My 9 to 5 Day!

I don’t know why it’s call 9 to 5. That would indicate a no lunch day or that people only work 7 hour days. That term always confused me. 

I work from 8:30 to 5:30pm and my view is always the same.

I do my best work seated there (here). You’ll notice there is a window behind the computers, but the worker on the other side of me can’t deal with the sun in the mornings, so she likes to have the blinds closed. Sigh 

I work for the County and specifically for the Social Services department. It might sound fancy, but it’s not really. I work in the customer service center which means I take calls from participants all day. I tend to take anywhere from 35 to 50 calls a day, depending how long my calls are and if I have to be off the phones to do something else. 

Unlike some of the other posts about work days, my days are pretty uniform. 

8:30-11am: I answer phone calls. My calls are 99.9% all in Spanish. I get paid an extra $100 a month to use my Spanish skills. Sometimes we have fundraisers that include selling food, raffle tickets, or other things which means I get to either sit in the lunch room to sell food or walk around the office.

11-11:25am: The regular break time is 15 minutes, however we can sign up for an extra 10 minutes in order to be able to do some sort of exercise. I typically just sit at my desk, but I do walk when the weather is good – or walk around the office.

11:25-12:30pm: I continue taking phone calls. Sometimes our fundraisers are lunch events which would have me off the phone during this time. 

12:30-1:30pm: My lunch time. I usually eat my lunch at my desk while I read blogs, write blogs, catch up on twitter, and do other non-work items. I also tend to take care of couponing and personal phone calls during this time. I also eat, usually a TV dinner, sometimes leftovers. Other times I’ll go out to lunch with my husband who works a couple of blocks away. 

1:30pm-4pm: Same as before. Wow, this is a boring post. If there are raffles to be had we’ll do it during this time as well and in the summer sometimes we’ll sell ice cream after lunch. 

4-4:25pm: This is my afternoon break. On Wednesdays’, in the summer, I’ll use this time to go to the Farmer’s Market at the mall a couple of blocks away and buy myself some popcorn. I’m writing this on a Wednesday and this might be what I do today. Otherwise I’ll usually go to my friends’ cubicle and chat with her. 

4:25-5:30pm: Back to the phones. This is usually the most boring and longest stretch of the day. Although I get off at 5:30pm I get to get off the phone about 10 minutes earlier because they want to make sure I don’t get any overtime – which would happen if a call takes me past 5:30pm. 

That might have sounded like my job is boring or that I don’t like it. I do. I actually really enjoy my job and do not dread coming to work in the morning. I’ve definitely had jobs in the past in which I moaned and groaned that I had to go to work every day – including when I was a substitute teacher.  

I have a supervisor who is great and who is dedicated to doing what’s best for our participants and I have co-workers that are awesome. I am very fortunate to work where I work and with the people I work with. 

My compute is about 5 minutes which is the icing on the cake for me!