Footprints on the Moon

Too Much Company

I am the type of person who definitely enjoys her personal space. Since I am the receptionist, my desk is in the lobby, and the only person up here with any regularity is my boss. It’s nice and quiet most of the day and I like it that way. So the arrangements this week are going to try my patience.

They are doing redoing the floors in the guardhouse, and it involves pouring concrete, so security had to move out. They got moved into the lobby, so there are two more people and four extra computers in here. The sidewalk going up to the employee entrance is being redone at the same time, so ALL the traffic in the entire building is passing through the lobby.

Shift change was a few minutes ago, and I kind of felt like I was going insane. I’m the type of person who gets claustrophobic in large crowds, so all the extra people passing through are making me lose my mind (no comments on that!)

Growing Thicker Skin

I didn’t mean to let yesterday slip past me without a post… it just happened! I was busy doing other things while I was at work, and then when I got home, I had to fill out a “talent performance summary sheet” for work. So I worked on that for awhile, got dinner, and then it was time to church. When I got home, I watched the American Idol results and finished my summary sheet and went to bed!

Now I’m at work, and I’m thinking about the need to be a little more thick skinned. I don’t think it’s ever beneficial to cry at work, especially when your higher ups (and most of your coworkers) are male, but that hasn’t prevented me from doing so on a few occasions. It doesn’t help that I have a tendency to cry when I’m mad. But my big issue is that I take everything so danged personally, and I don’t know how to stop. I have a hard time accepting criticism, constructive or otherwise. And in the workplace, that’s just not the greatest attribute to have. I’d like to look as outwardly unaffected as if we were talking about medicare advantage or the weather, but I just don’t find that possible. I made a valiant effort the last time my boss called me into his office, and I made it for awhile… but the longer the meeting went, the harder it was to stay calm. One tear slipped out, he saw it and said “Oh, no don’t do that” and there was no staying composed after that. The fact that he gets really uncomfortable with the sight of tears just underscores the necessity to stay composed.

If anybody has some suggestions as to how to grow a thicker skin, and to stop taking things so personally, I’d love to hear them. I’ve got this on my mind today because some comments were made earlier that managed to get under my skin, and I’m trying not to let it bother me. Especially since it only started out serious, and now he’s just pushing the point because he saw that it got to me and he thinks it’s funny to push my buttons.

You’re Worried About What?

I just had to laugh today. We have a health and safety department where I work, and one of the things they focus on is ergonomics. They’ve trained people in pretty much every department to be ergonomic facilitators, I put in a bunch of work orders to have employees’ work surfaces moved up an inch, down two inches, move the keyboard trays, that sort of thing. They “yell” at me all the time for hyperextending my wrists while typing, and for leaning on the desk, or to the side while I’m reading things online. (If only they could see my posture when I’m at home, leaned back with one leg propped up on the edge of the desk!)
Why is that funny? Well, because today was work order day. I processed the work orders for the week. I also helped my friend Amy put together packets, and stuff packages for a study she’s doing. By the end of the day, I managed to give myself not one, not two, but THREE papercuts. And nicked my knuckle on the tape dispenser. Somehow, I don’t think posture correction is my biggest safety issue at work! And can someone explain to me why paper cuts manage to hurt so much? It’s just a tiny little cut, but it really stings– especially the one right on the pad of my finger. I can’t help but accidentally press on it!

The Christmas Dog

Someone who used to work here just came in with “the Christmas dog”. She was actually just dropping another person off for work, and picking up a picture from someone else. Why bring your dog with you? Yeah, the dog was cute, but it really doesn’t belong in a place of business. And I just don’t like clothes on animals. It’s one thing when you have the little teeny dogs that need a sweater just to go outside to pee so they don’t freeze to death, but this dog was plenty big and furry enough to not need a Christmas sweater. Grumble, grumble.
Felt bad for the dog too… when she came in, she opened the door really hard right into his head! I could hear the thunk from my desk. Seriously though folks, if you’re not blind, leave the dog at home. Or, if people want to see your dog so badly, they can come out to your car and see it. Bah Humbug. LOL

Speak Up!

Why do people get on the phone and mumble? Seriously. It’s still early on Monday morning, I’m going to need you to speak up and talk clearly! Some people make me wish my phone had subtitling capabilities. You want to call and ask about a job? That’s fine, but nobody’s going to hire you if they can’t even understand what you’re saying!
I’d also like to point out that what’s coming over the phone is usually not the only noise I’m hearing… don’t make me struggle to hear you over the conversation someone else is having 2 feet away, the “white noise” the company feels the need to pipe through the building, and heaven knows what else.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

It’s 5:15 and I’m already getting sleepy. Normally, this would be annoying. Today however, this is a very good thing. I need to go to bed early, so being tired will definitely help with that. Why am I going to bed early on a Tuesday night?? (Which just so happens to be my favorite TV night, just for the record)
Tomorrow, I have to be AT work at FIVE AM! Normally, I get out of bed at 5:30. Tomorrow at 5:30, I will have been at work for half an hour already. Man, that’s painful just thinking about it! I already changed into pajamas, but I’m going to have to put clothes back on in a minute and run out to get gas in the car. My gas light came on on my way home from work, and I am definitely NOT leaving early enough to stop at the gas station in the morning!
I won’t have access to my computer for the extra two hours either… boo… I’ll be in the hallway being bored. I don’t think I can get away with a book either. Oh well, it’s just one day, I think I can survive!

Watering the Plants

I had to laugh today… Janette’s been training me on a new task that I’m going to be taking over for her. It got me remembering when she was training me to take over the position that I’m in now. She was very thorough, down to discussing the plants in the lobby. I soon discovered there was a good reason for this– we have a lot of plants in here. One of the trees was real, the other was one of those silk trees. Apparently when she first started, she spent about three months watering one of our fake plants before discovering that it was in fact made out of plastic. That gave me a good chuckle. It was the most alive fake-plant I’ve ever seen!

Parking Lot Woes

Oh my… it’s been a FUN couple of days at work. They decided to re-do the parking lot at work. As far as I knew, the plans were to close the parking lot this weekend and do the majority of the resurfacing, and then operate continuing on from there as needed starting on Monday. Well, yesterday they showed up and decided they were taking the curbs out. So we spent about an hour tracking down about 25 people to get them to move their cars. And tracking them down again because they didn’t show up. And paging them 34 times because we can’t get a hold of them at all.

Today they started doing some digging. I’m not sure what for, but the plans make no sense to me anyways LOL Poor Ron had to stand at the end of one of our two drives for almost two hours to direct people to the second drive while they did their digging. Gar had a 11-12 hour day today, and probably another one tomorrow.

And the employees? They’re a bunch of WHINERS! I can’t wait until the major upheaval on Monday so I can listen to them all complain. Yes, it sucks, but get over it… it’s going to last a few days, and be done. Then you won’t have to park in B.F.E., but noo… nobody understands that. All they can see is the small inconvenience now.

High Turn Over

Sometimes it seems like there is a revolving door around here. This is especially true right now for the company we’re placed at. About 10 people just retired on Friday, and they did a “move up” in the rest of the building for this morning. I wonder if they have any type of succession planning in place, or if they’re just flying by the seats of their pants when the changes come. Given the amount of temps coming in, I’m going to go with the latter.
My boss has a different type of succession planning… he’s not looking at employees to see who will be promoted, he’s looking to see who to replace you with when you quit (or get fired). A little unsettling, but I don’t blame him. In Security, when thing happen, they happen fast and you can’t leave spots unfilled. We go through phases… sometimes we go for long stretches when noone is leaving. Then it seems like everyone leaves at the same time. We’ve got a core group of people who are here for the long haul, but every one else could decide to leave at any time. Which group do I fit in? I’m not sure… I never thought I’d be doing this, and I don’t want to be doing this forever and ever, amen, but I don’t really have plans to move on any time soon. Unless something falls in my lap, of course.

Just. Stop. Calling.

I’m getting ready to pull my hair out. I’ve been getting a phone call from the same person, over and over again. This is, in and of itself, not unusual. It’s actually been a repeat problem all this week, from different people. The difference today is that it is one person calling from a commercial collection agency, and they are looking for an employee that no longer works here. And hasn’t for YEARS. And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that this employee no longer works here, this chick keeps. calling. back. And it’s not even like it’s someone else from the same company. No it’s the SAME PERSON! Honey, I’m not lying to you. He doesn’t work here anymore. Please stop calling me.

Hmm… apparently I need to write an Open Letter to all outside callers/visitors as well. LOL