Imlebideli

How often do we hear at work “Thank goodness it’s Friday?” Well, Friday is no big deal to me, but this week I said “Thank goodness it’s Saturday.”

I have a second job working in the outbound calling (collections) center of a bank. My schedule is Monday-Thursday nights, from 5-9, and Saturday mornings from 8-12:30. Saturday is the only day that you are not permitted to call off for any reason. If you do, management tries to make you feel as though huge amounts of the work are not going to be accomplished because of your absence.

The fact is, the calls are computer-generated, so the calls that I wouldn’t make, if I weren’t there, just go into the queue for someone else to make. The overall number of calls may diminish, but it isn’t though anyone has some “assigned” task that absolutely will be left undone if they aren’t feeling well and can’t make it in.

Today was a terrible day to call someone, especially at 8 am, because of an overdue credit card or loan payment. Most Saturdays, maybe one or two people will complain, but not today. More than half of the people we talked to were off for a long weekend and really did not want to be awakened by someone asking when their past due payment would be made.

After five or six calls, your brain just settles into a position to receive yelling and cursing and wishing people a happy holiday anyway.

I was happy to say “Thank goodness it’s Saturday afternoon,” by the time work was over today. I now have two days off to just relax and have a happy fourth and fifth of July.