Storms, and Authors, and Skunks...Oh my!

It is not often I can honestly say, this has been one crazy week.

It started out like any other week, it was a Monday. It looked like rain so I ended up taking the car to work. Now, I try not to be a fair weather rider. I have no qualms riding in the rain, that is what I bought a rain suit for, but I wasn't going to ride in the rain for a 10 hour work day. I get to work and actually get a break from the customer service phones and I get to work the switch board from 1 to 5. As I am sitting at the front door, I have a huge window I can look out. It looks so nice and Sunny out, I start to regret bringing the car to work.

At 5 I head upstairs and get on the phones. An hour and a half later black clouds darken the sky, the wind starts howling, and rain is pelting the small window by my cubical, then the power goes out. Good thing I didn't bring the bike. The tornado sirens go off, we all head down stairs for about an hour until the warning is over then it is back up stairs. Now here is the funny part. There is no power and no phone. We had to sit up there until 8 before we were allowed to go home.

As I am driving home I see pieces of buildings along side the road, and a small plot of trees is missing about half of them now, twisted off due to storm winds. When I get home we are also without power. It was a long night, Jake was helping to clear trees off the roads with the city guys so I was home alone. Not that I minded, I just hate reading by candle light and all of our flash lights had dead batteries. Since the power was off I set the alarm on my phone, but luckily the power came back around 1 am. Work however wasn't so lucky.

I spent much of the day on Tuesday calling into work every few hours for updates. At 3:00 was able to stop calling because the next update was going to be after I would have normally gotten off work. So I have a day off, I was able to catch up on my email and relax.

Wednesday I spent with my Friend, we spent almost an hour in a used bookstore in Sterling, before we headed out to Oak Brook for Sherrilyn Kenyon's book signing. As is fitting a Kenyon Minion I dressed the part of one character, Simi. She is a child like demon who loves her BBQ. K is the smiling blond right behind me.

The signing started at 7:30, there were lots of questions and stories. Fellow author Dinna Love-Snell was there keeping everyone entertained while SK signed books.

I was drawn for a door prize, a pin letting everyone know I am under the protection of Acheron. K and I didn't leave the Borders until around 12:30 am. SK was wonderful. She remembered me from last year. She asked why I wasn't on the bike and I told her I had converted another reader. The ride home was alright, I was happy, I kept asking my friend if she now understood why I had been disappointed in another book signing we went to last year. She completely agreed. Sherrilyn is so personable not only to the crowd, but even more so when you get your one on one time with her. Well we made it home at 3 am and were in bed by 4, K staying the rest of the morning.

I knew it was going to be a long night Wed, so I took Thursday off of work as well. I vegged around the house, finally getting dressed around 2'ish, K had to leave around 10 so she could be in Iowa City by 1:00.

Later that afternoon, I get a call from one of my Diva's. It has been 2 weeks since the last time I went skating so we arranged to meet later in the evening. I called 2 more Divas and we decided to carpool. (Yay car pool!)

We had so much fun being back on skates as a group. We did a few derby type fun things, but mostly it was a chance to catch up with everyone and work off our withdrawals. (yes skating is an addiction, and you do go through withdrawals) After a good sweaty workout we headed out to the bar for a snack and drink before heading home. Now, one of the girls I ride with always calls shotgun (needlessly, cause I would rather sit in back so I can hear everything) and I am thinking that last night she regretted it.

We hadn't even gotten out of Rockford when a skunk ran out in front of the Jeep we were in. We didn't hit it, we drove over it, right between the tires, but we scared it bad enough it sprayed the SUV. Ugh! it stunk, it hit the engine and cooked, now riding in the front seat, directly in front of the vents causes the smells to flow right on to you. When we got back to town we got out of the vehicle only to have the o'de skunk follow. It was in our clothes. It wasn't real strong, but it was there. I lucked out, because I was sitting in back, at least my hair still smelled like fresh sweat, not sweaty skunk (Love ya B).

Anyway, that was my crazy week! Sorry this was so long.

Job Security, is it a thing of the past?

Is anyone's job safe? I mean other than the law enforcement field, is there any job that is not going to be outsourced?

In December the Customer Service Manager for my company (my boss, basically) lost his job to someone in Florida. The manager would travel up to Illinois once a month until they decided it would be cheaper to promote one of our current supervisors to the position.

Now last Wednesday we were informed that our Email team would not have a job on Monday. They could either take a sevrens package or go to the phones. Neither one is a good choice. Now the Email did effect me. For the last 7 months if things slowed down, or if the email team needed help I would be pulled off the phone to answer emails. This is much less stressful as you do not have the customer yelling in your ear and calling you all sorts of nasty names. Not only am I now chained to my phone, I will loose one factor when it comes to evaluation for raises.

So today I go into work all ready to spend the day on the phone and 2 hours into my shift I am told We still have emails that need cleaned out. They came in after business closed Friday and the transfer to the mailboxes today. While I am furiously typing away answering questions, or deleting spam one of our human resources people along with our manager start packing up 2 of our supervisor's desks.

So with no warning two supervisors were let go. The explanation we are given is Here in Il our supervisors have teams of 10 to 15 people they oversee, in Fl they each have 20 plus, it is more cost effective to fire these supervisors, we were management heavy.

Ok, reality check, why are you getting rid of supervisors when whenever we need help with something, we can never find one because they are busy doing or helping someone or something else? And another thing, If schools are trying for smaller classroom sizes so that each teacher can spend more time with each student, wouldn't the same hold true in an employment situation?

Well, This is just one more burden added to the load that is driving me to seek employment else where. I mean, if they can come in one day and fire our management with no warning, what is to say the same thing won't happen to the rest of us when they decide to move everything to Florida (which supposedly isn't going to happen)?

I am patiently waiting for the 6th of Aug. This is the day I will not go to work, but travel to Oak Brook to once again meet Mrs Kenyon. I am really excited as this day draws near.

But the countdown is for the release date of a much anticipated book. This book is the reason for the AG's tour.

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