Borderline Retarded

Friday, May 12, 2006

God is trying to tell me something......

I had problems waiting for me as soon as I walked in the door.

Firstly, and I know you will find this fascinating, I had a voicemail from our largest warehouse customer telling me that they had adjusted their Fed Excise Tax amounts AGAIN. This entire week has been a confusing drama of physical inventory gains and losses. What I like most about it is that I had sent them their final invoice yesterday by 9:00am. The reason I made sure it was there by 9:00 was so they could wire the money they owe in taxes, which comes out to $1,000,000.00 (give or take $1,000.00). (Give yourself a thousand points if you put your pinky to your bottom lip a la Dr. Evil when you read that) To this customer, adjusting the tax amounts and delaying the wire transfer by a whole day is no big deal. Unfortunately, we are kind of strapped and come up just short of A MILLION DOLLARS. We would like to pay for other things, like PAYROLL. And just because this is how it always works, Maria took today off, and wasn't here to hold my hand and walk me through the terrible process of subtracting gallons and filling out the forms again. AND there was NOBODY here qualified to sign the form. I know, sounds stupid right? "Authorized" is the correct word, but "qualified" makes me laugh.

Secondly, I received a call from one of our truck drivers in Virginia. This guy gets a wage garnishment notice from me last week, letting him know I am going to garnish his wages because he "forgot" to pay his property taxes. Seems straight forward, right? WRONG! He ran down on Monday and paid the taxes, and I guess decided I really didn't need to be in the loop. He opened his check today and was awfully surprised that I had garnished his wages. It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't the THIRD driver from Virginia to do this THIS WEEK. So I had to halt accounts payable from printing the check, so I can refund him through payroll next week. I could tell he wanted his money back right away, and I decided not to offer him a manual check. These guys have got to learn at some point that I am not their wife or mother, and they need to be responsible for the things that they do. Sorry I had to make an example out of you - but so be it.

Thirdly, I received a call to verify employment from a real asshole at West Asset Management. Actually, this person left a voicemail with HR, and I called her back. I have never had this kind of problem with anybody looking for employee information before. She launched into this tale about calling this guy at his house and "something" happened and they got "disconnected". When she called back, they "pretended" like they didn't know who she was calling about. Like I care about any of this. Like I'm going to say "I'm sorry - what an ass! Why don't you come on over and look through my entire database and see of you can't find what you're looking for." Ha! I explained to her that I am unable to disclose any employee information without a request and the employee's authorization to release information in writing. Usually, this is the end of the conversation. Instead she says, very snottily, "Can you transfer me to him?". I was kind of dumbstruck, and explained to her that our company has almost 600 employees nationwide. She says "So, you can't transfer me to him?". I should have just hung up on her right then. She launches into a tirade about how ridiculous I am, and what if this were an emergency how would she get a hold of him. I really didn't know what to say other than "no". There was some sort of colossal miscommunication betwixt us in which she did not understand that if I agree to take a message for this person, I am violating the company policy not to release any information about him. If I take a message for him, doesn't that imply that he works for us? She just would not give up, and kept talking at me like I was a piece of dirt. Not pleased.

Fourthly, I was caught in the middle of the Stupidest Argument Ever between one of the accounting clerks and her supervisor. The employee ended up coming back to my office and saying "you forgot to take your phone off DND (do not disturb)." I looked at her and said "No I didn't." She looks at me and says. "You don't want to be disturbed then." I'm looking at her, and thinking I really need to choose my words carefully! I told her I had been working on a project and what did she need? She says, "I'm going to call you" and runs away. Rolling my eyes I turn my phone back on and answered the phone when it rang three seconds later. The dumbest part about this is that I can actually hear her talking form her desk as well as on the phone. Stupid. I tell her I will run some reports and see what I can't figure out. She called me back twice after that. Both times I had to grit my teeth and tell her "as soon as I get this worked out, I will let you know". It was bad too because she doesn't speak English very well, and the second time she called, I don't even know what the hell she said!

It is now 4:15. I wanted to leave at 2:30. Gah! Now not only am I paranoid and thinking I should be at home hiding under the bed, I have to fight Friday traffic to pick up both boys.

Tomorrow I am planning a trip to visit my older sister, and we have a lovely Mother's Day planned with my husband's family. I will concentrate on letting out the bad to make room for the good!

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