5am.
The art:
The artist:
Destruction by Gibson
It’s the look of “what’s your problem buddy?” That gets me.
I love it when a photo makes the cat look censorial when in real life you can hear the elevator music
@Gibsonisafluffybutt @Seagoon_ Lovely post-modern art piece by Gibson 😸
Nothing like some midnight floor mopping because you put it off all day and have an apartment inspection tomorrow while you’ll be in the office and you hate having people in your apartment while you’re not there but you have to go to work because you have to present a demonstration to the executive leadership team.
Meeeeeanwhile, I’m seriously considering moving out and just going to stay with my folks for a while. It’s not about money (although it would be nice to save a bunch of money quickly) it’s more about how unhealthy it is for me to sit alone in this shoebox. Plus I’ll have to house/dog sit for them for their upcoming US trip this year anyway.
Then once I’ve saved a bigger chunk of dough I’ll finally bite the bullet and buy something. Likely right before the housing bubble finally bursts after 30 years of people saying it’s going to but never does.
Good night and good luck for tomorrow.
Dude, I had to do it, I quit work and went to uni as a mature age student - I lasted a couple of months with the parent, before renting again, but this was because covid etc. If you get along with your parents, they have a big enough house etc. and you’re single, do it. The money you’ll save is yuge. I know you love your road trips etc. But the freedom when you finally buy is life changing.
I have an interview for another volunteer position this Friday. I can’t believe I’m finally leaving call centres behind, and I’m actually on the path to something I want to do. For so long I’ve been forcing myself into jobs that ruin me, and then I wonder why I fail.
I won’t fail at this.
I’ve worked in call centres for 10-12 years, electricity, tax collection, salary packaging/sacrifice, and a small business that did home services. All sucked in their own unique ways. The only way to move “up” is to be toxic as fuck and throw your coworkers under the bus, which I couldn’t do. The abuse from management, the abuse from callers, caused me to abuse myself.
So done, 0/10, do not reccomend. Taking calls all day is a form of torture.
Gonna be doing animal care instead, cert III, and then I’ll move up to the cert IV in veterinary nursing. It’ll be hard, but I won’t be on the phones; I’ll be doing something that has been my dream.
I worked for an ISP help desk for years. I loved it.
I think my experience was a bit different to most phone work though. All the calls were initiated by customers. Even when I was calling outbound, it was as a follow up to someone who wanted to speak to me. Also, we were helping people, so they’d be happy and grateful at the end of the call.
Finally, it was the 90’s - the Internet users were far more technical than the average person today. I could walk most callers through their computer/modem settings pretty easily.
There might still be phone work out there that doesn’t crush your soul. I don’t think it’s the work itself that’s awful, rather the setting they do that work in and your coworkers/employer that are the problem.
I wish it was just coworkers/management
I’ve had customers scream at me, threaten to unalive themselves or me, threaten to shoot me, masturbate on calls, speak to me like I was a phone sex worker, call me every name under the sun, tell me I’m a bad person and I should unalive myself, and threaten their own children.
Had some spout qanon stuff, and scream about 5g causing cancer while using their mobile to conduct the call. Scream that lefties are ruining the country.
Had people tell me that land tax is stupid and not know what it goes towards (roads, infrastructure, schools, were my answer), that it was just funding trans people to abuse children 🙄. Scream about having to sell their investment properties (not my fault). Some spoke down to me, or call me racist names because they though I was an immigrant (I’m not, not that it makes it okay).
Threaten to find me and rape me, wanted me to tell them my last name, tell them my home address, call me queer slurs. Ask me out, ask me to talk dirty to them, and demand I do something against company policy.
All this because I was just doing my job, or I was “taking too long”, or I told them they had to pay xyz bill, or tell them it would take X time for payment to be received/refund to land. Never told anyone my political leanings, never provoked them. I think you lucked out, because these days people have gotten worse and worse.
I found people were more aggressive to me as a CSR than as a bouncer.
So by the end, I was a (middle) manager of the staff on the phones. I had the power to “fire” customers. I would not have hesitated to close the account of a customer, making them get a new Internet Provider/email address for any of this. Our people were worthy of respect and our customers knew it. Or they weren’t our customers any longer.
@Nath @StudChud Nath, it’s great you had a good job experience.
But not all call centre jobs are like that.
Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.
Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.
There’s often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.
The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.
In many commercial organisations, there’s a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it’s an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.
In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.
You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.
And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it’s a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they’re shitty.
Thank you, you get it!
I did four years ISP tech support and I think I’d eat out of bins before going back.
Same 100%
Please take care of yourself in animal care/vet nursing too! It’s a fast paced customer facing job that can be stressful as well, so don’t beat yourself up if you need breaks and try to have a good support network
Yaasss! You got this!
That’s great news. I hope it works out for you
Thank you! I hope so too :D
In exciting news: 2 hours after arriving at work I’m done with my presentation and I’m on a tram home. I might even make it before my apartment inspection AND the presentation I was going in for tomorrow fell through so I don’t have to go back in.
On to lunch then?
yep lunch hour now… grabbed a gozleme on my way in and just enjoyed it with some youtubes
"Thank you everyone for all the kind words 😽
"Mum is still giving me eyedrops today, and it’s really uncomfortable 😿
"But my eye feels a lot better today 😸
“Now excuse me, I have some chicken to eat for dinner. It’s my favourite! Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom”
— Miss Mimi
I looooove tuxedo cats. That photo perfectly encapsulates how cute yet elegant they are. Please give Miss Mimi a little bop on her precious little head from me.
Ah sweet Mimi!!! ☺️💜💜
Cat update: He is fine. Bloods came back great. He hasnt pooped out any worms or anything, but he also hasnt vomited so… dunno.
Glad kitty is okay. Ours had a bit of vomiting episode Saturday…came home to a bit of a mess. I’m assuming she chewed on her blanket and couldn’t digest it.
Mickey has discovered the benefits of being inside my hoodie with me in it too.
aw, such a cat move 😻🔥
I have not cooked a roast anything in many, many years. But tonight WE ROAST!
Chicken is the beast of choice! With roast veg, cauliflower & cheese and peas.
I’m a boring, basic cook at best so this could go either way…
It’s very hard to stuff up a roast, you’ll do fine. If not, there’s always gravy to cover up the bad bits.
Have managed to do so in the past. Then I discovered oven bags. Seriously, I’ve found roasts take longer than the book says. particularly if adding in veg in the same tray. But that might just be my oven at the time which was on its last legs so to speak.
That feeling when you go through your 30+ year collection of buttons and find a replica of the one you need to replace. Better than ice cream.
How satisfying!
Ya gotta take the small wins.
I’ll say it’s a little bigger. I am the classic hoarder and then years later when I finally throw it out, a fortnight after I have a use for it. Happens. Every. Time.
So, BIG WIN! Hehe.
I wonder what happened to mum’s collection. She had a massive collection of buttons going back to the 50’s. Dad probably threw them all out. 🤷♂️
Fucking neighbour is doing my head in. This is the guy that cuts his lawn with hand shears and also known to sweep leaves around the block 300+m away.
This morning got yelled at for not cleaning up leaves on my side of the boundary. It’s fukin autumn find a new less stressful hobby.
Then he apologises later saying I caught him at a bad time.
Dude seriously has his moments and I respect that but not leaves… in… autumn.
People like that should just move into an apartment. I don’t understand why people buy a house, then hate the trees, put concrete and paving from edge to edge of the block or put artificial grass. If you don’t want a garden there’s better housing options where you don’t have to get furious if a neighbours leaf blows into your yard.
From today’s wikipedia - I have to salute whoever wrote the article. Superb use of understatement.
Mad honey is also thought to help with erectile dysfunction[4] and increase sexual performance.[5] Most cases of mad honey poisoning are experienced by middle-aged men.[24]
TIL > Mad honey
Yup. Mad honey
Hahaha. I needed that laugh.
Massive day today. Worked non stop from 7:40 to 3:40 including a whole lot of new shit and new requirements to my job that, while making a lot of sense and genuinely good for service delivery, involve a level of mental load/energy that’s… not exactly what I signed up for. I need more training and preparation. It kind of happened so suddenly that I didn’t have time to formulate a response, and ask for reasonable accommodation/support. I’m definitely willing to give it a go and see if it improves things, but I just really didn’t need that extra burden this week 😣
Anyway… I then had to go help a friend out with some things and ended up having a long chat in the car, really was good to unload but I ended up really exhausted and emotional. Despite my pledge to cook more at home and save money I gave in and ordered the two-large-pizza-plus-garlic-bread special at my local for 37.50. I’m reminding myself that it’ll be enough for dinner tonight, brekkie tomorrow, dinner tomorrow and maybe even lunch the day after. Thankfully lunch is catered tomorrow at some training thing I gotta do. I’d really rather catch up with work but it’s mandatory training so oh well…
I’m thinking after I come back from my break I’m gonna have to ration out my energy a bit better at work in terms of in person interactions. Might need to start requesting one day from home even though I genuinely want to work away from home for the work/life separation - I’m just gonna be really exhausted with all the masking and social interaction.
Ok I think I’m tired.
I nearly fell into a toilet.
It’s a sign.
After a couple of years of self-imposed junk food ban I decided to stop for KFC on the way home. The electronic order board thingy had to be poked a few times before it deigned to take my order but otherwise worked well. But I noticed no one else that came in after me used them and just ordered at the counter. Was I doing the weird thing, or were they?
The wrap seemed smaller than I remember and much more cabbagey. The chips were undersalted and lacking even a hint of crunch. A bit underwhelming and I’ll be happy to abstain from fast food for another few years I think.
I’m always so utterly disappointed when I “treat myself” to some fast food. Never tasted as good as I hoped.
I only get wicked wings from there now. They heat up so well in the airfryer.
I did not know wings (wicked or not) were a thing at KFC. I am afraid my menu knowledge is limited and I just looked for a picture of something that looked vaguely familiar🤣
https://www.kfc.com.au/menu/chicken/3-wicked-wings
I wait until they are on special and buy up big. I make my own chips and potato & gravy that way they are always hot.
There was something in ozbargain today about a large snack pack and I gotta be honest I’ve never been more sold on anything in my life for under 10 bucks!
I’ll pick at Boyo’s chips but otherwise don’t touch the stuff. The abomination they call gravy is so salty you might as well suck stock cubes.
Ditto. So damned salty you can’t actually taste the ingredients. This may be a good thing …
If there is an ingredient in it that isn’t a Number I shall be astonished.
Haven’t had KFC in many years. I remember it being rubbish and don’t imagine it’s improved. Local chicken shops are so much better, and many of them do wraps and burgers as well as the standard rotisserie chicken. And chips are always fresh cooked. They can take my money instead.
I forgot - hot and spicy KFC isn’t an everyday thing in Melbourne. Only available occasionally and as wings/burgers.
I almost never have KFC myself, but when I do, it’s usually hot and spicy. It’s just part of the regular menu in WA.
This is also the first time I’ve heard of any fast food chips described as “undersalted”.
@Seagoon_ Overheard in the office…
Colleague one: “As you are aware, we’ve decided to postpone <event> until August or September. Can you change the dates on the website please?”
Colleague two: “No, I was not aware, thanks for letting me know. When was the decision made? I’ll update the website.”
Colleague one: “I am very sorry, I thought you were aware.”
The “Manager” strikes again.
