Surviving work.

[loopy]

Working on Christmas Eve is about as fun as one might expect. Especially when I factor in the fact that I'm hungover, didn't get enough sleep last night, and am clothed mainly in garments* swiped from the girl-I-was-visiting-last-night's house.

Nice to see only one other member of my team at the call center showed up today. Everyone else called in sick, and the one or two managers wandering around still call me out for not working when I check Facebook in between complaints handling.

Thought I'd start this thread to see what you guys do to survive work, whether it be amusing stories or just tips for getting through the day.

Start sharing. Please. For the love of Raptor Jesus, I'm losing my mind.

* Apparently I'm now a fan of Lamb of God. I feel br00tal, and very metal. :smallamused:

[thubby]

i would have lost my mind long ago but for my mp3 player. the tedium of moving boxes being what it is

[Obrysii]

I get to work in retail. I'm excited. :smalleek:

[Lady Moreta]

The phone is quiet and I have nothing to do... I'm only here so I can field calls/clients so the finance guys can get their month-end invoicing done without having to worry about anything else. I'm sure they appreciate it, but I'm going nuts.

I transferred all of my Christmas music to my micro SD card and stuck it in my cellphone. I've got that sitting on my desk, playing on speaker so I can hear it without needing earphones (can't really use them at reception).

I'm still bored though...

[MountainKing]

Now you may not be able to sing that out loud... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKW-uFxUAyU)

...it's how I get through my day, anyway. Might do the trick.

[THAC0]

I keep a stash of candy in my desk.

I have also been known to stop actually talking to the kids (I'm a teacher). Instead, I'll draw stick figures on the board and give them speech bubbles.

On some occasions, I will literally bang my head against the wall to regain students' attention.

[KuReshtin]

My normal shift for tomorrow (well, today, since it's past 2am) is from 9-5, although I think they'll let me go at 3 as that's when they'll close the phone lines.
Not that there ever are any calls coming in.
I think my team leader said yesterday that we've had three calls incoming this month.
Most of our work is handled through e-mail.

I think I'll get stuck sorting through a ton of Italian invoices tomorrow so we can get those sent away for processing.
Tedious work as hell. And it was supposed to be done by one of my colleagues, who's on holiday for Christmas.

I'll be relying on my MP3 collection quite extensively tomorrow.

[Lady Moreta]

I keep a stash of candy in my desk.

I have also been known to stop actually talking to the kids (I'm a teacher). Instead, I'll draw stick figures on the board and give them speech bubbles.

On some occasions, I will literally bang my head against the wall to regain students' attention.

That is awesome. Not that the kids don't listen, but those are the best strageties for getting attention I've ever heard. I think I may steal them for my husband...


My normal shift for tomorrow (well, today, since it's past 2am) is from 9-5, although I think they'll let me go at 3 as that's when they'll close the phone lines.

I'm hoping that I'll be allowed to go home early too. I technically don't finish til 5pm, but being a Friday and Christmas Eve I rather suspect most people are going to finish early. I'm hoping I'll be given permission to do the same.

[KuReshtin]

I'm hoping that I'll be allowed to go home early too. I technically don't finish til 5pm, but being a Friday and Christmas Eve I rather suspect most people are going to finish early. I'm hoping I'll be given permission to do the same.

Since I don't have anything at all planned for tomorrow, though, I think it'll depend on how much of the invoicing stuff I can get done for the afternoon.
Might not get out of there at 3 after all.
Unless my team leader orders me to get the heck out of there.

[Lady Moreta]

Since I don't have anything at all planned for tomorrow, though, I think it'll depend on how much of the invoicing stuff I can get done for the afternoon.
Might not get out of there at 3 after all.
Unless my team leader orders me to get the heck out of there.

Here's hoping they do :smallsmile:

My thought is that it's likely that everyone else will leave and I'll be the only person in the office. I suspect that the senior admin who I report to on a day-to-day basis will tell me I might as well just leave. If there's no one here there's no real need for a receptionist right?

Should have mentioned - this place is also helping me survive work :smalltongue:

[Syka]

I'm working 9-6 on Christmas day at the front register. I volunteered (time and a half, ftw) but there is another person scheduled to work the front, along with photo and cosmetics. Plus the manager. We'll be pretty well stocked to deal with the craziness. I'm going to clear the following with my manager, as it will help keep me sane.

To deal with pissy customers: "This is a happiness only zone today. Please be happy." If they continue being pissy, "I will have to ask you to leave the happiness zone if you cannot be happy."

And I plan on having a poop eating grin on my face all day, regardless of if I'm actually allowed to say the above or not. :smallbiggrin:

But my manager definitely helps keep me sane. She let me make some important phone calls one night while I was on shift and commiserate with me about particularly fiesty group mate I was working with. Even threatened bodily harm, in the true Italian-American way. :smallwink: But yeah, they definitely keep me sane. As do (most of) my coworkers.

[unosarta]

To deal with pissy customers: "This is a happiness only zone today. Please be happy." If they continue being pissy, "I will have to ask you to leave the happiness zone if you cannot be happy."

You should make a sign with the first quote. I doubt anyone will be angry at you, nor will they be able to be offended because of what you wrote. Just silently repeat the second to yourself, over and over again. :smallwink:

[Syka]

Actually, that may work. :smallbiggrin: I'm totally asking her if I can do that when I go in Saturday.

When I finished up (well, tbh, started and finished) my Christmas shopping this afternoon, I felt so bad for the folks where I went. :smallfrown: The poor Toys'R'Us girl...

[Helanna]

I have to miss my family's annual Christmas Eve dinner party for the first time ever because of work this year. :smallfrown: I was looking forward to it, since I also had to miss the extended-family Christmas party and Thanksgiving because of work, and I missed every single other family gathering this year because of random circumstances and/or being a lazy bum.

But I'm more scared about the day AFTER Christmas. See, I work at the service desk. Y'know, where people return things. It is NOT going to be fun, especially considering how bad today was, and it's not even Christmas yet! I nearly snapped today because I was the only one up there, there was a never-ending line of customers, and all the crap they were returning was just piling up around me because I had no time to put it back. Not to mention that all the other employees that came back with carts of reshops (random stuff left throughout the store) either didn't put them away or just threw them wherever, and trying to walk in that area was like asking for a death sentence. Then, about one minute before I was finally about to leave, the phone rang. Assuming it was a simple question, I answered it, and . . . well, I left work 25 minutes late today.

Also, is it just me, or do people get way snippier this close to the holidays? More people than usual are being jerks lately. :smallyuk:

[unosarta]

Also, is it just me, or do people get way snippier this close to the holidays? More people than usual are being jerks lately. :smallyuk:

It is probably stress related. A lot of people have to deal with the stress of the holiday (seeing family), the stress of work (either having on christmas, or up to christmas), the stress of their own economic well being (presents drain quite a bit from the pocket), and that is just holiday related. They also have the stress of their regular lives.

If you work in retail, you simply get to see them at their most stressed, when they are shopping, and there is probably a huge checkout line. They take out their anger, stress and frustrations out on any employee they see, as if blaming them were enough to solve their problems.

People can be illogical sometimes. :smallsigh:

[factotum]

Just started work for the day (you can tell I'm really busy, right? :smalltongue:). Hoping that it's a quiet day and that everyone else gets finished early so I can get an early start on the 130-mile journey I have to make today...

[Totally Guy]

I manage construction accounts on a building site. My manager won't show up today. My colleagues have all gone off to get sandwiches... It doesn't look like any of us will be around for much longer because the foreman is going to close site in about 10 minutes due to "cold weather conditions".

I can smell an exit stage left.

[Amiel]

Play some time snail (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/timesnail). You'll find the hours will just fly by, especially so since you'll be having fun.

You could also possibly try this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9eqnc6EM_o) out; you could organise a team together and have a friendly against the folks in accounting.

[Lady Moreta]

I got to go home early! :smallbiggrin:

left at 4pm :smallsmile:

[Archonic Energy]

My normal shift for tomorrow (well, today, since it's past 2am) is from 9-5, although I think they'll let me go at 3 as that's when they'll close the phone lines.
Not that there ever are any calls coming in.
I think my team leader said yesterday that we've had three calls incoming this month.
Most of our work is handled through e-mail.

I think I'll get stuck sorting through a ton of Italian invoices tomorrow so we can get those sent away for processing.
Tedious work as hell. And it was supposed to be done by one of my colleagues, who's on holiday for Christmas.

I'll be relying on my MP3 collection quite extensively tomorrow.

Peuteo Rico? :smallamused:

[Obrysii]

If you work in retail, you simply get to see them at their most stressed, when they are shopping, and there is probably a huge checkout line. They take out their anger, stress and frustrations out on any employee they see, as if blaming them were enough to solve their problems.

And the retail workers are dealing with that stress themselves and the snapping from customers. And the fact that if they snap back, they're out of a job.

[Mercenary Pen]

Got a 4-10 down the local convenience store this evening- though that would normally have been 5-11...

[KuReshtin]

Peuteo Rico? :smallamused:

Definitely.

[Tricycle_Knight]

This one has yet to go into work today. But I'm going to do what I always do when I know a day of work is going to be bad: I'm loaded for bear with some of the funniest episodes of my favorite podcasts, and I'm just going to deal with it and listen to jokes I've listened to a hundred times.

Of course, the fact that today is my last day makes it several times more bearable, this week has probably been the slowest week of work of my life.

[Zigg'rrauglurr]

I'm a programmer, instead of going to the office I'm working from home, deflecting bug reports as if playing tennis, and trying to tide the place up for christmas dinner. Definetely having the 5.1 speakers set to an all music radio helps. Also the cat is keeping m e company, well if being in dreamland can be considered company... lucky cat.

[SMEE]

I'm a programmer, instead of going to the office I'm working from home, deflecting bug reports as if playing tennis, and trying to tide the place up for christmas dinner. Definetely having the 5.1 speakers set to an all music radio helps. Also the cat is keeping m e company, well if being in dreamland can be considered company... lucky cat.

Ah... cats and programmers. Always together. :smalltongue:
No work for me on the holidays, but this week more than made up for that.
Implement, test and deploy two new functions to the software, prepare 20 odds boxes to be deployed in January with the new version of the system, deploy web client at client's server, which isn't 100% up and running among other things.
Madness resume this Monday.

[KuReshtin]

Right, then. Enough of this.

I'm going home.
Time to go to the shops for a final few ingredients needed for tomorrow's Christmas meal, and potentially dsomething for myself to eat tonight.
Then home.

Not sure what I'll do tonight, to be honest. No family around. Oh well. I'll find something to do. Might see if there are any people still playing MW2 n X-Box live. :smallsmile:

[Obrysii]

Well, just got home from work and off to my parents, just wanted to say - only got yelled at three times today! Lots of angry people, but only three actually were angry with me.

[Mordokai]

I worked on Christmas night, couple of years, while still being a security guard. It was one of the best work nights ever. All alone, nobody giving you trouble, you had the night all to yourself to read books and browse the internet illegaly from the office of some shmuch that forgot to turn his computer off before going home :smalltongue:

Of course, that was like what, five, six years ago? I actually enjoyed that job for most part and was still very much different myself back then. It wouldn't be much problem working today as well. I'd hate it, but I hate every day I have to be at work these days anyway, so no real change there.

[factotum]

Left work at 3pm in the end and drove up to my mother's. Now I've arrived I find the PSU on my laptop has given up the ghost so I'm typing this on my mother's PC while she watches My Family downstairs...wouldn't mind so much but she has a really, really horrible keyboard! :smallfrown:

[golentan]

I get to work in retail. I'm excited. :smalleek:

Oh, hey, you too? (http://images1.fanpop.com/images/quiz/29859_1215613217452_493_300.jpg)

About to start my shift. Fortunately, after the holiday all of the stress will be dumped on Guest Services for returns, and it will be Not My Problem Anymore™!

[KuReshtin]

... and it will be Not My Problem Anymore™!

No, no, no, no.... The correct phrase is:

Somebody Else's Problem™

[Egiam]

EDIT: Sorry. Wrong thread.

[AshDesert]

My brother's girlfriend's parents own and operate two liquor stores, one in each official town in the county. They're both working, but it's well worth it. They often get about $30,000 IN CASH between the two stores on Christmas Eve. I can't even imagine when you add in plastic, but I think it's more than enough to lessen the sting of working Christmas Eve. They also hire off-duty cops to stand by the register with their guns visible to discourage people from trying anything since they would lose so much in a robbery.

[Trog]

I get through work by keeping my nose to the grindstone, generally. I might occasionally play some songs off my phone and on breaks I browse GitP and Facebook and maybe send a text to my girl. :smallsmile:

[wxdruid]

The wx is 24/7, 365 days a year, so of course we're at work. Been at work all day. heh We celebrated the Holiday yesterday and it was great.

But, as usual, in shift work, we get one holiday off. So this year, I'll get my 5 days off over New Year's.

As for distractions...surfing GitP, CNN and Fark.com and after the management is gone, reading a good book while checking occasionally on the weather.