learning-disabled or lazy?
Aug. 16th, 2007 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I have a Thing about filing. I don't know what it is. But just as I have problems, sometimes, with sequences of numbers, with instinctively grasping basic arithmetic functions, I often have difficulty with the alphabet. I can do alphabetical order, but I have to focus very hard on it, and am easily confused or distracted.
So we get these invoices, and they have to be filed in these boxes. We keep all the recent ones up by the front desk, at work. The receptionist was let go last week and so I'm filling in for her in the mornings, now. (Which means I'm not even doing the job I was shunted into instead of what I was hired to do, but whatever, I like this one better because no one messes with me.)
Often people call for their tracking info. The only place this is recorded is on paper, on these invoices. So you have to put them on hold and go find the invoice. Which is filed in alphabetical order by the last name of the person it was shipped to.
I get really lost in these things. I have so much trouble figuring out which of the three or four names on the thing it's filed by. I look at the wrong thing, I get out of order-- sometimes whoever's filed it hasn't quite done it right, and so I finally find where it's supposed to be but it's not there, and I get so confused...
When someone calls for tracking you have to tear through at high speed (because the phone rings a lot at the front desk and also people always seem to think it's an hour on hold when it's really three minutes) and find these things. I'm not real great at it.
And sometimes the order isn't there. Either it's a special order and wasn't invoiced yet, or the name was spelled wrong, or the dealer was on credit hold so it hasn't gone through, or it was held for some other reason. Which is never good news for the person asking for the tracking info, and so you never ever want to just shrug and say you can't find it but you're sure it's on its way, because it might not be. Worst case, they faxed the order and the paper jammed before we could figure out who it was from, or worse, the fax didn't even go through, or something.
Yesterday there was a huge stack of unfiled invoices sitting waiting for filing. There was a lull in the calls. The office manager saw the stack and asked if I could file them. I eyed them with considerable trepidation. As I said, I'm not good at this.
I got into the middle of the stack and the phone rings. They want to track a package shipped to a person last name of L-o-r-e-n-c. (They don't pronounce it, only spell it.) I find an L-o-r-e-n-z, thinking it's the correct one. They flip out at me-- no it's not. Dude, say Z and C out loud over the phone. Do they sound different? They motherfucking do not, thank you.
I look. There is no Lorenc.
Is it in the unfiled ones? I go through the whole stack. No.
I get back on the line and ask them what date it was ordered. (It's possible we haven't gotten to it yet-- but that's rare, we always invoice either that day or the next.) It was ordered three days ago, the person says, in tones of rising ire and panic.
(Meanwhile a woman has called and wants to know a very highly technical question about our machines, which I do not know. I do not know who to ask. I debate making something up. I don't know. Then she wants to tell me her life story. I am somewhat short with her and put her back on hold. Normally I'm happy to spend twenty motherfucking minutes talking about your damn cat, but really, not now.)
I might mention that I am basically alone in the office. The single, solitary member of the customer service department left abruptly in tears for an early lunch, and I don't know where she went or when she'll be back. The shipping coordinator, who is also the office manager and who I ask anything when I don't know because she knows everything, is in the break room interviewing a candidate for the receptionist job. There are a total of two people in the Sales department, to whom I can give customer service calls in a pinch, but one is having a cigarette and the other has been on the phone for a solid hour. The VP and general boss person is running an errand and anyway, is generally too busy to be disturbed. (I'm not just saying that, she works really hard on stuff I don't even understand.) There are assorted Accounting types, but they're on the other end of the office and I don't know that they have even ever seen our products. I could put someone in voicemail, but that doesn't really solve the problem.
Finally the girl in charge of Customer Service comes back from lunch, and sees me standing there elbow-deep in pink paper on the verge of tears. There is no fucking Lorenc. I don't know what this woman is talking about. I don't know where else to look. She's getting irate on the phone and it's been like five minutes.
Am I fucking this up somehow? How the hell else could it be filed? I swear to God it's not under L, it's not under I or J or K or M either, it's not in the unfiled ones, did I fuck this up somehow?
Customer service girl immediately runs to her computer and looks up the order in the database according to some mojo I don't understand.
"Lorene is the first name," she says.
"What?"
"It's invoiced under Lorene and a last name," she says. "Ask her the full name, this is probably the order.
"But she said Lorenc!"
"I don't know. Ask her for the full name!"
The woman for some reason is really annoyed that I want the full name. "D-i-o-p-r," she says fuzzily. Much debate ensues over the actual consonants. Suddenly I recognize the name, which was the name of a friend at my first job, a Polish programmer-- "Piotr!" I shout. Peter.
The order form had come in and we'd invoiced it as Lorene Poitr. God knows how it happened, but I'm guessing it was handwritten last comma first.
It had shipped two days before and was due for delivery in three more days.
I collapsed in a little heap. I thought I was just retarded. And that dealer thinks we're assholes now. Who does that? Who can't even figure out a name? Geez.
Am I really that bad at alphabetical order, that I should have reason to doubt myself so thoroughly in the face of the slightest provocation, or is it just that I need to practice more? I often wonder this about reading analogue clocks, as well. I've taught myself repeatedly. I use them all the time. But I still have to sit and puzzle them out until I can see the digital clock readout in my head. Big hand past four, little hand past seven, and I stare at it, and think, ok, it's after 4, it's nearly, um, forty after? Um, that's, what, 4:37?
It's not that i can't figure it out, it's that it doesn't mean anything to me. I then have to think about what time that means it is-- it's nearly quarter to four, that means it's fifteen minutes until five o'clock, that means it's five hours after noon, that means it's nearly time to go home. Etc. I just have to devote so much thought to it.
Do I not practice enough?
I tried forcing myself to wear an analog watch, but all it meant was that I frequently glanced at it and looked away with no idea what time it was anyway. I have only the vaguest grasp of concepts like chronology and sequences anyway, and giving myself an extra step in the comprehension meant that I just wouldn't finish the thought process.
Is it laziness? Is it weird brain wiring? Does everyone have these problems, or is it me?
And is it terrible that despite these stresses and weirdnesses, I still kinda like being just the dang receptionist instead of whatever else they've been making me be? Bleh.
So we get these invoices, and they have to be filed in these boxes. We keep all the recent ones up by the front desk, at work. The receptionist was let go last week and so I'm filling in for her in the mornings, now. (Which means I'm not even doing the job I was shunted into instead of what I was hired to do, but whatever, I like this one better because no one messes with me.)
Often people call for their tracking info. The only place this is recorded is on paper, on these invoices. So you have to put them on hold and go find the invoice. Which is filed in alphabetical order by the last name of the person it was shipped to.
I get really lost in these things. I have so much trouble figuring out which of the three or four names on the thing it's filed by. I look at the wrong thing, I get out of order-- sometimes whoever's filed it hasn't quite done it right, and so I finally find where it's supposed to be but it's not there, and I get so confused...
When someone calls for tracking you have to tear through at high speed (because the phone rings a lot at the front desk and also people always seem to think it's an hour on hold when it's really three minutes) and find these things. I'm not real great at it.
And sometimes the order isn't there. Either it's a special order and wasn't invoiced yet, or the name was spelled wrong, or the dealer was on credit hold so it hasn't gone through, or it was held for some other reason. Which is never good news for the person asking for the tracking info, and so you never ever want to just shrug and say you can't find it but you're sure it's on its way, because it might not be. Worst case, they faxed the order and the paper jammed before we could figure out who it was from, or worse, the fax didn't even go through, or something.
Yesterday there was a huge stack of unfiled invoices sitting waiting for filing. There was a lull in the calls. The office manager saw the stack and asked if I could file them. I eyed them with considerable trepidation. As I said, I'm not good at this.
I got into the middle of the stack and the phone rings. They want to track a package shipped to a person last name of L-o-r-e-n-c. (They don't pronounce it, only spell it.) I find an L-o-r-e-n-z, thinking it's the correct one. They flip out at me-- no it's not. Dude, say Z and C out loud over the phone. Do they sound different? They motherfucking do not, thank you.
I look. There is no Lorenc.
Is it in the unfiled ones? I go through the whole stack. No.
I get back on the line and ask them what date it was ordered. (It's possible we haven't gotten to it yet-- but that's rare, we always invoice either that day or the next.) It was ordered three days ago, the person says, in tones of rising ire and panic.
(Meanwhile a woman has called and wants to know a very highly technical question about our machines, which I do not know. I do not know who to ask. I debate making something up. I don't know. Then she wants to tell me her life story. I am somewhat short with her and put her back on hold. Normally I'm happy to spend twenty motherfucking minutes talking about your damn cat, but really, not now.)
I might mention that I am basically alone in the office. The single, solitary member of the customer service department left abruptly in tears for an early lunch, and I don't know where she went or when she'll be back. The shipping coordinator, who is also the office manager and who I ask anything when I don't know because she knows everything, is in the break room interviewing a candidate for the receptionist job. There are a total of two people in the Sales department, to whom I can give customer service calls in a pinch, but one is having a cigarette and the other has been on the phone for a solid hour. The VP and general boss person is running an errand and anyway, is generally too busy to be disturbed. (I'm not just saying that, she works really hard on stuff I don't even understand.) There are assorted Accounting types, but they're on the other end of the office and I don't know that they have even ever seen our products. I could put someone in voicemail, but that doesn't really solve the problem.
Finally the girl in charge of Customer Service comes back from lunch, and sees me standing there elbow-deep in pink paper on the verge of tears. There is no fucking Lorenc. I don't know what this woman is talking about. I don't know where else to look. She's getting irate on the phone and it's been like five minutes.
Am I fucking this up somehow? How the hell else could it be filed? I swear to God it's not under L, it's not under I or J or K or M either, it's not in the unfiled ones, did I fuck this up somehow?
Customer service girl immediately runs to her computer and looks up the order in the database according to some mojo I don't understand.
"Lorene is the first name," she says.
"What?"
"It's invoiced under Lorene and a last name," she says. "Ask her the full name, this is probably the order.
"But she said Lorenc!"
"I don't know. Ask her for the full name!"
The woman for some reason is really annoyed that I want the full name. "D-i-o-p-r," she says fuzzily. Much debate ensues over the actual consonants. Suddenly I recognize the name, which was the name of a friend at my first job, a Polish programmer-- "Piotr!" I shout. Peter.
The order form had come in and we'd invoiced it as Lorene Poitr. God knows how it happened, but I'm guessing it was handwritten last comma first.
It had shipped two days before and was due for delivery in three more days.
I collapsed in a little heap. I thought I was just retarded. And that dealer thinks we're assholes now. Who does that? Who can't even figure out a name? Geez.
Am I really that bad at alphabetical order, that I should have reason to doubt myself so thoroughly in the face of the slightest provocation, or is it just that I need to practice more? I often wonder this about reading analogue clocks, as well. I've taught myself repeatedly. I use them all the time. But I still have to sit and puzzle them out until I can see the digital clock readout in my head. Big hand past four, little hand past seven, and I stare at it, and think, ok, it's after 4, it's nearly, um, forty after? Um, that's, what, 4:37?
It's not that i can't figure it out, it's that it doesn't mean anything to me. I then have to think about what time that means it is-- it's nearly quarter to four, that means it's fifteen minutes until five o'clock, that means it's five hours after noon, that means it's nearly time to go home. Etc. I just have to devote so much thought to it.
Do I not practice enough?
I tried forcing myself to wear an analog watch, but all it meant was that I frequently glanced at it and looked away with no idea what time it was anyway. I have only the vaguest grasp of concepts like chronology and sequences anyway, and giving myself an extra step in the comprehension meant that I just wouldn't finish the thought process.
Is it laziness? Is it weird brain wiring? Does everyone have these problems, or is it me?
And is it terrible that despite these stresses and weirdnesses, I still kinda like being just the dang receptionist instead of whatever else they've been making me be? Bleh.
