Sitka or Bust: Commute The World

It’s been a while since I worked full-time. I mean, Naknek was the last official place I worked a shift over five hours long. But with this new job (full-time) and the part-time gig I’ve had since before Christmas, I’ve been ridiculously tired lately.

But you know, I like being this tired because it’s a completely different tired than when you sleep 2 hours a day, but go to bed to skip out on boredom. I was always tired then, but it wasn’t something I could be proud of or get a sense of fulfillment from.

Now, I’ve got dark lines under my eyes, a perpetual earache from operating phone lines for hours on end, and a complete hatred for the glow of a computer monitor. Bear with me. I literally crawled into bed and thought, man I don’t want to write a post tonight.

I have a desk to myself. As weird as it seems to be so possessive and obnoxiously proud of an anchor to work, I love my desk. I sit smack dab in the middle of about 100 cubicles, with a guy named Julio to my left and a lady named Evelyn to my right. I have three drawers and all my urges have revolved around filling them with work related knickknacks or mementos, candy stashes and office supplies. It has to be a form of nesting. I want my cubicle to be mine; maybe its just because I walk past it everyday because they all look the same, maybe it’s because looking at neutral mesh half-walls is just so boring. My desk chair is broken though, but I kind of like it in all its destroyed personality. It is trapped in a perpetual lean, like I’m gonna crank down the window in my pimp mobile and yell something like YOLO. I feel gangster in my reclined tilt. Of course, typing is not very conducive to such an angle, and for that matter neither is seeing the computer monitor without a glare.

I very well might be developing a cauliflower ear on my left side from the headset I wear and the word “voucher” just doesn’t seem right to me because I’ve said it so often in the past week. I’ve apologized and been “God blessed,” I’ve yawned and laughed all while on the phone with customers. They’ve detected nothing. When I accepted this job I was TERRIFIED of talking on the phone for extended periods of time. I don’t usually do well on the phone, but I figured I’d have to get good at something I practiced for eight hours a day. Too true. I am now a beast at deciphering mumbled last names, repeating phone numbers, and guzzling water while on the phone.

Granted, repeating the same thing dozens of times over the course of a day will really take a toll. I’ve caught myself alternating my accent depending on the accent on the other end of the phone line. This is a problem. My accents may sound good to me, but to native speakers I’m sure they noticed something was fishy. Midwest I can do well when apologizing, New England I tend to stick with especially if I’m abbreviating words to customers, but never having spent a significant time in Texas other than at the airport I know that switching to that accent is not a good sign.

There are a strange percentage of the population I’ve dealt with on the phone who feel they must affirm everything I say. Yes, I know you are still on the line, and the occasional “yep” is good for both of us, but after every statement I make it just sounds annoying. And whenever I’m the customer I know I do that constant affirmation thing, so working this job has helped me realize how boring and unnecessary the ok’s are in such quantities. Interject when you must, otherwise listen. I really enjoy my job though, surprisingly enough it is stressfully intriguing. I work databases and phone lines, talk to old ladies ho have voices of thirty year olds, and men who sound like children. I listen to dogs barking shrilly in the background and to their conversations when they don’t realize that haven’t hung up on me yet. I cannot hang up: it’s a policy, not me being creepy.