I am with ITO. Working in the field is MUCH less stressful than working in the office. Since I am inside 100% of the time now, here is my list of peeves that I've noticed:
1. Answer a phone call and within 20 seconds, another call will arrive. The phone might not ring for an hour, but as soon as it does, another call will show up right behind it.
2. Make the mistake of going to the bathroom. As soon as the door closes, the phone will ring.
3. When your secretary goes out to lunch, all of her friends, all of the field technicians and your mother will call. In addition, the UPS man will show up with COD deliveries, along with someone looking for a job.
4. While you are spending 30 minutes on the phone with someone who barely has a pulse explaining why your price is more expensive than from someone on e-bay, you miss three potential money-making calls.
5. As soon as you start a conversation with a co-worker about ANYTHING, the phone will ring. You will all spend hours trying to remember what it was you started to ask each other before the interruption. Something ends up being overlooked and you have three field people complaining that they can't get the work done as a result.
6. While you are responding to a very important e-mail, you will receive no fewer than three e-mails from phony (but realistic) senders, only to find that they are nobody that you know, but they have one heck of a deal on Viagra.
7. The parts that you needed today didn't show up, but the ones that you don't need (and can't afford to pay for) until next week will be waiting on your desk.
8. A lunch break is yet again optional since you have three calls on hold and several proposals to rush out. You keep saying that you'll grab a bite later, yet it becomes later, later and later.
9. The Monday after an NFL football game arrives and half of the staff calls in "sick". You wanted to do this yourself, but since you know them so well, you came in. It's a good thing that you did since you are the only one there except the delivery people (wanting checks; see #7 above) before the sun has risen.
10. EVERYTHING is an emergency. I don't care if it's a simple matter of a vehicle maintenance issue, you are expected to drop what you are doing.
11. Somebody in the office doesn't like somebody else and somehow it's your problem to resolve this matter.
12. It's a lot harder to lie on your time sheet when you work in the office. I'm here an hour before the other folks and stay at least an hour later, yet they still manage to have more hours worked.
13. Running up the street to pick up something at the store, like toilet paper (yet another issue) can only take ten minutes before the cell phone is ringing, yet two men can somehow justify spending two hours at the supply house counter picking up a part.
I guess that I should stop there and strongly suggest that if you have the option of working in the field, you might want to consider it.
