It's been a while since I've blogged. It's been a while since I've communicated with most of you. It's been a while...
Anyway, the last month has been pretty interesting. I flew to East Hampton, NY for Thanksgiving on Wednesday the 25th - as I passed through airport security I began a 3.5 month long distance relationship. I arrived in East Hampton tired and confused, but after a few days of excessive eating and drinking (split a liter of Jameson w/ my brother and drank to Ted Mullin numerous times...) things seemed alright.
The Monday after Thanksgiving I started my month-long temporary gig as a customer service representative and fraud detection specialist at an eGift Card issuer based in downtown Portland, ME. This job was actually fairly interesting. The company issues eGift Cards for a large national pharmacy chain, a large national home improvement store, and a number of national restaurants chains, among others.. A lot of people who steal credit cards like to buy gift cards because it's effectively a way to launder the money that they have access to on their credit cards. My job was to stop them during this busy holiday season. Basically, my fellow CS reps and I would review orders, do a lot of research on customers (more than you'd like to think...) and decide whether we could build enough of a legitimate profile for a real person to determine that their transaction was legit. Sometimes we uncovered somewhat elaborate fraud schemes by people using proxies in other countries, prepaid cell phones, etc. I know a lot more about how to "be a fraudster" at this point. Pretty cool stuff. Sometimes stupid customers would call in as well and ask dumb questions and I would get frustrated. A lot of the time I would be on Facebook.
So, that job ended the day after Christmas and now I'm sitting around for a few days before I head back to the Midwestern tundra that is Minnesota. When I do that, I'll be in full-on job search mode and hopefully be able to land something at least temporary as soon as possible. I'm also considering being a valet parking attendant on weekends.
A few random stories:
I went skiing on a day off a few weeks ago. I ended up somehow falling so that my left leg, just below my knee, fell onto the inside edge of my right ski. The edge cut my snow pants, cut my fleece pants, and cut my leg to the tune of five stitches. It was gruesome and bloody, and therefore I will share the picture that I took before the ski patrol lady bandaged it up so I could go back out:
My high school swim team had their alumni meet on the 26th. I got to swim a bit. Kelsey also brought Cancer Sucks caps, so my bro, sister, Kelsey, and I all wore them and took a picture. The cause is spreading.
Also, a slightly funny story: In preparation for my arrival back in Minnesota, I decided to pay my internet and gas bills today. I also realized I had yet to receive an electricity bill at my apartment - I assumed it had been sent after I left, so I called Xcel Energy just to ensure that my electricity would be on when I arrived on the 5th. Turns out they have not had a name/address to bill to since November 2008, and so electricity was cut on the 29th of November. I find it really funny that nobody paid a bill for a year, and they only just got around to turning off the electricity. I also am glad that I called because I really didn't want to have to deal with no electricity when I arrive late on the 5th.
First off, I hate that damn Staind song.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, is it gonna mess things up once the original owners come home and now have to deal with electricity bills that they were once not having to deal with?
Lastly, I expect you to catch the person who found my wallet that i lost on the way home for the summer last year and spent my giftcards.