Wow, there was a ton of drama today! Like there is every dang day!

1. My boss returned from being out for her car accident. As she informed us all, she and the family were driving back from Tahoe, started skidding, and then two cars plowed into them. The car is totaled (but did not flip, as previously reported) but everyone is either okay or mostly okay. Boss slightly broke a vertebra and her son has a black eye that’s uh, bulging, but otherwise they are relatively okay.

2. I found out from all the complaints that started coming in that we had a mass order shipment start up today (I hadn’t even been notified of this) so all these panicky e-mails started coming in and setting off everyone’s panic. Sigh. One of these people turned out to have not submitted their full address and OF COURSE the magic word “international” came up and OF COURSE they have a whopping emergency and because they left off their apartment number it means they won’t receive the Important Thing (in my experience, the post office won’t bother to check which # it might be and at best, will return to sender weeks from now) and she needs it NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. So even though I am supposed to tell them to wait because these things just hit the mail, I had to make special super expensive arrangements for her to get the Thing. This is unfortunately an issue that comes up at least 3-6 times a month, sigh. I would bet I get six of these requests this month because The Panic is kicking in.

(Meanwhile, am still waiting to get together with my boss to set up the international mailing service, which I hope happens tomorrow. Seriously, the damn things are about to arrive and this still hasn’t happened yet.)

Presumably it did not help that I was in the midst of fielding a ton of panicking e-mails when this woman called, either. Because even an onslaught of e-mails is bugging me.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, another coworker came in and watched me doing this and found my behavior to be distressing. Apparently I was shaking, which I don’t recall but well. And she pointed it out to another officemate, which I really fucking wish she had not done because I bet that means I got reported on today and This Will Have To Be Addressed Tomorrow. *groan*

Coworker was very nice about this and asked if there was anything she could do to help like dealing with my phone calls (I wish), but I was all, “look, I’ve been doing this for seven years and I still suck. I’ve had voice lessons. I’ve had acting lessons. I’ve taken a shit ton of work classes. I go to therapy. I am trying to hide my reactions to doing this as hard as I can. Nothing is working. About the only thing left to try I haven’t tried is drugging myself up and I can’t swallow pills, so I don’t know what the fuck else there is to do to make me what you want.”

Seriously though, I hate this! I hate customer service with upset panicking angry people who are always having emergencies! It really, really bothers me! It makes my soul scream. Answering the phone lines made me wish I was dead. I start to get really stressed out after the fifth phone call in a day because I hate being peppered with too many questions at once without a break to calm down. I cannot deal with answering 50+ calls in a day when I am put back onto the phone lines! I am not okay with this! This is too much for my soul.

But I can’t say that. And literally every single job asks for “excellent customer service skills.” Which I do not have. And every job now is stressful. I have no issues at a low-stress place like my volunteer job, but I literally can’t find any jobs that don’t make me be primary phone and front counter girl. And I cannot ask to just never, ever do it. They need me to be answering calls immediately, really, and I am lucky nobody is bitching me out about like I deserve to be. They can’t let me not do it no matter how bad I am at it. I don’t know why anyone can possibly think with my history that this is someday going to work. Either they force me to do it and accept that they will not be happy with the quality of my service, or fire me. I don’t know what the fuck else to do here.

3. I have to order another Thing for someone who is apparently Quite A Drama Queen that most of the office has already had to deal with. I was told this one had to be special snowflake handled and is getting what she wants for free because she is so much trouble--that last bit wasn’t spelled out but was my guess. I looked up the information on hand about her and she is on full on CALL FOR OFFICIAL ASSISTANCE WHEN THIS PERSON COMES, DO NOT REFER HER TO OTHER OFFICES FOR ASSISTANCE status. Apparently she wants something prestigious that she does not quite qualify for and has spent years on end hounding various offices to do things for her to boost her chances, except this is all happening years later which means it is Too Late to do any changes, and she doesn’t take no for answers and stalks offices. I found an e-mail that Old Boss sent to her when he was in a different position. This is a dude who has told me “it’s fine to send the angry people to yell at me, I don’t mind” and even in this e-mail I could tell that he was hitting his limit with her years ago. There was a lot of bold text saying “you have gone as high as you can possibly appeal on this, there is no higher authority you can go to to try to get around this.” Oy.

Dear god, I hope nothing goes wrong with her Thing like a typo or wrong address or bent in the mail (I am already concerned she’s mailing it to a PO box, which makes it more likely.). I already had a moment of panic when I saw that she left off part of her address because I did not want to have to contact her to ask--apparently one has to contact her in the “right” way to boot. Thankfully, I found confirmation of the missing bit without having to ask her.

4. So let’s perk up this day with Quotes From GQ! GQ was such a delight today. I will miss him when he moves on, y’all.

(a) “That’s why I carry a pen. You never know whether or not you need to write something down or stab someone.”
(b) This was in regards to a rebranding business idea he had, which I thought sounded cute but wasn’t sure if it would catch on: “If twerking and planking can be a trend...People lie down all the time.”
(c) He talked about a friend of his who inevitably makes the dumbest possible decisions after being advised to do otherwise, referring to this sort of behavior (i.e. going home and picking a super petty fight with the wife) as “intellectual dyslexia.” I was all “maybe you should just advise him to do the worst thing possible and then he’ll do the opposite then?” Another comment he had on this person was, “Your ridiculousness supercedes my intelligence and you win.” I was all, “this is like talking with my mom” (on hoarding at least).
(d) He discussed his shock at finding out about how statutory rape worked, mentioning that when he was 5 he kissed a 13-year-old girl. This was phrased as “being a kid, whilin’, doin’ what I needed to do.”
(e) He also mentioned having 8(!) car accidents in his youth, one of which involved him going home under the influence, skidding on something and having the car roll a bunch of times. Somehow he managed to escape serious injury or legal consequences on that one. He has mentioned being a guy who got up to shit in his younger years before shaping up, but sometimes I am all “daaaaaaaaaamn.”

5. And finally, the last night of my class was tonight, everyone got everything grouted and is happy and I got to go home early and eat dinner. Huzzah.

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