Good Customer Service? I think not

You know what I deplore, shitty customer service representatives.

So, I put in an order for more checks last week. I got all of the information together as soon as I could and I e-mailed them to our CSR to have it taken care of. I must have e-mailed her like 5 times regarding the whereabouts of my order. THEN FINALLY she decides to e-mail me back on Wednesday this week thinking that she had already e-mailed me a response last week…. and of course she hadn’t. Upon receiving her e-mail I made just a couple of quick changes to her mock-up and sent it back to her right away. I fully expected a response by the end of my work day or hers… at the very least.

I got NO response. Then, I tried to call her today, twice. When she finally answered the phone, our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi Nancy this is Kellie from CEI! How are you today?

Her: *pause*

Her: I’m fine. How are you?

Me: Great! Did you get my message regarding our order?

Her: No. I don’t think so. When did you send it?

Me: About a half an hour to 45 minutes ago….

Her: Ohhh well, I am on my lunch break but I am not taking a lunch today, so I didn’t check my messages.

Me: *pause* Okaaay. (Thinking: What the fuck?)

Me: Well, can you tell me the status of my order? It’s urgent and we need to get it filled quickly.

Her: Uhhhhh (she says this distractedly I might add. She was probably playing solitaire)

Her: Uhhhh I’m not sure. I’ll e-mail you or call you sometime today with the status.

Me: Okay...

Her: Bye.

Now, I really felt like I was being TOOO nice. I had always thought that you catch more flies with honey, but I regress… I guess sometimes you need to stick a foot in someone’s ass. If she doesn’t call by 4, my foot will surely come out.

I hate the fact that you can’t trust anyone to actually DO their job anymore. It’s like you have to constantly hound them with the results. What sucks even more, is that if they aren’t doing their job… they make you out to be the ass of the day because your boss is hounding you because they aren’t doing THEIR JOB. So in short, the middle man always gets fucked.

So here I sit, staring at the phone, waiting for her to call.

I ask you, whatever happened to people just DOING THEIR JOB? Why is it that everyone has this overwhelming sense of entitlement nowadays but they don’t put the effort in to earn whatever it is they feel entitled to?

It's 10 minutes to 3 now and my foot is starting to itch.

Ramblings of the depressed

Everyday I wake up in a self-loathing, tired and depressive state of mind. I set little goals to get through the day.
Goal 1) Lunch time break;
Goal 2) 5:00 so that I can get my babies;
Goal 3) 8:00 so that I can do my homework;
Goal 4) Hurry up and finish homework so that I can spend time with my husband or sleep.

Sometimes, I feel as though my life is comprised of nothing more than just a series of hours to get to and get through. One day at a time, as they say in AA. The problem is, i'm not an alcoholic, I am, however, a food-aholic.

I feel major rejection at work. My kids got sick and as a result I took too much time off to care for them. My boss doesn't want to talk/deal with me unless she absolutely has to. I dealt with this kind of social isolation for three years with my former employ and I swore to myself that I wouldn't put up with it again. Yet here I am. The only difference this time is that I really enjoy what I am doing and find myself going above and beyond to prove my worth.

I feel like a child starved for affection, constantly doing things to get myself noticed. I hope that someone will throw me a bone of praise, give me a pat on the back or hell, even a smile. No matter how well I perform or how hard I strive to do a good job, I have been permanently labeled as "the girl who plays the kid card". The thing that gets me, is the personification that they have picked out for me, isn't me at all. I just had a string of bad luck. The kids got sick a lot within a short period of time. None of these instances were in my control. While I feel I made the best choice, i'm still beating myself up over it. I keep thinking, "what could I have done to prevent this?" The worst part, is that she (my boss) has talked shit about me to other co-workers and now they feel equally as distasteful toward me.

Also, i'm jealous. The new girl (hired in March) has quickly become everybody's BFF leaving me well, not everyone's BFF, but moreover I am the mildly annoying girl who plays the kid card. She goes to lunch with the boss and everyone else in the office. I get left behind and not acknowledged. The more I try to break out of my shell, the more I find myself curled up in the deepest, darkest corner wondering why no one likes me. (probably because I type up boo-hooish shit like this)

GRRrrr!

I hate feeling this way. I'm not emo. I don't enjoy being depressed because it's the fashionable thing to do. I don't even wear black. I just feel black on the inside right now. Maybe it's post-partum depression. Shit... I don't know. I just know that I hate myself. Mostly tied to my body-image. I weigh like 280 now... or something like that. My eating binges have become out of control. Today, I had a large number 1 (big mac, fries, diet coke) and a cheeseburger. Why I needed the fucking cheeseburger when everything else was large enough... i'll never know. All I know is I inhaled the food and felt bloated on top of an already empty feeling.

What was I feeling when I ate the food? Bored. hungry. thirsty. nervous. anxious. lonely.

Over what? I have no fucking clue. Probably because it's Thursday. Thursday's will do that to ya.

I am more angry with myself now than I was this morning. I started out on a clean food plate this morning and once again... lost control.

An added:

My husband and I have decided we would like to purchase a home for our family (the four of us, hubby, myself and our two kids). This stresses me out because that means we have to commit to living in Michigan. Michigan's economy sucks donkey balls as we are presently 2.5% above the national unemployment rate. How fucking lovely. I don't know that I can make a commitment to a state where i'm not sure how the job market will be in 3 years. Once I get my degree, i'll have to start paying back the student loans. What if I don't find a job that makes enough money and we're stuck with a house payment we can't afford?

After reading over this blog entry, one thing is made clear. Work stresses me the fuck out. Big time.

The Heavyset Woman

I have been called many a name in my lifetime in regards to my weight. Some childhood non-faves include; Lardo, boom-ba-ba-boom (they would chant this whenever I walked on to the bus), 2-Ton, Fat Ass, Kellie-Belly, Big Bertha. I can recall being humiliated more times than I would care to remember.

Each rotten name brought me back to a place in my mind’s eye where I would curl up into fetal position and cry big ol’ crocadile tears. I prayed to God that he would make me thin like the other girls. I just wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to wear the same clothes as them, have the same boyfriends, and be that cool, outgoing girl I would always see walking the halls of my school flipping her perfect hair over her shoulders and giggling to her friends. At the height of my Junior High angst, I asked God to kill me. Just get rid of me. I was no good and no one would ever love me. Thankfully, the Lord is good. Otherwise, I would have missed a lot of great stuff and more love than I could have ever imagined!

I had since forgotten those times as they seem as far away as they are. I am a different person today than I was then. I am outgoing even though I am heavy. I am very loved even though I am large. I have many friends even though putting two of them together might add one of me.

But then, then something happened today that made me want to curl up into the fetal position again. I was speaking with an employee over the phone regarding some missing paperwork. I asked him to describe the person he handed the paperwork off to and he said “The heavyset lady. She had blond hair, but I think she was a brunette”. He was referring to me. me. The heavyset lady. Why those words sent me into a depressive state I’ll never know. It’s not even a name-calling type of name. It is merely a descriptive word to describe someone’s body type. That someone is me. Me. The heavyset lady. I just can’t get over it for some reason. Maybe, it’s because I’ve never asked someone to describe me physically before. When someone is referring to me they usually use words that describe my personality (bubbly, cute, sarcastic, fun, etc.). To have someone describe my body-type sent me under cover. Pleasingly plump? Overly curvy? Chubby? Nope. Heavyset.

Heavyset. Isn’t that a word to describe someone much older than I? I’m only 26. I’m still in my mid twenties for heaven’s sake! Although, what was he supposed to say? The ginormous fat chick with the fucked up hair? No. That would’ve been worse. So, heavyset it is, I guess…

My husband and I took the kids on a walk to the park yesterday. We are going to try to walk everyday to improve our physique. We both want to do a body overhaul. We are scared of heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, all the ailments that they say obese people have a greater chance of developing.

We took the camera with us on our park adventure so that we could get some adorable shots of Owen playing and Sophie… not playing but still looking cute.

At one point, Dave turned the camera to me and Soph, sitting in the swing, smiling away. Later on, I took a look at the shots we obtained from the camera. As I went through the pictures my thoughts centered around; Oh… this is a great one of Owen climbing on the monkey bars! Look at Sophie sitting in her baby seat! She’s such a beauty! There’s Owen and my husband at the slides! And then I came to a photo with me, sitting on the swing with Soph. My thoughts then; OmyGod who is that …. That … woman? Who is that large lady on the swing? The one with the tight black t-shirt, double chin and massive stomach hanging down? Oh. That’s me. The woman who looks so tired and a bit dull in the photo? Yeah, that’s me.

At that moment, motivation never hit me so hard. I wanted to run around a hundred blocks just to get back to where I was before. I had reached that pivotal point in one’s weight gain journey where I realized that I went too long down the wrong path of self-destruction. I didn’t even recognize myself and that scared me.

Body Identity: The heavyset woman.

Day One Menu

Breakfast: 1- Peach Yogurt (170 cal, 1.5g fat, 0 fiber)
2- Multi-Grain Sarah Lee Toast w/ butter (160 cal, 9g fat, 4g fiber)

(7 pts)

Drink: Water - 8 oz.

Lunch: #8 value meal (fresco style) & side of cheese sauce (11 pts)

Drink: Large Diet Pepsi - 32 oz.

Midday points so far:

18

Points remaining:

13

**update: The boss bought everyone ice cream. I will dip into my 25 flex points for the week for this one.

Flex points used: 13 -- small chocolate ice cream

Flex points remaining: 12

Weekend Update: Family, Friends & School... work

My weekend was fairly full of events. Friday night I dyed my hair a beautiful chestnut color. I used the professional stuff and it turned out better than the store-bought stuff! Thankfully, I had my aunt (the cosmetologist in the family) walk me through mixing the solutions and then the application. However, I was a dumbass and forgot to buy a cape to cover myself while I did it. I got some highlighting solution on me as well as the demi-mixed stuff. I have been worrying about cancer all weekend long.

My bathroom had some accidental artistry done to it. I was a bit over-zealous when pouring the solution on my head and now our walls and the floor has brownish spots. Brown is the new white? I think not. Hopefully our landlord will see it as normal wear and tear. Though I know unless I do something about it, it will come out of our deposit. Anyone know what will get hair dye off of the walls and floor?

Despite the messiness... my hair turned out splentastic! Though my husband was a bit pissy about the mess in the bathroom (he is my OC clean freak), he even admitted that it looked great! Score one for the fat girl!

Saturday night I went out with my best gal pals to another gal pal's birthday bash! We had a great time! We got hella drunk and I think scared some lady in the bathroom stall at McDonald's. We don't know who it was, she refused to come out of her stall until we left. We weren't doing anything bad, we were just being loud and giggling. The drunkeness had taken hold of our normally serene personalities. Oh who the hell am I kidding? Even without the booze my gal pals and I act like a bunch of nuts around eachother!

Sunday morning, I got up with the kids and told my husband to go back to bed. I took the kids to the park. Sophie can't do much other than watch Owen climb, run and play.... but she did manage to go down the slide 3 times with her big brother holding her and mommy guiding the both of them.

I got some amazing outdoor shots of Owen playing on the equipment! Great scrapbook stuff!

I got a B in my marketing class and an A on my marketing project. The professor said that it was one of the best he's seen since he started teaching the class! Hell yeah baby! I was so proud of myself! I even chose to do a Non-Profit Organization which is tricker than a for-profit!

I'm not doing so swell in English 102. I've been very negligent of the class and as a result, I think i'll end up failing and having to re-take it. Oy. I hate the prospect, but I know that I need to better re-organize my time. Unfortunately, I think it may be too late to get a salvage-able grade for the class. :o(

Work is work. I think i've removed myself emotionally from the job. I have to realize at some point that companies will never understand a working mom... ever. I'm still treated semi-lepperish... but what the fuck ever. I don't care. I'm just here to do a good job and collect a paycheck.

So… Tyra Banks… Yeah she’s fat now.

I’m sure most of you have been privy to reading blog post after blog post about Tyra Banks and her “weight gain”. I’m sure those of you who watch her show or who watch any kind of entertainment news show are aware of the amount of media attention Tyra is getting because she told the paparazzi to and I quote, “Kiss my fat ass!”

People magazine has listed Tyra as one of the pioneers of our generation because she is standing up against the media in regards to weight gain. She even went so far as to have a whole episode where people had to wear their weight proudly on a “HELLO MY NAME IS” type of badge.

Although, I can’t help but wonder what her motivation is for launching such a campaign. Does she really seek to inspire and educate or is this noble plight something to help boost her ratings and essentially her new image as talkshow Diva? Either way, I suppose it’s nice to have a beautiful, famous supermodel take one for the team.

The irony in this whole situation is that 165 is now the new 200. The Hollywood non-existent dress size (because we all know that zero is not a size) has now poured out onto the general population. We the unconscious sheep are lead to think that we are fat unless we fit into said non-existent size. It’s all about the non-size size. 0 is the new 6. Get it? Got it? Good.

No matter how old I get, I will not think that skeletal celebrities are beautiful ever and no one will be able to convince me otherwise. I look at Nicole Ritchie, Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and immediately I feel the need to shove a few cheeseburgers at them. It’s the maternal instinct in me.

That said, I admire Tyra Banks for blasting the media. It takes steely balls to tell the paparazzi powers-that-be to kiss your ass. It means that she is willing to fight for what she believes in, even though we all know the paparazzi will only publish the fugly pictures of Tyra from now on. No one likes to be told to kiss someone’s ass, even if they deserve it.

Evil paparazzi Mofos.

HELLO! I WEIGH 275.

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

Expectations and Compulsive Over Eating

Last night, I had a rather constructive talk with my husband. For a year or so now I have been feeling like i've fallen into the depths of depression. As a result, I have gained 50 lbs. I started telling him about all of the things I have done in regards to my foodscursions. He looked shocked to say the least.

He didn't realize how depressed and helpless I have felt. I have gone down this path of binge eating to numb my feelings about certain situations. My affair with food has gone from pure to down right sneaky. I sneak food and lie about the amounts I eat. I feel ashamed about my relationship with food. As of right now, I feel very out of control.

The secret I have kept: I am an compulsive overeater or a binge eater. I've been dealing with this for years (Read: Not been dealing with it). I had lost a huge amount of weight back in 2001. I was able to keep it off until I became pregnant in 2003.

After two pregnancies, i've gained 100 lbs from my lowest weight. That's 100 lbs in 4 years which is the equivalent to 25 lbs a year.

I'm not proud of this but I realize that I need to start taking control and move in a positive direction. I need to fix the inside first (not just the outside). I've been doing this for so long that some of my actions are mindless. I don't even think about the food i'm putting in my mouth, whether or not I feel full, etc. It doesn't consciously matter, I just eat.

My husband told me that I need to pull myself together. Ugh. As if I haven't been trying to pull myself together since my son was born! He is right though. I do need to do something.

Truth be told, I am scared. I am scared because i'm not sure how to change my bad habits. I am scared that I will fail. I am scared that life won't be as fun without food.

I think the key to this is to have a daily journal (ala my blog) and to eat less fast-food and more fruit and veggies.

So there you have it. I laid it out on the line. Wish me luck.

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman