A Rant...by Julie

So...it's surely just the pregnancy hormones (gotta play that card while I still have it...only 7 weeks left!!!), but I have been feeling a little down in the dumps lately about the world. The whole world. Ok, not really (uh, can we say drama queen?? Sheesh.). But I feel like a lot of people are being extra stupid lately.

FOR EXAMPLE....

Here are some things I personally feel no one should ever say to a pregnant person:
#1-"You're waddling!" Yes, thank you for emphasizing that the way I walk rather closely resembles that of a penguin. I really needed you to point that out, because I wasn't sure anyone else was noticing it as much as I am.

#2-"Your belly is REALLY sticking out now!" Well, believe it or not, other than what I can see in the mirror, the fact that I can no longer put on pants without faceplanting, bending over to pick things up makes me want to cry, tying shoelaces is next to impossible, getting off the couch requires a rather large amount of loud grunting and my back is constantly aching has made that very apparent to me. So in other words, yes, I've noticed.

#3-(While pointing at my formerly an "inny" and now very much an "outie" belly button) "Oh look, you're almost done!" DO I LOOK LIKE AN EFFING TURKEY TO YOU??????

Good times friends, good times.

Then we have work (WHY did I decide to work right up until I go into labor?? Oh yeah, that's right, money and health insurance. Silly me!). While there are plenty of jerks in this country who think it's a stellar idea to call and yell at people in an attempt to get their own way, I feel like my calls have been extra crazy/stupid lately. Usually this happens when it's a full moon (I'm actually not kidding about that one, I swear we get more psycho calls during a full moon than at any other time), but the next full moon isn't until February 18th so I feel like this is a bit premature. But here are some of the calls I've been dealing with in the past few days:
-Man calls in to try to cancel his mother's acct, is escalated to my team lead (each supervisor has a team lead to assist them as well as take escalated calls), who listens to his concerns and does her best to seriously respond to each one of them (she sits right next to me, so I can hear everything she's saying). Somehow he gets it into his head that she's laughing at him, and demands that she stop. She assures him she is in no way laughing at him. He continues to accuse her of giggling and then tells her he wants to speak to her manager, so the call comes to me. I take it, I listen, I respond almost exactly the same way she did (actually, I almost do laugh at one point b/c he keeps saying "this is riddikulus" and I have to resist the urge to ask him if he needs to banish any Boggarts...), and he tells me how nice is it to be taken seriously and not laughed at.

-Man calls in, wants to cancel prior to the end of his contract, is told the penalty for doing so (which is a pretty hefty monetary sum), doesn't like it...so he hangs up. Then he has his DAD call in to talk to us. Mind you, I have access to his DOB and this guy is 35 years old. Apparently you're never too old to have Daddy try to help get you out of the things you don't want to take responsibility for. Dad wants to speak to a manager, and I once again get the call. Dad proceeds to tell me that even though his son admits to not reading the contract before or after signing it, we need to cancel the acct w/out penalty because "it's just not fair." And that's his ONLY reason. Please sir, take that to a court of law and see what the judge tells you.

And, last but not least, my "favorite" call of the week...
-Lady calls in, gets mad at the agent she's speaking to, asks to speak to a manager. I get the call. Somehow before she's transferred to me, something gets lost in translation so she thinks she's going to be speaking to a different manager whose name sounds kind of similar to mine. Because she is speaking to me and not the other person, she becomes convinced that the other person DOESN'T EXIST. I then spend a good portion of the call assuring her that the other person does indeed exist as I do work with him on a regular basis, he is just out of the office today. She is no longer interested in talking about the original issue she called to discuss, she just wants to focus on the fact that we claim to be working with someone she thinks isn't real.

See what I mean? Crazies, all of them.

And then...we have ME. I think I am annoying myself more than any of this other stuff annoys me. I am so moody and emotional (I'll cry at just about anything nowadays) and despite my best efforts I usually fail when it comes to remaining in control of what I say. For example, tonight at work an agent from another department came and lectured one of my agents on one of our policies (which he was TOTALLY wrong about, may I add). He was super rude about it, and when my agent tried to say something the other guy interrupted him and said "I'm not done" and then continued w/his lecture. I was LIVID and told the other guy to get back to his own department and if he has a complaint about something in our department he needs to follow the proper chain of command to report it because he's not a manager and has no right to talk to my agent that way. Then a couple hrs later that same agent (my agent, not the guy from another dept) asked me a question about an account and when I was answering he interrupted me to point something out and what did I do? Without even thinking I said, "I know that, but you need to let me finish" and continued w/my answer. So yeah, he interrupted me but I didn't have to be all bitchy about it! GEEZ. I did apologize to him, but then I was all annoyed with myself for doing the exact same thing I'd been so pissed at the other guy for doing earlier. I mean, talk about hypocritical.

Oy. Rant over.

To conclude on a happy note that has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, I would like to say that I found enough energy to cook chicken enchiladas today and they were really, really, delicious...if I do say so myself. They were so tasty I think Jacob probably ate the rest of them so it's a good thing I managed to scarf down a couple before coming to work. :-)

The end.