The Chris Moeller Archives

"The frenzy"

It's a bustling time in the student loan game, but not for me. Interest rates are going up July first and borrowers are racing to get their interest rates fixed before that date by consolidating their loans. Incoming phone requests are so backed up that the training class-- of which, I am a member-- has been pulled off the phones so that our more efficient trainers can return to their posts and handle a greater volume of calls. Now, instead of me talking to borrowers while my trainer listens, he talks while I listen. The result is me doing a lot of doodling in my stenopad.

Today, I wrote a poem. It was inspired by my trainer Jones, who himself penned a piece last week that included these lines:

Something, something, something (I'm paraphrasing)
The borrowers ask me to calculate payoffs.
When I tell them that interest accrues daily.
They tell me I'm a "jag-off."

I wrote this:

Everywhere, consolidations
Calling for actions, rare and bold
The trainees were sent to watch videos
To keep the borrowers off of hold

They call from all four corners
Seeking an interest rate sublime
They need an application sent post-haste
That they might get it back on time

Jones is working very hard
His brow is glistening
I'm taking time to write this poem
When I should be listening


A work in progress...

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Our rules of censorship in America are usually capricious and frequently bizarre. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has been appropriately sent to sensitivity training today by Bud Selig for calling Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti a "fag." The latest wire service story on both the ESPN and Fox Sports websites substitutes the actual word he used with the phrase "a derogatory term often used to describe someone's sexual orientation." But then, later in the story, it lists Guillen's exact quote like this: "What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag."

My brother points out that what we have here is two words being so bad that they can't be printed in the news story, but the word Guillen got in trouble for using is printed right next to them. Does anyone understand this?

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The Great Pujols returns from the disabled list tonight after just two and half weeks on the shelf. (Some estimated he could be out 6 or 8 weeks.) I hope this is because he's legitimately ready for action, and not because Tony LaRussa wants to save some face in a third game in Chicago after back-to-back pummelings at the hands of the manager's former team.

posted by CM @ 6:29 PM