We weren't supposed to go on the phones until today, but they surprised us Friday afternoon and told us that they were really busy and needed everyone on the phones, so we started Friday. I decided that I wanted to work by myself and took calls alone (instead of listening to a person in my training class and switching to take calls after an hour). We all took calls for about 2+hrs. It really wasn't to bad going it alone. But today we had to be on all day and I decided to pair with Alicia. We made a really good team. I was super nervous when I was taking the calls (she jokingly let me know that I was going first), but she helped me out alot while I was talking with the customer and I did the same for her when she was on the phone. It was alot easier to think and know what to do when you didn't have to talk to the customer. We put the customers on hold an awful lot, but they had music. It was really nice not being yelled at, people were very thankful for any help that we gave them...it was nice. For some of the calls we just transfered them to another department. The time went by REALLY fast. There isn't much wait time between calls at all. (not even a minute). I get to do so many different things as a customer service representative, no scripting at all! I can put everything into my own words (using jobaid-terasen aid for help). We do softskills training all day tomorrow, so that should be an easy day, maybe boring, but easy. I mean....really now...do many people have to be "trained" on how to be respectful and nice to people when they call for customer service? We do some more doubles calls Wednesday and then we all have to go on alone. It is really helpful having another person in training right there and listening to the same call. When the trainer is busy, it was nice to have someone there that might remember something you didn't and vica versa. The only problem with working this 1pm-9pm shift is that there are no buses at all!! I would have to catch an 11am bus to get there in time and there isn't another bus unitl 10:20pm for me when i'm done work. I walked there this morning(left at 12pm) and got there at 12:45pm and thankfully Jenn got picked up by her boyfriend and offered to drive me home. I found out that the people who got trained from 4pm-12am got the 11am-7pm shift for their practicum while the staff that trained in the morning (7:30am-3:30pm) got stuck working the 1pm-9pm shift!! Weird. We are servicing different companies, but I didn't think that mattered as much. Oh well at least for this month I get paid an extra dollar an hour for 7pm-8pm-9pm. It's a nice way to entice people to work past 7pm I guess. I also found out that I have the entire Turkey weekend off! I work until 9pm on Friday and have Saturday, Sunday and Monday off. Sam is going to go to SJ for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (he didn't want to give up his Sunday shift). I might be able to get a drive with his parents from SJ to Freddie on Monday..hmm.....I'll have to ask about that. That way I would only have to worry about getting to SJ. Longer post later :)