Caller: Please connect me with Mr. Jonanthan Doe
Operator: I’ll see if he’s in. May I have your name?
Caller: Sid ( Fast and Indistinguishable). I spoke to him last Thursday and he told me I should call him after I spoke to Mr. H at Organization A. He’s helping me with..(fill in problem)
Operator: Yes sir. May I have your name again?
Caller: I already told you. Sidney (low, fast, indistinguisable)
Operator: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Could you repeat the last name?
Caller: (Annoyed - spells name out in exaggerated manner) S i d n e y J. P e r l m u t t e r

Context is good, but you can’t be announced without your name. Please tell the nice operator what it is. Clearly.

All names are fictional. Any resemblence between anyone living or dead is purely coincidental

I got through the first day back at work in much better condition than I expected to. It didn’t hurt that it was very quiet for a Monday. That was a piece of luck I never expected. And there was a lovely welcome, starting with a sign on the bulletin board by my desk and then later, bagels in the library. Bagels are the basic unit of celebration at our office. There were donuts, too, but I passed on those. Being on medication that’s capable of driving one’s triglycerides up into the low thousands makes you think twice about donuts. There was a lovely bouquet of flowers as well. Now I remember why I’m glad I work there. At least as long as being independently wealthy doesn’t seem to be an option.

I was talking with the office manager about how the doubts I’d had last Friday. That’s when I called her and told her I wasn’t sure I could make it in by today. I’d been done in after just keeping an appointment with the doctor. I recalled that she’d taken a couple of vials of blood. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then I recalled that I’d been exhausted the Friday before, which also featured bloodwork requiring multiple. The office manager, who’s lifelong medical odyssey of her own, said that when she was having treatments, bloodwork took it out of her in more ways than one, too. I’m including this tidbit because you don’t normally think of having a vial or two of blood taken as anything that you’d even notice. It seems that under some circumstances you can expect it to be kind of tiring.

Tomorrow’s the day. Until this evening, I was worried about being able to handle my normal routine. Last Friday I went out to the doctor and was basically done for the day. I couldn’t do another useful thing. I called my boss and told her I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go back Monday after all. She was great about it and said that was fine, or if I did come in not to worry if I couldn’t make it through the whole day. Things have improved each day and I’m more hopeful about being able to get back into the swing of things.

The thing is, I picked tomorrow as the day to go back myself. I had no experience with radiation treatment and since everyone is different no one had any real specific advice. I decided a couple of weeks to recuperate sounded about right. Just pulled it out of a hat, really. The doctor said that would be fine and signed off on it. I must have been nuts to pick a Monday. Mondays are a bit of a nightmare there under the best of circumstances. So here’s my advice to anyone undergoing radiation: You may not need it, but try to get yourself three or four weeks to get your strength back when it’s done. And don’t go back on aMonday, or whatever is the craziest day where you work. Of course, that only applies to people who are feeling fine before radiation. If you’ve been through chemo or are feeling sick it’s a whole different ball of wax.

I’ll probably be blogging less for a bit. I can really see myself falling asleep right after the weeknight duties are completed. I hope not. I don’t do well with all work and no play, but it might be the way it is for a while.

The last couple of days have been almost unique for me. Monday and Tuesday beat the hell out of the weekend. This weekend the whole disease thing really started to get me down. I don’t think it’s fear of fatality. From what I can tell, only a small percentage of cases progress to that point. I don’t actually know if the stage I’m in makes that more significantly more likely, but I don’t think so.

It was the prospect of going through treatment and everything that’s going to mean in terms of upheaval, side effects and financial problems that started to get a little overwhelming. The radiologist’s office sent a form to fill out in advance. On the back there’s a question that goes something like, “Do you have any concerns about treatment in regards to financial resources, job, family or transportation?” Well, yes. To all of those.

My mother’s memory problems are not making this easier for either of us. She knows this is going on. She’d have to. She can’t remember any explanations or reassurances. She asks the same questions over and over and sometimes I don’t think I can answer them one more time. She’s more upset than she needs to be and I’m about ready to scream a lot of the time.

My job is stressful. It involves taking calls that pour in all day, often without stopping at all. They’re almost all from people in a state of crisis and more than a few of them have limited ability to communicate in one way or another. I have to make fast decisions about how each call should be dealt with, all day long. Then there’s always a liberal sprinkling of hysterical or abusive calls. The calls are usually accompanied by walk-ins showing up in the lobby with the same sort of problems. Some of them have appointments, some don’t. Of the ones without appointments, sometimes there’s someone available to see them, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes, by mid-afternoon I develop a small facial tic.

As I was heading to work on Monday morning I really didn’t think I was in strong enough condition to deal with it. Turned out, I was wrong. I started working and realized that I felt in control of my little world there. I felt competent and able to handle what came along and I didn’t have time to think about my own stuff. I felt better than I had all weekend. Go figure. Working is good for you after all. I’m going to miss it if I have to be out for a while.

Full moons and Mondays get me down, especially when they arrive together. Here’s a tip that might save somone, somewhere, some time. If you call the office of your congressman, state legislator, county assemblyperson, or any representative of your choice for help with something that has you outraged and they respond with some phone numbers for you to call - don’t bother.

Elected reprsentatives want credit. If they think that you can get help from Agency A, B or C, their office will call. If they tell you to call, they think one of two things. Either your cause, just as it might be, is hopeless and they just want to pass the buck, or you’re a nut and they just want to pass the buck. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

I was thinking about the Managing the Front Desk seminar I lost a day of my life at yesterday. They didn’t have a lot of advice for the problems that receptionists - or front desk professionals - face each day, but they did have other tips for self-actualization. We learned that the right way to start the day is to say to yourself, “I feel terrific!” as soon as the alarm goes off. Soon after that, you need to go to the mirror and say, “I like myself, I like myself..” six times. Five is not enough and seven would be overdoing. Six times.

Those are pretty good. If a loved one catches you doing it, he or she might take it as a cry for help and take you on a great vacation. Or he or she might move out, thereby removing one source of stress. You can’t lose.

There were some areas where I just couldn’t agree with the nice lady giving the seminar, though. One was on the subject of passive-aggression. She was against it. I’m for it. She used her own, pre-self-actualized self as an example of what not to do. The story went that she had a boss who would call her into his office to take dictation. When she was finished and almost out the door, he’d call her back, having thought of just “one more thing”, kind of like Columbo, I guess. Apparently this got on her last nerve. So, she’d pretend she didn’t hear him and go on her way. Now, I don’t really get why she was so bothered. My thinking is that it was his dime, so who cares if he thinks of things at the last minute? But it did bother her. She dealt with it by pretending she didn’t hear him and go on her way. Now she realizes that she was being passive-aggressive and that was wrong. Sounds like an excellent way to handle something to me. What was she going to do? Tell her boss to get his shit together? Not unless she was sleeping with him. Much better to train him by not rewarding the behavior that was giving her hives.

Nowhere is passive-aggression more useful than when you’re acting as a receptionist/switchboard operator.

In that capacity you’re a natural target for everyone. Callers believe that you’re standing between them and the person who they’re trying to reach, who would be happy to speak with them if not for you. You’re at the bottom of the office foodchain and it seems safe to vent at you. Here’s a tip for callers - “I’ll take the call” is music to our earphones. Putting you through is easy. Dealing with you when we can’t is what’s hard.

That’s where being passive-aggressive comes in. Pissing off the receptionist can be a big mistake if she or he has mastered passive-aggression. If that’s the case, unless you really like hold music, try and be polite. Oh, and we do the mail and faxes, too.

What a scam. I’m not giving out names, but if you work in an office of any kind, you know what I mean. Brochures come in daily that offer one day courses in everything from networking and software to managing conflict in the office. Companies send employees to them. I guess it’s a write-off.

This was was about front desk management, but about ten minutes of the whole thing were specific to that. Mostly it seemed to be about self esteem, body language and most of all, selling books, CDs and DVDs which, in seminar language are called “resources”. What it came down to, is it was mostly bullshit. And bullshit sells well. Anyone can make it in this country if they just don’t have any shame. So, I guess I learned something, or at least reinforced what I already suspected.

I was wrong about it being mostly corporate types there. There were a lot more people like me. When I was looking for a parking space at the hotel where this was held I saw a woman walking in the parking lot and I knew instantly that she was there for the seminar and that she worked for a non-profit organization. There were a couple of women from a senior housing organization. One from one that works with families in trouble. Some were from medical offices. What most had in common was that we were sent from organizations and agencies that were hoping to find ways to solve the problems that manifest themselves when the phone goes all day, desperate and often only moderately functional people show up in your lobby and you’re understaffed. We were doomed to disappointment. Improving our self esteem won’t solve our problems.

Two women were mystified as to why they were there. They work at a federal probation office in Brooklyn. This was held out in the middle of Suffolk County. Turns out that they’re required to do forty hours of training a year and when their training budget hasn’t been used in a timely manner they get sent out in a government car to whatever’s handy. Multiply that by the number of employees it must apply to and visulalize this small portion of your tax dollars as they’re flushed down the toilet. Then consider all the other ways that your taxes are wasted as our government insists that cutting services to the poor is the way to save money.

There was one young women whose biggest work related problem seemed to be getting people out of her way on interoffice mail day. She, I believe, had her concerns addressed. She also got her company to authorize the purchase of a number of motivational resources.

People who are working for a living, trying to do a job that serves a purpose are missing the boat. The bull market is in what bulls produce naturally. I’m going take some deep cleansing breaths and try to visualize myself feeling no shame at separating the gullible from their money. That’s the key to financial success. If you can do that and keep your self esteem intact, you could grow up to be president - of a corporation or a large country.

I work at non-profit agency that provides services to low income people. Also no income people. I’m the receptionist/webmistress. It’s the culmination of a lifetime of jobs that happened while I wasn’t making much of a plan at all. I’ve waited tables, worked in retail, studied computer programmer, worked in data processing and worked in manufacturing - everywhere from the assembly line to the front office. I love the place I work now, although I don’t always love the job.

Agencies like the one I work for believe in training and conferences. Last year I got to go to a two day conference where I helped present information about our website at a tech seminar. They also sent me to a training seminar on advanced use of Macromedia Dreamweaver. I’m not sure I learned much that I didn’t know about Dreamweaver at that one. I did learn that conducting one of these seminars doesn’t seem to require a depth of knowledge beyond the course material. I filed that piece of information away on the “if desperate” list of career options for the future. What it does require is the willingness to travel constantly.

Today, it’s a Managing the Front Desk seminar. I’m not sure how to dress for this one. The Macromedia one was easy. Jeans. That’s what I wear to work more often than not and it’s perfectly appropriate dress for IT people in any setting. I strongly suspect that jeans would feel out of place at this one. I’m pretty sure it’s going to have a corporate slant to it and that the people attending will be dressing down for the day out of the office by wearing things that I regard as nearly formal attire. Still trying to blend. It doesn’t work now any better than it ever did.

The reason for sending me on this mission is that, like most agencies and services that are provided to the poor, our funding is taking a lot of hits. We’ve gotten to the point where it’s simply impossible to provide the services at the level that we used to. The thing that attracted us to this course was the promise that it reveal how to “say ‘no’ when ‘no’ is the only answer you’ve got”. I’m not so sure that they have our problems in mind. When the front desk is the first step in an intake process, saying “no” presents different problems than when you’re holding off over-eager sales people. Still, the consensus was that it’s worth going and seeing if there are tips we could use. I’m taking notes and hoping that I’ll be able to bring back something of value to share.