azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 ([personal profile] azurelunatic) wrote2004-04-10 05:45 pm

Work!

Worked my first shift with Marx. It was a voluntary extra shift for me -- I signed up for it because I needed the hours what with Sunday off and swapping to Wednesday. I had relatively few weird calls. One woman snarled that I looked like a freak for calling people to ask about kids (we do a study where we speak with teens), one person merrily declared that he doesn't do this sort of thing on Saturday (scheduled him to be randomly called again on Monday, as he clearly does do that sort of thing on select other days), and one fellow did not speak English (I determined that he didn't speak Spanish either, he clarified that he spoke Chinese, I marked his number down as the no common language option, said goodbye to him in Chinese, he thanked me in Chinese, we hung up).

Of the three, I'm happiest to have been able to say goodbye to him in his own language, and very thrilled that when he thanked me, I understood it.

It was a nice slow day. I worked, other people worked, and I had not very much distraction. I wrote a bit. Marx was on the same job I was on, though at the opposite side of the very large room. We were therefore on break together, and I pointed out the cow-orker to beware of. Marx confirmed that he already knew about the guy -- they'd been in the break room at the same time while Marx was training, and Mr. Arbitrary Bitterness had been at the center of some sort of drama-laced black hole.

I got off work at 2:30 rather than the usual 4:30 (I'd only volunteered for a six hour shift) so I could run some errands before everything closed. I got to talk to Dawn for a good 40 minutes before we finally both had to run, yay for finally getting time! She's been fiendishly busy.

There was a nice cloudburst. I was outside for most of it, and missed witnessing a taxi/car accident by an accident of angle; I heard the shriek and skid and crunch and watched them bounce off in different directions after colliding.

It's a lovely day out, anyway. Wind and all.

[identity profile] pyrogenic.livejournal.com 2004-04-10 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
The Chinese exchange was cool :-)
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[identity profile] chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com 2004-04-10 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
so how do you say goodbye in chinese? I know a few words, but not much....
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[identity profile] chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com 2004-04-11 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
thank you! I'll endeavor to store that in my failing memory...hmm..better get out the notebook.
I always thought that in school there should be a basic languages class where you at least learned to say a few polite phrases in the major languages of the world. Even if it was just please, thank you, I'm sorry, I don't speak your language, have a nice day.