Certified

Everyone's been telling me for years that I'm certifiable.

They're right.

I am now, officially, a CSR-1 Chat Specialist.

___________

We were supposed to have someone named Lindsey train us. She has been gravely ill, and so they've had to improvise...as I joked to the head trainer here, this company has backup plans for their backup backup plans. We've gone down in history as the class with the highest number of trainers. Jamieson. Raff. Rojim. Tess. And even Skylar was pressed into action running one of our skills demonstrations immediately after passing it herself....she's fully trained to train the content, which I think is cool. A player-coach. But then, Skylar's cool.

Almost everyone here is. But I knew that. That's why I wanted back so badly. That and I want another chance to get ahead.
This is one place where they don't lie about the copious "opportunities for advancement". I have been regaled with story after story of people who were elevated to supervisory roles before they'd even finished their probationary periods.
I knew that before, too, but...I'm my own harshest critic. I don't feel like I'm ready to lead until I have a thorough verging on exhaustive knowledge of how to follow. It tripped me up last time--I should have been more confident. More assertive. These are attributes I have picked up relatively recently in my life, and sometimes I forget they're there, if that makes any sense at all.
I want to, eventually, become a trainer. I think I'd be good at it and I know I'd love it. So that's where I'm going to direct my energies. Dear god, I'm actually networking. Ken, networking. Slap me with a wet noodle.

I use a program called TextExpander that simplifies my job immensely. Here's how it works: you set up "snippets" of text that are triggered by a set key (I use /) and a code phrase. For example, if I type "/deliss" (minus the quotes), this appears on my screen:

I sincerely apologize. There appears to be a problem with your delivery. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions to better determine what has happened here so I can make it right?

Hit 'return' and pop! into the chat it goes. Some people have over a hundred of these "snippets", and you can set them up to have nested popup menus, customizable for whatever your situation is. Pretty nifty program. If you're ever chatting in to a company and responses are coming back to you faster than any human can type, they're probably using TextExpander.

Unless you're chatting with a robot. That's something we've been cautioned endlessly about. Real estate agents say "location, location, location"; this place says "empathy, empathy, empathy".

Empathy? In the vernacular of an adult trying to impersonate someone cool and failing, "bitch, please." I got this covered. People chatting in with problems for me to empathize with and hopefully help solve, over a Messenger-like interface? As if I don't do that pretty much every single evening. And I'm scared of working two chats at once for some reason. I shouldn't be, given that I routinely juggle three or four.

Which brings up a couple of points.

One, I'm still not sure what my schedule is going to be starting a week tomorrow. But I can tell you what it's NOT going to be. After this coming weekend, no more weekends off for a minimum of two months. Even after that, it'll be EITHER Saturdays OR Sundays off if I'm both good and lucky.
I'm not exactly happy about this, because hello? weekends? when all the fun happens? But this is really a suck-it-up buttercup moment. If I really want to bitch about the schedule, I can remind myself what Walmart wanted me to work: 11:00pm-7:00am, Sunday and Tuesday night off. I would have died of boredom by now.

My top pick for a schedule, the best of a bad lot, is 8:30am-7pm, with Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays off. I'm not sure I'll get that. They're long days, but having three days off a week is worth it.

Two, actually typing for a living might reduce my after-work screen time considerably. I doubt this (most of my world is online), but...we'll see. If I'm not in my usual Facebook and Reddit haunts as often, I hope you understand.

It goes without saying I've shelved my dating plans for a bit--but in truth I'd've done that anyway. I've pretty much exhausted the only dating site worth using (most of them force those interested in ethical non-monogamy to lie before they even start; the rest of them (Tinder) are for a sort of hookup I have considered at length and decided I simply can not do. Poly and picky, that's me. Along with some other p's: poor (penniless, really), padded (paunchy), placid, patient...uh, parched...

(At least there are some things I don't feel I am anymore: pathetic, pathless, pestilent, pitiful...powerless..)

Chat Specialist...let's do this.

As always, thank you to all my friends and loves for your support. It is very much appreciated.