People are Crazy

I don't talk much about work on this little blog, because, well because I just don't. I have plenty of interesting stories that I could tell and Lord knows I'm living an episode of The Office every time I walk through the doors but I happen to like my job and the people I work with so I just try to refrain from writing about it/them.

In case you don't know, I work for a small family-owned business. We are a distributor for a major oil company and we distribute gasoline/fuel as well as oil to various businesses in the Atlanta area. A large portion of our customer base happens to be gas stations -- we don't own the stations but we do have supply contracts with them. Therefore, when a customer calls in to Major Oil Company to complain about an experience they had at one of the stations, those complaints get funneled down to the distributor level for response. One of my jobs happens to be responding to those complaints as they come in. Some complaints are valid, but most are not.

For instance, today I had the pleasure of responding to a complaint from a lady who had bought a pair of shoes from one of the stations we supply. I'm totally serious. This one was mild compared to some of the things that I see. I'm not sure who has the job at Major Oil Company of sifting through these complaints, but I can pretty much guarantee you that person spends much of their day in laughter!

As I said earlier, some people do have valid complaints and in those few cases I do my best to resolve the matter with the station in question. However, most of the time the general scenario is this: someone gets upset with the station attendant for something random, the attendant and the customer have words, the customer usually insults the attendant (and shockingly admits to it in their complaint) and then contacts Major Oil Company to say that the cashier didn't treat them right. I'm not even kidding -- one customer even admitted to telling an attendant to "go back to India" and then got upset that his response was "you go back to f**king India". This lady was upset that the cashier would "use the F word when speaking to a woman". How am I even supposed to respond to that?

I really just don't understand people sometimes. I think we all get upset by situations and voice our opinions/concerns to someone serving in a customer service capacity, that is totally normal. But what I don't understand is why people think that spewing insults is going to help them resolve their problem. I'll admit that I have customer service 'confrontations' quite often. (Not at gas stations necessarily ... but it usually is a retailer of some sort). The thing is, I usually win my battles with these people. I think that is for two reasons 1) I am reasonable with the person 2) I am never rude to them. Why is this such a hard concept for others to understand?

Thanks for reading my little rant. Shim and belly updates are forthcoming. Maybe even a sneak preview some of the nursery decor....

Topping Out

I spent the day yesterday in Athens at Ben's topping out party for the church his company is building. The church happens to be the home of CMR, so I was really hoping he would be there at this topper party (as I call it), but he had prior engagements so he couldn't be there. Really though, I was looking forward to seeing the project that Ben has spent the last year or so working on. I got there right before lunch was served, and was able to meet a few of the people that Ben works with each day. I had met some of them before, but in many cases it was nice to be able to put a face with a name. We enjoyed an excellent barbecue lunch, and then learned a bit about the church from the building committee and the pastor.

After lunch it was back to work for everyone but I still wanted a tour of the building, so I had to put on a hard hat. I made Ben take this picture to show you just how much I looked like a fish out of water!


I wasn't going to wear heels but that morning when I was getting dressed, Ben decided that I looked too short and requested that I put on heels. I obliged his request, and only looked semi-ridiculous at his construction site!


The building is ginormous, and really is shaping up to be a beautiful church. I can't wait to see the finished product. I really enjoyed the day, and seeing Ben in his work environment -- he spends a lot of time telling me stories about the people he works with (all good ones, I swear) and about his actual job so it was a really fun experience for me. I also learned that his boss has a nickname for me .... "Evil Oil Lady". Ha!! Awesome.

Yoinked!

'Yoink' is the word that Ben likes to use when you take something away from someone. For example, say we're having dessert and he reaches over and takes the last bite of my ice cream ... he would say 'yoink' and that makes it okay for him to take it from me. Or suppose you're at a crowded party and someone takes your seat after you get up. As long as the person says "yoink" its all okay. Those are the rules.

Now, you need to understand something here. The whole yoink thing really only applies to someone when they actually SEE you take something from them. Or when they are at least in earshot. Otherwise it is STEALING.

So it seems that we have a little problem in our office with someone not knowing the difference between 'yoinking' and 'stealing'. You see, we had these two cheap-o knives in the kitchen at our office for the longest time. I'm not sure whose they were originally, but someone brought them in so that people would have something to use when they needed to cut a piece of fruit or something. Then, they both went missing a few months ago. At the same time. Strange, huh? I thought so too, but really it wasn't a terribly big deal. I figured they got thrown away or something, so I went out and bought a new one and brought it into the office. It wasn't expensive, but it was a GREAT knife and I used it all the time to cut my apples and stuff. Then, a few weeks ago ... it went missing.

SO. ANNOYING.

Theeeeennnnn, someone in our office brought in a bunch of coffee filters that she had bought for use in the office. A week later, they were gone as well.

What gives? I mean none of this stuff is really anything of any consequence. And it isn't like someone is stealing from any one person. Just taking things that aren't theirs. And it is really frustrating. Have you ever had a problem with an office klepto? What did you do about it?

(For the record, we don't really know who the klepto is, BUT it is a small company so its fairly easy to do the whole process of elimination thing. As I said earlier, the things that are stolen are inconsequential things but still it is stealing and it is bothersome. And also for the record, I've put several little booby traps throughout the office for the taking. We'll see what happens)