Americans will do it!

I'm so tired of hearing people (ahem President Bush!) talk about jobs Americans won't do! Americans will do them! For fair pay. For safe and standard working conditions. No, they won't risk their lives or safety for illegally low wages. But Americans will do dangerous jobs. And menial jobs. And perhaps unpleasant jobs. A parent who wants to feed their child will do almost anything they can to put food on the table. Just ask the families of those 12 men who died in the Sago Mine in January. Or their friends that were lucky enough to get out alive. Mining is very dangerous. But it pays well and those men do it to provide for their families.

The truth about illegal labor is it's cheap. And since management knows the workers will never report working conditions or other illegal practices for fear of being deported, they get away with it. And encourage it. To hire Americans costs money. It means paying a living wage. It means paying to maintain machines and a clean, safe environment. And that means less profit.

This whole guest worker thing is a disaster waiting to happen. We can't get people to leave when their visas expire now! We can't even get people deported for murdering cops. Los Angeles jails are full of illegal aliens who have come here and committed rapes and murders and other crimes. How are they going to enforce it then if they can't get it together now, even for only the criminals?

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On to stitching. I received my Parcheesi chart from Ebay. It's waaaay too country for me, so I think I will be making lots of changes. But it does provide a good basic board to work from. Off with the geese. Off with the flower thing in the center. Not sure what I'm going to replace it with though. I think I'll use the primary colors of the original game - the one my grandma had. Red, blue, yellow and green. I much prefer the traditional board to geese.....

I also ordered the Quaker gameboard. I'll probably do that one first, and start it when I get it in my hot little hands! :) I just love that piece. I can't wait! Maybe it will come today.

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So I have one more week left of my official training period on my job. I can't believe it's over already! And I can't believe I've gone from being scared to death to get on the phone to handling about 75% of my calls on my own. I still ask plenty of questions, but I'm a lot more confident in knowing the correct answers without checking every little thing out before I tell the caller.

Unfortunately, one more week of training also means one more week of starting at 8. Sigh. Next week I start working from 10-6:30 and I'm soooo not looking forward to that. But I can request to transfer to an earlier shift the first day, and with all the people coming and going and moving around, hopefully this late shift won't last long.

It is funny how people's attitudes can change from the beginning of the call to the end of the call, and it just depends on my manner with them. I had a caller yesterday who was all upset at the beginning. She was cursing and accusing our department of various things and all. I talked to her for a bit, giving her the information she needed to resolve her situation, and by the end of the call she was apologizing for her attitude and wondering how I deal with complaining people (like her!) all day, lol. She said "You sound so sweet, too!" It made me laugh when she got off the phone. She changed completely in about 15 minutes.

Have a great weekend everyone!