Employees Must Wipe Hands on Pants

…had some technical problems in the last few days that took the blog offline. I’m sure this was a huge disappointment to my hoards of admiring fans. In any case, the issues have been sorted out and we’re back online.

And to everyone NOT in the office where I work, yes, keeping backup copies of your data is a GOOD IDEA.

Well, my bonus from work came in, and allowed me to make a major dent in my CC debt. As a result, I decided it was appropriate to set aside a small amount for myself (about $200) to get something nice.

Then my boss decided to give me an extra bonus on TOP of that, for some extra work I put in last week.

As a result of all this, take a look at my new guitar.

No, I didn’t buy this one from Guitar Center. They didn’t have it in stock. Portland Music Co. did, however, and I’m quite pleased with this. Good, solid, nice looking, incredibly good sounding.

I was a bit surprised that an Ibanez could sound as warm and rich as this one does. Usually they’re very cold-sounding metal guitars, but this one is NOT one of the models that include active pickups. This makes it sound warmer and fuller, in my opinion. This incidentally made it cheaper, meaning I got a hardshell case to go with it, and still spent less on it than I was preparred to. Not bad.

I think I’ll do some recording this week and see how it sounds. Time to get practicing…

One of the guys at work I hang out with an awful lot went onto the night shift about 6 months ago.

Well, today was his first day back on day shift, where he will be for the indefinite future.

Yay! I got my friend back!

In addition, he’s going to be helping create a new work tool that will totally help out on all of our jobs. This is a very good thing.

Oh, Happy Cinco de Mayo, also. I think I’ll pick up a bottle of Tequila on the way home to celebrate.

So, I won a brand new 8GB iPod Touch from this thing we have at work.

Haven’t received it yet, but should only be a few more days.

I went online to the Apple website to look at the features, and MAN those things look cool.

Given that my existing iPod is an old 4th generation 20GB classic style, the ones before they even had a color screen, this new one is going to be a whole new experience.

It makes me think back to the mid-1980’s, when you’d read articles about all the amazing new gadgets and gizmos that people were predicting we’d have going into the 21st century. (Which seemed like forever in the future back at the time.) Well, guess what? We’re there. And yes, the gadgets and technology that are coming along lately is getting pretty impressive. I saw this laptop yesterday, and man, this has got to be the sexiest computer I have ever seen.

What amazing things does the future have in store? And will these new gadgets be used for good, or evil?

Sigh. I guess the likely answer is probably “both”.

So, got the news today, I am officially off the phones at work!

Well, not totally. They still want me to help with calls when things get really backed up. But mostly. This is a good thing.

My focus will now be email support.  This makes me so much happier at my job, I can’t even begin to tell you. Now I can listen to tunes all day, and if an email is idiotic and mean, I can just stop, go get a cup of coffee or something, and come back to it with a clear head a few minutes later. Not having the pressure of having to respond to the customer in real time is just an awesome improvement for a support tech.

Finally. After nearly 8 years in tech support, I’ve finally found a non-inbound call role to fill. Phew. Took long enough.

Jeremy says:
there’s a cnn article, ‘man on dive trip bitten by shark’
Jeremy  says:
why the fuck should anyone care
Jeremy  says:
people get bitten by sharks left and right
Jeremy says:
it’d be funny if they were taking an ironic approach to getting people to read stuff,
Jeremy says:
making article titles so supremely mundane that readers go ‘what the fuck’ and open them up
Jeremy says:
not that I actually did
Jon says:
“Toast thoroughly buttered”
Jeremy says:
yeah or ‘Person with a gun, fired it’
Jeremy  says:
“Breaking News: White girl is hurt.”
Jon says:
“Fatty foods found to cause obesity in some”
Jeremy says:
“Overweight people outraged.”
Jon says:
“Religious Fanatics Outraged”
Jon says:
“News Censorship Continues Due to Efforts of ######.”
Jeremy says:
“Iran rattles their sabers.  America brandishes things in response.”
Jon says:
“Arabs declare Hatred for Israel”

I’ve been doing a lot of OT lately. This is very good for my finances, especially in regards to my new video entertainment equipment, but not so great for my sanity levels. I’m planning on putting in 9 hour days every day this week, and will likely go in again for 4 hours of overtime on Saturday, as well.

Not to change the subject too abruptly here, but there’s a tenet of Zen philosophy (At least, I think it’s Zen. I’m a bit fuzzy about the specifics.) that says that the things you own end up owning you. I have always believed in the truth of this statement, and my current state hammers it home even further. I have to work twice as hard to pay for the things I acquire in my life, making my fancy toys and do-dads cost me more than just money. Or, rather, the money I pay itself has a price in my spirit that comes from the sweat and labor and effort and energy that I put into my work.

The Zen teacher would have you chose to forsake earthly goods for true ethereal bliss. However, this is, perhaps, where I take exception to the wisdom of the Bhudda. I find that the kind of material goods that I tend to gather gives me back a spiritual quantity as well. This might not be true if I was just buying gold, or jewels, or real estate, or such. But in purchasing tools that allow me to express myself, and achieve some sense of artistic satisfaction (my musical gear, for example, or my computer to write these very words) there is a redemption in spirit that transcends the material value of the goods themselves.

I’d like to think I come out ahead at the end of things on this score. Realistically, however, it’s probably more like a draw. Oh well.

Okay, so here’s the oddest thing that’s happened to me in a while. A guy I know at work who has Blazers season tickets came up to me this afternoon and offered me his seats to tonight’s game.

Normally, I’d be ALL OVER this. Free Blazer tickets?! Are you kidding?

But here’s the problem. I worked a 9-hour day today, in part to pay for my new HDTV, as well as a few other bills I’ve had pilling up. I’m planning on working a 9-hour day tomorrow. I’m planning on going in on Saturday for 4 hours to help on email tickets. All this overtime is great for my wallet, not so good for my sleep schedule.

Going to a Blazers Game means getting home at 10:30pm or so, and having spent all my energy yelling and screaming and whooping it up at the game… Then dealing with traffic after the game, and a 20-30 minute drive home… Some kind of rushed dinner, and in bed around 11:30 or so. This just doesn’t work with getting up at 6:30am in order to be at work by 8am. I need my 8 hours, or I’m useless.

So I turned him down. Can you believe it? I turned down FREE Blazers tickets. I never would have believed it.

Oh well. The good part is at least I get to watch the game on the fancy new TV that I am working so hard to pay for. Besides, I’m going to the game on Sunday anyway. Oh well.

It somehow seems like I’ve been waiting a lot lately.

Waiting for the “busy” season at work to end. Waiting for the time-dependent coupon I have for my prospective new television set to become valid. Waiting for May so I can go have a min-vacation in Seattle with my friends… Waiting for August so I can have a full-fledged vacation with the same. Waiting for my musician friend to call me back so we can do some more song-writing and recording (he has been as busy as I with work, unfortunately).

Fortunately, my coupon becomes valid tomorrow, so I should have my new TV. Work has already started to show signs of seasonal slow-down. And May and August are not so far off as they once were.

I suppose it’s a sign of maturity that I’ve been as patient as I have been. But there’s a part of me that will always be that giddy child who just can’t wait for Christmas morning to arrive so he can tear ino all his goodies.

Sigh.

So… I don’t generally complain about my work these days, being, as it is, so incredibly much better over the last year than the preceding six before it that I find little to gripe about, however, today’s events perhaps deserve special mention.

It’s really not so much a gripe. I really can’t gripe too much about having a day mostly free of talking to idiots who are so mind-numbingly stupid that they do not know that not backing up their hard drive might one day end up corrupting or losing all their ultra-precious data that they care so much about.

You see, today we had “Customer Service Training”, which involved being locked in a small room listening to an incredibly perky Texan woman with far too much amateur dramatic background, and far too little common sense, lecturing on ways to make our various idiot customers feel happy about their self-inflicted wounds, rather than mad at us, the messengers, for informing them of the errors of their ways.

Now, I normally see this as rather harmless. Perhaps she might even have some remotely useful nugget of wisdom to share with the newer, less-experienced-than-I technicians in my department. Very well. I resolved to be on my best behavior, and not let any of my cynicism ruin what might be a positive learning experience for someone else.

I realize now, I need not have bothered.  There was nothing of any practical value whatsoever forthcoming, merely a cavalcade of buzzwords, completely removed and isolated from any grounding or foundation in reality. What little information there was that might be classified as “wisdom” is the kind of thing that a month on the phones in any call center in the world should net you. (Or else you really ought to be looking for other work, since you won’t last a week beyond that without picking this stuff up.)

The really annoying part was when I had to bite my tongue and choke back tears as this Paid Mercenary of Customer Service Bliss ™ went merrily off on the History of the Hundred Years War, a subject I have studied in passing, and know tolerably little about; however, her blatant disregard for anything even remotely resembling historical accuracy was about to get me into trouble when I tried to correct her on one or two points… Then I suddenly realized that all I was doing was potentially drawing her ire, at which point I graciously dropped it. Diplomacy being the better part of valor, in this case, I allowed her to continue with her point (which turned out of be as laden with logical fallacies as her historical accounts were with factual inaccuracies).

I am very much glad we don’t have to sit through this sort of thing very often. Although, I suppose in some ways, it made me  almost more appreciative of our customers. At least these people don’t pretend to knowledge or experience they haven’t really earned. Oh, wait. Yes they do. Damn.