Thursday, September 22, 2011

Customer Service Review-Romain Crosspoint

Communication is key...unfortunately those channels are clogged at the Romain service center. I called to make an appointment, gave them my name, address, phone #, make & model as well as my requested services. She said they could set me up for Wednesday morning...all was good.

I called Romain to inform them the car was being towed there Tuesday night and gave them all the details from my previously arranged appointment. They said no problem. When the car got there, Romain called my Mom to find out why the car had been dropped off. Seriously?

He had no idea about the previous calls even though he had my name because he referenced it when he called my mom. So I had to call them a 3rd time that day to make sure it was all set up.

Every time I called, they asked for my phone number again because they said it wasn't on file. Each time, the technician was supposed to call me back, they called my mom instead. Twice, the promised to call me back & never did.

When I went to pick up the car the receipt had my name spelled wrong, my phone number wasn't listed anywhere and the address was listed as my moms house. I will never suggest them to anyone and will never use their services again unless forced to.

I can accept mistakes but not the same mistakes over and over again...5 errors in 3 days is not acceptable. On the upside, the people were all really nice. Unfortunately, that doesn't completely make up for the hassle of me having to call back multiple times during my first week of training at a new job.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I'm a perfectionist...and it sucks!

Ok, let me preface this by saying I'm only an anal retentive, perfectionist at work. :)

At home my dishes sit in the sink for days, dirty clothes overflow the basket & I don't always put clean clothes away. I'm less concerned with perfection because very few people see my house so I'm allowed to be a slob within these walls.

At work, I want everything to be perfect & I cannot stand it when I struggle to find the answer to something.

Today was a prime example of this. We had been given several hours to go through an online, self service training which covered the basics of the system. Then we spent another couple hours walking through it with the trainer and getting a little more detail. Then, we had several hours to "play" in the system. Tomorrow, we have a test on the info covered the last 3 days.

We got a few sample questions and a couple of them were items we had only covered for about 60 seconds. The trainer refused to tell us anything to help us find the answers and I was extremely frustrated with the entire scenario. I get very mad at myself when I can't grasp a new concept or figure out the answer to something.

Right now, I'm going to go through my 30+ pages of notes & screen shots and hope her questions make sense tomorrow so I don't completely bomb the test.

Can't wait til we can actually get into real life scenarios instead of all this hypothetical stuff. I learn much better with real situations to work with.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Being free of debt was nice...for the few months it lasted.

I like to think that things happen for a reason. And while that reason is not always clear I can usually roll with whatever happens. Today, I've encountered the one thing that I just can't handle. My car is out of commission.

I cannot stand being without a car. It's my only source of transportation and I cannot stand being dependent on others. Especially when it means I'm depending on someone else to get me to my new job on time.

On top of the gas leak which will require the gas tank to be replaced, the brake pads need replaced and the transmission is slipping. I can't get another car because I have no money left and I can't get a car loan because I don't have any proof of income.

Throw in this chest pain that I'm dealing with and I'm about to lose my mind.

I guess what really bugs me is that I've lived with tons of debt all my life. I lost my job, got severance, paid it all off & then had to charge a bunch of my credit cards back up to live on since it took so long to find a job. Now, what little credit I have left is gonna be charged up fixing the car so I can get to work to make money to pay off the credit cards. What a vicious freaking cycle.

UPDATE: mom found a 2007 recall that might cover the issue. Fingers crossed.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

ANY job is not always a Good job!

 Unemployment: A jobs problem or a work problem? – USATODAY.com

The woman interviewed in this article appears to think that people who aren't able to land a job are being too picky and/or aren't trying hard enough. I'm afraid that I must disagree with her observations. She mentions the multiple emails she gets for potential jobs but doesn't say what her area of expertise is. She also doesn't indicate if she actually landed any of those job offers. I think it's unfair of her to make a blanket statement about the job search process because each persons situation is different. Any job is NOT always a good job!

Sure, there are job openings at Burger King, The Dollar Store or Kohl's...but settling for a job making minimum wage is not always the answer. A starting position at those places will get you in the door but will hardly bring home enough money to support a family/household. Unfortunately, some of us only have 1 income to depend on so the rate per hour can be a very important factor in choosing a job...especially when taking a job means you lose your unemployment.

I can understand her thought process to a certain extent but people taking low paying jobs they don't want/like is a huge contributing factor in the poor level of service that consumers receive in almost every area of the U.S. today. See more on my feelings about this issue here.

I had several potential job offers during my 8 months of unemployment but they paid less than what I would make on unemployment and required that I drive to another town to the office. Does that really make sense? When I have set expenses and a child to raise...NO, IT DOESN'T! That may be what is stopping some people from taking jobs that are available.

Or, it could be the overabundance of other job seekers that are just starting out and are willing/able to accept a lower hourly rate because they have another source of income or they are younger and still living at home.

It's also been my experience that people without a degree but lots of experience are at the biggest disadvantage. I believe this is due to us falling in the middle of what employers are looking for...experience with a degree or no experience & willing to start at minimum wage. Unfortunately, I have a family to provide for and minimum wage just isn't gonna cut it..at least not while I can still claim unemployment for more than that!

Luckily, my waiting paid off and I landed a job paying more than unemployment, although not as much as my previous job. I expected that so it wasn't a surprise when I got the offer. At least now I know I can become a productive member of society again and don't have to worry about how I'm going to pay my bills each month.

I hope the job market turns around soon and that all those folks that desperately want to work can find decent paying jobs to support their families.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Job acquired!

On Friday, I finally received the call I was waiting for. Job training starts 9/19/11 and I'll be working with at least 2 folks I've worked with before. Can't wait!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Day 4 - Almost given up!

It's day 4 of the week that I was supposed to hear something about the job. We are coming up on a 3 day weekend so if I don't hear something today it won't happen until at least Tuesday 9/6/11.

I think if I don't hear anything today I'm going to set up an appointment to talk to Harrison College and see about getting into the next group of classes that start 9/26/11.

Still not sure about my major but I'm thinking accounting...there always seem to be openings that need that sort of experience. We'll see what happens.

I just hope the HR lady didn't go into labor and lose all our information. She was very pregnant about a month ago during my first interview. It would be just my luck that she went into labor on Monday so nothing could be done this week! :)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Day 3 - Going Insane

I know it does me no good to dwell on the amount of time I've been waiting. I also know that it's only been 2.5 days of actual waiting time after they said they would begin calling people back. I just can't help but be stressed out about it.

I'm going to try to remain as calm as possible through tomorrow and then, I'm going to have to start looking in other directions. I was so sure this was the one, and it still could be, but I'm really getting anxious about the future.

I don't like it and I need to change it...soon!