Radio Silence

ETA: Trigger warning: Miscarriage

Or: All the Losses.

But that title feels too much like tempting fate. It's like when I had Cholestasis of Pregnancy, and so many times I wanted to say something like, "I have all the itchy!" except I'd read accounts which had shown it could get much worse.

Yeah, so I can be overly literal. What's your point?


I should probably explain where I've been for the last half a year? I wrote this post, everything not in italics, on March 15, 2014, but couldn't (or wouldn't) publish it yet, for various reasons. And then because we moved, as I mentioned we might in the post; a thousand miles north, and I was swamped. Also other things happened, and I was decompressing.

I thought about publishing a version more edited and updated, but I like the snapshot it creates as is. So I'm going to wait until later to give you more current details. Here, have a piece of a sad update:

Sorry for the long silence here. It's been... interesting. A lot has happened. As is often the case with silence. This year has paralleled 2012 too closely for comfort.

In the ten Christmases since I graduated from college, nine of them since I married, most of those years I've wanted to send out a Christmas letter. I've never done it, for one reason or another.

In the last few years, part of it was working at a liturgical church. Christmas is the Crazy Time. It's not enough that it's such a big holiday, Easter is that, but isn't as bad. It's also the year-end projects, and all the things to finish before going out on vacation.

So surrounded by liturgical symbols and words about Advent being a time of quiet and contemplation, I'd work overtime every day, then collapse at home, too spent and exhausted for thought. This last year, on my last day before vacation I worked almost eleven hours -- which perhaps isn't so very bad, except that it's exactly double my official office hours.

After that I was silent because of vacation. We went to Texas to see friends, and it was wonderful. Truly restful for me, and finally, a bit of that quiet and contemplation I'd heard so much about. Space, at least, to reset and recover. We stayed through the beginning of January.

January. At first there was a lot of adjustment, coming back to work. A new boss, other things. Then I was simply silent because I'd fallen out of the habit of blogging. I almost posted again, but...

The last week in January happened. I suspected, then found out I was pregnant. We didn't know how we'd afford a second child, or how we'd make room in our little house. Somehow, we would make it work. Somehow. I didn't know how I'd make it through work with morning sickness, either. It was already much worse than the early morning sickness with Gracie (codename). Make it work. Somehow.

The next evening Gracie suddenly came down with a high fever. We gave her Tylenol, and Tylenol, and more Tylenol... not all at once, of course... and I woke every couple hours in the night to check on her and make sure her fever didn't shoot up again.

The next day, the last day of January, I stayed home from work to care for her. But later in the day John came home, and I was called in to work, to find out I was laid off and turn in my keys.

The next month came with big decisions. Which direction to go in. An opportunity which seemed like it would have solved all our money problems, but may well have created new sorts of problems. We turned it down. There are still more decisions, and we might move. Also there were family events, more development to the tragedy I can't talk about.

Towards the end of February I went in for my first ultrasound. Only to find out our baby's heart wasn't, isn't beating. A missed miscarriage. It's been about two and a half weeks now, and still my body hasn't realized.

In my next appointment, the follow-up a week later, I thought to ask, and found out that his or her heart must have stopped within a few days of the ultrasound. The machine measured its growth to the very expected day -- 9 weeks, 0 days. So within a few days -- the margin of error.

My mother continues to decline. More than I've let myself see, think about, or admit. I don't think she remembers my name; she certainly doesn't remember my daughter's, but she loves to see her. I should take her to go visit more often, especially now that I'm a stay-at-home mom. Especially before we move, if we do.

All the loss.

But no, I know it could be worse.

What's my point?

I don't know, how can I know yet? I've barely written since that last week in January, and I process through writing. But I'm in a time of waiting now, and I think I'm beginning to come back to myself.

I want to be honest, here at Quettandil. I want to be like The Actual Pastor, and "Living my life as is, instead of as if." Heh. If this update on my life is my poor man's version of a late Christmas letter, it must be the most pathetic one in history. Now, if I were actually like The Actual Pastor, this post would both be deeply honest AND super inspiring. Somehow. I... don't know how to do that, yet.

But here it is. Why I've been silent, and the frame and context for whatever follows. If we move, I may not have much time to post again for a bit.

Time Logs!: A Parade of Five-minute Increments, or: Juggling a Baby at Work

Literally! Er, wait... no. Especially since juggling generally involves more objects than hands, and with only one baby, that'd mean no hands. Levitating baby! Or... trying to catch her with my feet?

Remember how I said in "Planning for Success at Work" that I was logging my time, and I was going to share it publicly? Well, I finally am. The first day, anyway. I entered it into Toggl, to make it faster to add up the various categories, and I'm all set now... for one day of the seven.

I apologize in advance for the length of this day's log. Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 was a parade of five-minute increments. And that makes the log longer. Such days are hard on me, but I feel like I handled it pretty well. It got easier after work.

It makes the post about four times longer than it should be, but I really can't think of a good way to break this one up.

Plus I keep explaining. Um. Obsessively detailed? Me? Nah...

You should know, if you are curious about doing a time log yourself, that there's no need to be as detailed as I am here. I'm detailed because I like being detailed, because pushing myself to be more generalized feels harder to me than the reverse. I figure I can always go back and summarize more, but if I end up wanting to split two categories later that I originally tracked in one chunk of time, I can't do that. Besides, it makes sense to ignore the occasional five-minute interruptions to a nice big block of productive work, but when your day consists almost entirely of interruptions, at some point you just need to track the interruptions! I think most people do these logs in fifteen- or thirty-minute increments, not five-minute. Do it however works for you.

To understand my log, I should give a little background. I work at a church; I'm the Office Manager, though I like to joke that I'm the Office Manager/Receptionist/Secretary/Assistant/Preschool Liaison. It's a small church... by Southern California standards, anyway. I'm the only non-preschool staff member in the office every day, Monday through Friday.

Also, I take my baby to work. As I said over at the Laura Vanderkam post on planning, this is kind of the best and worst of both worlds. Obviously it saves a lot of money, it's a huge benefit. And wonderful as breaks from her can be, she's incredibly cute.

Apparently I didn't take any pictures of her on May 1st. So here, have a picture from April 30th.

But I was already calling it a "full-time job with part-time hours" before I started bringing a baby, and... wow.

FYI, my official office hours are 9-2:30. On this day, 5-1-13, I clocked in at 9:05 and out at 3:50. But I counted it as a normal day -- I'm officially salaried, but only really because no one wants to keep track of my hours; I'm not expected to work extra hours. So I try to make boundaries for myself, and if I stay too late at work, even with my baby, I'll count it as extra and work less another day. But today I didn't do that, and when I examine how much time I spent on the baby, it's just as well. Can't afford to track my time this closely every day, so I've been operating off the assumption that I spend around two hours on my baby at work, as I did a few other days when I kept a time log. I also assume that if I didn't take her to work I'd be spending at least half an hour on break pumping, so normally, if I go over an hour and a half past my "official" hours, that's when I start counting it as extra.

But enough preamble: here's the data! I started the log at 5:00 a.m. and went through to when I got up the next day, at 5:15 a.m.

Wednesday, 5-1-13

5:00-7:15 Bed

7:15-7:25 Nursed

7:25-7:35 Changed Gracie's (codename) diaper, gave her vitamin D drops

7:35-7:40 Started breakfast cooking

7:40-7:50 Ate breakfast

7:50-8:00 Drank tea and planned the day a little more

8:00-8:05 Dishes in the dishwasher

8:05-8:10 Saw email on phone, switched to computer to follow link and check message from Gracie’s doctor. Also checked comments on a Laura Vanderkam post and replied. Counted as Email and other internet stuff.

8:10-8:15 Dressed

8:15-8:20 Packed up, lunch and diaper bag ready to go. Counted as Transitions to and from car.

8:20-8:30 Gave Gracie Zantac, changed her diaper and clothes, quick hair brush

8:30-8:35 Buckled Gracie up into her carseat, out the door

8:35-9:00 Drove, check-in (an emotional and mental exercise from Laurel Mellin's "Emotional Brain Training")

9:00-9:05 Car to office

9:05-9:15 Turned on computer and copier, mail out of box, unlocked doors, broke down pack 'n play for Bible Study in that room. Took a call and wrote down a message, put my stuff away, opened my programs, pulled this document onto work computer via Dropbox. Counted as Work: Start-up.

9:15-9:35 Nursed at my desk with a cover, but didn’t get any work done – had to concentrate on holding her, she was being difficult. Supported her standing and sitting in my lap, to burp. But here on out I won’t mention the burping, it all just counts as nursing to me, anyway.

9:35-9:40 Changed her diaper

9:40-9:45 Continued with opening programs, went down my starting-up checklist in Nirvana. Work: Start-up.

9:50-9:55 Talked with a couple people, took down notes. Counted as Work: Funerals, it was mostly about that.

9:55-10:05 Took down messages from answering machine. Work: Messages.

10:05-10:10 Held Gracie, trying to get her to sleep

10:10-10:20 Took a call, took down notes. Related to the bulletin. Talked with someone about a bulletin announcement, while holding Gracie. All of it counted as Work: Bulletin.

10:20-10:30 Held Gracie some more

10:30-10:40 Gave boss messages, asked questions, took notes. Counted as Work: Messages.

10:40-10:45 Read through notes, added a couple little things, decided on next task. Work: Notes.

10:45-11:15 Started work on the bulletin draft

11:15-11:20 Talked with someone about funeral program, made a couple changes

11:20-11:30 Nursed at my desk, with a cover

11:30-11:35 Moved our stuff back into the other room, put the pack 'n play back up. Counted as Work: Baby logistics. (Would count as "Other baby care," but want to keep that for actual one-on-one baby interaction, as that's how I've been using it... that used to be all of the "Other baby care" there was.)

11:35-11:40 Changed her diaper, played a little

11:45-11:50 Took lunch to kitchen to start in microwave, on the way talked to a teacher, gave her a message. To mailbox, picked up mail. Counted as Meals.

11:50-11:55 Took down notes about the message, counted as… Work: Messages.

11:55-12:00 Took down another message from the answering machine

12:00-12:05 To kitchen, picked up lunch, gave couple messages to people, put devotionals in the hall by the kitchen. Still counted as Meals.

12:05-12:25 Held Gracie, got her to sleep, put her down. She woke up and cried, picked her up again. John called, talked with him, put down a doctor’s appointment for Gracie on the calendar on my phone. Got her to sleep, put her down. Counted as Other baby care.

12:25-12:30 Took down more notes

12:30-12:45 Meeting with boss

12:45-12:55 Took down notes

12:55-1:00 Changed Gracie’s diaper

1:00-1:15 Worked on the bulletin draft

1:15-1:30 Nursed, a little Google Reader on phone meanwhile. Just counted as Nursing.

1:30-1:35 Changed her diaper

1:35-2:25 Worked on the bulletin draft

2:25-2:35 Played with Gracie, quick texting with John. Other baby care.

2:35-2:40 Held Gracie at my desk, read through notes to be sure I didn’t forget anything for the bulletin. Work: Bulletin.

2:40-2:45 Held Gracie, briefly attempted to get her to sleep

2:45-2:50 Added an event to the Google and wall calendars

2:50-2:55 Miscellany – distributed paychecks/stubs, took notes, took a call, took notes

2:55-3:05 Reviewed day’s notes and papers in preparation to leave, talked with someone who came in. Counted as Work: Notes.

3:05-3:20 Talked with someone about new computer accounts, passwords. Word crashed, so closed all my Word documents, reopened, finished taking notes about it. Still counted as Work: Notes.

3:20-3:30 Nursed

3:30-3:35 Called someone about an iPhone left at the church. Counted as Work: Calls.

3:35-3:40 Changed Gracie’s diaper

3:40-3:50 Packed up some of my stuff, signed out as leaving at 3:50, but counting as a normal day. Closed programs, uploaded this file back to my Dropbox, shut down computer. Counted as Work: Shutting down.

3:50-3:55 Office to car

3:55-4:20 Drove home, check-in

4:20-4:25 Car to house

4:25-4:35 Checked ingredients to buy for dinner, texted with John about it. Counted as Chores.

4:35-4:40 Changed diaper, packed back up. Counted as Other baby care.

4:40-4:45 Out to car

4:45-4:50 Drove with Beth and Gracie to Sam's

4:50-5:20 Grocery shopped. Counted as Errands.

5:20-5:30 Drove home

5:30-5:35 Groceries away. Counted as Chores.

5:35-5:50 Nursed

5:50-5:55 Changed to go run. Counted as Personal care, for lack of a better category.

5:55-6:20 Jogged and walked with Beth, 1.54 miles in 23:39

6:30-6:50 Pumped, while reading Google Reader on phone; mixed her cereal, put milk away. Counted as Pumping.

6:50-6:55 Checked email on computer

6:55-7:45 Ate dinner while watching Defiance with John. Counted as TV.

7:45-7:55 Fed Gracie cereal. Other baby care.

7:55-8:10 Nursed, a little play. Counted as Nursing.

8:10-8:30 Changed her diaper, played, changed her to PJs, gave her Zantac

8:30-8:35 Read If You Take a Mouse to School and Blue Hat, Green Hat to Gracie

8:35-9:00 Rocked her to sleep, put her down, held her again, put her down to bed

9:00-9:10 A little kitchen cleanup. Counted as Chores.

9:10-10:25 Wrote at 750words.com, worked on replies to a Facebook message and an email. But then actually worked on the editing too, and sent them. Counted all of it as Writing.

10:25-10:35 Read back over these notes, clarified and fixed a couple things. Counted as Time log.

10:35-10:40 Bit of puttering

10:40-11:00 Personal care, showered and got ready for bed, check-in

11:05-11:20 Bed

11:20-11:30 Nursed

11:30-2:05 Bed

2:05-2:10 Nursed

2:10-5:15 Bed

So, here are the category totals, divided into personal and work groups, and then ordered within those groups from most time to least (but with sub-categories listed with their parents), and then alphabetically for ties.

Sleep (or time in bed, anyway): 8h10m (Though because of the weird way I chopped up the days, that includes a little time asleep the night before, as well as the night between Wednesday and Thursday.)
Other baby care: 2h40m
Sub-category, Other baby care at work: 1h15m
Sub-category, Reading to Gracie: 5m
Nursing: 1h50m
Sub-category, Nursing at work: 55m
Writing: 1h15m
Driving: 1h5m
TV: 50m
Chores: 30m
Errands: 30m
Personal care: 30m
Transitions to and from car: 30m
Exercise: 25m
Unaccounted for: 25m
Meals: 20m
Pumping: 20m
Email and other internet stuff: 10m
Planning: 10m
Time log: 10m
Cooking: 5m
Puttering: 5m

Work: Bulletin: 1h50m
Work: Notes: 45m
Work: Messages: 30m
Work: Meetings: 15m
Work: Start-up: 15m
Work: Funerals: 10m
Work: Shutting down: 10m
Work: Baby logistics: 5m
Work: Calendar: 5m
Work: Calls: 5m
Work: Miscellany: 5m

So, some things. Let's combine Nursing, Other baby care, Pumping, and Work: Baby logistics for all the time on her: 4h55m. Yeah, she's almost as much time as my official job, still. Not surprising.

Let's add up all the work ones. Except for the "Baby logistics" one. That is... 4h10m. Counting as a normal day, which is supposed to be 5h30m. Was at work 9:05-3:50, for 6h45m. The baby stuff at work was... 2h15m. Work and baby stuff at work combines to 6h25m together, leaving 20m. Which I'm guessing went to Meals, let's check... Well, 10m of it was. What about the other 10m? Ah, the Unaccounted for category. Well, there you have it. If I add that in with the time I worked, that's 4h30m, so just one hour under a non-baby day. Sigh. I wish it were better, but it is what it is. Well, no. Half an hour under a non-baby day, since one has to account for the pumping break. If I'd worked an extra 15m, to reach the latest point I was letting myself stay, and then another 15m because she took 15m more than she used to, I would've reached it. But meh.

If you count Chores, Cooking, and Errands all together, which they are sort of all chores, that's 1h5m. Not too bad, I suppose. (I have a tendency to avoid chores, especially when I'm tired or stressed. More than most women, I think. Sorry, John.)

A good chunk of time on Work: Notes, but that's kind of necessary with so many interruptions and conversations. Of course, there was even more time on my notes that I counted in other categories, like counting note-taking about the bulletin in Work: Bulletin, but... still. Not to mention Word crashed, and that was included.

Have you started logging your time yet? What did you find? Surprises, things you want to spend less time doing, things you're happy with?

Planning for Success at Work

There's a book I think you should read, What the Most Successful People Do at Work: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Career by Laura Vanderkam. It's the third in this series by her, and I recommend the other two as well: What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life and What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off.

It's the third one, though, that came out recently, and that she's blogging about right now (yes, I also recommend her blog). And, most salient to me at the moment, she talked about and quoted me, as we've been emailing back and forth about a time makeover she was doing for me. You can go read about the importance of planning, here.

I'm not reviewing these books right now, that isn't the goal of this particular post; but I have to say, one of the things I love about them (and, again, her blog) is that they're very much based on real data. Here's what people actually do. Here's what actually seems to work. Here's how what people think they spend their time doing differs from what they actually do, as they discover when they keep time logs.

I'm logging my time again, third time I've done it now. I've decided I'd like to share this one publicly, but I'm not exactly live blogging it (it's not up yet, that link is to an example of a public time log, on Laura Vanderkam's site) -- I'd like to wait until I've added up totals before I write about each day, and that takes a little bit more time. [6/3/13 Edit: First day is up now, here.] (Though I recently discovered toggl, thanks to some blog comments, so I'm hoping it'll be faster now... just need to input the data, since I found the app after the fact.) But soon, I hope, I'll post the first day up here, my Wednesday of last week.

I don't want to bore you with details of my life just to hear myself talk, despite my blog's header. I'm hoping there are some things in my logs that could start some interesting conversations related to your lives, as much or as little as you'd like to share. I'm hoping that at the least sharing my logs can inspire you to track your time for a bit, too.

What do you think, want to join me in her challenges?

Back to Work

The Monday the week before Christmas was my first day back at work from maternity leave. This is part of why I broke my brief streak of posting more often, been a bit overwhelmed. I'm an Office Manager/Secretary/Receptionist/Assistant/Preschool Liaison at a church.

When most people think of what church secretaries do, I think they mostly think of the very physical, very obvious things (if they think about it at all): she makes the bulletins maybe, perhaps handles a church newsletter. Obviously she answers the phone. If they ever do anything in the office, they might notice she keeps supplies like printer paper stocked. Well, probably they won't, unless she doesn't once, but you get the idea.

In reality, I think of my work in two categories: physical stuff like the above, and "knowledge work." The way Wikipedia defines knowledge worker, I ought to have a more prestigious, creative job than I do, but I think a case can be made to include my job.

The way I see it, most of my work is knowledge work. Especially because even the physical work involves knowledge work -- not just training how to do it in the first place, which would indeed be a rather inclusive definition, but to put my particular church's bulletin together, you have to gather many kinds of information. You need to have a calendar you keep updated, you need to gather announcements from people, you need a current list of flower and candle memorials, and the readings for the week, and so on and so forth.

Communication is a big sub-set of the knowledge work category. Lots of emails. To answer the phone, yes I have to be physically present, but I also have to do the knowledge work to have answers to the questions I'll be asked, and I have to act on the information and requests I'll be given in each phone call. There are LOTS of messages to pass on, and it's rarely simple -- generally a whole chain of messages, of reporting back and forth.

All that information has to be organized. Every little request can't always be acted on right away, and the tasks to do later need to be kept track of.

That's just the tip of the knowledge work iceberg. Like I said, most of my work is knowledge work.

Coming back to work is always... interesting, even after a short vacation. "Catching up" doesn't just mean things like mailing the newsletter that should have gone out last week or even replying to emails. It means finding out what's in those emails, reading all the emails my sub sent out in my place. Finding out what people have requested that no one's responded to yet. Reminding people to turn things in that I need to complete a past-due project. It means people asking questions about events I didn't know existed until they asked about them, and then making the necessary follow-up inquiries.

This wasn't a normal vacation. I was gone for about two months. During that time, my boss retired, and one of the two linked congregations involved in our church left, for a new church plant of sorts.

It was busy. Crazy busy. And I didn't really have a chance to train my subs before I left, though I did manage to write up some instructions.

Oh, and this was the week before Christmas. Christmas is also Always Crazy. Even without maternity leave, there are so many extra things that need to be done at this time of year.

And that bit about my boss retiring? Well, as this is a church, "my boss" means the main priest, the Rector. As such, there's no immediate replacement. An Interim Priest started in January, but generally speaking, the old Rector's duties have been divvied up among a number of people.

You know how people have different work styles, and everyone brings different strengths to the same job? Well, that means no one fulfills those duties in exactly the same way as he did. At least not the more complicated ones. And the differences? Somehow, it feels like they always translate to more work for me. Sigh. At the very least, it means there's more adjustments I have to make in an already stressful time.

So that Monday coming back to work, I told a friend that I'd never been more baffled about where to begin than at that moment. And all of the above is why her response cracked me up: "I imagine so! Not like anything changed while you were gone. OH WAIT."

Because awesome friends are awesome.

This is what greeted me when I came in to work on Monday:

Click to embiggen. Of course.

Note the fine print at the bottom.

The Klingon house plant is my favorite. It's on a shelf above my desk, not at eye level, so I didn't notice it at first. I was also pretty slow to notice Marcy-chan, and slowest of all to catch that it's best to stay face up.

Thanks, Rachel! As I said, because awesome friends are awesome.

Anyone else with fun stories, things friends have done to make your work environment just a little cheerier? Though I'm guessing no one else would put a "Mongoose of efficiency" post-it at your computer...

I get a Day!

Yup. It's silly, but I like this card. "'Cause I don't wanna do that stuff." "No way!"

Funny Admin Assistants Day Ecards | Rubber Chicken Cards | Admin Assistant's Day - "Flashback Boys"

"These are a few of my least favorite things..."

Wait, that's not how it goes.

Shh, don't tell anyone, but I sort of cordially loathe passing on messages. (Though I'll adamantly deny it to your face, if you have a message for my passage. Maybe that's why people keep... oops.) Perhaps I shouldn't be a secretary. But it's not as big a part of my job description as one might think. Most of the time. >_>

It could be a lot worse. After I thought about posting this I dreamed I was asked to pass on a message that Mom had died. So, um, yeah. Worse.

At first I thought I dreamed Mom died. True, but "that's not all, oh no, that's not all." No, I was asked over the phone to tell someone else, and that was how I found out. That seems significant.

Though what it signifies beyond "Oh, crap, sucky nightmare," I'm not sure.

Sometimes the subconscious is a little too good at combining inputs and creating storylines. If you ask me.

Anxiety and Peace, Exhaustion and Rest

This is not the blog post I expected to write. It started out, in my thoughts, in a tired and slightly exasperated place. Not angry, but definitely tired. A little ironic.

But I'm happy now (not that there wasn't any happiness before, there was), and a comparison at the end (which was there almost from the start) took its full natural progression (the major late addition being the penultimate paragraph, and the first sentence of the last), so now it is what it is. Yay.

I have a feeling I accomplished two or three full days' worth of work today, in the space of eight hours.

I don't have full-time hours at my job. I'm only supposed to work four and a half hours a day.

Oops.

I guess I'll work less when I get back, or something.

Hooray for vacation!

Speaking not of which, I'm tired. Or I was, when I was thinking of writing this. I've had a nap since.

You know that slightly panicked feeling? The one that comes when you know you really need to leave, if you don't leave soon you'll be working overtime and we Can't Have That, but you have to be sure to do X first, and oh, don't forget that other thing! And oh, was there something else? YES! There was! And it was vital!

You know, that feeling? Turns out it's oddly similar to the feeling you get when you're running at Seal Beach for Cross Country practice, doing laps from the pier to the jetty and back, and then from the pier to the other jetty and back, and then back to the first jetty and back... and everyone else on the team has finished the whole run, but you just made it back to the pier where they're waiting, and you have to turn around one more time and do the entire last pier-to-jetty-and-back stretch while they stand there and stretch and chat.

I'm glad I experienced that, and remembered it today. Because it wasn't as bad today as that was. Why, I didn't even hyperventilate! Not even a little bit!

Plus, it makes me associate the feeling with running, and I like running. I can't just think of anxiety when I think of running. It makes me think of peace and just-what-I-needed wandering thoughts and decompression and emotional processing and joy and rest and strength and healthy effort and healthy exhaustion and favorite places where I've run and the journeys we all must take and the natural order of things.

Thank You, God, for running, and beaches, and all other blessed Cross Country courses, and my own unofficial haunts near my apartment. For vacation. And for my job. And for music, for Marian Call and Kate Rusby and mog.com. Thank You for life.

In which the pieces of my to do list happily attempt suicide

Ha, project-I-was-dreading! I have COMPLETED you!!! Take that!

Now, which of you little buggers wants to go next, huh? Huh? ::hides from the millions of tasks that raise their hands, clamoring for attention::

::peeks out:: Uh-uh. Only the ones that absolutely HAVE to be done before Thanksgiving need apply. That's better. Run away, you others! Because, uh... later, I'm coming for you!

Which you apparently don't mind. Darn it. I wanted to get revenge on you for existing.

The Points System, or How to Avoid Stealing the Souls of Innocent Retail Clerks Everywhere

Because stealing souls might SOUND fun, but it's EVIL. And you'll lose points. You don't want to lose points. The innocent customer next in line doesn't want you to lose points, either.

This post is brought to you because I haven't been posting enough lately, and I especially haven't been posting non-depressing material enough lately. Yes, complaining about customers I don't have to deal with anymore is my idea of fun. No really, it is. The following was SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. [Yeah, I'm using a lot of caps lock. I blame Maureen Johnson. She does it (erm, on twitter, anyway), and she's funny. It's possible that I've read too many of her tweets recently, and she's rubbing off on me. You should follow her, too.]

This post is also brought to you because I feel like I keep hearing complaints about how customer service is getting worse and worse. This might be quite true, but there's another side of the coin that's very important to be aware of. Namely, customers are also getting worse and worse. Either that, or they have always been horrible. For proof, see the hilarious blog Not Always Right. (Caution: Best to consume in small doses.)

Please, don't be one of these horrible customers and then complain that customer service is getting worse and worse. And even if you're the most saintly of customers... be aware that everyone has a snapping point. Even when they're enormously grateful that they have a job. Even when they like helping people. Unfortunately for you, the person not helping you may have just reached that snapping point five minutes ago (or maybe last year...).

Last but not least, this post is brought to you because of Query Quagmire and Slushpile Hell. These are blogs from the publishing world, from a literary agent and an editor. They are about query FAILS. Epic fails. So bad. In some respects "Not Always Right" is their natural equivalent in the customer service world, but after working at a used bookstore and rejecting countless boxes of books brought in by hopeful sellers, I... feel a special camaraderie with these lovely anonymous human beings. So when I read last week's "Query Quagmire" post The Points System, or "What not to do in a query letter... ever" I was inspired. This post is roughly modeled after that one. Just... with more opening paragraphs of explanation, because this blog is not devoted to griping about customers.

(Getting published is a dream come true to a lot more people than selling used books is, so you'd think people would be less passionate about this. You'd think. Perhaps people aren't scouring teh Interwebs asking, "Why can't I sell my books at a bricks-and-mortar used bookstore? Oh, for the love of all that is good, why? Why will no one take them?!" Regardless, this was fun to write, and hopefully fun to read. Even if you would never do anything as awful as the things I will describe, I hope you can extrapolate some lessons for good customership. Yes, customership. It's a perfectly good word... now that I invented it.)

Here's how the points system works:

When you walk in the door, you start with some points. The amount you start with isn't important right now, what matters is how many points you lose from the moment you walk in the door to the moment... well, either the moment the employee decides which of your books to buy and how much money to give you for those books, or... any other Customer Interaction Moment.

I would now tell you, as "Query Quagmire" did, that "You can only lose points," but that's not completely true. I would allow you to gain points, but the ways you can do that are few and far between and vary widely from person to person. I refuse to tell you what they are. They're not important.

But wait: "Points?" you ask. "How can working retail be like reading a query letter? Aren't you selling things, not buying? Oh sure, so in your case you bought used books too, but even then, don't the books speak for themselves? And isn't the customer always right?"

There are three answers to those questions. Answer number one: See Not Always Right.

Answer number two: No, as I've already mentioned, used bookstore employees also buy books from customers (and/or from the homeless). It's true that there are certain objective measures that are used -- for example, a copy of Twilight would have to be in pretty bad condition not to buy it -- but it's also a rather subjective process. The rule of thumb is not to buy books if you're not completely sure they'll sell (and sell quickly), but... like I said, it's subjective. An employee might lean on the generous side or the harsh side, depending on how many points you've lost so far.

There's also the matter of money. Yes, there's an objective formula to follow: You get a set percentage of each book's store resale price. (As with everything else in this post, this may vary widely from used bookstore to used bookstore, but most of the principles behind it remain the same.) But... the buyer may not be the one who sets those prices. The buyer may estimate. If he's worked at the store very long, his estimates will be pretty good, but if you've lost a lot of points already, guess what? He's going to go with his lower estimates. Just for you. Because he loves you so much.

And the third answer? So you're not selling any books to the store, you're buying, and the employees have to be nice to you, right? No matter how much of a jerk you are? Meh. To some extent. With some employees, you can go pretty far and they'll still be nice to you. But everyone has a snapping point. It's only human. After enough customers in a row have lost a sufficient number of points, it's quite possible that the employee will lose their soul. And people without souls tend not to be as gracious in customer interactions. Just sayin'.

[Please note that none of the point losses listed below have anything to do with the actual quality of the books in question. That's a whole 'nother list. And even though these points, when lost in sufficient quantities to go negative and create black holes, can have repercussions for any Customer Interaction Moment, I limited myself to the Point Loss Methods you might fall prey to when selling your books to a secondhand store. That's my area of expertise. There are more ways to lose points in customer service (again, see Not Always Right), but I thought I'd start small, and with the list more similar to Query Quagmire's.]

So with no further ado, you can lose points in the following ways:

• By telling me, "They're in really good condition" (For whatever reason, there's an inverse relationship between the number of times that phrase is used and the actual condition of the books.)
• By calling the store for directions, proceeding not to follow them, and then blaming me for the results
• By refusing to carry the books into the store yourself
• By complaining about the parking in a tone that implies I should Do Something about it (News flash: I can't)
• By demanding I look at your books right away, even if paying customers have to wait
• By calling yourself a "really good customer" when you've never bought a book from the store once
• By ever referring to one of my coworkers with the words, "But he said..."
• By complaining about how long it's taking me to check your books
• By rearranging my piles of rejected and accepted books, even if you're trying to be helpful 
• By asking the reason for each rejection, and exclaiming "Oh, but it's so good! You won't have any trouble selling that one. It changed my life! I would totally keep it if I weren't moving/didn't need the money/weren't selling off my dead grandmother's estate (okay, so I haven't read her books, I don't even know how to read, but I'm sure it's Very Good, that's the only kind she had)."
• By arguing that I HAVE to buy your book back, and my reasons against it Do Not Apply, because you bought it here
• By telling me what will sell
• By giving me the life story of every single book I pull out of your box (Ever heard the expression, "Don't judge a book by its cover"? I believe it became a common saying because customers Do. So unless you plan on sticking around and recommending your former books to everyone who walks in the door until they finally sell...)
• By bringing me books to sell only after browsing the shelves for a while
• By trying to sell a bunch of titles that recently went missing
• By trying to sell a bunch of books I rejected earlier that day, that the last hopeful dumped in the trash can or on the sidewalk outside our store
• By ever dumping the rejects in the trash can or on the sidewalk outside our store
• By asking if I can throw away the rejects for you
• By offering to "throw in" the rejects for only a dollar, when HELLO, I WOULDN'T TAKE THIS CRAP FOR FREE
• By calling my coworker an f--ing __ (Assume I like my coworkers. Some of them are my good friends. You're better off assuming they all are.)
• By hitting on me as crudely as possible
• By insulting the store
• By disparaging children's books, or fantasy, or Tolkien
• By explaining to me who Tolkien was after I've already told you he's my favorite author
• By asking my name and using it every five seconds (Hint: Over-friendliness is really, really annoying)
• By telling me a sob story about why you have to get rid of all two of your bookshelves
• By asking, "Are we having fun yet?" while I check which of your books are already in stock (Hint: If I wasn't, that question ain't gonna help)
• By bringing a box of books straight from your garage, containing spiders and mouse droppings
• By not apologizing when you see me flinch from the spider in the box you brought me

There are doubtless many more, and I could wait a few days to post this, to try to remember them all... but I won't. More posting! Less waiting! Huzzah!

It should be noted that losing points here and there doesn't necessarily mean I'll reject any more books than I would have otherwise, or give you any less money. It's not going to help you, though.

Also of import: This is my points system. Other clerks might have slightly different things that peeve or enrage them. Good luck!

It Rained Tonight, Hallelujah!

This weekend was very stressful in a couple ways. Saturday I found out I'll be losing my job at the end of the month. I've known it'd happen at some point, but it's still not the easiest thing ever. Good news for the bookstore lovers, though - it's not closing, at least not yet - just reducing store hours and cutting all payroll. So you can still shop there. Please do, in fact, or it might well go out of business despite the belt tightening.

Then the other stressful thing happened yesterday - my car broke down. Not real near my house, either. Well, not super far. But still, why is it that my alternator issues always make themselves known on the long car trips?  Okay, so this time there were a couple signs earlier that could have warned me if I'd been paying attention. Still, it's annoying. Just once, I'd like my battery to die a block from my house. Or a block from Fred's Automotive. Ah, well. No car troubles at all would be preferable, while I'm wishing… 

So now the two cars I've owned in my life have both broken alternators. With very different symptoms, though. I prefer the newer car symptoms. The old Volkswagen needed the car to start before the gas guage would go up and show you how much gas you had, so when the alternator broke I thought I'd run out of gas, much to the inconvenience of some people who tried to help me rectify the problem. Gaah.

Anyway, this time my car was obviously having problems by the time I made it to the wedding (my destination), so I asked my dad to take a look at it before I left, and after charging up my battery he followed me home, then helped me get it towed when it died and gave me a ride. So it could have been much worse.

But at any rate, I didn't mean to talk so much about the stresses. I almost just mentioned that they existed and moved on to the point of the post (But then I had to explain. It's What I Do.), which was the bright spots in the midst of this weekend. Chief among these would be my cousin Keith's wedding. His new wife, Lindsay, is so cute!  Such an expressive face. And I got to sit next to Dr. John Mark Reynolds at the reception, which was another bright spot. And it turns out that a dying car can lead to more Quality Time with your little sister, so that was good. It lead to a couple noteworthy quotes, even. Well, the first one happened at the wedding reception. Something like (feel free to correct this, Melanie): “I just accidentally said, 'I think I was the Holy Spirit.'” Then there's the one I said in the car later (yes, I'm self-quoting - it amused me and I want to share it and I'm willing to admit those facts!), which I'm having more trouble remembering exactly, although I remember the concept. Something like, “Very important, you do NOT want to see an un-pedded xing, believe me. Those xings really like to be pedded.”

At first those were the only bright spots I was going to mention, but then it RAINED!  Even though the hills have grown yellow already!  And that might be the best of all (no offense, Melanie), although… no, remembering Lindsay's face, I guess not. And my bread's out of the breadmaker and tastes so lovely, and I made waffles Friday night and the almond milk substitution worked great so I could eat them without upsetting my allergies, and there are still strawberries in the fridge. Life is good.

Anger and People Reading Skills

When I get annoyed, angry, or irritated with customers at work I normally put on a blank face and give pretty short answers to questions. Sometimes I wonder how transparent that is. I mean, I'm polite, but there are only so many ways people hide anger, and it seems pretty obvious to me. At best it should be interpreted as unfriendly. On the other hand, most of the customers who make me angry aren't all that bright, people-wise. Sometimes I think I could start yelling and swearing and I'd only get a, "Huh? Are you mad or something?" Or, more likely, since this does seem to happen occasionally with the blank-faced treatment, they'd just find it amusing for some reason. "Aww, look at the cute little retail worker, she doesn't like us." Either way, I wonder what the odds of detection are. And how far do the odds drop when the customer in question is drunk?

Yes, working retail has made me more cynical. Maybe it's a good thing -- I was pretty idealistic before, this has just injected a dash of realism. That could be good. Maybe.

Musings on a Kind of Creativity, Staff Picks, Standard Manuscript Format, and Author Hero Worship

Normally we use the word "creative" to mean original, innovative, that sort of thing. By that definition I am not creative when it comes to cooking. I'm good at baking because I am good at following instructions. Occasionally I'll make very specific adjustments to a recipe for very specific reasons. Unless they are easy to remember in the extreme, I will write down these adjustments for future reference. Besides things like hot dogs or spaghetti, I do not make cooking decisions based on what I have on hand. I plan to cook something, figure out what I need, and go buy it as soon as I can based on the new grocery budget I'm trying and our priorities (milk will always win out over some random thing for a new recipe). So no, I don't consider myself very creative in the kitchen.

But recently as I've perfected (according to my husband, woo!) my pizza recipe and cooked it repeatedly (mmm, cheesy goodness...), I've been thinking. In a different sense of the word "creative," cooking, well, almost always is. Provided it involves "real" food, anyway. Because cooking is about creating something, about taking diverse, often rather inedible ingredients, and bringing them together. Food-wise, it is creating order, harmony, goodness. Despite itself, it sometimes feels like it fulfills my creative urge. Especially when forming pizza crust dough from my breadmaker into a round flat disc. It'd be even better (in that respect) if I didn't use the breadmaker, I suppose, but I'll take what I can get. It's not creating anything permanent, but it's still a kind of creation. And I've always enjoyed the eating more than the cooking, so I don't mind the impermanence all that much. If it were a novel I would, but no. It is food. I will eat it. Mmmm.

In other news, remember how I wanted the books on my table of picks at work to move? And how I never updated you guys on the changes in that situation? Well, there is much good news that has stored up, what with the lack of updating and all. First off, my table was promoted! Quite a while ago now. That is, it was moved up to the ground floor from the basement. Everything on the ground floor does better than anything in the basement. This promotion was a Good Thing. And so second off, as far as I've been able to track sales (going by the sales in the computer; thus counting anything I've bought myself but not counting anything which mysteriously disappeared; whether stolen, or misplaced, or simply not scanned out when sold), a grand whopping total of 285 items has now sold off my table. This seems decent, even over the given time period, which is kind of fuzzy through a lack of adequate records on my part. Not sure when the "promotion" occured, but I last blogged about it in Feb. '08... yeah, it seems decent. And about as good as the average display table in our store. Once again being a nerd, I have the totals by author in my Palm. Not the totals by title, I'd have to be at work for that. The winner is C.S. Lewis, with 26 titles sold. He has an unfair advantage, since I put more of his books on my table to begin with, but hey, the complete Chronicles of Narnia only sold once. As far as I remember. Hmm. Second place goes to Jane Austen, with 22. I believe those are almost entirely Pride and Prejudice. Third goes to Emily Bronte with 14, I think all Wuthering Heights (What else would it be? I think I'd have noticed), fourth Orson Scott Card with 12 (Ender's Game) and fifth is a three-way tie between Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots and Leaves), Tolkien (assorted wonderfulness), and George MacDonald (also assorted, but I think mostly The Light Princess and The Wise Woman and Other Stories?) with 11 each. Some authors also have an unfair advantage with larger amounts (or any at all) of used books in our inventory, or a higher priority in our reorder list, for reasons of being wanted by people besides those who browse my table. I still find sales statistics interesting, no matter how they are skewed... Plus I love my table, and love the concept of people taking the lovely books home with them. Yes, "love" is the word of the sentence.

And in yet other news, I think I may be done changing my first draft of The Miller's Granddaughter into the second draft. There are still new scenes to add, I haven't finished going through it as far as that's concerned, but there's one particular scene that is going to change things drastically enough that I might as well just make it a new draft. I'd have to change things I've already changed once, and it seems simpler, organizationally speaking (if I'm going to have a copy saved of each draft so I have a record of all the changes). So yay. Kind of. Haven't finished adding all the handwritten edits into the electronic copy, but close.

I'm also working on standard manuscript format (SMF for the rest of this post). I need to do more research, since my first cursory bit of research yielded instructions for the romance genre (don't think it's very different, but still) and my second cursory bit yielded instructions for short stories (and thus doesn't talk about helpful things like chapter breaks or epigraphs), but it shouldn't be hard. I'm pretty sure it's one of those things that can be found all over the internet. From what I've gathered so far, SMF is Ugly. This is because it exists for entirely different purposes than the format of the published book. Editors want to catch errors. They also want to have a standard way to estimate length (other than taking your word for it, although you would be well-advised to be accurate, within the rounding formula and guidelines) and have room to write notes. But still, does it really have to be in Courier? Ah, well. My poor ugly professional-looking (er, when I'm finished making the format changes...) manuscript.

Speaking of writing and editors and research online, it seems that blogging stories and poems really does count as "previously published" to many magazines. This seems silly to me, but whatever. I may start asking some of you for your opinions and criticisms in person... or not. I think I'm probably better at novels than short stories, so how much time do I really want to take from polishing a novel in order to write and edit and attempt to publish short stories, just to make my query letters to agents about my novel that much more impressive? Hmm. Ask me again after I've collected some rejection letters... meh.

And in... um, still more news... (hey, it's been a while since I've posted [and my last post that didn't review a book or movie was back on April 15th, and that was just a little poem -- my last long non-book-review post was March 15th! Sheesh! That merits many parenthetical phrases in a great gush of words], give me a break here -- pent-up words, pent-up words!) I've decided the closest I come to hero worship or celebrity obsession is with authors. It's... not very close, I suppose, but it's the closest. I love their blogs. a) They've very entertaining, what with being well written, since they are WRITERS, after all. b) Since I only look up the blogs of authors whose books I love anyway, they often seem to have certain personality traits I like, and they feel like people I could be friends with. If I weren't a Random-Fan-whose-path-will-never-cross-theirs-unless-maybe-I'm-published-someday, that is. (And no, that's not why I want to be published. Honest. Almost 95% not why.) My latest author blog find is Tad Williams'. I quite like it. I'm on a Tad Williams blog kick. Hmm, I should go catch up on my poor neglected unread old favorite awesome author blogs, like Shannon Hale and Kristin Cashore and (at this point I closed this window by accident and nearly had a heart attack before remembering that blogspot does, in fact, automatically save your work periodically...) Writer Unboxed (because of Juliet Marillier) and Neil Gaiman (although my Neil Gaiman kick is actually pretty new and feels a little silly since I haven't read all that much of his work yet). Or maybe I should sleep. Nah, that can't be right...

How to Anger Employees at Your Friendly Neighborhood Bookstore

I suppose there are many many methods, but this one comes with a money-back guarantee. It will work even on employees who are generally calm and easygoing. Trust me.

First, show up at or slightly after closing time to purchase a book you had special ordered. If necessary, get a friend to go in before you and ask lots of questions so that the employees are distracted into not locking the doors right at closing time, so that you can make your entrance at the appropriate time. This won't do much to accomplish your goals yet, but it will be important later.

Now, be sure not to purchase your book right away. First, ask about another special order you had made that afternoon. You must act very confused. Talk about how you thought it was one title, but now someone has told you this other title. They should both be very common titles, of course. Give them as little information as possible. I wouldn't even give them author names, if I were you. Make it sound like it is the fault of the employees and the bookstore that you don't know which book you want. Rebuff every attempt to help by asking further questions.

Soon you will be able to ask for employee names. Complain about how many people you have talked to, even if it's only been two, and a third to tell you what time the store closes. In fact, you really shouldn't mention that last part. Just call it three. After all, employees should be on call 24/7 so that customers can always talk to the same person. Of course you can't say that, and the employees won't say it sarcastically to you, but at this point, they will be thinking it. See, you're doing well. By now the average employee should be quite upset.

Ask for the manager's name several times. Continue to be confused about which book you want while blaming it on the customer service. Say things like, "So which is it?" and "But she said..." For example, you could expect them to comply with the statements someone else made a couple weeks ago about a book which was probably an entirely different title in any case, which wasn't even special ordered at the time (that last part's important, because it means they won't have a record of it). But now, do this while being easily distracted. Flash from one question and assertion to another. This will be very effective, because it will make it harder for the worker to help you, which will in turn make him or her madder when you take offense at how unhelpful he or she is. Oh, and don't worry -- if your assistant mentions that the store is closing and they don't have time to do your research, you can just explain why it's so important that you have this book. It's a gift, of course. It always is. A short explanation will do. Then you can keep right on talking, ignoring the hour.

It should be at least ten minutes after closing by now. Acknowledge this. Say something like, "I know you're about to close, and not to make you hurry, but..." -- then proceed with talking and talking and talking. Eventually bring it up again, with a comment like, "I know you girls probably want to get home." Continue to talk. You can make your original purchase now, although you should probably ask about the hardback edition's price as well. Something of that nature. Once you've bought it and the person assisting you has miraculously helped you to see that the book already on order for you, is still, in fact, the one you wanted, you can begin to make your farewells; but be sure to be long-winded about it! Be as talkative, needy, and ADD as you possibly can be. Talk about the lotion next to one of the computers, if you have to. Or the mug they keep their pens in.

Congratulations, you win! However, I must warn you -- if you don't want to stop at making them mad and getting them to talk about you behind your back, but want to receive less than excellent service as well, you must do more. I can't help you there. Short of stealing from the store, I don't know how to accomplish that. And I hope I never learn.