Superior Service Award

Yesterday I received a Superior Service Award at work for my exceptional customer service. It's a huge deal...you have to be nominated by your supervisor, and then approved by all managers in the office and then our zone director has to give the final stamp of approval. I got it due to an unsolicited email that one of my customers sent in after I helped her with her house after a drunk driver drove through it. I got this huge plague thing set in marble and a $25 gift card to Target. I also got another $20 giftcard to Target for being 1st in our office right now in customer service surveys. And, due to the fact that I received two fire assignments this past week and have another on the way on Monday, my managers approved five hours of overtime. I worked two of them yesterday, and get to do the other three anytime this weekend in the quiet solitude of my office. I may actually knock them out this afternoon...I think P is going fishing and it would be wonderful to have a nice quiet house to work in.

All in all, a very profitable day! Those Target giftcards will be put to good use on DVDs. Our mission to replace our VHS collection is fully underway...it's fantastic.

But of course, with everything good comes something bad. My boss, Queenie, emailed our team on Thursday that she is applying for another job out of our office. I'm sure whatever the job is, she'll get it, as qualified as she is and as great technical expertise as she has. This of course means I'll lose the best mentor I've ever had. She'll still be with the company, but that's not the point...the point is, I'll be getting a new supervisor that I'll have to get used to. Since I became an adjuster eight years ago, Queenie is the eighth supervisor that I've had. I'm no stranger to adjusting to reporting to different people, but I have really developed a wonderful working relationship with this woman, and we work GREAT together. I can predict what she's going to say before she says it, I totally trust her judgement, and most important, I know she's going to back me up no matter what, even if later she comes to me and says, "You know, maybe you could have done this instead..." She's truly the best mentor and supervisor I've ever had.

And now I'm losing her! Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually. Even if she doesn't get this job, she'll apply for another one. I knew she was too good to stay in this position forever and I figured after some time she'd move on. She's been my supervisor now for two years. I'm sure she's learned a lot from me too...I'm the only employee that she started with that she still manages, so she has supervised me the longest.

And my next question is, who in the world will take her place? My team right now is comprised of five adjusters...one trainee, two fire adjusters and two theft adjusters, and we are the highest performing team in the office with the hardest files. There is honestly no one else in our entire office that I believe has the technical expertise to manage us, although I am sure that someone will step up and offer to do it since we are the highest performing team in the office and the supervisors' performance ratings depend on how their people perform.

Anyway. Queenie should know in about three weeks if she got that job or not, so I'll be waiting on pins and needles until she tells me.

In other news, I am still waiting patiently for the days of my luteal phase to tick by. I'm now eight days past ovulation, and I actually took a route out of my way past a Walgreen's, intending full well to stop and get a pregnancy test. *sigh* It's way too early to do that, and I know it...if I bought one, I'd just be wasting money because it's too early for any levels of human growth hormone to be showing up. So, I'm just going to be patient for a few more days, keep watching my temperatures (which are staying nice and high), and pray that Aunt Flo doesn't make an appearance.

P and I went to a party last night that a friend of mine from work, J, hosted. It was a lot of fun, even though I didn't drink one drop of alcohol. I drank about five diet Cokes and a diet cherry 7up, but I was really good to abstain from drinking any alcohol, and she had hundreds of really yummy Jello shooters that looked good. Philip had about six beers, so I appointed myself the designated driver. It was fun though...there were lots of people there that I work with, and a lot of new friends that I got to talk to, and it was a good time all around. Something weird though later...after we got home that night and crashed on the couch, I woke up around 2:30 am with a swollen tongue. This morning it is not as swollen but it hurts, like it's been rubbed raw. Philip's tongue feels the same way. The only thing we can surmise is that it must be from inhaling all the cigarette smoke at the party since we are not smokers. But at any rate, it was a fun fiesta. It's nice to get out now and then!

I guess that's all that's going on in my world. Today I'm spending the day having lunch with Sharon at Chili's, running to Michael's to pick up some floss for my stash that I need very badly, and then stitching for a bit at her house. Tonight if I feel motivated, I'll get that three hours knocked out. Tomorrow we really really really need to work on our cabinetry, but I doubt we'll do it.

How many weekends am I going to type that sentence about the cabinets???????