Since my time at school is coming to an end, I decided to do some class pictures today. I don’t think the kids have ever done anything like it, because it was like herding cats to get them to line up. And they’re all the exact same height, so having 2 rows was problematic. It was fun, though, and all of the kids were enthusiastic. Gr 7 was chill, as always. My gr. 9's wanted individual pictures, so we had a solid 5 minutes of posing (after the bell, so not during class time). And gr 8 was very concerned that I’m not coming back. When I told them that I was going home to my family, they told me to bring my family here. Not likely!
On my way home I passed some men working on the power lines. Explains why every day the power is out during work hours. If someone had told me this weeks ago.... Not having power wasn’t a surprise and I was alone, again. Used the last of my computer battery to check my e-mail and since the message I was expecting from the airline wasn’t there, I decided to call them.
First, I tried to explain my situation to the guy on the phone. I told him I’d spoken to someone on Friday, and he transferred me to her, even though she actually had nothing to do with what I wanted this time. She told me I had to talk to the other office and gave me a number. But the number was the same as hers and the automated voice is Georgian, so I was asking her HOW to get through to the other office and she just kept telling me to call them. Finally she understood me and told me what I needed.
When I called the other office, I got the same guy again. He started to transfer me and I told him, "No, I want to check my ticket and I need your office." So he asks for my name and takes ages to look it up. While I’m waiting I tell him that the problem was with my name, so I want to make sure it’s corrected. He says, "It’s fine. Don’t worry." I said, "Can you please spell the ‘corrected’ version to me, so I can make sure." He huffs, but does it. Eventually. And it was correct, so I apologized. Then I asked him to check on whether my departure date had been changed like I’d asked. He tells me that I can’t change the date. When I asked why, he huffed again (gee, I’m sorry for making you do your JOB) and said, "It’s already booked, you can’t change the date." Since "it" is a nice vague pronoun, I asked what he meant. He says, "What I say is what I mean." So I tried to clarify, "is the plane full on that date or is there another reason?" He said, "Your ticket has already been bought, so you can’t change the date." But I know for a fact that the date’s already been changed once, so I said again, "Why?" To which he scoffed and then hung up on me.
I was livid. I had to call Sailor to vent and get myself calmed down, before calling back for an actual answer. I tried to call 7 times and every single time, they hung up on me. Inentionally. The first time I got a woman who spoke English and asked her, but she told me just a minute, set down the phone (so I could hear them speaking in the background) and then about 5 minutes later hung up, without saying a word. The next couple of times, I got women who don’t speak English and I could hear them talking to the guy in Georgian, but he wouldn’t take the call. The next bunch of times they just said, "No English, Sorry" and hung up without even trying. I finally had to stop calling when I ran out of money on my phone (that’s what happens when you’re on hold for 30 cumulative minutes). Only in Georgia would a business be allowed to operate this way. In Canada I would’ve had that guy’s @ss in a sling and he would’ve been out of a job, so freakin’ fast.
I stayed angry for a good portion of the evening, in spite of trying to distract myself. HB1 had a boatload of English homework (like, 5 pages) so we spent a lot of time working on that. I finally had to call a break for food, with a page and a half left, and then he told me that he doesn’t have English again until Thursday. So we agreed to finish it tomorrow. I ate with the family and then watched Leno and Gossip Girl.
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