Corporate Sagas - Poems of Quiet Desperation

From: Baylee Steele
To: Lindsey Gustad
Subject: Too Much Crack-Gym?

Customer Service- a poem by Baylee Steele

Today a lady asked

If I thought she was an idiot.

I paused too long before

I replied.

I wasn’t trying to be rude.

It was just the shock of it.

And the lack of coffee in the corporate breakroom.

Devoid of anything joyous or motivating.

I wonder

Would we be better off

With a different kind of coke

In our machine?

The End.

BAM. Wrote a poem in 30 seconds. I’m a genius.

Want to go to the gym later?

*Tune in next week for: "Why Baylee Changed Her Major" or "When to Expect the Next Full-Fledged Meltdown." (Hint: It's soon)

Corporate Sagas

      I mentioned that I got a new job doing customer service over the phone. This is awesome for many reasons.

     First reason: Customers cannot see hand gestures or facial expressions over the phone. As long as I keep my voice up in that annoying octave that girls in pigtails and pink tank-tops tend to use no one can tell that I'm fake vomiting and drawing pictures of unicorns on my notepad instead of writing down their information. It's a serious plus.

   Second reason: I now work for a large, rather important corporation. This means a pretty awesome benefits plan as well as exposure to the sort of nonsense that suddenly makes the plot of the movie Office Space seem not only plausible, but a likely conclusion to my year of employment.

      -The subject lines alone of some of the company-wide emails I get make me want to take a baseball bat to the fax machine.

    Third reason: I work for the same company as my older sister* and get to send her emails all day expressing my frustration and general level of apathy at any given time. These email counseling sessions are most likely the only reason I am still employed and will also be the number one thing that gets me fired should upper management discover them.


        *Yes she got me the job. No I am not embarrassed by this, as I have no pride. I also lived with her and her husband for a summer and continue to mooch meals and various other things off them, with no intention of stopping.

   And so dear friends,** while I will continue to have a section of this blog for Customer Service stories entitled "We Apologize for the Convenience" I'm now starting the section "Corporate Sagas" where I will share with you some of the most tragic, desperate, and self indulgent emails to my ever so patient sister (also known as my free therapist).

       **Some of you aren't my friends. I'm saying that to be nice and because it's a thing people say. It's not that I dislike any of you, it's just that I barely know you and I'm just calling it like it is. Don't get all in a huff about it.

We're going to start today with this lovely gem sent last week, the morning of my Birthday.

From: Baylee Steele
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 8:45 AM
To: Lindsey Gustad
Subject: SADNESS ON MY BIRTHDAY

Good Morning- what’s left of it now that you finally decided to show up to work.

(I’m kidding)

Have you seen my desk though? It’s awesome. there's a balloon. And I got Starbucks. So that’s nice.

My leg is still all jacked up and I’m worried about it.

What time is your appointment today? Are you even coming in at all? 

Are we still going to Red Robin today? I want to… but also if it’s still snowing and yucky idk if it will be worth it. Omg unless they can make me a hot chocolate with alcohol in it. I bet they could if I told them it was my birthday.

I’m bored and it’s snowing on my Birthday. *sigh*

I’ve had too much/not enough coffee. It’s hard to tell.

Also I know I’m old because I forgot how old I am turning today… I told Brandon 22 and Kim 24.

But 23 is a better number than 22. I like it better. 22 is dumb.. like 11. 11 is a dumb number.

I just realized this is turning into a conversation with myself. Like something I would write in a journal. I guess I’ll send it to you anyway.

OMG YOU’RE MY JOURNAL. Which is better because you actually reply.

OMG I’m so tragically lonely I want a journal that talks back?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.

Well This is Awkward...

I just read the last post I wrote on here and realized several things.

1. It's been almost a year since I've updated this blog. More on that later*.

2. I promised to update as soon as I got back from Africa and that I would not let you down again.

3. Based on that promise, one can only assume that I died in Africa, because I always keep my promises.

4. I'm a filthy rotten liar.

I offer this embarrassed pony as an apology. You've seen him before.
I don't have time to draw you new ponies every time I lie to you.
 That would be a lot of ponies.

SO.

I could go into great detail on exactly what I've been up to in the last year and why I haven't been blogging.

OR.

 I could just proceed as if nothing out of the ordinary happened, and what do you mean "where have I been?" I've been here all along, blogging and shit.

           
            *For those who are super curious here's a 10 second rundown of the last year and where I stand in life as of right now.

Went to Africa- felt awesome and blessed and adventurous. Returned to Colorado- slipped into hardcore depression- sucked at life for a while.

Quit retail job, got slightly better job with a desk and a phone and health insurance, and a spiffy new apartment and boyfriend. Felt awesome- Stopped sucking at life for like two seconds.

Relationship crumbled in the midst of the annual breakdown mentioned here and here. Sucked at life more than usual, resulting in more depression and a series of self destructive incidents eventually culminating in time off work and prescription medication**.

In a last ditch effort to stop sucking at life, made last minute decision to transfer from community college to CSU, where I aim to learn things and have a purpose and make new friends and whatnot and stop sucking at life permanently.

(That was more than 10 seconds probably. Unless you read really really fast.)

        **I was going to keep this a secret from the world, because it's a sensitive subject. But I know it's going to come up sooner or later anyway since I have a tendency to over-share. So we might as well get that out in the open.

So I'm back to being my mostly normal amount of crazy, and my new job as a corporate office drone has turned out to be as chock full of comedic material as my retail job was.

"Are you sure Baylee? Because most of the funny stuff on this blog was because of your job, not because you're naturally humorous."

I'm sure. I do customer service over the phone now. So it's basically the same only I get to roll my eyes a lot.

So I hope you'll all keep following as I reconstruct this blog and move on to a real college and continue to share anecdotes about my conversations with church secretaries in Missouri and how too many people in 2013 still don't understand how email works. It's going to be hilarious you guys.

Because at the very least you'll want to tune in for the occasional breakdowns and ultimately feel better about your own lives and how much you don't suck at things most of the time.