Answering the calls

One of the worst parts of job hunting has been how it necessitates answering the phone.

Someone could be calling about a job; you can't risk not answering. That means hearing everything else that Caller ID previously told you to ignore:

"I am from Windows support calling about your computer..."

"You must call your credit card company now to inquire about lowering your interest rates..."

"The career politicians in Salem..."

It isn't just that I have to pick up on those calls, because job hunting also led to more calls. No. Not like that. Initially every time I completed an online application I would receive a phone call about getting me into an education program.

"I'm really just looking for a job now."

"But after you've been working for a few months, would you be interested in going back to school?"

Having aggressively asked to be removed from the list a few times, that one has stopped, but there are still all the others. I was almost deciding that they didn't matter anyway. Every time I have gotten any communication about an actual possible job, it has been through e-mail. Employers have probably gotten tired of call screening and phone tag as well. That was before the leak.

Just at the beginning of the month, we found a wet spot in the family room. That particular spot has been hit once before, when there was a clog in the drain line on the washing machine. It was the Friday before the 4th of July, and finding anyone to come at all was hard, but we did get someone to come and clean the line, paying steeply for it.

The wet came back. There was also a leak in the washing machine itself, and there was enough wet that there was water damage.

This means that we have needed to make and take many calls: warranty support for the washing machine, the insurance company, the water mitigation team, the abatement team, and there will still be contractors.

People have generally been helpful and kind. Safeco has my business for life at this point. Still, there are all of these busy teams with multiple places to go, and things that need to be done in a certain order, like you can't disconnect and move the washing machine to get at the wet floor underneath it when you are still waiting for the part that needs to be replaced to arrive and be installed.

Things can go wrong very easily. I gave the home number as the main number, but I also gave the cell phone as a backup number. This seemed reasonable even though I never hear it ring. One person got the cell phone as the main number, and gave it to the others to call. I got it corrected with one team, but another scheduler called the cell phone on Friday night fifteen minutes after I had checked on it and decided we obviously weren't going to hear from them that day. That set us back a few days for getting in.

It's nerve-wracking. You can't leave the house, because they might call. Wait, did the phone get knocked off the hook? Where is my cell now? It rings; is that them? No, it's usually one of my sisters, checking to see if we have heard anything. That usually accounts for about five calls a day.

And they're people I would have picked up for when I was still screening.