Thursdays. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

It’s been one of those weeks thus far – my team leader was out sick all of Monday and Tuesday, which put me in the “acting team leader” hotseat. I don’t do much other than walk past her desk to check the call-monitoring display to see if anyone needs a reminder to go on break or to lunch in order to adhere more closely to their schedule. It’s a benign way of checking up on people, but soulless and somewhat degrading to have your entire worklife revolve around your ability to log in and log out correctly while juggling calls and hoping not to get caught on a long call. Sometimes phones are just evil instruments of the corporate devil.

This was supposed to be Hat Week in honor of spring… well, it’s a total bust. It was my TL’s idea, and then she was out, so nobody bothered much with hats except we few, we happy few, we total bunch of dorks (all 3 of us). I at least have the propeller golf cap I’d threatened to wear, but am not wearing it today as it’s uncomfortable with the headset on. And as far as spring goes, that’s a total bust too – it’s been snowing off and on for 3 days, and in fact it’s socked and and foggy as well, which means fligth delays. Joy.

Tuesday I had the International Desk – no word yet on whether the open position will be filled, but I ran across a hint that some wheels were in motion (owing to the acting team leader mojo working).

Yesterday, the TL was in part of the day, left early, and all hell broke loose. Phone wait times stacked up to hell and gone, people standing at ticket counters in a panic because their tickets hadn’t been issued, guys with no credit card stranded and unable to rent cars. It was a whole bunch of random stuff at once -what we call a “spike.” And one of the unticketed people was my responsibility; it was one of my records that was supposed to have multiple tickets issued, and one of my pre-programmed ticket instruction lines was messed up.

Dammit, I’m better at split tickets (our term for it) than that.

And naturally, the person that discovered the error is one of those inhuman fussbudget perfectionist folks that never makes mistakes.

Dammit.

I ended up filing a customer service request on myself for the difference in fare – it was my bad and I freely admit it. The only thing I can offer in excuse was that it was a pending reservation, and the person that took the “OK to ticket” call didn’t follow proper procedure, verify the fare and send it back to me to finish. She just shipped it over for ticketing. If she had sent it to me, I might have caught it then. As it was, I never remembered it was supposed to be a split. Dammit. Well, the lady at the counter was soon on her way.

Then I had to deal with several interesting little problems – including one lady relocating with her 2 kids and dog and all, who flipped attitude right through the phone because she didn’t like the news I gave her about baggage limits. Surly wench. I hope her dog poops in the carrier just before lunch is served – she got herself (and her kids and her dog and all) upgraded to First Class, where her snotty attitude will endear her forever to the flight attendants and everyone else seated in the vicinity.

And there were the 4 guys stranded with nary a credit card between them for a car rental – it turns out the lady that made the car reservation made it in her name, never mentioned to us that the rental was for someone else, and blithely assumed that the car rental folks would just charge her card whether she was physically there or not. For the record, there was no way this would ever have worked in the real world, and we might have told her that if she had said anything to the booking agent. As it was, I was in the midst of persuading the hotel to send a van for them (they don’t normally do airport transfers) when the original lady was found and dragged to the airport to sign the charge form (which was my other suggestion to them, offered while I waited to hear if the hotel manager would okay the van transfer).

So, in spite of iffy weather, everyone got on their way yesterday… eventually.

Today, in an attempt to ward off grumpy bad mojo, I’m wearing my one new clothing purchase of the last 6 or 8 months – a washable suede shirt with an orange knit long-sleeve shirt and one of those slightly trendy long thin knit scarves. It more or less follows the “What Not To Wear” rules for my coloring and body type – fits like a glove, and it’s a warm cappuccino color, but it could be fingertip length to be ideal. I’ve never been interested in fashion, and I certainly dress that way… but today I’ve had 4 or 5 compliments already, including a comment from the office “Mutton for Lamb” lady. As I rarely get compliments, owing to not bothering much about it, it’s been an interesting day. Guess my clothes are so boring that everyone notices immediately if I do something out of the ordinary… like not wear jeans and running shoes.

Of course, the jeans and running shoes complete the outfit perfectly (eyeroll) but I refuse to wear uncomfortable shoes when the weather is iffy and the footing uncertain in the parking lot. And I haven’t found a pair of dress pants to fit in years. So jeans it is. And trainers. Nyaah.

That’s the day so far – oh, and joy of joys, the ticketer (one of two part-timers that share the job) is out sick, so I get to issue all the exchange tickets and the Southwest “ticketless” and anything weird the auto-ticketing software package can’t handle… plus yesterday’s exchange ticket report-and-sort.

Good thing I wore my anti-grumpy mojo armor, eh?