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Interesting that jon would post about feeling ungrateful about work. Lately, i’ve been finding myself to be quite ungrateful, not so happy with work I guess. Insurance (as i was telling Grace), is not a very happy thing, nobody likes insurance, nobody likes paying for insurance so I get the blunt end of everything, a conversation can start off with the client being all cheerful but the minute you tell them their brand new vehicle is costing them more insurance prem, they go all sour and yell. The reality of it is, insurance rates are filed with FSCO (the governing body) so nobody can change the rates even if you complained, but i suppose (like everybody in life), we all want to be heard, and these people probably want to be heard, knowing full well that i cannot do anything about their rates.

Bearing this in mind, work becomes somewhat a drag, this year more so because no Gtalk and people aren’t as fast in responding to emails. And this year, I do property insurance and the company is trying to launch this initiative CRM (customer relationship management) [re: organizational behaviour..for those who’ve taken it], so they want us to handle not only auto and property insurance, but handle new insurance policies (traditionally sent to sales department). That way we can build ‘multiple’ relationships with the client and they aren’t transfered so much. Good idea, but for a department that is already stretched thin with the volume of calls, it doesn’t really work that well. The service level (dictated by number of calls waiting, etc) for us is typically 56% while sales stands at 100% for most of the day.

So this year, it’s been a drag every morning going to work, hearing a ton of problems then going home drained and hearing the occasional nag. Last night, I just ranted to Grace about how crappy work is and she told me to think of 10 things that make me happy/grateful about today… I’ve not given it much thought yet, but at first thought, I think it’ll be really hard, in that I really don’t know what I could say I’m happy about..kinda sad? I feel like, I want to purchase this lens, not even sure which one yet, and somehow that would bring “happiness” but as with all toys in life, its only temporary and clearly doesn’t solve the problem. Sure the job is well paid compared to many other students and its comfortable…but still not that satisfied with it.

How can I be more grateful about things?