The World Revolves around the Sun. Not You.

Let me break it down really quick: I am one of two lead agents for the Exchange Program for a timeshare management company. Let me give you a for-instance. Say Joe-Bob has a week at the Cabo Wabo Resort in Mexico. But, after ten years of going to the same resort for the same week, he decides he doesn't want to go there this year. He can call me, "deposit" his week at Cabo Wabo for a week of credit to trade for a week anywhere that we have open. Say that he finds a week at Sunshine & Butterflies Resort in southern California. I would help him "deposit" his week from Cabo Wabo and book the exchange reservation for S&B Resort in SoCal. The info I need to deposit a week is: The name the resort you own, the start date of the week you're giving up and the size unit you're giving up.

It never ceases to amaze me how inconsiderate people can be. I truly believe that they think I have nothing better to do than sit on the phone and wait for them while they dig up the information they knew they needed to give me before they even picked up the phone to call in.

It's like when I worked at Jamba Juice (ahhh the good old days): It would always happen when we were in the middle of a rush. Some moron would stand in line for a good ten minutes. Then get up to the cash register to place their order, pull out a cell phone and go, "Hold on a second, let me call her and see what she wants." Really?? You had that entire time in line to get the orders straight, but instead of doing that, you're going to place the call now and hold up my line? Well, of course you are! Because the the world revolves around you, your time is the only time that matters.

It's even more interesting to see how full of themselves people really can be when you're simply a voice on the phone instead of a flesh-and-blood person in front of them. For instance, I had an owner call in a few moments ago. I won't give his real name, but he had an extremely common name like...let's go with John Smith. Shockingly, he wasn't the only John Smith in my system. There were no Junior's or Senior's--nor were there any middle initials--on his account that I could use to narrow down my seemingly infinite list of John Smiths in my system, so I had to resort to going into every single account and find the John Smith located out of Conscientious, California (I wish that really were a city...). When it took me longer than a half-second to locate his account, I was fortunate enough to listen to a litany of complaints about how slow and incompetent I am and how he's been an owner for a whopping 8 years.

Well that's fantastic, sir, but amazingly enough, there is more than one John Smith that owns a timeshare with us and instead of just picking one at random, I thought I'd find your specific account to make sure you get credit for the week you're depositing. So I locate his account after a totally unacceptable two minutes and getting the name of his resort, I ask him the standard question, "Do you have the start date of your week?"

Fifteen minutes later, after he scrolled through apparently a hundred e-mails, placed me on hold to call his wife, placed me on another hold to call his actual resort, he was able to give me the start date of his week and I could move on with the deposit and the trade reservation. His time clearly was more important than mine and the time of the five owners sitting on hold while I waited for him to get his shit together.

I wish there was an Aggravation Fee I could tack on to reservations: "Alright, sir, well since you were a total pain in the ass, I am going to have to collect an additional $25 fee." That whole thing wasn't even worth the $119 that went towards my total revenue for the month.

Day 5: Music Challenge

Day 5 is supposed to be a song that reminds me of someone. You know, there are a million songs that can fit each and every of these 30 categories, but as soon as I have to sit and think of one, I forget them all. It's rather frustrating. Hmmm...

So I'm going to go with "You're Unbelievable" by EMF. It's from the Coyote Ugly soundtrack. It may not have been the greatest movie ever made, but it was my movie with my three best friends in New Jersey, freshman year of high school. Catie, Casey, Katelyn and I lived and breathed that movie for practically the entire year. We each assumed a character (I was Jersey, "the Jersey Dreamer"; Catie was Rachel, "the NY Bitch"; Casey was Cammie, "the Russian Tease"; and Katelyn was Lil, "the Boss") and could quote that movie back and forth without even trying. Yes, slightly obsessed, but we were fifteen years old, so give us a break.

You better believe that when I went on my first real trip to Las Vegas (and met Katelyn and her now-husband there), we hit up Coyote Ugly in New York, New York and danced on that bar until our stilletto'd feet couldn't hold us up anymore. So now, every time I hear this song--along with pretty much any song from that movie--I immediately text at least one of the girls to tell them that the song is playing and it reminded me of them.

So, without further ado, I give you "You're Unbelievable" by EMF:

To Do & Eat in New Jersey & New York

Things I'm looking forward to in New Jersey & New York:

 

 Food & Drinks:

1. Good pizza
2. A real Classic Italian hoagie from "The Store" in Ramsey
3. Bacon, egg & cheese on a Kaiser roll with salt, pepper, ketchup
4. Good/real Italian food (Lasagna...Penne vodka....Baked Ziti...*drool*)
5. Lotte's Chocolate cream she always makes for dessert at family dinners
6. Hot dog from a street vendor in the City
7. Twisted Teas (apparently they only exist on the east coast...I've searched high and lo for them out here)
8. Diner food (not good for you, but soooo yummy at three a.m.)
9. Bagels--basically, bread of any kind
10. Dunkin' Donuts coffee if I have to wake up early and be somewhere

Activities:

1. Seeing my best friend, twin-sister-separated-at-birth, partner-in-crime since our freshman year of high school get married
2. Seeing my aunt, uncle, cousins and meeting Baby Stella!
3. Seeing the other original Coyotes (Catie & Casey...the other partners-in-crime)
4. Giving Jordan the "Before She Was Famous" tour of my hometown: Ramsey
5. Visiting the Lake and Boathouse in Central Park (*never been there)
6. Visiting the Met
7. Experiencing the City's nightlife (only did that once when I lived out there...tragic, I know)
8. Just walking around and getting lost in the City
9. Going to the Jamba Juice in Times Square and ordering a soy shot
10. Going down to the Village
11. Window shopping on Madison Ave and 5th Ave (and stopping to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral)

I have to do more research to find things I want to do and see that I've never seen in the City before. I'm sure there are hundreds of places and activities that I don't even know are there. Any suggestions??

Corporate Secretary Barbie, Carpooling, Bad Country Music

I feel like Barbie today.

Which is strange because I'm not wearing pink and I didn't drive a plastic pink convertible to work from my pink cardboard mansion. I'm pretty sure it's the ponytail and the bangs. It may not make sense, but I feel like Barbie. Maybe Corporate Secretary Barbie, complete with legal pad and glasses.

Jordan and I carpooled to work today. That's the benefit of working in the same office as the person you live with. Some people say that they could never work with their boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife, but it's actually not that bad. At work, we barely acknowledge each other. I mean, yes, we talk. But we don't go skipping down the halls, holding hands and making googly eyes at each other and not once have we attempted anything in the copy room. At work, it's work. We don't go to lunch together every day (on occasion, we do) and we work in completely different departments so at the end of the day, it still sometimes feels like we haven't seen or talked to each other at all. Plus, you can save a shitload of money on gas carpooling, especially now that gas is slowly creeping towards $4.00/gallon. It's $3.65 at the Shell station right by our office. $3.65!! Those gas tycoons are loving it right now. Jerks.

So anyway. He flips on K-Roq to listen to the Kevin and Bean Show and the first sentence we hear after flipping to that radio station is Kevin going, "Country music bah-lows." Seeing how this is a constant topic up for debate in our household, Jordan immediately made it louder and started laughing. Now, I will admit that some country songs are just horrendous. But then again, some pop songs are horrendous. Some rock songs are horrendous. Some punk songs are horrendous. Some hip hop songs are horrendous... You get my point. I just don't know why people pick on country so much... Kevin did compile a list of country titles that are true, honest-to-God songs and I'm pretty sure these contribute to the bad wrap country music has:

I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim is Getting Better
Her Teeth Were Stained But Her Heart Was Pure
She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft
She Got the Ring, I Got the Finger
Brown Chicken, Brown Cow (not the worst title, but if you listen to it...Yeah...Pretty bad.)
I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Like Having You Here
Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed
I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life
I Would Have Wrote You A Letter, But I Couldn't Spell Yuck
If My Nose Were Full of Nickels, I'd Blow It All on You

I'm fairly certain that these are all old, old old country songs and I will freely admit that these titles make me cringe they're so bad. But, I mean, they are kinda funny, no? LOL

Day 4: Music Challenge

Day 4 is a song that makes me sad. I'm going to go with "The Christmas Song", which everyone knows as the "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" song, by Nat King Cole. I'm not really sure why, but everytime I hear it, it makes me miss New Jersey and my friends and family over there. There wasn't one Christmas in particular where I listened to that song over and over and over again so it is forever connected to Jersey in my mind. I think it's just because it makes me think of the 'perfect' Christmas: snow outside, fire in the fireplace, house packed with family. Out in California, it's just my mom and my aunt as far as family is concerned. My other aunts and uncles and cousins are all back east and I would love to be able to spend Christmas with all of them again one year, especially now that Stella is born and we have a new baby cousin in the family. The last time we spent a Christmas back east, I was fourteen years old. In any case, this song always gets me a little teary-eyed.

Following Myself...

Oops. I started following my own blog by mistake. I'm trying to decide if I should just leave it there since five followers boosts my ego even more than four (4!!!!!! Welcome, The Restaurant Manager! May I call you TRM?? :) Seeing that little 3 change to 4 triggered a tiny little happy dance in my living room on Sunday. Jordan thinks I'm crazy.) buuuuut at the same time, I don't want to be that blogger. You know, the narcisistic one who cares so much about what she thinks and says that she follows her own blog?

Meh. Maybe I'll leave it for a while. I feel better now that I've made it clear to the blogging community that I began following myself on accident.

:)

UFC: "The Prodigy" vs Fitch, "Rush" vs Shields, "Rush" vs "The Spider"

Well good morning to you all!!

For some reason, I am in a remarkably good mood this morning. Can't really figure out why, especially when I had to drag myself out of bed when Jordan got to stay buried under the covers since he doesn't have work today. He does have to go in to work on Saturday, though, so there's the trade-off.

The countdown is officially on!! This Saturday, BJ Penn will square off against Jon Fitch in a fight that ultimately decide his future in the Welterweight division. GSP is currently preparing to fight Jake Shields (which really is an insult to GSP. True, Shields was the welterweight champ in Strikeforce, but his debut fight in the UFC was a total let-down. He didn't fight like a champ at all and he barely pulled off a victory. But Dana White did promise him a shot at GSP if he won that fight, hence the GSP/Shields match-up. GSP is going to take him to the ground and just ground him out for five rounds. Should be scintillating to watch.) However.

After the Jakes Shields fight, GSP will prepare to move up a weight class to fight Anderson Silva. If he wins, then he'll be the new middleweight champ and have to forfeit his welterweight belt. Which means...BJ may get a title shot in the welterweight division! Wooo!! (Side note: I'm going to cry if I have to watch Silva defeat GSP. Seriously. That's the most humble, respectful champion in the UFC versus the cockiest, most conceited champion. Plus, St.-Pierre came to this country and actually made the effort to learn the language. Silva can speak English, but never does. As someone who moved to a foreign country and learned not one, but three of their languages, I find it very insulting that he refuses to speak our language.)

We'll be having a little shindig at the apartment this Saturday to watch the fight. Nothing too big, just a few friends, drinks, snacks. I'll probably be either curled up on the couch watching between my fingers or jumping up and down like a crazy woman watching the fight. All I have to say is, BJ better bring it. He better be the same BJ that walked out for the Matt Hughes fight. You could tell just by the way he was walking that he was ready for that fight. And sure enough, twenty seconds into the first round, BJ knocked Hughes out. It was beautiful. Jordan got so excited that he jumped up from the table so fast, he almost knocked over the glasses on our table and spilled soda all over the one nice purse that I own. I hope to see that kind of confidence in BJ again this time. I don't know what happened to him during the two Frankie Edgar fights, but for some reason, he just lost all his confidence and it was rather heartbreaking to see. When Bruce Buffer said, "...and the new Lightweight Champion Frankie 'The Answer' Edgar", we both wanted to throw up a little bit.

And that is my rant on UFC for the week. LOL

courtesy of jonfitch.net



GSP vs Shields (courtesy of tkomanagement.net)





Silva vs GSP (courtesy of hammerfisted.com)