fuck this job.com

Just thought I'd say hey. I was reading my blog for shits and giggles and thought I would update it. I did take the dispatcher job that pays shit, but I got a small raise. (Emphasis is on the SMALL part, but I'll take what I can get.) I've checked out some other opportunities but nothing really pans out ever. But, I'm over halfway done with my masters now - nearly ALL done with the actual classes, it's just the internship and thesis that will be a bitch. I start my internship - which is actually at a really good site - this fall. I've had some issues with the current job, but I discovered that 2/3 of my supervisors are good people. One understands every one of my frustrations, tells me that I'm one of the top people in terms of numbers, and therefore she doesn't want me to be frustrated so I can always come to her if I am.

One of my best friends, who worked at my previous place of employment and whom I helped to get the job, got fired last week after not quite one year at the company. She got fired for blogging on myspace.

How did they find out??? Because another employee had a myspace. He was friends with a former coworker, who was friends with me, who was friends with her. Then he quit. Then he decided to come back, and they fired the guy who they had hired to replace him, and demoted another guy from a supervisory position so this dude could make his triumphant return. My friend blogged about it and said a few words about him - nothing too horrible, just that he was a pervert and an idiot. He found it and his ego couldn't take it. So he went to the company VP with a blog that she had written about the VP, and since HIS ego couldn't take it, he fired her.

So I just started a new job, and while I like it so far, the pay is not very good. Meanwhile, I decided it's in my best interest to keep my eyes open for a job with better pay and benefits that is in the field I'm studying (money for school and the ability to do an internship where I work would be awesome!). So I saw a good opening, but I have to fill out their application. Should I list my current job and that I started it in 1/07?? It's a government position so it will probably take a few months before I'd even get in if I got it, but I don't want it to look bad to them that I took a job and I'm looking for a new one right away.

This is just getting frustrating. It seems like I'm qualified - perfectly qualified, without even having to stretch the resume - for a number of jobs. Yet all I get offered are low-paying jobs that don't require a degree. I was reading through my blog (not here, my other blog) and two years ago I interviewed for a job that would have matched my skills and interests perfectly and I demonstrated as much. They even mentioned Spanish and video production as two things they usually had to outsource, but things that I can do, and asked if I would be interested in taking those on. Absolutely! I sent them a follow-up letter that even expanded on some things I had mentioned in the interview. Didn't get it. That's how it always goes.

....that she's found me a "paper-shuffling" job, and those were her EXACT words, that's probably bad news, right??

Oh well. I really need the money. I told her to go ahead and send my resume.

I've already interviewed for those and I don't get them, because it's clear that all my experience is in customer service. Granted, customer service also sucks, but I'd rather get to talk to humans at some point during an 8 hour day and I think the cubicle farmers don't think very highly of that kind of preference.

Why does the world have to be so fucking ridiculous? I'm smart, I work hard, I try my best, I've worked since I was 16, and here I am, 25 with a BA, broke and unemployed. I don't know how my rent will be paid after this month. My parents have to pay my car insurance. Temp agencies have nothing for me (even though I'm bilingual, have 1 1/2 years full time office/customer service experience, know MS Office like the back of my hand and type 75 wpm). The call center I applied at a while back won't let me apply for 6 months because I "withdrew" my application. The idiots called me one day out of the blue asking if I wanted to take an employment test that weekend and I said not at that time because it looked like I had another opportunity that I wanted to take. They are ALWAYS hiring people!

So exactly two weeks after my termination, I've got a meeting set up with my former supervisor's supervisor. Thank God her office is at a different site so I don't have to see the old boss. I've got everything written down and I'm trying to work on what to say without sounding whiny and bitter. Trying to get them to see that yes, I do know it's frustrating to have a new employee immediately take almost two weeks of sick time, but I had doctors notes, it was an unfortunate and rare situation, and when I came back to work I felt like I was set up for failure and not given a chance to prove that missing work is out of character for me.

So I had a job. I quit so that I could go to school (couldn't while I was working until 7:30 every night) and find a new job. I had money saved up for that purpose. Luck, and money, was running out, and then I got a new job that paid a little more than my last job. And I enjoyed the work. Then I got pneumonia and had to take eight days off. I don't know if anyone has had pneumonia before, but it is completely incapacitating. I ran a high fever (over 100 - highest was 103.6) for a week. I didn't have the energy to stand up long enough to take a shower for two weeks. I'm not lazy or inactive either. I'm 25, healthy, and typically I work out (lots of cardio) 4-5 times a week. After a month, I'm finally getting well enough to work out again without feeling like my lungs are collapsing.

I just got fired for being ten minutes late yesterday and for taking unpaid time off due to having pneumonia.

Meanwhile, the guy that was hired at the same time as I was showed up 2 1/2 hours late, missed a computer test he was supposed to take, and all they did was reschedule it.

Now I have no job and the bills from having pneumonia are starting to arrive in the mail.

Ain't that some shit??????

HOW can a woman who is so condescending and tactless and unfair and clueless and non-empathetic and not understanding ever have gotten a career in social work???? How much is she fucking up with clients who I actually want to help??? I truly hope that I'm not just young and idealistic. Matter of fact, I'm going to tell all my friends that, if after I get my MS and counseling license I end up like HER, they need to force me to quit my job and go flip burgers.

She fucking talks to me like a child, threatened to fire me because I was sick (pneumonia for fuck's sake, which I still have because it takes months to go away, and I had my medical records and doctor's notes to prove it), and threatened to fire me because I got to work 10 minutes late because I was so paranoid about being late (she had warned me before) that I was speeding even though I was on time and got a fucking ticket. We don't even punch a clock, we track our own hours, and I was STILL the first case manager there!! And I'm in training - I'm shadowing - so if I get there first I get to sit around and play with my computer!! Yay!!! Other employees even told me to ignore her, but then today she comes barging into my office with a contract for me to sign saying I won't be late for any reason - even by five minutes - for six months. I told her NOBODY in the world could promise that and I've never known anyone who would have been able to stick to that. Especially not when I live in the area where it will snow soon and everyone gets into accidents on the interstate when it snows. She told me to get snow tires. Can you believe that?? I asked what about the five-car pileup in front of me that happens because none of THEM have snow tires. Bitch changed the subject.

I am SO FUCKING FRUSTRATED right now. I don't even know if I'll have a job tomorrow because I've been horribly, insanely sick. In less than two weeks I have been to my doctor twice, urgent care three times, and the emergency room once. So I've missed eight days of work (including the one day I came in and the guy training me refused to train me and told me to go home. That was the day of the evil bitch supervisor and getting bitched at for having my feet on his desk.)

I DO have doctors notes in my posession that account for every day I haven't worked. I have been so sick that until yesterday, walking from my bed to the couch left me worn out and out of breath. All three times I was at Urgent Care, my temperature was over 100. (103.6 once!) Today I got a call from both of my supervisors that those notes were not enough. They told me at 4:15 pm today that if I didn't have DETAILED notes from every day stating that it was impossible for me to work and exactly what was wrong, I won't be allowed to work tomorrow. I offered them my ER discharge papers with the diagnosis (FUCKING PNEUMONIA - all because nobody could figure out the right antibiotic for it) and the assumption that that was what I've had this whole time. Nope, they said with no accompanying note saying that you can't work with pneumonia (???!!), it was worthless.

So I think I'm really going to like this new job I've got. I'll have a lot of responsibility, I'll be kept busy, but I'll have people who can help too. It's in the exact field I've wanted to be in for years. I like all the people I work with.

Except....

....the boss is going to drive me crazy. As luck would have it, I got sick right before I started working there. It's turned into the worst sinus infection I've had in my life. Seriously - it's lasted two weeks so far and I am on my THIRD script for antibiotics because nothing seems to touch it. So, last Friday I called in sick and went to the doc. Was still sick Monday and Tuesday. Managed to go back Wednesday, but when I got home my fever came back with a vengeance so I went to urgent care. Took off yesterday. Tried to go back today because the doc had said I should be ok today. I wasn't. I was working with one of my coworkers and when he noticed that I was shaking, having to constantly lean or sit on something, and about puked walking by the cafeteria, he took me back to his office. I thought we were going to work on sit-down stuff, but he told me to sit at his desk, put my feet up, and relax and he was going to go ask if I could go home because I looked like I needed to.

Arrrrgh!! I did everything right when I was starting to set up interviews; I approached people and asked if I could use them as a reference and trust them enough to be responsive and positive....two people (in addition to the wonderful former boss whom I've used for years and tells people I'm the best worker in the world) wholeheartedly agreed. One person at my lsat job even volunteered before I asked, because he knew I wouldn't want to use my cunt of a boss.

Why don't they fucking DO IT then? I really want this job, I have a good shot at it, but they just called to tell me they're having trouble getting a hold of those two!! I have to either somehow make them call this job TODAY or find two alternates! Yeah right! They have to be professional, not personal.

As of yesterday at 8:00 (yes, I came in early and left late on my very last day which also happened to be my birthday....although I did take 2 1/2 hours for lunch and had a nice cold draft with some of my friends) I am unemployed, and it feels great!!!!!

My very last day, two CSRs were allowed to take vacation days. The problem with this is that we only have six CSRs. My boss rarely lets two people take vacation the same day, and she knew I desperately needed to get everything caught up for the next person and I've been slammed with stupid shit all week. Not that I would care about getting caught up, but again, the next person is my friend, so the part of me that is nice to my friends really did care.

I come in this morning to find there are TWELVE freaking customers that I have to call because their orders didn't ship Friday when they were supposed to, and the plant always blames US for entering too many orders. Ummm HELLO???? It's my freaking JOB to enter orders and it's your fucking fault if you can't get them their shit in time!!

Then I find out that I made a couple of mistakes that nobody caught in time so I have to deal with the repercussions of that. Granted, they were my mistakes, but I told my boss REPEATEDLY that I was being overworked and that I could not handle doing the work of two people like I'm doing now. All she did was pass along that info - which was between me and her - to all her little buddies so that they could talk about how I'm being soooo negative. So all I can do is fuck shit up because half of the phone calls that come in this place are for me. The old receptionist laughed at me once because she gave me five phone calls in a row and I was trying to leave my desk for 10 seconds to get a glass of water. I would get up from my chair and she would send me another call. But then if someone else is up from their desk having a nice conversation, I get their customers too!! What the FUCK???