Saturday, January 27, 2007

True Stories Of The NOC

The beginning of our first shift on Thursday morning is also the end of the weekday overnight crews last shift, and thanks to the nature of our shift structure, we have have a one hour overlap with them before they leave for their three day weekend (which is nowhere near as good as our four day weekend, though they only have to put in ten hour workdays).
In any case, while we do have a semi-formalized process for handing off any issues from shift to shift, we generally engage in a less formal exchange of information during the overlap.
I can't really get into specifics here, but on Thursday morning Scott noticed that one of the standard job duties hadn't been performed during the night, and so he asked if there was some reason.
The person working overnights - we'll call her "Mitzi," for reasons I'll explain in a bit - provided him with a rather puzzling response, one that was all-too representative a sample of what it's like to communicate with her. It went something like this:

Scott: Mitzi, is there a reason that Task X hasn't been done all night?
Mitzi: Oh, we're not doing that anymore.
Scott: Oh? Since when?
Mitzi: For a while.
Scott (Puzzled by the fact that we didn't receive any official notification of this, as it was a pretty substantial change): Who told you we're not doing it anymore?
Mitzi: No one told me.
Scott (Looks at me, shakes his head in confusion and consternation): Well, then how do you know we're not doing it anymore?
Mitzi: Because somebody told me.
(In the background, Jon can be heard coughing in an attempt to suprress laughter)

Later, Mitzi began giving information to Scott about some tasks for the station I was going to be working:

Scott: I'm not working that station, Jon is.
Mitzi: Oh, well I don't know who's working that station, but -
Scott: Jon's working that station.
Mitzi: Okay. (Begins giving Scott the information again)
Scott: Jon's working -
Me: I'm working that -
(We both give up and just let her go on)

And so it goes...
Now, the reason I called her Mitzi relates to something that happened years ago when I was still working in the call center in Tucson.
Members of "teams" used a chat room to communicate with each other while on the phones.
This was, theoretically, for the purposes of asking each other questions and relaying important information.
In practice it was used for goofing off and making smart-ass comments about each other, and, more importantly, about the customers calling in.
One day someone on my team mentioned that she was on the phone with someone named Mitzi.
We all had a good LOL about that, and began speculating on the limited career opportunities available to women named Mitzi. Someone suggested Showgirl. I chimed in with Gun Moll.
The best response, though, came from my friend Jon Betts, who provided, "A Ditz. A Professional Ditz."
*Sigh* I miss his dumb ass.
In any case, that's why "Mitzi" seemed like an appropriate pseudonym to protect the ditzy.

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