Yesterday just before I left work I was reminded by a co-worker that our boss had demanded that we nominate an agent of the month before we left that day. Annoyed but resigned I returned to my desk and quickly wrote up a nomination, printed it and dropped in off on my boss’ desk on my way out the door.

Today they announced my agent as the winner and I don’t want to take away from her accomplishment. She’s a great agent, is always at work and does her job without complaining or needing her handheld - a nearly perfect employee. I do have to say that the selection process is somewhat suspect.

It seems that each manager reads their nominations outloud to the other powers that be and they take a vote. The nominations are done on a form that pretty much makes them idiot proof - check boxes and text entry are hard to screw up. They even give it to us in an electronic format so we can check the spelling and grammar. One of the managers told me that the decision was a no brainer - mostly due to the fact that my nomination form was the only one that wasn’t embarassing to have to read.

One supervisor wrote that the nominated agent didn’t meet any performance standards. Another supervisor’s was so riddled with misspellings and typos that no one was really sure what was trying to be communicated while a third pled the case that her agent should be the agent of the month because she’s been sick - which also means she’s been missing a lot of work.

Here’s the thing. This isn’t really all that surprising. In the past we’ve had a manager count to the number eight on her fingers, a trainer write a quiz where questions (as in had a question mark at the end) had the options of true or false and a coach announce that all pronouns should be capitalized. It took nearly a week to convince our site director that no matter how good our agents were we’d always have forty of our two hundred agents in the bottom twenty percent in each metric catagory.

I just don’t know anymore.

Okay. Its not that I’ve given up on fixing the problems my template is having in IE but until then, do you and me both a favor:

At work today I discovered that my new style sheet is not displaying correctly in IE.? If you know .css and think you can help me out, let me know.? I’m at a loss.

I’ve been trying to spend more time at my desk and as such I’m hearing a lot more of what my team members are saying to the callers.? Most of it is the same thing over and over again; the standard replys to the caller’s standard pleas, demands and accusations.? But now and then a gem comes out from the white noise of two? hundred phone calls.? The other day I heard this ‘exchange’:

I am not discriminating against you sir. I didn’t even know you were handicap until you told me.

(pause)

I promise sir, the fact that you’re in a wheelchair has no impact in our decision.

(pause)

We are not conspiring against you.

A few weeks ago S defended herself against racism charges too.? The exchange was similar only this time my black agent was accused of discriminating against blacks, and when the caller was informed of the irony it only fuled the fire.

I miss taking calls sometimes.? I starting to take a few on Friday afternoons so I’m sure I’ll have both sides of a call to comment on before long.

So I’m getting tired of trying to figure out what the problem with the single page posts is and have opted to take that part of the site down until I can figure out what the problem is. So until I’m met with more ridicule I’m going to stick with this lay out. The next big project will be to figure out adding a second column…after I get the pages fixed.

I don’t like horror films.? Not at all.? But I do like locals staying local and thats what the guys who made Point of Fear did.? That’s why they get a link from me.? Good for you guys, good for you.

Charlotte Allen, Catholic Editor of BeliefNet and author has an Op-Ed piece in the L.A. Times about the liberal movement in the Episcopal and Prebyterian churches and the effects its had on the number of adherents but in the coffers too. I guess if you pander to a bunch of unemployed hippies instead of the faithful you’re bound to loose out.

Though the article doesn’t address the more fundamentalist churches other than a brief nod to the Baptists, it does shine some light on what happens when you start to throw out the bits you don’t like.

That’s the thing about Christianity - though its all about a personal relationship its still a package deal. You can’t accept the New Testement and reject the Old, you can’t accept Jesus only and, though I’d think this would go without saying, you can’t reject Christ and still be a Christian.

For those of you not up on your rock and roll history, Syd was the founding member of Pink Floyd.? Get this…he was kicked out for being too weird.

Though he didn’t have much to do with your favorite Floyd records (The Wall, Darkside of the Moon) he was vital in the development of the band’s unique sound and pretty much set the tone for how they performed on stage.

Syd bit the big one a few days ago.? We’ll miss ya Syd, even if you were crazy.

I’m going to leave the new layout up for a few days to do a full test.? I know the page posts are not layed out correctly and the comments box is oversized.? Tell me what you think of the new layout via the comments section.

Last April I posted about Kyle McDonald and his quest to trade a paperclip for a house. He’d finally done it.

I went out last night and saw Fat Penguin, a local band play at Charlie Peppers. They’re worth a listen, sort of regaee, hip-hop fusion.

Things are looking up for old Jeremy…if things continue to go well there will be updates.