Welcome to the Inferno

I was going to say "Hell", buuuuut I guess I shouldn't be so harsh on my job (although, Inferno and Hell pretty much carry the same connotation, but "Inferno" sounds a little more...poetic, maybe) - mainly because it's a job, and it pays. And it's in an air-conditioned office, which, given the recent tally of over-100 degree days in NC, is a great thing. But those are about all of its redeeming qualities. So, to all 4 readers of my blog, I present... (drum roll please) the list of things that suck about my job (job, company, etc.):

1. The training. Or, more accurately, lack thereof. I could write an entire blog entry just on this. But suffice it to say, I'm expected to do technical support on products for which the training consists of about 5 minutes in a conference room, with me hastily scribbling notes on a notepad as my supervisor talks a mile a minute.

2. The lack of resources. Once again, I am expected to provide technical support on products for which we have no user manuals... not even a leaflet... not even a product image. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Null (I'm running out of ways to say NOTHING). Now, one day I made the mistake of actually questioning this, asking one of my supervisors, "I was just wondering, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but... why do we do support for products that we don't even have a user manual on?"... Let's just say I received a less-than-satisfactory answer on this one, as well as a look that basically said, "How dare you question our ridiculous policies?"... YEAH... won't make THAT mistake again.

3. My supervisors. I basically have 3. One is cool, the other two are... well, not. Quite frankly. Look, I understand that their job doesn't revolve around answering my questions 24-7. But answering questions from their employees is certainly PART of their job. And when I ask ONE question in a 5-hour time period, I'm pretty sure I haven't maxed out my quota of questions for the day. But to judge by the looks on their faces when I go to ask them a question - I mean, they look at me as if I've suddenly sprouted 3 heads! This isn't exactly what you'd call encouraging.

4. The customer service policies of the company as a whole SUCK. And I have no control over them. Which for whatever reason, the customers calling in don't understand. "People!", I want to say to them. "I'm a peon in this company! I'm a tech support rep! I have no control over what goes onto the packages for these products! Believe me, if I did, I sure as heck wouldn't put GUARANTEED to work on there, because I KNOW it's not!" But alas, they don't seem to get this. Or maybe, they just need a scapegoat - so they choose me. So I get cussed out because the product they bought doesn't work, or because they're too stupid to read the manual and figure it out. Oh well.

5. I'm sure there's a 5th reason, but I'm kind of tired of typing for now, so I'll leave that for another day ;)

Sorry, fellow bloggers... sometimes it just helps to vent. And to realize that 2 months from now (Lord willing), I'll be back in Chile con mi amor! :)

I Can Finally Roll My R's!!! (And other good news)

Wow, where to begin. It's been an interesting (read: mostly good) day. Monday was a pretty sub-par day at work, yesterday was better, and today was still better. I'm liking this pattern! But not naive enough to think it will continue, with tomorrow being even better than today. :P Nonetheless, it was good. And yes, I discovered that at long last, I can FINALLY roll my R's!! This is a loooooong time coming, believe me. I'm 24 years old. The first time I remember having Spanish class was in elementary school, in 1st grade. I'm sure I retained little to nothing from that class, haha... but it was fun anyway. All I remember is that my teacher had this policy that when we played games or did activities or whatever, we could earn "Muy Bien" cards. Then, when we'd saved up a certain amount of Muy Bien cards, we could cash them in for a prize. 5 would buy you some candy, 10 something else a little more cool, and if you saved up enough... you could get a REALLY cool prize. But that took self-discipline, something I didn't have a lot of back then (and something I'm still working on to this day). Anyway, that's about all I remember from that class. Then I didn't take Spanish again until high school, and took 3 years of that, then 1 semester in college. Then I spent 2 months in Salamanca, Spain and a total of 7 months in Chile (broken up over a period of about a year and a half). Over that time, I've NEVER been able to roll my r's. Which has always frustrated me so much - and especially now, dating a native Spanish speaker who is BORN being able to roll his r's, it's doubly frustrating. So then today I'm driving home from work, and just practicing in my car (Lord knows why, I must've been bored sitting in traffic). And suddenly, it just HAPPENED. I could do it! Who knows what happened, but it finally just clicked. Anyway, needless to say, I was stoked. D used to tease me and say, "Di Carolina Herrera" and I never could! But now I can :P

In other news, my sister-in-law is due on July 4th, but the baby is still in the breach position, so her doctors went ahead and scheduled her for a C-section... and which day?? June 26, none other than D's birthday!! Haha, he thought that was so cool when I told him the baby would be born on his birthday :) (Assuming he doesn't decide to make an early appearance!).

In other not-so-good news, I just spent 48 minutes on the phone with my credit card company, all because I'm having trouble accessing my account online (I've never had problems with it before, until just recently). I got transferred 3 times and put on hold SEVEN times. At least the guy I talked to was nice... and he apologized profusely for all the trouble I've had, and the delay. Oh well, if the problem gets fixed, those 48 minutes were worth it. I mainly just spent my time on hold watching the Stanley Cup final game and talking to D, anyway. ;) Alright, this blog entry is getting entirely too long, and if anyone has actually read this far - wow. I'm impressed. Good night all!

Algunas Fotitos

one of me and Diego at a wedding in Santiago back in February, and one of just Diego ;) gotta show him off :P i'll post some more pictures later, but for now i'm off to bed!

The Return of My Sense of Humor

...or maybe it never actually left. Several posts ago, I wrote about how frustrating it was (is) to try to maintain your sense of humor in another language. It's a kind of "lost in translation" deal a lot of times. Well, buenas noticias... maybe I'm not as "un-funny" as I once thought. At least according to Diego - who, I admit, is probably biased. But still, it made me feel better when in a conversation recently, he told me that his friends did think I was funny. Now, maybe what they really find funny is this gringa trying to speak Spanish and throw some Chilean slang in the mix, but I'd like to think they find my sense of humor funny as well.

Here's another thing: I remember in the beginning of January (I think this is when it was), when I first started watching Club de la Comedia with Diego and his family/friends. If you haven't seen that show, there's a cast of 6 Chileans who do a mix of stand-up routines and regular skits. When I first started watching, I didn't understand a whole lot of it. So, if you want the definition of awkward - that would be me trying to watch that show with a group of Chilean friends and not understanding hardly anything. So naturally, everyone else is cracking up and I have this half-smile plastered to my face the entire time, hanging on every word, desperately trying to seize upon some joke that I might understand - all so that I could laugh too, and be in on the joke! So needless to say, it was really frustrating at the beginning. But I kept watching, and by the time I left Santiago in March, I found that I understood a great deal of the show. And it cracked me up whenever I would laugh at one of the jokes, and D's mom would look at me in surprise and say, "You understood that?!"... yes, I finally did!

My favorite sketches were always "El Cliente Siempre Tiene La Razón" (The customer is always right) and El Encuestador (a guy showing up at people's houses to conduct a survey). Whenever I'm missing Chile a whole lot (which is basically all the time!), I watch some of the sketches online (www.chilevision.cl) and it always makes me laugh. ;)

A Little of This, A Little of That

Well, I've been inspired by fellow bloggers to spruce up my own a little bit. I wanted to get a picture of Santiago on here, but I just hadn't taken the time to until now. Heck, I haven't even posted since what... the 13th? Anyway, the picture is one that a friend took of the Plaza de Armas when we were in Santiago in August 2006, which is the first time I ever went to Chile. It's kind of bugging me that the picture isn't really centered on the darker blue background, but I guess I can live with it for now. :) I'm also playing around with different color schemes, so we'll see what comes of that. I'll probably write another post later tonight about the amazing bastion of inefficiency that is the company I work for (FYI, a good part of this long weekend will be spent looking for another job). But for now, I'm taking advantage of the chocolate truffle pie my mom made this weekend! ;)

I Need A Job

Basically, this post is gonna be pretty short since it's 12:10 and I'm dog-tired. I've mentioned in previous posts that I'm thinking of moving back to Santiago in a few months. Right now I'm looking at moving back probably at the beginning of August, so this means I need a job! I'd be cool with anything pretty much, so I guess I'm hoping some of you girls I've talked to might have some leads/ideas for me, or anyone else who might come across this blog randomly. Please help! It's kind of stressing me out right now, and it's definitely stressing D out, and that's not good! Any ideas or contacts you have would be appreciated, thanks a bunch! :)

A Tale of Six Flaites

Today's conversation with D starts out with him telling me, "oye, algo malo me pasó anoche..." Cue freakout mode. Not really, but I did think, uh oh... hope it wasn't something TOO bad. Last night, D was supposed to go to a friend's house for an asado. As it turns out, it ended up just being a bunch of guys playing Playstation. Typical. :P Anyway, D lives in Ñuñoa, near the Estadio Nacional, and his friend lives close to the metro station El Parrón, which is basically at one end of the yellow line. Now, I'm not sure exactly where this happened, but at some point when he was on the micro, D was suddenly surrounded by six flaites (not-so-savory characters), all threatening him. Using some common sense, D didn't try to resist or fight them at all (you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that 6-on-1 isn't very good odds). Thankfully, they didn't hurt him at all... but they did take all the money he had on him. Not very much, but still. It's the principle of the thing. A lot of emotions ran through me when I heard what had happened, among them fear and extreme anger. Also relief, that D wasn't hurt at all. But seriously, this just pissed me off. I realize there are criminals and jerks everywhere in the world, but good grief... 6 on 1? This is one of those times when it's REALLY hard to be in the States, away from D. I usually try not to worry too much, and he usually doesn't take the micro late at night by himself, but hearing this story just rattled me. I guess you just never know what can happen.