Discrimination

I really hate the way humans work.

It's discrimination to not hire someone because of color, regardless of demographics showing what race is better at what job. Yet it's not discrimination to leave someone without a car to get to work because they had a repo three years ago.

It's discrimination if you hire a guy instead of a girl for a physical job because women are biologically, physically less strong than men. Yet it's not discrimination to not give someone a place to live because they had a home foreclosed on.

It's discrimination to hire someone to a job because they're younger, but it's not discrimination for an insurance company to charge you more because you're younger.

See the common theme here?

It's discrimination if the company might be out money at some point, but if the consumer might be out money, or a car, or a fucking home, that's okay. Nobody really fucking cares, do they?

Yeah, this is going to be a fun day to do tech support.

That's never happened before.

So I went up to my place of work with every intention of calling it quits. I was done stressing over going in, done with the calls, done with the crap in general. I didn't know if going back to delivering pizza was going to be lucrative enough to live comfortably, but I was ready to give it a try.

So I walk in, carrying a gift that I'd bought for a previous supervisor a while back and hadn't given it to him yet, and my current supervisor just happens to be where I walked in...which, by the way, was a very odd place for her to be. Anyway, I tell her I'm done, I'm out, I'm just not confrontational enough for the job.

Her jaw dropped; she was shocked. So another boss/friend walks up. She's also shocked, and telling me how good I was back when she sat near me when she was on the floor.

So they take me over to my previous supervisor, the one I had the gift for. He told me totally understood, would probably be doing the same thing in my position, and even that apparently since I was quitting and not getting fired I was rehirable.

So, theoretically I could go deliver pizzas for a while and still come back. Interesting.

The weirdest part of the whole thing, though, was that when I walked in the building, I didn't have the "Hell yes, I don't ever have to come back here again" feeling. I was actually kind of sad. So I didn't do it. I talked to the HR person and she said to call in for the day and take a few days to think on it.

So that's what I'm doing. Decisions suck.

So irritated and depressed...

I had gotten my head all ready to go back to the hellhole I call (or called) work. I've been waiting for HR to get a part time schedule for me, as per my psychiatrist, to see how I handle the stress. The person in HR basically told me she'd get back to me and has ignored me for the past week, emails and voicemails. I already have no idea how I'm going to pay bills since this 30 days that I could barely afford is rapidly turning into 60 days.

And now, not only are they expecting us to hard sell (offer, then attempt to overcome objections when they say no) customers calling in with tech support issues, regardless of if we're able to get it fixed, but apparently now it's considered a sellable call even if the customer's equipment is the issue (as in, they don't know how to turn on their TV or their PC is dead, which, sadly, happens VERY often). On top of that, we're supposed to inform them if they have a late balance as well, AND a new set of notes saying we verified their security info...all under the same metrics that no one was meeting before.

How much stress and confrontation can they stack on to one person before it's considered abuse?

Going back to delivering pizza is sounding better and better...I simply don't have the will to learn a new job right now.

It's hard trying to see the good in a situation that was ridiculous a year ago... sales and tech support will never go together, and just because they get a trickle of income out of it, somebody seems to think it's worth making the turnover rate far worse than it used to be due to sheer stress.

I have to believe that I'm not the only IT minded person in the world that has a problem being confrontational 60-70 times a day, rapid fire, with no break in between except for two 15's and an hour lunch. I'm talking, one customer hangs up, the next one is immediately on the phone. You go from one confrontation to another to another...

Maybe sales people can do it, but hell, even car salesmen don't deal with that many people a day.

Stupid dog

Warning: This blog entry ends up being sad.

Ours is the only house that I know of where it's okay to call each other "stupid dog." There's a reason for this.

A while back (and sometimes still, I believe), there was a cartoon on cartoon network called Courage the Cowardly Dog. The dog would inevitably save the day in some manner, and, at least once, the crotchety old man that was his owner would say "Stupid Dog!" But sometimes he'd do it in a nice way, on the very few times he realized that the dog had saved the day.

Our dog, Angie, has personality. She's always been seen as special so, like most animals in that position, she is special. She's a mutt, though mostly a lab. At about 80 lbs, she has always grunted and groaned and moo'd and such. And, because of that show, she's been affectionately called "Stupid Dog" for years. As in you can say "Stupid Dog" in a not so nice way, and she'll come up to you, tail wagging.

So, it's become habit, when someone grunts or groans in our home, to call each other "Stupid Dog."

The problem is, Angie is 13 years old with cancer. She only shows it in a tumor on her leg, and will still play as rough as ever, albeit not for as long.

So, lately, every time I say "Stupid Dog", I think, "Damn...I'm going to say that after she's gone, just out of habit...and it's gonna suck."

It's gonna suck period.

Oh, that's old...

Really Mr. Frys Employee? Socket A is old? Wow, I didn't know. I'm so glad you were here to tell me that, even though you carry a fan for the much older Socket 7, Socket A is old.

I mean, obviously, just because I know what "Socket A" is doesn't mean I have a general idea of how old it is...right? No, of course not, because I don't work at Frys!

Thank you Mr. Frys Employee for being the reason people hate shopping at Frys. Have a wonderful day being condescending.

(For those who don't know, Socket A and Socket 7 are basically sizes of computer processors. I was trying to buy a fan for one.)

Nebulosus updated on authonomy

Fixed some issues with older chapters and added three more. Check it out!

I think they're lying.

Source: http://www.money.co.uk/article/1003626-google-named-as-worlds-first-100-billion-brand.htm

Ooh, psychologist burn...

So I've been seeing a councilor about some of the issues I've been having with work, and life in general. The fact that I dread things that may or may not even happen, and spend days off dreading going back to work, thereby giving me pretty much no time off.

He's been giving me some ideas on how to target negative thoughts and deal with them, though a lot of them seemed kind of silly, mainly because I don't feel that negative thoughts are the problem.

My main problem, with people in general, is willful stupidity.

"I don't know how, and I don't want to know how, but can you make this work for me?"

I don't know if anyone has ever actually used that particular verbiage...but some actually get very close. You'd be surprised how blunt people can be about their own stupidity.

My response, at least internally, has always been:

"Well, obviously you do want to know how, and you need to know how. You called, right?"

When something isn't working correctly, the customers don't want to troubleshoot. They don't feel they should have to stand up, reset their modem, or router, or cable box, or whatever. They just want it to work. Which is a pretty idiotic premise, since it's obviously not working, and some action needs to be taken, and unless they have to, they probably don't want to wait for a tech. But they made the phone call assuming the problem was not theirs.

Anyway. To me, ignorance and stupidity are two completely different things, one acceptable, one not. I can take ignorance. In fact, ignorance is very healthy, because you don't know what you don't know until you admit that you don't know, thereby proclaiming ignorance. And a lot of times, I will get a call like:

"I don't know how, can you tell me? I'm not very good at this, though, so you'll have to go slow."

Okay, yeah, definitely. That's a good call from the beginning.

Well, my councilor got me good today. I mentioned to him that it might help if I could get inside their heads, understand why they won't take these simple steps when they're the ones that called in, and they're the ones that need it fixed.

Everyone wants to learn how to use the things they want or need to use...right? Pretty basic stuff.

Well, he told me that, the frustration that I feel with people when they don't want to listen, and don't want to learn what they called to learn...sometimes that's how he feels about my reactions to some of his suggestions.

*Insert sound of screeching brakes here*

So, my immediate response, which thankfully I didn't say out loud because I would've felt like a total douche, was:

"But the problem isn't mine, it's theirs. I'm not the one who is refusing to learn."

Crap. I'm doing the same thing.

Whereas they thought just making the phone call was going to do something useful, I apparently thought just showing up was going to make things better in my head. And it's not as if I've done nothing. I have tried. But I've also resisted.

So I go back to all the times I've thought "This is so simple, just unplug the damn thing, and plug it back in," and realize that, as simple as I thought that was, I'm trying to fix things that are in my own damn head. From an outsider's perspective, it couldn't get any simpler.

I think, now, it'll be easier to deal with people, if for no other reason then I'll feel like, to a degree, I've been there and done that. I've fought the bad fight against someone trying to help me. I've resisted the simplest, easiest steps, because I didn't think they were necessary. And, at the time, though I have no idea why, I've felt right in doing so.

Searching for blogs...

How in the world does one search for good blogs? I've been poking around, trying to find some that will at least make me laugh, or that I'll find interesting, and have had very, very little luck. Ideas?

The bailout

No, I'm not going to tell you what I think about the bailout, primarily because I don't feel I have enough info to make an educated decision.

I did, however, find this interesting, as I've always maintained that the average human being doesn't really understand numbers such as "one trillion."

Well, this explains it in a way most people can understand: A trillion dollars.

The book

If you would like to read some of Nebulosus, and I would certainly appreciate it, here's a link:

Nebulosus on Authonomy.com.

The more popular it is, the more people that view it and put it on their bookshelves, the higher its ranked...and if it's ranked high enough, the owner of the site, which happens to be a publisher, will take a look at it.

It's totally free to sign up.

Thanks to La Fleur, without whom I would've never known Authonomy existed.

WoW and Time

Looks like I'm finally, really burnt out on it. My character will languish, my auctions will expire, and my guild will think I died or something.

Oh well.

Also, the 12 hour clock is stupid. I'm boycotting it. BOYCOTT THE 12 HOUR CLOCK!

Not done.

Yeah, I'm not done with Nebulosus. Upon going back and re-reading the beginning, it seems my writing style has changed quite a bit since I started it. Time to either edit, or rewrite the first 3-4 chapters.

Life decision, coming up

So I have a decision to make.

Nebulosus is either done, or nearly done. Tomorrow I'm going to email the manuscript to at least one agent, likely many more. I figure, by the time I finish whatever tweaking they suggest and it actually gets moving, an optimistic guess at actually seeing money would be this time next year.

In the meantime, we have to pay bills. Already we're going to come up short next month.

If the company that I'm currently working for decides I can't do part time, I'm considering delivering pizzas again part time, to make enough money to get by while being able to continue writing and pushing my writing.

I can't work 40 hours at my current job, which requires me to do tech support and hard sales on every call, and push a book, let alone write much of anything. It's just not feasible. Maybe I lack drive, or energy, or whatever, but I know it's not going to happen.

So...deliver pizzas, or give up on writing for a while except on the rare occasion that I have the energy to do something when not at work? Blargh.

All done!

Much faster then I had dared hope, I believe I have actually finished Nebulosus. I figured I'd know the ending when I got there, and I certainly did.

Now it's rejection time! YAY!