I was going to say, “Oh, it’s done already?” but then I saw your last sentence. 
Merry Christmas, Una. 
Dear self,
If you don’t stop hitting the wall with your skull, I am going to superglue a bike helmet on it.
Stop it. Now. Ugh.
–Me
crosses fingers and toes for Una Persson’s house Your construction guys sound as if they need a swift kick in the butt. I hope it goes better from now on.
Small apartment + Cat + several very allergic family members = no gatherings at my place.
But my younger sister responded to criticism of her lack of communication about the previous outing by asking that I take over some of the events where we go out for dinner. So I will be.
I’m guessing it’s an old Indian burial ground.
The house where I grew up was built on farmland…as we learned during Hurricane Fran, it was apparently the part of the farm that contained a large drainage ditch. I remember sitting in the living room and watching as the dirt that had filled the ditch washed away. Also, there was a section of the backyard that had a rather large quantity of shiny coal. This spot was not near any existing structures on the property.
Cute cat, by the way!
I’ve really been trying not to rant on my customers. I really have.
But this guy called with a problem today that required him to put in some moderately complicated commands into his computer. Because I’m having a hard time hearing him and communicating with him on the phone (yeah, talk INTO the phone, dumbass, not just in it’s general direction), so I email him the document that walks, step by step, through the process including the stuff he has to put in, so maybe he can just cut and paste it.
Now, I was already moderately irritated with this guy, because everything I suggest he try, he says that he has done, and it didn’t work. I’m about 99.99995% sure that he hadn’t done most of the stuff I suggested, because he clearly wasn’t tech savvy enough to know what to do or how to do it.
So anyway, I send him the How-To document, and wait until he gets it. I ask him to open it, describe the three sections in it, and say we’re only doing the last one. That it’s really simple, but the commands to be put in are a little complicated to give over the phone, so I sent him the document so that he can just copy and paste them into the command line.
Queue up 5 minutes of him futzing around saying he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t understand what I’m asking him to do, blah, blah, blah. Ok, so I describe the section of the article and start reading it to him, telling him I need him to do these steps. Another five minutes of bullshit stalling. He doesn’t know what I’m asking him to do. Ok, are you reading the article? Hem and haw, doesn’t answer. Have you OPENED the article I attached? Apparently not. :rolleyes: Ten fucking minutes of stalling and the jackass had never bothered to read the article.
So I ask him to open it. He says he did. I point out very clearly the third, BOTTOM section of the document and start reading it. Another five minutes or so of him reading other sections and asking if he’s supposed to do them. Very deliberately NOT looking at what I am telling him to look at, which only has a BIG BOLD LARGER FONT HEADER ON IT that I have, at this point, read to him about 7 times.
Ok, enough is enough. “Sir, I need you to do the section that I have been reading to you. I CANNOT DO IT FOR YOU. You have to do this. If you cannot, or are not willing to do this, I cannot help you any further.”
Another five minutes of futzing around, reading other things and claiming to have no idea what I am telling him to do, even when I am reading the document and telling him exactly what to do. (Click on the start menu of his PC and type CMD into the search bar. That’s ALL at this point!) I repeat my “do this or I can’t help you” instructions a second time, then a third time, at which point I said “Look, I’ve told you this three times. I’ve read the instructions 10 times now. I cannot do this for you. If you won’t do this, then I can’t help you, and I’m done with this call”.
He beat me to the hangup.
It’s just…damn. When someone is telling you HOW to do something really simple, and they’ve even sent the written instructions to you so you know exactly what you’re going to be doing, either fucking DO THEM, or crawl into the fucking woods and stay there until you die of exposure, because you’re a fucking moron.
On the brighter side, everyone else, and I mean EVERYONE ELSE I dealt with today was really nice, really pleasant, and very easy to deal with. Then, because we were not very busy today, I got asked if I wanted to go home almost 3 hours early. Hells yeah!
Sigh. We finally get some dry weather, so I head out to the front garden to dead head some roses and pull some weeds. Ten minutes later here comes the party jumper truck and in another ten minutes we have an inflated jumper and screaming kids inside, right across the street. I take it as long as I can then head inside, with far less done than I’d hoped.
On the upside, since it’s Christmas Eve, I can only hope that the screaming will not last past midnight, as it did the last two times.
I have some sympathy for you, but also some sympathy for the “moron”. That guy might not have any idea what “click on the start menu” means. I know that when I was having problems with my XBox and called tech support, some guy kept telling me to go to the dashboard. I kept saying that I didn’t understand him, and he’d repeat the phrase. He was based in India (guessing from his accent) so I guess that he thought that I didn’t understand his accent. I had problems with his accent, but I also had no fucking idea what a “dashboard” on the Xbox meant. To me, a dashboard is something that one finds in a CAR, not a video screen.
On the other hand, I’m very, very good at following instructions…IF I UNDERSTAND THEM. I’m also excellent at remembering things like “every tech tells me to turn off my computer and unplug my modem and to wait a few minutes to turn it back on and plug it back in”, so I try doing that FIRST, even if I don’t understand the technical reasoning behind it.
But please don’t expect the average computer user to understand computer jargon. Yeah, if you’re talking to another tech person, they can be expected to know what “click on the start menu” is. But if you’re talking to the average person, s/he might not know what you mean.
There’s no excuse for not trying to talk INTO the phone, though.
I know what you’re saying, but I am always really clear on my instructions.
“Click on the start button in the lower left of your computer” If they ask more, I describe it. But given that, before this point, he had already clicked on that same button and gone to the control panel for me, there was no misunderstanding of what I wanted him to do. He was just pulling the “If I play stupid, he’ll either do it for me or ask me to do something else instead” tactic, with which I am well familiar. Older people do that when they’re afraid to mess things up on their computer. But I have no ability to do it for them and sometimes there isn’t something else I can have them do. In these cases, we’re stuck repeating instructions and/or trying to cajole them into doing as we ask, and ultimately doing exactly what I did. “I have explained what we need to do. I can’t do it, you have to. If you are not willing to do it, I cannot help you any further. Please call back when you are willing to do the work necessary to resolve your issue.”
I get that about once a week. I had someone last week who refused to do ANY troubleshooting. “No, I’m not doing that. I’m not doing anything. YOU are going to fix this!”, which resulted in “No sir, I can’t. I don’t have a magic wand or a special button I can push to fix your issue. At some point you are going to have to do as we ask, or it won’t get resolved.” He said he would just call back and speak to someone else, which was just fine with me. As of yesterday, he had called back about another issue, but there were no notes about him asking anyone about the issue he called me about.
My mother is making me CRAZY.
Will you let your fucking dog out? Before he claws the house down? Will you show some compassion on Christmas Eve? Or waitaminut…OMFG, did you go away and leave your dog locked in the house? Please tell me at least someone’s coming by to feed him.
Dearest Farmer down the street… I know you need to fertilize. I accept that fact. I’m behind you 100% on keeping your farms running right. However… You decided to spray the pig poop two weeks before Christmas this year. We’ve had no snow, rain, or any other smell dampening weather since you sprayed. So, we’ve spent two weeks hiding inside because of the smell (which clings to everything) and now the guests arrive having to hold their noses to make it into the house.
The wonderful scent of the 20lb rib roast and garlic is, luckily, not overpowered by what’s coming from outside, but still… Next year, try to wait until after the holidays, please? We live 2 miles from where the spray is. I can’t imagine what the people who live directly across the street from your fields are going through. But I’m betting they aren’t happy about it either.
Dear future MIL: your 8 year old has the emotional maturity of a 4 or 5 year old. She is manipulative. Crying at her age when she’s not bleeding or bruised is not normal, it makes her an attention grabbing asshole. When her teachers say she’s “sensitive” and “cries easily”, they’re trying to tell you not to coddle her when she cries and enable her. When we tell you she’s lying out her ass that the nerf gun made her bawl (and made the oppposite side of her body hurt) try and fucking realize the absurdity you’re buying into.
I know for 20 years you’ve had little kids running around, trying to give them the childhood you never had, but seriously, they grow up and you’re only hindering the youngest. She does not like the frilly dresses and berets you got her for Christmas. Please stop avoiding your issues with men because you want small children running around and will infantilize those under 18 with every chance you get.
PS It is not normal for the 7 year old to call 911 and bawl. This, like much of her behavior, is that of a preschooler.
In Sept., trying to see my nieces one last time during my vacation, some douchebag of a cop pulled me over for using the shoulder lane for 30 feet to reach an exit (on one of those horribly designed NJ intersections). I made sure that I (a) took one of those online driver safety courses which let you avoid the points hit on your license, (b) presented certificate from same to my local DMV so that it would be officially on my record, and © only then mailed in the fine to NJ.
My insurance company (Allstate), in their infinite wisdom, ignored all that and jacked my rates up close to +$100 for a six month renewal period. I’ll be going over there in person and complaining strenuously this Tuesday, and possibly switching insurance companies if they prove unreasonable.
A 7 yo called 911, without being told to or being the only one in the house with a badly injured/sick adult? And there were no consequences for this? Not good.
(And yes I know there are plenty of adults that call 911 for the most trivial reasons, I think they need to be grounded for life too.)
But then what will you do if your head hits one of the spots on the wall that doesn’t have a helmet glued to it?
:dubious: What, none of these people have allergy medications? The size issue wouldn’t be readily dealable, though.
And that’s more what I had in mind. So, yay!
Nobody in authority position is stepping up and saying she’s a little shit. Another example: She goes to speech therapy still, even though she knows how to correct her issue. She simply chooses not to most of the time (if you ask her not to, she corrects it in a jiffy). Did I mention she gets out of school in the middle of the day and gets McDonalds for lunch after the session?
Why keep an 8 year old (she was 7 during the 911 call) infantilized? Because mommy has issues and adopted two kids at 40 and 44 so that there were always youngsters running around. Mommy blew 50k on adoption loans rather than save for her retirement.
Sure it is. Slip 'em all a Mikey, then when they start to surface, tell them they had a great time, and send them home.
'Course, you will still need a place to stack your relatives and friends like cordwood until they start to wake up…
Bathtub.