her was the most expensive for $9.99. I also got her butterfly
stickers, a butterfly suncatcher, a Slinky with butterflies printed on it
(she likes butterflies… could you tell?), and some candy canes. She also
collects fairies and dolphins, but I couldn’t locate any good dolphins. Anyway,
I bought a nice fuzzy stocking to stuff it all in, and I’m going to give
it to her tomorrow.

As soon as I find out where her desk is…

the ongoing saga of my job

Yum.

My place smells so good right now.

First, I lit one of the amaretto candles when I got home from work — actually, it’s the candle with eggnog-scent leftovers in it, and Iadded the amaretto that wouldn’t fit in the sundae cups, plus a new wick. So, walking a few feet from it, you can smell amaretto… which, surprizingly, smells pretty good as candles go. Much better than I’d expected. Then, I started baking my low-carb-brownies-from-scratch again, in preparation for tomorrow’s monthly Birthday Treat Day at work. (I love my new department.) So, after you walk through the amaretto smell, toward the kitchen, you’re instantly barraged with the smell of chocolate. I’m loving it.

It’s a little early to make a prediction, since they’re still warm out of the oven, but I think the brownies are passable this time. I’m going to leave a couple home for Aaron, and take the rest to work. If everybody thinks they suck, well, that’s their prerogative, and I’ll get to take them back home after the day’s done. But I don’t think they suck. No more so than some people’s "regular" brownies do.

Oh, and did I mention that I made hazelnut eggnog this weekend? It’s surprizingly simple… as long as you don’t overcook it. Then the eggs start to cook, and it gets a little lumpy. Yes, I speak from experience. Over the past few days, it’s been sitting in a saucepan in the bottom of the fridge — "getting happy," as Emeril would put it. Tonight, I took it for a spin in the blender to smooth it out and whip it up, and am now drinking my last glass of eggnog with a dash of nutmeg. (Aaron’s glass is in the fridge with plastic wrap over it.)

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I had a moment of weakness today at work. All I brought for lunch was two string cheeses, and I didn’twant to go to Jimmy John’s again… so I succumbed to the snack machine and bought a pack of Soft Batch cookies. Again, as with my last cheat a couple months back, I wasn’t terribly satisfied, despite thinking long and hard about my choice. The chocolate tasted too sweet, and I got a brief but powerful blood sugar spike at my desk afterward. Not shaky, but lightheaded. I knew exactly what it was as soon as I felt it. Let that be a lesson to me… again. It’s just not worth it. Heaven forbid I ever decide to "treat" myself to Olive Garden.

Anyway, they’ve got me actually doing my real job at work now. At least, when there’s enough work to split between two people. I ended up actually reading the online instructions for the web forms I use, surfing the Sky intranet, e-mailing HR about my incorrect W4, anything I could do to stretch out my time at the end of the day. Especially being new to the position, once I figure out how to do something, I can’t force myself to do it s-l-o-w-l-y just to "milk the clock," because I feel the need to prove that I can do what they’ve given me with no problems.

So, today’s schedule was:

  • 8:00am – 8:30am: Turn on computer. Bullshit.
  • 8:30am – 10:00am: Highlight reports. Ask Judy what she does with them.
  • 10:00am – 10:30am: Training session in Tom’s office. Learn how to do my job.
  • 10:30am – 12:00pm: Correct missing birthdates in client information database.
  • 12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lunch
  • 1:00pm – 2:00pm: Look through reports, filtering out non-personal accounts.
    (A company or non-profit organization can’t have a birthdate, silly.)
  • 2:00pm – 3:00pm: Research Cash Letters for Angie in Deposit Support.
  • 3:00pm – 3:30pm: Look through reports again. Seem busy when boss comes by.
  • 3:30pm – 3:45pm: Break.
  • 3:45pm – 4:15pm: Staple reports for Angie in Deposit Support.
  • 4:15pm – 5:00pm: Read job instructions.
    Surf intranet. Look at payroll info.

And that was my day. Woo-hoo… exciting.

But, you know what? I’m OK with that. Especially since the Post Office has been fucking over Lockbox all this week, not getting them all their mail in the 9:30 mail run, so they don’t get their full work to start until 1:00pm. They stayed until 9:30pm on Monday, I’m not sure when on Tuesday, and 6:30pm last night. Loni comes in to my area every now and then, since I’m on her way to the other end of the building, where the restrooms, break room, kitchen, and all that are. She had an interview yesterday (incidentally, for one of the positions I’m helping cover for, the one where I hunt down Cash Letters), and she said it went well. I’m crossing my fingers for her and hoping for the best. She’s been with the company for something like seven years, with Lockbox for five (since its inception), and it’s about time she moved on from Lockbox.

Angie (the one in Lockbox) was hired in from temp to permanent, effective Monday. (This past Monday, I think.) I’m kind of glad for her, but then again, I kind of feel bad that she’s going to be stuck there with shitty hours. Just like I was when I was hired in, actually. I talked with her in the hallway the other day, and she said in no uncertain terms that she plans to stay in Lockbox only for the required six months, then post out of the department to another position. Seems to be all the rage lately… Mary did that earlier this year. (Remember Mary? The middle-aged woman who fell asleep and ran her car into a ditch after a particularly long night in Lockbox?) I’ve been trying to find an appropriate job to post into for the past six or seven months, ever since I was eligible to post out. Now Loni’s looking to post out, and has been for several months herself.

Remember those Ethnic Studies and Sociology classes we had to take in college? Remember the section about immigration? Push factors vs. pull factors? I think that almost every other department loses people to new jobs via pull factors—the other job has a draw to it, something that makes you want it. For Lockbox, though, people leave due to push factors — kind of an "anywhere but here" mentality. Yeah.

And in closing… as I write this entry, the BGSU/Miami game is 35-17 Miami in the 3rd. Sigh.

crafty

Candlemaking Attempt #2

I received my shipment from Bitter
Creek today. Woo-hoo! Here’s an inventory:

  • "Shades of Brown" liquid dye, 2 oz bottle
  •  Hazelnut Fragrance Oil (FO), 1 oz sampler
  •  Rootbeer FO, 1 oz sampler
  •  Patchouli FO, 1 oz sampler
  •  Very Vanilla FO, 1 oz sampler
  •  Cola FO, 1 oz sampler
  •  Amaretto FO, 1 oz sampler

Add that to my Eggnog FO and French Vanilla color block from Brighter
Scents, and I’ve got quite the beginning of a candle cornucopia.
(Please note that I chose scents that could easily be tinted with a
combination of the brown and the french vanilla.) I also ordered wick
stickies (to anchor wicks to their containers), more wicks, and cranberry
liquid dye from Brighter Scents, mainly because Bitter Creek didn’t
carry the stickies, and I had to round out my order to $10 to charge
it. (Darn those small businesses! Just like Hatter…)

So, tonight I tried a second run of candle fun, and it seems to have worked
out a little better this time. I guesstimated how much each of my containers
could hold (this time, I used the mini sundae cups), and I doled out
wax chips by weight instead of volume this time. The large glass measuring
cup was quite helpful for melting and pouring wax, and the small measuring
glass made much less guesswork of measuring FO amounts.

This time, I opted to use the Amaretto scent, and to add but a single
drop of brown to the vanilla dye. I need to remember that the wax will
cool lighter than the initial color when still melted—it started
out the color of a really strong Amaretto Sour, and ended up the color
of a really weak one. Ah, well. I wish I had a digital camera… I’d
show you.

After having the whole apartment smell like Amaretto, I’m not sure this
is a scent of candle I would normally burn… but we’ll see. I still
have to use my remaining half-ounce of Amaretto to mix with the Cola
to make an Amaretto-and-Coke candle. 🙂

I suppose you want to know more about how I’m liking my new job…?

This week so far, I’ve learned to do several things that I never even
knew existed before. First, there’s reports on suspected check kiting.
Check kiting, according to Dr. Damn at totse.com,
is "using the lag time between check cashing and clearing to generate
illegal revenue." Like, when you have two accounts at two different
banks, and write a check from one to deposit into the other, knowing
full well that you don’t have the money in the first account to cover
the check, but also knowing that it’ll take the bank two days to clear
it, and in that time you can write a check from your other
bank to deposit into the first bank to cover it. Follow?

I’ve also learned about Cash Letters. These are how the Federal Reserve
Bank keeps track of where a check has been — the paper trail, as
it were. If a check gets encoded for the wrong amount — say, you
wrote your check for $10.00 but your account gets debited $100.00 instead — sometimes
the bank needs to make a copy of the cash letter to send to the Fed
to say, "Hey! You debited us a hundred bucks here! See?
We want our ninety bucks back!"

So, what have I been doing with these things? Well, I highlight particular
suspects on the report for check kiting, for one. I look at the previous
day’s report, and highlight those account numbers on the current day’s
report, to make Judy’s job easier when she looks them up in the computer
all day. I also go out into the garage and delve into long boxes to
fetch Cash Reports to copy. They’re printed on that old-school greenbar
computer paper (you know, like in the basement of Hayes Hall on-campus?).
To figure out what reports to find and where to find them, I have to
look online in a couple different databases and jump through some hoops.
Overall, it’s relatively simple work, but necessary. My doing it frees
up the other workers to do the things I don’t have access to do… like…
well, come to think of it, I’m not sure what they do all day,
but I’m sure it’s important.

As for my job… it seems that my job for now is to fill in for
two other departments being short a person. I’m OK with that. I’m enjoying
learning more about how the bank works, and the more I learn, the more
marketable I become. Or something like that.

I also found out that the girl who had my position before me, who got
a better job offer elsewhere and quit, left after three weeks in the
position. So, I’m not going to feel bad if I happen to secure another
job in the near future, since I’d be about on a par with her, time-wise.
Of course, I haven’t heard from the companies I had phone interviews
with, so I’m not holding my breath. Although maybe I should check Sunday’s
paper for more jobs, anyway.

randomness

Typical New Job Day

I’d love to say that today was the best day ever, and that my
new job sounds like a joy… but, in fact, it sounds like I’m kind of everybody’s
flunky and general floater for now. I’m doing stuff that I don’t really know
how to do, like filling out peperwork to have the Federal Reserve Bank compensate
us for mis-encoded checks; and I’m doing stuff anyone could do, like highlighting
the account numbers on one report that were already highlighted on yesterday’s
report.

However, I did get out of work at 5:00 today, which was nice,
despite having to clock in bright and early at 8am.

My right eye has been insanely dry and bloodshot all day, and
I’m hoping it gets better overnight. I don’t do the eyedrop thing, even if
we had any. It’s not overly painful, just distracting.

Called my credit card company and changed the name on my card,
finally. I’ll get a new one shipped to me next week. Slowly but surely, I’m
getting things changed from my maiden name to my married name.

I wouldn’t have even done that yet, but the Bitter
Creek Candle Company said that my credit card was having trouble clearing,
so I figured that had to be it — I put the wrong name. Then I checked
my balance online, and I was also a touch low. 🙂 So, I also paid some more
on my credit card, to help fuel my soy candle obsession (and pay for Christmas
presents).

Oh, and I scanned in the photos of Loni’s family I took on Friday.
Just in case you were wondering what kind of insanity I had to endure. FYI,
Loni is sitting on the far right, holding the boy in the gray vest.

later…
I dislike being so tired when I come home from work.
It makes me look forward to going to bed — but then the next thing I
know, I’ll be going to work again, and I hate feeling like work is all I
live for. Hopefully after a week or so of this early stuff, my body will
be used to it, and I won’t be this tired after work.

I’m also remembering what it was like to dread going
in to work every day. Not that I dread this job yet, not after one day, but
I can’t say I have a positive attitude about the unknown. Especially knowing
that I’m going to mess something up eventually, that it’s inevitable, and
wondering what day I’m going to come into work and be faced with fixing some
mistake I’ve made… which is usually twice as time-consuming.

Maybe while I’m getting used to getting up early
and having a new job, I’ll intensify my external job search. It sounds like
I’m general Deposit Support help right now, and they don’t even know if I’ll
really be doing the job I was hired in for, and they’ve already lost one
person in this position to another offer, so what can it hurt? *shrug*

crafty

Feeling Domesticated

Well, I’m certainly feeling artsy-craftsy. Yesterday, I thrifted some candle containers: two small sundae cups, two miniature mason jar drinking glasses (aka salt & pepper shakers), and a dark brown airtight container of some sort, maybe a sugar jar. Plus, I got a glass measuring cup with a spout for melting and pouring wax. Last night I ordered some sticky glue tabs (for anchoring wicks down while pouring wax), more wicks, half a dozen fragrance samples, and two more colors of dye. Today, I bought two more potential candle containers at Goodwill.

hey, beth! i grew this african violet from that one leaf you gave me!I also repotted a bunch of my plants today — I broke apart the remnants of the "dish garden" I got at Memaw’s funeral, since most of it was dead from lack of light and water. (Hey, I couldn’t find a good place to put it where it would get plenty of light and where I’d remember to water it.) So, I salvaged two plants from that. While I was at it, I potted the Christmas cactus that’s been living in a vase full of water for the past two years. Then I thought I was done, and started to rearrange pots and saucers on my one well-lighted shelf o’ plants… and discovered that my spider plant had roots growing out of its watering hole in the bottom of the pot. So, back outside to repot the spider in my only remaining sizable pot, which is a good full foot in diameter. It should have plenty of room to stretch out now.

So, I’m feeling quite wifely and domesticated today, despite the fact that I still have junk sitting on the floor of our computer room, waiting to be cleaned.