PFO letter #2

Guess who's short-attention-span sister did not call her friend in HR?

Bullshit update!

Yesterday my sister was here to file for unemployment online. I was lamenting again (important word to note) about my problems getting past the HR people at my job. After about a half hour she comes out with, "Oh hey, my friend is working HR over there now."

WTF? "Are you on crack? Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Oh, I thought you knew. Hey, I should call her." Ya think?

Anyway, long story short, she is going to call her 'friend' and find out why I can't get past them. Although I am at the mercy of her short attention span.

I will let you know if it does any good.

What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

I have no idea what to do now. I click on all this shit to go to the symantec site but there has got to be a better way to deal with this. I will be at it all day by their accounts.WTF?

Adware blows!

The music industry is screwing itself.

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, which collects royalties for musicians, has targeted dental offices in its latest campaign. The group is asking them to cough up a yearly fee if they use copyrighted music to entertain patients.

If they would evenly disburse the money in the first place instead of paying artists a boatload of money, they wouldn't be trying to grab nickels and dimes from the public. Just another reason that they are getting no sympathy from the general public.

People are used to the music just being there, now they want to regulate when we can overhear it? Oh, that will get people to stop downloading it off the internet. What the hell are they thinking? I don't think they are, that's the problem. Here in Canada, we play a royalty on blank CD's now, on the off chance we use those CD's for burning music. That has got to piss of the people who don't burn music, enough so that they may consider it in the future. After all, they are paying for it whether they do it or not.

SOCAN said it has successfully collected the fees so far, but if someone refuses to pay, it could sue for copyright infringement. Things rarely go that far, the group said.

Almost sounds like 'protection' money. Smacks of Mafioso tactics.

Don't forget to flush.

I am about to take another run at a TM position and I have bullshitted up the resume expanding it from three pages to six. Mainly because one of the 20 somethings that got an interview actually put bullshit on his cover letter.

Not figuratively...literally. He made a list of reasons why he wanted the job and each bullet point started with a different letter in the word bullshit. I kid you not! And the resume was 12 pages long! So clearly they are looking for bullshit. After all this kid is 21, I am almost 40 there is no physical way for him to have more experience or training than I have. I have been alive twice as long!

One thing that really irritates me about this whole process is that the HR department screens the resumes and decides who gets an interview. This is baffling because the HR department has no idea what is involved in the job. They have never worked the floor and they take no direction from TM's that are actually doing the job. In fact they totally disregard the recommendations of those TM's.

As I said before two of us who got 'highly recommended' by our TM's did not get interviews. So the fact that someone who actually does that job, recommends someone who they believe can do the job as well means nothing to these people. What are they basing their decisions on? Should there not be a member of the TM group involved in this process? Or at the very least some sort of committee to screen the resumes. It is sort of like the counter staff at MacDonald's deciding who pilots the space shuttle. Makes about as much sense.

To make matters worse, I don't have time to go in for 'feedback' with these people to find out what they want me to put on my resume. I obviously cannot change my experience or education unless I try time travel, I just need to know how to get past these crayons.

"Excuse me, but what bullshit do you need to hear in order to get an interview with the people who actually know what the hell they are doing and can ascertain whether I can do this job or not?"

Ain't nobody here...

I am sitting here in tears after reading a post on Jack's page. His father died on the 13th after a long battle with illness and as soon as I saw his picture my heart sank and I just started bawling.

It brought it all back. My fathers death. Even after 15 years, it still breaks me.

My father and I were very close. Conspirators really. We liked the same things and people, and we disliked the same people. (mostly my mothers family)

At family functions you would see us sitting together, most times being ignored by my mothers family. I was the black sheep and he was the man that wasn't good enough for my mother. They were right in the beginning, he was a drunk. By 1978 he was sober but they still gave him the cold shoulder, which was fine by him because he thought most of them were pretentious. We enjoyed our black sheep status, because it meant we didn't have to pretend to be interested in their bullshit. We could just sit back and enjoy the show. And it was a show.

We were the ones who snickered when one of them would walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging out of their skirt. It was an unspoken bond. We never had any deep discussions, just a kinship. Two outsiders. When we set out on vacation with a convoy of cars it was always my father and I in one.

We could communicate our feelings with a look. Someone would make a comment and both our eyes would roll. It is hard to explain, but we didn't have to talk. Neither of us were what you would call huggy people. My mother's family was always kissing hello and kissing goodbye, and I would cringe every time they tried to wrap their arms around me. I still find it uncomfortable. I think if you want to hug someone go ahead, but don't do it just because it's the thing you do when you say hello or goodbye. It's just felt insincere.

I think at the end my father may have regretted his lack of outward expressions of affection. But with me he never had to. One of the last times he was in hospital, he looked at me and said, "I love you." then he started to cry. I wrapped my arms around him and he said, "I just realized I never said that to you before."

"You never had to." I always knew he loved me, and he knew I loved him. I sat with him as he died. I held his hand. I squeezed it when he drew his last breath. It was hard, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. The two black sheep, proud to be so.

And then there was one.

PFO letter received.

Well it's official, I got my PFO (Please Fuck Off) letter today. They "have selected candidates whose qualifications more closely match" their needs. Meaning I don't have the bone structure for it. My knees are bad. I shouldn't totally dis it because there was one person who got an interview that I wouldn't mind having as a TM, Go Anna! But some of them? All I can say is "what the hell are they thinking?"

Ok, to say I was not pleased is to put it mildly. My TM was not pleased either. I don't know what the hell they want. There is no rhyme or reason to their selection process, that I can see anyway. Incidentally, the two people that got "highly recommended" from their TM's were not granted interviews. So we know that didn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things.

Then we are hit with skills verification. Our TM's listen to calls and make sure we know what the fuck we are doing. After - a - year! WTF? I was not in the best mood to begin with. Then he tells me I have to do a typing test. "What is the minimum?"

"30 words a minute." Fine, I can do that in my sleep.

"Whatever." I had a bad attitude. I sit down to type, get a few lines in and I can see him out of the corner of my eye, I turn to him, "Are you going to stare at me the whole time?" He walks away.

Even having to stop and tell him to "get away from me" I got 53wpm. I get up, "Are ya happy now?"

I was irritated. Mainly because I had to take some stupid test last night as well. This would not have irritated me quite so much if I hadn't found out that in order to get 100% on that test you had to actually answer 2 questions wrong. I kid you not!

The test was wrong, and in order to have them mark you right you had to answer 2 of them incorrectly. I refused to do so. I did the test and answered all the questions correctly and got 93%. I screenshotted the 'wrong' answers as well as the proof that they were indeed correct and submitted my test. I wrote at the top, "My score is 93%, I protest this score, as I got every questions correct."

The incompetence in that place boggles the mind, and they reject me as management material. The probably realize that I would most likely call them on all the stupid, incompetent shit they get away with now.

And how long have you known this?

Half of the calls I get at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center� are people who have "lost" their Internet Explorer. They can't surf the net, because IE will not open. Their ISP tells them that they need to reinstall IE, either by using their OS disc or ....wait for it...downloading again from the internet.
 
If they can't get their browser to open, how do they download from the internet?
 
I will tell you how. And it baffles me that they didn't give us this information before. If you open your 'my computer' folder (or any folder for that matter)  and type a website into the address bar, it goes to that website, without internet explorer. Because windows explorer and internet explorer use the same shell.
 
Wouldn't you think that that is useful information that we could perhaps pass on to the customer? You can't imagine how many times I have charged someone to go through for technical support for just this issue.
 
Geeks are an odd bunch. They keep the really cool information to themselves.

Work. I could sit and watch it for hours.

Today I sat in the shade of my porch and watched as three young men toiled in the sun. Sweet.

The house next door was having it's roof done. So I sat on the porch and pretended to read the paper. Hope they didn't notice it was upside down.

Nothing like a few good twenty-ish men toiling in the sun. Sweaty, shirts off, sun glistening off them. Could watch it for hours. Better than pay-per-view.

Wonder if men realize that we sit back and ogle them? Women always bitch about it, being ogled by men. But I bet you they would be more pissed off if the ogling stopped. Do men feel objectified? Do they feel like 'meat'? Beefcake? Would they be self-conscious? Squirm a little?

That could be interesting too. Hey guys? If you have your shirt off, and are doing manual labor of any kind? Rest assured there is a woman somewhere out there who is peeking through the curtains and drooling over ya. Think about that.

While your at it, could ya try bending over more? That's dead sexy.

Soothing this savage beast.

I need to stop thinking about this job interview. I need some soothing music. Dig out the Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban et al. I will share some of it here. I tell you, those Italians know how to turn a phrase.

I am a complete sucker for an Italian accent. No matter what they say, it sounds beautiful. They could be telling you to eat shit, and it sounds so good you actually consider it. And the Spaniards are no hacks either.

Of my love you are so sure
So sure you can take it with you
Cupped in the hands that you raise to your face
As you still think of me.
And if you need to, you can show it to the world.
              From Sogno(Dream)

Or this one:

All you'll know for sure
is the more she makes you suffer
the more you find you love her.
              From Nel Cuore Lei

Or this one:

Forget about me
And let me go on alone with my solitude
Go away, go on and tell me goodbye
And I will resign myself to go on without your love
And I will never understand what happened
If there's nothing I can do, go away.
              From Alejate - that button you have been avoiding
              over there on the left, my current favorite.

There is something about hearing it in another language (not necessarily Italian) that makes my toes curl. I need soothing music, since the boys father just visited me. I know what you are thinking, that we got in a huge fight and I need to calm down. It was quite the opposite, which is more disturbing. He was civil. He showed up and the boy was not here. We "chatted" (yes, I said chatted) and he turned to leave and said, "Want a coffee?", I said sure. Then the boy came home and they drove off. I figured that was the end of it.

No, they came back with coffee. He and the boy sat at my kitchen table and we chatted for about an hour. Very civilized, even jovial. This makes me uneasy.

We have been apart for 13 years, yet he usually acts like I punched him in the head yesterday. He rarely has a civil word for me. But every once in a while he throws this at me, no idea what is up. Last week he dropped off the child support early, without being asked for it. I refer to these episodes as the signs of the apocalypse.


As promised a list of songs I am soothing myself with:

Sogno(Dream) - Andrea Bocelli
Broken Vow - Josh Groban
Con Te Partiro - Bocelli
Vivire - Bocelli (with Gerardina Trovato)
Nel Cuore Lei - Bocelli (with Eros Ramazzotti)
Alejate - Groban
Stary Stary Night - Groban

Although these are soothing, you also need the visual (it all helps with the mood). Bocelli and Groban.



Eros Ramazzotti is not too fuckin' hard to look at either.



Ok, I will stop now. I am calm.

Sign from God.

Got this in an email today.



Think it's a sign? It could mean, I got it or I should be looking elsewhere. Then again, it could just mean I have to beef up the anti-spam filters.

Tick, Tick, Tick, BOOM!

This process of getting a new TM for pro in place could move very quickly.

The new pro class starts training on Monday. I have heard that they would want the new TM in place by the time that class hits the floor. Training is 7 days. SEVEN DAYS! That's it!

That could limit the people who actually get interviews. They just woundn't have time to interview everyone, and I believe that 13 have applied.

I could be stressing for nothing.

Time well wasted.

Stolen from Iced Water. Yet another pointless list of questions, Enjoy!

There are TWO rules when answering these questions:
1) Only ONE answer to each. Of course its tough - thats the point!
2) Each blog/blogger may only be used ONCE (gonna break this one....can't be helped.)

What blogger inspired you to FINALLY start a blog?
Brian from Life in New York City, although he doesn't blog anymore. But he does have a cool photoblog.

What blog do you visit the most often everday?
My 2 Second Shelf Life

What blogger do you think you have the most in common with?
That would be Natalie, I think we have a lot of the same attitudes.

Which blog can you be sure will make you pee a little you laugh so hard?
Radmilla's. Her mother cracks me up.

Which blogger leaves you the best/funniest comments?
Comments? That would have to be Boz.

Which blog do you wish more people would read?
Uh, mine? Is this a trick question?

Which blog do you learn the most from?
Learn? We are supposed to be learning? HMMMMM?

What blog is your newest addition?
Constant Digression

Who has been on your blogroll the longest?
That would be Brian.

Whose blogroll would you LOVE find yourself on?

Time out!

Ok, guess I am halfway through this little list and I find my attention to it wanning. There are always questions on these lists that you either have no answer for or you are just not interested in answering. Not that they are stupid questions but I rarely find myself wishing I was someone else, or could do this or that like someone else, or "OOO I wish someone liked me enough to link me", not happening. So, some of these will be answered and some not. Deal with it.

Whose bloglinker list were you the happiest to find yourself on?
The very first one, can't remember who it was but the first time you are linked it is a little thrilling. Oh and Iced Water. ;-)

If you could write like any blogger, who would it be?

What blogger are you the happiest you've "met?"
Never met any face to face.

Which blog do you recommend the most? Radmilla, did I mention her mother cracks me up?

Who is the next person you'll add to your bloglinker list?
Indiscretions.

Who is the blogger you hope to meet in "real" life?

Which blogger do you admire?
That would have to be Darling Nikki 6 kids and still has a full head of hair.

Who would you trust with your blog while you were away?
Trust no one!

Which blog has your favorite design?
That would be Emily at I don't think.

How many blogs are on your blogroll(s)
This is embarassing....252.

I had a dream.

Last night I had the craziest dream. I dream in color by the way, I am told that is not all that common.

Anyway, the dream. In my dream I was in a theater, but the theater was marked off in stalls, not cubes, stalls, but I was at work. Each stall had a shower and a toilet, every time I tried to take a shower or use the toilet the phone would ring and some asshole would walk into my stall to tell me what a crappy day he was having. It was endless.

I finally cracked and beat the 'caller' to death with my plunger. Propped the body up against the stall door and took a piss then a shower. My team manager (who was Richard Gere, nice) called me into his stall to discuss what we should do with the body. I said, "Who cares." and he stuck his tongue down my throat.

All in all, a pretty damn good dream. Any armchair psychologists want to wrap your brain around that one? Feel free.

All I can say is, I woke up refreshed.

Ok, this time I really mean it.

I said I wasn't going to fuck with the resume, but I totally forgot about doing the company website at my last job.

So here I sit, at 3am, fighting with Word (I am sorry but I hate that fucking product) so I can add a couple lines without fucking the whole thing up.

Did I mention I hate the shit out of Word. I much prefer, Publisher. Which is still a MS product so I may not be shot for it in the parking lot.

Ok, really done now.

Stick a fork in me.

I screwed around with my resume for 2 days, as of this moment I am done. I refuse to fuck with it any longer. Thanks so much Shelley for your help. Nice to have an expert on board.

Although I doubt it's going to make a bit of difference. Judging from some of the people that got TM's in this god forsaken place, there is no predicting what the power's that be are looking for. A couple of them (as far as I can tell) got TM cuz they were pretty.

If that is the case, I am totally screwed. I am officially this second putting it out of my mind. The stupid thing is set in stone as far as I am concerned.

If they don't like it this time, I give up.

I am not feeling the love.

I have been sitting in front of this computer all day. Obsessing over this stupid resume. Is there too much bullshit in it? Is there not enough bullshit? What is just the right amount of bullshit? If there are any resume guru's out there, I would love to get some feedback. But you are probably all asleep. Damn.

I need my TM and he is still not back. I also want to know who else is applying. I need to stop fucking with this stupid resume. It is making my eyes cross. Why can't I just tell them I could do the job with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back and be done with it.

I am too long in the tooth for all this bullshit. Not to mention the asskissing, I just don't have the bone structure for it anymore.

TOP SECRET!

(Originally July 2, 2004)

This post will have to be draft for now, since I am not supposed to know this or let anyone else know I know it. Which for me is excruciatingly painful.

It's a long post so brace yourselves.

Last night my TM, G, is over talking to a bunch of us and we are discussing phone stats. Everyone is always worried about their stats. I just looked at him and said,

"You know they are bullshit right? They set the stats, and it seems like they do everything they can to make sure you can't hit them." For instance, they don't want you to use hold too much, but then they want you to warm transfer customers, which if you have ever tried to contact DELL, is a long drawn out process.

"Why are you all sweating those stats, you are never going to hit them, your just stressing yourself out needlessly." Like the pay for performance bullshit they shoveled out to us. Hit these customer satisfaction metrics 3 months in a row and we get a bonus. "If we get paid, I will eat Jackie's hat."

Jackie, "Hey! I like this hat!"

"Oh please, your hat is in no danger of being eaten."

He leans over and signs me off my phone. "Come with me." Great.

"What?"

"It's nothing bad."

We go into the huddle room, "You didn't hear this from me." I love it when they say that. "No one is supposed to know this, but they are going to hire another TM for pro and Senior lead reps, you need to apply."

"I tried that before, and I didn't even get a letter of rejection."

"Did you go for resume feedback?"

"No, another thing I think is bullshit." If you are familiar at all with the new corporate earth, you know that all they are looking for now in resumes now is how much you can bullshit, well I am not good at bullshit. In my day, you couldn't just say you could do something, you had to back it up. Not so today, you lie like a rug and if you get the job, bullshit your way past the stuff you don't know. It's bullshit.

We talked about the last hire of TM's and I told him I got a hold of a couple of resumes from the ones who got the job, because a couple of them were really bothering me, and sure enough one guy flat out lied about places he had worked and his qualifications. "What is the use? It's not what you know, its how much you are willing to lie about what you know."

"Send me your resume and I will get H (another TM) to help beef your resume up." apparently H, took a bunch of 'bullshit on your resume' courses.

"I feel like you are at the point where if you don't move on, you are going to move out, and I don't' want to see that happen. You are at the same point I was when I applied for TM. I know the feeling and I want to help you. I don't want to see you quit."

We are leaving the huddle room, "I am going to poke myself in the eye and come out saying "Ok, just don't hit me again!" sound like fun?"

"You wouldn't dare!" If I thought I could keep a straight face I would.

So, my TM thinks I would make a good TM. You know what? That is better than any phone stats. So whether I get TM or SLR, the pay is better and the bullshit is less. Well maybe not less, but I would be the one dishing it out instead of taking it.

UPDATE

They finally posted the position. The posting is open from July 6-8.

WTF? I am off the 6th and 7th. How the hell am I going to get my resume all bullshitted up in two days. My TM, G, doesn't come back from his little vacation till tomorrow.

I swear they look at my schedule and work around it and not in a good way. Every time they have a pizza day, or a natcho day, its always on my day off. I am starting to get a complex.

I will let you know how this round of bullshit resume submitting goes.

It is what you think!

My last call of a gruelling Monday in the PPA. I was really having a bad one. I was so pissed at the support professionals, that at the end of it I was just saying, "Whatever, just transfer them to me and I will take care of it." I was just so tired of arguing with them about doing their own job. And there was only a 10% chance that they could work the phone enough to actually perform the transfer so it worked out for me. Anyway, this is the last call I took last night.

"Thank you for calling the Undisclosed Customer Service Center? my name is blah blah blah..."

"I am getting something really weird, there is this little box in the middle of my screen that says ACTIVE WINDOW and inside that it says WINDOWS TEXT. No matter what settings I change its still there, and I don't want it there."

I wasn't catching on right away with what he was saying, "You mean on your desktop you have this box, is it an error message? Have you tried just X'ing it out?"

He is speaking to me in a tone of voice that would suggest that he is trying to solve a crime, sort of Sherlock Holmes'ish. Wish I could describe it better, but he was dead fucking serious.

"No, that's the thing, it isn't really on my desktop, but it shows a picture of my desktop in the background."

NO FUCKING WAY. "Can you read to me everything else that surrounds that little box?" I turn to my co-workers with a look on my face that says, you are not going to believe this one.

"Yes, its very strange, and its freaking me out. There is an ok and a cancel button, and in one box it says Windows Theme, then there is ..."

"Hold it Mark, are you in the Display Properties?"



"YES! That is where I found this, and no matter what I change it always has that little box in the center that says ACTIVE WINDOW and Window Text. It is really freaking me out."

I put my head down on my desk. This can't be happening to me. First I have to explain this to a person who A: believes that this is something that is not right with his computer, and B: thought it was worth investigating and calling me.

How do I do this without making this person feel like a complete idiot. "Ok, Mark, I see where you are now." OK poor choice of words.

"You can see my screen?!"

"No, I mean I realize what it is you are looking at. The display properties window is where you can customize the look of your computer. The screen you are describing is where you would change the themes, if you notice, where it says Windows XP(Modified) you can change the different themes, but inside that box you will see Active Windows and window text. That is a sample of how the fonts will show in the Active window and how the fonts will appear inside that window. It is just a sample so you can see how it will look before you apply it. It does not mean that there will be a window superimposed on your desktop that looks like that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure."

"OK, so if I hit apply this box is not going to appear on my desktop? I am getting this straight from the horses mouth? Cuz this is really freaking me out."

"I swear to God, Mark, it is just there to show you how with each theme the active window and windows text might appear different, depending on the settings."

I swear sometimes I am on Candid Camera. Of course they couldn't do it on Candid camera, cuz this shit really does happen.

Stickin' to my guns.

Been trying to deal with 'the boy' a little differently. In the last few months he has been absolutely impossible to live with. I 'get' that he doesn't want to do housework, but does he have to go out of his way to make it worse? All he does is put his hand out for money, and bitch if I don't have any to give him. Meanwhile, the dishes are piled up in the sink and the garbage has not been taken out.

So I sat him down. I told him that I would no longer finance his activities unless he started to participate in this life with me. I told him that I love him, but the last couple months I haven't liked him very much. I work 10 hour days, and all I ever get out of it is coffee and cigarettes. I refuse to continue this way.

That means, no movies, no internet, no skateboards, no allowance till he starts pitching in. So far I have gotten nothing from him, but soon, he will become bored. I think maybe he is under the impression that I cannot control what he does when I am gone. But I have a padlock on my bedroom door, once I lock it, there is no way for him to access the internet till I come home.

I know what you are thinking, I will probably cave. But not this time, life is too short to be fuckin' around with it. I am not going to be miserable, if I can help it.

Did you miss your independence day?

On Sunday, the Fourth of July, millions of U.S. citizens will fire up the barbeque and shoot off fireworks in celebration of the Declaration of Independence, a now-sacred document that declares the independence of what were then 13 united colonies from England.
But the Continental Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence on the second of July in 1776. No one signed it until August 2, and the last signatures didn't come until the end of November.

Pauline Maier, a professor of U.S. history and authority on the American Revolution, said that "in 1777, Congress didn't think of recalling the event until it was too late to celebrate the second, and the fourth became standard."

Read the full story here.
Link stolen from constant digression.

I may have some fun with this information at work.

I can't stand it!

My TM takes me into the huddle room last night. "You didn't hear this from me, but...This can't go any further than this room, because no one is supposed to know this, but..."

The fact that I have information that no one else knows and I can't spill my guts about it is killing me!

But I will keep my mouth shut about it, because it could turn out to be very good for me. I have written it all up in a draft that I will publish at a later date. Hopefully the outcome will be beneficial.

Damn!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

I am woman...hear me roar!

I spent the day looking for a part for my BBQ. The knob had seazed. You know what? You can find every single part of a BBQ except the fuckin' knob.

Finally ran into a friends husband at the Canadian Tire and he said, "Have you tried soaking it in WD30?"

Why the hell didn't any of the other 40 men I spoke to today suggest that? Long story short, after soaking the fucker for 3 hours and another hour of brute force I finally got it back together and working.

Basically I beat it into submission. And just finished eating steak and baked potatoes. MMMM