I would have posted something tomorrow if I hadn't been so incredibly tired! It has been one crazy week. Monday was cardio night, I can't remember what I ate all day. I'm sure I might have written about it earlier this week. Wow I can't believe I can't remember the rest of the days this week! I take that back I thought today was Friday so I lost a few days for a moment. So back to the run down of the week.. Tuesday I took the day off cause I was in a terrible mood. Customers probably did me wrong, can't really remember. Wednesday was fricken insane! Insane might not even begin to explain it! I started my morning at 8am in the office. The boss and I went over to the fairgrounds where we checked in and began helping set up for the project homeless connect. Setting up tables, moving chairs, more tables and chairs. We moved poles, we put curtains on poles, took down some poles, there was so much back and forth walking on the hard concrete. My knees ached by the time I left that building.
We left there at 12, ran over to our operations center and picked up donations then back to our office. By the time I got back It was almost 1pm and I hadn't had lunch. I hadn't had much at all actually I think an apple? My blood sugar plummeted to 65. I thought I was dying. I had to take a working lunch since apparently the gates of hell had burst open and we were insanely busy. So there I was trying to shovel food in my face between phone calls and customers at my window while trying not to faint from the lack of sugar in my blood stream.
When I say we were busy I mean it. I don't think in the 3 months I've been working in that department it has been that busy. All of our phone lines were ringing at the same time, there were people at my window asking for help, I had faxes coming through and I had people asking me to translate at their windows. I'm sorry guys but there is at least one other Mexican in the office, use them! If it's not a busy day and we have both of us there then absolutely I would love to help you but when it's just me, keep in mind I'm still learning and I'm not made of play-dough like Gumbi. I was up at someones desk translating and my headset was ringing. So there I was speaking Spanish to a customer and trying to answer a call in my headset. I think what frustrates me is that people don't hang up when the phone has rang 15+ times. It is truly unnerving to have a phone ring that long!
The plan was to leave the office at 4pm so we could go back to the fairgrounds to do our orientation. At 4pm I was still taking calls. I was annoyed by people who refused to finish the calls they started because why? I don't know. I just finished telling you there isn't anything more that I can tell that customer that you haven't already so why the hell are you transferring the call to me?! Ok enough of that. It was an insanely difficult day I guess it was time for me to hit the ground running. I left the office at 5 til 5 and went to orientation. By 6:30 I was just ready to die. Mike gave me the choice to go do cardio or not. Monday's and Wednesday's are cardio days. I wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with the gym last night. NOTHING!!!! We made dinner, got some marinated chicken and grilled the hell out of it. We had chicken salads, grilled asparagus and fingerling potatoes. Good for us, right? An hour or so of anime later, I was in bed.
This morning I slowly dragged my ass out of bed and into clothes. At 8 I was back at the fairgrounds. We did some last minute orientation before the doors opened.
This was a great event and I don't think I've said enough about it, over my compulsive bitching and all. There are tons of services out in the community to help people that are homeless or at risk to become homeless. Being homeless isn't only considered sleeping on the streets, it's all those folks who are couch surfing. The problem with all the agencies is that they're all over the county. This under-served community of people are in crisis mode and it seems almost impossible to get to any of the appointments the agencies schedule for them when they're trying to get around town on buses. What this event has done is brought together all of the local agencies to one location. These folks had free access to doctors, dentists, chiropractors and vision exams. That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were folks there fixing bicycles, veterans services, housing assistance, mental health assistance, even the dmv was there! There was legal help, folks doing HIV testing and giveaways. Coats, socks, hats, gloves, clothing, backpacks, sleeping bags etc.
My role there was as a translator. Since there wasn't a high demand for Spanish speakers we were called upon to work as floor hosts. When a client got through intake we would take them to the first stop they were interested in. These were some of the nicest people I've come across in a long time. The volunteers were awesome too. A lot of them were people who work in the county. They weren't the ones heading up their departments table, they were like me some of the day to day folks and they were amazing. We all had our name tags and it was really fun to turn to someone and say "hey ____ can you help me with this?" Even the clients would call us by name. I was standing in line for lunch and the woman in front of me turned around and said hey Zu can you help me with this? A lot of folks were interested in my name. My name gets me a lot of attention, considering I don't like attention it is usually very uncomfortable. Everyone was so friendly today it wasn't uncomfortable. It was a great day. It was so rewarding. It really made me realize that I want to be more involved in the Hispanic community. I have so much damn time on my hands and yet so damn lazy. Zuzu-Cachoo should be synonymous with lazy little jumping bean. So I'm gonna ask you not hold me to it but I hope to be doing more volunteering in the future.
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