It’s been a busy week at work and at home and at church. I’ve gotten through a ton of work at work, done not so much work as a lot of thinking at home, and did some interesting new things at church.

Saturday, didn’t do too much – I was thinking a lot about family members near and far, hoping for the best for one person in particular. Schlepped around and relaxed, otherwise. Much playing with the cat. David went in to work for the whole day, leaving me to my own devices.

Sunday started out with a big last-minute rush to church, and I arrived late and heard about it from the choir mistress, you can be sure. I’ve been in the habit of attending both services, as I think I’ve probably mentioned; last Sunday was no exception. The early service was well attended – surprisingly so! That’s one of the things that I’ve somewhat-surreptitiously been monitoring; it’s not an “us and them” thing, it’s that I’m hoping that there’s good attendance at the early, moreformal service because people are getting what they need out of it.

And some Sundays, attendance at the early service is really sparse, so that I was a little concerned that eventually it would be decided to combine into one, contemporary service. But this last Sunday, there was a good crowd – better than I’d seen in a long time back at Holy Innocents. It was a mixture of old Holy Innocents people and some St Nick’s people, plus a few visitors (one was apparently a friend of a young woman in the choir). The choir had a good showing, and the music we’d been working off paid offwell. As Jill and I kicked back and forth previously, some contemporary music is very bad, but some is quite singable, and Sunday’s music was actually quite enjoyable. Lent at St Nicks-with-the-Holy-Innocents is interesting, because grey panels block some of the windows, and 3 big panels are hung floor-to-ceiling between the main sanctuary and the baptistery, literallyblocking us from that symbol of hope and redemption and resurrection. The chairs are all set up to face inward, which reinforces the psychological inwardness that Lent can be. Apparently, at Holy Week the chairs get re-set again in a cruciform pattern, with the altar table (which is movable, obviously) in the middle. Plans are for 4 of us choir members to chant the Exultet from four different points in the sanctuary.

So, anyway, there was a good-sized crowd at the early service. I sat in on the adult discussion of other religions for a while, and then the choir had a short confab before the second service with a couple more members that came for that service. So, I stayed for the second one.

Monday, work was nuts. Also, I was sick with a nasty cough that I feared would become whooping cough, just like last year. I covered for another groups agent who was out all week, and I had a lot of different bases to cover – air groups (which started out with a moderate “bang” but which petered out by midweek), and hotel groups (which are always my beat, but February is my busiest month, and March has a lot of groups too). In addition to which, there are certain people who know to ask for meby name for international bookings, even though this week I wasn’t officially on the international desk, so I had to work those in when I could.

After work, I attended a meeting of local ONE campaign volunteers. I had only been lurking on their Yahoo group, but the local organizer is pretty dynamic and focused on getting more people on board, and there had been some “can’t we have some meetings in the suburbs? The city is too faaaaaar” comments. It was on my way home, so I went. It was interesting. I had no idea how focused some people were. I picked up a few extra ONE white wristbands and stickers and things, and promised to mention it at churchand see if anyone else is interested in getting more involved. It’s a big deal at high levels – our own PB ++Katherine is pushing the Millennium Development Goals – so I think I’ll give it a whirl.

And then there’s my current millstone, the “helpers” in a certain distant city. I’m riding herd on them more than ever – its a source of great frustration to me, and to my leader, and to her manager, and on up the line. These guys are handing a number of our calls while our own agents are farmed out on other accounts up here while the Great Re-Education Project continues. They were trained, quickly, over the phone, and at the beginning it sounded like they’d be able to handle it. But it seems that almost as quicklyas these people would be trained, go through a breaking-in period where they made a lot of mistakes, and got to where they were almost competent – emphasis on “almost” – and then they’d be pulled off our account, and put on another one. And they’d be replaced by a completely green, wet-behind-the-ears newbie who couldn’t even use the reservation system very well. We kind of lost track who was “on” and “off” our account – for several weeks, their team leader never bother to let us know who was cyclingin and out, so my emails to the “helper group” were going to people no longer on our “team,” or even no longer with the company. Many of them were temps who had no commitment to the company, let alone to doing a good job. My leader and I were caught flat-footed, because we weren’t told how the leader in the other city was choosing to cycle her temps in and out. It just seemed like my leader was constantly having to schedule conference calls to train new “helpers.”

Then everything blew up – the travelers had figured out after a couple of weeks that some agents were in the other city, and the regular agents were still in our city, and they started complaining about problems, messed up reservations, and big errors. The errors were expensive, and they started piling up. Then one agent in particular started showing up in the customer service reports – giving out erroneous information, refusing to take reservations if the caller had not gone online before to “claim” their profileso that it’s visible in the new ID/booking system. More emails, trying to encourage better performance. I had to start keeping a log of minor errors, and major errors are being logged elsewhere. All the “helpers” had to start sending all their records to a QC queue, but I know damn well that most of them don’t bother. The one guy got fired, because his errors were egregious, he stubbornly refused to follow procedures designed to minimize errors and maximize accuracy, and he took WAY too many shortcuts. I gotreally tired of fixing his records when they wouldn’t pass the auto-file finishing/accuracy software, too. The “helpers” are a continuing pain in my ass.

I ended up with PADS laundry duty this week, too – I totally forgot last week, and the coordinator covered for me. That was embarassing! But she asked if I could cover this week because she hadn’t been able to find anyone else, so that turned out okay.

Tuesday was more of the same, but not as horrible as Monday. As well as covering the normal bases, I was also covering for one of my fellow support/lead agents, so I had a lot of crap to wade through – ground through a lot of queues fixing things, and filed a customer service request for a really bizarre ticketing error, which of course was caused by a helper. I started to make some headway against all the different things I was watching, and just kept plugging away. That night, I stopped offat the PADS shelter church to pick up the dirty laundry. Was hoping for a light load, but ended up hauling 9 big blue bags of SOILED LAUNDRY!! HOSPITAL!! out to the RAV, using the completely crap laundry cart someone made. It’s designed so that if you pile more than one layer of bags on, they fall off the front or sides. And there’s an elevator, in which the cart just barely fits, and in which I almost don’t fit unless I squeeze against the side rail thing the cart has. I piled the bags as best I could, and droveoff home, very late. By daylight, the SOILED LAUNDRY!! HOSPITAL!! warnings printed on the bags are even more noticeable. I wonder what other drivers think when they see the SOILED!! LAUNDRY!!mobile drive by. I did a little tidying at home before bed, since Wednesday would be a late night, too.

Wednesday did indeed turn out to be an incredibly long day. Work was busy, busy, busy. However, I got out more or less on time, and drove the soiled!laundry!mobile to St Nick’s for the Wednesday night choir practice, which was superceded/preceded by a Lenten program with a Labyrinth walk. Now THAT was neat. I got there just in time to join everyone for a short prayer and then we all grabbed bowls and plates and dug in to a very nice little soup-and-side dish potluck. Greeted people warmly, asit had already been a stressful week what with concern for the one family member and dealing with the “helper” idiots at work. So seeing my church friends in the middle of the week was a break from all that. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout – there were at least 30 or 40 people there! I’m so used to coming to midweek events and its the same 8 to 10 people… it was just a welcome change. After supper, we turned to the Labyrinth. St Nick’s owns a very large, canvas one that comes in 3 piecesthat are stuck together somehow at the edges – I think it must be with Velcro strips – and the labyrinth is painted in dark purple paint. It looks like a commercial one, as I saw a logo printed on the underside of one piece when they broke it down afterwards. Mary Ann had placed candles all around, and there were two candles on standards placed on either side of the entrance point. After a preliminary explanation, we were invited to begin when we were ready.

It was a very interesting experience. I’ve walked labyrinths before that were more like art installations, but I made a conscious effort to be quiet in my thoughts and concentrate on breathing, and as I walked I tried to think just one word at a time on the things that concern me – a loved one, peace, health, my family, our community, our “sad divisions” in the Episcopal/Anglican world, and after a while, the universe. About halfway through, after passing through the center, I started thinking about planets,moons and stars, all dancing gravely and ponderously through the cosmos, and how we were emulating that dance. Sometimes I would be walking alongside someone in another track, and other times we’d turn away, only to meet up again later. It was very calming. Mary Ann had some Gregorian chant going, and that was the only sound, other than the shush-shush sounds of stockinged feet brushing against the canvas as we walked.

Afterwards, I put my coat on and walked up to the choir mistress. “Are we having practice?” I asked naively, as I hoped to drop off the soiledl!laundry! at the hospital down the street. Oh, boy. You bet – 90 more minutes. We sang, listened to a few rants about the amount of music we still needed to learn, and sang some more. We found out that Betsy, the girl with the amazing voice, got a veterinary internship in Houston in June, so we’re losing her. The choir mistress was not pleased. Heh! I like her – her nameis Mary – but she’s always going off on something. I keep thinking she’ll calm down when she gets her paws on the new organ.

Got out of there at 930pm, debating with myself whether I should stop so late to try to swap the laundry out. I decided to swing in and see if I could get it done, because if I couldn’t, I’d have to get it done somehow Thursday, because that’s kind of the deadline. So, in I went. I left the soiled!laundry!hospital! bags at the bottom of the ramp, where it’s out of the weather (I’ve been told to do that numerous times before) and just as before, there was no cart or anyone around to help me carry the new, shrinkwrappedsheet/blanket/towel sets out to the car. So all 23 sets had to be schlepped, four at a time. There was no hope of the church still being open, so off home I went. Tidied a tiny bit more, as the cleaning ladies come in every other Thursday.

Thursday started off fairly successfully; due to my schedule and the location of the PADS church, I was able to drop off the clean laundry sets in the morning before work. This has the added benefit of being able to say “good morning” to people who were there to start things off in the church day care – it’s a much cheerier place in the morning than it is at night, when all the activity (AA meetings and such) are in a different part of the building. Got to work, and guess what? I was coveringfor my team leader, too. So more things to keep an eye on, more errors to log, more hotel groups to set up (including a couple using a very slick online process, I quite liked that), more records that needed direct-billed hotels and forms of payment, more corporate pilot car-and-hotel reservations booked, more questions answered, more stuff dealt with, and still made headway. Pretty much all week, I’ve been satisfied that I’ve well and truly earned my pay. Still trying to make time to design a form to be usedon the client’s intranet to set up small hotel groups, that may have to be done this weekend at home. I’m trying to swing a deal where all small hotel groups would have to be set up via emailed requests, at least for the initial inquiry. The calls I get at random times of the day really derail me. For dinner, we made a delicious but spicy curry using the last of this brand of curry powder that I got at Meijer. Have to blog the adapted recipe later, but the brand is Sharwood’s Hot Indian Curry Powder, andit also calls for Sharwood’s (or any brand) Major Grey Mango Chutney. Mmmm. We adapt it by adding a bit more tomato sauce, and also potatoes and carrots. Went upstairs early and took a shower and listened to my spacy iPod music before bed.

Friday Slept like a LOG last night. I seem to have gotten over the pestilence I brought into the office; I didn’t bother to take any Nyquil last night, either. Woke up with weird dreams connected to whatever NPR’s Morning Edition was covering, and also with stuff about fundraising (it’s spring pledge season). Busy all day, but productively. Got three hotel groups set up for future invoicing – meaning, I built itineraries for each person, added a lot of formats via a “replay” feature that the”new hotness” reservation completely LACKS, so hurray for old skool, and rode herd on the newbies in the far distant city. Their leader is now a) pregnant and out sick a lot and b) getting ready to go for a week’s training on the “new hotness” reservation system so she can be their office’s champion. Honey, we have 3 such champions in our office, and she’s got a lot of catching up to do. Almost picked up the phone to call one agent because he Would. Not. Re-Store. The. Damn. Airfare which had changed. He justkept sending it back to the file-finishing program without correcting, and without actually reading my “please re-store fare” remarks, although he was documenting “Fixed” every time. Not the brightest bulb there – I sent it back to him for correction 3 times, finally did it myself the third time, he stored the OLD fare somehow over my new lower one, and I re-stored it AGAIN with “DO NOT TOUCH RECORD – STORING LOWER FARE” in the QC remarks. For some reason, he just could not figure it out – I think he’s gotan old version of the software, actually. None of them are technically savvy, and their leader isn’t all that expert in the systems, either.

David and I had discussed making teriyaki chicken with rice. On my way out the door from work, however, I started thinking “I wish we could put off the chicken until tomorrow night, I kind of want to go out.” When I walked in, David said “I don’t really feel like cooking chicken, let’s go out for sushi.”

“GET OUTTA MY BRAIN!” I shouted. “NO, I LIKE IT IN HERE, IT’S ALL WARM AND SQUOOSHY,” he hollered. So I put my rain jacket on, instead of the leather one I wore this morning, and we went out into a rainy but warm night.

Mmmm. Sushi. We went to Kampai, where they’re about to begin some renovations. They’ve upgraded the sushi counter, removed the old “sneeze hoods” over the floating boats, and they’ll probably build newer, more attractive glass hoods/shelves over the stainless steel water channel that so charmingly floats our sushi boats in an endless circle. After our return, David played around with a new lens, taking pictures of the cat. Aw! we love Riley!

Tomorrow David’s going in to work again, and I’m going to start gathering my gear for an upcoming trip to be described in more detail after our return. Also, printing some pictures to cheer my family member, who needs a little extra support. And if it’s not too rainy, clear out the old china from the back of my car and take it over to the dealership to have some spark-plug-wire-cap-doohingus-thingy installed, as the part is now in stock. The car can be left, as the dealership is walkable.But I have to remember to pick it up before they close, as they are not open Sundays.

Sunday – might be getting together with David’s parents, not sure. Getting to choir practice before the early service will be awfully damn early (and dark!) with Daily Savings Time coming on early. Must remember to reset clocks. Must remember to reset clocks. Hope computers don’t blow up. Hope computers don’t blow up.

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