Chapter 313: One Minute

It was an interesting day for me. I was in an interesting mood all day. I wouldn’t say that it was a good or bad mood, per se, but it was an interesting mood. I had some trouble getting to sleep last night after getting into bed and then immediately receiving a phone call that lasted for quite a while. I didn’t fall asleep until after 1am, so when my alarm went off at 5:45am, I wasn’t exactly feeling ready to hop out of bed and start the day. For the first time in my entire life, I believe, I used the snooze button on my alarm. I didn’t wind up getting out of bed until a few minutes before 6am. I did my morning skincare routine and brushed my teeth immediately, then sat down to eat some oatmeal for breakfast, drink some coffee, smoke a couple of cigarettes and watch last night’s “Chelsea Lately” – typical morning stuff for me. I don’t know what it was exactly but I was feeling a little out of sorts this morning. I headed into the bathroom to get dressed and do my hair and makeup and did this really awesome look with my eye shadow that I absolutely fell in love with. You see, I have never completely understood the concept of a “smoky eye,” and have called various different things the “smoky eye” look. I was correct in most of those cases before because I have realized that there are various different types of “smoky eyes” out there. The look that I did today, however, finally made me realize what the technical definition of a “smoky eye” is. Essentially, the classic “smoky eye” is the look where you use various similarly colored eye shadows and blend them together to create the illusion of a fade from the lightest color to the darkest color. I guess anybody who is aware of makeup and how it all works was already aware of this, and like I said, I was aware, as well. I just had never actually achieved the perfect “smoky” effect on my eyes before. So, when I did my makeup this morning and found that I had created that perfect “smoky” effect, I was pretty damn proud of myself. Unfortunately, my skin was looking like a bit of a mess this morning so I wasn’t entirely pleased with my look. I think this was a perfect example of the “interesting” mood I was in today – it seems, looking back on the day, that this was the type of reaction I had to everything today. I was into it but I wasn’t into it. I still couldn’t really explain why that was the case but it definitely was.

The first couple of hours of the day went by pretty quickly – I was basically just bullshitting around with the guy who sits next to me because he is hilarious. It made the morning time pass pretty quickly. It wasn’t long after my first break, though, before my team lead asked me to stand up and answer questions from the lower-level agents. This is how I spent the bulk of my day today. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Yes, I spent the bulk of my day standing up and was supposed to be answering questions from the lower level reps but I really spent the bulk of the day standing around by where my two work BFFs sit and talking to them. It was pretty fun, although I had this weird feeling throughout much of the day like I was just standing around bullshitting and not paying enough attention to whether or not people had questions. I think a large part of the reason that I had this weird feeling is because, in many cases, I WAS just standing around and paying attention to whether or not people had questions. I figured this out when people kept pointing out to me that somebody had a hand in the air and I hadn’t even noticed. I felt so dumb. If I have to help out again tomorrow, which I kind of assume I will, I need to make it a point to be more attentive to my surroundings and make sure that I notice when somebody actually needs help. There was also one instance where I gave one of the reps a piece of information that wasn’t entirely accurate. In fact, it was downright inaccurate. It wasn’t anything that was a huge deal but I felt really bad about it for a while after the fact.

This “interesting” mood that I was in also wound up making the day really drag. It was weird because I’d be having fun or feeling content with the day in one moment, then immediately the next moment I’d be feeling like, “I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE.” It was THAT kind of day. I think it probably had a lot to do with the fact that, for the past three months or so, I have not been there on Tuesday. I was so used to being off on Tuesdays that today just felt completely off-the-wall and strange. I’m sure Tuesday will seem a lot better on Friday when I am off. I just have to adjust to the new schedule. It was really cool, though, getting to spend most of the day acting as a “team lead.” I really wish our department hadn’t been cut down so much and that they would somehow be able to offer up a “team lead” position again because I feel like I am really in a place now where I could take on that kind of leadership role and make it work well for me. Unfortunately, that is not the case and my leadership position is limited to what I have been doing so far this week – just standing up and acting as if I am in a leadership position. Of course, I also wound up getting completely “dissed” by one of the lower-level reps today, which kind of sucked. She had her hand in the air with a question but when I gave her an answer she didn’t want to accept it and wanted me to send the actual team lead over to answer for her. I told the team lead this and she confirmed that the answer I had given was correct and that I should go over and tell the rep that she had said for her to do what I had already advised her. So, I went back over and told her that and she still asked for the actual team lead. I went back and told my team lead that and she got pissed. She sent a supervisor, the next position above a team lead, over to tell this girl that I was right. This girl didn’t really say two words to me for the rest of the day, which was kind of bullshit, but I didn’t let it bother me. I also got quite a bit of recognition from our program manager, which was awesome because I have kind of a negative history with him, which has slowly developed into a positive rapport and today was downright friendly. That is a good sign, as far as I am concerned.

So, one last bit about work – tomorrow we have a “client visit.” The way that this work is that the place where I work, and the place that signs my paychecks, is not actually the company that I “work for.” I mean, they are but they’re not. It is a call center. They get paid by clients from various different companies to provide the staffing for the customer service lines or whatever else for their company. A “client visit” is when somebody from one of the companies that utilizes the services of the place where I work is coming in to check up on how everything is going and such. It is pretty interesting trying to explain this without speaking the name that shall not be named for security purposes. They are REALLY against being mentioned on the Internet by their employees, though, so I continue the ruse. Anyway, a gentleman from the corporate office of the company that I answer the phones for will be at our workplace tomorrow. For that reason, they want us to keep our work areas extra tidy and our appearances to be a little more professional than is normally expected of us. It is a little bit strange but I secretly enjoy client visits – they give me an excuse to experiment with subtle, more natural looking makeup looks and dress myself a little bit nicer than I normally would for a day at work. So, I have already plotted out my makeup look for tomorrow and I am pretty excited to give it a shot. I haven’t decided on an outfit yet because I haven’t decided exactly how dressed up I am planning on going. Our program manager said that they would like for us to be professional looking but we are still allowed to wear jeans and things of that nature, so long as we are in dress code. I’m thinking I may go with some black dress pants and some sort of polo shirt – I love polo shirts because they are just the right mix of casual and professional. They are typically considerably more comfortable than a button down shirt, like wearing a t-shirt, but look much nicer than actually wearing a t-shirt. I’ll have to do a little digging around in my closet before I go to bed to decide on an outfit so I will be ready to grab it and get myself dressed in the morning. I also decided that, as far as makeup goes, I want to go with something a little more full-coverage, in terms of foundation, than the tinted moisturizer I usually wear. Fortunately, I still have some foundation leftover from when the weather wasn’t as disgustingly warm. Hopefully I won’t have any issue with keeping it on and fresh looking throughout the day. Just in case, though, I am going to carry a powder with me for touchups and such.

After standing up for most of the day at work, I got home and found that my feet were kind of hurting. I am not used to being on my feet for so long anymore. Back in my days working at Borders, I got used to being on my feet all the time and didn’t really have a problem with aching feet by the end of most days. Now, a few years later, it is considerably more difficult for me. It doesn’t help, either, that I was wearing flat-soled sandals today, as I do most days. Fortunately, tomorrow I won’t be wearing flat-soled sandals because they won’t go well with my more dressed up outfit. When I got home from work I didn’t really do much. I made dinner, sat down to eat and watched this morning’s episode of “The View,” as well as last night’s season premiere of “Gossip Girl,” which was actually a lot better than most of last season, although I did miss the presence of Taylor Momsen. It’s okay, though, because I like what she’s doing now, as lead singer of the Pretty Reckless, so much more than anything she ever did on “Gossip Girl.” She just needs to focus on making music because I think it is what she does best. My Mom spent most of the evening on the phone with her friend Daisy, who she hadn’t talked to in a while. After she finished her phone call and I finished my “Gossip Girl” episode, it was about time for me to get started on writing this blog and for her to go into her bedroom and talk with her boyfriend. It was a pretty bland evening, overall, but nothing bad. Now, it is 11:16pm and I should really be getting to bed. Goodnight.