2005-07-20
It's Electric!
So, I've been in a class this week and I'm not done with said class.
The teacher of the class is a horse's ass.
Sometimes, people try to take you down when you're at the top and I truly believe, regardless of the unsolicited opinions of others and the oft expressed anguish that I have over my job; I still believe that I am at the top here. This place is so ethical and so integral and I can't imagine being in this industry and being anywhere else.
I am an admitted insurance geek but I am not a sleazy insurance agent.
Nobody here fits that role.
Well, one dude almost does but whatever...
Seriously, I'm personally and professionally invested in this company in a way that I've never been in the past and I love loving my company. I NEVER thought I'd be a company girl and the fact is that I love this place because I respect the way we do business.
It's pretty simple.
Why do we have so many clients?
Because we do great business. This "teacher" was saying things that I could not believe. If I did some of the things he recommended, I would be fired on the spot.
Not that he was advising illegalities -he wasn't. It's just that here, we have a huge stake in being heads and shoulders above the board in terms of excellence and accuracy that I couldn't even understand some of the things he was saying.
I was trained to do this job as if life depended on it and you know, laugh all you want because my mother and sister sure do... we provide so much service that sometimes, lives do depend on my research.
Example? How about the infant that needed a heart transplant and went into the hospital the night before a change in carrier? That life depended on how I researched the questions that the brokers and account managers sent my way.
This teacher mocked the way we chose to do business and ignored my questions and told me, "I'm telling you this and when you back to 'Awesome and Perfect', you do things the 'Awesome and Perfect' way."
And I said, "Don't you worry your balding little head, Princess. I know for sure that I'll never be in trouble and I'll never permanently lose a client." I did tell him that when clients leave, they always come back. Unless it's a political decision to leave, they come back.
Nobody does what we do for our clients.
Thank god, or I would have to hock this high horse that I'm on and pay the rent at my shattered apartment.
What?
Oh Yeah, last night, around 6:30, I heard a POP and the power went out. No big, right? It's monsoon season. Well, my neighbor had Rosie and her dog and it was really windy, so I put down my study materials and I went outside to assess whether or not I should hop in my Bitchin' Honda and go pick them up en le promenade.
I walk out front and the Cypress tree in front had cracked and fallen.
Onto a power line.
That snapped two other power poles.
and the ground I was standing on was very hot.
As in, "Shit! I'm being electrocuted right now!" hot.
I broke hell loose by pounding on the door of Doofy Coyote in the City Guy, who by the way DIDN'T NOTICE THAT A HUGE TREE HAD SNAPPED IN FRONT OF HIS HOUSE AND WAS CURRENTLY RESTING ON A POWER LINE. So I'm running around to let people know and generally freaking out and assigning duties:
You call TEP! You got TEP? Great!
You call Joseph - he needs to come down here and advise what he wants done because this will be an insurance claim.
You - 911. They've already been called? Awesome!
There's no need for me to be acting like I am in charge of The Emergency.
Plus, there's no reason to be standing on hot ground WITH A CELL PHONE, MAKING A CALL.
My head is pounding today and I'm going home soon.
So most of last night, I was doing things like babysitting for strangers, trying to figure out what the city wanted us to do - we couldn't walk out onto the property or drive out because there were three lines touching the ground. Later we were told we'd have to leave. Eventually, the by the grace of god, I might add, I looked across the courtyard and saw that there was light (!) in my apartment and that it wasn't the light of a cat who caught on fire while trying to play with a candle.
Light!
Swampy!
Food!
No way I'm studying!
I feel like I smell bad today and I think it might be possible that I don't smell normal. My dog smells because she got a new crate yesterday and is now being crate trained, for reals.
She smells because she is pissed, like a two year old who will
not
stop
screaming
because she can't get her way.
Well, she can't get her way. I want a dog who pees outside, every time.
But I feel like I smell like my smelly dog and my stuffy, swampy apartment. Swampy is not only the nickname for my cooling system but also a laser-sharp description of the soupy air that results from Swampy trying to use water to cool an old, humid place.
With a puppy.
Man, it's gross. At the same time, I'm starting to forget what it's like to not be gross this time of year. Doesn't everyone spend their evening getting electrocuted, waiting for signs that the dog might pee in your bedroom, and wake up to 85 humid degrees and a cooling system that depends on dry air?
I can't wait to go home and be gross! I love it!!!!!
Hey!
It's 2 o'clock in the pm. What am I still doing here?
I need to go home and clean something in a lame attempt to try to get 45 years of swampy washed out of my place. Usually, I clean the floor and pretend like it makes a difference but today, I might clean the bathroom or do the dishes. I'm so happy to be done with that class that I might vacuum the couch and the cobwebs.
That would make the third time that I've ever done so. Living by onself has a certain je ne sais quois when it comes to where and how much cat hair is tolerable.
Unfortunately, I have made the decision to move if the place I want becomes available and this will mean pulling out three years of crap and moving it next door.
In August.
Send Patron, please. This is going to take way more than a shitty box-o-wine.
But if it all goes through, I'll have AC and a yard and a clean start in an place that started out in life with more TLC from my landlord. My place is a vestage - it's never turned over since I've moved in and so it's the only one that he cleaned and painted.
Now he hires people to clean and paint.
Do the math.
The nast up in my crib isn't entirely my fault. 2 years ago, a friend discovered food that had been stashed in the crawlspace.
You know, 2 years ago?
A YEAR after I'd moved in?
Joseph?
Please continue to hire people to clean and paint. You have many talents but this area of making a slum into a little artists' colony is NOT one of them. Plant some flowers, walk around with your sun-hat, but for the love of mercy, PLEASE keep hiring cleaning and painting of vacated apartments to people who are better at it than me or you!
Oh man, I gotta go. I'm all electricuted and shit and I need to try to score a spot on the evening news as Affected Citizen. Hopefully later, I'll start getting visions and auditory premonitions about the Apocolypse.
arizonasarah at 1:49 p.m.