Reviving the Forgotten Genius
Sometimes, I can’t help but believe I was truly meant for much, much greater things.
Yeah, I know, I know. Imagine me, King of the Self-Deprecationist Movement, saying such a thing. But, hey, it’s true. With the slight revival of my creativity, not to mention my performance in my training class at work, I’ve started to wonder it all over again. Usually, every time I have this debate with myself, I come to the conclusion that I’m certainly capable of any great thing I want to accomplish, but that I’m far too lazy to actually make the effort to accomplish it. And it’s true. Anything I’ve ever truly wanted to do, I’ve been too lazy or scared to follow up on. That’s all there is to it. I used to try and blame others for it, but that was no use whatsoever. It’s all on me, as usual. Where was I going with all this? Oh, right… I was going to brag a little. What can I say? I’ve earned it…
The training at Comcast was four weeks long (today was the last day). It really wasn’t enough time for them to teach us all we need to know, especially since it appears the job is going to be very, very, "flying by the seat of your pants." Seriously, we’re pretty much expected to be autonomous from day 1. I don’t much care for that, but, hey, whatever. If you don’t want to have enough supervisors to keep up with everything, so be it. It seems to be working for the company (who just had a record profit kind of year). Anyway… The first two weeks of training were especially helpful. We learned all the nuts and bolts, ins and outs of the software we’ll be using. How to set up orders, how to look into problems with accounts, billing, etc. That left two more weeks to kill. We spent about three or four days calculating pro-rates……something the trainer admitted we’d never actually have to do. So what was the point? I honestly don’t know. At that point, I completely tuned out. Completely and utterly. In fact, I took to reading Wikipedia articles for the majority of my days. All manner of stuff. I think I learned more there than from the training. Anyway…
This past Wednesday was Final Assessment Day. We had to make an 85 to be able to "graduate" from training. First thing in the morning (as much as one can refer to 10 AM as "first thing in the morning"), he handed out the test. We were given until our first break at noon to finish. I flew into the test feverishly, just ripping off answers left and right. Despite having not paid attention in nearly two weeks and having not studied a moment outside of class, I knew almost every last answer……without even using the allowed resources. After thirty minutes, I handed the trainer my test…..much to his, and everyone else’s, astonishment. Craig looked at me funny and bothered to ask, "Are you done?" Very matter of factly, I said, "Yeah." While I returned to fucking off, he graded it. I made a 96/100. One of the four I missed I left blank, and the other three were things I would never have missed if I hadn’t been working so goddamn fast. No one else finished the test for another half an hour. Truly, I felt like the genius I so often easily forget I am.
Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox: "Diary of Jane (acoustic)" by Breaking Benjamin, "Open Your Eyes" by Alter Bridge, and "Lithium" Evanescence
Today, we had our final one-on-one sit down with the trainer. He gave me the second highest cumulative score he’s ever given, and admitted it probably should’ve been higher, but since he never had to interact with me (because everything he ever gave us to do, I got done with incredibly fast, and it was always correct……so much so that I became the example he worked off of instead of his own), he couldn’t really gauge those parts of the evaluation. But I did get a perfect score in the "speed and accuracy of work" column. Pretty much, he told me he was not worried about me doing a fantastic job when we actually get started on it (I do get another week of training before migrating to the phones………hooray for internet troubleshooting! </sarcasm>).
Today was weird, though. I hadn’t really talked too much for a couple weeks (for reasons both not-so-complicated, yet varied), but today, they just couldn’t shut me up. I was being the normal, silly version of me, but none of ’em knew how to take it because they’d never seen it before. I think a lot of my sarcasm was completely missed because I can make it sound so entirely serious sometimes. King of the Sarcasm, I tells ya. And what’s with me anointing myself as King of so many things lately? Perhaps all the articles I read about the British royal family has gotten to me. Who knows.
And who knew I had it in me to sit here and pretty much brag for an entire entry? Not I, you can fucking believe. But I guess I’m done with the tooting of my own specific horn now. At least for a little while, anyway. I’m guessing the world will be glad when this version of me will go the fuck away. To those people I offer this: don’t worry….it never takes very long at all…
Sayonara.