When the swallows return to Capistrano… March 19, 2008

Today is St. Joseph’s day. This is the day that the swallows traditionally return to the San Juan Capistrano mission in Orange County, California. The L.A. stations cover this event (or at least they did when I was growing up there), and only one or two swallows acutally return.

I used to joke that the swallows figured out that the press would be there, so they delay their return a day or two, but send out a recon mission to make the people happy.

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Today is also the 5th anniversary of the start of the “War on Terror”. In those 5 years, over 4,000 troops have been killed and many thousands more have been injured and/or affected some way by their service there.

Thanks, Dubya.

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I’m running around getting stuff done, cleaning things up at the house, getting ready for Easter, etc. Jeff’s birthday is a week from Sunday, and I have no idea what he wants as a gift. I’ll probably just get him a gift card from Barnes and Noble or Hobby Lobby or something.

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I was not very nice to the telemarketer who called me at (get this) 7am this morning. I had only been asleep for a couple of hours after spending most of the night throwing up (I ate something that had gone bad, but didn’t taste or smell like it). So when this foreign sounding man came on the phone and started his speil, I told him rather curtly that it was 7am where I was and that my cell phone number was on the do not call list. He kept going like I hadn’t said anything. Finally, I told him to please shut up for a second and repeated what I had just said. Again he just kept going. I told him that I was hanging up and reporting his company to the FTC. Then he said, “Why? I’m just doing my job.”

“I don’t know where you’re calling from, but it’s too early to be calling anyone in my area code. This number is also on the Do Not Call list. Surely you’ve heard of that?”

“It is 9am here,” he said.

“Where are you calling from?”

“Atlanta, Georgia”

“No you’re not,” I said. “Atlanta is an hour ahead of me, and it’s not 9am there yet.”

-click-

He hung up. He was probably, based on his accent, calling from India, where I can assure you it was NOT 9am.

Outsourcing is why I no longer work in call centers. I can’t find work doing customer service work because most companies are outsourcing to places like Mexico and India.

If I could telecommute part time, I’d go back to work for the call center in Virginia that I worked in for nine years. Their main offices are in Pennsylvania, though. I liked working for them. I wonder if I could telecommute with them…

Hmmmm….

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–