Stranger than fiction.
Greetings to one and all. Sometimes I feel like I owe my Loyal Subscribers a certain amount of fiction with my Newsletter. Fiction spices things up. I even had a lovely story all set up in my mind about being how I, as a benevolent dictator, had successfully fought off the rioting banana farmers. But then something happened to me yesterday, proving yet again that I have no need for fiction in this Newsletter. Yet again, truth has proven stranger than fiction. Topics to be discussed today: My crazy day of work, Rebecca's crazy days at school, and two crazy Shoutouts. On we go.
Yesterday was the start of a new shift cycle at ZAGG. Every 90 days or so, the company does something called "shift bids," where employees are able to request different shifts. Despite my asking, I was still designated to the early 6:45 shift, so it looks like my days of getting up at 5:30 won't be quite as short-lived as I had hoped they'd be. How unfortunate. Anyhoo, I headed into the call center yesterday morning and saints be praised if I knew what I was getting myself into. I strolled on in to track down my new cubicle (it ended up being right next to the one I've been at for the last two and a half months - and it's in perfect positioning to watch Disney movies all day when it gets slow) and began to unpack my belongings (paperwork, U of U picture frame, "Toy Story" calendar, etc.). Before I even had a chance to turn on my computer, I was informed by my manager that our entire system was down. Now ZAGG has had its fair share of Comcast fits, experiencing two-hour-long internet outages here and there (slyly referred to by some co-workers as a "system update"... yeah right), which is really a bummer for a largely-internet-based company such as ours. But this was worse - our entire phone system was down, too, so it would be virtually impossible for us to do any kind of work with customers until we were back up and running. I slouched down into place in my new spinny-chair - and, might I add, that I'm completely isolated from the rest of my co-workers. Totally saw that coming a mile away. Four of my teammates are over in the far corner in a square-shaped group and the other three are on the other side of the cubicle wall. I sit alone in my row until other employees come in at 10:45. There I sat and there I waited as time slowly and helplessly ticked on. Of all the days to have a depleted iPod battery... At around 8:30, our system was still down, so they pulled everybody in to the mail processing room where they trained us on some additional products that hit our website for sales over the weekend. Informational? Yes. Fun? No. Good way to keep us busy, though. Let's keep in mind, for the record, that I do not blame ZAGG for the system outage. Not their fault. Kudos to them for trying to keep us entertained. That lasted about 20 minutes or so and then they sent us back to the call floor to sit and wait for something to happen. Nothing happened. So we sat there a little longer. At around 10:30, somebody finally got the genius idea that I had been too shy to suggest for the last four hours and we popped in a Disney video. Five or six of us wheeled our chairs out in front of the tiny little TV and enjoyed "Finding Nemo" in its entirety. After the movie, the team leads encouraged us to take our lunch breaks if we hadn't already. Since the entire day to that point had basically been a break, I just headed back to my cubicle, rummaged around for that infamous puzzle book that I'd had such a hard time locating at WalMart a couple weeks back, and started working through one or two logic problems with my newly-recharged iPod. After finishing the first puzzle, I continued onto the next page when I heard the words I'd been hoping for for hours: "[something something something] feel free to take off" (paraphrasing, of course). It was around 12:45 at this point, so there wasn't a great chance that the system would be up and running by the time my normal shift ended at 3:15, but in that unlikely event, they had all of us give our cell phone numbers to our respective managers just in case. I forked that puppy on over and headed for the parking lot. Ah, that wasn't a bad day of work at all!
As I drove home, I pondered what I'd do with the magnificent and unexpected two hours of freedom that I'd just been granted. What to do? What to do? So many wondrous possibilities! My low fuel light came on as I pulled off the interstate, so I first headed to the local gas station to fill 'er up. I received a discount promo code from my good friends at Redbox earlier that morning and figured I'd put that to good use as well, so I picked up a $1 rental before leaving the facility. Got home, dumped my stuff off in my room, and plopped down on the couch to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Once the DVD got started up and I had started to relax, I ended up pausing the film pretty frequently within the first five minutes of the show. First, my dad called to find out what had gone down at work. I explained the situation and unpaused the movie. About two minutes later, Austin called me, offering to buy me lunch. I graciously accepted. Frustrated, I put my phone away and hoped to just be able to relax with my movie. Not a minute later, I got a phone call from an unknown number. "No, no, no!..." I panted. It was one of the team leads from ZAGG. I was getting called back in to work and I hadn't even been home for 15 minutes. That's P.M.U.!! I had half an hour to get back and had to leave home before Austin even got back with my lunch. I called him as I pulled out of the driveway, thanked him for his efforts, and told him to enjoy my lunch for me. At least I don't live in Herriman, like one of my co-workers does. Apparently she had just walked in the door when she got the call to turn right back around and make the 30-minute drive back to South Salt Lake. That sucks. I walked back into the call center and was greeted by my teammates about the same way I was feeling on the inside: a look of disappointment and incredulity. I almost wished they had just made us stay there the entire time. Going home for 10 minutes wasn't worth the effort, time, or gas money. We could have just stayed there and watched "The Incredibles," starring Craig T. Nelson as Mr. Incredible. And then, what's worse, within two or three minutes of us getting back to work, the system crashed again! We murmured amongst ourselves for about 20 minutes and then we were all summoned back into the mail room where we were forced to play some get-to-know-you type game with the rest of the company that was clumsily tied into some principle about good customer service. Again, I don't blame them. But I was just getting a little antsy being pulled into that room over and over. I've watched enough movies and seen enough TV to know that nothing good happens when you're crammed into a large warehouse-type room with a bunch of strangers. Usually that's when the drop the bomb on you and inform you that you've all been chosen to re-populate the post-apocalyptic world. Luckily, that announcement never came. That would have been a nightmare. They sent us back to our seats after a while, claiming that the system was back up and, after a few more spurts of system failure - and realizing that whoever set up my computer didn't plug it in right, making it the last computer in the building to regain internet access - we were able to start returning calls to customers that had called us that morning and left us a message. (Who does that??) In the end, I only made one outbound call to some guy that didn't even answer his phone, so I left him a message asking us to call him back before I was finally free and able to go home. I made sure to walk really fast out to my car before they could change their minds again. (Kind of reminded me of finally getting my diploma from the U. Grab that sucker, run, and never look back.)
Last night I went home and typed this whole story up. It was longer, originally, and probably better written. I swear I clicked "save as draft" at least twice and Yahoo! Mail also has an autosave feature for emails as you compose them. Somehow, magically, right before I went to bed last night, I guess it decided at some point to unsave itself, so I lost it all, subsequently freaking out many of my Facebook friends with my status: "Aaron Christensen just lost it all." It's all right people. I'm fine. I just think that if people worried as much about themselves as they did about me, this would be a much, much better world that we live in.
These are the good stories, people. This is the reason I write the newsletter. If you wanted good fiction, you could all go back to reading "Twilight" or something, but when the reality outshines my aging imagination (or when the creativity runs dry), it's the true stuff that makes it to print. I'm sure many of you think I make this stuff up, but this is my awesome life. I couldn't make this stuff up. A girlfriend of six months that dumped me to get engaged to some bloke I'd never heard of just seven days later? Really happened. Getting called back to college after mentally having been graduated for a month? Factually sound. Going on a date with that incredibly shallow girl that not only told me that my hair sucked and that I was too skinny for her, but then proceeded to send me three or four pictures of her shirtless ex-boyfriends just to show me what kind of guys she's allegedly used to dating? Under-exaggerated, if anything. If nothing else, I just want you people to realize that when crappy things happen in life, there are two things you can do: you can whine about it and feel bad about yourself or you can whine about it in a blog and Feel Good About Yourself. I choose the latter. My life is the best and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except maybe a couple million dollars. That's the Bottom Line and if all of you choose to point out my typos and crazy unintentional font changes on Blogger, so be it. You don't see me making fun of any of you, do you? But do you know who you do see me making fun of with increasing frequency these days? Rebecca Black.
Yesterday was the start of a new shift cycle at ZAGG. Every 90 days or so, the company does something called "shift bids," where employees are able to request different shifts. Despite my asking, I was still designated to the early 6:45 shift, so it looks like my days of getting up at 5:30 won't be quite as short-lived as I had hoped they'd be. How unfortunate. Anyhoo, I headed into the call center yesterday morning and saints be praised if I knew what I was getting myself into. I strolled on in to track down my new cubicle (it ended up being right next to the one I've been at for the last two and a half months - and it's in perfect positioning to watch Disney movies all day when it gets slow) and began to unpack my belongings (paperwork, U of U picture frame, "Toy Story" calendar, etc.). Before I even had a chance to turn on my computer, I was informed by my manager that our entire system was down. Now ZAGG has had its fair share of Comcast fits, experiencing two-hour-long internet outages here and there (slyly referred to by some co-workers as a "system update"... yeah right), which is really a bummer for a largely-internet-based company such as ours. But this was worse - our entire phone system was down, too, so it would be virtually impossible for us to do any kind of work with customers until we were back up and running. I slouched down into place in my new spinny-chair - and, might I add, that I'm completely isolated from the rest of my co-workers. Totally saw that coming a mile away. Four of my teammates are over in the far corner in a square-shaped group and the other three are on the other side of the cubicle wall. I sit alone in my row until other employees come in at 10:45. There I sat and there I waited as time slowly and helplessly ticked on. Of all the days to have a depleted iPod battery... At around 8:30, our system was still down, so they pulled everybody in to the mail processing room where they trained us on some additional products that hit our website for sales over the weekend. Informational? Yes. Fun? No. Good way to keep us busy, though. Let's keep in mind, for the record, that I do not blame ZAGG for the system outage. Not their fault. Kudos to them for trying to keep us entertained. That lasted about 20 minutes or so and then they sent us back to the call floor to sit and wait for something to happen. Nothing happened. So we sat there a little longer. At around 10:30, somebody finally got the genius idea that I had been too shy to suggest for the last four hours and we popped in a Disney video. Five or six of us wheeled our chairs out in front of the tiny little TV and enjoyed "Finding Nemo" in its entirety. After the movie, the team leads encouraged us to take our lunch breaks if we hadn't already. Since the entire day to that point had basically been a break, I just headed back to my cubicle, rummaged around for that infamous puzzle book that I'd had such a hard time locating at WalMart a couple weeks back, and started working through one or two logic problems with my newly-recharged iPod. After finishing the first puzzle, I continued onto the next page when I heard the words I'd been hoping for for hours: "[something something something] feel free to take off" (paraphrasing, of course). It was around 12:45 at this point, so there wasn't a great chance that the system would be up and running by the time my normal shift ended at 3:15, but in that unlikely event, they had all of us give our cell phone numbers to our respective managers just in case. I forked that puppy on over and headed for the parking lot. Ah, that wasn't a bad day of work at all!
Could have been worse. I could have been getting yelled at by customers all day.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
These are the good stories, people. This is the reason I write the newsletter. If you wanted good fiction, you could all go back to reading "Twilight" or something, but when the reality outshines my aging imagination (or when the creativity runs dry), it's the true stuff that makes it to print. I'm sure many of you think I make this stuff up, but this is my awesome life. I couldn't make this stuff up. A girlfriend of six months that dumped me to get engaged to some bloke I'd never heard of just seven days later? Really happened. Getting called back to college after mentally having been graduated for a month? Factually sound. Going on a date with that incredibly shallow girl that not only told me that my hair sucked and that I was too skinny for her, but then proceeded to send me three or four pictures of her shirtless ex-boyfriends just to show me what kind of guys she's allegedly used to dating? Under-exaggerated, if anything. If nothing else, I just want you people to realize that when crappy things happen in life, there are two things you can do: you can whine about it and feel bad about yourself or you can whine about it in a blog and Feel Good About Yourself. I choose the latter. My life is the best and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except maybe a couple million dollars. That's the Bottom Line and if all of you choose to point out my typos and crazy unintentional font changes on Blogger, so be it. You don't see me making fun of any of you, do you? But do you know who you do see me making fun of with increasing frequency these days? Rebecca Black.
Jared Anderson, ever the contributor to Newsletter topics these days, sent me an article last week about young Miss Rebecca about how she has dropped out of public school because people are bullying her. You can check the article out here. I find this quite humorous, actually. "When I walk by, they'll start singing 'Friday' in a really nasally voice," she complains. "Or, you know, they'll be like, 'Oh hey, Rebecca, guess what day it is?" How about this? If you don't want them to mock your singing voice, how about you get a better one? They're only mocking you like that because that's how it actually sounds. You're not a good singer, girl. Give it up and tell your parents to stop using you like a slave. And hey, if you don't want to be made fun of every Friday, maybe don't sing a song about a specific day of the week. That would be like asking all my Loyal A-Towners not to think of me every single Tuesday. Tuesday and I are inseparably connected forever more. As are you and the start of the weekend. Together forever, sadly. We've made my beds and now we can lie in them. Not together, though, of course. That's sick and illegal. Seriously, though. What do you expect? You want the fame, you want your "moment," as your new song suggests, now either deal with it or go away. I can't possibly end this segment without a rousing chorus of Boos, can I? Ready? Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!! At least when she's getting home-schooled she won't need to worry about which seat to sit in on the way to school with her friends.
"People don't like me and I can't understand why!"
Finally, for the Shoutout of the Week, I'll give it to somebody I've never met, never communicated with, and, for all intents and purposes, never even seen. There's some girl out there named Larissa who blogs. Here cleverly-titled ramblings are called "Larissa Explains It All," a reference to Melissa Joan Hart's rise to stardom on Nickelodeon. I appreciate that. Another thing I appreciate is that she wrote an awesome review of Taylorsville's production of "Into the Woods." Larissa offered an honest critique with a sort of behind-the-scenes perspective that discussed not only the final product (the performances that went Thursday-Monday two weeks ago), but also the struggles we had putting the show together. She even makes a veiled reference to Howard at one point in the blog, which gave me a good chuckle. Anyway, Larissa, you may or may not ever read this, but thanks for the review. I was originally scared to death to see what you had to say, but I ended up really enjoying it. Thanks for not ripping on us too much... and glad that you enjoyed the production. Happy Tuesday to you from all of us here at "Signs of the Times."
That's about it for this week, kiddies. Here's another quick little Shoutout before I go to my little sissy, Amos. Amy is moving down to Ephraim on Saturday. Yes, Ephraim, Utah - Land of the Free, Home of the Badgers. She'll be starting her college education next week which exciting for multiple reasons. First, for her to get a larger brain and expand her intellectual horizons. Very good, sisterz. Secondly, I just can't wait for her to move out so I don't have to see her all the time anymore. Jokes. Mostly. But seriously, that's all for now. I'll be back next week, most likely... unless something crazy happens like... if a giant monster destroys my house and carries me back to its mountainous dwelling place.
Until next Time,
Move It! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!
Aaron
2 comments:
Hey! Larissa here - Thanks for the shout out and for reading my blog! you pretty much made my day.
But you did just kind of make fun of me didn't you??
Regardless, I liked the story. Yet another reason to add to my list of reasons to not work at a call center. TGIT.
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