Warm Lazy Weekender

It’s my day off, and suffice to say that I did my best to spend it on relaxing as much as I could.  Which was hard to do, especially when one considered the heat.  Egads, I was sweating again just a few minutes after I had taken a bath and changed clothes for example.

That said, spent more than my share of quality time with my nephew.  He’s a heck more alert now, and even at two months is becoming very talkative.  Okay, it’s mostly baby babble, but compared to the baby of one of our neighbors (who at 5 months is pretty reserved) he’s very loquacious. 

Oh, and he seems to be reacting to my voice now, apart from recognizing my face when I lean in very very close.  These help with putting him to sleep, as there are times where just lullabys don’t work as well.

Here’s to a more productive weekend tomorrow though.

As Good A High Note As Any

Today we were sort of understaffed again, at least for where the late-day shift was concerned.  Out of the usual five, there were only three of us, though we did have one more agent due to overtime (though she only stayed until eight in the morning).  On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry until merchant calls until around that time, as I had the same issues I had during yesterday’s shift.  However at around that point my supervisor had be do another circuit of restarts until I landed on a remote server with a functioning merchant system… which I eventually did.

So after that I took in merchant calls, which is fine given how I managed to avoid taking them in for a few days.  Given the number of people on hand, there were spikes in the call queue of course, but thankfully they were manageable and relatively short in duration.  After that the shift was more or less what you’d expect for the end of my workweek, and finished without much fuss.

The day was hot as usual, which made me retreat to the comfort of my room’s AC.  I didn’t sleep right away though, as there were some baby-related shenanigans that kept me busy for at least an hour or so.

Not Exactly As I’d Have Liked

As the title suggests, the shift today at work wasn’t what I would call as “okay”.  With only two of us on duty for the team, we were obviously swamped with calls today.  I think I had it a little better than my companion though, as my merchant programs were down again, which meant that I was once more put on membership application duty (at the same time being able to dodge taking in CS calls, as having the merchant programs down meant I can’t even look for the reasons for their declines, heh). 

Unfortunately the membership queue was also backed up, which meant that for most of the morning my only reprieve from taking in calls was literally my timed breaks.  Sheesh.

Took a detour on the way home to shop for diapers for my nephew, as apparently he’d burned through the batch I bought and the imported stuff that came with my mom’s package.  Bought two large packs of newborn diapers, but at this rate, who knows how long those will last.  Hopefully more than two weeks!

Oh, and surprisingly mom was still awake (and on conference call with my sister) once I got home.  From what I gathered, they were talking about the stuff mom was going to send in her next package, like bags or perfumes, that my sister’d then sell to her co-workers.  Hmm.

Thankfully the rest of the afternoon wasn’t warm, so I was able to take a nap without having to use the AC this time.

The Grinding Of Seasons

Despite being only one of two people out of the five that were supposed to come in, today’s Tuesday shift was surprisingly bereft of stress, but that’s more due to the fact that I spent maybe the first forty-five minutes of the shift repeatedly restarting my remote client, at my supervisor’s command.  The idea was that I keep on trying to land in a server that had functioning merchant service programs.  However after seven or so retries, no luck, and both my immediate boss and team coach had to resign themselves to the fact that I was stuck on the membership queue for the duration of my stay.  Definitely a big win for me, for sure.

Not that it was any easier of course — with only two of us on duty, spikes happened eventually — but it was a whole lot better than being forced to, oh, answer CS calls.  Really dodged a bullet there.

Aside from that, nothing really noteworthy happened during my shift.  I pretty much spent the time in between calls either browsing, or looking out at the cityscape from the window to my left.  There were a lot of cloud cover during the day, and it actually looked like there was a good amount of rain falling over to the south (toward Cavite and Batangas), but none of this went down in our area, at least until around the end of the shift itself (where we had a bit of a shower). 

The short bit of rain wasn’t nearly enough to help with the heat or the humidity, but at least it made using the electric fans at home an option, instead of going for the A/Cs immediately.

Late And Feeling Something Missing

Today’s shift was okay, I suppose.  Although we were down one person on the team, we didn’t get a massive influx of calls.  Then again that’s kind of expected on a Monday shift anyway.  And although I was a minute or two late, the fact that my merchant systems were down meant I spent the rest of it on the membership queue.

Had some ATM trouble during the two times I had to run downstairs to withdraw money.  Something is seriously wrong with that unit.  You’d think the fact that it doesn’t print out receipts was enough of a clue…

Oh, and despite the uncomfortable amount of sun come the end of the workday, I decided to walk to the MRT station, as the stalled traffic didn’t look enticing.  I think I might have inadvertently gotten a tan because of it though.

Finally went and got the Western Union money transfer from.  There’s was a minor hitch that forced me to run back home and double-check the email she sent me (apparently I was missing a ’2′ on the control number), but aside from that the 200 USD was received (and promptly exchanged, as the place was also a money changer) without any other incident.  With a thousand pesos put aside for my cousin’s foray to the wet market tomorrow, that left the rest to be put into my savings, to tide us over until my payday on the 25th.  Again, it’s mom to the rescue, and I can’t really thank her enough for bailing me out again.

As usual I pray that tomorrow we won’t get swamped, and that everyone who’s supposed to come in promptly does come in.  Simple desires, really.

Down And Out Sunday

Today’s shift at work started with pretty much a center-wide system problem, with almost all of the merchant functions unavailable.  This led to more than half a shift giving out downtime spiels, which obviously led to a lot of disgruntled merchants just hanging up on us.  On the other hand, part of the CS side of things was affected, which also led to us giving downtime spiels to those CS calls that managed to sneak through.  The systems, at least the merchant side of things, eventually went up sometime before my lunch break, however in my case there were still additional complications… which led to me being permanently placed on the membership queue for the rest of the shift, heh.

Aside from that, nothing else exciting to share about my day.  With our cousin on her day off, it was just me, my sister, her husband, and the baby left at the house, and even then her husband had to leave to look after the moving preparations they had to do (apparently they’re just going to move in with his family).  So this leaves just us two sisters and the baby in the house.

Yeah, no worries, everything’s locked down.  I even checked downstairs after I did the dishes.

So here’s to a relatively relaxed Monday shift.

A Pot Belly Full Of Pasta

I have to admit to losing every single bit of self-control today, as I more or less single-handedly finished off what’s left of the pasta prepared for my father’s birthday yesterday… Which is to say the whole cooking pot’s worth.  It’s no wonder I feel bloated, and likely over-loaded with carbohydrates.  Ugh.

Ironically our fridge, aside from the freezer, is pretty much empty.  This means that I’m going to have to withdraw the 200 USD nanay sent us via Western Union tomorrow, just so that we can put some vegetables on the table again by Sunday, and not have to fall back on canned goods.  Sheesh.

Not really asking for much for tomorrow’s shift, just that everyone who’s supposed to be there comes in.  It’s simple really.

Muggy Sluggish Saturday

It’s our father’s birthday today, though aside from preparing a whole pot’s worth of spaghetti during the afternoon my sister buying a miniature black forest cake was the highlight of the proceedings.  Nanay did remind us to send the actual greetings (my sister did hers via Facebook, while I settled for an old-fashioned SMS) when she popped up for the video conference this morning however.

Aside from that, it was pretty laid-back as far as my Friday day offs went.  Spent the day trying to escape the heat the best we could, with my sister and her kid heading downstairs for most of the daytime, while I  napped upstairs. Kind of hard to avoid getting sleepy by the time noontime rolled in, really.

There was an impromptu baby powow between the kids in the apartment during the late afternoon (there were three of them including my nephew), likely because it wasn’t hot outside by then and there was a good breeze going.  Unfortunately said nephew wasn’t able to go to sleep as scheduled, which led his mommy becoming frazzled and frustrated that he was keeping her from sleeping as usual.  Thankfully, he seems to have calmed down by now, and since I’m not hearing any noises from my sister’s room, it seems that both parent and child have finally achieved slumber.

Hmm, which reminds me, it’s about time for me to do the same.

Checking For Holes In My Pockets

And here I was thinking that I could extend my streak with regards to not taking in Merchant calls for the week.  It started well enough too, where I couldn’t even connect to the remote server properly, and had to undergo several system restarts to ultimately no avail.  However, all that trying eventually dropped me into a server that had all systems up.  Oh well.

The merchant systems I can handle — it’s what I’m technically supposed to do after all — but I would have done without the CS calls that I found myself answering around mid-day.  Good thing I only had to do three or four, but I’m of the firm belief that one CS call is already too much for the day.

The day was cloudy again today.  No rain though, but it did seem like there’d be some at one point, but no downpour came.  Hmm.  At least it made leaving the office somewhat bearable.

Ah, savings almost spent again, and there’s still ten days to go until the next payday.  All those bills to pay, and my enrollment on top of that, ah, it’s not going to be pleasant for sure.  Going to definitely have to ask for mom’s help for this one, if only to actually survive to the 25th.

Peculiarities In The Routine

Today started out cloudy, which was why I was a little concerned that it would rain.  No such luck though, as while it remained cloudy for most of the morning (until around noon anyway), there was little accompanying precipitation.  Not that it mattered much to us, ensconced in our rather chilly workstations.  I swear, our TC seems to enjoy putting the thermostat of the A/C above our bays close to the lowest temperature possible.  That’s a fever waiting to happen, you know!

Normally there’d be only two or three of us on the Merchant side of things, but apparently there were more than a few folk on overtime, which resulted in our area being relatively crowded up to around ten o’clock (where normally be left to our own devices before then).  Not that I minded any, as more people meant that the queue was more manageable. 

Of course, my system was acting up again, so I was placed on the membership queue from the start, but that didn’t stop workforce from putting me into the merchant and CS queue for some reason (and they always seem to time it when our TC wasn’t around to countermand things too).  The result?  Whenever I got a merchant call, I had to give out the downtime spiel.  And since two of us on the team were having issues, and the calls kept on getting routed to us anyway, ah, let’s say that it resulted in a lot of angry Lowe’s store registers.

Another unusual occurrence was how the membership queue experienced a spike in calls around noontime, and this continued well into one in the afternoon.  It was really strange, as normally the membership queue flatlined at that point, so to speak.

As for non-work stuff, my father headed back to the province again this morning, so this means that we’re left to our own devices again here at the house.  I wasn’t able to ask how long he was staying there this time around, but hopefully he doesn’t do so for a month, or else the end of the month (and the bills that arrive around that time) will be painful, to say the least.