Yesterday was rough.

I had two jobs to start out: a 10-12 and a 1-3 (that's the service window, the time I must show up). So I waited around the office for a while, then I went and put some gas in the truck. Since my jobs were in Kaplan and Abbeville, I decided to start driving toward those towns. Nate called me back to the shop. He put two 8-10's on me at a quarter to nine, and they were 37 miles away in Jeanerette. I raced down there and started my first job. It required a wall-fish. Really, I should have replaced the whole aerial drop because it had two barrel-connectors on it. Then the phone calls started: "Are you done yet?", "Are you going to make your next appointment?", "When are you going to be done?". I'm in a hot 3-foot tall attic, drilling and fishing, and my phone just kept on ringing. So I got a little snippy with Penny. I was late to every single appointment yesterday. My whole schedule was off and there was no room to breathe. I got a lot of points yesterday. I had new aerial install, a wall fish, a transfer of service with data/phone, and a data/phone install. One of my customers had a bad computer and wasn't home to instruct on his new connectivity so I opened a browser and put it on google.com and just left it. I'm sure he'll call for service because he won't know how it works.

I've asked Nate not to give me two 8-10 jobs at freaking 9:00. It sets off my whole day. I can't catch up afterwards. He said I should have rescheduled my first job because it was a wall-fish. I'm used to just doing the job until it's done, then move on to the next. What's the point of rescheduling? I have to climb the pole on each job to put new fittings and tags, that takes me a few minutes with the extension ladder. The company thinks it should take 20 minutes to install phone. Let's see:

Drive up and make contact with the customer.
Look over the job to determine where to put it - with cable/phone/electricity nearby.
Call dispatch to put equipment serial number on account.
Climb pole and check signal level, change tags and fitting.
Open house box and change fittings, check ground and tag it.
Install MTA and backfeed dialtone to jacks.
Disconnect house from Ma-Bell at demarc.
Call Dispatch again to check signal levels and receive call-back.
Do paperwork, customer education and signature.
Pack up ladder and close out job on phone.

...And you want all that in 20 minutes? Just calling dispatch takes sometimes upwards of 5 minutes. I go through all my dispatcher's phone numbers, then I may sit in queue for 10 minutes, which doesn't leave my hands free to do the ladder work.

This is one job where I'm not going to be a Superstar. My jobs will be done to the best of my ability, but it won't be blazingly fast. There should never be the kind of pressure put on me like there was yesterday. I am a short-old-woman. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Anyway - I may be PMS'ing also. I just don't want any more repeats of yesterday's schedule. That was rude. And my back aches this morning.

Gotta go get ready for another day of fun, fun, fun!
You have a great day.
MsAmber