Hi squealcat and Stephanie,
Yeah, this forum seems to have its active times and its quieter times.
so, I overdid it with my knee. I think it started when I was playing with the dog, rolling a ball back and forth and kicking it for him to chase. Well, I cocked my leg back to kick the ball, and he grabbed it before I connected...which means I kicked the dog in the head, which wrenched my knee. The dog didn't even feel it (natch) but my knee is still telling me about it. So I took a rest day from the gym, and when I went back I took to the elliptical for 10 minutes, which I think was too much because of weight bearing. grrrrr.
And I ended up 45 minutes on the stationary bike which was HARSH on my butt. Got pretty discouraged. Felt crummy yesterday and stayed quiet all day. Felt better this morning and went to the gym first thing. Focused on my weight training. Not sure what i'm going to do about my cardio, as the elliptical has maybe a 10 minute limit; the bike is brutal on my arse after so long; the recumbent is almost impossible to get my heart rate up. I mean, you have to get it into the high 90's rpm's which also isn't great on the knee *sigh*
Anyway. I think I'm slowly readjusting my metabolism. My weight hasn't budged per se, but I blame stupid eating for that. However, as noticed on the recumbent...my heart has gotten stronger because it takes WAY more push to get my HR rate up on the recumbent. The regular bike too, for that matter. My legs won't be able to keep up with my rapidly improving heart health
WORK STUFF
Feeling beyond frustrated with my job right now. I work in the health insurance field, as a broker support coordinator. I take calls, helping brokers determine eligibility for our plans, checking if enrollments came through, ordering sales materials for them, etc. Currently, if the ubiquitous ads on TV have not given you a hint about this, we are in the Annual Enrollment Period for Medicare. This is the biggest time in Medicare insurance, and our busiest time of year. Starting in August each year, we are helping brokers with their certifications, until 10/15 when AEP begins. Brokers want to get ready for this big sales push, right? They want booklets and flyers and other tools to help them sell our product. Well, the company came into this year's AEP so UTTERLY unprepared.
The plans for 2022 didn't launch until 10/12/21...three days prior to AEP. Materials had to be back ordered and for the most part did not arrive to the brokers until after AEP started. So IOW, brokers get to try and explain the benefits without any kind of literature to hand out. SMH. They can find this information on the website which it turns out is UNDER CONSTRUCTION, presumably in preparation for the AEP this year. Some of it still under construction, mind you. A month into AEP.
The new plans have LOADS of new benefits that we, the broker support team, were unfamiliar with. They just said "woo hoo! new plans launched. You can view them here" ... we finally had a training with a lightning fast trainer who ACTUALLY started the session with "I don't have to like this, but I have to do it" or something like that. Really rude, and he's some higher up? sheesh.
Meanwhile, brokers are calling with questions about some of the benefits...which we have had one 40 minute lightning round with a rudenik. The unpreparedness of our company left those of us assisting the ACTUAL engine of the company...the brokers... without the tools to ACTUALLY assist them. Well, there was some low key trouble after I mentioned to a broker who wanted to know about the 2022 benefits, that the plans had been launched, and our training hadn't caught up yet. Heh. That broker reported this to the field sales manager, who brought it to my manager's attention. My name wasn't mentioned, but I know it was me. I said something like "oops, that may have been me. I mentioned our training not being fully caught up BECAUSE IT ISN'T..." etc. A few days later, we had another training session which was better (though still pretty lame, tbh. Most of what I know about our 2022 plans, I have gleaned from some informational stuff that they've slapped onto a sharepoint site. SMH.
We have to access Medicaid websites frequently in order to find out if prospects are eligible for our plans. One such website had been set up by someone who is no longer with the company. This particular page is our most commonly used site, with the majority of our calls being eligibility checks for this state. Well, because the site account was under someone's name who isn't with us anymore, the time came when we could no longer access it. That time was yesterday. Suddenly out of nowhere, the password we had no longer let us in. Thank you, higher ups, for not dealing with this when the OP left the FREAKING company. Now we have to use a different system where the Medicaid ID is required. Our brokers call us with name and DOB, because that is all that was necessary for finding information in the website we have been using since the beginning. Now they're being told they must have the Medicaid ID?
I am beyond frustrated about this. Our most common calls BY FAR are for information from this website, and we can't get to it because somebody didn't bother getting proper access for the team? wtf.
Training. We have some new hires who are joining the team. Our supervisor set up training sessions. Asked if we were okay taking a later lunch, etc. No problo. Today was a training day for me. Okay. I'm assuming the supervisor will do a few things
1) let me know what my topic(s) are to be and the length of my session and
2) start the session and introduce me to the new kids.
Nope. The training was set up and today it started with me and two new people. I found out on the spot that the session was scheduled for 3 hours and I had ZERO advance notice about topic or time frame. The supervisor was not in the meeting, so I got to introduce myself. When I IM'ed my supervisor she said "oh, just run through what your day looks like"
Well, I ran out of topic at the 90 minute mark. I didn't think to call for a break or anything...my bad...and the trainees said they had plenty of notes to review, so I dismissed at 90 minutes. Low key questionable on my part. Should've kept at it until the 3 hours were up...
They recently moved our top line/queue to Teams, so we have to use our back line for calling each other using internal extensions. Which is okay, except they didn't put our voicemail on that back line. Therefore, when transferring someone to another team member, we can't send them to the person's voicemail if they're out.
Ugh. Just one thing after another of lack of preparation/follow through from higher up, leaving us call center peons without the tools needed to do our jobs properly.
Livin the dream.
Meanwhile, I am losing inches enough for people to comment that I'm losing weight BUT the scale remains stuck (*cough* pistachios *cough*)
And yeah...loving that the knee isn't screaming in pain anymore. The doctor told me the PT exercises would help and she wasn't wrong, but I know the KT tape is a huge part of this. Maybe some day I'll be able to go for walks again.
Anyway, glad that got fixed. And now that we're done with AEP, they're sending out modifications on the eligibility requirements 
which was SUCH a trigger. Sent me straight to the Pleasure Trap, that did, and I had a fight on my hands. Fat + Salt = Major Cravings. But I stopped doing that and regained my sanity. 
