People suck in Safety Net

I'm having a week.

When I first took this job, I thought a desk job would be a good thing for me, especially for my shoulder. I really haven't noticed any improvement in my shoulder, but then I'm not playing either. I've worked with people enough and had enough years of customer service experience that I really wasn't worried about working at a call center. It couldn't possibly be any worse than the evil store, right? Well, there is one major difference. My employer rocks. The customers themselves have done nothing but confirm what I have always known. People suck.

It's been coming on for a while. The negativity just keeps wearing down on me. This past weekend was really the tipping point. We were back home working on cleaning out my grandpa's house again (for like the fourth weekend in a row), and by the time we left I was ready to just start hitting people. Now, I understand that my one uncle has been under a lot of stress. He's been my grandpa's power of attorney for awhile, took care of all of the funeral arrangements and has been spending every spare moment he has in that house. My other uncle (my mom's half brother) and his wife have been driving even farther than we have every weekend to help out. Regardless, I think the only reason I didn't say anything to the them about their abhorrent behavior was because the second uncle's in-laws showed up and spared them from my wrath.

We've always been the outcasts of that side of my mom's family. My uncles would plan these fabulous surprises for my grandpa for his birthday or Christmas, but never think to include us. It always stung, but it was especially hard for my mom. When her parents divorced when she was a kid, the judge split up the kids. My grandpa got the boys and my grandma got the girls. My mom's older brother was in his early teens probably and it was easy for my grandpa to convince him that it was entirely my grandma's fault even though he'd had an affair. To this day, my uncle will not speak to my grandma. The two youngest have both passed away (one to suicide, one was ruled a car accident but no one in the family believes it was an accident. Everyone that knew my aunt thinks it was a suicide as well). Now that my grandpa is gone, we know we will never see anyone on that side of the family again once we're done with the house. Well, probably my brother's funeral when that day inevitably comes.

Anyway, at one point my uncles accused my mom of only wanting stuff so that she could sell it and get the money for herself. One of my cousins got his pickup, the other got all of the high end tools. I'm getting a queen size mattress set (someday, I don't have a place for them right now). Maybe brother got a hat. Granted it does have some sentimental value, it was my grandpa's dress hat from when he was in the navy. But still, what is he going to do with that, and it's no where near fair. My grandpa's house is ten miles from our old house (that we are still working on cleaning out), so at one point we loaded up our van to bring stuff there to store it for now and to pick up more boxes. My mom started crying and she bawled the whole way home and back. She knew they didn't think to include her in things, but she just kept repeating, "Do they really think that little of me?" It was enough to have me in tears right along with her. When we got back I wouldn't even look at either of them. She pretended nothing ever happened. She just wanted to be done with them and get out of there. I've said a lot about my mom in the past. We have our moments and we are definitely very different people. But as I've said before, like so many people, I'm prone to writing when things are bad. You get to hear the bad things. My mother has had to put up with a lot of shit in her life. Because of that, she's one of the strongest people I know. People say that about me too. I get it from her. I'm not saying that she hasn't caused me my fair share of struggles, or that maybe I've been forced to become strong partly because of her. I don't condone her behavior toward me over the years. But when it comes to rolling with the punches, I've learned from the best. These days she's worn out from years of stress and punches thrown by some real heavyweights. Sometimes it seems like it doesn't take much to blow her over. Watching her move on when she was so obviously heartbroken and all I wanted to do was deck the asshats (I refuse to call them assholes. Assholes are useful), was just a reminder to me that she's still in there.

I did get one blow in on my uncles. My aunt passed away about a year before I was born. She was a senior in high school. My grandma paid a lot of money that she really didn't have to blow up a couple of her senior pictures to poster size, one for herself and one for my grandpa. My uncles were going to throw the picture away because it was too big, nobody would want it. My mom took it just so nobody would throw it out, but as I walked past my uncle I told him I was glad that he treated both sisters the same at least.

So I didn't start the work week off Sunday morning with the best attitude anyway. But then sitting there having to listen to people yell at me and bitch about their first world problems all week just really wasn't working for me. Call volumes have been really high and they aren't going to be slowing down anytime soon. I'm hoping that when our lease is up in September and I can move into the city and actually hang out with my friends outside of work that things will improve. Right now, I come straight home after work and go to bed so I can get up and do it all over again. The few seconds we get to talk to each other between calls is not enough for humanity to redeem itself. Spending my days off with my dogs and my family (that I love but is obviously not helping humanity's cause either) isn't exactly working out. I start fraud training in July which gets me one step closer to getting off the phones, but I'll still be taking calls in July, and those won't be any better.