For today’s 4pm Friday record, I arrived at 8:10 and was productive from 8:15.
We recently moved to a new office and boss has chosen a corner office with 2 sides of windows that face the entire scope of employee parking lot – now he can clearly see when we come and go.
Today I went to my car to retrieve something. Upon returning I heard boss shouting my name as a summons. In front of the bookkeeper, he asks what time one of my employees arrived that day. I announce 10:30 but she is making up for that by staying late and will not be taking advantage of the 4pm Friday (were they just discussing said employee???). He then notices a group leaving for lunch and asked if they understand lunch is restricted to a half hour. I say yes they do but I will remind them. They take a 45 minute lunch so I remind each person of the half hour max lunch requirement for leaving at 4pm knowing full well that they arrived at 8:30 and 10:30. I get looks of exasperation. I suspect they find this perk more annoyance then benefit.
At 3pm, an employee tells me boss wants to have a meeting when he returns from picking up daughter. The soonest he will get back is 3:30, upon which he will likely jump on the phone and start the meeting at 4ish. So upon his return, I immediately run up and announce I’m leaving at 4:30 and would like to start the meeting immediately. We start at 4pm. I set my phone alarm for 4:30 and attend the meeting. Boss brings lap-top so he can send wires while we are talking. There are a few big silences while we waited for his attention and quite a few conversation repeats. At 4:25, I announce the follow up action plan for next week’s creative work, say goodbyes and escape.
And here are the benefits of leaving at 4pm, phone calls to find savings:
5 – 5:18 combine Cingular with Bellsouth into one bill, save $5.00
5:18 – 5:30 call Cingular back to set up voice mail service (yeah I’ve had the phone for 3.5 months and mom is getting really mad that she can’t leave a message even though the phone always shows who called)
5:30 – 5:49 call Washington Mutual to remove stupid $5.00 charge
5:50 – 6:15 make meat and garlic sauce
6:15 - 7:10 call Bellsouth to reduce DSL service to Lite. First guy transfers me to DSL dept, they have gone home but message says they close at 7pm and its only 6:30. Call Bellsouth back and complain about DSL leaving early and am told DSL does not deal with service changes, its Bellsouth. So they reduce the service and go through all my questions about other possible savings (none) and then transfer me to another department who confirms that yes they did get the message from Cingular about combined billing and $5.00 savings will appear on next bill. Just thought you might want to know why this last entry took an hour.
I’ve been writing this entire blog while on hold for above mentioned calls. I would have preferred the beach but I’m proud of myself for finding $77.00 savings. Go self! Now if I can just stay motivated and study for the GMAT, get MBA and reach for the stars.
I also want to mention that last Friday was my 7th wedding anniversary and I visited Key West for holiday – it was awesome (went kayaking, snorkeling, saw Harry Potter, ate some very amazing food). On Monday I was informed that entire creative arrived the previous Friday at 8am, had ½ hour lunch in kitchen and that 2pm scheduled meeting did not start until 4:30. To add acid to injury, boss’s children were present, wildly screaming and running with loud toys. Creative was very bitter.
1 comment:
Least the blog helps fill in the void of waiting in a telephone cue. And, for me, it helps fill the void of work also.
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