Who Do I Speak To About This?

As many of you already know Kyle and I have been doing extensive apartment searching for the last 3-4 months. And I am happy to report that we have found a place, it looks great, and we can't wait to move into it.

This rant revolves around the apartment hunting process. For those of you who haven't have the joy of apartment hunting in the way that I had done, when you call an apartment complex there are two main types of people you will talk to. 1) The call center person 2) The "I actually work on the premises" person.

You ALWAYS want to talk to the 2nd type of person. Sometimes that is more difficult than you would think. This is because management wants you to call the giant warehouse stuffed with generally incompetent workers. They hire these people to take your calls and answer your questions, and in theory it's a great idea. The problem is that all these individuals are doing is reading off of the same apartment website that you, yourself can see online!

God forbid you ask a question about.. perhaps the parking situation or a specific detail about an apartment (like, do you have to pay for an accent wall or is it free). They never know, I doubt that the call center is even located in the same state as the apartment building you're inquiring about, let alone have they visited and spent some substantial time at the apartment building itself.

I find myself wondering what the point of these people are, they take down your information and say they're going to email you documents, perhaps half the time that happens. They ask if you want to schedule appointments to visit the apartment building, if you actually "schedule" something, when you show up at the building it is as if they had no idea you were coming.

These people are altogether useless. Who am I supposed to alert this to? The manager of the call center? I'm sure they don't care any more than the employees do. Do I write the president of the ridiculously HUGE management company and tell them I don't think they're employees are worth the minimum wage they are being paid? Perhaps the whole system will just crash and burn on its own.

Goals and Motivation

6 nights ago I started a new nighttime ritual. This came upon because in about a month I have a dentist appointment, most likely with DeeDee who is a very good dental hygienist. And if I don't floss... which I am embarrassed to admit that I normally don't, she gets on my case like you wouldn't believe. So for the last 6 nights I have flossed, brushed, and then mouth washed. I think the rule of mouth care is to floss first, but regardless of that, I would have to make flossing first. If I didn't, my chances of not completing my ritual would increase 10 fold. So I grudgingly floss, knowing that I must finish in order to brush my teeth, which of course I've always done. And just when my internal clock thinks I'm all finished for the night I have to reason with myself as to why I should use the mouthwash. The fact that this is a struggle for me boggles my mind, but it is. So I stand there for a moment reminding myself of the guilt I will feel if I do not do the mouthwashing step. But then half of me says, "big deal, skip it, it'll only turn your mouth blue anyway, and how healthy can that be?" So then the logical half tells me to look at the label for any color additive that may permanently stain my mouth blue, there is none, so I am forced to continue. After I get the mouthwash into my mouth I begin the next battle of keeping it in my mouth for as long as I can stand it. The way I do this is dancing. I do my mouthwash dance and shake my head to distract myself from the mouth burning. When I realize that dancing right before bed is going to wake me back up I stop and spit. And think to myself... another check on the mental calendar.

All in all, if it weren't for DeeDee I wouldn't do any of this. Sad but true.