I didn’t get any calls last night. This morning I thought things were very quiet for a Saturday. Well turns out I forgot to make some changes at work so that I actually got notified of any calls that come in. I got a call this morning from a co-worker who wasn’t happy, he asked me if I was on call and I of course said yes. Turns out there was a ticket waiting for over an hour. Our time to respond is 30 minutes. The caller reached out to him directly because he was on-call last week. I apologized and told him I would take care of it, I told him I wasn’t notified on my phone. We also had Outlook issues yesterday so I could blame it on that. This is not a good thing. I called the guy back and turns out his issue was resolved. As if that wasn’t bad enough another person needed to know how to recall an e-mail and the sooner he got that information the better. That was kind of urgent in my book because he was a VIP. He requested a response by e-mail with instructions but he called in and I was 2 hours behind on answering him.
Then I got a couple more calls and decided to put my phone on vibrate, while I was on the phone. I went upstairs and relaxed, while waiting for the next call. You can probably already see where this is going. I was about to fall asleep when I heard this funny noise, I thought it was my phone vibrating, no that happened over an hour ago and I had someone who was totally down and couldn’t work. I was an hour over due on that call. It wasn’t so simple to get them up and working and I had to hand this off to another team, they took 2 more hours to resolve the issue. Again not good at all.
In all of the times I have been on-call I have never ever missed a call. I am not happy with myself or the fact that this happened. It is putting my job in jeopardy. I personally don’t think my boss will know about it, but part of me wants to email her to confess, figuring that it would help my case. It would also change her opinion of me. So the other part says wait and take your chances, I think it will be a non issue. However, if it’s not a non-issue I could be in for some serious disciplinary action – which I really don’t want. I in no way think that I will get fired for these incidents. No one died, nothing bad happened other than people had to wait and what was urgent and an emergency to them really wasn’t that big of a deal at the end of the day. Got an opinion, well I’d love to hear it.
I had another caller today who had some email issues on his phone. He was where the sun was shining and the weather was nice. He was clearly at his kids baseball game, yeah I know baseball in February. Anyway I had to talk with him while he was carrying on a conversation with his wife and everyone was rooting for his kid and his kids team. I so couldn’t wait to hang up. An emergency, well I think not. He asked me what percentage of calls do I get on the weekend where the person doesn’t say it’s urgent or critical and I told him it varies by weekend. Some weekends it’s every call and others maybe only 2 people will say it. See we only have to answer if they say urgent or critical. However, you really have to listen and read – it’s all a judgment call. People won’t outright say urgent or critical but they will give you the facts of their issue and then make you decide if you should jump and take care of it now or wait, risk it and leave it until the next business day. I remember when I started this job and my 1st on call I called everyone back but quickly got out of that habit because if I do it then it will be the expectation set for everyone else and people will be busier than they should be. It’s bad enough you don’t get to have a good nights sleep during the week, you are held hostage in your home for the weekend and really can’t do anything or go anywhere … just sitting around waiting for an email to come in.
Friday I got a call from one of our verbally abusive callers, he rattled me to my core. I wasn’t worth anything for the rest of the day and thankfully his call was in the afternoon. Thankfully he also works in another office so I had to have one of my co-workers reach out to him and give him the personal touch. I know someone was cussing at me and probably doesn’t feel really good about me now. Turns out I learned something from that. The system has caller id, so when a call comes in your screen will show you the extension of the caller – now that I know that I wrote down this person’s extension and when I see it pop up on my screen, I am simply not answering the phone. I don’t ever want to have to speak to him again, unless of course he calls after hours. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out, perhaps others on my team know about it but I am NOT telling anyone. Screening calls or selectively answering calls can get you in a world of trouble. So we will just keep this between us. Friday all I wanted to do was leave after his call. I didn’t want to do anything else. I didn’t leave but managed to calm down and took other calls. I kind of wish that his call wouldn’t have happened because then I wouldn’t have missed anything today, I wouldn’t have left in such a rush.
On my way down to the ground floor, talking with a co-worker he told me that there is a possibility that the on-call schedule might be re-arranged due to some migrations we have going on. So while it looks like I am good until May, this may not totally be the case. I can tell you that I need a break from it for a while, so by the end of next month I think I would be mentally ready to take it on again if needed. If I get to go until May well then good on me. 2 weeks practically back to back that is a killer.
I did do my cat food shopping Friday after work. Then made it home to put it all away. I’ve got enough to feed the cats and the raccoons for a week. However, it’s all going to the cats. Raccoons got a 1 time deal. I may feel sorry for them and give in. Today they saw me and started banging on the window because I didn’t acknowledge them. They scared the crap out of me. Normally I say hi or hello and it scares them to death and they all flee. I think they are ready for some food but not to be mean or cruel I have my own issues to deal with. I can’t feed everyone or everything otherwise I will be flat broke instead of just broke.
The upside of things is that I was able to sleep in this morning, the kids and I watched it snow and I was calm and relaxed until the phone rang. I managed to have a little bit of a good time. I am kind of climbing the walls right about now, I am eager to just get away. It will sure be nice Monday night to come home and not to have to worry about work. Next weekend I have a therapy appointment, but other than that I am free so I look forward to eating out and being away from home even if only for a couple hours.
Today being Valentine’s Day doesn’t exactly help but I am not particularly broken up. We never really used to do much other than grab a bite to eat. For the last few years off and on he would get me flowers on Valentine’s Day always Red Roses. It was so sweet and I can say that I do miss them and miss him too. However, it’s all going to be all right I have come this far and I can continue to make it the rest of the way. Doesn’t mean I have to forget about him or the many memories that I have. Perhaps next year I will have someone new in my life or perhaps I will still be alone. It will be interesting to see what happens.
I hope that you had a great Valentine’s Day and that all is right in your world. I am going to feed the beggars, change laundry do a little bit of surfing the net and then it will be back to television and eventually bed time. Then we move on to Sunday. I hope that things with the on-call routine continue to go well and that 7a on Monday gets here quickly. As much as I hate Monday’s I think I will like this one!
No comments:
Post a Comment