Adventures From My Desk...

So today I was at my desk, working diligently. Trying to get the pile of paper thinned out between walk in customers and phone calls. It is really hard to ever start and finish a task before you are interrupted. Especially when you are alone. Well, my boss was there, but honestly, he does his own thing. He only helps me with "overflow" phone calls. Anyway I have a tow bill to pay. I have learned to do this type of work quickly and I have a process for it that makes sense to me.

1. Check to make sure the customer has coverage. Check.


2. Find my checkbook. Check (literally!).


3. Make the check out to the customer or the towing company as the situation warrants. Check.


4. Pull apart the triplicate check. In this case, top copy to towing company, 2nd copy to State Farm, bottom copy for our file. Check.


5. Make copy of authorization to pay and tow bill for our file. Check.


6. Make copy of tow bill to enclose with payment for tow company. Check.


7. Put check with copy of tow bill in envelope, ready for mail. Check.


8. Put middle copy of check in with authorization and copy of tow bill into special mailing sleeve, then into envelope to mail to "the Farm". Check.


9. Staple our copies together and file. Check.


10. Postage two envelopes. Check. Done!

I can actually do this process pretty quickly, if I can do it uninterrupted. Today, I was hurrying so I could get it done before the phone rang. Between step 7 and 8 a problem arose. I was snatching the papers out of the copier at my desk when I dropped the authorization in the small space between my desk and the window! I have not looked into that space in a year or more.

Here is what I saw....

The authorization is on the left side of the first picture. The size of a half sheet of paper. The other picture has one of the rubber duckies Amy got me. The other ducky is still safely sitting on my desk. There is also a State Farm plastic cup, a tube of Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion, and various other missing paperwork, that got filed in my mystery "file cabinet-crevice" and about a gazillion dead bugs! I tried to reach the authorization form. No luck. I feel like I pulled my shoulder muscle trying to stretch too far! Crud! Can you say "workmans comp"????

I went on a mission to find something that would reach it. What I really need is one of those scissory extension reacher grabby thingys for old people to reach things on the top shelf. I found a long ruler. 18 inches. Maybe that will work. Turns out that 5 minutes later and about 100 failed attempts that it didn't. I am sweating and getting cranky. I could get it half way up the side of the desk and it fell, over and over. Crud, crud, crud!

Aha! put scotch tape on the end of it! Eureka!

Tune in next week for the rescue mission for the other rubber ducky. It is just so wrong that I forgot and left him down there so long! Apparently, he does not eat dead bugs. Maybe he killed them?

Just another day in the life of a State Farm Agency! Who said insurance is boring?