We've Been Partying Like it's 1999

You know, it's really sad that customer service week is coming to an end already. Allow me to share with you some additional highlights of this week-long celebration:

• Today is shorts day. That's right, today, October 10, is the one and only day of 2008 in which we were allowed to wear shorts to work. Never mind that the temperature this morning was 60 degrees. Never mind that here in Missouri we suffered through 105 degree days in July with 100% humidity and were bathed in sweat by the time we parked our cars and walked 30 feet into the building because we were forced to wear our jeans to work. No, some person in management somewhere decided that sometime in October would be the best time of the year to reward everyone with a shorts day. I would have preferred Hawaiian shirt day, but I sucked it up and donned the cargo shorts anyway. Yeah, it's freezing, but you gotta take what you can get.
• Today is also the cubicle decorating contest. The judges strolled by a little while ago. I watched them enter my room with huge smiles on their faces, only to quickly turn those smiles upside down when they looked around and saw not a streamer in sight. They just now stomped out, clutching their clipboards in anger. In our own defense, someone did tie a balloon in my general vicinity (not me, please, you should know better by now). I think that should count for something.
• Some of the slackers in the building with not enough work to do apparently went all out and dressed in costume to match their cubicle decorating theme. A lumberjack just came down and handed me a file and earlier I bumped shoulders with Winnie the Pooh or possibly the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz in the hallway. I really couldn't tell which. It had a tail, so maybe it was a lion. Or a spider monkey. It's so difficult to tell sometimes.
• We also celebrated with a fire drill. It's so much fun to be in the middle of a phone call and be interrupted by strobe lights, alarms and fire fighters telling us to bust a move out of the building. It doesn't make us look like asshats to our customers at all.
• I got to sit next to the bathroom cell phone talker not once, but twice. In the same day. I know, this really has nothing to do with customer service week, but it is always the highlight of my day and so I thought I'd share. If you are in the habit of making your personal calls in a stall of the ladies room, please, put a stop to it now. I will tell you what your friends won't: it is so disturbing to the rest of us. I know, some of you have heard me complain endlessly about this woman over email, but I just can't say it enough. This woman really freaks me out. The first time I encountered the cell phone talker, I had just entered a stall and was about to commence peeing when I heard someone talking. I had noted upon entry that there was only one other stall taken, so I knew it was just the two of us in there. I could only assume she was talking to me. Not having any idea who she was, I waited for a second after she finished talking before I said, "excuse me?" at the same time she started talking again and that's when I realized she was on the phone. So that posed a dilemma. What's the etiquette on this one? Am I supposed to sit there in silence and wait for her to leave? Do I expose the innocent party on the other line to the sounds of my peeing? And what about the flush? If I flush I'm kind of outing her as the rude bathroom cell phone talker that she is. I'm not sure I'm cool with that. So I sat there for a long, long while until she finally finished up her business, got herself all put back together and flushed without ever breaking stride in her conversation. Well, I guess that answered that question. Now when I have the pleasure of sharing the restroom with her I give it an extra flush or five, just out of spite. How I hate thee, bathroom cell phone talker.

Well, that's it. The great customer service week wrap-up of 2008. I'll see you again next year for the 2009 version. (I'm sure you won't be able to stand the wait.)

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!! This just out (I love the scream-excitement fervor of it all):

WOW THE DECORATING CONTEST WAS A HUGH HIT (for the record, I do not know one single Hugh in the company. Maybe she means huge? Or maybe there is a Hugh I don't know about and he just really enjoyed the contest?)!!!!! (FIVE exclamation points) WE HAD SOME VERY CREATIVE AND AWESOME DECORATIONS/COSTUMES. YOU ALL DID A WONDERFUL JOB. THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING. (obviously not directed at my group) AND A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO THE JUDGES.:

DAN *****
ROD *****
JOHN *******
JIM ******
WE DID HAVE 3 WINNERS.

1ST FLOOR THE ACADEMY WITH THE "GREASE" THEME (<-- training dept., they are consistently bored and boring.)

2ND FLOOR PROPERTY WITH THEIR SPORTS THEME (<--- really ? I could have sworn they were lumberjacks. huh.)

3RD FLOOR SPECIALTY CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH THEIR "THRILLER" THEME (<--- nothing better to do than decorate and play dress up?)

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!!! (uh, thanks?)