Writing is therapy............

Today was a crap storm, borrowing the phrase from one of my favorite country singers Reba McEntire.  I did not blow up at anyone; spent a lot of time counting to 10.

It started with the receptionist being a little late and customers coming in much earlier than expected.  The combo was not good.  It is our policy that all customers are escorted to the cafeteria OR their designated testing area first thing in the morning UNLESS we have secured testing in house.  Then they need to be escorted everywhere.

There was a foyer full of people and most of them were with one of our customers.  They are having their testing witnessed by various agencies.  This is not uncommon except our customer is running 2 projects and has 2 sets of witnesses.  This accounts for about 15 people.  If I have not mentioned it before, we are running out of space in our office just for US!  These groups of people were using 7 of our 9 lunch tables for setup and discussions.  Three of the customers came in and decided they were just going to walk back where they wanted to be.  The receptionist and I were trying to explain what we were doing (paging the test engineer to come up and get the group) but were ignored.  That set my friend off.

When she went into the kitchen to get coffee and saw that they had taken up so much space, she took it upon herself to say something, AFTER I HAD REQUESTED HER NOT TO.  Come on.....yes it is inconvenient but good customers are not to be treated poorly.  THEN one of the engineers was whining said customer was on credit hold (not to be talked about with the customer); THEN someone else complained that said customer was coming in the side door and the shipping guy was expected to be their doorman.

Do you see where this is going?  After I heard about the credit hold issue, I sent a company wide email stating that our staff NEVER has the right to talk to the customer about credit issues.  The staff should do their job, save their time and if they cannot post their time, I will take care of it.  END OF STORY.  I make the decisions with the help of the lab managers if we want to cut someone off at the knees and not let them test.  It is NEVER my intention to lose lab time because downtime does not get us paid.

While this was going on, Kathy (receptionist) came back to tell me she had talked to the customer about consolidating their use of the tables.  REALLY?  Seriously after I said not to??  Kathy thought because she tried to be nice about it, it was ok.  IS IT EVER OK TO HURT SOMEONE'S FEELINGS??

At this point the customer leader came to the scheduler and laid it on the line.  Were they welcome there?  Were there credit issues?  We had to fight hard to get this testing done at our facility.  Sheesh......suffice to say tomorrow will be a MAJOR suck up day.  I have directed the scheduler to order lunch for the whole group as a mea culpa.

Then there was the issue with the employee told his co-worker that he was taking Monday off.  Said co-worker was sent offsite for testing so we never got the message.  I had words with the employee about letting his MANAGER know what his intention was whether it would have been by email, text, or phone.  Oh and he won a little something on the football pool.....I initially did not give it to him. I told him he forfeited it by not showing up to work.  About 20 minutes after I gave him his winnings he comes up to me to tell me I paid him wrong.  REALLY??!!  I am so anal about getting the winners right....so he comes waving a paper in my face....he had the AFC and NFC mixed up!  I told him to turn around and go get some work done....grrrr.

What did this do to me today?  I had a crap storm day and did not eat my way through it.  I may have raised my voice once to the employee who accused me of paying him wrong on the football pool....but I did not raid the chocolate bowl on my desk; I did not eat bags of nuts; I did not go hunting for salt (a good bag of chips).  I DID sip water and coffee during the day; I took my laps around the office; I got the billings for the month finished; I got filing done..........these are all huge accomplishments for me, who by nature, is a stress eater.

Writing this here (and in my journal) have afforded me the chance to express it and let it go. I have a lot of work to do on the Brelon (the poor black man ......his words, not mine) thing.  I can't respect a man that cheated on his wife for 12 years with another woman (who he just married); he tries to get everything for free or walks around rubbing his belly saying 'the baby is hungry'......this I will continue to journal about, pray about and let go so that maybe God will help me forgive and let go.  It is the right thing to do but I am not there yet.

On the way home it started to snow again......I love winter and I love snow.  This freaking below zero weather is for someone else.....not me.  A friend commented someone should take that darned rodent and bake him in a pot pie of sorts......6 more weeks of winter.  Tonight up to 6" of fresh snow to be followed by a low of -7* in the the morning to a high of 15*.  I have never had a problem with winter or SAD but it is making me wonder what a good place to hide for a couple of day that is warm!!......did I mention the snow will come back on saturday?  Another 6".....followed by negative temperatures again.  **sigh**

Keeping the positive in my head will get me through it all.......and it is NOT Groundhog Day again like the movie so tomorrow will be a better day!