Bwiset.

I’m having one of those days where I feel like jumping off a building.

The problem with helping people out is that sometimes most of the time, it’s not enough to give them instructions on what they need to do… they actually want YOU to do it FOR THEM because they really WOULD RATHER NOT deal with it THEMSELVES. I gotta tell you, it’s very annoying especially when you’re at your wit’s end with your own crap and then have to deal with other people’s crap on top of it. Ain’t it craptastic?

Pardon for me for ranting… I must be am tired…

Busy bee.

It looks like I might have to travel to Calgary again for work. I was just looking at my calendar earlier and realized that holy crap, I travel to Calgary every year!

Funny enough, I don’t travel anywhere else for work. It’s only been clients in the GTA and the Calgary trips. I was telling my co-workers how it’s ironic that I keep coming back to one place and one place alone when I want to travel to BC and I never get a client that requires me to go there. Go figure.

A big part me just wishes it doesn’t even go through. I would hate having to go to Calgary in the middle of winter because it gets so very cold there and it would be such a hassle having to travel, carry my luggage, a laptop, and a winter coat, and then go through airport security and all that. And it would be really awful if the city gets hit by a snow storm while I’m there.

It hasn’t been confirmed yet and in the meantime, I am wading through work, frantically trying to get everything done while emails pour in faster than I can say “I quit”.

I make it a point to listen to a bit of music, chat a little and post in between so I can keep my sanity.

The struggle

After about a week and a half off work for the holidays, we returned on Wednesday to a ton of…well… work. I already expected it to be as such but I couldn’t help but feel extremely worn out by late afternoon and all I wanted to do was go home, lie down and sleep.

I actually slept a lot during the holidays… going to bed late and getting up later the following day so having to wake up early for work has become quite a challenge again. Since coming back to work a couple of days ago, I find myself tired but unable to fall asleep and end up staying past midnight and then struggling to get my bum out of bed by morning. Ugh.

Speaking of work and being extremely busy, I noticed that my patience is not quite as much as it normally is. One of our techs has been popping in and out of my office, asking questions and I find myself always waving a hand while silently mouthing “sorry, just on a call… be with you in a bit…” and when I finally am able to talk to him, I am always rushing and a little irritable and I realize that to him, I must seem rude. I don’t mean to be rude… I just don’t have time to dilly dally. He’s a bit new to the company and I know he needs help every now and then until he gets the hang of it. I remember being new to the company once upon a time too and how confusing everything is at the beginning and I remember all those times I, myself, asked my boss for help.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed especially since we have lot on the go, we don’t have another trainer, and we lack tech support reps and this puts an awful lot more on my plate. I struggle a little to keep up with the things I need to do and I’m trying my best to remember everything on my list of tasks. I hope I don’t miss anything important or let something fall through the cracks.

I am thankful for the holiday break that we were able to enjoy… I just kinda wish I didn’t have to deal with so much work when we got back. Yeesh.

W is for Work.

I’ve been saying over and over again how I plan to look for another job. So far, I haven’t accomplished anything. In fact, the resume I promised myself I would update is still sitting untouched on my hard drive. Yikes!

This month marks my second year with the company. I can’t believe it’s already been 2 years! I still feel that I’m not compensated enough so I’m thinking of having a discussion about it with the VP (hwek hwek hwek).

I’ve gotten so cranky the past few months that I’ve stopped trying to be nice all the time and instead of sugar-coating, I just tell the managers exactly how it is. Ok, I haven’t completely gotten over saying yes all the time but now I’m not afraid to tell the managers when I’ve got too much on my plate. I used to just keep on bending backwards for them. I still bend backwards but not all the time anymore. That counts for something, right? I don’t mind doing favors and taking on extra responsibilities… all I ask is that they be considerate with how I feel. Sino ba naman ang matutuwa sa tambak na trabaho tapos walang appreciation!

So it turns out that management has a way of tapping to our PC so they can see what we’re doing. I’ve always had a feeling I was being watched so this almost doesn’t come as a surprise to me. Even if they were monitoring what I did with my time, so what? I’ve always done what I’ve been asked to do and I’ve always been able to deliver as best as I can. If they have been watching me from the get-go, I’m sure they would know how I feel about them. LOL.

Swamped.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. I’ve been so swamped at work and too tired at the end of the day to even think about posting.

So what’s been up since my last post? I went to Calgary on business and stayed there for 4 days. I didn’t really want to go but I didn’t really have a choice either. I mean, how do you say “No, I don’t want to go” to the president of the company, right? At least I was happy about 3 things:

• I got to fly business class to and from Calgary (my first time!)
• I got to take Friday off work with pay and didn’t count as a vacation day
• The clients were pretty nice to me and it was an easy trip altogether

I wanted to go around downtown while I was there but I’ve been told almost eveything downtown closes at 6pm so I spent most of my time walking around the surrounding area of the hotel I was staying at.

I’m also relieved that I am no longer doing the majority of the training sessions since I have my hands full on manual writing and QA. Not that it’s been scratched off completely from my responsibilities but at least I’m not training every single day. It gets really tiring after a while.

The weather has been pretty nice. Normally, it’s a little cold already during this time of the year but it’s still a bit warm for this month which is a bit surprising to me. Not that I’m complaining… you know I love the warm weather.

Another thing, I turned 24 this month! Wahoo! Golly, the years just fly by! It was a simple b-day. Had lunch with Steve’s family that Saturday and then lunch with my family on Sunday both at the Danforth. Steve and I were saying how we are truly “all-danforthed” out! We can’t help it though because the food is always great and the patios are nice. You get to eat and sip a cold drink and just watch people walk by and enjoy a bit of sun. It’s just a bit of a hassle going to and from since traffic is a bit of a killer.

3 people in our office have gotten married this month. There must have been an office memo I missed requiring all single people to marry by this year. LOL!

I’ve been doing a lot better when it comes to managing my finances. I am proud to say I have been able to spend less and actually put aside money on my savings account. Yay! This is a big deal since I really, really need to start saving as much as I can.

That’s that… now back to work. Eck!

Vent.

Eto…vent muna ako kasi pagod.

I left work at about 7 pm last night because I had to train a client. I started training at 9:30 am… yup, it was that long! We didn’t even take a lot of breaks and to be honest the only real break we had was the one-hour lunch we took at noon. I was so tired by the end of the day that I could barely stand at the bus stop.

Naiinis ako… I am so swamped with work and exhausted from training that looking at my work calendar and my list of follow up items always depresses me. Isa pa, I think I will have to fly to Calgary and stay there for 4 days for business during the week of my b-day. Kainis talaga. I’m sure most people love traveling for work. I’m one of those few people that don’t like it. I don’t like it because it’s too much of a hassle for me. They always book my flight the same day that I have to train so I’m always rushing and I’m always too tired at the end of the day to actually have the chance to go around town. Mag-isa pa ako. At least other people get to travel in groups and do things together.

What’s more, the client isn’t pleased with our product but the President wants to send me so that I could “turn things around” so to speak. How could I possibly convince them when the product itself just doesn’t work for them?! Am I expected to make miracles? I feel like a tiny rabbit being sent to a pack of wolves and they’re expecting me to hop around without getting eaten. Great.

Work woes.

I am completely exhausted. The entire tech team has quit, save for one and several of us in other departments have been absorbing the work overflow. My calendar is fully booked with training sessions and I find myself spending more than half my day catching up on my emails and taking support calls. On top of it all, I have to do QA and implement clients which I am struggling to find time to do.

This is the disadvantage of working for such a small company. Everyone tends to do a bit of everything and when someone leaves, everyone else absorbs the work until a new person is hired to do the job. The sad fact is, we’re not even generating as much revenue as we hope so asking for a raise at this point is pretty pointless.

There are days when I feel like resigning but then there are days when it’s all good. But for praticality’s sake, I should look for a new job.

Annoyed.

I’m already exhausted and it’s barely 11 in the morning.

I’ve heard my name thrown around in the tech department, reception and on the phones. I can’t believe all the different things that popped up all at once. As much as I like my name, I don’t like hearing it so many times in one morning especially when you’re a pesky co-worker asking the same questions every single time when I’ve already given you everything you need in your email and all you have to do is read. And you can’t even do that properly. I know I sound mean… but I can’t help but feel annoyed when I’m already spoon-feeding you and you still need me to hold your hand every time.

I swear sometimes I feel the urge to just run out of the office and never come back.

My life as a telemarketer.

It suddenly occurred to me that I’ve never written about my days as a telemarketer. Being new to Canada in ’04 and adjusting to everything, I had spent my first three months going places like Ottawa and Niagara Falls and exploring downtown Toronto. After three months of frolicking, I decided it was about time I started looking for work. I was a fresh grad – I graduated in March ’04 and arrived in Canada in August.

To be honest, I felt lost not knowing what the industry is like in Canada. Back home, I had a pretty good idea of what I needed and where to begin. I decided to get a career counsellor’s opinion. He had advised that I apply for a job that would give me the necessary skills that would help me get to where I want to go (confusing ba?). And so he said that maybe it would be best if I applied for a job that would give me strong customer service skills since having good customer service skills would open a lot of doors for me. So I decided to apply for a position in a call center. I applied to one where I saw potential to move to either the tech or QA department (me being in I.T.).

I sent my resume, got a call shortly for an interview, went in and was offered the job the same day. It all happened pretty fast if you ask me – one minute I was home and jobless and the next minute I was making my way to work. The rules of that call center were quite simple: you begin on the floor (no, it doesn’t mean janitor… silly! It means man the phones) and then work your way up until you get to a position/department you want to be in. Simple in thought, difficult in reality. It was a telemarketing call center after all.

I hated it. I was ready to resign within the first three months. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of moving up somewhere. Although I dreaded work every single day, I wanted to get something out of the awful experience so I stuck to it for almost a year until I was able to get into QA. Once there, I had decided that I’ve ha enough experience to move on and began looking for another job. Soon after, I was able to land my current job.

Although it was a job I hated very much, I have to admit I learned a lot doing it.

I learned…

>> To always try to be polite with telemarketers on the phone although they are extremely annoying.

>> Remember that the person on the other end of the line is only doing his/her job and probably hates it too.

>> I was once on the other end of the line (although I was much nicer…haha)

>> There is no need to swear or yell or be rude on the phone.

>> I can always have my name taken of the call list if I don’t want them to keep calling (by law, they are required to take your name of a call list if you ask them).

>> Hardwork and patience do pay off.

Down below we go

These past few months at work have been excruciating and interesting at the same time. For the most part – painful. I’ve been considering looking for another job. The problem is, that’s all I’m doing… considering.

Most recently, work has been a real rollercoaster ride. Like Steve said, it’s always been a rollercoaster ride but recently it almost feels as if we’re falling right through. Where do we put the blame? There are so many factors that contribute to possible demise of this company.

Several co-workers have submitted their two weeks notice and I think I should do the same. Looking for another job is a lot of work, I admit, but I think at this point it is quite important that I really put effort into it.

It’s time to move on.