A Bad Call and Some Negative Thoughts

So as of late, I'm on heightened alert that I'm going to do something that forcibly separates me from my job. I just hate negative feedback, and it seems to be in no short supply these days. I take it personally, and it makes me feel as though my job is in jeopardy. Because who really knows what happens right before you lose your job.

Eventhough I have another company that said they want me, if something terrible happens at my current job, it will totally crush my confidence. I hope the Devil isn't going to use my negative thoughts against me.

My negative thoughts are telling me that my two team leads are in cahoots with the client and tracking all my "bad work" to let me go right before I try to leave on my own terms. We know this isn't actually true, because just last week, my actual manager asked me to cover an additional project beginning in mid-June. But I'm still convinced it could happen.

I think part of the reason I haven't told anyone about New Job is because I just have no faith in a happy outcome. For the last few memorable "Big Newsworthy" events, there was always a rocky road to the rainbow, and I don't want that to happen here.

I just feel like the Devil/ Fate/ Karma.. mostly the Devil is just waiting for me to get too happy so he can steal my "joy." Ugh.

So I had a call where a doctor was requesting an MSL (Medical Science Liaison). During the call, I figured I would either need to send it to the field team (commercial) or escalate it to Med Affairs in which case it would probably have to be a more specific question - not just a general request. Because using my experience has been met with such mixed results, I ended the call for the general request.

Then I decided to check with my team lead because I'm trying to shed myself of my prideful ways when it comes to work product, i.e. ask for and accept help and feedback. The Team Lead said that the escalation needed a specific question (one of my initial thoughts). So I called the doctor back and asked for a specific question. When I tried to confirm the question (what I'd been taught to do at my previous job), he started to get frustrated. I offered to review the information we had readily available (usually the expectation), and he got more frustrated.  The doctor said he didn't want the MSL to come out anymore, and he wasn't going to be using our product.

Womp, womp. Am I going to lose my job over this?! 

My mind automatically took that leap because there's such a disconnect between me and the client in terms of expectations, resolutions, and experience.

The thing is, when you're on a call, you can kind of feel out the mood and the disposition of the caller. But all the people who QC just want to make sure you follow the rules, even if you, as the Call Center Agent, don't feel as though the rules makes sense (here's why I am trying to table my pride).

Think about every time you've ever called a Call Center and even though you're frustrated and they didn't help you, the agent still asks you "is there anything else I can help you with" or "have I answered all your questions." As an agent, we get dinged for not saying or doing a prescribed number of things even if those things don't make sense for a given call.

So initially I knew the doctor just kind of wanted general support which is why I ended the initial call. But because I was trying to do better mixed with not trusting my own judgement anymore, I sought confirmation. Then I anticipated the Escalation Team coming back with "did you review the available information," so I tried to do that eventhough I could already sense the doctor again just wanted to have someone come out and talk with him.

Anyway I basically tried to pre-empt a problem, follow the rules, put my pride aside, and it seems to have just made the problem worse.

So now I'm going to be worrying about this. What if the client says they don't want me on the team anymore?

I was trying to be comforted by the fact that I'll be out of the office next Wednesday so I won't hear the feedback during the Team Meeting, but obviously if the outcome is more than negative feedback, it'll find me. I'll be crushed.

To make matters worse, I vented a little to the Lead via chat message and when she didn't respond, I tried to make amends. When she didn't respond to that, I got nervous that I made her mad. Luckily, she at least wrote back, and I got a little reassurance that I didn't do any lasting damage to her feelings.

In other news, I got a message from my Just-In-Case credit card that I needed to make a purchase by July 2020 or they were going to cancel my card. I hadn't used the card since 2016. Eh, I decided I still wanted to keep the card (as opposed to the 3 new ones I signed up for) and was craving some Mexican food.  So, I bought an $8.36 Fiesta Salad, and it was tasty. I have some frozen tortillas from a catered work lunch, so I hope to use that to make little wrap/burritos with the Salad leftovers.

It did help to spew this all out, so thank you for reading.

Happy Thursday!

P.S. - Just as I'm about to publish this post, I get another call that results in an escalation. Ugh. I just want to turn in my resignation letter already! The fear of a negative outcome is messing with my mind! While having a 6-month emergency fund might keep me off the streets, what emotional safety net can I string together to keep me out of the loony bin?!