Work started a move into a new building yesterday. Talk about miserable hot trucking computer equipment around in August. Fortunately for me, I brought a little red wagon to tote all of my computers from the old building, to my car, to the new building. But it was still miserable hot. Maybe that’s why I’ve been up since 4am, I’m too tired to sleep.

We’re supposed to go in today to hook everything up, even though the office is “closed”. That way we can come into work Monday morning and actually work. We’re also having a BBQ with everyone today, funded by the bosses.

The new building is GORGEOUS. I want to have pictures of both to post, but that’ll probably be a while. One disadvantage to the new building is the stairs on my torn knee. But I don’t really have a choice, so I will just have to be extra careful.

Our peacocks hatched 3 babies last weekend. We do not have very much luck with Peacock babies at all. The last batch before this were eaten by a blacksnake, and I think the batch before that were killed by the male peacock. Hopefully this batch will survive, which means building another cage.

I’m supposed to deliver some guinea fowl to a farm up in PA, but the owner hasn’t gotten back to me after several attempts to contact. In which case I will probably just keep them.

It’s been an exhausting couple of weeks.

I left work early today due to the development of an itchy rash from using Tiger Balm the night prior. That and it’s nice having an afternoon off. I told my boss I’d probably head out early one night this week when I was preparing for meeting out of town guests, but since those plans fell through, I went home and relaxed instead.

I thought I had some witch hazel to quell the itch, but found some aloe instead.

I did drag out my bear skin and try to take some pictures of that deck I was talking about before. I don’t mess with divination at all, but recently became interested in this supposed “native” theme deck. It’s alright, but I don’t think divination will hold my attention for long. Though I’ve been starting the habit of drawing a card every morning during my daily piety.

Anyhow, it’s a rather tall deck, and wouldn’t fit into any normal suede bags that I had, but I realized I had a white leather bag that wasn’t being used, that fit quite perfect.

Picture 1
Picture 2 (I think I should have shot these with the sun in front of me, instead of behind me)
Picture 3 (close-up of the bag)

Crystal–So much I could say. Even though we rag eachother, you have become one of my favorite people to talk to. You offer the world a different perspective on life and the world is a better place because of it, at least I am a better person because of it. You are so awesome to me and I know if I am ever having a bad day I can turn to you and you will make me laugh at myself.

Tonight, my bosses threw a party at their place. Absolutely stunning brick home in one of those ritzy neighborhoods. Beautiful landscaping drenched in trees and foliage, with a few zen elements added.

We had crabs, shrimp, strawberries dipped in chocolate, devilled eggs, burgers, beer, jello shots, you name it.

The weather was perfect, the company was amazing, and I almost didn’t go.

I’ve been feeling someone of an introvert lately. I haven’t felt like I was connecting to anyone, especially at work. And I was just going to go home, maybe take a nap, work on some personal projects. But I’m very glad I didn’t.

A lot of my co-workers are musicians, and I might have mentioned before that my boss used to play with Lenny Kravitz. He’s an amazing violinist, and a few others are just over-the-top musicians.

Several people throughout the night kept telling me I have to play, you gotta play, I’m not leaving until you play. To be honest I didn’t even realize anyone knew I played anything, except for a select few.

So I downed some rum and coke, because I’m infinitely intimidated by playing in front of so many talented people, and I’ve never played in front of a mic before, or with other people playing with me. So it was a new experience.

I received so many compliments and people telling me they loved my voice, I really didn’t know what to say. I mean what -can- you say? Just a lot of “thank you’s” and smiles. It was kind of scary, because I felt out of my comfort zone. And I never feel like the mainstream covers that I play are any interest to anyone, so I almost feel guilty for making them listen to it.

My mind works in weird ways I guess.

One good thing that came from tonight though, I think one of the guys (who I’ve always thought was an amazing musician) might bring me in to work on a song or two. Which would be kind of cool.

I just want to play music. There’s only so much I can do on my own, I’d love to learn from other people, watch them perform, work on my guitar, whatever I can do.

My bosses also sent me home with a bushel of crabs, a bag of shrimp, and a watermelon for my dad

The first raise I ever got was when I was 18, I received a 15 cent raise working as a clerk at a rock and gem shop.

The second time was at Terminix, I got a $1 raise, which is the max they allow for their “really good” employees.

Today I received a raise for 10% of my gross salary, plus a $350 bonus. The “normal” raise rate is 4%, and I more than doubled that.

I have to be honest and say that I fought back tears during my year review. I’m constantly wondering if I’m good enough for my job because I’m surrounded by such intelligent people and feel infinitely inferior. And given my past experiences with employment, who can blame me?

I’ve never had a “career”, heck, I never went to college. I had no hope of affording college, and despite everyone saying I could get financial aide, I would have had no hope of paying that shit back either. There’s people I know that owe $80,000 in student loans, why would I put myself in that situation?

But because at 14 years old I decided to fuck with html, I’ve landed myself into a dream job with great people making decent money for a 20-something female. I’m saving for retirement on my own, I’m learning how to take care of my finances and live frugally. And I’m growing more and more confident that I will not end up in my fathers position. That I will be “okay”.

That takes a lot for me to say that. And it’s such an amazing feeling to be given that chance.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with the bonus. I’m torn between putting it all into a Roth IRA, or putting half in and half into the auto loan for the mustang. I may do the former, to help compound the interest.

My next goal is to look for some classes in object oriented programming, and work towards bettering myself for next years review.

Last year, Comcast took over Adelphia cable. I was not very happy about this, because Adelphia was -extremely- good service, and I had absolutely no complaints. They were prompt, efficient, and didn’t piss me off (the main stickler).

But I was willing to give Comcast a try.

Apparently sometime in March, I was somehow signed up for automatic billing. I don’t automatically bill anything, as I like to be in control of my finances. I didn’t discover this little fact till the end of May when I noticed two charges on my bank statement (which I check daily). One that I paid, and one that Comcast automatically billed me for.

I called, was on hold for 15 minutes, but was able to talk to a gentleman who had the charge removed. He actually said he’d have to talk to his supervisor and call me back. I gave him my cellphone number to call me back. He called the house and left a message on the answering machine instead.

The good news though, he was able to get the second charge reversed, but he was not, however, able to remove the automatic billing.

So I called up again today during my lunch break, after having been on the hold with the MVA for 20 minutes, and was on hold for another 21 minutes and 5 seconds waiting for Comcast (there went my lunch break). The woman I spoke with seemed like an unintelligent lass just paid to answer the phone and type a few numbers into the computer.

She stated that the only way to remove automatic billing is to have them send me a form. They could not do it over the phone, or the website (I tried, the site gives an error). So it was easy enough for me to unknowingly sign up for this POS service, but I have to walk through fire to remove it. Nice.

I brewed on that for the rest of the day and decided I was unsatisfied with that answer, so I called again when I got home. 1 hour and 5 minutes later of being on hold, another woman, sounding just as unintelligent answered the phone. She also stated that something like that would have to be handled by the accounting department, and that they would have to mail me a form. So I asked to speak with the accounting department, to which she replies “I’m sorry ma’am, but customers do not have direct access to the accounting department.”

OH REALLY.

So she put me on hold for another 10 minutes or so regarding a billing error I also wanted to correct. During that time I hop onto their 24/7 chatroom customer service (yeah like these things are ever helpful) and talk to two separate assistants, one who was too much of a n00b to help, and the second who stated I could call or visit my local office to have the automatic billing removed. I even told her that I had switched banks last week (which I did, from BB&T to ING Electric Orange) so any charges they try to put through will not only bounce, but will create NSF fees, which I guarantee they will pay, not me.

Great. So I get to make another phonecall tomorrow during lunch. But these bitches better believe I’ll be calling every day till I get this issue resolved.

And let me tell you something, I was a Customer Service Representative for Terminix (an international company as well) for several years. We were -not- allowed to have anyone on hold for over a minute, and we used the Mission database system to keep track of every phonecall that came in, who they were, and I wrote ridiculously detailed notes into their account with every phonecall. I made sure their issues were resolved, I kept track and did follow-up phonecalls to make sure their issues were resolved, and I especially kept track of when my co-workers fucked up and DIDN’T keep track of the issues they were supposed to be resolving. So don’t tell me it’s so fucking hard to answer a phone and deal with a customer complaint.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my rant for today.

A Work Conversation (this is after 3 people were fighting over me to work on their stuff, not literal fighting):

CoWorker (11:30:56 AM): Ok I said within the hour
Me (11:31:08 AM): What’s within the hour?
CoWorker (11:31:25 AM): That you’ll be done
Me (11:31:31 AM): oh my GOSH
Me (11:31:32 AM): okay
Me (11:47:15 AM): Jamie has work for me to do too, but I put her off till next week.
CoWorker (11:47:35 AM): Haha
CoWorker (11:47:50 AM): Isn’t your review coming up soon?
Me (11:48:01 AM): I hope not, I don’t want people thinking I can’t keep up!
Me (11:48:14 AM): btw j00r sites are done
CoWorker (11:48:18 AM): Actually I was thinking quite the opposite
CoWorker (11:48:37 AM): It’s pretty impressive how you keep up
CoWorker (11:48:54 AM): I’d expect nothing but good things from your review

One of the perks (curses?) of working for a web development company that mainly focuses in medicial companies from all over, is the requirement to edit/format medical injury photographs. Today’s perk consists of editing trauma related injuries, and we can all imagine what type of photographs THOSE are.

I won’t post any of them, mainly to save Peter from having to be grossed out again like he was at my desk this morning

My day will at least be interesting. Luckily I am desensitized from working at the Vet.