Waaaay Back When-sday, Episode 7, Things I've done for a paycheck (part 2)

It occurred to me once that most of my waking hours are spent at work. I see the people I work with more than my own family (or so it seems sometimes). If those jobs are good for anything, it's something to blog about. :-)

Here are my previous posts on the topic, Part 1, babysitting


In high school, early high school.....my dad worked for a courier company in Omaha. One summer, I went to work with him everyday, to help out. My first job was accounts receivable. I was the thug...the person that called to collect on monies owed.

I'll give you all some time to laugh hysterically at the notion of introverted me strong-arming people over the phone for money.

(humming to herself)

OK...is everyone done? It's OK if you aren't....I'll wait a few more seconds.

(straightening her desk)

Done? Good...now, back to the story.

The courier company was smaller, and short staffed....so there were literally file cabinets (plural) full of invoices and monies due to them. I spent all day calling people...for weeks...and made little to no dent in the files.

One day, the offices flooded. It had been raining for days...and the offices were located in the older part of downtown Omaha. They had actually kinda sank below street level (isn't Chicago doing this as well...or is that just something I read somewhere?)....and as it rained...it literally filled up with water.

We spent the morning moving any office furniture we could up onto desks to keep it out of the water. I sat on top of one desk....with the phone cord taped to the wall out of the water....calling people collecting money. Now that's dedication. :-)

The company also had warehouse space. They stored materials for different clients...one being a very famous musician, even to this day. This musician puts on one heck of a Halloween show each year...so we stored all the set decorations used on his tours. It wasn't unusual to find a severed arm, or head, here and there in warehouse. Kinda creepy when I think about it.

The offices eventually moved, and that next summer, my dad wanted me to try my hand at dispatch.

Dispatch!

I don't know as that I even had my license yet...and he wanted me to tell drivers where to go?

I grew up in a town of maybe 3000 people. Omaha is a city.

(gulp)

Luckily the drivers were AWESOME. They'd call for a pickup, and I'd go down the board listing the addresses...and they'd tell me which ones were close to them.

One afternoon I got a call from someone, wanting to order pizza. I told them it was a wrong number...but the gentlemen with the suspicious southern accent tried to strike up a conversation. I was polite, but insisted he hang up and try a different number.

It was then I started hearing laughter from behind me.

The owner of the company was on his phone, with a couple other guys in his office.....prank calling me.

It turns out many of the drivers had been asking him what I looked like. They wanted to know who was on the other end of that sexy phone voice.

Me, with a sexy voice?

(giggling)

Kinda explains why they were being so nice, even though I had no clue what I was doing.





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