Solace in utility
Jun. 29th, 2002 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneI should explain what I've been doing for the past few weeks. You know a tad about my new job as a salescritter on an inbound phone bank at AT&Love. I'm still in training, so I don't dislike it yet. My training group of eleven people found out that we are going to be the founding members of a new team. We'll sit near each other and ride each other's energy. This company is so big yet so friendly that I'm willing to give it a full try. I want to see how much of the salesman is left in me after years in front of computers.
This new job is making me realize how much I've grown since college. I am no longer green behind the ears, naive about the ways of labor nor fearful of employer mandates. When we learned that it takes four unplanned occasions (non-consecutive absences of any type) within six months to get as much as a formal verbal warning, I just about jumped for joy. How liberal! Then again, I don't have kids, I don't tend to get ill and I don't do things that lead to hangovers. Other people in the room were maddeningly confused by the concept of six rolling months. I took that as a given after working at Bank of Saw Buck (again not a real name but I'll explain offline if you ask me), where the rolling period was an entire year and three occurences led to your first "formal" (written but really verbal) warning.
I was amazed that people were actually investing that much mental effort into this calculation. Do they expect to blow off that much work? I think I called in sick one day in the past nine months at General Tsao's Networks (their motto: "We can't wait for the phone company to buy us out again!"). I begged for the Christmas Eve, I'd taken an unpaid week of vacation, and I still showed up more regularly than anyone else (including bosses). Maybe New England natives take their drinking time more seriously. Oh wait, I have proof of that, don't I?
So I feel like I'm on easy street -- make three sales an hour with people purposely calling you to buy stuff and you're way above standard. Then again, I don't know that I'll feel rewarded for long, or I wouldn't if it weren't for what's been hogging my off hours.
Television? Surfing the Web? "Sausage making"? No, dear ones. I've been performing major overhauls on computers. I started with my own machine, which is still not where I'd wanted it to be by now but it may be getting there within the coming week. Then I started on my cousin's computer, which is similar enough to my own machine that I'm learning a lot more than I would at home. Then I checked out the neat computer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
quinnclub has that I still think I can save from vague peril.
I am starting to get a client base. I don't charge anyone (yet) but I am working. Just as having a steady girlfriend keeps me from worrying and wandering sexually, having Linux keeps me from wanting to steal software from other people's hard drives. Moral posture can indeed arise from open-source gifts.
I have a day job that pays very well and evening vocation that gives me joy. I am still working on so many things but I am stronger than ever. I am achieving a strong (though not yet indefatigable) sense of self.
-"I'm not a shrimp; I'm a king prawn, okay?" Ps/d
This new job is making me realize how much I've grown since college. I am no longer green behind the ears, naive about the ways of labor nor fearful of employer mandates. When we learned that it takes four unplanned occasions (non-consecutive absences of any type) within six months to get as much as a formal verbal warning, I just about jumped for joy. How liberal! Then again, I don't have kids, I don't tend to get ill and I don't do things that lead to hangovers. Other people in the room were maddeningly confused by the concept of six rolling months. I took that as a given after working at Bank of Saw Buck (again not a real name but I'll explain offline if you ask me), where the rolling period was an entire year and three occurences led to your first "formal" (written but really verbal) warning.
I was amazed that people were actually investing that much mental effort into this calculation. Do they expect to blow off that much work? I think I called in sick one day in the past nine months at General Tsao's Networks (their motto: "We can't wait for the phone company to buy us out again!"). I begged for the Christmas Eve, I'd taken an unpaid week of vacation, and I still showed up more regularly than anyone else (including bosses). Maybe New England natives take their drinking time more seriously. Oh wait, I have proof of that, don't I?
So I feel like I'm on easy street -- make three sales an hour with people purposely calling you to buy stuff and you're way above standard. Then again, I don't know that I'll feel rewarded for long, or I wouldn't if it weren't for what's been hogging my off hours.
Television? Surfing the Web? "Sausage making"? No, dear ones. I've been performing major overhauls on computers. I started with my own machine, which is still not where I'd wanted it to be by now but it may be getting there within the coming week. Then I started on my cousin's computer, which is similar enough to my own machine that I'm learning a lot more than I would at home. Then I checked out the neat computer
quinnclub has that I still think I can save from vague peril.I am starting to get a client base. I don't charge anyone (yet) but I am working. Just as having a steady girlfriend keeps me from worrying and wandering sexually, having Linux keeps me from wanting to steal software from other people's hard drives. Moral posture can indeed arise from open-source gifts.
I have a day job that pays very well and evening vocation that gives me joy. I am still working on so many things but I am stronger than ever. I am achieving a strong (though not yet indefatigable) sense of self.
-"I'm not a shrimp; I'm a king prawn, okay?" Ps/d
