Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Well, put me away in a padded cell!!!

It's been one of those days. I should clarify, I am a "Procurement Specialist" for a fairly large company. My job function, I order stuff and I ship stuff...easy right??? WRONG..SO WRONG. I present for you a day in the life of a Procurement Specialist.
6:00am...Alarm clock rings and I give it a good slap for about a half hour before stumbling out of bed to wake up my son who has slept through his alarm every day since the second day of school. Wander down hall..make coffee..sit and stare at PC for about 5 minutes wondering why the coffee takes so darn long to brew. Finally, it's done!! I grab my first cup of the day.
7:30 Ah, the work inbox is full. I Click on a mail. Outlook crashes with errors. I wait a minute. I logon to Outlook again. Server is still loading mails. While they load, I logon to 3 different ordering tools I use because that's what the accountants want to make their Sarbanes Oxley hell easier....FOR THEM. For us, it's a nightmare trying to keep all the account codes straight, which order goes in what tool, what is capital and what is expense etc. etc. etc.
7:45am Outlook has finished loading. I start to do my report that takes me an hour to do every morning and I begin reading my 150 emails with Outlook crashing after every third one. Not that it makes a difference. I have 1000 emails in there now.
9:30am Doing an order after logging into my tool. Enter the project code, receive project not found message. Crap! Write an email to the accounting team to fix that code so it works. Outlook crashes as I send it. Crap! Logon again. Send it successfully. Put the order on hold and go onto the next one.
10:00 Start the other order. Go to the order list field in the project and there is no order list. Crap! Start a new mail to the net designer to please upload the list because I'm not psychic. Outlook crashes. Try again and again until I finally get the mail out. Put that order on hold. Go onto the next one.
10:30 Receive frantic phone call from a project manager. Ship date on a hot order is just too long. Please expedite...So, I expedite with the vendor. Receive a message that they will status me in 24 hours...if I'm lucky. Receive phone call from staging center. Order is missing a card. Check vendor website and it says it shipped. Open another case while trying to find a card for this current order because it needs to go out TODAY. Steal one from another project because that's what we do HEE HEE.
11:00 am Attempt order number 3 while getting harrassed at the same time by a vendor sales rep who wants me to drop everything and send him the Purchase order numbers for all 100 sites so he can receive credit before months end. I blow him off...One less thing on my plate.
11:30am "accidentally" delete my inbox because it's terrorizing me. Outlook crashes from the volume of mail it's trying to delete. Logon again.
12:00pm Inbox has filled up again with 150 mails about my invalid project code. By this time, it has gone to 150 people and no one says it's their responsibility to fix. So there the order sits.
12:30pm, receive out of office message from net designer. He is on vacation and can't upload the missing OrderList. Gives me a back up contact who has no idea what I'm talking about.
1:00pm Start another order. Enter part number into the PO and get "Please enter a valid part." Put the order on hold. Write email to responsible party to please add the part to the vendor catalog so I can order the darn thing. You guessed it...outlook crashes.
1:30pm Receive notice that the wrong part shipped to staging center on a really hot order that needs to be on customer prem in 2 days. I call the vendor. They swear they shipped the right part. Call the staging center. They swear it's the wrong part. Get the specifications for the equipment and forward back to staging center.
200:pm Staging center says..oops..we were mistaken. It's the right part but since it's too late in the day, the project will be have to be put on the backburner until tomorrow. Project manager notifies me that she now has 10 additional gray hairs because of this.
2:30...start on the next round of 20 orders to do. The application crashes. Have a ticket opened and wait for resolution. In the meantime time is tick tick ticking away, and I can't do anything.
2:45 receive email from vendor saying they had an application hiccup and the orders we placed in the last 10 days may not have booked. Please check them all and forward the ones that didn't book to them...
2:50 I hit the ceiling as I have done over 150 orders in the past 10 days. Receive 5 IM's from frustrated coworkers venting about how stupid that is.
3:00pm I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. I LOVE MY DAMN JOB!
4:00pm... Well..it is now 4pm. The kids are home and harrassing me about dinner. The application is still down and the project managers are harrassing me about orders. The application is still down...so I answer emails in between Outlook crashes, do what I can and wait.
5:00pm The internet connection crashes. I spend a half hour fixing it and getting myself back online. My application is finally up... I just now begin my day.

Have a day all..better than mine I hope.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

hee hee hee...so true

Thanks Leighton for sending this. A bit of humor for your morning folks.
More later :)

http://toccionline.kizash.com/films/1001/178/index.php

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Has it been two months?


Holy Cow! Time sure flies and what a summer it's been and in spots...not in a very good way. I have come to a realization and I think most of my friends can attest to this. Ready? I make really bad choices when it comes to men..Yup folks...IT'S ABSOLUTELY TRUE! I know! I know! A definite shocker there! That's all I'm going to say. Unfortunately, all my bad choices have decided to come out of the woodwork this summer to bother me and remind me why it is that they are EX's. My ex husband came out of nowhere, after a 2 year disappearing act and decided that it was perfectly in his right to demand to see his kids. What in the world has he been smoking? Well, nevermind..probably what he just got of jail for smoking and selling. Yup, my ex husband dealt drugs to teenagers. What a guy! But, he said if they only just legalized drugs, he wouldn't have had to go to jail in the first place. How in the world do you argue with perverse and twisted logic like that? Nope! He wasn't wrong. The law is. Typical him. And of course I told him which bus he can be under. To which he replied that his kids are the key to his "recovery" as if it's their responsibility to take care of him. No..no..no.. I reminded him as a parent that it is his reponsibility to take of THEM, which means hit the recovery wagon hard because the door is closed until then. Am I wrong? No, I don't think so.

Why is it that the people in my kids life that go out of their way for them, take care of them and love them the most have no legal rights? I think there is something really wrong sometimes with the way the law looks at what is in the best interests of the children? My children have gotten very little from the men that provided half their DNA. They have gotten abandoned, pushed aside, or ignored. Not Emmie's dad..not Kris and Cass's dad have ever and I mean EVER put their own personal needs aside to worry about the kids needs and the way they have treated me in the process is so unforgiveable. I am these kids mom. This is their home. This is where they are supposed to feel safe and secure and loved and these men don't feel that I deserve a bit of respect for all that I have done here. Neither DNA donor has a home or is in any financial position to maintain one. So, while each has gone on to worry about THEMSELVES, I have been left without financial or emotional support to worry about the kids. These men are what the law has decided to be in the best interests of the children, not the grandparents, not the aunts, uncles, friends and even acquaintances that have given them more time, more attention and more love. I don't see any value add in letting either of them disrupt and disrespect my house and by God I can't stand to see my kids in any more pain because they have terrible fathers. End of rant! What's even more awful is, it's my fault for choosing these horrible people to date in the first place. And yes, they are horrible and I am sick to death of the millions of excuses I have heard for their behavior. OH..he's just young. Oh he's just confused. Oh, he's trying to recover.. Please give him a break. They are responsible for themselves. PERIOD. Didn't I say it was the end? oops..so sorry. Too heavy for a Sunday morning. Why doesn't the court look at these things? Why do they just look at the genetic profile? He's the dad he's the best for the kids. I know that isn't true. Read the papers, please. Every day is a testament to the horrible things parents can inflict on their children.

Have a really great day everyone...and if someone can please provide me an answer as to why this is... please let me know.