So yesterday was Thursday and, after the stressful week we'd had here at Dunder Mifflin, I was sort of hoping for a quiet day sans crazy.
I sort of forgot that LCW's day off was Friday. Not Thursday.
So today, I'm going to relate to you as best as I can, the five hours yesterday that nearly pushed me over the edge.
5) 11AM-noon
LCW arrives late and in a foul mood. Not sure why, although with the new Girl quitting after two days, I thinking LCW realized she may have said a bit too much negative about NBM and that affected New Girl's attitude and thusly new Girl quit. then I realize this is LCW we're talking about and therefore that sort of self realization is not within her grasp.
Not when she asks me this question...again. "How do you figure out what 20% off a price is?"
I should explain, the biggest part of her job is to call customers who have had a quote done to see if they'd like to revisit that quote. She offers them 20% off their original quote, a thing that makes the sales guys insane because some of these people had quotes done as long as 5 years ago. But what makes me crazy is that when a prospective client says, "Well, what will that cost me then?" she has to put them on hold and ask me to figure out what 20% off is.
I've explained the magic of my calculator versus hers. I've explained the very complicated formula I use to figure it out. Keep in mind, my friends, that I barely passed high school math.
But that's not the killer. I explained what the new price would be and she returned to the client and gave them the price. They must have asked a detailed question...one can only guess...and then LCW said something that made me want to howl.
"I'm sorry, i don't know anything about the sales department or what they do. You'll have to ask the salesman that when he gives you the new quote. I have nothing to do with sales, I just set the appointments."
Her title is....INSIDE SALES REP. But don't ask her any questions about sales.
4) Noon-1
LCW has been complaining for a couple days that her back hurts because she has to sit so much and because she has to be on the phone. Now, I have to question this because every day for the past two weeks I've booked as many appointments as she has...and i still find time to stretch a bit and walk about the building. just sayin'. But she was especially whiny today about the fact that at all of her last phone jobs she had a headset. I said she should ask NBM for one. She said she'd done that and that he pooh poohed her request.
So she returned to the phones. Not, as I thought, to call a client and you know, do her job....no, instead she called her counterpart at another branch to find out if that woman had a headset.
She did.
Knowing full well that NBM has the ears of a bat, I again suggested that she ask him for a headset. Five minutes later, he was on his way to the store to buy her a headset.
I should ask for a raise.
He returned half an hour later and set a box containing a headset on her desk. And then he went back to his office. "Do you need help hooking that up?" he asked.
"Oh no," she cackled. "Sarah and I have it handled.
Really? When did this become my project?
But, watching her unload the wires and connections, I realized that I had to step in. I had to. She was doing bad things with that stupid head set. So I ask her to let me take a look. She removes herself from her desk, goes to my desk and proceeds to...no, not really do her job...she proceeds to eat the last of the candy in my candy dish. (If you're keeping score, that's two BIG bags of Hershey's kisses she's plowed through in 9 work days. I initially thought having the candy dish on my desk was a nice touch for customers coming in to the office. I had no idea I would be singlehandedly feeding my co worker.)
3) 1Pm -2PM
It took me an hour to hook up the headset. Not because it took me that long but because LCW is a little like a 4 year old. She cannot keep her hands OFF things. (And once there is no candy at my desk, there's really no point to sitting there.) So, after an hour, and given the fact that, once again, my lunch hour will come in the last two hours of my work day, I finally am ready to have her test the headset. We work out all the steps needed to make it work and, so you are all clear about this, here is what she is supposed to do when the phone rings.
a) take the hand receiver off the cradle and set it on the desk
b) push the headset button on her headset control device.
c) talk.
"I shouldn't have to pick up the hand receiver," says she.
"Yes, you have to do that," says I.
"Why?"
"Because that's how it works."
AT this point NBM, tired of hearing the children's theater that is this past hour, walks out and asks if we need any help. I tell him no, that I have it all hooked up and that it's ready to go.
"But I shouldn't have to pick up the hand receiver" says LCW.
"Yes, you are," says I.
"How do you know?"
I hold up the directions and point to the steps to answering the phone. "Because I can read."
And then I go to lunch...for an hour.
2) 2:45-3:45
You may have noted that I didn't get an hour for lunch. Well that's because I made the mistake of coming back from my lunch time walk a few minutes early. That's when I see PM, another coworker, sitting at LCW's desk...testing the phone.
In the 45 minutes I was away from the desk, LCW had managed to foul all the settings on the headset receiver, and convince PM that I didn't know what I was talking about.
PM, who hadn't read the directions (because LCW was holding them in her hand and sitting in another office) looked befuddled. In muted tones I explained to him the steps to answering the phone with the headset. He in turn explained it to her.
"But I shouldn't have to pick up the hand receiver. I never had to at any of my other phone jobs."
(I've often wondered about her other jobs...she keeps saying she's had jobs before. I have my doubts.)
At my wits' end...I take the directions from her, unfold them, and point to the step that says, "TAKE HAND RECEIVER OFF CRADLE AND SET IT ON THE DESK."
PM leaves for the day.
1) 3:45-5:15
Since my day is done at 5, I send LCW on her lunch break. Although...what she was breaking from, I have no idea.
I'm not going to bore you with the mini drama involving her car, except to say that the oil light came on in her car...(along with all the other lights in the dash. It happens when you start the vehicle). She admitted she hadn't had an oil change in some time, but that she'd "poured some oil in a week ago." NBM, on his way out the door to go home, was of no help. I called Hubby, who said the car was safe enough, he was sure, to drive to the nearest gas station (two blocks away) to get more oil.
Instead, she conned the guys who work in the other half of our building to give her not only a quart of oil, but 5 gallons of gas. Then she checked in to make sure she was still "on lunch." (She had 15 minutes left on her hour...)
So half an hour later...(Not only are her math skills lacking, her concept of time as it applies to her is way out of whack.) she comes back, still chomping on a burger and griping about how she had to eat it without tasting it. (Hey, try not getting lunch until you've been in the office 7 hours because the person you work with is a nitwit.)
No, I'm not going to bore you with all that because the number one moment that has pushed me closer to that mental breakdown I so completely deserve is this:
Yesterday was payday...which means we got paychecks...which means, say it with me class:
I had to explain her paycheck to her. Again.
See, NBM has been having her come in an hour early to "help" me. (Not necessary. I get more done without having to deal with her. I think we all know that.) But because that hour is overtime...she makes $21 an HOUR on those ours. (Way more than what I make, BTW)
She was CONVINCED, however, that she'd only been paid for one hour of overtime at the rate of $8.75.
So after I explained that, I also told her the good news: They'd taken out deductions for health care this check, and not doubled up deductions on our next check as we expected.
Except...they forgot to take out her medical deductions.
Why, I have no idea, but, as I was waiting for Hubby to pick me up, I was faced with yet another round of wailing and the mantra "I'm all alone in the world...I can't live on this."
(You're getting free oil and gas from strangers...stop whining!)
So I told her to email the woman in charge of benefits.
"Well, how am I supposed to email her?"
Oh yes, I forgot...she's unable to read and respond to emails.
So I gave her the woman's phone number. Which she called. At 5 Pm...and the woman works in the Eastern Time Zone.
"What time is is there?"
Why I should expect a person who doesn't get the concept of 20% to understand time zones, well, I'm the idiot.
SO I tell her to leave a message, which she does. And then...
She calls PM AT HOME. Why she called him can only be traced back to the day when she filled out the paperwork under his very patient eye. HE spent 3 hours one day helping her fill out forms. So of course, he's the one to blame for a corporate mistake that happened a time zone away.
As I was leaving, she hung up from shouting at PM, and informed me of two things.
a) her headset wasn't working at all
b) I clearly was wrong about her having to pick up the hand receiver.
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| Weighted down with the realization that her co-worker's idiocy will kill her one day, Sarah gives up. |
