I'm Regretting Getting Out of Bed

I'm not really sure why, but for some reason or another, every morning that I have to work, I wake up at 6:35 and have a heart attack. I'm wearing my bright pink running shoes with my straightleg blue jeans today...I used to be so cute...and now, I'm wearing tennis shoes so that I can literally run to my car on work mornings. 

By the way, did you know that the Toyota Corolla is very popular? Especially the white one. I may or may not have tried to get into the wrong car. Twice.

On the bright side, I made it to work on time, but barely. It was like all of the oversized and overweight vehicles were on the road this morning and they all felt like parking their big ol' butts right in front of me.  When I'm late, although I do not make up time on the road, it really give me anxiety to not be able to dictate my own speed.

Now, I'm finally at work.

It's only 7:35 and I've already heard the word "Alrighty" about 6 times...I hate that word. Why? No idea, just do.  Have I mentioned how bad I want to quit my dang job?
 Apparently today isn't a good day to be alive.

I'm just going to tell you that I think you should enter this giveaway and check out my friend Katie from Metal Marvels.

You won't regret it like I'm regretting getting out of bed this morning!

Life Is Calling

Today, I had a fun post about my family planned, but when I got to work, I had am email from my manager that changed my mind.

I’ve really only talked about exactly what I do in this post. But I’ll tell you a little bit about it here. 

I assist people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing (mainly hard-of-hearing) make phone calls. My official job title is “Communications Assistant.”  My job is to listen to the hearing user and type out what they say so that the deaf or hard of hearing user can read along with the captions while using the hearing that they are able to. They have special phones called “Caption Call” phones that display the captions right on the screen.

One of the main reasons these phones exist is because the Americans With Disabilities Act mandates it.

The American Disabilities Act mandates Telecommunications Relay Services

“Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 mandated a nationwide system of telecommunications relay services to make the telephone network accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing or who have speech impairments.  Title IV of the ADA added Section 225 to the Communications Act of 1934.”

via

 

I work for a company called Caption Call.  It started as a third department of Sorenson Communications and grew so large that it broke off and became it's own company.  

We also provide Video Relay services with ASL interpreters. Until recently we also provided relay opperating allowing deaf/hard-of-hearing users to send an IM and have an operator make a call on behalf of the deaf/hard-of-hearing user.  This department was recently dissolved due to serious cut in our compay.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has implemented new regulations that will make the phones harder for people to use them and limit their ability to recieve them which is a violation of the ADA.

A couple of things that the FCC is trying to do is charg our customer $75 for their phones.

It is already required that they pay for regular phone service and for broadband internet. Many of our customer are on fixed incomes because they are elderly and have a hard enough time affording the internet to make the phone work.

How much did you pay for your landline phone? It probably wasn't $75...

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. To learn more about what the FCC is doing to not only impede business but cause communicating to become more difficult for our customers visit keepcaptions.com.

Contact you local government and encourage them to take action. The ADA states that state laws can add more protection to those with hearing loss. Help us take action and protect the people who need this service.

The following video, although it may come off a little cheesey, describes exactly why I work at CaptionCall...

Life is calling.

How Do You Explain BFE To Your Co-Workers?

Today...What do I say about today? 

Well, have you ever heard that Shania Twain song "Honey, I'm Home"?

Now you have.  Holy crap. That dancing and those outfits...too good. If the video doesn't work, go watch it. It's great.

But anyway, that pretty much explains how my day went. I woke up extremely late. Holy crap, the speed and intensity with which you get dressed when you are late could rival that of a Marine Corps Recruit...I would have made it on time to work, but I drove too aggressively and missed my exit.

Then I had to park in BFE (a term I had to explain at work in a group chat with 15+ people...how do you explain Bum F@#$ing Egypt in a professional way?) in 5 degree weather because I was late.

Then I had to kick someone out of my desk when I got to work...something I never enjoy doing. And we were in queue for almost an hour which means about 15 seconds between calls. If that long!

Seriously, it was the most ridiculous day...I also ended up having to look fairly homeless because I had to jump out of bed, but on a bra and run out the door.

It's my own fault. I slept in on Sunday morning, so I wasn't tired that night...I stayed up too late.

But that doesn't make it less crappy!

I'm also starting to get sad I'm leaving work. I have a really good time talking to all my co-workers and teaching my trainees how to do my job. It's fun, and I'm good at it.  Of course it will be a nice change of pace to leave and I'm so excited to get to live my dream, but there's a few things that I will definitely miss.

Today we discussed a road not taken that I am seriously considering jaunting down some day soon.  I've been watching the TV show Heartland on Netflix (It's about cowboys in Canada. Totally didn't even know Canada had cowboys and got to feel dumb when people explained the rodeo circuit up there to me) But anyway, I think I really want to try my hand with the horses...My dad is a cowboy. I've been around horses all my life. They don't scare me. I used to ride fairly well, and I bet that I could do it.

My list of things to do before I die just got a little bit longer because "become a cowgirl" just got added...

And if you're looking for an amazing song to listen to..."Merry Go 'Round" by Kacy Musgraves. You will not regret it.

[EDIT]
After writing this post, I learned the song, "Merry Go 'Round" given the day I have I look like a ho-bo, but I want to share it with you! It is on my crappy webcam...meaning not so good, but I'm pretty okay with it seems how I learned it barely over an hour ago...So, enjoy!

And now that I've gotten super random and written a blog post about absolutely nothing. Go enter my giveaway! Do it. I know you want to!

I'm actually starting to love my job...

If you've been reading for a while or you have read the "About Me" section, you know that I work in a call center. My center is a little bit different than most. We're not customer service or sale or anything. The company I work for provides phone service for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.  I work in a department that provides phone captioning for a maily hard-of-hearing users. (If you're someone who is hard of hearing or have family members who are, the phones are free! So send me an email and I can tell you where to go if you would benefit from this service.). What makes it nice, is we have zero after-call work. Once a call is closed out, my job is done and I wait for the next call.

Recently, I interviewed for a new position in my company and I got it. My official job title is "Mentor Assistant".  Basically, now instead of taking calls for 6.5 hours every work day, I get to take a few calls if I have time, I correct tests for trainees, I test people who apply, and I mentor any CAs who need assistance with their job.

Before, I was just taking calls. I stared at computer screen all day and basically had zero interactions with other human beings. That was not fun.  I was depressed because I didn't have any friends and I just...didn't want to be at work when 09 rolled around each day.

But now, it's a lot better. I get to chat with the people I work with and have awesome, intelligent conversation with them. I feel like a grown up with a big girl job and responsibilities. It's nice. It makes me feel a whole lot purposeless. And let me tell you, I have never had such a hard time defining my purpose in this world...

They say that 19 is just a hard age. You're transitioning into adulthood from a life in high school and it's just overall crappy. Well, they're just right. It's not fun..but I'm trying to make the most of it and I'm really glad that I'm starting to love my job. Hopefully it just gets better.

TGIF

Well, sadly, I think it's safe to say that I didn't get the promotion. I knew I would be sad about it, but I found out from an email that was congratulating someone else on my team for getting the job...That's not cool. They should have notified everyone who didn't get it before they told those who did. I think I would be a little less annoyed if I hadn't found out like that.

On a little bit brighter side, though, we did what's called a PFA (Physical Fitness Assesment) at PT yesterday. For the Army, you have to pass this assesment before you can leave for boot camp. It's one mile, one minute of push-ups and one mintue of sit-ups. Personally, I think that it's a little bit ridiculous that that's all that is required. It should be a little bit harder. But I'm coming from a completely different background where even the best isn't good enough...

Anyway, my point was, I basically knocked it out of the park, as far as I'm concerned. I can't even imagine where I would be if I had had 2 minutes to do everything.

I did 21 push-ups (I could have done more, but the guy doing the time confused me so I thought I was done before I actually was. I did 39 sit-ups (definitely could have done better!) and I ran 1 mile in 9:04. That I am pretty proud of. I'm really not the fastest running in the world. I really have to push myself to go faster. So that wasn't so bad. 

Here's my score sheet. I'm cool.

I think that next week, I'm going to force myself to run a full... PFT(physical fitness test) I don't know what the Army calls it. I should probably find out...

Oh well. TGIF right? Hope your Friday is a little bit better than mine.

Wonderful World of Working

When I was in high school, I was dreaming up all the possibilities my future held.  Your teachers and your counselors put so much pressure on everyone that the time to decided your fate is high school English class. They hand out your credit trackers, give you a list of scholarships to apply for and say, "Welp, girls and boys, this is your future. Figure it out."

While sitting there in my 7th period English class, I decided that I was going to go to Utah State University, study education or literature, something like that. Be a teacher in a middle school and make a difference.  My how things have changed...

When I graduated way back in 2011 (Okay, so it wasn't that long ago, but it feels like it's been forever...) I never ever would have guess that I would be sitting in a desk at a call center blogging while watching hulu, awaiting a my boot camp date to roll around.

This job (in case you're new around here, I'm a relay operater for the hard of hearing.  I just got promoted to a Mentor in the training department.) is the first job that I have ever had.  While I was in school, I was too busy dancing and taking AP classes...I didn't have time to work. I got this job about a month after I broke my arm. I had rehabilitated just enough to type after several painful weeks of physical therapy and I needed something to keep my mind off missing J.

I didn't expect to be here long enough to move up. I planned to move on to bigger and better things that did not include this call center. But now, here I am two jobs deep (This one and the whole Army career thing I've got coming) and doing a whole lot of things that I just never expected to be doing...Today I was invited to interview for yet another promotion!

I have to prepare a 10 minute presentation about hard-of-hearing. I don't know who I'm presenting to, but I'm pretty dang nervous...The best part? I'm doing it tomorrow. I get one day's notice! Ha, awesome right...Well, guess I get to go shopping for yet another new outfit to interview and present it... Why do I have to be such a ray of sunshine that everyone wants to be the future of their company?!

I could say a whole lot more about the crazy twists and turns of this camo-colored chaos, but I've probably already lost you. Well, wish me luck!

Failed Carpentry

Due to the fact that I've been singing the blues like crazy lately, I've decided to write about two interesting adventures that I had yesterday.

As you know, if you're all caught up, I'm re-doing my bedroom. I just finished painting yesterday and I began the long process of putting it all back together.

In order to put it back together, I decided that I had to assemle the shelf that I bought. It's a crucial part of the stoarge space in my room. So I got to work.

I bought it on sale at Target. The kid's one was cheaper, so that's the one I bought.

When I pulled all the pieces out, it looked fairly easy. All the holes were drilled, you just had to screw it all together. Simple right? Not for me!

First Attempt: Acciddently screwed the bottom and side to the shelves with the raw edges the wrong way...I had to unscrew it all...Luckily, the inner shelves are held together by little dowels so I didn't have to take the whole thing apart, just where I'd already screwed it in (4 freakin' screws...)

So then, I get it set up right with all the finished edges facing the right way, and my dad came home. We had planned to go shooting when he got home from work so I took a little break from the frustrating shelf-building.

When I got home, back to work it was.

I got another set of the dividers on the shelf and go to put on another piece...the it was the bottom piece. I'd put a center shelf on the bottom...I had to redo it again after getting to this point.

Finally, I got it all put together, I put the little cardboard backs on it and ended up with this finished product (This morning...I gave up last night.

The drawers look blue in the picture but they're actually like a green-ish teal so they go with my color scheme in my room. The look very nice and I'm happy to have finally defeated the shelf!

I think that I'll save the shooting story for tomorrow. I think it might be too many pictures for one post if I throw that one in today. I'll just give you a sneak-peak.

I got to shoot my mom's 38 Special for the first time ever...I'm a pretty good shot with this thing...I think I'm gonna buy my own...when I'm 21.