devvyn

More good news. I'm done my three-month probation period at Minacs, which means I'm up for a raise. I'll be up to $11/hour, which is the most I've ever earned on a continuous basis in my entire life. I'm quite happy about it. I've been really motivated to do well at work and it's paying off. I'm now meeting the performance goals I set two weeks ago, which means I'm on target for the team and the call centre as a whole. As a consequence of avoiding attendence problems, I was entered into a draw as part of a "Perfect Attendence Contest", and resultingly won a $50 gift card at a retailer of my choosing. I decided the smart thing to do is to select SuperStore as the retailer which allows me to save $50 cash on the groceries I'd normally be buying anyway, thereby providing me an extra $50 I can put in the bank. Additionally, a coworker of mine who was hired after I received my job offer had put my name down as a referral, and since he's now completed his probationary period as well, I'm expecting an extra $250 on my next check as a personal bonus. I'll share $50 of that with him as thanks for putting my name down and the rest goes in the bank. Being done my first three months also means my health benefits kick in, too, and I can book a vacation when I have enough saved up. *grins*

At work, a lot of people have been seeking shift-trades. As a result, management decided to make a new email address specifically for this purpose. It certainly made it easier to filter out all the extra emails coming in every day. The problem was there are two skill sets: desktop and portable. You can't cover a shift from a different skill set. So, every day there are multiple emails coming in which are basically junk for half of the call centre staff. I suggested to management that all shift-change request emails should be required to include the skill set in the subject line (enabling those emails to be automatically filtered as junk). The change was implemented immediately, which made me feel pretty good. At any rate, it also made it feasible now to actually read through all the requests and find some I can meet. I do this just to help people out, because, well, let's face it--my schedule isn't really centered around a complex social life. I have the luxury of taking whichever shifts I need to so that agents with kids can be home for supper, and so forth. That also makes me feel helpful. Not to mention I'm solving computer problems all day long, which is pretty much the definition of helpfulness in that context. Much helpfulness all around!