- Getting Healthy – Getting Fit – Getting To Work On Time

It’s Saturday morning, a day usually reserved for R & R for me, but with the recent shift bid at work, I got royally screwed – or should I say I royally screwed myself or circumstances royally screwed me. Either way, I was pretty much screwed period.

We have a shift bid every quarter and one’s ranking in the shift bid is based on several factors including attendance. With the last shift bid, between my performance scores and call monitoring (100% I’m proud to say) and perfect attendance (for the prior quarter) – I was ranked 11 out of 40 agents who handle the same accounts. That was nice because that meant I would pretty much get my first shift choice.

Unfortunately when my car died I had to take several days off. This counted against me for the current bid. It’s amazing how two days can affect a shift bid ranking. I went from being ranked 11 out of 40 agents to 37 out of 45 (I guess we hired some peeps between then and now). I wound up with a shift that normally I would love. Four ten hour shifts with Mon, Tues, Wed off. But when you consider that I’m still busing it, once you start tallying time – it’s no longer a 10 hour day.

There’s the 45 minutes they require us to take for lunch – which I can’t understand (30 minutes is long enough but they took a poll and I guess other people didn’t agree). Add to that a total of 30 minutes on two different busses to get to work, and 30 minutes on two different busses to get home – throw in the two 15 minute waiting periods between busses and the 15 minutes to walk to and from the bus… I think I’ve lost count… and that 10 hour day just stretched to almost 13 hours. That’s the downside of my new shift.

I don’t mind working weekends so much; the suits are gone, and there’s only one supervisor and as long as it’s not the one I can’t stand, the weekends are pretty relaxed and low key – and thankfully the call volume is low. It’s like getting paid to surf the internet or work on my book.

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You passed by again
A shout out the window to the memory of me
Nostalgia filling your mind
Music and memories filling your heart
Too long has it been
Since I felt your strong arms
As I nestled my ear to your chest Your heart beating in perfect 4/4 time
Everything was perfect in our little world
Nothing has been perfect since
But my heart remembers dancing
My skin remembers the burn
My soul remembers soaring
My body still longs
After 9 years
How can the memory be so fresh

- For Root

Writing exercise:  Write a story about someone that has an unusual phobia. Write a scene that causes that character to face his fear.

Surfing Spiders

It was mentioned in passing, sandwiched between the usual banter filling the smoking area daily. It wasn’t a surprising fear as fears go. But learning that this woman who carried herself with a confidence rarely seen in 29-year-olds was actually afraid of large bodies of water was both entertaining and intriguing. There was no explanation for it, she said. She just didn’t like being on, crossing over, or swimming in large bodies of water. It wasn’t my deep love of the ocean that made this difficult to comprehend. If any one of my other friends had confessed to this phobia (is there even a name for it?) I might not have thought twice about it. But this was Olivia!

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