Minor revenge

I got a small revenge on a customer today. It's not much, granted, but it's something and, more importantly, it's the only thing someone working in a call center ever gets.

Day 1:
Customer has a warranty replacement set up, and pays to have the new parts sent out immediately. Full refund is given when bad parts arrive to our company. Customer uses the same card that paid for the original order, without knowing that depending on which bank you have, using a debit card for online purchases is one of the most stupid things you can do.

See, what happens when you make a purchase online is that the company that owns the website immediately verifies all the payment card information and then places a hold on the funds on your card, so you can't spend the money until it's legitimate to actually charge it - when the product you purchased is shipped to you.

Most debit cards take over a week before that hold drops off the account, whether the charge takes place or not. In some cases, if there is a rounding error when the sales tax is calculated, there will be enough of a difference between the hold and the charge that the hold never drops off, at least not until the company that instigated it tells the bank that it is no longer needed. The difference required for this to happen is one cent. One single penny is all it takes, and that's what had happened to this customer, and as a result, it looked as if he was charged twice for one order, and because the hold was still there, he had $123 less in his account than he thought he had. In other words, there was not enough funds available to charge for the replacement parts.

Day 3:
Because there isn't enough funds on the card, a notification is sent to me that the exchange I set up a few days ago needs some extra attention, the card on it has been declined. I send an email to the customer, informing him that there has been a problem with the card, and asking him to call in to provide an alternate credit card for us so we can send him the new working parts.

Day 4:
Customer calls in, absolutely livid. He screams, cusses, and makes such liberal use of the infamous F-word that the co-worker of mine that received the call actually hung up on him. (Yes, we are permitted to end phone calls when customers are abusive.) My co-worker,who is a very easy-going and laid back sort of person that does not get angry easily, listened to the expletives for about 30 seconds, then politely but very firmly told the customer to stop using that language, or the call would be over. The customer didn't stop, so my co-worker promptly ended the call, and then sent out a department-wide email with the customer's name, informing everyone that if this man calls back he should go to a supervisor right away.

The customer called back, and came to my phone. He recognized my name as belonging to the person sending him the email, and that of course sent him into a new screaming fury. Since I recognized the name from the emailed warning that had gone out only minutes earlier, I immediately read the notes from the previous call, then informed the customer that there was no need to either scream or cuss at me. He insisted he was doing neither, which was such a ludicrous claim that I didn't bother to grace it with a reply.

I instead explained why things were the way they were, and in spite of this man using a language that would have gotten him thrown out even from a bar on a college campus, I explained what needed to be done to resolve the situation, and offered to do my best to get it done.

While I was staying professional and attempting to be helpful, the word "retarded" was used in reference to my co-worker as well as my employer, various highly unflattering remarks of the parentage of everyone working for the company were made, and strong wishes to see us all burn in Hell were uttered.

The only reason I did not follow my co-worker's example and hung up was that the customer did not use that fabled F-word anymore, and he did not attack me personally.

Instead I put him on hold for ten minutes, while I spoke with the credit card division about what would need to be done to resolve the situation, and it is surprisingly simple. The customer needs to call his bank and inform them of the error in their system, tell them that the so-called "charge" is in fact just a hold that is no longer needed, and he needs to ask them to remove it from his account. We cannot do that, because banks don't do things to their customers' accounts just because a stranger asks them to, whoever that stranger says they are.

The need to have to lift a single finger to do anything to fix the problem sent the customer into a new fury, and he demanded to know what he needed to do to get all his money back from us.

Just send all the parts back, I'll set that up for you. We can't give you money back until the parts are here, but I'll make it easy as easy as possible for you to send them in.

But the customer, again, does not want to lift a single finger, and is deeply offended and angered that we have the nerve to request the parts back before giving back his money. He never wants to hear from us ever again and then he hangs up, very noisily.

Day 5:
I receive a notice from the System That Watches that there is an exchange, that I set up several days ago, that needs a little extra attention. The payment card used on the order has been declined.

Since I was not very eager to call Mr F-Word again, or contact him at all, I went to my supervisor and explained in detail the events that took place after his shift ended on Day 4, and asked for advice on how to handle the situation. I provided an order number for the original order, the one where the rounding error caused the hold to stay indefinitely on the customer's debit card, even after the charge had taken place, and explained how that led to the replacement parts being delayed because of insufficient funds on the customer's card.

My supervisor listened to me, read the lengthy notes I took during my call, and the notes my co-worker put in, and then said, "Cancel the replacement order. If he is going to be abusive, we're done with him."

So I of course did that, taking great pleasure in knowing that the very unpleasant man will never get working parts from us, and in knowing that I have a supervisor who agrees with me that my job is to help customers, not take abuse from them.

What is, from my point of view, the best part about this situation is that though it was not the customer's fault, it was not ours either. It's his bank, whose system cannot distinguish between a hold and a charge, when made to a debit card. Never the less, we could still have helped him; we really could. Although we can't call the bank and ask for things we have our other ways, and even us lowly front-line call-serfs have power enough that I would not need supervisor approval for a single one of the things needed to be done to make the whole problem completely go away.

We could have helped this man and solved the problem for him during one single phone call.

However, instead he now has a hold of $123 on his debit card, a hold that may never go away, especially if his bank refuses to take his word only that the hold is no longer needed. He also has a set of dead parts that will never work, and that he paid full price for. He will get that money back if he sends the parts in; we're not thieves, and everything is set up to ensure a full refund as soon as said parts arrive in our facility. The customer was made aware of that fact when the exchange was created, half a week before Day 1, and he may eventually remember that.

I'll certainly not going to remind him. After all, he didn't want to hear from us ever again.

Fumbling adventures in Ubuntu-land

I reinstalled Ubuntu 6.06 on my laptop recently, this time with the intention of keeping it there for quite some time. Dropping the encryption level on the home network to one the poor old thing can manage (an additional bonus was shorter load times and faster browsing) means all of a sudden the laptop's built-in wireless adapter can work with the wireless router upstairs, and if I could only figure out a way to extend the effective battery life past 25 minutes, I'd be all set.

Installation and setup was a bit more of a hassle than I remembered. The Automatix2 scripts would for once not work quite right, and I ended up reinstalling the little application a couple of times, from various different sources. Eventually it worked, through the easy installer in the Automatix Wiki, and all plugins and codecs I need to enjoy music and flash in Swiftfox were duly installed.

Wine gave me a bit more problems... You see, one of the reasons I wanted Ubuntu back and Wine installed and working is that several of my old favourite games--and with old I mean published before the year 2000--no longer work under WinXP. The ones that do just don't run very well on the much faster hardware computers today use. My laptop is a Compaq Evo N410c, with a BIOS start date of January 2002, so I figured the hardware would be just the right age to run my games without any glitches or speed problems. The problem was that I don't have any Win98 CDs laying around, and even if I did I would be reluctant to use that OS. I have vivid memories of Blue Screens of Death... so I decided to give Ubuntu another chance.

Back to Wine. Simply put, it's a compatibility layer running within my Ubuntu installation, and within that layer I can run Windows applications. Since Linux has native browsers, office applications, messengers and media players, and everything else I might need for day-to-day computering, I plan to use Wine exclusively for my old Win98 games.

But the stupid thing would not install properly. I tried to simply do it via the Add/Remove... function in Gnome, Ubuntu's desktop environment of choice, but no dice. Next I went on to try it via Automatix2. No dice there either. Next I went to command-line installations via aptitude, and that worked. I was very happy, until I ran winecfg and promptly crashed Wine at my first attempts to configure sound. Several reboots later I had managed to remove every single trace of Wine from the little laptop, downloaded the latest version from WineHQ, installed, and I was all set to go.

Or so I thought. While Wine worked fine, and there were no further crashes, and both Sanitarium and Fallout and all their patches installed just fine, I had no sound. The magnificent intro to Fallout just is not the same without the happy music in the beginning. Argh.

After some online research, and after visiting various forums for help, I discovered it was my own fault. Apparently you need to set winecfg so Wine knows to use the same kind of sound driver that the rest of your system uses. Well, I guess if you want to be logical... ! Sheesh.

Fallout intro played with music. It was awesome.

I have not yet tried to play either game in Wine, but will make sure to do so before I take the laptop with me for my two-week trip later this summer. Who needs a PSP when you have a laptop with Wine and old games?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go attend to a whole different kind of wine; I have an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon and hickory smoked ribs waiting for me in the kitchen.

Peter Jackson's unforgivable offense

I want to make one thing very clear, before we move on. I love the Lord of the Rings movies. While they were not following the books to the letter they were close enough that I recognized almost everything. The Nazgul were scary, the Fellowship was extremely well cast, and even Cate Blanchet as Galadriel worked out very well.

There was one thing however that really, really bothered me from the first moment it appeared. Gimli, son of Gloin, was portrayed as a buffoon.

Gimli is originally a fearsome and very competent warrior, a 4'10'' and 350 lbs of solid muscle, covered in mithril, carrying a large axe. He has a strong sense of honor and duty, and he is very scary when he is angry. He is also a beyond being a professional warrior, it's a lifestyle for him, not a job. He has trained for life on the battlefield since before he could walk, and he is capable of taking out five orcs with that axe, without help, despite the differences in height.

And in the movies he is used almost entirely for comic relief. This angers me.

Gimli is badass, a great warrior, and a very frightening one at that. He should not be diminished in this way.

Trivia of the Day:

Female Gamer:
Mythical creature, extremely rare compared to the number of male gamers in the world. Hardly ever recognized by non-gamers, the origins of this mystical species is shrouded in legend and myth.

Stories of these unusual creatures are whispered in the dark corners of LAN parties, with a mixture of awe and hopelessness, and in the unlikely event that one is spotted entering the room carrying what looks like a PC, she quickly collects a following of wide-eyed males, who proceed to carry her heavy bags, open doors for her, offer her seats, and fetch items for her throughout the LAN party.

Researches have yet to puzzle out the complex rituals that govern how to interact with a Female Gamer. One thing they all agree on however, is that a certain way to earn a Female Gamer's eternal enmity is to come across as giving her preferential treatment while gaming, be it extra help across a map, gifts of free items and equipment, or even open admiration and adoration of her skills and abilities in the game, just because she is "a girl".

Adventures with the Bowflex

I have been trying to keep up and work at least one muscle group per day on the Bowflex, for that beach honeymoon in my future, and it remains an evil torture device in every way. My shoulders hurt today, which could potentially be very bad, as I have a desk job and do lots of typing at work.

Fun historical triva: The first known prototype of a Bowflex Extreme can be viewed at the Tower of London.

Work-related venting

Don't tell me to just shut up and fix your problem.

Don't say "I'm not a complaining kind of person". According to the timer on my phone I've listened to you do just that for the past 25 minutes.

Why would we intentionally ship you a malfunctioning part?

No, it's not my phone. It doesn't matter that no one else has problems hearing you or that no one else points out the static, if there was anything at all wrong with my phone it would have been replaced by now, because I can't do my job without it. And I would have this problem with all customers, not just you.

Don't put me on hold. You called me... if you don't have time to focus on the conversation for ten minutes, call back later. That goes double if you're on a call on the other line as well, while talking to me.

You're not funny. You really, really, are not funny.

Jokes about needing more memory, when I apologize for a temporary computer problem, are not funny either.

No, I don't have a direct extension, we're a call center here. And even if I did have one, I'm not going to give it out just so you won't have to wait on hold when you call back in ten minutes to place your order.

No, it's not your fault the part isn't working. But it's not ours either, so stop accusing us of making it fail just so we can take more money from you.

I'm not interested in how long you've been on hold. You're not more important just because you had to wait longer, and I won't work harder to help you just because you're upset about it. (For the record, we know what our hold times are. If we could do something about them, don't you think we would, just to improve our own work environment?)

Shrill voices. I hate shrill voices.

Insomnia

It's not the inability to sleep that does it. It's knowing that it just won't happen tonight. I'm going to yawn, try to doze off, try to at least get some rest, laying there in my bed while my thoughts keep spinning, and spinning... and then just fade because I'm too tired. I'm too tired to sleep.

And when the mind finally goes numb enough, then the body starts to react: muscles grow very restless, and then so very heavy... The stomach wants to be filled, it has been empty for far too long, and turns sour. Joints ache, ears throb, and there's always something, somewhere, that is itching.

And the pressure to sleep makes everything else pop up, until everything that has to be done is spinning around the room like the proverbial Mara, ruining the night. I have to sleep, I have things I have to do tomorrow, and I need the energy. And once you realize how late it is, and how badly you have to get that rest now, that is when it becomes absolutely impossible. Trying to force oneself to sleep never works.

But I have to sleep, or at least lay still and quiet. There's a man sleeping next to me who needs his rest just as much, probably more, than I do and it's not fair to him to keep him up just because I can't sleep.

I want to sleep. I need my sleep.

Poker musings, and a bit of a rant

They were showing the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions on TV earlier today. The ten best poker players in the world, by far, all of them together around a table, playing a tournament game. The winner took home $2 million.

It's fascinating to watch the differences in personality, playing style, the way they interact with each other... the mental game. It's all about playing people as much as it is about playing your cards. Or your opponent's cards, for that matter. There is a certain amount of luck involved, of course, but poker is not true gambling and never was.

Gambling depends entirely on luck. But if poker did, it wouldn't be the same group of people finishing in the money at WSOP year after year, now would it?

And on a completely unrelated note, I am sick and tired of seeing movie adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo portraying Mercedes as the loyal woman who ends up happily ever after with Edmond at the end. Follow the book, please!

Mercedes is supposed to end up widowed (after marrying Edmond's supposed best friend!), completely bankrupt, and without even a title or reputation to her name, believing her only child has been murdered in one of those random robberies that is the very definition of unfairness, and that her husband was killed in a similar pointless manner. She deserves all of it, every single bit, and more. Mercedes is even more of a traitor than the rest of them, and it is starting to seriously annoy me that it seems to be the norm to have her and Edmond live happily ever after in cosy affectionate love, after he forgives her. And she really doesn't deserve that either, by the way.

I want Haydee back in the story, the way Dumas wrote it. Haydee knows what loyalty is.

May I have your attention, please?

Pay close attention everyone, because I have something important to say. And I'll only bother to say it this once, so if you don't pay attention now, you'll miss it completely. Are you read? Here we go:

It's not a phase.

I'm not going outgrow this.

I'm nearly thirty years old now, so whatever is in my personality is probably not going to “grow away”. You would have to talk me into changing it.

You may think I'm being childish, for all I know you think I am immature and pretty weird. You may even look at me and see some sort of freak who refuses to accept that she's not a teenager anymore. Well, in that case: We need to talk.

Let's ignore the absurdity of the notion that one look at me would tell you everything about me for a moment, and focus on what matters here: You have absolutely no basis for your assumptions, and you have no right whatsoever to judge me. And while you might think certain things are childish and immature, has it occurred to you that your opinion (and that's all it is, an opinion) might not be as valid to everyone else as it is to you?

Now, I understand if you won't listen to me, given that I'm probably very biased. I'm talking about myself and my life after all. My own opinion, especially about what matters to me, is not enough to convince anyone, and it shouldn't be. Not if I want to retain the right to mock you for basing all your statements on nothing but your own opinion, right?

So think of it this way: All adults watch TV. All adults watch movies, and nearly everyone watches the Super Bowl. And they do it because they want a break. A respite from whatever they need to get away from at that moment, that bores and slowly dulls the mind. Why does it matter that I watch “StarWars” instead of “Failure to Launch”? What do you care that I read “Lord of the Rings” and “PC Gamer” instead of “InStyle” and “Entertainment Weekly”? It's all a form of escapism anyway.

Your problem is that you misunderstand the type of escape it is. Yes, of course I'm escaping from something, but unlike what you think, I'm not escaping from reality into a happy fuzzy place of dreams and fantasies.

I'm breaking out of the dungeon of mediocrity and making a mad dash for freedom into the world where things matter, where there really is such a thing as noble souls and true heroes. Into the world where the bad guys eventually lose. Where Inigo Montoya gets his revenge, Darth Vader dies to save Luke, where there is a spot on the world map marked “here there be dragons”, and where people really can be good, noble, and unselfish.

Why would I ever give that up? More to the point, why do you think I would be better off if I did? And while we are on the subject, why do you think my life would be better if I wore longer skirts, lower boots, and more discreet nail polish? Do you really think it's that easy to make everything right? Then you're the one who is delusional here.

Ignore for a moment the fact that we barely know each other. Ignore for a moment our mutual disdain and contempt for each other's taste in music, clothing, and literature. Ignore for a moment the fact that none of us will ever be able to change the other's mind. Ignore all that and ask yourself, why does it matter?

What do you care why a perfect stranger dresses weird, listens to weird music, watches “childish” movies and counts the days until the next major video game release? The way I see it, either you're jealous, in which case I pity you, or you somehow feel threatened by me and my hobbies, in which case I despise you.

Prove me wrong. I dare you.

While you're working on that, I will be busy over here, writing my poems, playing my games, reading my fantasy novels, and watching “The Princess Bride” for the 500th time. And I will be happy, and somehow remain convinced that maybe everything isn't lost yet. Maybe there is still something good left in this world? I think so. In fact, I'm sure of it.

And tomorrow, I will celebrate that with black nail polish and purple lipstick.

You'll see.

Sometimes we all need a little quiet defiance.

What are you?

Inspired by Karin's book quiz, I am posting a link to The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test. Take the quiz, and find out which one you are.

Fair warning: It wants you to pick a user name and give out your email address, but just give them your web-based spam trap, and you'll be fine. It's worth it for the entertainment value.

Here is what I am:

Your Score: Modern, Cool Nerd

69 % Nerd, 69% Geek, 39% Dork

For The Record:


A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.



Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!



Congratulations!

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Link of the Day: YouGamers.com

As a loyal Gamespot member, I hardly ever consider going elsewhere for game news, reviews, trailers, et cetera. This is not only because Gamespot has all of them, or because it's so big you can be sure to get every single nuance between blind fanboy worship and unadulterated hatred of a game, if you search for reviews, but because I really like how it's organized and how the interface works. They make it easy for me to find everything, in fact, they find it for me and send it to my account inbox in a steady stream of updates . Very handy.

But today I will, for once, link to another web community that offers game reviews, forums, and your own account for doing and enjoying both of those: YouGamers.com What the site has going for it, that has made me bookmark it and visit again and again, is the Game-O-Meter. It scans your computer via a downloadable java script, and then shows you, on a flame-inspired graph, how well your system will perform in the game you were reading a review of just before you clicked the button.

I have been looking for something like that for years!

I am a book

Karin provided a link to this fun Quiz today. Which book are you? I am either Catch 22 or Watership Down, it seems. You probably know me... you decide.

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of people.

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You too can be a rockstar...

This is my most recent favorite game. In spite of insisting to try and give me carpal tunnel syndrome, Guitar Hero II remains one of the most entertaining video games I have ever come across.

Rock on!



(No, that's not me playing. Don't be ridiculous.)

What is wrong with people?

I didn't have a single nice customer on the phone all day today. Not one.

The worst ones are not the ones who are ignorant, stupid, and rude/mean. It's the ones who know just enough to get themselves in trouble, but not quite enough to get out of it.

And they all have one thing in common: They know that it was not in any way their fault, and they are convinced that if they are nasty and mean enough, then everything will work itself out just the way they know it should have been all along.

The ones who whine are nearly as annoying as the ones who think they have to bully me to get help. Worst of all are the ones who think that if they say either furiously, border-line hysterically, or triumphantly, "this is not good customer service!", that phrase will magically, like a spell of ancient power, turn me into a groveling and obliging model of instant obedience to their whims.

"I'm a loyal customer" seems to hold the same magical power.

I know we can't live without our customers. I know we need them, and that I would not have a job without them, and I have absolutely nothing against them. It's just that sometimes I wonder if someone who has spent all of $45 in the two years they have been a "loyal customer" really is worth sitting there and taking that abuse for.

Bizarre things my customers have said to me

Inspired by Children Say The Darndest Things, I am going to try to write up the most bizarre things that customers have said to me, either during phone calls or chat conversations. And yes, all these things have happened to me personally.

Me: Is the billing address and shipping address the same?
Customer: "The same as what?"

Me: And the phone number you have on file with your credit card?
Customer: Um... hang on, let me turn it over and look... 1-800-....

Me: Sir, that's a [competitor] part number. We don't support another company's product.
Customer: Why not?

Customer: "I have to pay for shipping this back to have it replaced? But it's defective! I only had it for a year!"

Me: I'll of course be happy to reinstate your order. I just need you to give me your credit card information again, because we don't store that where it can be reached.
Customer: Why not? That's stupid!

Me: I do apologize for the inconvenience sir, it's just that it is against our fraud-prevention policy to charge a credit card if we cannot verify the billing address on the order.
Customer: I just repeated it to you!

Me: What is the make and model of your computer, sir?
Customer: Dell.
Me: What kind of Dell, sir?
Customer: Dell!!!

My job teaches restraint.

An exercise in futility?

I have decided to give the Bowflex machine sitting in the spare upstairs bedroom a second chance. In reality it's probably more like a fifth or sixth... but since I have a honeymoon on a beach coming up as well as a high school reunion, I figured that if those two together can't motivate me, I'm truly a lost cause.

I like the idea of being able to do three or four reps, then go downstairs and get some water, go back upstairs and do a few more, and so on and so forth. And I distinctly remember that the one time when I actually managed to stick to a consistent routine with it for more than a week, it had visible and pleasant results. Aside from the cosmetic benefits of doing strength training on a regular basis, I remember that my back was hurting less back then, as were my shoulders and knees.

So I have, as of 45 minutes ago (30 for the workout and 15 for showering afterwards), decided that I will give the torture device a sixth chance. I will work all the major muscle groups three evenings a week, and hopefully I will eventually come to the point where I don't fell like rolling over and pass out after a mere half hour.

And when I get that far, I'll add another 10 lbs of resistance, and see what happens.

I have been absent... my apologies

My two faithful readers, I apologize for ignoring my blog the past couple of days. I have been a bit busy with a laptop.

My friend Froli has a sister whose laptop decided to crash, fully and completely, this weekend. As I understand it, she was rebooting it in an effort to get rid of an annoying and increasing slowness, but instead of a reboot she got a BlueScreen. Puzzled, she attempted a new reboot, and that time around she got no signs of life from her laptop at all. We plugged it in, managed to boot it far enough to bring up the BlueScreen, and looked at the message on it. I spent the next few minutes in a highly unpleasant conversation evolving around "your hard drive might have died on you".

Luckily, that was not the case. First of all, Windows booted just fine when ordered to revert to a previous restore point. Much relief all around.

After some searching I found a rootkit and some other nastiness in the registry, but the hard drive is just fine, and the system as a whole is on the road to recovery. The laptop has been staying over at our house for the past few nights, the Norton Security Suite has been removed and competent freeware installed in its place, and aside from a brief conflict between ZoneAlarm and the router firewall, the laptop is now running smoothly and happily.

And yes, just in case someone other than my two loyal readers sees this, I do this for free. I like Froli's sister, she clearly appreciates that I'm spending time on this, and besides, she's family. (My conscience is forcing me to admit that the words "chocolate fondue" were not in any way discouraging me from working on her laptop.)

If you're not family, however, you'd better bring cash, and hand it over, before I even look at whatever mess your computer has become. Knowledge is a commodity, and I have a life, not to mention a romantic relationship, that I enjoy spending time in.

High School Reunion

I have received an invitation to my High School reunion. It had a picture of my entire class, taken during the champagne breakfast we had in a park, and the caption "Can you believe it has been 10 years?"

It took me a while to find me in the picture, and when I showed it to Froli, my favorite man and best friend, it took him even longer. So I guess I can believe it, since I look so different now. I will obviously not be able to attend, for geographical reasons, but I am going to send in that email they asked for, answering the questions about where I live and with who, and what I do for a living. They also wanted me to tell them one thing I've done in the past ten years that I think will surprise the class. Looking at the photo, I am tempted to say "became good-looking" on that one...

And I feel old now.

Edited movies for TV

I have decided I need to somehow write down my thoughts on movies that are "edited for content" before a TV network dares to show them. See, since I didn't grow up here in the US, the whole idea confuses me. I grew up in a nation where the level of violence is more important for a movie's rating than the amount of nudity, and where movies shown on TV are never edited for content. If they are unsuitable for children they're just shown late in the evening.

Over here, the spoken dialog is edited (most often by the offensive words just not being heard), certain images are just not shown, and so on. The TV networks don't want to offend either its viewers or the FCC, so they try to keep things curse-free and fully dressed.

What confuses me is that with some of the movies they do it to, it just makes no sense. I was watching the start of the movie Casino earlier today, and noticed that they are blanking out the notorious f-word whenever someone uses it. There's an annoying gap in whatever is being said as the offending monosyllabic is erased every time it's being spoken. Now, if this was a movie like Major League I would, in a way, understand that. That's something that your children might watch with you, and you don't want to have to explain to them for the next week or so that they can't use that word just because they heard Charlie Sheen say it on TV.

However, the movie Casino is a different matter. The plot contains excessive and gory violence, including a scene where a man has his hand smashed by a sledgehammer, and another where Joe Pesci tortures a guy by slowly, slowly squashing his head with a power tool. There is open and blatant over-use of drugs such as cocaine, and on-screen sex of all kinds. If it's okay to show all that on TV in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, why even bother to blank out a word here and there in Pesci's voice-over tirades?

I can understand a desire to keep TV content clean and smut free, but there needs to be some sort of common sense and logic applied to how that is done. Especially since Major League went uncensored, and I clearly could hear the words "fuck" and "shit" being said here and there throughout, whereas the average viewer of the movie Casino apparently is too easily offended to be exposed to that kind of language.

I am confused.

A long day and longer evening...

I was going to write a long post about the stupid questions and horrible accidents at work, everything from the guy who ruined his laptop by trying to cool it in the fridge to the poor guy who had a hard drive fail on him in the middle of installing his memory upgrade, but my wrists and arms are just cramping far too badly to type that much right now.

Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 is an awesome and fantastic game, but why, why, why, why is the controller so horribly small? Not only children and pygmies play these games, people. Give those of us with bigger hands and longer arms something that won't induce carpal tunnel everywhere between shoulder and fingertips, please.

It amazes me that no one has yet tried to tap the vast market of adults who play console games and who suffer rather painful cramps from the far too small controllers. I'd over-pay for something that won't hurt me after half an hour of play.

Good customers.

I have found my favorite type of customer.

The IT professional/server tech/major reseller-type guy. The one who is in the business, and who has been in it long enough to know that sometimes shit happens even to him, and it's not anyone's fault, it's just freakishly bad luck.

These people know how it works. They know that if you want to return something for exchange or refund, you pay for shipping. They know that if they are past 30 days, they have no legal rights. They know that whether it's fair or not is unimportant, and they remember that I don't make the policies, but I do have to enforce them.

And they keep it at a professional level. Even when angry, they manage to keep it at a professional level, and that makes all the difference. Because, as hard as it is for you to believe, I understand your frustration. The last time my computer refused to work, I shared it. I upgrade my system piece by piece, I have had parts fail on me before they were installed, I know the sinking feeling of staring at a completely unresponsive system and praying that whatever just happened is covered by warranty.

And when this type of customer calls in, and treats me courteously, I remember all those things, and I sympathize. And I have a lot more power than I would ever let you think I have, so when you are nice to me, and understand that I can't do magic, and that I can't violate policies just because you scream at me, I will appreciate that understanding, and I will try to help. I will really try to help... and I have power. I know it sounds empty, but I do. I can give you free over-night shipping on anything, up until 30 minutes before the last shipment leaves for the day, if I want to. I can talk my supervisor into nearly anything that needs their approval, because my supervisor knows I would not insist for nothing. I just don't feel like insisting if you act like a complete jerk.

This type of customer knows that, and acts on it, and I gladly do what I can to encourage that sort of behavior.

You stay professional and I will stay professional ,and my profession is Customer Service. I take that seriously, and I will help you in any way I can. All I ask is that you don't act like a spoiled brat when you ask for that help.

Sometimes life feels like this...

Rick Moranis in Spaceballs. I sympathize.