Vignettes

Last night I had a panic attack.  I don't have them often, my anxiety is usually more of a general feeling than a full scale attack.  But last night as I tried to go to sleep I had the horrible feeling of being unable to breathe, combined with cold sweats, the shakes, and basically feeling like I was going to die.  I ended up coming downstairs with The Husband, who was still awake and watching "Battlestar Galactica."  I made him change to sometime more cheerful and I ended up sitting up on the couch watching "Annie" until I could breathe again and then started to feel like I might be human.  I was terrified to try taking one of the Pams.  I'm not sure what caused the attack.  Hopefully it's just an isolated thing and I'm better now.

Since I had a bad night last night I decided that I would watch some bad television this morning, because bad television is the best kind, and Hulu said that I would like the show Breaking Pointe*, which is a reality show on the CW about the inner workings of Ballet West in Salt Lake City.  There are lots of people dating other people and drama with the up and coming 19 year old and the older principal dancer.  Although I don't have the best eye, I think that the dancing isn't terrible.  It's fabulous.

I have always wanted to be able to dance, but I've never been graceful.  I have horrible posture and issues with people looking at me and I think that I've lacked grace since I was a child.  I also walk like a herd of elephants is trampling down the hallway.  I grew up with a good friend who was a wonderful dancer.  She danced 5 days a week when we were in school and then danced in college and now has her own studio and company and is pretty awesome, in my opinion.  When the husband and I were first married, we took ballroom dance lessons and I wasn't terrible at it.**.  Granted, no one was going to mistake me for an extra in the movie "Strictly Ballroom,"*** but I never fell down.  It's the little things.

Since I can't tell you a lot, I thought that I'd give you a few vignettes of my time at work.

The first is the guy who only eats blueberries.  I don't know what he does--he's not in my department, but I've seen him several times around the building and he always has a pint of blueberries, which he is eating.  He's a pretty big guy and I've only ever seen him eat blueberries, but he eats the whole pint at a time.  One day, as I left work he was standing outside the building and I thought that he was smoking (which you're only supposed to do in the smoking area), but no, he had another pint of blueberries.  How many pints does he go through a day?  Is there some medical reason for this?  Is there a new blueberry diet that I should know about.  I have so many questions.  I tend to notice little things like this and I always want to ask the person about it, but I don't have the guts to do something like that.  Also, it's probably kind of rude to ask people about their blueberry habits. 

There's also the engaged couple that needs to get a room.  They are like those annoying people from your high school that used to make out like no one was watching between classes and were always blocking access to your locker.  They are the reason that you carried all your books in your backpack at all times.  You cannot escape from them.  And they have followed me to work.  They also don't work in my department, but they are on my floor, so they frequently block my access to the microwave at lunch time.  I've taken to eating things cold, because it's just easier.  One nice thing about these people is that everyone notices them, so we all talk about them.  If I knew them, I would let them know how they are damaging their careers--I kind of can't believe that their managers haven't said anything to them, but I could easily see them thinking that everyone else has a problem and just ignoring any comments.

Finally, we had this paratrooper-like invasion of the IT guy this week.  I work in a locked environment--everyone needs an electronic key to get anywhere and your key will only open the doors of areas where you're supposed to be, so it's pretty rare to see other people in the department.  However this week we were invaded from a very scary IT guy who needed us all to install a new printer.  He came barreling in with his wavy hair, held back by sunglasses like a headband, and started demanding that people print stuff.  Apparently, no one had told him that this was a phone environment because at least 2/3 of us were on calls and we're not allowed to just hang up on people.  Our inability to comply with his instructions made him yell louder, which didn't make the managers too happy.  The managers were also unhappy about the unscheduled time trying to fix a problem that none of us knew that we had.  My computer still won't do what he wants.  I was forced to call other IT people, who didn't really understand what I needed.  They ended the call (which lasted almost an hour) by telling me that it would take "a long time" to fix my problem.  Super. 

So, that's some highlights from this week.  Now I'm going to go back to the Breaking Pointe website and indulge in some bad Internet, to go with my bad television. 


*I'm always amazed at how well Hulu and Netflix know me--they are my friends.

**Not being terrible is my measuring stick--it's a pretty low bar (or maybe I should say barre).

***If you've not seen this film, go to Netflix now and watch it. 

A String Around My Finger

I don't have enough for a whole post, so I'm writing this here to jog my memory for next time.

Remind me to tell you about the guy who only eats blueberries (no joke) and how we were hijacked by the printer guy (I was scared by his wavy hair that was held back by sunglasses being used as a headband). 

Poke me if I wait to long before I fill you in.

Gag Order

There are so many things that I'd like to tell you about the Mothership, but I can't.  Since they are a large and publicly traded company, there are lots of rules.  One specially deals with social media, so although no one reads this, I still want to be careful. 

I can tell you about my new favorite game--accent guessing...

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to talk to people from around the world.  I think this may be unique to me because many of my colleagues find this annoying, but I think its fascinating.  I have to fight the urge to ask lots of questions when I get someone on the phone from a cool country, because we're not supposed to do that.  I'm thinking about getting a little map with pushpins so I can mark off all my countries.  I've started a game with myself, accent guessing, where I try to guess where people are from before my system brings up their address.  Some accents are easier, like Ireland.  Yesterday I had someone from County Cork who could have come directly from the set of "Darby O'Gill and the Little People."  Some are harder, like trying to tell the difference between someone from Boston and someone from Providence.*  It makes the day go faster and I can imagine what people are doing.  My last call today was from New South Wales in Australia and the guy sounded exactly like Crocodile Dundee.

My new office also has a whole cast of characters that I wish I could tell you more about.  I'm currently fascinated with Argyle Socks Guy.  Argyle Socks Guy doesn't work in my department, but he comes down to visit the guy who sits next to me during his (ASG) breaks.  He is always wearing these really thick argyle socks** like my dad used to wear, that never matched anything.  Argyle Socks Guy's socks never match either; that is, they match each other, but with no regard to any of his other clothing.  I want to ask all kinds of questions--are his feet cold, thus warranting the wearing of really thick socks in the summer?  Are argyle socks his "thing?"  How many different pairs does he have?  Does he have some kind of foot condition that they help correct? 

Sometimes there's a lot of time between calls from leprechauns and crocodile hunters, and these are things I think about. 

*I'm doing it domestically too, by region, state and city.  The Husband says its impossible to discern an exact location from anyone from the Midwest, however, I have the company name as a clue. 

**I'm also impressed with my really creative name

“We’d be outraged if we weren’t so exhausted.”

The title quote is from Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, describing what he calls "the smoothest military coup."  Things in Egypt are terrible, but because I am totally irreverent, when I read that quote on CNN.com this afternoon I wanted to print it out and stick it to my desk.  I didn't though, since it kind of sounds like I have a bad attitude.  Taken out of context, it's awesome on so many levels.  I want to put it on bumper stickers and t-shirts.  It could become the new motto for apathetic people everywhere.*

Things at work are getting easier and I thought that I'd share two big differences between my new Triangle and BCFG

• My chair is really comfortable.  I think that we all have these really expensive Herman Miller Aeron chairs that I hear sponsoring various shows on NPR.  I just Googled them and they cost over $800 a piece.  (I'm sure there was some kind of volume discount.)   As you will remember, the chair in my former Triangle was the most uncomfortable chair on the planet.  (And I managed to destroy one chair simply by sitting on it, which is probably up there in my top ten most embarrassing moments ever.  Chairs should not collapse when you are sitting on them.)  This one may be the best desk chair there is.
• We have real Half and Half.  And real coffee.  And tea.  And hot chocolate.  And even purified water with crushed ice that is the perfect size.  It's like they thought of every one's beverage preferences.  The people at BCFG had serious coffee addictions--much worse than my previous addiction to Diet Coke.  You would think that if you drank that much coffee that it would be good coffee, however, that was not the case.  It was this horrible 50% caffeine, 50% decaf from the grocery store.  They also had powdered creamer.  Powdered cream should be against the law.  The Mothership has really good single-serve coffees and teas and, best of all, real half and half.  As my sister said "real half and half  says 'we appreciate you--now get back to work'."**

The one negative right now is that I'm not so sure about this one person who is marginally in charge of me.    I seem to get on her nerves.  Everyone else likes her, so maybe she has to grow on you, or maybe she just hates me for some unknown reason.  I'll keep you posted. 

I'm tired.  (But thankfully, not outraged.)

*Or for people like me who are just really tired.  Like really tired.  

**No idea where the period was supposed to go in that sentence. 

I am a Prairie Dog

I passed my Series 63 this morning.  Thanks to you all for putting up with me when that's all that I would talk about.  I will now triple guarantee that my registration is correct and I should be done taking exams for the rest of my career.  (I have no desire to go for the Supervisory Principal designation.) 

I am done with training at work and settling in to my new triangle, where we are all prairie dogs.  I work in a large, open plan room, where we all sit in pods with desks shaped like triangles.  (I wish I could take a picture for you--it's very hard to explain.)  We are like prairie dogs--poking our heads up over the walls when we need something.  Right now, I have my head poking up a lot.  This job is harder than I thought that it would be.  There's talking and listening and typing and reading all at the same time.  I have greater compassion and admiration for anyone who has worked in a call center before.  It's hard--I underestimated it.  Thankfully, I still enjoy it.  Each call is different and the novelty of talking to people from all over the world hasn't warn off yet.  I hope it never will.

In other news, I am feeling better.*  After the horrible PAM experience, I was too nervous to try another anti-anxiety medication, so I just had to stick it out, waiting to see if the mood stabilizers would work.  Thankfully they did.  I'm not 100% yet, but I'm really close. 

I promise to write more now.  I've sat down to write postings many times, but every time I started to write I would tell myself that I needed to study.  I'll start taking notes about cool things at work.  My manager, whom I like, is about my age and very cool.  He majored in Pop Culture.  Someday I'm hoping that I'm good enough friends with him to ask him what kind of a job he intended to get with that Pop Culture degree**.  He also wears Doc Martin boots to work almost every day, so it's like a little reminder of happy college days every time I see his feet. 

I don't have to go into work for another 3 hours, so I'm going to watch some bad TV.  I love bad TV. 

*I'm hopeful that now that my exam is over I will finally feel truly well. 

**I'm thinking that would be a bad way to start off our employee/manager relationship.  He does know more about "The Simpson's" than any other person I've met. 

Exam Eve

I was going to make him say "Agents, Issuers and Banks are exempt from registration as broker-dealers," but that was too many words.  Good luck will have to do.