Thursday, February 26, 2009

Because I don't have enough to do at work...

...now I'm going to have a lot more responsibility. Part of me is excited for the challenge, and glad they think I can handle it. The other part of me is screaming that I'm already swamped, and how on earth do they expect me to do more, especially something this major?

My supervisor called a meeting this afternoon to inform us that purchasing would now be in charge of all drop ships. Drop shipping is having one of our vendors ship an order directly to a customer, which we do for large orders and out of stock items if a customer needs them quickly. The drop ships used to be the responsibility of the specialized customer service department, while purchasing concentrated on ordering the stock for all of our stores.

This worked well at the time, as specialized customer service was then a part of the purchasing department. However, after Christmas the specialized people were moved back into the regular customer service department, and I guess upper management decided it made more sense to have the drop ships in the purchasing department. I completely agree with that to be honest.

So I already order for our three biggest stores...and now I'm going to have to drop ship for six on top of that. During the busiest season that means I'll easily have to be placing 70-100 orders daily. Also, I'm required to have all of the morning orders done by 11:30, and all afternoon orders by 2:45. If I miss even one I will get in trouble. After I get the orders in, I have three days to either have a tracking number or list the approximate available date in the order, where customer service can see it. Again, if I miss even one order I'll be in a lot of shit.

Did I mention this starts Monday, and I have never done this before? Plus my supervisor is off tomorrow, so basically I'm going into this Monday blind, with no training, and they expect me to handle it. To say I'm nervous would be a huge understatement.

Again, part of me is glad for the change and the added responsibility. I'm just a bit worried about it, especially when they're expecting so much and I have no training. I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the end, but I think the next couple of weeks are going to be tough, at least until I get the hang of things. Wish me luck...I'm going to need it!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Gran's surgery

Today was such an incredibly long day. I was a wreck for most of it, especially when it took about 3 hours longer than I thought to hear from my mom. However, the surgery went off without a hitch. Gran's home now, and sleeping. Mom's going to take her for the follow up appointment in the morning but it should all be fine. She'll probably have the other eye done but I still don't know when that's going to be. I'm sure I'll freak out about that one as well.

Mom's staying the night, which I'm glad for. This way I don't have to worry about sleeping through anything, and Gran won't be alone for that three or four hours in the morning between the time I go to work, and her appointment.

That's all for tonight, I don't have the time for much of an update, but I wanted to let everyone know that the surgery was successful and my Gran was going to be fine. Thanks to those of you who offered well-wishes and such. I really appreciate having friends who care enough to ask about my family...and to put up with my spazzing out!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Random update

I've been neglecting my blog this year, big time. Going to make more of an effort to keep this up to date, though I'm so busy anymore I don't know if that's even possible.

Not much interesting has been going on lately. I've been sick, yet again. I had a nasty cough, cold, and fever. I'm doing a bit better now, though the cough is still there and sounds awful. I'm contemplating going to the doctor if it doesn't start getting better in the next few days. I'm tired of being sick. Plus I haven't been able to do my schoolwork properly, and don't want to fall behind. I also want to be able to start exercising again. I haven't been able to in over a week because I end up having coughing fits.

I've been spending what little free time I have trying to work out some of the details of my trip to Ireland. I made it to the post office and got all of the passport paperwork taken care of, and I'm waiting for that to come in the mail. Hopefully it won't be much longer. They cashed the check for it at the end of last week. Now I'm trying to figure out what all I want to do while I'm there. I know I'll never get to everything, but I need to figure out what is most important to me and how I can get to it all. Plus I need to try and gauge how much mone
y the trip is going to cost overall so I can budget accordingly over the next few months.

Also, I decided on a camera finally, and ordered it yesterday, along with a memory card and UV filter. I went with the Canon Rebel XSi:



I got a great deal on the camera to begin with, plus I had gift certificates, so I ended up paying half of what I originally said I would for a camera. I still need to pick up a few more things for it over the next few months. I need a bag and extra battery at least, and might look into another lens. There are a lot of kits available for the Canons as well with lenses and accessories, so I'll have to check on those. Now comes the hard part...waiting for it to get here. It's scheduled for delivery Wednesday, but I'm not sure anyone will be home to sign, so it might not be until later in the week. I can't wait!

Finally, my grandmother goes into eye surgery in the morning. I've been trying to not freak about that for the last month (with very little success I might add). It's not that big of a deal and I'm sure she'll be fine, but I can't help worrying regardless. I wish I didn't have to work and could go, but my mom will be there with her so I can live with that. And I gave my mom my work number so she can call and let me know how it went. Otherwise I'd just worry all day and keep checking my cell phone. The surgery is at 11am, so hopefully I'll hear from mom by the end of my lunch.

Then I go straight home from work so I can be here, as Gran is supposed to have someone with her constantly for the first 24 hours. She's got a follow up appointment Wednesday morning that my mom will get her to, and that's the end of it, I think. If everything goes well she'll schedule the second surgery, though I've no idea when that will be. Hopefully it will be fairly soon so she can get it over with, and I can stop freaking out and being completely irrational.

Anyway, that's enough for tonight. I'll post an update on my Gran, I'm sure, and try to stick to posting more regularly in general. More goal updates will be coming soon as well. But for now, I need to get to bed and try to kick this cold.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Goals update 1

Right, so I'm a bit behind getting the goal updates up, but I've been insanely busy lately. Here goes...

1. Read 75 of my own books that I've never read before. I haven't finished any yet as I was getting through library books, but I'm nearly done with a bunch now. I'll have at least a few to add in the next update.

2. Watch all of the movies I've owned and never watched. Been making good progress here. I'm trying to finish the Bond movies first, and I only have two or three left of the set.

3. Complete 12 video games. Working my way through Bioshock on PS3 and the second Phoenix Wright game on my DS.

4. Travel. Philly was this weekend, and I had a blast as usual. I just got approval Friday for time off for Ireland, and so I bought my plane ticket on Saturday. Next week I have to go get my passport photo and get that application in. DO is still up in the air. I was waiting for Ireland to be worked out before I even tried for more time off at work. I'll see if I can do anything over the next week or two, though I'm not getting my hopes up too much.

5. Continue to learn Japanese. I just ordered some software and a couple of books off of Amazon, so those should be here in the next few days. I'm to the point with this goal that I need to actually put some money into it. I'd love to get the Rosetta Stone software but it's just SO expensive.

6. Cooking. I've saved about 20 recipes on allrecipes.com, and I'm going to pick one or two to try over the few weeks.

7. Finish one of my Nano novels. I've worked on 2008's novel a few times. I've worked on the one from 2007 once as well. Not sure which I'll end up finishing first. For now I'm just writing whichever I'm in the mood for.

8. Write every day. I'm failing miserably with this one. I need to start setting aside a certain time each day for writing, so I get used to it. I work out, shower, and eat as soon as I'm home from work, so I'm thinking about writing for 15 minutes as soon as I'm done with dinner. If I have more time I'll write more, but this way I'll get something in, at least. I'll try that for the next update, and see how it goes.

9. Let other people read my writing. If I manage to start writing daily I'll have more for people to read, and parts of my novels are coming together nicely so I will probably let a few people read those fairly soon.

10. Finish my associates' degree. My classes are going better than they were. I aced the 10 papers I had to write for my capstone course, and made it through the first of my four tax exams. Guess I'll just keep plugging away on this one.

11. Continuing education. I have a list of schools I could go to, but haven't been able to get specific information on classes yet. So next I'm going to see which classes I would still need to take and how much each school would cost me overall. Have to do this by mid-March at the latest, as if I want to apply anywhere I need to do that asap.

12. Clean out my stuff, and get organized. Working through my closets, but haven't gotten very far yet. I'm going to see if I can get one of the two finished over this weekend.

13. New wardrobe. I bought a dress that I love, even though I have no idea when I am going to have the chance to wear it, haha. And of course I have no shoes that go with it so I'll have to find some. I won't be buying those or anything else for a while though. I want to get my closets cleaned out completely and figure out what I really need and have the space for, before I start spending a lot of money.

14. Exercise 3 hours per week. I'm already ahead on this one. The past two weeks I've done either 5 or 6 hours. I've been coming home from work nearly every day and working out for an hour. If I continue to do this week for the next couple of updates I will probably cross this goal off the list.

15. Save money, and learn to manage my money wisely. I've transferred more money into my savings a few times. Unfortunately, I can't enroll in my 401k through work until April, so for now I'll just have to keep saving normally. I haven't been buying much either, so I'm happy with how this is going so far.

16. Eat healthy. This one is going well so far also. I'm still working on candy and soda for a few more updates, as those will probably be the most difficult to cut back on and stick with in the long run.

17. Photography. Looking into buying a digital SLR camera, as I posted about recently. Right now I'm leaning towards either the Canon 40D or the Canon Rebel XSi. I will probably decide on one and buy it as soon as I've filed my taxes and have my return. I'll also start going out for pictures once the weather is a bit nicer, regardless of if I get the SLR soon or use my current camera.

Whew. Overall, I'm happy with how most of these are going at this point. I'm past where I wanted to be on a few of them. However, I do really need to concentrate on some of the others, especially researching schools to transfer to. I'm going to spend a good bit of time on that and writing daily. By the next update I'll have hopefully made some noticeable progress with those two.