Dance! Dance! and "CSR"

Okay, so I love the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance" or sytycd for short (as if you couldn't tell by the fact that I friended both Benji and Lacey Schwimmer on my MySpace. Benji only had a few thousand friends when I found his page, now he has over 27,000!).

Anyway, so whenever I watch the show, I itch to dance too. I'm not great, but I took some dance classes while at BYU (jazz, modern, ballet, ballroom, etc.) and just LOVED it. At my gym they offer a dance class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I hadn't previously gone because I like exercising in the afternoon, not at 8:30 at night, but after watching the new season of sytycd for the past few weeks, I was itching too much not to.

So last night I went over there. I knew it would be a popular class, so I arrived 10 minutes early. There were already about 6 people there. By the time class started, the room was full (about 40 people). The teacher immediately went into the warmups and I was pretty proud of myself for keeping up. A lot of the warmup was similar to things I did in my jazz classes to warmup, so it wasn't too bad (even though it's been 6 years since I took a class).

Then we went on to learn a routine. It didn't seem like anyone knew it, so I am guessing she does a different one each class, but I won't know for sure till the next class. It's basically a hiphop class, but it's called Dirty Dancing, so a lot of the moves are supposed to be sexy. Our teacher says we have to either look sexy or cool at all times. I'm not sure if I pulled it off, but I tried.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and great exercise. I will have to remember to bring water next time. I was starting to feel faint towards the end. I haven't been doing a lot of cardio lately, mostly just pilates, which is great for building muscle, but doesn'treally work the heart. I think dancing is the perfect exercise for me. The semester before I got married, I was dancing 14 hours a week and had lost 10 pounds (which I quickly gained back because I went from that to not exercising at all). I didn't really even notice that it was exercise because I was enjoying it so much, so it's great to be doing it again. I will definitely go again!

On to the next subject, "CSR". Unfortunately, this is not as exciting as CSI and the C doesn't stand for Crime. No, it stands for Customer Service Representative. After we were acquired, we went into a hiring freeze. Well, two days before it was official, one of our CSRs quit with two days' notice (talk about rude!). So we've been down one CSR since (for over 2 months). Well, then this week, one of the CSRs left for vacation, leaving us one CSR to route all the calls that come into our department. Obviously, that is very tough, so to relieve him, my manager, who is also over the CSRs, asked me and another co-worker to help by filling in for the week a few hours a day. I, of course, agreed despite wanting to say no because I couldn't really say no to my boss, plus I felt bad for the CSR being so overwhelmed.

Well, in the morning, it was my co-worker's turn to help. We had decided to split the 5 hours of coverage in half, so she would take 2.5 hours, and I would take 2.5 hours. Well, she was having issues getting started yesterday, and didn't start actually taking calls till about an hour before she was to finish. Exactly at the end time, she was off the phone. I'm like, "You were only on for about an hour."

She said, "Well, I was in training before that."

"Well, I trained for like 5 hours last week." (She was on vacation which is why she didn't.)

"So?"

So basically I had to work an hour and a half more than her (two and a half including the extra hour I volunteered). I guess I should expect this. She shows up between a half hour and hour late every day and yet always leaves on time, even if she takes an hour and half lunch break. Since her schedule is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. that means there are days where she only works 5.5 hours, and on average only works about 30 to 35 hours a week. What's even more annoying is she's been going around to everyone acting like a martyr basically saying, "Oh, wo is me. I have to be a CSR this week. Oh, but I'll get through, even if just barely. Aren't I so wonderful for helping out." As if. She's only done it for an hour so far! Obviously, she doesn't say those exact words, but you get the idea.

So after she was done, I went on for my shift. For the first few calls, the CSR listened in to make sure I did everything correctly (at my request). Then I started to feel confident enough that I told him I was ready to go alone. The whole afternoon went surprisingly well and even when I could technically stop helping, I continued to help for another hour till it was time for me to go home. There was one call where the guy had lost the CDs to a product we put out years ago, and I was able to help him figure out a way to get the product downloaded. He was SO grateful, which made me feel so good. I am hoping it continues to go well all week.

So that's my life, as a CSR.