By: Revanche

Up … up .. *badump!*

September 18, 2006

Tired but Happy’s on the same wavelength today: How much do you need before you could walk out on your job?

So things were going pretty well: the new girl started about a week+ ago and we’re getting along pretty well so far and training is goin’ alright. Stress levels are skyrocketing trying to keep her training and working and keep my work moving but, s’alright. For the better good in the long run, right?

The second new girl started today and I walked the both of them over to talk to our Department Coordinator who does all the paperwork to submit to HR for hirings and firings and everything in between.

She tells me that my status is still “unknown.” Huh? What status? Wha?
OH yes, remember that promotion and raise Bosses have been discussing over and over the last several months? The one that was suggested sometime in Feb/March, and then actually promised [“We’ll take care of you” were Big Boss’s exact words] in April? Little Boss’s exact words after that were “We just need to pick a title that’s accurately reflects your MANY responsibilities.”

In JULY we had a *final* exchange of emails in which he got the shortlist of titles that I’d be happy with and just didn’t want to discuss anymore. All that had to be done, he said, was to get Big Boss’s approval. In September I find myself applying for the new position – a mere formality – because for some reason, that’s a faster process than dealing with the paperwork for a raise. And just when I thought things were finally done? That the final paperwork was being processed by HR-above-in-the-sky? I’m wrong. Again. Because I’m told – true or not, I don’t know yet – I’m told that Little Boss still has not submitted my new salary. How difficult is it to pick a number?

I don’t know.

But I do know that if he doesn’t take care of it – today – as he said he would, I’m going home early *which, for me, is ON TIME* and firing up Monster.com. I’ve waited over six months for this. I’ve been talking to him, emailing him and discussing and “thinking about” this for months. And I keep being told that ” he and I feel that you’ve earned the title change, raise in pay, and change in duties. The only issue is when the title change would take effect.” So what is the problem?

There are two possibilities: either he’s neglecting me, his sole asset currently producing or he doesn’t want it to go through. Either all the time I free up for him by taking on more than above and beyond my title and responsibilities is worthless to him, or he has some issue with finalizing the promotion and is blocking it.

And you know what? More and more this sounds like what was being done with the two previous problem employees instead of proactively writing them up and firing them: attrition. He figured that the longer they went without the promotion or raise they wanted, the sooner they would get sick of the stalemate and quit. Gee, sound familiar? The only difference here is that I’m taking on THREE TIMES the responsibilities and I’m being promised things I’m still not getting. Not too much different from the things the other two wanted – I’m pretty empty handed from what I can see.

There will always be urgent and critical matters, but he can enjoy figuring out what the rundown is each morning without asking me. Because the way he’s handling matters, he’s leaving me with no choice. It’s both embarrassing and infuriating that I have to be ready to quit before he’ll take this seriously but it looks like that’s the case.

So my question is, how long do you wait before enough is enough? How long is too long to wait for a promotion? Me, I’m drawing my line in the sand today. Don’t worry, I’m not going to foolishly outright quit, but I’m going to start a serious search. Here’s hoping he gets it together.

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By: Revanche

Hello Citi and T-mobile, you both get gold stars this weekend!

September 17, 2006

This Friday, I ended a v-e-r-y long week with one misstep after another.

On the way home, I realized that I had forgotten to transfer money to my Citi card in my haze of tired-and-NOT-happy. Then I managed to miss my train stop which made me get home 17 minutes too late to get the transfer in before 12:01 am EST. When I finally got the website working, I found that there was an erroneous finance charge on my other Citi card. I explained the relevant parts of this to the CSR, who was having trouble with her computer, and oddly enough, both our problems combined just made the whole ridiculous situation better. For two people with problems, we had a raucously giggly good time trying to fix everything. And she credited my account the finance charge with no questions asked.

Today, I called the 877 number given for a Toyota owners promotion on their Tmobile services or equipment, was hung up on, and grumpily called 611. The next hour was an astonishingly thorough and educational hour on the phone with a very nice fellow named Jonathon in Kansas who painstakingly researched all the phones available to me for an upgrade suiting my personal requirements. After a couple hints about the scarcity of decent phones for retaining customers – ok, I flat out told him that the selection didn’t look like retention was important to them – he even found a few extra discounts that could be applied to some of those phones because of my long history as a customer and superb payment history with them. Or so he said. But hey, discounts AND flattery? I preened.

He discussed the discounts and technical merits of the four phones that he thought met my needs, and even looked up the new phones that would be made available tomorrow for upgrades even though he couldn’t tell me exactly what their prices would be. The new-new phones sounded pretty nifty but I knew that there was no way I was payin’ the equivalent of a month’s service for a new phone.

So, rather than one of their obsolete-within-two-weeks free phone I thought I’d end up with [a Nokia that doesn’t even show up on the page anymore, or the Samsung t209], I paid about $30 for a Nokia 6103 to test out. I get 30 days to try the phone and decide if I like it. Not only that, he arranged things so that the $50 rebate and the additional $30 rebate would be applied immediately and I would only be paying the end price of $20 and the sales tax of ~$10.

The only downside is having to pay sales tax at the original price, but I would have had to pay that anyway – something the guys in the store would not have bothered to point out to me! In fact, when I went to the store, the guys in the store wanted me to pay $30 after rebate for the Samsung t209 that is FREE online!! Yeah, I really don’t think so!

On top of all that, he explained the minor-to-anyone-else points of the Nokia’s durability and the kinds of hands-free sets that were packaged with each of the phones, AND explained Bluetooth to me. The major selling point? Was that he wasn’t trying to sell me anything. Or at least, he insisted that I take the time to learn however much made me comfortable and that the discounts would be available to me at any later date if I wanted to do more research. He was so helpful and informative that I decided to go ahead and try out the new phone because if I hated it for any reason, I can return it, return to my old non-contract status AND try out yet another phone when and if I wanted to.

Jonathon, you made my day as a customer. I am on a new 2-year contract with T-mobile and I don’t even mind! Good show!


And of course, before I posted this, I found that SingleMa had beaten me to it! =)

2 Responses to “Hello Citi and T-mobile, you both get gold stars this weekend!”

  1. Good job turning bad things into good experiences.

    And I like your play on my screen name. I’m thinking of changing my blog title to “Miserable but surviving”, except that there are major redeeming things that inject a little “happy” into every day.

    Such as the small person who ran to the door when I staggered home last night, shouting “Mama dolphin, you’re home! Will you swim with me? I’m your baby dolphin!”

  2. Aww … baby dolphin? That’s too cute.

    I always thought of your SN as motivational, except when I’m not motivated šŸ˜› A la yesterday’s news/today’s post.

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