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Well, if any of you read my Vox blog, you know that recently I have sought new employment. I applied for jobs at a couple of call centers in the area, was called back by one, and was hired by them the same day I interviewed. However, now it calls for a bit of soul searching, as this job pays less than my current one. It also means that if I get an appropriate schedule, I won’t be seeing LaShawn as much anymore as I’ll be taking the bus to work. The biggest issue is that they’re not willing to pick me up from work if I’m taking the bus to work - they’re expecting me to find a ride home with someone from work. Sure, thanks. Toss me off to find a ride home with complete strangers. Great. I’ll be sure to do that.

I am not a particularly big fan of actual TEA. I usually go for Celestial Seasonings herbal teas, which of course, do not contain tea leaves for the most part. My favorite flavor is Mandarin Orange Spice. So when I saw that HyVee had their Orange & Spice tea for sale this week, I purchased a box. I wanted to be able to have some tea at work and frankly, I didn’t think it’d be a big difference. I was wrong.

The spice far overpowered the orange flavor, which is nicely balanced in the Celestial Seasonings tea. Couple this with the fact that as the HyVee brand had actual black tea in it which required three packets of sugar to the one that I use with the Celestial Seasonings tea, and you can imagine, it had no flavor what so ever.

The tea is drinkable, but frankly, I think I’ll pay the $3.19 a box they charge for the Celestial Seasonings tea next time. I’d rather pay the extra and get something I know I love as opposed to something that is just drinkable.

You know, one of my biggest pet peeves at restaurants is bad service. We went to Perkins for dinner after I got off work and frankly, it could have been so much better. It started out all right - first the waiter got our drink orders and took our food orders promptly. Then he brought drink refills. Great. Then he brought our food. Mom’s order was fine. Mine was missing both the ranch and salsa dipping sauces it was supposed to have. LaShawn ordered her salad without cheese and it came covered in cheese. He left without making sure everything was ok, and then it took over 15 minutes for him to come back and ask if everything was ok. LaShawn told him her salad was ordered without cheese and all he said was “oh, my bad.” Then about 5 minutes later, he came and asked if it was all together or seperate and when we said together, he laid the check down and left. He never came back to the table after that. We had wanted to get dessert (pumpkin pie for LaShawn and her mom, pumpkin muffin for me) but since our waiter never came back to us, we ended up going to the store for candy bars.

When LaShawn paid, she let them know about it and they knocked about $11 off our bill. I’d say that waiter is going to get a stern talking to by a manager at the end of his shift tonight.

I was reading an article on Yahoo about the fact that Nebraska is hurrying to change it’s safe haven law. They’re changing it to apply to newborns only. You can read the article here. First off, the Safe Haven law NEEDS to apply to ALL age children in ALL states. Being unable to care for your kids doesn’t happen only when they’re newborns. It can happen at any age, and there should be a way to protect parents. The last line really pissed me off. It was some official saying that parents don’t know what assistance is available to them.

WRONG. They know. They just don’t qualify. You see, all of those programs have such strict guidelines, most people do not qualify for assistance. Those income requirements do not take into account the bills you have to pay each month. I know. I applied for an EBT card a few months ago because I can’t afford groceries. I eat because my best friend’s mom won’t let me starve. I was denied because my income is too high. It didn’t matter that I was being wage garnished 1/4 of every paycheck for a debt that I’d been under the impression had already been paid off (never trust a creditor to tell you the truth - this one sure as hell didn’t). It didn’t matter that I had to pay for rent and other bills. All that mattered was that I was bringing home $1000 per month. It didn’t matter that I don’t have cable or internet. It didn’t matter that I have just my cell phone, no land line at all. None of that mattered at all. They told me to cut back on things I didn’t need (funny, I wasn’t buying anything, I was just paying my bills with my checks) and use that money for groceries.

So you tell me how it is that parents don’t know what is available to them. They know, and they know they don’t qualify because they’ve already tried.

Also - ALL states need to remember - Safe Haven laws are to be ANONYMOUS. It should NOT be spread out over the news that kids were left under the law even if they are teenagers. As stated before, parents can become unable to care for their children when those kids are any age - not just newborns.

That was the apparent reaction of a box that fell out of an UPS (or OOPS when it comes to UPS sponsored NASCAR driver David Reutiman at the wheel) truck earlier today. We were behind the truck when the driver got back in from delivering a package and one of the packages on the truck made a valiant attempt at escape. It was quite amusing to see the driver hop back out of the truck, scoop the box up and take it back into the truck. Then again, my friends and I are quite easily amused.

So we went to Golden Corral today and although I think they really have good food, this is my 4th trip there, and I’ve been there on a Monday, 2 Wednesdays, and a Thursday, and the only difference in the selection of foods has been at the dessert table and the occasional change in pizza flavors. Other than that, it’s been the exact same items on the buffet every single time, from the salad bar right over to the pizza bar. *sigh* I like a little more variety in my buffet to be honest. Other than that, they have several items I’m very fond of at my Golden Corral.

Ok, I work for Stream, activating radios for Sirius Satellite Radio. Apparently, we have some people who do something for Sirius who work for Dial America. Now I don’t know if the problem is that the Dial America people aren’t being given very much training (No Joana, this isn’t pointed at you LOL) or what, but someone called me tonight wanting to know why her radio didn’t work.

She gave me the name of the person she last spoke to - which didn’t match the name on the notes on the account. She told me about all this information that she was given by the rep who then proceeded to tell her that she would be placed on a yearly plan. Fine. Except she wasn’t. She was put on quarterly plan, which was then set to deactivate 3 mos after it started because, according to the notes, the customer did not want the plan to automatically renew. Plus, the customer was told she could buy an XM radio and activate it through Sirius as soon as the merger went through, as well as that she would receive, in the mail, information about all the different plans we would have to offer her.

The problem is - the merger wasn’t yet complete at that time. We had NO information on it whatsoever. This customer was told completely false information - and of course, when I tried to assist her and get her radio activated again, and I went over all the plan information, she then said that I hadn’t given her any options. As far as she was concerned, we didn’t give her any information or options if they weren’t in writing. She wanted an actual physical contract.

Sirius doesn’t do that. We went around and around for an hour and a half. I was off at 9. I left at 10:30. She finally ended the call saying she wasn’t getting anywhere with me. Exactly…and she won’t get anywhere with anyone else she calls because anyone who tells her anything other than what I was saying is flat out lying to her. I even had a supervisor with me, listening in, and shaking his head at the fact that she couldn’t get it through her head.

Plus, she would not let go of everything she was told by the Dial America representative. So yeah, I’m about ready to pop someone upside their head.

Note: The reason I know it was a Dial America rep was that the operator ID in the notes has a DA behind it - for Dial America. *sigh*