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Omens, of the negative variety
Dec. 6th, 2007 11:03 pmMy day started with my toothbrush snapping in half during normal usage. This fell squarely in the "Wow, that's never happened to me before" camp. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of wondering if this might be an evil portent of some sort (e.g. "When splitteth the Oral-B in twain, thus shall herald the Dark One's reign," or some such), which was basically an invitation for the Powers That Be to break out the karma truncheons and thwomp me senseless.
In this case, I showed up to work and immediately got handed what I like to call a "happy slip," a little scrap of paper telling me what times I am to be unplugged from the boards for what basically amounts to subsidized slacking. On these slips, they usually circle where I'm supposed to go: the conference room, the old AT&T room, stay quiet at my desk, etc. Today, though, they'd written in a new option, making the slip profoundly not happy.
It seemed I was to take a class on, and I quote, "good customer service."
Written by a corporate illiterate who can't even avoid run-on sentences.
Taught by the one person in the office I least want to spend time with, ever, under any circumstances.
Who taught the class by handing out a Xeroxed stack of papers the size of a Black and Decker work bench, then reading it to us.
With only one other "student" present to buffer the annoyance effect.
For THREE [word smudged]ING HOURS.
My ability to survive the ordeal was the direct result of me finding my secret imaginary happy place as soon as it was humanly possible, said happy place containing a lot more pad Thai and Kate Winslet and a lot fewer paragraphs on tone of voice. Still, though. This close to hitting the fire alarms, people. This frickin' close....
In this case, I showed up to work and immediately got handed what I like to call a "happy slip," a little scrap of paper telling me what times I am to be unplugged from the boards for what basically amounts to subsidized slacking. On these slips, they usually circle where I'm supposed to go: the conference room, the old AT&T room, stay quiet at my desk, etc. Today, though, they'd written in a new option, making the slip profoundly not happy.
It seemed I was to take a class on, and I quote, "good customer service."
Written by a corporate illiterate who can't even avoid run-on sentences.
Taught by the one person in the office I least want to spend time with, ever, under any circumstances.
Who taught the class by handing out a Xeroxed stack of papers the size of a Black and Decker work bench, then reading it to us.
With only one other "student" present to buffer the annoyance effect.
For THREE [word smudged]ING HOURS.
My ability to survive the ordeal was the direct result of me finding my secret imaginary happy place as soon as it was humanly possible, said happy place containing a lot more pad Thai and Kate Winslet and a lot fewer paragraphs on tone of voice. Still, though. This close to hitting the fire alarms, people. This frickin' close....
