Yes, it’s been rather a long time since my last post…!
It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say (people who know me well know I always have lots to say!), I just haven’t had the inclination to do much writing for awhile. Given how busy we were at work all summer with the Oracle debacle with all of the snafus (it’s a great database, but the people who implemented it for us did a lousy job of listening to what we wanted and truly making sure everything was working before we went live.)
I was pretty much the only person doing email during the clean up time Spring and Summer; we had a pile of orders we couldn’t do anything with for a long time that was literally the size of a large city’s phonebook. It was a horrendous process to clean up all summer.
But because I was working on emails all day long, the last thing I wanted to do was to sit down in front of my computer at home or on break at work and…write…more….
It was somewhat akin to a professional housepainter trying to get up the energy to go home and paint his own house.
Or her house. Can’t be gender-specific these days!
But some really good things came out of the database transfer. We finally have a database that can truly handle what we need to have it do or online orders and other accounting and organizational factors that our old database simply couldn’t handle.
And we finally got an actual order department. Right now it’s only three people, but those three people are worth their weight in gold, because it means the coaching staff (of which I’m part) can focus more on being coaches, rather than data entry personnel / coaches.
I have to admit, though, that Oracle is of a strange design. Take address changes – in our old database, we went into one screen changed the address, saved it and – Bam! – we were done. Now we have to go into the customer’s main screen, sort through another two or three screens, change the address, save the address, switch the old address from primary to inactive, save, set the new address from inactive to primary, save, set the new address to either billing or shipping, save….
I’m not even going to begin attempting to tell you what we have to go through just to change an email address.
At one point I found myself thinking as I sorted through a task in Oracle just to release someone’s prepaid level, “This can’t be right. I’ve had to go through three different screens -- ?!” But when I grabbed Marc, my boss, to check with him about my procedure, he nodded. “Yep,” he said. “You’re doing it right.”
“It just seemed way more difficult than it needs to be,” I said.
“If you’re doing something in Oracle and it seems hard you’re doing it right,” Marc said. “If it seems easy – you’re not.”
All righty then, I thought. One more tidbit of Oracle Oddness to tuck away.
Eventually we’re going to have an interface designed that we can use that will function much like what you’d see on websites to place orders and change addresses so that we don’t have to slog through five times more screens than should be necessary.
But, as the joke goes around here, it’ll likely be when our grandchildren are working here.
Oh, I really, really hope not…! Cybergods, please hear our pitful cries and bless us with something soon!
We’re into our Fall sale now at work, and there was much toe curling and wincing as we went live for this one, despite the fact that everything had been running smoothly for two or three months. So far it’s been fine.
Thresholds are funny things. Before the debacle last Spring and Summer, I felt overwhelmed if I had 40 emails to do in a day. Now I look at that number and feel bored by it; I can have that many done by lunch most days. Mondays and Tuesdays I can easily do upwards of 80-100 – and that’s after parceling out 10-15 emails to the rest of the coaching staff.
I do enjoy the coaching aspect of my job. I really do. But as my Instant Message friends will tell you, I can get exasperated by the questions or inquiries that come in.
Some favorites:
“I can’t hear my silent affirmations.”
(Certain levels have the option for the Participants to record personalized affirmations subliminally…which means they’re, well, silent.)
“Where can I email you a question for coaching?”
(Sent to our coaching email address.)
“How much is your free Demo?”
(It's free at a cost of $52....)
Q: “I read about your CD that I can get that I can listen to in the car or as background sound for $24.95 plus shipping and handling. What’s it called and how can I order it?”
A: “That’s our CD Mind Stim. You can order it by phone, fax, email or online.”
Q/Reply: “Great! How much is it?”
“Do I have to have my CD in the player for it to have effect, or can I just listen with headphones?”
“I read in your instructions that it's okay to make a backup copy of my soundtrack. I'd like to enquire if this is indeed so.”
“What will be the cost of my free replacement?”
“I see that you’re open Monday – Friday. Are you available on weekends to take calls?”
“Could you please place the order for me I couldn’t place last night because your servers were down. Thanks!”
(That was the entirety of the email.)
“How long is the program? Are the two 30 minute tracks one hour?”
And so on….
Ratio-wise, those emails are thankfully in the minority. It’s just that, because I’m the email “gatekeeper”, I get most of them to answer. Most people I deal with I enjoy writing to and working with; they’re reaching out for help with true coaching issues, and I can’t get enough of that feeling that I know I’m really helping people. And I am patient with the people who write in with the examples above, but there are times I wish I could say what I was actually thinking; it’s especially rough at the end of a long day or week.
I know they’re asking a question that they feel is legitimate. Which is why I (mostly) don’t mind answering them…even if it’s done through occasionally-gritted teeth.
In my personal life, there’s not that much to say, really. Andrew moved out, and I turned his room back into an office. I was really, really glad to get my computer and filing cabinet out of my bedroom and have it be just a bedroom. Plus I turned a corner of the office into a little meditation area. I found a really cool screen at Fred Meyer (a big one-stop shopping store that has everything from groceries to lumber under one roof), set up a little altar with a candle and some mementos, found some really nice Oriental fabric to cover it, got portable CD player and found some nice things to hang on the wall in the corner so it wasn’t so barren.
I should take some pictures of my place for everyone to see; in fact, I need to put up some new pictures as it is.
I went to a Halloween party last weekend and had a wee bit more to drink than I planned. I was fine – I was fine – I was fine and then KERWHAMMO!!! – I wasn’t. I hadn’t planned on getting that drunk that evening; though the night as a whole was a lot of fun. I have pictures from that, too, I’ll put up when I can. (Hopefully before my grandchildren are reading this.)
I was amused, though. I got home around 4 a.m. and discovered upon rising at 11 am that I’d somehow managed to peel off my fake eyelashes (the theme was “Pimp and Ho”, though most people went as whatever they wanted to be; I’d dressed up as a Classy Ho – “We’re called escorts!” one girl merrily corrected me at the party) and my contacts and put them away tidily (and correctly, left where left should go, right in right), hung up my dress, put away my heels – but still pretty much had on all my makeup. There was that much.
Move over, Tammy Fae. I challange you to a makeup off!
....Or soemthing like that.
And the hairspray in my hair. Ugh….I think there’s a small hole in the ozone floating above my bathroom. Between the curling and the spraying and the curling and the styling of the hair – then applying the glamour makeup, it took me a good hour and a half to do that getup.
Next year I think I’m following Tuesday’s idea from the Addams Family movie, and just go in street clothes. You know – a homicidal maniac...they look like everyone else.
No muss, no fuss.
I spent the Sunday following the party vegging on my couch watching aimless television until 430, when I finally peeled myself off the cushions, brushed my teeth and went to the store for some food for that evening and the coming week.
Among the purchases was a new bottle of lemon juice; I pretty much finished off what I had making lemon water as I was just a wee bit dehydrated.
This week has been pretty slow. I’ve gotten myself on a higher-octane exercise regime which I’m enjoying (more cardio than usual and less lifting), but mid-week I had an accumulation of fatigue that left me just bagging the gym; it was likely a combination of the new routine, the weekend, and my body struggling to fend of the 82 strains of colds and flus that have been flapping around the office lately. But I’m looking forward to going tonight.
As a funny side note about the gym – I went to a different one for the first time in 4 and a half years. I’ve always gone to the one just up the street from me. But on Saturday I was forced to go elsewhere. After doing errands, I went the gym, but there was a rather ominous scene in front of the building. Parked at the entrance was a large, noisy tank of a truck with words like “sewage cleaning” and “water pumping services” printed on it.
Still hopeful, I parked and walked to the door, but got no further than the yellow caution tape and the handwritten sign on the door that said, “GYM CLOSED DUE TO BROKEN WATER MAIN PIPE AND FLOODING.”
Sigh.
I’d really been looking forward to going – and so I turned around and retraced my journey back to another Bally that was only a few blocks from where I’d just been running errands.
It was kind of a strange experience. It was clearly a different building with a different floorplan, but it was just similar enough with the layout of the equipment and the eerie thing of seeing people that looked almost identical to the ones from my normal gym – but weren’t from there – to make me feel like I’d stepped into a semi-alternate universe.
The Fitness Twilight Zone.
I half expected Rod Serling dressed in his rumpled suit and holding his trademark burning cigarette to zip around a corner and begin ordering me to do squats and crunches.
When I called my normal gym on Tuesday they were still cleaning up and said they likely would be for “another 2-3 days”. Which means I think I’m just going to go to the other one tonight as well as I did on Monday and Tuesday; I’d really rather not repeat Saturday by having to turn around and just come back right to where I’d just been.
And on that note, dear readers, I’ll sign off. I’m feeling somewhat stiff from not exercising for two days, and the thought of zoning out on the recumbent bike to pedal off the week is really appealing. I just need to make some new CDs to listen to as what I have I’m tired of and they’re getting scratched and jumpy.
Plus I keep having to turn up the volume…I can’t hear my silent affirmations, otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment