How Many Pieces of Paper Does One Tree Yield?

Good afternoon, everyone. Today we're going to talk about what Jenna did all morning. What did she do?

She killed trees.

Yep, it's true. I don't know how many pieces of paper come from one tree, but I was photocopying a bunch of employee evals that I'd edited, added a new checkbox to (ooh!) and then printed off. I copied SCADS of them.

I kept track of how many reams of paper I went through. Anybody wanna stab a guess at how much I used?

Drumroll, please.....

3,000 pieces of paper!!!

Yes, Jenna Woestman is now a tree killer. I had to copy off 10 sets of all the evals, and I probably edited 25 of them...and there were about an average of 15 pages per eval. Oy vey.

On the plus side, I was kept busy for the entire morning and I didn't get any paper cuts. The entire project took 6 hours from start to finish. (Although an hour of that was probably just trying to find the dumb file on the computer...Whoever was here before me sure didn't save things very clearly.)

And that's what I did today. I killed trees and you paid for it. How does that make you feel, taxpayers? :)

Things That Are Extremely Cool About My New Job:

1.) I have a big desk. I had to sort 12 stacks of handouts and I had room on my desk to do all of them. It was great.
2.) I do not have a headset for my phone. Reason this is good--I won't be talking on the phone all day long!
3.) I can open my cell phone without fear of reprecussion.
4.) I can go to the bathroom whenever I want, as many times as I want. (And I don't have to worry about getting glared at.) This is truly freedom.
5.) I have a pet fish. His name is Comet and he's a red Betta. He comes with the job. I named him after the school mascot and I get to feed him every day.
6.) I can carry on conversations. It's great, the other secretary and I chatted for about 20 minutes about something that didn't really pertain to anything work-related, and nobody got mad at us! (We, of course, were still working while we talked.) There were no telemarketing beeps in our ears or anything.

Oh, the glory.

Jenna likes her new job!

I Love Days Off

Today I made blueberry scones. Precious said that she had a good recipe, so I called her and got it. I haven't tried them yet, we'll see how they turn out. I used a bunch of soy flour and whole grain oat flour...they sort of had a greenish tinge to them from the soy flour. I'm sure I'd use soy flour a whole lot more if it didn't turn my food colors.

But I digress.

Who slept in until 8:15 this morning? It's me, it's me!
Who didn't make her bed until 11:00am? It's me, it's me!
Who hasn't even bothered to shower yet today? It's me, it's me!
Who likes driving her new car? It's me, it's me!

Yeah, so I know the last one doesn't really fit. But I do, I like driving my new car! I'd like it a lot more if it didn't smell like new car, but what's a girl to do? I got a scented oil car thingy to try to diffuse some of its new car goodness, but it's taking awhile.

I keep trying to think up place to go so that I can drive around. Then I remind myself that every time I fill my gas tank up it costs me two hours of work and I decide to stay home.

Who decided it was OK for gas prices to be so high, anyway? Hmm, maybe somebody needs to telemarket the gas people and they'll get so annoyed they'll lower prices.

That's not a bad idea...I may run with it.

I gotta go!

Oh and by the way. THIS IS MY LAST DAY AS A TELEMARKETER!!!

Boo-yah!

Dear Kraft Foods,

Hi. My name is Jenna. I'm a pathetic little telemarketer (well, for another few hours) and I just wanted to thank you for the happiness you have brought into my miserable existence. Happiness? You ask yourselves, How in the world can a telemarketer have happiness?! They have the worst jobs in the world!

Well. Let me tell you.

I adore your mini marshmallows. I am, perhaps, their greatest fan. I eat them while I talk to people on the phone. (But only occasionally, since they don't any---er, much nutritional value.) The mini marshmallows are the greatest because, to quote my cool little brother, they are "full of marshmallowy goodness". It's like all the flavor of a big 'un but that is bite sized!!! Wow. Somebody's a genius.

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday while my dear husband and I were grocery shopping (at TARGET, not at Walmart. We rue the day we enter Walmart...sorry, Dad.) Joey spotted something amazing.

Bunny-mallows!!!

Seriously. These are little spring colored bunny shaped marshmallows. They're super, super cute. I like to squish them and bite their heads off. They were on sale, so we bought a bag. I munched a few on the way home, but I knew I had to take them telemarketing the next day. Since it's my last day (YAY!!) I figured my friends might enjoy a few bunny-mallows. Jamie and I made hot chocolate and put them on top. They look like a pastel swirl.

Whoever thought up bunny-mallows is a really smrt person. I salute them.

Very sincerely,

Jenna, loyal fan

Why I Am Nuts

I hear voices all day long. Seriously.

OK, fine, so I'm a telemarketer (until tomorrow) and so my job is talking to people on the phone. But I like to make things as dramatic as possible, of course.

Anyway, my current game is to try to figure out how fat (or not) people are just by talking to them. It's pretty amusing. You can't tell much from a person's voice except whether they smoke a lot.

So that's my game. It's pretty sad, isn't it? Statistics aren't in these people's favor, so I figure that most people are ginormously fat. At least I amuse myself by thinking that. If they're huffing and puffing, that's a definite giveaway (to my little mind, that is).

I really, really need to start my new job before I lose my mind completely.

Well, I am taking PTO today. I went in to get all the heavy junk out of my desk and that took, like, three hours by the time I got back home. I was only in the office for about 15 minutes, too. (Good thing I didn't get a ticket. I had 15 minutes on my meter and the time ran out!)

I don't have anything funny to say today, I haven't eaten anything yet and it's 1:00. I'm starved. I can't even think straight. So see, no chance of being even remotely funny.

So...that's all, folks!

Only 4 days to go...

The countdown just got blown out of the water. I am able to use PTO for this Friday, next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! I was able to move up the last day to Tuesday. Cha-ching!!!

So, here's the new and improved countdown.

5 more days! (And only two of those are work days.)

And the countdown continues!! (I didn't forget today!)

8 days to go!

TRUE STORY

I wander into the bathroom this morning with a huge stack of towels that I'd just folded. (The stack was way too high, by the way, I almost dropped them in the trash can.) Joey was in there putting gel in his hair.

"Good morning," says me.

"I had a really weird dream last night," says he.

"Oh really? So did I, but you go first." I started stuffing the towels in the cupboard. It was a tight squeeze.

Joey washed the gel off his hands. "I dreamed that I was down getting the mail and started flipping through it. You had a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens in there and on the cover it said 'Is Your Husband Annoying? Trade Him in for a Million Dollars Worth of Used Action Figures!' and I thought, 'Wow, that's not a very good trade.'"

"Not only that," I said, "But it's not quite a Better Homes and Gardens specialty. Not only do they not generally trade in husbands, I bet they don't really have a million dollars worth of used action figures just lying around. What do you think they'd do with all the husbands that got traded in?" I smashed in the last towel.

"Who knows. Wanna trade me in?" Asked my slightly sleep-foggy husband.

"No way!" I said. "Not only are you a whole lot less annoying than I am, but I have no idea what I'd ever do with a million dollars of used action figures. I don't even know what I'd do with a million dollars worth of new action figures! I'll take you over action figures any day."

Three things:
1. I do not actually get a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens
2. No, I probably won't tell you what my dream was. (Unless you email me, and unless you're a girl.)
3. I have no mini marshmallows to eat while telemarketing today.

Stink! The woman's right! I DID forget my countdown. What would I do without Alyssa?! I was so caught up in eating my mini marshmallows that I forgot to be excited about quitting telemarketing!

I think I might have a real mini marshmallow problem.

9 more days!

Confession: I have an obsession with mini marshmallows. And it's bad.

I'm not really sure when it started, I think it was a month ago. But I brought some marshmallows to put in my hot chocolate at work. (It was a ginormous treat--I never bring that to work, just tea.) I decided to save the marshmallows and just munch on them.

Oh boy.

I was hooked. They were small, cute, squishy and super easy to eat while I was telemarketing.

I began to think about mini marshmallows constantly. I dreamed about them at night. I craved them the entire time I was telemarketing. I stopped and ogled them in the grocery store (they make really big bags of them, you know). I considered writing fan mail to Kraft.

I know they're next to horrible for me, but if I only eat a few once or twice a week, I figure I won't die. I probably won't even get very fat. Right now I have a little baggie with some mini marshmallows in it. I've been saving it until after 10:30. Joey surprised me by sticking it in my lunch. I was super excited.

Mmmmm. I just ate one. Yummy marshmallow.

What do telemarketers, cows and gummy worms have in common? Easy. I just cut the cows out (of paper, of course) and I'm eating gummy worms right now--all of this while I telemarket.

Jamie has a bunch of Sunday School stuff she needed cut out, so Tiffany and I were helping her. I got the cows, tombs and a verse. I really liked cutting out the cows because I cut out each individual leg. Jamie said not to bother, but I didn't listen to her.

Everyone knows that I love cows way too much. That is, of course, why I make up songs about them on the way to church. Joey always enjoys being serenaded. (It's not fair, though, becuase when he tries to make up a song, his actually rhyme. And they're not as long.)

Jamie rewarded my cow cutting labors with four gummy worms. I big them in half and ate them. All of them.

They were super great.

Oh, I forgot the countdown.

10 days to go!!!

This morning, on the way to go telemarket, I had three near death experiences.

I was driving down 1st Street to pick the girls up, and slowed down to make my turn. It's always a bad patch right there, and I hit some ice and, instead of turning, went straight for the curb. At, probably 15 miles an hour. I pumped the brakes, I tried turning my wheel (no luck, I went toward the curb regardless) then finally just LAID on the brakes. Amazingly, the car stopped a few inches from the curb.

No airbags were yet deployed.

I was very thankful that nobody was sitting at that stop sign, for I'd have surely hit them. Anyway, I almost died.

I got the girls and we poked down the road to telemarket. Some ginormous SUV decided to hit their brakes. I'd been following at what NORMALLY would be a safe distance, but when there's ice under the snow...I don't think there is such a thing as a safe distance. Anyhey, I started pumping my brakes.

Nothing. I didn't even slow down.

Stinkin, I thought, Now I'm going to crash my car into the back of an SUV.

Mr. SUV suddenly veered off the road to turn into White Birch. I've never been so happy to see somebody turn at "the last minute" before. I wish he'd have bothered to use a turn signal. Oh well.

At any rate, no air bags were deployed.

So now we're heading down 2nd Avenue at about 40 miles an hour. I was meticulously trying to stay in the tracks of those who had gone before me, when I slid off the road. Of course at that spot, there's a real steep drop off, so I fought and fought with my steering wheel to get the car BACK on the road, not wobbling between the cement edge and gravel.

After a few harrowing seconds, I got car got back on the road, swerved over into the left lane (overcompensating!) which was thankfully empty, and then back into the right lane where I belonged.

And yet, no airbags were deployed! Whew.

Maybe I can just spend the night here at work...I don't wanna go back out there! I might die, or wreck my poor Saturn!

Newsflash---JENNA HAS A NEW JOB!

Glory, glory, hallelujah.

This morning around 9:45, I was offered the position of assistant to the Boss of the Employer. I am so excited that I have been unable to concentrate all day long, and my hands keep shaking. Thankfully, the dialer is slow and I haven't had a lot of contacts.

Thus begins the countdown.

11 days to go!

Reflections on Being a Bird-Mom Who, Upon Discovering One of Her "Children" Wasn't Fitting In, Returned Said Bird To The Store. For a Full Refund.

Our birds-children had been asking for a sibling. Or so we thought. We said, "If you want a sibling, chirp once. If you don't want one, chirp twice." Chirp, the birdies would say. Just one chirp.

So two Fridays ago Joey and I headed to Petsmart with a singular purpose--to find the perfect sibling for our babies.

After 20 arduous minutes, we finally selected a green birdy with a blue tail and yellow head. He was perky and pesky in the cage, and he seemed to be a swinging bird. He was constantly on the swing in the store cage. New Bird was clipped, boxed and wrapped in Joey's coat. We headed home to introduce him to our other two children.

We named him Wickham, wanting to carry on the theme of Pride and Prejudice with our birdies. It was an ill-fated name. Perhaps if we'd have picked something like Mr. Bennet things would have turned out differently.

Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley/Whitebird positively detested Wickham from the moment he first entered the apartment. Wickham was so terrified of our other two children that he refused to leave my finger when I tried to put him in the cage.

Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley/Whitebird froze. Wickham froze. Finally, the other two ventured over to the newcomer and cheed at him. Then they pecked at him. I wailed. Joey said, "He'll be OK, let's give him time."

After a week of three silent, stock-still birds, we decided we couldn't take it any longer. We knew we had to do it.

"Well," Joey said, "I think we'd better take him back." He got me the receipt and the guarantee and we decided I'd do it in the morning.

And so that's how I became a "return the kid if it doesn't work out" bird-mom. I'm a terrible person. I can't hardly live with myself. Maybe I need counseling.

At any rate, the other birds are super happy now. They hated Wickham.

Well, we're now a two-bird family.

That's right, I just returned Wickham to Petsmart. Poor little birdy wasn't getting along with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley/Whitebird AT ALL. He'd just sit in one place all day long (with the occasional food and water break) and stare at the cage wall.

Evil Mr. Darcy and Whitebird would chee at him and peck at him quite often. I assume this was mostly to let Wickham know that he was not welcome.

I suppose our birds are not much different from the actual charachters of Pride and Prejudice, but I sincerely doubt that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley would have cheed and pecked at Wickham, however much they disliked him. They'd have done something more refined.

At any rate, as soon as I took Wickham out of the cage and stashed him in the travel cage, Mr. Darcy and Whitebird began singing my praises. Seriously. They were. Wickham sat and trembled in his new environment (but there really isn't anything new about that) and the other two skittered around their cage again in a way I haven't seen them since last Friday when we purchased Wickham.

Oh well, so much for having 3 birds.

I left the cage door open and when I came home from returning Wicky, the other two Evils were sitting atop their cage looking quite pleased with themselves.

Evil birdies.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We telemarketers have had a pretty sugary holiday so far. When we got in to the "office" there were green balloons hanging from the ceiling, and we had a little pot o' candy at our desks. There was also a green balloon which I promptly blew up, drew a couple of creepy faces on, and hung from the ceiling above my desk.

We also have lots of yummy treats. I made Blarney Stone Kissed Cookies last night in preperation for the holiday, and Jamie made green Rice Krispy treats. (I didn't know what a Blarney Stone was until yesterday, aparrently you're supposed to kiss it for good luck.)

But the BEST thing, is that at noon there was a PARADE! We thought we were going to miss the whole thing since we didn't get off for lunch until 1:00, but it was still going. Whew. I've never seen a St. Patrick's Day parade before, so it was pretty exciting. We heard the parade for an entire hour, all the sirens and music.

By the time we finished up our lunches and got down there, the parade was starting to wind down. We were just in time, however, for the "Irish" belly dancers.

Holy stink. They were....extremely plump. Well, maybe they weren't as plump as they looked, but their belly-baring shirts really made them look a whole stinkin' lot jigglier than they really were. One lady even painted her stomach green. It looked like flubber, from the Absentminded Professor. You know, green and jiggly? Really disturbing.

I waved at the Irish Republicans, simply because they were Republicans, and the gentleman in the car threw a whole ton of Tootsie Rolls at me.

We really had a hard time getting candy because nobody threw it at the "adults". I had to nearly sacrifice my entire life getting this piece of Dubble Bubble from beneath the wheels of a big trailer pulled by an big truck. Jamie thought it was a shame that the gum might get squished, so I snatched it real quick like.

Good thing the driver didn't decide to drive off, he'd have taken my arm with him. (Well, maybe not quite that bad.)

The absolute highlight was the truck that threw...SALT WATER TAFFY!!!! And they threw it right at me! It's like they know it's my favorite or something. There was even a piece of cinnamon.

Yummy to my tummy.

On the way back in, Jamie tried to piggyback on Tiffany's part of the spinny door. Tiffany smashed her a good one. Spinny doors make me nervous. Jamie survived to telemarket another day, though.

And that's how telemarketers celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Weird Stuff I've Heard Lately As A Telemarketer

1.) "Ilene left in the car and Martha is at work." I called asking for Ilene and the guy, very seriously, replied with that statement. I wasn't sure if he was insinuating that Ilene had died while she was in the car, or if she really did just leave in the car. (She hadn't died.)

2.) "I got a new Social Security Number. The one I verified with you is wrong, I was just trying to trick you." Yeah, right. You don't just get a new Social Security Number. The guy was lying and it was so, so hard to not be all sassy to him. If you're going to lie to a telemarketer, don't lie about getting a new Social. They'll be on to you like white on rice.

3.) I said to the loan officer, "This guy wants the $20,000 to substitute his payroll for his business." And the loan officer actually laughed. (Loan officers don't usually laugh, no matter how ridiculous the customer's request sounds.)

4.) "Yeah, it doesn't have many miles at all, just 120,000." Said a customer to me, regarding his 4 year old truck. He was serious. (How do you put 120,000 miles on a truck in four years?!)

5.) My loan officer said regarding credit scores, "Oh, a 550 isn't bad at all." We'd had a rash of really, really low credit scores and at the time, 550 must have been lookin' pretty good to him. (It's not. It's pretty horrible since 450 is the lowest.)

6.) "Oh, I don't want a loan. I want to refinance my vehicle/get a line of credit." Usually the ones who say this are girls who are probably blonde, but I had an older man say this to me this morning. What, do they think the money they're going to borrow is free and they don't have to pay it back? (I hastily inform them that yes, this IS a loan.)

7.) "I want $1,800 to pay my bills." Oh, if only it really were that easy.