We are absolutely dead at work today. I'll probably regret saying this, but I've only been transferred eight calls in the last five hours. It does give me time to surf the internet and do what I want, but there is only so much that I can look for and read about. I'm growing tired of sitting here. I don't know what's worse - sitting here surfing the internet and being bored or being slammed with customers. Probably the first because I don't have to deal with anyone when I'm surfing the internet and when we're busy it really doesn't make the time go by that much faster.

I have such a stupid schedule this week. My team is handling retention calls this week from three to seven so I have to take my lunch from 2 to 3 so I'm back in time. Well, my morning break is at 1:15. I'll get back to my desk at 1:30 and then go to lunch at 2. It's just dumb. They might as well give me an hour and fifteen minute lunch that begins at 1:45.

I started a new, temporary position at work today. I was approached by my boss last week to see if I wanted to take the opportunity for a 4 month special assignment. Of course I took it. I would be stupid not to. I am down on the escalation line -- sort of like an assist line, but I now quote specialty vehicles such as motorcycles, boats, ATV's and such.. and then umbrella policies and other specialty policies that I never had to worry about before. So, today is my first day. I'm only here until 2:30 PM because my son's graduation is tonight. It's kind of a good thing.. moving into this new position slowly. I freaked out at first.. forgot everything I learned last week when the first phone call came in. But now I've slowed down and had a chance to catch my breath and it's all good. I'm going to break now and then only an hour left!

By the way.. that Red Wings game was intense and I was so not thrilled with the outcome - especially since we HAD the cup almost in our hands until the last 34 seconds of the game! Who think it will end at game 6? and who thinks we'll be back in Detroit for game 7? Let me know your thoughts.

This day last year I started working for the company that I presently work for. I had taken 6 months off after the birth of my daughter and decided that I didn't want to travel as far as I had been for the 4 years before that. I found a large, reputable company with great pay and benefits only five miles from home and today I am celebrating one year with the company. Time sure does fly. It's a good thing that it's only five miles from home too with the way gas prices are. I wouldn't have been able to afford the seventy mile round trip I was making with the previous company.

This post also reminds me that my daughter just turned 18 months old this past Monday. Wow, can you believe it? A year and a half already. I can't believe how fast they grow up!

Marilyn is the woman who sits across from me at work. She is totally awesome. She's probably about the same age as my mom and just as cool. She makes each day so much easier to tolerate. She and I have very similar personalities. She speaks her mind regardless of what anyone thinks and she has a great sense of humor. She is completely disgusted with most of the people that call here, as you all know I am as well. She says the funniest things. Things that I would say - and you know that can be bad. *grin* She cracks me up. I don't know what I would do without her here.

It's been one helluva day so far. It's 12:23pm and I haven't even had a break yet. They never adjust my breaks, they just throw the overtime hours on top of my regular schedule. Most people come in at 8am and have gone to lunch by now, but I'm still waiting for my first break. Whatever. I've learned to deal with it. I'm in no way bitching about it. My break is actually at 12:30 and I'm looking forward to walking away for a few minutes. What's incredible is that it's been so busy today. This is the first time I've had a break between calls. It's been OK because most of the people have been nice. There was one guy that almost made my day turn south, but I took a few deep breaths after talking to him and moved on with my day. Well, it looks like my break just got pushed further back... I have to rewrite an auto policy now.

Well, after the first drawing we got super busy at work and they decided that no one else was leaving early. So, I'm still here at work until 4:30pm. We have been absolutely swamped today. Even so.. I've been on eBay bidding on xBox 360's for the last hour. I thought it would be a nice Christmas gift for my husband. He would absolutely LOVE to have one. Unfortunately, everyone and their mother is bidding on these systems too so I haven't gotten one yet.

In other news... just about every customer I've spoken to today has a stick up their ass and I want to tell them to fuck off and stop being such an asshole. I need to get out of here soon before I actually say something to someone that I end up regretting.

It's 8:48am right now. I've been at work for an hour - available for calls for 48 minutes - and I've had one call. That's it. Wouldn't it be lovely if the whole day was this way? I could handle one call per hour. That would make being here on the best shopping day of the year worth it. I don't really have much shopping left to do so I probably wouldn't be out today anyway, but I'd still like to be anywhere except here today. Why are some companies like this? The rest of the world - other than retail - are off today. I don't work in retail therefore I shouldn't be at work today. Wouldn't it be great if they started sending people home early? I would jump for the opportunity to leave early today.

Ooh, my tummy hurts. I think the turkey wants out. Maybe if I spend half the day in the bathroom they'll send me home. *grin*

I just put in a request for overtime next week - working 8am to 8pm. It's a long week when I do that, but the money is oh, so good. And the money will be on my check for December 13th - right before Christmas - which will make life much less stressful. I'm a sucker for overtime cash no matter how difficult it is to work that many hours.

An email just went out to the insurance department (which is the department that I work in) stating that anyone who is normally scheduled to leave at 5pm or 6pm and would like to go home now (now being 4:30pm), feel free to go. I want to go home early! It's not my fault that I don't leave until we close. I feel totally ripped off. It's not like there's any chance that we'll close early which means there is no chance that I will be leaving any earlier than normal. Oh, well. That's life, right? Now I know why I felt like it was a half day... just not a half day for me. I guess that means it will continue to be slow today. That's better than being stuck here and being swamped. The glass is half full - right? Although, now that I think of it.. with people going home it will probably get busier than it has been because there aren't as many people to take the calls.

Update: Now they've sent one out for people who leave at 6:30pm and want to go home now (now still only 4:35pm) can take off. They're killing me here. I'm trying to stay positive about this. *grin*

Well, so far I've gotten what I wanted - a slow day at work. I hope it stays this way all day long. I don't mind taking a call every now and then. It gives me time to post here, surf the web and get other things done that I normally don't have time to do. Speaking of things I need to get done, I guess I should transfer the money for my customers account that I should have done yesterday. I suppose I should get on that.

I hate working on Saturday. It only happens once every three weeks, but it seems like it's always that week. It's so not cool to ruin my weekend with work. Sure, I get Thursday off when I have to work on Saturday, but I prefer having my two days off together. What makes it even worse is that the cafe isn't open today so I can't run down there and get something to eat for breakfast or lunch. I guess I'll be starving until noon when I then get to run across the street to A&W and eat something crappy and not worth my money.

I'm losing steam, folks. My eyes are starting to burn. Needless to say, I'm tired. I hope this evening doesn't drag on. I went home for lunch and got to see my husband and my daughter for a few minutes. Working these hours is difficult for me because I don't get to see my kids as much. I saw Evan for about 20 minutes this morning before I left and I didn't see Gabby at all. Then I got to see Gabby at lunch for a few minutes and didn't get to see Evan because he's still in school. Then I'll get to see them both for about an hour or so when I get home tonight. *sniffle* It's not easy. I already can't wait until next week. I'm looking forward to only working three days out of 9 next week. I have this weekend off, then I work Monday and Tuesday, then I'm off Wednesday and Thursday, work Friday and off Saturday and Sunday again. Next week is going to be great.

Well, today is my first day working 8am to 8pm this week. I've been here for 2 hours - only 53 hours left to go in the week. It's busier than hell today. Then again, it's usually busy. I shouldn't complain because that means job security and overtime money, but knowing that I will spend almost every waking hour here this week makes me want to complain anway.

So far the afternoon has been a lot quieter than the morning. I know a lot of times it seems that if you're busy, time goes faster. That isn't the case here. I don't know why that is, but I swear it's true. I enjoy quiet days at work. I can get lost reading on the internet and time seems to go by faster that way. Plus, I'm in a better mood if there's less of a chance that I'll have to talk to someone who's rude or angry. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it stays this way.

It's a lovely day at the office. It's been fairly slow today - which I like. I hate when it's super busy and I have to take call after call. I'm having lunch with my friend, Julie, today. It's been a while since we've had lunch so it'll be nice to catch up. It's funny that we work in the same place and rarely have a chance to talk. It's a good day so far and I'm anticipating that it will only get better.

I was just on one of the longest calls I've had since working here. I talked to this man who wanted to make every change possible on his policy of 5 vehicles. Then he wanted to compare scenarios on each vehicle with different types of changes. I was supposed to have my last break at 6:30pm, but instead I went at quarter past seven. The good thing about that is that when I got back, I only had thirty minutes left to go. Now I'm down to twenty-two minutes.... and counting.

Here I am... writing from work again. The evening hours in this place are generally a slow time so I have plenty of time to get caught up here. I haven't done so until now, but why the heck not, right? I'm not going to just sit here with nothing to do. Last night I shopped online for Gabby's Halloween costume. The night before I was searching for the decorations for her birthday party. I'm torn between two different themes. I'll have to post both of them on here later and get your opinions on which one is the better choice. One is more expensive than the other so I'm leaning toward the less expensive choice.

I have to admit, being an insurance agent is not as much fun as being a debt collector. Sure there was a lot of stress involved in my last position, but I was able to speak my mind a little bit more freely when I was collecting. At this job I have to be extremely nice even when people aren't so nice to me and I have to say certain things during each conversation and I am graded on all of it all of the time. Sometimes I miss my old job, but that's the way life goes, right? I have to look at all the good that comes with this job - I make more money and I'm closer to home. If it wasn't for the money they pay me we wouldn't be able to afford the house we just got. My life is good. My family and friends are happy and healthy. I have a wonderful husband and fantastic children. I can't complain.

As with everything, there are pros and cons when it comes to my new schedule at work. I like working the later shift (11 to 8) because I get to sleep in and because the office becomes fairly quiet in the evening and I can actually get paperwork done. The problem with this new shift is that I sleep until I absolutely have to get up in the morning so I have no time to do anything else and when I get home it's perfectly acceptable to go to bed because it's just about dark outside and my daughter is willing to go to bed at that time. So, I have done nothing except work and sleep since changing to this new shift. I used to get up early and sit and have coffee and play around on my computer and then when I would get home I would do the same and then spend some time with my family. I had time to do advertising posts for extra money and now I am so tired when I get home I don't even feel like doing that. Hopefully things will balance out once I get used to this shift and once we get into our new house.

After 3 long months of training after getting my state license, today was my first "real" day of work as a licensed insurance agent for AAA's corporate office. It was extremely exhausting and very exciting all at the same time. There is so much information that an agent needs to know, hence the three long months of training. I have at least ten binders completely full of job aids to help me through each phone call. I know from experience that when you're on the other end of the phone, you have no idea how difficult an insurance agents job really is.

It's also very fast-paced at the corporate office. I get call after call after call with no break in between. It's nothing like the freedom a field agent at a branch has. I'm "attached" to a system that holds me accountable for every minute I am scheduled to be working. I get rated on how much time I take to wrap things up after the caller hangs up - something they have titled "after call work" (ACW). I should have no more than 1 hour each day of ACW to meet my 80% "ready to serve" requirement. If you don't meet 80%, you don't get your commission for the month. Although, I have a good salary and don't work for commission only, but extra cash is always good. I barely had time to use the bathroom! I will definitely not be bored working for AAA.

Our training class took a practice test today that was similar in content and the amount of questions to the state exam. Only 7 people out of 20 passed and I was one of them! I feel a lot better now about the whole thing. The questions I got wrong were simply stupid mistakes because I was nervous. Hopefully I won't do the same thing for the real test. All I care about today is that I passed the practice test!

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that I am studying to take the P&C licensing exam through the state of Michigan to secure my position with my current employer. My class finally finished reading the HUGE insurance book that we are required to study for this exam. Now we are reading the state book - much smaller, but extremely confusing. The information in the state book totally contradicts the information in the huge insurance book, but we have to know both for the exam and they will not be separated. You don't take the exam on the big book and then the exam for the state book. They mix them all up and try like heck to confuse you. Why? Because it costs $40 every time you take the test so the more you fail and have to retest, the more money the state makes. Luckily my employer pays for the first two attempts. After that.. it's out of my pocket. If I don't pass the state exam within 30 days, I won't have a job with an awesome salary and benefits.

You think that's bad? It gets worse. After this class ends on Friday, we begin corporate training on Monday which teaches us how the company does things - which, once again, is totally different from what we are learning right now. So, if I don't pass the first time my head gets filled with even more contradictory information. The longer it takes me to pass the state exam, the harder it will be to differentiate that information from this. I hope and pray that I am fortunate enough to pass the first time.

Yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't actually start to get tired until after three in the afternoon. I don't even know if I became tired because of the lack of sleep or because of all the information I was trying to digest. By late afternoon every day I just feel like I can't process anything else. Well, by Friday this class will be over and by next Tuesday I will hopefully have passed the test. Then I can move on to a new kind of training - one that isn't so stressful.

It's only my third day back to work and I'm already happy it's the weekend. That doesn't mean that I don't like my job - or what I know of it so far, but I am definitely looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

I can't believe it's only nearing ten o'clock and I have to go to bed. Why? Because I have to get up early to go to work. Ugh. Do you know how long it's been since I've said that? About 7 months. I am really going to miss being a stay-at-home mom. I love being at home with my children. Oh, well.. that's just the way life is - full of "have to's." Knowing that doesn't make me feel any less sad about it though.

I didn't get the job I interviewed for and I have to admit.. God answered my prayers. Sure, I need to go back to work and the company would have been a good one to work for, but I'm not ready yet. I just can't see myself sending Gabrielle off to be watched by someone else right now. Apparently, God also thinks it a good idea if I stay home for another month or so.

My interview went really well. I will definitely take the job if it's offered to me. The hours are good, the pay is good, the benefits are good. Not much to complain about at this point. The HR director is going to forward my resume, test scores and notes from the interview over to the manager of the department I have applied to and if they like what they see, they will call for a second interview. I actually hope I get the job - even though I wasn't planning on going back to work yet. I'm not going on any other interviews at this time though. If I don't get this.. I'm staying home until March 1st. It will still give us time to put some money away and be in our own place this summer.

I got a Christmas bonus in the mail today! I haven't been at work since October and I am not planning on returning to the company. They don't know that yet, obviously. What a great surprise! I love getting money in the mail unexpectedly.

Jeremy and I made the decision that I am starting my "leave" from work now. That, of course, made me very happy. I was only going to be there until the end of next week anyway so it's not really a big deal. I am going to send in paperwork and have my doctor fax something over stating that I am starting my leave of absence now (even though I'm not going back).

Hopefully my doctor's office will do it. They aren't exactly the most cooperative people over there. There was a girl in our childbirth education class that goes to the same doctor. She told them she wanted to go on leave two weeks early and wanted a note from them and they wouldn't give it to her. I don't understand why they are such pains in the butt. They, for some reason, do not like giving out notes when it's work related. It doesn't make sense to me. So, I'll give it a try, but regardless... I'm done.

I don't want to go to work anymore. I had all last week off and told myself that I would be ready to go back for two more weeks once this week rolled around. I was wrong. I'm too tired. I'm too pregnant. I'm too uncomfortable. I'm in too much pain. I can't sleep at night. I hate the thought of being that far away and going into labor. I hate the thought of going to work.. period. I don't know what I'm going to do.

I know I have mentioned this a thousand times before, but I really hate my late night at work. I might not complain so much about my job if I didn't have to deal with my late night every week. No, that's probably not true. I am so burned out there's nothing left to do except complain about that place. Well, the good news is that I only have four late nights left (including today) before I leave.

I have gone to work every day this week. Can you tell? I haven't updated nearly as much. Do you know why? Because I'm freaking exhausted!! I don't know how I will manage going to work every day, each week until the baby gets here. It's simply too much to ask of a woman who is growing a baby. I am ready to go to sleep by 6pm, but I can't because then I would be wide awake in the middle of the night. *sigh* Can we just fast forward to November now? At least when the baby gets here I can nap when she naps. I'm fairly certain there is a no napping policy at work. *grin*

I am going back to work tomorrow - and NOT looking forward to it. It's been nice taking so much time off over the past few months, but we need the money so we can save for the next couple of months before I'm off again for a while. I also can't quit my job until the baby gets here because I need the insurance until then.

I have made a decision: after the baby is born I am not going back to work. Well, at least not for the company I work for. I need something new, something closer to home, something that I can feel good about (or at least not feel like crap about all the time). I am SO burned out at this place. And my hormones don't help the situation. I get so irritated that I want to yell back at the people on the other end of the phone - which I can't do, but I've come very close lately. I really wish that it was easier to change jobs because I would do it now. I'm ready NOW.

My job has become absolutely dreadful. I hate getting up in the morning and making the thirty mile drive to "hell." The company I work for has become extremely large. There's a great deal of micro-managing going on and the majority of the employees are pissed off about it.

That's not the only thing that sucks. On a strickly personal note, my route is complete rubbish. I haven't hit goal in several months. This month is the worst I've seen in well over a year. It would take more than a miracle for me to hit goal by tomorrow night. Unfortunately, I must remain at this job until after Jeremy and I have purchased our new home. Then I can work on getting into a hospital.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to become "stuck" in a job? Once you've been with the same company for years, it's far too much work to find something new. The thought of starting over is even more unpleasant than dealing with the day-to-day bullshit that I have grown accustomed to. Besides, I have awesome benefits that I simply can't live without. And, as much as I may bitch about it, I have stability in my current position. As we all know.. stability is priceless these days.

Every January my company picks the top two collectors from each office, based on their performance from the previous year, and sends them to Florida for four days - all expenses paid plus spending money. I just found out that I won this year. How exciting is that? I'm not sure that I want to go though. Isn't that strange? Four days with a group of "co-workers" from other offices that I don't know. What's so great about that? I don't know. I'm torn. There's a part of me that wants to go simply to be a part of it all, but there's a bigger part of me that doesn't. I'm leaning towards NOT going.

My company has put a new schedule into effect for any collector that hits their goal every month. Since I am one of those collectors, I have been given a new freedom. I can work whatever hours I want, come and go as I please, as long as I have my hours worked by the end of the week. I have to admit.. it's pretty cool. I left work at noon on Monday and at one today. Of course I had to work from nine-thirty yesterday morning until eight-thirty last night and I will have to work from eight until six on Friday, but that's not a big deal. I've had two half days this week to do whatever I want. Since Jeremy and I don't work the same hours or have the same days off we can now spend part of his days off together. I'm loving it.

I just completed Jeremy's resume. It's been a long time since I've written a resume, but I did a pretty darn good job at highlighting his desirable skills and qualities. He loves his current job and has taken on increasing responsibility in management, but he is looking to make more money (especially since we are purchasing a house next year) and a position with more stability. The company where he is currently employed is talking about closing his store at the beginning of the year. That's not a good thing. So cross your fingers for him, please.