I’m still undecided about whether or not I made a good decision, but I have gone from a part-time position to a full-time one. I figured hey, as a PT-timer I was working every single day from early morning until afternoon anyway. Why not move up to fulltime, work a few extra hours in the week, get the weekend off, get paid holidays, sick time, vacation time, and benefits to boot?

Today was my first day as a full-timer and so far not so bad. It sucks that I don’t get home until after 6pm on account of the lengthy commute and the “rush-hour” traffic. But, otherwise it wasn’t so bad. I gotta tell you, I’m liking the fact that I got holiday pay for MLK day, otherwise, as a part-timer, I’d have been out some hours this week since it was a federal holiday and we were closed. Instead I get paid anyway. Not to mention I get more hours now. This paycheck (and future ones!) are looking to be much better now. Not that I’m gonna splurge and get me a bb playbook, iPad, iPhone, or anything like that. I’m thinking the extra money will wisely be put to use fixing up Pyro and paying off the last of my debts.

It’s time for another round of “Good News and Bad News” here. Yes, the blessings really are that mixed. First, some Good News: I don’t have to feel bad about giving my grandfather something so impersonal and “last minute” like calvin klein mens underwear or socks for Christmas! I’ve already got his gift and had it bought months ago!

Bad News: The same cannot be said about my Mother. What the hell am I supposed to get this woman that she’ll like and actually use? Not to mention, isn’t a completely impersonal gift to boot. Why must she always be so difficult?

Good News: I got extra hours this week at work due to opening one day, early morning meetings, and helping to cover at the El Paso branch.

Bad News: Since we had such a wonderful snow storm blow in and interstate and a lots highways were closed due to bad conditions, I got yesterday off. No point in me coming in to work if the one road that was still open got closed while I was at work, my boss said. So…I’m not gonna get extra hours this week after all, but I should break even.

Good News: I had my one year evaluation on Monday and I’m getting a raise! It’s only 2% mind you, so it’s probably not even noticeable, but hey, I got a raise!

Bad News: I’ve got repairs to make to Pyro now after that jerk ran me off the road so I need all the extra money I can get.

I finally got a reasonable payment plan set up with Discover card recently, their collection agency leaves quite a bit to be desired. I mean, here I was willing to make payments and would have started over a month ago, and I had fools trying to get me to agree to outrageous down payments for a smaller monthly payment that was still out of my reach, or humongous large payments knowing full well I could never make them and would default ASAP. Then I was instructed to send in information that would qualify me for their “limited means” program so I would be allowed smaller payments. They conveniently never received the stuff no matter how many times it was faxed successfully from home, work, and Kinkos. This was all thanks to two different people handling my account. Meanwhile they kept telling me that I didn’t have to file a response to court after they had me served. Good thing I didn’t listen, because if I hadn’t, they would have had the right to garnish wages or other unpleasent things right off the bat.

Then one day, when both the a-holes were out I got to speak with one person who was like “this is ridiculous, we could have gotten this settled long ago” and got me set up on a payment plan that I can make.

I’m almost debt free!

Still though, even if I can make the payments, until I get the other credit card paid off (4 more payments to go there!) things will be tight. I’d really like to move up to a full time position at work, but the only FT spots that have opened up are at the T or C branch. Not to mention their for positions I sincerely doubt I’d get. Even looking in the classifieds for a FT spot, or at least another PT job that I swing with my hours has yielded little results. Lots of spots for things like construction workers, CDL drivers, live-in nurses, or Dental Jobs – things that require training or degrees that I don’t have. Bah! I guess I could always apply at Sitel….but after working at DialAmerica and putting up with their shit, I’m not really inclined to give a telemarketing job another shot.

Argh! I swear, if it’s not one thing wrong with this damn car it’s another. This morning, on a day when we had an early morning meeting before work, my car would not start. Completely dead, wouldn’t even crank. And it would not take a jump either. I got a ride to and from work, so I was only a little late to work. Missed the 8:15am meeting though, but made it to work a little after 9am, so it wasn’t too bad.

But of all the days to be absent – I was named employee of the month! Now that, right there is sheer irony.

Came home, changed, then unhooked the battery of the car and took it up to AutoZone, hoping like hell that was the problem. They tested the battery, and sure enough, it was dead as a doornail. But, after putting in the new battery the car still wouldn’t start.

One of the mechanics that lives nearby and works on the farm equipment primarily, but also does auto repairs, is going to stop by and take a look at it tomorrow morning. My grandfather lent me his truck and he promised to wait there for the guy so I could get to work.

Here’s hoping that he can find out what’s wrong with it, he can fix it, and it won’t cost too much either.

All of this on top of the fact that I have the whole mess with Discover card to worry about and I just got Pyro new tires recently too. When it rains it pours.

It’s a proven fact, Mondays just plain suck. Certainly one can have decent or even good Mondays, but for the most part they just suck. Mondays herald the end of the weekend and the return to drudgery. I sometimes think I get an obscene amount of horrendous Mondays, but I could be biased.

Let me tell you how my Monday went and you can be the judge of how bad it was.

To start, since the elementary school near the interstate is a year round school, the school zone lights are still going in the mornings and afternoons. I don’t think the school is completely year-round though, as they only use two school buses now instead of the fleet and the faculty parking lot isn’t nearly as full. So maybe a summer school of sorts? Whatever the case, morning traffic is still slowed down. I was supposed to leave the house at 7am – plenty of time to get to town on time I thought. Well, I set my alarm earlier so that I could get up and get ready on time, but then ended up snoozing for a bit and had to rush around like crazy to get ready for work in under forty minutes. No breakfast, and somehow I forgot to put deodorant on as well. I didn’t realize about the deodorant until I was about ten minutes outside of ‘Cruces. Too late to do jack about it. Damn good thing the air conditioner is on so high at work I can wear sweaters and still be fine. Never the less, I was paranoid everyone could tell and sprayed some extra body spray on when I got to work.

On the way to work I went the interstate instead of the frontage road, which is my usual route. I did this because I thought it would cut more time off my commute. I was right, but damn did I get the crap scared out of me. There is a Las Cruces City police officer who lives out somewhere around Chamberino, NM and the outskirts of La Mesa, NM. These are villages (not towns due to lack of population) that are over twenty miles away from Las Cruces. In short, he is waaay out of his jurisdiction. Yet this officer, who drives his unit home every day (lets not even go into the tax payer dollars going into the upkeep and gas of his unit) thinks he’s god and likes to bully people on his way to and from work. I hate him and he’s just another prime example of why the LCPD deserves no respect what-so-ever.

On the way into ‘Cruces this bastard decides to start scaring people by riding on their bumpers and turning his sirens on and off, then switching lanes, brake-checking the people he just cut in front of, then doing it again. Of course no one dared to pass him, so you have about eight cars in three lanes going 65mph in a pack and eyeballing the loon that’s messing with them. This is, sadly, not unusual at all and I’ve seen him do stuff like this many a time. All of a sudden he swerved from the middle lane into the far-left lane in front of the car in front of me, no signal lights of course, and flips his lights and sirens on. He almost clipped the car in front of me and they came to such a hardstop that I almost rear-ended them! It was insane, and all that just to pull over the truck in front of us. Who, by the way, was going the speed limit and everything. No idea why he pulled them over, but he did.

I was hoping that would be the worst thing to happen to me today, but alas, wishful thinking. Since I was fairly certain that the guy in the pickup truck didn’t break the law and was just that Pig’s victim of the day, I happily put the pedal to the metal after I got out of radar range and put some much needed distance between me and the Pig. The guy pulled him over outside of Las Cruces city limits so he couldn’t issue a citation of any kind. Thus, I did not want to be anywhere nearby when the Pig got back on the road, lest I be victim number two.

Despite all this, I managed to get to work a little early. Instead of getting a “Good morning, how are you?” or even a “Thanks for coming in, I appreciate it” or something from my boss I got a “You’re too early, don’t clock in yet”. Well fuck you too. Guess that’s what I get for being nice and opening when it’s nothing but a hardship for me. Now, as I mentioned, they were installing the new printers and system on the drive thru computers today. Every time they hooked up a new printer last week, the two stations connected to it always experienced glitches. You’d think after doing this all of last week (and when they set ‘em up at the other branches too since we were the last) they’d have it down to an art by now. All possible glitches expected and the method for dealing with them known, right? Apparently not. One computer was set up, it had some sort of glitch and the girl I was opening with got locked out of the system – completely unable to do transactions now. Naturally it got busy at this point and I was handling the drive thru all by myself up until a little after the lobby itself opened. And since the tech guy was working on the one computer that experienced the glitch, he hadn’t finished setting up mine.

So I had to set up my drawer and handle transactions at one of the computers in the teller-line for the lobby. Back and forth I go from drive thru to my station handling the transactions all by myself. My supervisor, or one of the assistant supervisors, could have gotten on a station as well and helped out since I was literally by myself with my co-worker locked out completely. Did they? No. Instead I got snide comments about how I needed to pick up the pace. When everyone else started arriving and getting set up, did anyone offer to help? No. They saw me there with four drive-thru canisters lined up and instead they talked about their weekend, upcoming events, their morning, but no one helped. And if the drive thru gets busy and the teller line isn’t, those on the teller line are supposed to help. Considering they had opened their drawers, but the doors weren’t scheduled to open for another ten minutes, they could have helped. But no.

Then of course, after the first computer gets fixed and the tech guy sets up mine, it has the same problem as the first one and they gotta fix it. Except, I didn’t get locked out of the system so I was still handling drive thru transactions from another station. Where’s my break from this mess?

And to top off my craptacular day, I got written up.

Yup, I got a written reprimand for something I supposedly did over a month ago.

The real shits of it is that it’s not really my fault. Member’s accounts will have memos or flags on them that let the workers know if there is something going on with the account. For example, the member filed chapter 7 bankruptcy, their account is in collections, their wages are garnished, they have a password they want verified before any transactions are handled, or some other department wants to be notified prior to a transaction. You get the picture. Well, in those cases we need someone’s approval to process the transaction and the Member Service Reps. are notorious for sending the member to the teller line and telling the member to inform us that “So-and-so said it was okay/go head”. I’ve never really liked that they do that because a member can lie, and if we leave to go and double-check they get offended and half the time the MSR’s get onto us for doing that. I’ve always thought it was trouble waiting to happen.

Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right.

I actually remember the member, since his name is an odd one that stands out, and I remember the transaction in question. He had come from one of the MSR’s offices, and I saw him with them. He gave me everything that needed to be done and said he had So-And-So’s approval, so I did the transaction. Now, over a month later, I get written up for it. The hell?

Sure, I probably should have double-checked, but since we get talked down to for doing that, especially if the member gets upset or we’re busy and if I recall, we were busy, I was in a no-win situation there. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

So I got lectured about always reading the memos, getting the proper authorization, and so on. And, on my write up, it says that my next offense could lead to termination. GAH! Seriously?!

So, that was my Monday. How was yours?

Now, before I forget, I need to schedule Denali’s appointment at the vet’s and I need to check out the prices for samsung phone batteries since my phone’s battery doesn’t seem to hard its charge for long at all anymore. Hopefully I can get a new battery with my next paycheck, but I’m not holding my breath. Denali’s veterinary care has to take priority this time. She needs her rabies and feline leukemia vaccinations and I’ve put them off for too long as it is.

To be upset about being pretty much forced to “donate” $5 to some charity that I don’t even know of? It’s pretty safe to say that my money will not be put to buying Suunto watches for someone’s Christmas gift, but it still pisses me off that I had to contribute $5 for some charity.

Clearly it’s not a donation anymore if it’s mandatory.

I suppose an explanation is in order though, right? Well, at the bank that I work at, we’re supposedly very “community oriented” and for Christmas the bank in partnership with someone else was putting together food baskets so that needy families would be able to have a Christmas dinner.

Sounds kinda nice right? Well I agree, it is. All except for the fact that us tellers were told on WEDNESDAY that we had to contribute a MANDATORY $5 each and our five dollars was due by today. I complied and gave my $5, but it still upsets me. I mean hey, until recently I was unemployed and barely getting by (and technically not even succeeding at that) and the paycheck we get isn’t that great. It’s the freakin’ holiday season, folks are buying gifts and giving to whatever charities they normally contribute. Our payday was last week as well. Most of the tellers have confessed to having nothing left of their paycheck due to bills and gifts and you tell us that we have to contribute money or else?!

When I give money to charities I like to give it to causes I believe in and to organizations and groups that will put it to good use and not pad the pockets of board members. Who chooses these so-called “needy” families that these food baskets are for? What criterion determines their need? Are they really in need or just a little stripped for cash? I don’t know. My money just got taken to be given to faceless entities.

Sure, it’s only $5 dollars, and in theory, it’s for a good cause. It just burns me up that we told we had to “donate a mandatory $5 by Thursday” with an implied or else. Donating and gifts come from the heart, and let’s be honest, ya’all aren’t paying your tellers that much that we can just throw away our money on a whim. I was so very tempted to ask “And what if we don’t want to contribute $5?” but I kept my peace. I did just start the job after all, it would suck to get fired in less then a month on it.

And the real kicker, we’re having some sort of potluck tomorrow and we all had to sign up to bring something. I don’t have much food in the fridge right now, sans what’s for Christmas and there is nothing I could take to for a party. So I’m stopping at the grocery store tomorrow to pick up some sort of platter from the deli. Ooh look, more spending.

Fuck but these people like to eat my paycheck! Next payday can’t come fast enough. It’s just a damn good thing my Christmas shopping was pretty much done by the beginning of November. Otherwise I’d have been screwed.

I’m talking about cell phones that is, not what you probably first thought.

The people I work with seem to always have their phones glued to their hands and whip ‘em out first chance they get. They text each other (even though they’re just a few feet away) text family and friends, surf the web, and so on. It’s kinda weird actually and I’m really surprised customers don’t say anything about coming in and seeing tellers playing on their phones.

It also makes me feel old-slash-odd for not being into the whole texting and cellphone playing thing.

I feel like such the oddball.

Ah, late night television, you leave much to be desired. I see commercials that manage to make me feel positively obese and obscene, commercials for Maritime Injury Lawyer and agencies that are on the other side of the country, and programs trying to sell products that make me seriously wonder if people are stupid enough to actually buy them.

I’m up late enjoying the fact that I was off today and I don’t work tomorrow either (obviously) and can stay up late getting things done without worrying about having to get up early in the morning. So nice.

Sadly, I’m up late finishing the laundry. It’s washed, just some of it needs to be ironed and hung up while other stuff gets folded and put away.

It’s nice that I have Saturday off this week and next week. Alas, when I finish up my training weeks I’ll be working on Saturdays. But hey, it’ll only be a few hours so it’s not too bad.

Enjoying my Saturday off while I can!
What a fun way to spend my Saturday night, right?

I was absolutely thrilled to hear I had been hired earlier, especially since I had come to believe that it was all but certain I wasn’t getting the job. But now I find myself grumbling a bit. Why? Well you see, this job requires that I wear business casual attire to work. I should have plenty in my closet but I now find myself with a smaller selection to choose from. Literally and figuratively.

I knew I’d put on some weight, just didn’t realize how much. Some of my slacks are tight around the waist or don’t really fit comfortably period. A few blouses are also a bit too tight. So I now have a much smaller wardrobe size to work with. I could go out and buy new clothes when I get my first paycheck….but since I really would rather loose the pounds rather then spend money, that option really isn’t appealing. So now I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to lose belly fat quickly and efficiently. At least a few sizes in any case.

I swear, if it’s not one thing it’s another with me.

I’m walking taller today, and it’s not because I took a dose of some sort of magical human growth hormone that made me shoot up five inches in height. No, I am walking taller today because at long last, I have secured steady employment. Tomorrow I will go in and fill out the paperwork and then I will start on Monday.

Isn’t that great?

I was actually kind of afraid that I wouldn’t get the job, as I mentioned previously because they did a background check (no biggie there) and a credit score check.

Um, yeah, all those missed payments and what not come back to bite me in the ass. Right? But as it turns out, since I was honest and up front about it, they were understanding that hey, unemployed it’s gonna be hard to keep a steady income. :) I’m so happy!

And you know what’s even better? This job offers benefits. We’re talking 401k, dental, medical, vision, and so on and so forth. It’s gonna be friggin’ awesome.

Oh yeah, definitely walking taller today.

I’m probably not gonna get the job.

Over all, I thought the interview went extremely well. I got along well with the interviewer, I had quick and honest responses to the questions put forth to me, and he seemed impressed with my resume and past experiences.

We even got sidetracked a bit and talked about our past experiences with web hosting services when he noted my interest in websites and design.

But, they do a background and credit check on potential employees, which I had not realized. The background check does not concern me in the least, it’s the credit check. I know my credit score is awful. I’ve had trouble paying bills since I graduated on account of being unable to secure permanent employment. My interviewer flat out asked me if there was anything I’d like to mention now before they ran the checks and I told the honest truth, my credit score is gonna suck. Not in those words of course, but you get the picture.

I then had to do a simulation that took about forty-five minutes. I wasn’t very fast when doing it. I was going more for accuracy then speed. Hopefully I did fairly well there, but I suspect the credit check is what is gonna hurt me.

I was told they’d give me a call tomorrow to let me know the verdict. Keeping my fingers crossed even though I fear the worst.

So…I had an interview on Tuesday. I thought it went well, seemed to get on just fine with the interviewer, but I just got a call thanking me for coming in and informing me that I wasn’t what they were looking for at this time and they would hold my resume in case of any future openings. *blinks*

Well, okay I guess.

Then I check my email and find a response from the human resources department of another place I applied to. Guess what? Position has been filled but they’ll keep my resume on file for four months in case any future openings appear.

Well shit. Hear that shattering sound? It’s the sound of hopes being dashed. I was seriously hoping for a break and getting some steady employment, but again, rejected. There was a funny moment though, when I noticed that there were links to sponsors and what-not in the footer of the email and I saw the term “glucosamine and chondroitin“. I was thinking, it had something to do with viagra or dieting and couldn’t help but be a little shocked they’d link to that in a business email. For a few seconds I was kinda glad they turned me down because that would have been so unprofessional for they proudly announce them as sponsors, ya know? Turns out it’s for arthritis and joint pain though. Learn something new everyday!

The amusement was short lived though. I really hope the job situation here in NM improves with the election of a new governor. Both Martinez and Denish are promising to create more jobs, let’s see if they deliver. The race between Denish and Martinez is getting fairly heated and nasty too. Somehow it always shocks and disappoints me when campaigns start mudslinging and name calling. (Yes, name calling.) It makes me cringe to think that these people who are asking us to place them in office have degenerated to acting like children.

Just got off the phone with a potential employer! I’ve got an interview all lined up for Tuesday of this coming week, so here’s hoping to a steady job.

I know that the official “word” is that the recession has ended, but you couldn’t prove it by looking at the local classifieds around here! There seem to be a lot of ads looking for people in construction, trucking, and some highly specialized management jobs (we’re talking 8+ years experience already in the profession, degrees in specific backgrounds, letters of recommendation, and the kitchen sink). It’s kinda crazy.

As for easy retail jobs? Seems employers prefer hiring the high school and college kids for that. I’m not sure why, considering the turnover rate is probably high, but whatever.

*sigh* I really wish I was more fluent in Spanish. I got turned down for two different openings in my chosen field because they really wanted someone bilingual in Spanish and my Spanish is mediocre at best. Slang? Oh I speak that just fine. But speaking, writing, and reading in Spanish (especially when it’s filled with technical and legal jargon) I so cannot do.

I suck.

Well, I had planned to write a post about the Get Motivated Business Seminar I attended on the 9th of this month sooner, but I kinda misplaced the usb cord for the camera and it seemed too weird to write about it and then post a post of nothing but pictures later down the road. So here it is, belated of course, but all in one instead of chopped up.

Thankfully, there were no bag searches and the event staff were not enforcing the “no outside food or drink” rule of the Don Haskins Center because, oh my goodness, was that place packed. There were over 10,000 people in attendance that day. Concession stand lines and restroom lines were crazy. And then there were the prices of the concession stand foods. I was so glad I brought my own food! There were some good things about such a large crowd though; there was a chance for networking, I myself took a ton of resumes with me in the case that I might be able to pick up some jobs, and the energy was just incredible.

Since my ticket said “Executive Seating” I thought I’d be on the floor in front of the stage, turned out I was in the stands, but I did manage to get a seat near the stage and in the second row to boot. I was right there. I wished I had brought my tape recorder though as there were a lot of interesting topics discussed throughout the day and what slides that the speakers used tended to not stay up very long at all. Alas, I was a good girl and didn’t bring it. Mostly because I thought I was going to be front and center, and thus, more visible to the people on stage and the event staff.

I ended up carpooling with some small business owners from Las Cruces (never met them before) and my Mom attended as well. I kind of wished I had gone by myself instead of joining them though because they ended up wanting to leave early. There were two speakers left, and wouldn’t you know it, the two speakers I really wanted to see were the ones I had to miss; Rudy Giuliani and Mike Price. I did get to see Laura Bush though, as she spoke right after the lunch break, and Rick Belluzzo was the first speaker of the morning so it wasn’t a complete loss there. I saw two out of the four I really wanted to see speak.

I took a lot of photos, but most of them came out way too dark because of the lighting. It had the atmosphere of a concert, what with the lighting and pyrotechnics that occurred when guest speakers came out. The lighting stayed dim as well when the speakers were on stage which made note taking sometimes difficult. The best time for pictures was (usually) when the speakers were talking because the lights would brighten. Of course, since the slides would go so fast and the speakers themselves talked fast, I didn’t exactly want to stop in the middle of note taking to take pictures.

Leon Patillo, a former lead singer for Santana, performed a couple of times on stage. Rick Belluzzo, former of Microsoft, started the morning off and was followed by Ruben Gonzales, a four time Olympian, who was very funny. Dr. Robert Schuller, who I found to be very entertaining and full of wisdom, succeed him and was quickly followed by Krish Dhanam and Tamara Lowe. After we got back from lunch former first lady Laura Bush took the stage with a very heartening speech. After Mrs. Bush was Bob Catell, Zig Ziglar, and then John Smith.

Zig Ziglar was an utter disappointment in my book. I’d never heard of the guy before that day mind you, however, people sitting all around me couldn’t help but comment on how excited they were to hear him talk. Well guess what, he didn’t talk. Not much really. Apparently he suffered from a fall a little back and it affected his memory as well as walking. He did try to give a little speech but his daughter, who was supposed to be “assisting” him, seemed to hijack it and act as though here were senile and incompetent, in my opinion, which just irked the hell out of me. I hate it when I see people treat the elderly like that. In any case, after maybe five minutes of this they showed clips of Zig Ziglar’s speeches throughout his career.

To be frank, for all the fuss over hearing this guy speak live, after watching those clips, I didn’t see what the big deal was.

I have to say though, that was the most exciting and fun seminar I have ever been to before. I walked away feeling highly motivated, I took a lot of information that I could apply right away as well, and over all just really enjoyed the experience.

There were some downsides to the seminar though. I didn’t much appreciate the fact that some of the speakers seemed to think that religion and “god” were the answer to a lot of personal problems people might have. Even when they attempted to be non-offensive to those who might be atheist or agnostic they still came off condescending. Tamara Lowe and John Smith were perhaps the worst. I still recall Smith’s off-hand remark of how atheists and agnostics put their faith in “cat hair and crystals” while talking about the necessity of faith. In my opinion, at a motivational BUSINESS seminar, deragatory comments on people’s beliefs have no place there. You don’t have to be Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, or Jewish to have a business and succeed. So bringing in heavy connotations of religion doesn’t fit and since this is all about motivation, one shouldn’t be talking down to part of your audience either.

Other than that though, I really did enjoy the seminar.