in the realm of the fictionman

The Hair Post II

A picture Amy took about three hours ago:

:-)

The Hair Post

Wednesday and all this week no going in to an office to work.

Friday I might actually go back to the prior job for a day of database work for them. It depends on how scheduling works out. There's still a lot I need to do this week.

Today is meeting a friend for lunch and then assorted shopping and swinging by a clinic to get Amy set up with Medicaid (KidCare) coverage for the pregnancy.

I need clothes (khaki Dockers and some polo/golf shirts to wear until I get the official dealership ones), I'm cutting my hair, and I'm getting a cell phone.

The last two feel really weird. We had a cell phone in the motorhome, and both of us were happy to be done with it. But, it really does make sense to have one. It just won't be turned on and answered 24/7.

And then there's the haircut. In August, 93 I had the last Army buzz cut. After that I just needed hair, so I let it grow long. Two-thirds of the way down my back or so by the time I eventually cut it in December, '99. At the time I did it for two reasons. First, it was becoming a hassle. I was shedding long hairs everywhere. In the car I'd go to tilt my head forward but the ponytail would be caught between the seat and my back. Second, I had just gotten my first ever "permanent," real job. I thought that maybe it was time for change.

Within 6 months I'd regretted cutting it, and let it grow out again. It's not quite as long as it was back in '99, but it's getting there. Some of the same hassle is back. The other part that annoys me is because my hair is so fine there's always shorter strands that end up in my eyes, and loose it does tend to blow everywhere.

On one hand, I like my long hair. It is a part of who I am and who I've been. There's something primal and free about it. But it's not a major part of who I am, and cutting it doesn't really change who I am. I'm starting a major change with this new job. Eventually I want to be chartering boats on the Atlantic, and I don't picture myself with this long hair blowing in the ocean wind.

But I've had long hair so long I have a hard time picturing myself any other way. I'll be bringing Amy along to help me decide on the new look. She says she liked it when I cut it last, but I don't remember what that looked like. We'll bring the digital camera along so I can get a picture up afterwards. Unless I hate it. :-)

It's Official

I start August 1st selling motorhomes and campers/trailers. The owner is out traveling all this coming week, so there won't be time for training.

He did give me a couple of assignments already. I'll be Mystery Shopping two of his competitors, since I'm still an unknown in the industry. In class we all mystery shopped one dealer, and of five of us, only one was treated at all well, and mostly because she fell in love with an RV pretty much right away. So this will be an opportunity to see two other dealers, and maybe they do things better. If they're all like that first one... fish in a barrel. :-)

Also, either their service manager or their sales manager is going to be driving me to Elkhart Indiana to see the factory that most of their stock is built at so I can talk about the construction of the units more personally.

I've got some stuff to do during the week. I might even spend a day at the last company I worked at, doing some work on their database. Hey, there's most of two paychecks short in the process of all this, I've got to do what I can.

Waiting

So today I sit and wait for the phone to ring...

The training session started on Wednesday with seven of us. Thursday there were five. Those five graduated yesterday with certificates. We all interviewed with the owner and sales manager at the dealership. That dealership is planning to hire three. Which means that two of the five will be calling the placement service Monday morning.

It's a little odd that I'm considering cutting my hair. When I've been asked about that in the past, it was something I really didn't want to do. Then again, it was in the context of cutting it to get a job I didn't actually want. No appeal there. But for this? For selling motorhomes and campers? That I can do.

The main issue at this point is I've had long hair so long it's hard for me to envision anything else. I cut in back in '99, and Amy liked the style, although I don't really remember it. Within six months I'd regretted cutting it. I haven't cut it since, and didn't plan to. At the moment I'm considering going for the shorter ponytail look. But there is something to be said that there is a large portion of the motorhome market that is a little older and quite a bit more conservative and might feel less comfortable paying a lot of money to buy something from "some long-haired hippie kid that doesn't shave."

I've been wearing my beard extremely short, so I'll probably let it grow out a little so it looks like an intentional beard, and not just stubble. Completely clean-shaven I look way younger, so that's probably not the better solution. If I look like I'm still in college that isn't going to help professional credibility...

But supposedly the owner and sales manager (both of whom I like) sat down together last night to decide which ones they were going to hire. The owner said he'd call everyone today and let us know one way or the other.

So now I'm just waiting for the call. I'm pretty sure I know the answer. I'm just not entirely sure what to wear to work on Monday. :-) (Maybe not the most manly of statements, but oh well.)

In training we were in shirts and ties. The employees all have logo golf shirts. I expect I'll be given a few of the shirts, but I never did meet their current sales guy, so I'm not sure if it's a dress shoes or hiking boots environment.

Beginnings

Yesterday morning I had a job interview at a local RV dealership looking for more salespeople. Gee, after living in one for a year and a half do I have any qualifications to sell them?

--The sales training starts today.

That meant getting to work yesterday at about 11 or so and having just that half day or so to get everything wrapped up or transitioned to someone else. They've already suggested that I could come in on days off (depending on what my schedule ends up being) for pickup work on some of their projects and database work. I wonder what kind of pay rate I can work out for that... :-)

If everything goes well, I'll be going to the official first day next Monday. There's still a number of details I don't know yet, but those are supposed to be gone over today.

It's scary, but it's an adventure just beginning.

Single women are skinnier?

Quick humor bit sent me by my father:

Single women are skinnier! Why?

Single women come home, see what's in the refrigerator and go to bed.
Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the refrigerator.

Ack

Think this is a long enough job description? Eep.

Position Description:
Summary: Provide general/routine clerical support such as answering telephones, data entry, sorting and distributing mail, filing and making copies. Interacts with HP employees or external customers in performing these general support activities. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Answers telephones, determines caller's business needs and refers callers as appropriate. May also be responsible for operating the paging system, switchboard or call attendant telephone system. Responsible for tracking call data. Call management responsibilities may span multiple locations. Greets and directs visitors, employment applicants, and customers to the appropriate party or location. Maintains and revises welcome board for customer events. May also be responsible for scheduling and coordinating conference rooms, catering and logistics. Receives deliveries, faxes and employment applications and forwards them to the appropriate party. May provide telephone or administrative support back-up to co-workers as needed. Sorts and distributes incoming mail and courier deliveries to appropriate in- house locations on an established schedule. May assist with large mailings. Prepares outgoing mail for delivery to the Post Office. Weighs letters and packages to calculate appropriate postage. Records postage charges for assignment to department accounts. Makes copies and collates as required. Files and keeps routine department records. Performs data entry to tables, charts, and spreadsheets using software applications. May produce graphics for presentations, manuals, or proposals. Distributes travel packets for pick up by traveler and maintains ticket logs. May type and/or consolidate materials for reports, manuals, or general correspondence using software applications. Maintains records retention center (including deliveries and retrieving records from storage area and administering annual records disposition program) according to company policies, guidelines and legal requirements. May maintain local HP Company car/pool records. Minimum Qualifications/Experience: Demonstrated ability to use arithmetic including decimals, fractions and percentages. Demonstrated knowledge of spelling, grammar, and composition. Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate both verbally and in writing. Skilled in the use of computer terminals, basic office equipment and related software applications. May be required to demonstrate the ability to lift materials per approved limits.

3 Personal Calls at Work...

At work they've got a few of us logging all the outbound calls we make so they can understand the call stats better. That includes the personal calls. They aren't saying we can't make them, but they want an idea how many of the calls being made are being made for what reasons.

Basically, there are a number of calls being made that aren't being documented in the database. Some of them are cases where the call gets cut off and we call them back right away. Sometimes I've been documenting the second half as a second call, sometimes not. A number of them are when we have to call all over the place to find a service company for a customer.

I think the record was 20+ such calls for one customer. The customer was a judge in NY, and a particular ass-pain. We called nearly every service company in a ten-mile range of him at least. We talked to pool repair companies, and as soon as they heard who the customer was, several of them immediately said "We don't service pools" and politely ended the call. That oughta tell you something about him. He is in fact the individual leader in documented calls. He and his wife are a whole blog in and of themselves...

--So yesterday there were three outbound calls on my log. Two were to a temp agency returning calls about three positions I probably don't want. I'll talk about those later. They weren't as interesting after the third call. Amy's pregnant.

First Impressions?

This morning I had a short interview with a new recruiter before work. I'd interviewed with the temp reps at the agency before, but she's the direct hire recruiter and wanted to meet to discuss interests and target jobs. It was an 8:00. In my usual interview form, I was there fifteen minutes early. The office was locked, not a light on. At 8:13 I was starting the car to leave when she pulled in next to me.

And through the whole thing she kept saying, "I'm never late...never." She repeated never every time. Part of me just wanted to say something. It was a quote from The Princess Bride that came to mind:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Rained In

So over the weekend I didn't ask for specific weather. For Jareth's birthday I asked for no rain (and it didn't rain despite the forecast for it). For Bubblefest I asked for no rain during Bubblefest (and it didn't rain until we left).

So, left to itself, it rained yesterday. Jareth wasn't feeling good. It was hot and humid, making him feel worse. The constant snaps and cracks had him on edge and basically in my arms all day. Then there was the rain.

In the end, we decided that while there might still have been fireworks, they'd be buggy and involve sitting in wet, soggy ground. So we stayed in and watched Independence Day (ID4) on [gasp] VHS.

Tweak This, Tweak That

Okay, I've made some sidebar adjustments. Moved the links up and the archives down. I've also added a link to the Fox Valley Drum Circle, now that Lissa has the web page up for it. It's still in progress, but the group was originally set up through meetup.com, and we're not going to pay to keep the group there.

We still need a venue, as the 25-30 people that would like to show up won't all fit in any of our living rooms. A campground or park would be very cool, but not a lot of public venues are going to want us making that much noise... [shrug]

No more downloading new ring tones during the daily commute??

So Chicago has finally passed an ordinace banning drivers from using cell phones without a hands-free device as of July 8th.

Driving is the most dangerous thing we do on such a regular basis. For many people, it might just be the most dangerous thing they ever do. How many things do you do that can potentially kill someone if you mess up? How much money is wasted every year paying out insurance claims and repairing banged-up cars?

Now, will the ban save lives? Maybe one or two. If it's enforced and works will it reduce crashes? Very probably, if not certainly.

Now, here's where rant time comes in. Note I used the word 'crashes' and not 'accidents'. Yes, there are a few cases where you're driving along and a patch of oil or ice that you couldn't possibly have seen throws the car into somewhere it isn't supposed to be. But that's the rule, not the exception. For the vast majority of cases, crashes are a result of the driver.

People driving too close to each other, or too fast for conditions, or too distracted, or too tired, or too many substances...

I heard one person claim they couldn't stop in time because her anti-lock brakes kicked in. Nuh-uh. Too close and too fast for conditions on a wet street.

Amy got rear-ended once at a stop light because the guy didn't think she was going to stop, so he just followed her through the turn on red. Except she did stop, and he didn't.

Now, there was one time I was driving to or from work in rush hour. Coming up over a hill, not very fast, and I got high enough the sun was very suddenly and very brightly right in my eyes. I couldn't see that the lady in front of me had stopped. Yet I don't count myself without fault.

I don't doubt for a minute that someone will complain about this ordinance. Either it'll inconvenience them, or it'll be intruding on their (ahem) rights in their own car. Tough. The government passes laws because people show on a daily basis that they need them. It's like when we were kids. If you wanted fewer rules you had to show you could handle responsibility.

Remember that for every stupid warning label out there, somebody has done that. If children can't be responsible for themselves, then parents make rules to take care of them. In this case, the goverment is the parent. That's what government is for. Don't like it, learn to parent yourselves.