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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Today will be a light blogging day, because, (shock), I actually have work to do that will keep me busy for most of the day.
I’m hoping we can continue this trend, so I can call myself productive, and so I can save the blogging for when it’s supposed to be done, either at home, on a break, or in reaction to something actually happening at work.
It’s just weird to be sitting at work, blogging about everything else but.
I’d rather be sitting at home.
Speaking of work conditions, it’s 800 degrees back here.
I’ve gone up front to have a service request put in so the heat can be turned down.
I’ve also asked for AOLIM access, since that’s what everyone on the floor uses, and it would save me from having to go up front to ask a question.
I could just IM the appropriate person instead.
More later.

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Right now, I’m thankful I’ve kept this LJ.
I could never post this entry at customerservant.com, (well, actually, I could, but I’d have to post it privately, because I can’t be sure John wouldn’t try to use it against me.
I’m completely sick, and it’s not due to illness.
They’re planning a major firing tomorrow, they being John, Merick, and Chris.
Rich Raymond, who has worked here literally since the center opened, is getting the axe.
No one’s telling him, they’re just going to let him walk in tomorrow and yank the floor out from under him.
He’s a good worker.
He’s always here on time.
He never breaks the rules.
The man would help anyone, and always looks for the best in everybody, despite his fondness for conspiracy theories.
On top of all of that, he has a wife with some serious medical issues, and he depends on the insurance offered by Convergys a great deal.
I can’t believe they’re just going to let him walk in, and then fire him like that.
They’ve been planning this one for a while.
Everybody but Richard knows about it.
Please don’t think I’m naive enough to believe that a company has no right to fire anyone who’s been working there for a really long time.
It’s not that.
It’s just that I can pretty much guarantee Richard hasn’t done anything to warrant this kind of back-stabbing.
He keeps to himself, and has always demonstrated the kind of work ethic you don’t see anymore.
The folks in charge around here have a history of firing the wrong people, for stupid reasons, and keeping the wrong ones around, and sweeping anything that isn’t quite kosher under the rug.
For instance, back around March, a woman named Corinthia, (also part of the concrete), was fired for passing out a letter with the information for fellow employees to get in touch with Corporate HR, because management had not only hired someone who had previously worked here and been let go specifically as a supervisor, (the written rules state that, if someone is let go, they can’t be rehired as a supervisor, they have to come back as an agent and stay in that position for six months, and then apply for the supervisory position), but to add insult to injury, said individual was fired for credit card fraud.
Corinthia was fired for passing out the letter, (the official ruling was that she had passed around a petition, and there’s supposed to be a rule in the handbook forbidding that sort of thing), which contained only the Corporate HR information, and the allegation, (she used the word allegedly when describing the circumstances of this individual’s rehiring when referring to the credit card fraud).
The next morning, I had to sit through two meetings on the matter.
(Me thinks they doth protest too much). One was with the Asc team, in which Merick told us why Corinthia was fired, that they (upper management) felt she was ready for several promotional opportunities, and that she threw them away because she got caught up in her perception of reality and felt it necessary to make up stories out of whole cloth, and stab people in the back, specifically him.
In other words, he ran Corinthia into the ground, in front of other agents.
That is totally unprofessional conduct, and a manager should know better.
When I said something to John about it later, he said that Merick “needed” to do that to set an example for the other Asc team members.
Not acceptable in the slightest.
Then, after that meeting, I had to sit through a meeting with John’s regular team, in which he told us the official story, (basically, the whole accusation was entirely made up by Corinthya, that Convergys would never do anything like Corinthia was alleging), (cough Michelle Cousare /cough), and that if we even talked about it, we’d be fired for character assassination.
Needless to say, all the “old-timers” confirmed her story, but none of us were going to talk about it out loud.
This should be enough illustration of the past history involved.
Anyway, back to the original reason for this post.
Rich has been on the shitlist for years now.
I know he’s been on John’s and he and Chris don’t get along.
So, it seems as though they’ve finally found an official reason to get rid of him.
From what I’ve been given to understand, there are a lot of people, including supervisors, who aren’t happy about this at all, including Rich’s immediate supervisor.
Unfortunately for Rich, this is a Chris/Merick production, so his immediate supervisor was skipped over in the chain.
So Rich gets to come into work tomorrow, not knowing a thing, and then get canned.
The whole thing’s just sick, and totally wrong, and evil, and this place is being managed by dogs.
Nobody in management has any right to talk about back-stabbing.
Oh, and Vernon got kicked off the Asc team, for supposedly being rude to a member.
I’ve sat on that row for years, and listened to him deal with stupid agents ad infinitum, but never have I, or any other Asc team member heard him become rude.
This place is so fucked up.
We have people in power who are intent on settling old scores, (Chris), and people so intent on climbing the corporate ladder that they don’t care who they step on to get there (Merick).
God, I can’t wait to quit.
OK, I think I feel a little better.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

For me, 11 September, 2001 dawned just like any other
Tuesday morning.
I got up, and started getting ready to go to math class.
I turned on the radio, and the announcer was saying that
a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World
Trade Center.
I immediately assumed that the plane had been some prop
job, and that the pilot hadn’t been paying attention to
where he was going.
I remember asking myself how someone could miss a
building that big.
I never once considered it could be a terrorist attack.
It wasn’t that I thought America could never be
attacked, it was just that no one, especially me, had
ever heard of planes being flown into buildings being
used as a method of terrorism.
Then the announcer said a second plane had hit the other
tower, and I knew at that point we had been attacked.
They played music for a while, and it seemed so out of
place.
Then, a little before 10 in the morning, the announcer
came back on and said that the Pentagon had been hit as
well.
I remember thinking to myself, “What are we going to do
now?”
Who the hell would do something like this?
And I still had to go to class.
Luckily our professor, (a graduate student named Robert
Lee), made a short announcement about our upcoming test,
told us both towers had collapsed, and told us that we
could leave if we wanted to.
I don’t think anyone stayed.
I remember walking back to my apartment, and noticing
that no one was laughing, or joking, and that Everyone
was talking in hushed tones.
When I got back home, I found my friend Daniel and my
roommate Joseph sitting in front of the TV watching the
coverage.
People from every nation were sending their condolences,
and then that message came in from the Taliban at around
13:00, saying that they weren’t responsible.
No condolences, just “We didn’t have anything to do with
it, and we don’t know where Osama is.”
Later on, we all saw the video of the Palestinians
dancing in the streets of Gaza, handing out candy, and
it mane everybody very angry.
For the rest of that day and for some weeks after that,
our nation seemed so much smaller than usual.
Everyone wanted to help, and everyone was kind and
polite to each other.
Anybody who displayed extremist partisan tendencies was
very swiftly put in their place, especially the people
who tried to say it was America’s fault, or who tried to
give the dancing Palestinians an excuse.
For a while it seemed like we had the answer, and we
knew what we had to do, and we didn’t care how long it
took, or what the cost would be.
It was America’s “Never Again.”
Unfortunately, we seem to have lost our resolve.
We’re just as partisan as ever now, if not more so.
People seem to have forgotten that the people who did
this haven’t gone away, and no amount of trying to
appease them is going to make them do so.
People keep moaning about the rights of those imprisoned
being violated, or the methods being used by the
security services in order to try to combat what can
effectively be called wild card warfare, without
providing any alternative, practical solutions.
Healthy debate is always a very good thing, but this
discussion has degenerated into a free-for-all on both
sides.
We need to stop all this bickering and one-upmanship
amongst ourselves, bite the bullet, and do what needs to
be done: Go after anyone who either commits terrorist
acts, or supports terrorism, international law be
damned.
Anyone who thinks taking the moral highroad by applying
the Geneva Convention to those not signatory to it, even
going so far as to extend its parameters beyond what
would be required if we were engaged in traditional
combat, is the right thing to do is hopelessly naive.
We don’t have time to sit here and engage in serious
navel-gazing, especially when it comes to an enemy who
isn’t really interested in whether or not we repent of
the sins they accuse us of.
And let’s be real clear about who that enemy is, because
it’s a very real one.
That enemy is anyone who either commits terrorist acts,
gives money to terrorists, sympathizes with them, or
gives them shelter.
It doesn’t matter whether the terrorism is committed
against America, or against its allies.
It’s not a very pretty view from where we sit right now,
but unless we keep these things in mind, and really
start acting accordingly it’s going to get a lot worse.
I, for one, am not interested in waking up one day to
find a bigger blood bath has been perpetrated on our
shores, nor am I interested to find out we’ve become the
latest addition to the one world government known as the
Caliphate.
I think we know which path to take, even if we all agree
it won’t be easy.
Here’s hoping and praying for a better, more peaceful
future, for everyone who wants such things.

This is an open trackback post.
If you have a 911 tribute, link to this post, and send a
trackback, and I’ll display your links at the bottom of
this post.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I never made it a point to blog about this Friday when I got it, for a number of reasons.
First, I was still exhausted from the monster sinus infection I spent most of last week recovering from, and secondly, it left even me speechless, which is one hell of a feat.
That only happens when something is either so touching/moving/inspirational that I’m humbled and awe-struck, or the stupidity factor is so great that it takes me a while to come up with a suitable response.
Unfortunately for me, this fits into the latter category.
The monumental, earth-shaking solution is, (drumroll please): Disable the Jaws for Windows virtual cursor.
Just so that non-Jaws users have an idea of what I’m talking about, the Jaws for Windows Virtual cursor is an extra cursor that allows Jaws to track what’s going on on the screen, and gives you all the neat Jaws functionality beloved by Jaws users the world over.
No virtual cursor, no Jaws hotkeys, which means no Jaws functionality.
Anyone who has worked with Jaws for Windows as long as these people are supposed to have worked with it would know this, especially if they’re the technical type.
Hell, my mom figured it out, and she’s the least-technical person I’ve ever met.
I’m thinking maybe they should put this stroke of brilliance to better use before it runs out.
If they did, they could have the problem of world hunger solved in a matter of hours, and if they work really hard at it, could probably usher in the Messianic Age all by themselves.
Then, the Messiah could assume his throne with no effort at all, and when God asked how he got all that work done in so short a time, Messiah could just say he outsourced the job.
There has to be a limit to corporate stupidity, there just has to be.
I’ll probably find that when I find a self-help phrase that hasn’t been incorporated into some work-related publication.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. Please leave any comments there.

I got back early from lunch, and was setting up the Pacmate, and my phone started ringing.
Since I was still on lunch, I didn’t pick up.
The agent let the phone ring until I clocked in, which was about five minutes.
The little bastards need to read their memo, and try internalizing what it says for a change.
I’m not giving up five minutes of my lunch, just like they’re not giving up five minutes of theirs to get back to work.
If they want to get mad because I’m not there when they call, whenever they call, then too bad.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I knew there was a reason to tell Embarq, (Sprint’s latest incarnation), to bite me.
I’m having problems with my earthlink mail, and since Embarq provides their email through earthlink, I figured I’d have to call them.
The “tech” who picked up the phone asked me four times what my phone number was, then if I could connect to the internet, then was I sure I could connect, then was I *sure* I could connect, before telling me that I had to call Earthlink because they’re not responsible for the mail side.
I wonder if Embarq uses Convergys to outsource their calls.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Today will most likely be very long.
I was up and down all night blowing my nose and coughing, (yes, I know, not the most pleasant thing to read about), and have been up since about 04:00 this morning unable to fall back to sleep.
I hope I don’t get very many calls today, and I probably won’t.
I also hope to post more today than I have in the last little while.
Lately I just haven’t felt like posting any of my own work, and am thankful for the blogburst material to keep the pings coming from this blog to Technorati and the fifty or so ping services I have listed for that purpose.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I just had an agent come to me with a situation in which a member received some medication from us on June 15th, and who says they’re concerned because some of the pills look different, yet neglected to call us about it until this morning.
It’s now August 9th.
Obviously you weren’t that concerned.
I let it through, because if a member calls and says their meds look different, then we have to transfer it just to avoid liability.
I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to deny it though.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m going into this weekend with a full paycheck, two extra days off thanks to PTO (or however John ends up putting it in, but either way, they’ll be company-free), and my guest will be here by 14:00 tomorrow.
Consequently I’ll be incommunicato after that point, until Tuesday morning.
I’m glad for this weekend.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

It looks like I didn’t manage to miss Ghetto Idol, the May/June/July Edition.
The prizes?
The lucky winners get their own parking space, their own work station, (yes, they’re at a premium), a certificate, (probably printed in black and white on regular paper because the company doesn’t want to spend much money on such things as color paper and color printing), and a $15 Target gift card.
I have to give Merick credit, he’s really trying to boost the morale.
I just hate spectacles, especially the ghetto kind.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Apparently people have been transferring callers to the pharmacists without submitting an alledged errors referral.
It’s been stated since day one of this project that, whenever you transfer a call to the pharmacy, an alledged error referral has to be submitted.
Yet these people need to be told to make sure they submit the referral.
When will evolution take its course?

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I didn’t realize that Greenville has an authentic Middle Eastern restaurant.
I love Middle Eastern food, and when I found the listing on the Restaurant Runners site, and started looking through the menu, my mouth started watering.
The restaurant is called The Olive Grove.
They have Schwarma, and falafel, and hummus, and a whole bunch of other mouth-wattering foods.
Definitely yum, and definitely part of tonight’s menu.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I just finished setting up an account at Flickr, and the thing that struck me about it is how accessible it is.
Now I just have to get around the issue of people uploading photos and not adding descriptions, but at least I can say that’s the users’ problem and not the actual company’s problem.
I hope to be able to use the service to find some photos for the site, as well as pass on photos, since I probably won’t be taking any pictures myself, although I know blind people who are photographers.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

At least that’s what it feels like.
This cold’s doing its best to stick around, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m taking time off next week when Ze’evi’s coming down, I’d say to hell with it and stay home today.
I’m in even less of a mood to deal with copious amounts of stupidity today than I usually am.
However, on top of not needing to miss the time for the reason mentioned above, there are some things I need some clarification on for what I’m currently doing, and it would be best if I’m at work so I can get that as soon as possible.
I suppose I could just call Merick and ask my questions, but there are other people relying on me, however minor my task, so I’ll just suck it up and go in.
I just need to remember to stop and get some Bennadrill on the way home, and hopefully knock myself out for the entire weekend.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I got a call a short while ago from someone who had a member on the phone who wanted to use our pharmacy as their personal medical support line.
I use medical support in the same way you use technical support.
It’s just like calling your computer’s manufacturer, except this is dealing with your health.
You should get the picture.
If not, pay really close attention to the rest of this.
Anyway, the member’s insurance provider has a step therapy program in place.
That basically means that the insurance company is going to try to get you to try cheaper generics instead of the brand med the doctor originally prescribed to see if that will work first.
They’re playing doctor, which is controversial enought without the freaky implications being thrown in.
They pretty much have no qualms about second-guessing the decisions of the actual doctors if they think it will save them some dough.
In this case, he who pays the piper shouldn’t be calling the tune.
So, this member is being told to take the generic of his med instead of the brand, and wants to call our pharmacy to discuss side effects, and all the jazz that goes along with it.
Well, our pharmacy isn’t an on-call medical helpdesk.
They’ll discuss any side effects members are experiencing from prescriptions in a case where the member wants to switch a generic to a brand, or tell the member how to destroy pills and other medications in the event they’ve been damaged or have expired, but they won’t give members general medical advice.
I told this particular caller to have the member call either their doctor or their local retail pharmacy for medical advice, and that I wasn’t aproving the transfer.
The caller asked what they should say to the member.
How about a paraphrase of what I just told you?
I didn’t realize call scripting was in my job description.
Sometimes I wonder how these people manage to get out the door in the morning, let alone drive a vehicle.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I still have this really bad cold, and my phone’s been ringing off the hook all day, with lots of stupid people calling.
I really wish I could leave and tell them to just forward the calls to my home number.
People refuse to read their memos, so I’ve been getting calls during my breaks and lunch as well.
They just ring the phone until it won’t ring any more, hang up, and start the process all over again.
I had one person call and let the phone ring for five minutes before one of the Asc Team members went and picked it up and told them I was on break.
The clients are out of the building, so that means tomorrow we get to dress casually again.
Hurray for that.