Bored, bored, bored.

I'm being so bad today. Mount Bookmore is growing again, and I'm playing on the internet instead of pricing and shelving. Can't help it. It's just one of those days. I think too much while I'm working with the books. And that's not always a good thing.

I'd rather play right now. I've been in a pretty good mood all week and I don't want to spoil it. I know I have housework to do the next couple of nights so I'm pretending to work here in the store. Wouldn't want to shock my system with too much work all at once. Did I ever mention that my true major in University was Creative Work Avoidance? I was going to add a minor in procrastination, but I never got around to it.



:D

Corny, I know. Sorry.

No matter what plans I've had, or what I studied, I always seem to come back to Customer Service and/or Retail. The only things that make it bearable this time are that I'm the Boss, it's a bookstore and customers that come in here want to be here. It's not like being a grocery store cashier or a CCR for telephone service. It's not a chore that has to be done, to come and browse among the books, so for the most part, the customers are friendly and pleasant to deal with.

That's so unlike my previous customer service type jobs:

Grocery Cashier- 7 years- lots of people hate grocery shopping and blame the cashiers for everything from prices and taxes to being out of stock on something.

Answering Service Operator-3 years- imagine being reception/information/dispatch for over a hundred companies at once, but either while the regular staff is on lunch, or after hours doing emergency dispatch. Not that many people are thrilled to get the answering service and their issues are ALWAYS The Most Important Thing A Lowly Telephone Operator Could Possibly Be Doing. Plus, as first contact person, you get yelled at for anything a service guy did or didn't do.
Oh, and you get the service guys or company owners calling in and yelling, too. Fun, wow!

Telemarketer- 3 months-I don't think I need to explain the badness of this one. ;) We really needed the extra money, it was the only job I could find, and so I did it as long as I could. Never, ever, ever again.

Customer Care Rep (outsourced labour for a big cell phone company)-1.5 years- This is the job that finally tipped me over the edge from being really anxious to full blown agoraphobia. Woo, boy! Even though it's an optional product you wouldn't think so from customer's attitudes. Life or death. And I worked the graveyard shift, too, so obscene calls were the norm. Better still, the system was set up so that it would route a customer you'd already talked to back to you if you weren't on a call. So in the nice slow hours around 4am, if you got a perv and hung up on him or her, the system would route them right back to you as soon as they called back. Terrific. Add to that the outsourced thing, and even internal calls were unpleasant sometimes.

I am so glad to be the boss! Who are customers gonna report me to if they don't like the way I do things? My Mommy? ;D