Phoenix, AZ THI 11/20/2008: I am so glad that USAA is coming to town in Phoenix, Arizona because I really need a raise. Its no secret that Nationwide low-balls its employees and the raises are horrible 1-2%. No bonus at the end of the year like Progressive. I believe Progressive gives its employees 10-15% Christmas bonus at the end of each year. Not here at Nationwide, nope.

Overtime is generally discouraged by managers at this office and throughout the entire Nationwide Enterprise. I was told that if I logged in overtime then my job would be eliminated as they would run out of money.

Training? What training? Its also not a big secret that Nationwide provides very little training to its employees. The "training manager" here I have never really see train anyone. At other companies, you receive weeks or months of training and mentoring before being placed to do your job. You will not receive any formalized training here.

The director is an idiot, the 3rd idiot in 6 months. It seems as if there is a revolving door at the front. We have a pool going to see if this new director will get the foot in the back of his pants next.

This branch was designed to fail. There is something about the entire THI organization that is just bad. Its not any one person, but the whole thing. I believe that Allied should be combined with THI. While Allied is no angel, most certainly it is better organized then THI.

What can I say about HR? HR occasionally gets on this site to post a positive review or two. Well, I guess they are employees of the company too. Right? I have not met anyone at this company who has a positive word. The managers at this company do not get off easy either. Everyone seems to work in this chaotic, disorganized atmosphere. This is a Fortune 100 company? What? Excuse me? Haha. No it isnt. This place is a mess. I dont know anyone in here that returns their phone calls and why should they? What motivation do you have? At least at Progressive, you get good pay and a nice bonus at the end of the year and so there is at least a monetary motivation. The motivation here is??? I have yet to figure it out.

Nationwide paints this picture of professionalism in their company policy manuals, but this is not a professional atmosphere. USAA is a model of a professionally run company. Nationwide is like a train station during rush hour. Chaotic, disorganized, hectic. There was a time in Phoenix when someone was setting the fax machines to call 911. Thats how crazy this place makes people to do stuff like that.

None of my co-workers are that competent. Can you blame them though? No one received any formalized training. Even at the po-dink insurance companies like Infinity, you get sent to a school in Alabama where they teach you how they want things done. Im not certain even to this day how anyone wants anything done. In fact, its funny to watch how everyone just does their own thing here. Its disappointing too.

Im glad that I am on my way out of this place. I dont feel good working in a place where I know there will be no future advancement. Again, I want to point out that Progressive has a process of certification where you can reach different levels and get more pay. Get more bonus. At Nationwide, the only bonus you will get is that free coffee in the breakroom and even that appears to be leaving the building.

This company has no centralized management or leaders. The management that does exist is incompetent. I want to make a remark about the director in the MD department here. He goes off on these trips to Vegas, the NACE convention, and talks way too much. Why is the company paying for trips and hotels in Vegas when there are people getting layed off? This guy is no leader, no shining example for us all. He doesnt help or give us direction. No training. In fact, he should have stayed back in Phoenix and given up his trip to Vegas. By going to Vegas, he slapped everyone that was put out of a job in recent months.

I dont have any pride for HR, no pride for the Director (neither Bill nor Tom), no pride. In fact, why are there so many directors and managers at this branch? Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. All the Chiefs do is talk talk talk, but what gets done. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

Thats my negative review of the Phoenix branch. I look forward to the next negative review as we make Nationwide worse then Progressive. I truly think Nationwide is worse. At least they pay you at Progressive. Here you work for slave wages that are 5 years behind. It sucks.

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after stupidly trying to use ventrillo to post this (don't ask! moment of madness)
here is a copy of the quiz found in good ol kaydear's journal

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE???

Grate granddad

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Last month

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?

No

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?

Turkey ham

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Not yet

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?

Most of the time

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A Lot?

On a daily basis, I'm aka sarky jaxtard so yeh

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?

Thankfully!

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Yes!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?

Frosties!!

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?

No

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?

Yes, more immotionally than physically

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM?

Ben and jerries chocolate browney

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

Their mood, attitude, and outlook

15. RED OR PINK?

Red for Liverpool!

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?

My stroppy, shoret tempered moments which cause me to say things I regret

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?

Grandparents!

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?

If they want lol

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?

Sort of blue green jeans, trainers.

20. What are you looking forward to in 2009?

Being employed (ho0efully!)

21. WHAT ARE YOU listening to RIGHT NOW?

Jaws for windows 8.0

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?

Yellow

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Fried backon, chips, old spice, freshly laundered washing, freshly cut grass

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?

Dad earlier lol

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?

Top banana Kay is yes

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?

Boxing!

27. HAIR COLOR??

Black

28. EYE COLOR?

Hmm. Forgot.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?

No they are in my phone book

30. FAVORITE FOOD?

curry! Itallian, chippy n(I presume I'm aloud more than one)

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

Both!

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?

Bruce all mighty

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?

Hmm. Ain't sure

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?

Winter, cold, crisp! Though winter is when I get my down days

35. HUGS OR KISSES?

Any

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?

Cheesecake

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

After nunes

38. Least likely to respond?

Very early morning

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?

Just finished lords of the north by cornwell, excellent book to!

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

A mmouse! God! Work it out!

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?

Some load of crap

42. FAVORITE SOUND?

Beer or coak being pored in to a glass, gbirds chirping

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?

Betles! From the city!

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?

Florida exactly this time last year

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?

Many!

46 WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

Blackpool

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?

All me good mates, you know who you are.

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Today is the 7th anniversary of Joshua being diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was 9 years old. I allow myself this one day every year to stop everything I can and be 'in the moment' with my memories and emotions. This year I had to work. Though that's a blessing, it was also a very tough thing to do. I'm glad to be home now.

Read on if you choose.

Monday, September 11, 2001
Hell Day

Morning: J and I are in the department of Nuclear Medicine's waiting area at the hospital watching some airplane hit a building in New York. Awful, but I can't focus on that now. His name is soon called.

Holding Joshua's hand while he lays very still. This is our second time here so we know the routine. The scans are done 48 72 hrs after the nuclear agent is injected (through the broviac catheter that was placed in his vena cava, during the same surgery in which they took his right clavicular lymph gland for analysis three days before.) A huge machine moves silently around him.

I'm talking to J (endless prattle really, he's not supposed to move) and simultaneously watching a screen light up with glowing spots I can't interpret in roughly the shape of my child, while John the nuclear med tech has his computer on for news of the towers.

I'm in a different world from John, but both of us are in our own state of shock. I don't understand his. Never will.

10:30ish comes and we're done. Securely wrapping the catheter to J's chest, I take him back home. School isn't an option until we know what's wrong. It makes Avivah angry and J misses his friends. My family has rallied around us but my friends don't know yet. He wants his peers and the normalcy he knew a few days ago. Can I ever sympathize.

We spend a quiet couple of hours together. His dad comes home from work early.

2 p.m. Our appointment time for the discovery/diagnosis meeting with the pedatric oncologist. J is at home with family and V is still at school. Tim and I are called in and are shown a seat in a meeting room. Soon we're joined by Dr. J, a nurse and social worker. Everyone is introduced and files are opened. I'm wide-eyed at the formality.

Cutting to the chase, Dr. J tells us that we have a sick little boy. He has Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Nodular Sclerosis. Neither T nor I really know what that means, although as usual I've done some reading. Nothing can prepare you for those words to come out of a Drs' mouth when discussing your child. "It's a type of cancer of the blood" he adds. Dr. J stopped talking and looked through the papers in the file in front of him again... T and I sat, numb.

It seems that the results from the morning's nuclear med test isn't in yet and must be retreived via phone to get a full diagnosis (i.e. to 'stage' the lymphoma's growth). Dr. J places the call still sitting across the polished table from us.

In the course of the phone call we learn that it is Stage 2 (not so horrible in the scheme of things). "Oh, no", says the oncologist, "Past the diaphragm? Yes, Stage 3." (not so good). "Ohhh", he says again, "Past the pelvis? I see", he says... "Stage 4" (the worst, furthest progressed you can have). And there we had our staging. Stage 4. Shit.

During this whole thing the nurse kept trying to give us an average prognosis (I think this was supposed to help us feel - better?)... well, at stage 2 was an 80% chance of being cancer-free in 5 years. Stage 3 was 70%. Stage 4? 60%. We didn't feel better.

Dr. J was off the phone and going back to his papers. He had a notebook with him that outlined the different protocols for this type of cancer and he proceeded to tell us his recommended protocol for our son. It was so incredibly hard to focus on the fact that we're making choices for and discussing my baby and his life. In that moment all of our lives seemed to hang in the balance.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing every step of the protocol and each chemo concoction to be used. The nurse gave us some general ideas of what to expect, like when he'd lose his hair, how long appointments might take, how to pack for the hospital... The social worker talked at us about some practical things. School was a big issue. Financial issues, support, organizations that could help, phone numbers galore, what entrances to use in the hospital to get to pediatrics quickly...

Hospital, right. When? No time to waste. Today. This very afternoon. Decisions made, papers signed, books given to us to track every moment of our lives for as long as we needed to, and we were off to the house to tell our precious son and waiting family everything we'd just learned. That was a blur.

I never allowed that moment to envelop me. I cried, yes, but there were things to be done and a fight to be fought and a child - my child's very life was the prize that we would win... if we won. I packed his favorite things and we were off to the battlefield before 5pm.

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He is contracting to Google (not employed) and is just a driver -- he doesn't know about the details of the technology of it (not the street view software nor the devices in his car), but knows it's for Google Map's Street View. There is a different driver in Dunedin with the same car model, and another one in Wellington CBD today. There is probably another two or three in Auckland and Hamilton. Michael picked up his google car (with all the technology already attached) in Auckland before Christmas and drove it down for the job.

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Importance of Attention To Detail Movers
Moving isnt actually a job you can get any grunt to do not if you want a job well done, anyway. One of the most important that you should look for in the Vancouver movers you hire is their attention to detail. The best Vancouver movers know that moving is in the details. From delicate flower pots being wrapped properly to the proper labeling and storage of sensitive hardware, Ferguson knows how to handle all kinds of household and office equipment.

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