Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The things they decide not to tell me at this place. Like how becoming a full time employee means I MUST work 40 hours + per week. I can NOT work less than 40.5 hours per week. Also, I'm only given one dollar per hour raise. I am allowed health coverage, but it costs almost 150 dollars a paycheck. Fucking Christ. I wish they'd have mentioned some of this to me. Now I "get" to work a 14 hour day tomorrow, because I was running below my 40.5 for the week. Nice. Today was good too. 10 minutes after walking in the door, they start harping at me about bringing in overstock. Boxes of overstock, they put on pallets in the middle of the outdoor yard. Pallets which have been getting rained on since 4am. Rain that started at 4am, and was only getting heavier as I punched in. Only now, did it seem to dawn on them, that we should do something about it. So before I can even take my rain coat, I'm pushed outside. Everything out there was ruined. Furnace filters, fireplace wood, paper napkins in cases, toilet paper in cases, cheap wicker baskets, bathroom exhaust fans, all of it was sitting not only in the rain, but directly under the run off from the roof. Hundreds of gallons of water per minute were dumping on this stuff. And only now, 8 hours later, did it seem imperative to act. Of course, as soon as I step outside, some asshat customer starts honking his horn, and from the rolled down window--- "hey buddy, why don’t you load these blocks up for me, its raining like crazy" How about not. I shrugged and yelled back, "wait till it lets up, or I call some of the yard guys to do it" His answer- "bullshit, you can do it yourself kid" he honks enough that a manager sitting around in the back of the store, comes over to the door where I am, and tells me, I should go do it. So after 10 minutes of carrying 80 pound concrete blocks, even my boxers were drenched. When I come back in the store, all I get were laughs. No one was remotely sympathetic, or seemed to care. I was told I could use my lunch time now to go home and get dry clothes. I get 30 minutes for lunch. It can take 25 to get to my house from the store. That logic didn’t seem to matter to them. So I spent the rest of my day soaking wet. I ended up taking my lunch an hour later, to sit in the Jeep wrapped in a blanket to warm up. It was 1:25pm. I didn't get to go home until 10:45pm. It didn’t get any better as the day went on. I wanted to quit. In the worst way possible, I wanted to quit. For shit pay, for shit hours, to get treated like shit. It wasn't worth it. But no job really is. And had I been able to wear my rain gear, I'd still have ended up with wet feet, hands and face. So what really was the difference?

Anyhow, this whole internet problem I spoke about last time is as follows. To flesh out what happened. QCOnline/AscendTel, the ISP we had been using [with good quality uptime and speeds], fettered out, they did some tests and blamed Qwest Telecom. Once they couldn’t resolve anything, they brought in LightSpeed Media Corp; apparently they were the brains behind QCOnline/AscendTel in the local area. They also ran tests, and funnily enough, also blamed Qwest Telecom. Qwest Telecom says there isn’t anything wrong with anything. Just, funnily enough, they'd rather we buy DSL service from them instead. Since, funnily enough, Qwest Telecom owns the lines, and would provide us the service, I assumed they could guarantee us service to remedy the problem. Funnily enough, I assumed far too much. I reached a snappy, "no," answer from Qwest Telecom about that. Not only could they say [funnily enough] with a definitive "no problems exist in your line," but also that they were not willing to upgrade the line or the taps in our area to improve infrastructure and communications capability. That left the only solution to be Mediacom. I hate Mediacom. Hate them with a passion. I've never had any sort of quality service from their cable television or internet services. Besides that, they also were 50 dollars per month for what we were getting from QCOnline/AscendTel for a mere $26.99. So as of July, 25th, were going to give Qwest a run. They extended me a 30 day money back guarantee, which I will liberally enforce if they can't provide service. In short, I should be back online sometime after Tuesday. With fingers crossed, that is. But what gets me about all this is how Qwest seems to think that if I had DSL service before, then it magically stopped, and the provider says its not their fault, how Qwest can figure that just CAN NOT be any problem with their lines. More over, Qwest had to do the upgrade to the DSL line at our house to start this mess, and any wiring problems are theirs regardless of who is providing the service. What also gets me is how it's almost exactly a year to the day, when we first called Qwest about the possibility of service, but went with QCOnline because of price. Qwest offers service, we decline, they own the line, then magically when our contract with QCOnline would end, poof, there goes our services and Qwest seemingly becomes the magic answer with a magical offer of no installation fees. Magically delicious! At best this is a terrible set of coincidence. At worst, it’s a down-right despicable business practice. QCOnline wasn't happy about us leaving, but understood, and promised me they'd keep an eye on customers in our area. I hope they do.

In other things entertaining… My brother managed to burn his hand. Last week he was out late with friends doing whatever, and happened to have a fire going, which he decided to pick up some kind of metal piece that was still a bit too hot. So he now has a nice line of blisters burnt into his palm. I guess his friends came running back in the middle of the night, called my parents; calamity ensues… so I'm told. I slept through it, and apparently no one ever thought to wake me up. What else, the dog had surgery not long ago. Apparently she tore a ligament in her lower leg, to which they replaced and re attached it. Never thought I'd say the dog had surgery like that. The vet gave us all sorts of scenario's about what would likely happen if we didn’t go for surgery. But what gets me is, dogs in the wild do this all the time--- it’s a natural thing. So what happens to them? They don’t fall over dead. They walk with a limp and eventually heal. But in the pet-mending industry, it’s the emotional what-if's that sell services. Hmm… It's freakishly like the internet service provider market... "*gasp* You WAN'T your pet to walk with a limp?" Similar to the... "Gee, I dunno why its down, but did you know Qwest offers high speed internet connections starting as low as 29.99 per month?" So maybe it isn't quite the same approach but it gets about the same results.

The same sort of results I got in about a year's time trying to do anything. See the last time I sat down and started lamenting about what I've done, and well, after looking at the calendar, I realized thats it has been almost an exact year since I left Iowa City. I remember that Matt and Kris's wedding was the last weekend I had my keys to my apartment, but that following Monday morning I had to turn them in on my way back across the state. So while I'm still happy for Mr. and Mrs. Staab; this day still somewhat makes me sad. Atleast to me, it reminds me of the day I lost my independence. It was the day where I had to cut and run. I remember doing alot of things that last week. I remember that long discussion I had with Staples, that left me without a job. I remember packing up everything, and knowing what I couldn't fit into the moving van was going to be thrown out. I remember that Wednesday night that I saw Sarah and decided to tell her how I felt. I remember that Sunday, calling my parents to beg to move back in within a weeks time. The week before that I remember receiving the letter from the Dept of Education, informing me I owed 17,600 dollars past due on my loans out of nowhere. I really just remember sitting on the floor in the apartment one night, with my head against the wall, having that upset stomach, knowing that I didn't know what was going to happen. So here I am, a year later. Comically enough, I've ended up being the dependable person for people at different points. I've been in weddings, I've been there when loved ones were in Iraq, when family members were dead, for births, for a way to kill time between places. All of those things happen in a year's time. But I've just sat here.