I wasn't really looking for a job. But as I was driving myself, Jamie, and Lilly back home from yet another trip to the beach last Saturday, we passed by the road that the Humane Society is on, and their signage (which is positioned down beside the main highway) said "RECEPTIONIST NEEDED".
I was intrigued. I thought that might be a fun job for me to do. I love animals, and I know how to "recept" from my 16 years of working at a bank, so it seemed like the perfect fit for me.
So come Monday morning, I excitedly called the Humane Society to inquire about the position. Their current receptionist answered the phone, and she talked a million miles an hour. It was kind of hard for me to catch what she was saying, and I felt like she was just trying to get me off the phone as fast as she could. I asked her if the position was on a volunteer basis, or if it was a paid position. She told me that it was a part-time paid position, and that you would be required to work some Saturdays. Then I asked her what the duties were, and she tersely told me "adoptions and answering the phones". She told me that I could come fill out an application; I thanked her, and then we hung up.
As soon as I could get Lilly dragged out of the bed, we drove up there so I could fill out an application. After I handed my application to the receptionist, me and Lilly took the time to pet all the cats and kittens, and check out all the dogs. It was fun. Before we left, I asked the receptionist if she happened to know when I might hear something back about the job, and she said she didn't know; but she knew that they were really looking at all of the applications carefully. I thanked her, and me and Lilly left and went back home.
Just a little while after me and Lilly got back home, my phone rang, and much to my surprise, it was the Humane Society. It was the Manager named Tim, and he asked me how fast I could come back up there to meet them so that they could "put a face with the name". I told him I could be there within 30 minutes. So me and Lilly got back in the car and drove all the way back up there.
When I got there, it was busy because an older couple was adopting a fat brown pug-looking dog, so I had to ditch Lilly in their little waiting area so I could follow Tim into the back. We walked into a lady named Lisa's office (she is a Director, and married to Tim). They explained that my neat handwriting on my application really caught their eye, and that when Tim had called me on the phone to come meet them, he could hear that I had a "good phone voice". Then he went on to explain to me that usually (the way they'd done things before) was that their receptionist would work Monday through Saturday from 10:00 to 4:00. But now, they were going to change that to having a receptionist work Monday through Thursday (a position which they would fill about 6 weeks from now), and a different receptionist working on Friday, Saturday, and Monday (which is a position that they would fill immediately). I didn't realize until I got home later that it didn't make complete sense, because why would you need two receptionists on Monday? So if he misspoke, I don't know what he really meant. In the end, Tim told me that they would let me know something in a couple of weeks. I thanked him and Lisa, retrieved Lilly from the waiting area, and we left.
The next afternoon, I got another phone call from Tim, and he told me that now they were "pushed", and really needed to get someone in there now. So he asked me if I could come back yet again for a more formal interview, but that I would have to come back up there pretty quick, since they had another interview at 4:30. Taken by surprise again, I told him sure, and that I could be there around 3:45. I had to get myself ready in a whirlwind, and then I drove up there as fast as I could.
When I sat down for the "more formal" interview with Tim and Lisa, Tim asked me if I could come in a couple of Saturdays a month to get familiar with their protocol and learn their verbiage. I said that would be fine. Then he asked me to come in the very next day (which was a Thursday) at 10:00 AM for 2, 3, or 4 hours just to observe ("shadow") their current receptionist, Kelli, who is 4 months pregnant and will be going on maternity leave. They wanted me to just observe her to kind of get a feel for what the job involved, and to see if I liked it. Then Lisa piped up and said that if I took the job and wanted to get in more hours, I could come in at 8:00 AM instead of 10:00 AM to clean the cat room, and Tim piped up and sternly said that that would be just a "maybe" in the "distant long future". I told them that would be fine; if they needed for me to clean the cat room, I would be more than willing to clean the cat room. And Tim re-iterated that it was only a "MAYBE". Then Lisa talked to me more about observing their current receptionist, Kelli. Lisa basically told me not to pay too close attention to the way Kelli does things, because she doesn't do them the way that Lisa wants her to. Then Lisa spent several minutes griping about the lack of organization at the receptionist desk, and that she could never find what she needed, and how all the receptionists do things a different way, and that she would show me how she wanted things done. (OK, I got it -- don't pay any attention to Kelli because she evidently sucks). :/ It was ironic that Lisa was emphasizing to me the importance of organization, since her own desk and office was a complete and utter pigsty with all kinds of papers stacked up haphazardly all over the place. She had major trouble finding anything in her own office. I jokingly asked Lisa if it was "organized chaos", and she replied with "no; just chaos". Hmm. Lisa also told me about how the women there tended to be gossipy and complain about each other to her all the time (no surprise there, if that was really true. It seems to be that way in almost every job -- it's just the nature of many women). I told her that I got along well with everyone, and that I didn't do things like that.
The next morning, I dropped Lilly off with Dad and Patti so that I could go to the Humane Society and "shadow" their current receptionist, Kelli. The day went pretty good. The strange thing was, I thought that Kelli (although not 100% perfect --but who is--) was nice and competent, the receptionist desk was organized perfectly fine, and that everything was neat, easy to find, and in reach. And I'm personally a stickler for stuff like that, too. Hmm. Oh, well.
The day wore on, and my back, hips, and feet started hurting pretty bad, since there was no chair for me to sit in. There was one stool at the receptionist desk, but even Kelli barely used it at all, and I wasn't about to ask if I could sit on it with her being 4 months pregnant. What really sucked is that nobody bothered to tell me that you didn't get to leave the premises to take a lunch break. I hadn't even had breakfast that morning; only a cup of coffee at home. I had incorrectly assumed that I would be getting to leave that office to go out to lunch, and that I would be able to eat something then. Ding-Dong, I Was Wrong. I never got to eat or drink anything at all until I got home, way later that evening. How pregnant Kelli does it, I'll never know. I did notice her eating a few baby carrots at one point, late in the afternoon, however. I didn't find out until the day was done that you are allowed to eat lunch at the receptionist desk, but only as long it's not "stinky". Basically, since it's a part-time job, you have to work through your lunch. OK, I guess I could handle that, now that I'm aware of it. :/
Anyway, I got to witness the adoptions of 2 English Bulldogs that day, which was fun. Kelli told me that Tim had told her that after the 2nd bulldog adoption was finished, I could be free to go on home for the day. I was secretly excited to get to go home at that point since my back, hips, and feet were absolutely killing me by then, and I was starving so bad, my stomach was gnawing my backbone. I gladly hopped in my car and started to head home, but I stopped at a gas station in town to get gas first because the gas light had come on in my car. Just as I was starting to leave the gas station, my cell phone rang. It was Tim. He said that Kelli told him that I had already left, but he was wondering if I could come back up there and talk to them about how I had liked it that day. I was secretly pissed about having to drag all the way back up there, because I was so physically exhausted and starving to death, but of course I told him I would be back there in just a few minutes.
When I got there and met with Tim and Lisa, they said that "out of all the 64,000 applications" they had received, that they had it narrowed down to "2 and a half people", and that I was one of them. They asked me what I thought after observing Kelli all day, and I told them that I had enjoyed it. Then Tim and Lisa began hem-hawwing around and going over a wall calendar, and talking about some girl named Amanda that they had never mentioned to me before. They also told me that the other girl that they had it narrowed down to was named Tina, and they talked about how it was going to be so confusing to have a Deana and a Tina working there, since our names sound almost exactly alike. After an eternity of Tim and Lisa going over that wall calendar and trying to figure out the scheduling of this mystery girl named Amanda, they finally came to the conclusion that this Saturday (and the following Saturday, too), me and Tina needed to come in and train with Amanda. And yet again, Lisa mentioned to me not to even pay much attention to what Amanda would show us, because it's not exactly the way that Lisa wants for things to be done. So I told Lisa OK, that I would take the training "with a big grain of salt". :{ Then Tim told me that they would need to try to get approval from the Board to hire two receptionists, since they didn't know if it was in the budget. (I thought that was strange, since Tim told me in the beginning that they would definitely be hiring two receptionists; one to work half of the week, and the other to work the other half. But whatever).
Lisa gave me a bunch of employment papers to take home with me and sign, and she also explained to me that I would need to go to this certain clinic in town to be drug tested (a urine test, where they would need to actually personally witness me peeing into a cup), and that I would also need to go to the police department and get them to do a background check on me for $10 -- at my own expense. Not too big a deal, I figured.
At that point, Tim and Lisa began hem-hawwing around yet again, griping about how they had to go to a Board Meeting that evening, and how the Board Meetings last 'til 9:00 PM, and they're always worn out the next day. Tim reminded Lisa that her brother was coming in from Texas to see her the next day. And Tim told me that he and Lisa like to try to take a couple of days off a week, but that they hadn't been able to do that for a few weeks.
The next thing I knew, Tim said that their current receptionist, Kelli, had a doctor's (obstetrician) appointment the next day and wouldn't be there. I asked Lisa if Kelli was simply going to be out on maternity leave, and they just needed to fill the receptionist position temporarily until she returned. Lisa frowned, wrinkled her nose, and said hatefully, "I don't think so. She said she was coming back, but I know her too well. She won't be back". Tim asked Kelli if she would come in either before her doctor's appointment or after it, but Kelli refused. Kelli lives in the next town over, and she told Tim that "it wouldn't be worth it" for her to come in, and that the appointment was an important one for her baby, and she wasn't going to miss it. And since Tim and Lisa were dead-set on having the next day off to recuperate after having to go to that Board Meeting, they told me to come in the next day! To run it all by myself! With no training! And nobody in the whole building that would be able to help me! :O
I was shocked. Lisa told me that when a customer came in, for me to "lie to them" and tell them that "the computer is down", and hand-write them a receipt. And Tim told me that if anybody came in wanting to adopt an animal, that I would just have to turn them away and tell them to come back on Saturday; that I was new and didn't know what to do!!! Lisa told me that I could just wait 'til next week to get the drug screening and background check. Lisa and Tim asked me if I would do it, and I shyly said "I guess...it will be a trial by fire"! Lisa showed me where the "Standard Operating Procedures" manual was, gave me the nickel tour of the facility, a "STAFF" t-shirt to wear, and half-heartedly apologized for "throwing me to the wolves". I sadly, jokingly told them that I would just make sure the building didn't burn down, and then I finally schlepped out the door.
In just a few days, I went from thinking that I would be working Mondays through Thursdays with some Saturdays, to being told that I would need to come in just on Saturdays for a while to learn the protocol, to being told that I could just come in as a "substitute" whenever someone needed to be out, to being suddenly told to come in the very next day since nobody would be there -- even though I had no real training and wouldn't be able to do a thing!
In shock, I drove home upset all the way. By nature, I'm not comfortable in the least being immediately shoved into doing something that I don't really know how to do; it sets off my anxiety big time. I take medication to help keep my anxiety pretty much under control for the most part, but nothing can take it away altogether. I worried about it and worried about it, and eventually I got a phone call later that evening from Tim. He told me that Lisa would be able to enjoy her day off so much more if she knew that I wasn't there the next day trying to handle it all by myself. Tim told me that the other girl that had applied that they had liked, Tina, had had a day or two more "training" than I had (training? I don't remember having any "training", and what might have been misconstrued as "training", Lisa told me not to pay attention to, since in the end, she would show me the way she wanted things done)! So Tina might know how to do some things, and then I could serve as the "common sense". I told Tim that it would make me feel better to have Tina there with me too, and we hung up.
But I didn't really feel better about it. By this time, everything had been such a whirlwind, everything had constantly changed on a dime, and both Tim and Lisa had been ultra-flaky and super-wishy-washy from the get-go. I got a very bad vibe from it all, and felt like they were quickly attempting to make me their doormat/slave. And it appeared as if Lisa was incapable of ever being satisfied with the way that anybody did anything! I figured that if this is the way they were going to jerk me around when I hadn't even been completely formally hired yet, then what else would they possibly try to do to me? SHEESH! So I thought about it and thought about it, and finally came to the conclusion that a little part-time minimum-wage job wasn't worth all the extreme aggravation from Tim and Lisa. So I wrote a letter to Tim and Lisa explaining that the job was a little more stressful than I had anticipated (which was not completely the truth), and also said that I thought my focus should remain on being a stay-at-home mom for the time being (again, not completely the truth), and thanked them for the opportunity (just to be nice, because that's how I am).
The next morning, I went up to the Humane Society, met Tina, and told her my decision. She was very young, pretty, and seemed extremely nice. She told me that she understood, and she didn't blame me for wanting to keep being a stay-at-home mom. I put my letter to Tim and Lisa in Tim's box, and left, relieved.
I expected to get a phone call from Tim sometime that day, but he didn't call me until early the next afternoon. I purposely let it go to voice mail, and he said on the message that he had to "pick himself up off the floor"; that the job did have a little bit of stress, but that if I had the option to be a stay-at-home mom, then he understood. Then he asked me to return the t-shirt that Lisa had given to me.
Damn.
So much for that. Well, I guess at least I tried. :/
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