Tag Archives: Stress

I Know You Won’t

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You’d think that after being here for almost two years things would get easier, but they don’t. I suppose it’s because there are so many different personalities walking through the door each and every day there is no set chemistry. Each contact, each transaction brings something different, indefinable. Each day brings a new dread.

The possum was in full effect today, not really communicative until it was about time for him to go. Then he warmed up. After the possum left I had to deal with one of his customers on the phone. The possum sold him an item that wasn’t what the possum said it was. The caller was quite upset and wanted a refund. I ran it by Zack and Zack told me what to say.

I got back on the phone with the possum’s customer and proceeded to tell them what Zack told me to say, all the while saying ‘Yes I understand’ and ‘OK’. Well the customer did not want to hear that and asked for the manager. So I go and get Zack who is upset that I told the caller the manager was in.

Zack wanted me to say the possum was the manager. Zack starts barking at me and I start barking back. If you are the fucking manager, be the fucking manager. Zack would prefer the buck stopped somewhere further down the line. Needless to say, Zack calmed the customer down- who will be sending his wife in to deal with the possum.

I also had another encounter with one of my own customers. I was speaking on the phone with them in Utah, and was suggesting that he buy a box of our latest and greatest. Well my guy says he talked to a co-worker who told my guy that the cigars are really good, only after storing them in a humidor for about a year.

I am pretty sure it was Jerry Vale who gave such crap advice and when I asked Jerry Vale he denied it. It was pretty much a boneheaded move on his part, a move that took away a $300.00 sale of which I could have definitely used to boost my sales for the month. Overall it’s been like that, me watching my co-workers boost their sales while mine seem to be anemic at best.

The weather is quite humid and it’s been raining all day so there’s been no real escape from the cigar shack. Oh sure, I made my move at lunchtime, went to a nearby diner and ate the usual burger. It stopped raining for a while after I ate but everything was wet so sitting down outside was not an option.

Now things have quieted down, Zack left about 45 minutes ago and the possum left about 2 hours ago and for that we are grateful. I am off tomorrow, back to the skewed schedule. A day off here, four days on there. And now I am dealing with quite a cantankerous twat who seems to be begging for it.

Finally I am home. A bit stressed. Rand contacted me about reforming the Art Hams for a Hoboken Music Day on June 10. I am all for it and put in a request for the day off. Only thing is, it is the third Sunday I am asking for, the third Sunday in a row. I am anxious that they will turn down this request and I am anxious since it is something I would really like to do. But ultimately it’s not up to me.

Yet another reason I want to get back to a Monday through Friday job.




Redbone – Come And Get Your Love

Infinite Circle

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Well it’s a Wednesday and it’s been a stressful Wednesday at that.

Not much fun today. Last night was no great shakes. I did watch True Blood and that was excellent. One or two sight gags that made me wonder what the acronym on the baseball hats meant.

With regards to work, I’m glad it’s behind me and tonight is a family visit which is fraught with nerves as well. No one seems to communicate and I fear that my family is at risk of turning into my father’s family.

A bunch of grudge holders that didn’t communicate that often. My ex-boss Robert used to say Communicate early and often. I used to make fun of Robert for that but since then I found his adage to be true.

If you communicate most problems can be solved or avoided. If you don’t communicate it all turns to shit.

I feel bad for my sister who has a stressful enough life, what with her husband having a bum ticker and is in pain quite often and a teenage son who behaves very much like a teenager, meaning he has an awesome capacity for being a pain in the ass.

Not that he’s a pain in the ass to me, but rather how a teenager behaves with his mother. We’ve all been there with one parent or another or even both parents.

But like when I wrote about my brother Brian’s travails, it’s not my story and it’s certainly not my place to write about it here. My role, it seems is to be a pillar of support for Annemarie and I hope I can be that.

On top of that, there is the stress of my unemployment and the stress of having to justify the collection of Susquehanna Investment Groups.

I was upset when I left the office this afternoon. Even though I strolled across midtown to the bus terminal, enjoying a cigar and listening to a collection of Simple Minds songs I couldn’t shake the chip on my shoulder.

On my way there was a guy, handsomely dressed and obviously ogling a woman talking on her cellphone. I noticed it and wound up staring at him like he was a piece of meat which made him feel greatly uncomfortable.

Whether or not he was able to figure out what was being done to him was what he was doing to that woman, I don’t know. But being handsomely dressed helped make it easier to stare directly at his crotch.

And then as I was waiting on line inside the gate with the other drones, one wanker carrying a big bouquet of flowers for perhaps his loved one, he bypasses the line and stands outside the gate just so he could be the first on the bus.

I could only hope the fragrance of the flowers were replaced by the fumes of diesel exhaust from the buses. He also received a hard look but it was nothing overt.

Then as the bus travels down Washington Street, the bus driver gets into a yelling match with some idiot who was double parked and refused to move his car.

Could it be the metropolitan area is under a cloud of stupidity, so much so that even I couldn’t help but take a big gulp of it?