A Change of Plans

Apparently a good night's sleep allowed me to make a decision: I'm giving up on living in Hawaii for the time being. We'll move back to Utah at the end of the month. I feel worn down and defeated by my inability to find a job that will allow us to live comfortably.

My experience today at the survey shop was the kicker. I'd known from the beginning of my employment two and a half weeks ago that there would be a quota to fill. No one gave a time frame for when that quota would be implemented. Apparently it began for me today. I only completed one survey during a three hour period this morning. I was told to log out and go home because I hadn't met my quota. I asked how I was supposed to make someone complete a survey and was told that I couldn't MAKE anyone complete a survey, I had to get them to WANT to complete one.

Funny how that's supposed to work when I'm the 9th (or higher) interviewer to call that person. Somehow it seems logical to me that by the 9th call and with several prior refusals, that MY call is only going to make the recipient more irritated. I also find it peculiar that I'm supposed to know, without any kind of training at all, how to get folks to want to complete surveys they've already refused to do. Apparently, I'm supposed to go home and repent of my transgressions and go back to work on Friday with the pulled-out-of-thin-air ability to get folks to want to complete surveys. Yep, that's going to work.

You'd think I'm not getting anyone to cooperate because of my unpleasant attitude on the phone. Au contraire, the one survey that did get completed was with an 85 year old woman on Molokai.  She was a hoot.  At one point I had to ask her if she was pregnant (I swear I'm not kidding!).  We both laughed  hysterically as she said that she needed a man for that to happen (ignoring her age, of course!)  At the end of the survey, she thanked me multiple times (can you imagine that?) and said that I was extremely pleasant. We wished each other a good day.

I'm wondering if some of my fellow employees are forging surveys because I don't hear many voices making it through to completion. I think it might be easy to be rejected and then go ahead and fill out the survey after the person hangs up. It would only take a few minutes to complete a survey if all you do is click answers and change screens as rapidly as possible. Or, for that matter, you could ask the questions out loud and fill in the survey however you want. If you think about it, that would kill three birds with one stone: the person refusing to fill out the survey gets taken off the list because the survey is completed, the customer gets his/her surveys completed, and the employee fills his/her quota. Seems like a win/win/win situation if you don't count forged data.

If you're thinking I've developed a bad attitude, you're right. My being sent home on Monday for being a half hour late because I helped a fellow employee get her keys out of her locked but still running car started the descent. Today's seemingly arbitrary implementation of a quota without any training at all, has begun the rapidly tightening downward spiral.

The real problem is that I can't forge data. It's just unethical. So even though I can't think of an easy solution to my quota problem, I can't create phantom surveys because it would be wrong. I was asked by (an anonymous person), why I cared, since it would help me. I care because I have to live with me and I view myself as an honorable woman.

Damn!

I have no work tomorrow. I'll use the free day to apply for holiday work at Ala Moana Mall. I need income so I can move our stuff and buy our airline tickets.

I'll have to take Odin to the Humane Society a few days before leaving to have him put to sleep. My poor boy is falling down an awful lot these days since he's losing use of his hind legs. I don't know if he has cancer or if he has slipped discs since I haven't been able to afford vet visits (for that matter, I can't afford doctor, dentist, or optometrist visits either). Whatever the cause, I can't take an ailing dog to Utah with us. This is too sad. I don't have many options available to me for this matter, or for anything else right now.

I've stopped saying "it can't get any worse" because it does. Worser and worser and far worser...