I work in the mortgage industry, which means all of my work-related contact with vendors and customers is always with adults. The nature of our business is that we do the vast majority of it via phone, fax, and email, and since none of that technology is new, you’d think the average adult would be capable of using it. I’ve posted about this before, of course, and chances are, given the amount of phone calls, faxes, and email I receive, I’ll post about it again. Apparently, this is because a lot of people need a refresher course in the basic use of these things.

Item 1: Phone messages.
My outgoing voicemail message at work includes the following information:
-how often (and at what times) I check my messages
-how often (and in what priority) I return phone calls
-my usual office hours
-alternate methods of contacting me, including email and fax
-a reference to my assistant’s extension
-a request that any message be detailed
-a request that callers leave their phone number *even if they think I already have it*
-instructions on how to bypass the greeting on future calls.

What any incoming message should include:
-your name. People often sound different over the phone.
-your contact information, even if we do business on a daily basis, because it’s easier to call you if I don’t have to hunt down your number first.
-a detailed message. If you have a question, leave me the question. If there’s a number on a form that you’re unsure of, tell me, “The number on line 802 looks wrong. Why is there an admin fee and a processing fee?” Or whatever. This way, I can be prepared when I return your call, and know to have your file out, or whether I can farm the return call out to the loan officer or my assistant.

There’s a reason for every one of these things. It cuts down on people calling me five times between ten-thirty and noon, about the same thing, and it helps me (when people heed the request) to not have to waste time hunting for phone numbers. If everyone else had similar information on their outgoing messages, the business world would be a much better place. But, really, people who don’t leave their phone numbers are not the most annoying thing in my life – I expect it, just as I expect that people will tack an ‘s’ onto the end of “email” to pluralize it, even though no one would dream of doing the same thing to the word “mail.”

What does annoy me – a lot – is when people don’t leave detailed messages. It annoys me for two reasons: First, I shouldn’t have to call someone back to find out why they called me, and second, if I do call them back it’s likely I’ll get THEIR voicemail, and have to leave a message asking why they called, instead of leaving information, which is great if your goal in life is the longest ever game of phone tag, but frustrating when you’re trying to conduct business.

I had a LOT of messages like that, this week.

But worse than that, I had someone send me an email message that consisted of, “Can you call me about this lock?”

Now, locks are time-sensitive things. We can only lock loans (commit the rate, price, and terms with a lender) between nine and four on days that the stockmarket is open. (Really, between ten and four, as we don’t get the last of our rate sheets until ten. This is why I rarely go into the office before ten in the morning.) So for someone (and this was someone at a lender) to leave a message that vague was both frustrating and alarming. Did the lock request get denied? Was information wrong? Is the program being discontinued? A thousand possibilities raced through my mind.

As requested, I called the person who sent the message. As expected, I was transferred to his voicemail. I left a message telling him why I hadn’t responded the night before, when I’d be available, and asking what the problem was.

He called back while I was away from my desk, and his total return message was, “I’m back in the office. Call me.”

I returned his second call, repeating the information I’d given him before, and adding, “if you get my voicemail again, please just leave a detailed message.”

An hour later, we finally spoke, and the information imparted (there’s a max-rebate on the program in question. Our chosen interest rate would have given us pricing that exceeded the maximum, so, he changed the rate on my locksheet and locked the loan), was nothing that needed to be handled in real-time, nothing that required seventeen conversations. In fact, he could have just stuck all the information in his original email (from a send-only account – how I hate those) or phone message, and asked me to call if there was anything I had a problem with. Because he didn’t, a good portion of my day was given up, to play phone tag.

This leads me to:
Item 2: Email
-Please do not send me messages in pink text or with stationery embedded into the message. That’s all fine for email sent to your mother, but not for business.
-If you send email, please make sure people can reply to it. Send-only accounts have their places (lock confirmations, rate sheets), but not if what you are sending requires any kind of response.
-If you email me, and you aren’t a person who checks your email regularly, please include your phone number. You should never assume that people ONLY check their office email while sitting in their offices. I check mine from home, about half the time, and I don’t have ghost copies of every file sitting on the dining room table.
-If you don’t check your email regularly, don’t give me your email address. I should not have to call you to tell you to check it. I’m not your mother, after all. (And how do you function checking it only once a day, anyway?)

This is part of the reason why I hate answering the phone at home.

Of course, there are things you shouldn’t put in a message without checking first – if I’m calling someone’s workplace the first time, my initial message to them always begins with, “Hi, I’m calling about personal stuff, if you’re listening to this on speakerphone, please pick up the handset.” And then I give a five second delay before I go on. And if it’s really sensitive I’ll be as specific as I can in a message, without totally obliterating privacy and propriety.

Sometimes, I think anyone working in any kind of office setting should be required to go through a class on effective use of voicemail and email. (The latter would also include not sending cute colored text, and loopy graphics, in business mail.)

Most of the time, I wish I could just stay home and write for a living, and not have to deal with the frustrating masses who can’t use common sense.

* * *

When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have the television on before five pm. The only exceptions to this were Star Trek, Saturday morning shows that lasted til 10 AM (Mainly Sid and Marty Kroft stuff, not animation), and, if it was summer, or I was home from school sick, I would ask to watch old musicals. (To this day, I still feel guilty if I’m watching television before five on a weekday, but I don’t mind spending the occasional Saturday curled up on the couch watching movies with Fuzzy,). One of my favorite musicals was Bridagoon. Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, and all that lovely alliteration:
The mist of May is in the gloaming.
There’s lazy music in the rill.
So take my hand, and let’s go roaming
Through the heather on the hill.

It’s the last line that I love. It’s this wonderful image of being totally free, and just giving in to the moment. The kind of thing that can only happen in a musical.

Holding hands while wandering through a field of flowers isn’t something I’ve ever experienced, but holding hands while walking on the beach, or down a street, is.

My grandmother used to clutch at my hands, gripping too far down on my fingers, rather than across the palms. It drove me crazy, but it made her happy to have human contact. “Your hands are so warm,” she’d say, when hers were cold. “Hold mine and warm them.”

Once, the three of us, my grandmother, my mother, and I, stood hand in hand on a boardwalk overlooking the ocean. I think it was a few months after my grandfather had died, and we’d just scattered some of his ashes. It’s the kind of moment that, in a musical, would signal a poignant trio, but life isn’t a musical, and our moment was silent, though, in retrospect, I’d have loved a picture, three generations of women holding hands and staring into the sea, daring life to throw something else at them.

Several years later, walking with my mother on the beach, we both stopped to pick up sticks. We wrote names in the sand: Esther, Edward, my grandparents’ names, and then we stopped, and held hands in a moment of mother-daughter communion.

In that moment, I’d have done anything to be seven again, for just a moment. For having my grandfathers’s strong, square hand surrounding one of my smaller, more delicate ones, and for having my grandmother clutching tightly to the fingers of the other.

* * *

Girasole, not my writing blog, but the word, the Italian word for “sunflower,” my personal icon. I don’t know what it is about those flowers…the sunny yellow color isn’t the only color they come in, just the most common – my favorite are blood red – but they make me feel peaceful, content, and happy. I think because we associate sunflowers with blue skies and warm breezes, they give me the mood-equivalent of a summery day.

Gnocchi – dumplings. I’m craving them. They’re one of the popular Italian foods I never make at home – too much WORK. I get a kick out of the way people mis-pronounce the word, because that funky Italian GN sound is a quirk that English-speaking tongues aren’t accustomed to – at least, not in the beginning of a word. I’ve heard it pronounced as Guh-nochhi, and Yonky among others. No matter what, it makes me smile.

Gravitation. In the sense of being pulled toward something, and not in the sense of actual physical scientific gravity…this is a word that’s resonating with me right now. I find myself gravitating toward books that describe places more than people. I find myself wanting to nest, to rebuild, to ground myself. I find myself wondering if the approaching solstice is affecting me, or if it’s two-year-itch.

Guarded. My main descriptor. I’m candid here, but cloaked as well. Is that possible? I have no problem writing about external things, but I’m not yet able to share the internal stuff. Not yet. Not quite yet. Someday.

Two AlphaBytes posts in a row because I’m behind.

* * *

Friendship.

I’ve never been much good at making friends. A pattern that began years ago, of moving more often than most people, has caused a restlessness in my being, all the way to the core, that makes me antsy for major change every two years or so.

The same pattern is responsibly for my tendency to not make friends. I blame shyness, but the truth is, I’m so accustomed to the pattern of leaving people behind, shedding lifestyles the way a butterfly sheds its cocoon, that I long ago stopped trying. There are people I’d love to be closer to, but I really have no idea HOW. It’s a missing part of my social education.

The friends I do have, though they never are told often enough, are hugely important to me. But despite this, I tend to isolate myself. I like people, but only in small doses, and smaller groups. It’s not healthy behavior, and this was brought home to me, recently, when I realized my brother and sister-in-law have NO FRIENDS, just themselves and their children.

I find it very sad.

I also find it sad when a friend is hurting, and I don’t know how to help. The woman who is probably my best friend in life, even though she lives three states away, is in a bleak, bleak part of her life, and while I email, and call, I don’t know how to fix it, but I feel like I’m supposed to fix it.

On another note, I’ve been thinking about marriage, and remembering something a family friend told me when I was very young: the marriages that last, that really last, are the ones where the partners were friends first, but also where they have separate friends, as well.

Fuzzy and I are lucky to have both, even if we don’t avail ourselves of the latter often enough.

It’s 4:45 in the morning, and I haven’t got a cool title to use, or much coherence at all, but I’m antsy and can’t sleep, so may as well write something.

I’ve been in a chemically imbalanced mood all week, not sure if it’s PMS or just the season changing, or stress…probably it’s all three. Was exhausted by eight, but once I got to the bedroom could NOT relax, watched Mythbusters, and finished the skin-of-the-moment for my book blog, but was too unfocussed to enjoy either, and even my AlphaBytes post for the letter E was too short, and not what I wanted.

I had some Kahlua and cream, hoping the alcohol would relax me just enough to slip into sleep, but no, all it did was dehydrate me, and make my faint queasiness less faint. And now, four hours later, I’m awake, parched, and sitting here writing inane things while trying to force myself to drink water.

Note to self: Invest in mineral water. At least the bubbles cure the queasiness, and you can mix it with cranberry juice.

TMI Stuff below.
Continue reading →

* * *

Eyrie Drive: The first apartment my mother and I lived in, perched on this street above the New Jersey side of New York Harbor, in Atlantic Highlands. I remember them building bulkheads to shore up the cliffside, and that our neighbors had such bad erosion that there was a gap with a severe drop between their back door and back deck.

The apartment, which we called the Eagle’s Nest, was slate grey outside, but all I remember about inside was a sense of cozy safety and a really big bathroom, and making sand candles.

And the eerie sound of foghorns, but that’s for another entry.

* * *

“Defying Gravity” – the show-stopping number from Wicked that was performed at the Tony Awards last night. Really wish I hadn’t missed that show when it was in SFO before it went to NYC. Completely impressed by it – loved the book as well.

Dreams: I’ve been having vivid ones, recurring scenes where a homeless man is my guide, of sorts. He reminds me of Christopher Lloyd, as the Reverend Jim from Taxi, of all people. I never hear him speak, but I know he is leading me toward good things.

Dallas: I’m becoming more and more intrigued with that city. More on that another time.

Dogs: Zorro and Cleo have banded together to make sure I stay sane and feel loved. It’s almost summer, and they’re clingier than usual. Puppy kisses make everything better.

Days: There aren’t enough hours in one. It’s completely unfair that blogging and scribbling aren’t paying jobs :)

I say… And you think…?

1. Charity:: sweet
2. Scale:: justice
3. Jennifer Lopez:: hype
4. Coercion:: extortion
5. Meter:: maid
6. Pressure:: valve
7. June:: teenth
8. Infestation:: swarm
9. Serial killer:: Linnea Quigley movies
10. Anguish:: pathos

Like this meme? Play along here

I’m sitting here listening to NPR’s streaming feed, a repeat of Friday’s stuff, but since I was at work and away from my desk a lot on Friday, I didn’t hear much of it.

Anyway, they’re talking about a book (didn’t catch the title) the evolution of language, and word usage, and what spellcheck has done to language. They’ve mentioned that it’s largest problem isn’t so much that it offers synonyms that aren’t really appropriate, but that it doesn’t always pickup on misused words that are spelled correctly (ex: they’re/there/their).

What I found more interesting, though, was the comparison of how past (and current) US Presidents have mispronounced the word “nuclear” – they find it notable that George Bush pronounced it correctly – “nu-cle-ar” – but that George W. does not. He says “nu-cu-lar”.

And of course, I also find it interesting that linguists are more interested in the evolution of words like “the” than* words like “serendipity.”

*Edited to correct a typo. For the record, it was a “Melissa was doing too many things at once” thing.”

* * *

Coffee, dark, brown brew that doubles as my elixir of life, with or without the actual caffeine, though the unleaded kind does nothing to combat the congestion in my chest. I’ve been drinking the stuff since childhood, in one form or another – two table spoons from my mother’s cup stirred into my milk, most often – but it’s also my favorite ice cream flavor (especially with a scoop of coconut served along-side), even more than chocolate.

Coffee is my writing drink, and tea is my reading drink. I wonder if it’s because the blend of chamomile and peppermint that I favor is responsible for my different mental processes, or if it’s force of habit. Probably both.

Coffee makes me think in music as well as words, and I have images in my head of jazz trios made of flute, cello, and piano. One thought leads to another, the cello stays, but this time it’s on a cello stand, and there’s a table nearby with an empty mug, and sheet music with hastily scribbled notations – up-bow here, down-bow there, – and a post-it reminding me to practice more in extended positions.

I am pulled from the images in my head as one of the dogs claws at my wrist, catching a tiny toe on the wristband of my watch. Chronometers. I remember that in early Star Trek novels they always had chronometers, not watches. I remember also, that my cello teacher made me remove my watch during lessons. I always felt naked without it, and I made more mistakes because I was uncomfortable, but didn’t have the words for the feeling then.

The dog (Zorro) has had his ears scratched, and now curls up on his pillow. He clearly wants to go cuddle with Fuzzy – he’s a chihuahua, bred to be a sleep companion, and his favorite spot is crunched between us in the bed. I want to go cuddle with Fuzzy, too, but I can’t make the decision, yet, to crawl back into bed.

Fuzzy’s name is my favorite C-word, even more than coffee: Christopher understands me, loves me, supports me. We spend cozy evenings surrounded by the incessant hum of our computers, holding hands across the spot where the couches touch, watching dvd’s, and laughing. Lately, we’ve taken turns sending each other floor plans of houses in Colorado, Texas, Florida. Our next destination still isn’t set.

Coffee. Cuddling.
I think the latter wins this time.