Farewell, Comcast

For those of you who don't know- this last week or so has been filled with a lot of trials for our family. I lost my job this past week from Comcast. Right now I don't feel that the details are important to go into on this blog- but if you want to know feel free to ask or call us up. As my Bishop put it about me as an employee there"Bless your heart for being so honest" In no way do I want this experience to leave people feeling like they should stay away from the company- their products are great and I wish I could have them... I was bummed when we couldn't even get them for free while I worked there- c'est la vie!

However, I really wanted to share my experience with you- I apologize if this turns into a "journal entry"- so if you don't want to read anymore- feel free to stop. These past 8 months while I was there was very rough for me. I did a lot of 12 hour days- especially once the snow season flew in without any warning whatsoever! There were a lot of emotional days.

(here is their parking lot...)

I love working with people (hence my psychology degree) but it got to a point where my heart was too big and I let these customers really get to me. They tugged on my heart strings a bit. I had a few supervisors/floor support who told me to lie to some of my customers- I'm proud to say that I never did- but there was a lot of pressure to do so. Then about once or more a day I would get a call asking me to order adult rated movies for them- and that really tore me apart. I'll be honest- there were a few days where I just couldn't bring myself to do it ("I'm sorry sir, it looks like I can't find that movie and you'll have to do something else instead" =) no I really did. I felt like I was stuck in a nightmare.
(not my desk.. but what I was wishing for ;-) just kidding)

For a spiritual sense, I felt like I couldn't feel the spirit for how down I started to get. This didn't happen over night of course- but it really made an impact on how I went about my day and how I felt about myself. I spent a lot of time praying- but I just felt like I was in a rut. Especially after a 12 hour day- I only had 12 hours after that and we're really good about going to bed early enough so we can get 8hours of sleep... so after that it left me 4 hours to get everything else done- so an hour before I left for the day and 3 hours after work to get dinner together and any church thing I had or anything else. I was running on no gas- which i'm sure you've all felt at one time or another.

However, the day that I lost my job- I felt as if everything was lifted from my shoulders. It's a trial and a blessing at the same time. I'm job hunting and I'm trying as hard as I can- but I am so much happier. I love working and working to achieve things, but this job really destroyed me. No matter how hard I tried to rise above everything, I felt like I could never progress. I am stressed out because we're leaving in 13 weeks or so to Arkansas- but we do have a back up plan if everything goes south. I've applied to about 10 places and I've had 2 interviews in the last 3 days. It can only get better, right?

Sorry that I took up a lot of your time and a lot of space here- but I really needed to get this off my chest. I want to thank all of you for being there for us and for keeping us in your prayers- it makes a huge difference and it is appreciated. I figure if mom could rise above all of her trials no matter what the outcome- so can I. I'm just so glad that I've been able to come back to my senses almost. It has been a while since I've felt this good. I know it'll be hard to attract new employers with all of this information- but I know Heavenly Father has a place and plan for me. It's a learning experience and I know that I did everything the best I knew how.

The Gmat is Official

In order to apply for the Masters program here at BYU I had to first take the GMAT - Graduate Management Admissions Test (needed to get into any business graduate program). It is a standardized test similar to a SAT but taken entirely on a computer. The discouraging part is that it is an adaptive test, meaning that it changes as you take it. Basically, everytime you get a question correct, the test gets harder, but each time you get a question wrong it gets easier. About halfway through the test it figures you out and puts you at the level you deserve. That is discouraging because it means by the time you are halfway through the test, you are getting every other question wrong because it figured you out.

Smart computers.

Anywho, the test is made of 4 sections. Two writing sections where you analyze and argument, and then one math and one reading section. Because it is taken on a computer, immediately after finishing the test you receive a score for math and reading, which ends up being the only score BYU cares about. About a week or two later someone grades your written arguments and you receive the official scores.

I have now officially taken the GMAT as of last Saturday. Last night, however I received my official scores. Out of 800 potential points, I have received a 690, which is 60 points above the average accepted into the masters program here at BYU and about 160 points above the nationwide average for the exam. As this screen shot from my score sheet shows, this means I am in the upper 10% of all people who take the exam. To make matters better I receivied a perfect score (6 out of 6) on my written section. Too bad BYU doesn't care about that score...plus 11% of test takers also get the perfect score. Who would have thought I would have done better on the reading and writing part of the test than on the math...



Anyways, so now I go back into the application process and hope that I get accepted into the Master's program. Pray for our family!

Lucky number 579718

Last night Jon had an opening social for ASM (Association for Systems Managemnt). It was held at BYU's Legend's Grill. It's a pretty new "hang out" on campus. There's a lot of famous photos of BYU athletes and not to mention- great food. They served dinner for us and they had some local comedians there as well. We sat with Jon's group members and we had a pretty good time. They also were having a raffle. There were over 200 people there- so it wasn't like we were expecting that we had any shot to win any of the 4 prizes they gave away.

The time came where they were raffling off the last item. We were holding onto our ticket and waiting for disappointment to settle in and to hear screams of excitement across the room. Before we knew it- we were the ones calling out, "WOO!!!!" or something like that :-) We ended up winning dinner for two at Red Robin and they also gave us 2 prepaid movie tickets to a real theater (not the dollar movies where we usually go)!!! Hurray!! here is a picture of our winnings and of course- the free shirt for Jon who's a member of ASM :-)

Summer lovin, have us a blast

After looking into different options and how each will affect what happens to our family this summer, we have decided to officially accept the Corporate Wal-Mart Summer Internship. It is not what I plan on doing or where I plan on working for the rest of my life, but it is a perfect opportunity to gain experience working for a globally successful corporation. That experience will be most beneficial as I apply to the big 4 accounting firms next summer in addition with other more prestigious companies.

Our current summer plans, then, are as follows:
Mid May - Move to Bentonville, Arkansas
May 19 - Begin internship
May 21 - Develop hick accent
May 23 - Celebrate C's birthday
August 8 - Finish internship
August 9ish - Drive to Houston, Texas
August 11 - Hopefully lose hick accent
August 12 - DisneyWorld with the Sansoucie bunch!
August 19 - Return to Houston, party with the Criddles
Late Augustish - Help Leanna drive to Provo to return to college

Sounds like fun! Hope to see y'all there somewhere along the ride!

My beast of a phone... at work that is....

Have you ever wondered what kind of equipment customer service reps use as their phone?? Here is my phone... Behold, THE BEAST! Okay, so Jeff's "beast" is a lot cooler... but you have to admit.. this is one phone you'll never wish to own.

sorry- the picture isn't centered- what do you expect with a cell phone?? Anyways.. don't mind the soda cap on the phone... my supervisor and floor support decided to tape these caps over a button called, "after-call". This button allows you to do work on an account once the call is over or if you need a minute to forget how mean the last person was before you take another call. These "after-call" seconds must be GOLD to the higher ups. They want us only to be in "after-call" for about 10 seconds after each call... or averaging less than 20 seconds for every call for a week (let's face it.. no one ever does less than 10 seconds after a call unless it's super dead). It makes them look better. I'm doing fine with mine- but they put these caps over all the phones on my team. Lucky for us, we share desks with the graveyard shifts and they ripped them off. I hear that my floor support is putting them back on tomorrow- that should be really exciting.

Rich Chocolate

We just wanted to let you all know that we live the high life. We went shopping and saw some chocolates that we greatly desired.


After we picked out 2- we went to the check out and they promptly rang up at $14/piece. Because we're just rolling in the dough we decided to let the cashier know that there may be something wrong with the register- because they obviously were worth more. Right... The chocolates only should have been 30¢ each!!!! They changed the price and we walked out of there feeling rich :-)



Good thing we pay attention as they ring up our groceries.

The tale of our bathroom....

For those of you who know- the light in our bathroom hasn't been working for a few months. Actually, we cannot remember the last time it worked. Our upstairs neighbors (who we love so much :-) ) had a flood a while back and the water from their apartment drained into our bathroom (conveniently over our tub). However, we started to have little trails of water that ran down the walls and then.. the light went out. We tried changing bulbs- and that didn't do us any good. Whenever we turned it on- it would flicker like in horror movie. After a while, the flickering stopped and we had to use the bathroom in the dark. Do you know how hard it is to shower in the dark!? Anyways...

So, we tried to run down our maintenance man for the apartment complex and we left about 3-4 requests to have him take a look at it- and we waited and waited. Then during Jon's INTEX project (I'm sure all you group members remember this) he ran the man down (Lyle) and Lyle came into the house and took a look at it and told us that he couldn't fix it and we'd have to wait until his back got better. So.. the wait continued.. until yesterday.

Jon ran after Lyle while I was at work and they were able to fix the light in the bathroom!!!! The wiring was corroded because of all the water damage. Gross. Then, we found a lovely note on our door later.... Enjoy!! So visitors- you don't have to worry about asking for a lamp when you use our bathroom!!! Hurray!!!


PS: I also wanted to post a picture of a meal we made not too long ago and I thought it was picture worthy... we made mini turkey burgers and sweet potato fries!!! They were soooo good!
If anyone actually wants the recipes I have them :-)