Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldnt even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People dont pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? (P. 57.)Freakin' love Cormac McCarthy.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A Quote
Re-reading No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, and came across this totally wicked sick quote that also totally didn't make it into the movie. If you've seen the movie, it takes place during the part where Chigurh does the coin toss with the guy in the gas station.
Monday, January 23, 2012
First World Problems
Today at work, I thought of what seemed to me a brilliant idea that's beyond grim. In essence, it is this: A website dedicated to showcasing people bitching about first world problems, with text of their complaints superimposed over pictures of actual shit you should lose your shit about (war atrocities, z.B.)
I can't think of a way that it'd work without being disgustingly exploitative of human suffering, though.
In other news, I'm going camping for my weekend with some family folk. Am excited. Might be getting sick though, which would kinda put the kibosh on sleeping outside in the cold. Which would be a bummer, but, well, see above.
I can't think of a way that it'd work without being disgustingly exploitative of human suffering, though.
In other news, I'm going camping for my weekend with some family folk. Am excited. Might be getting sick though, which would kinda put the kibosh on sleeping outside in the cold. Which would be a bummer, but, well, see above.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Snowpocalypse 2012 and Other News
I think it's now safe to announce that I have officially survived the first (and probably only) Seattle snowpocalypse of 2012. This one was a rather significant disappointment, as it got me out of only about 15 minutes of work, and then totally fucked up the city on my days off. (Look at me, pretending I have enough money to go out like a real adult... how cute.)
Mostly, Seattle snowpocalypse made me miss Vermont. Vermont may have been all kinds of goofy in any number of ways, but at least they could handle snow like a boss there. Eighteen inches in a day? Whatever, we'll just send out the plows for 36 hours straight, and salt the roads till they glitter.
(Seriously, sometimes I think they mistook roads for the fields of Carthage.)
Seattle? Five inches--and I feel I'm being generous--and shut the shit down. Hide your kids, hide your wives, stockpile food and water and euthanize your pets as gently as you can, so they don't have to suffer (and for the protein, of course). In fairness to the city gubmint, there are better things to spend tax dollars on than infrastructure for snowstorms that come once every few years, and I suppose it's a good thing they don't spray a bunch of salt or worse on the roads to fuck up the sound even more than its present state of fucked-uppedness. I'm not sure what all the sand is for, though. Does that really help? Mostly I feel like it just makes shit dirty after the fact.
Work continues to suck. As if this is news. I thought up some atrociously bitter thing to say about customers. It involved their premature deaths and their children forgetting their faces. I forget what all exactly. Seemed too harsh to me. The biggest problem is that, at the end of the day, I just don't care, and I'm not sure who could. We sell [redacted]. Who gives a shit? It's not insulin for diabetic orphans or antivirals for HIV sufferers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [redacted] shit. [redacted], [redacted]--[redacted]! It's not important and it's not interesting and I just don't give a fuck, other than that I need the money because everyone needs money.
Ugh. I want to write about it to get it out, but when I write about it, I mostly just depress myself.
My bird is running around the table chewing on every cable she can find. I wonder if she can sense the electrical currents, and is somehow attracted to them? Either that, or she does it to piss me off, because it requires constant attention to prevent her from electrocuting herself. There, now she's chewing on a mouse pad. Yeah, bird, fuck up that mouse pad. Do it. Do it.
That is all.
Mostly, Seattle snowpocalypse made me miss Vermont. Vermont may have been all kinds of goofy in any number of ways, but at least they could handle snow like a boss there. Eighteen inches in a day? Whatever, we'll just send out the plows for 36 hours straight, and salt the roads till they glitter.
(Seriously, sometimes I think they mistook roads for the fields of Carthage.)
Seattle? Five inches--and I feel I'm being generous--and shut the shit down. Hide your kids, hide your wives, stockpile food and water and euthanize your pets as gently as you can, so they don't have to suffer (and for the protein, of course). In fairness to the city gubmint, there are better things to spend tax dollars on than infrastructure for snowstorms that come once every few years, and I suppose it's a good thing they don't spray a bunch of salt or worse on the roads to fuck up the sound even more than its present state of fucked-uppedness. I'm not sure what all the sand is for, though. Does that really help? Mostly I feel like it just makes shit dirty after the fact.
Work continues to suck. As if this is news. I thought up some atrociously bitter thing to say about customers. It involved their premature deaths and their children forgetting their faces. I forget what all exactly. Seemed too harsh to me. The biggest problem is that, at the end of the day, I just don't care, and I'm not sure who could. We sell [redacted]. Who gives a shit? It's not insulin for diabetic orphans or antivirals for HIV sufferers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [redacted] shit. [redacted], [redacted]--[redacted]! It's not important and it's not interesting and I just don't give a fuck, other than that I need the money because everyone needs money.
Ugh. I want to write about it to get it out, but when I write about it, I mostly just depress myself.
My bird is running around the table chewing on every cable she can find. I wonder if she can sense the electrical currents, and is somehow attracted to them? Either that, or she does it to piss me off, because it requires constant attention to prevent her from electrocuting herself. There, now she's chewing on a mouse pad. Yeah, bird, fuck up that mouse pad. Do it. Do it.
That is all.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Adventures in Customer Service: Where I've Been
I've been busy the last couple of months. The holidays are, of course, the busiest time of year for customer servants like myself. I can't say that I'm sorry they're over, which is kind of fucked, because Christmastime is generally my favorite time of year.
"Busy" is something of an understatement. My bosses had us doing fifty-hour weeks for the two weeks preceding Christmas. I was pretty surprised to see how quickly my work deteriorated after my eighth hour. Especially in the second week. Holy shit, I was tired. I'm still recovering, honestly. I could have done without that.
Now, work is back to normal, except now everyone who calls seems to want to be a physical incarnation of all that's wrong with humanity. To hell with them all. I just wish they weren't breeding. Or voting.
Speaking of voting, it's that time of year, and I'm completely apathetic. I can't tell if this means I'm depressed or if I just gave up. I rather hope it's the latter. I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever wins the election, rich people will keep getting richer at the expense of the rest of us, and we'll probably be bombing someone new within the next 5-10 years. Except we'll be doing it with progressively shittier technology as we run out of money.
No, I take that back; I'm not completely apathetic. I actively hope Ron Paul doesn't win. I don't care if I agree with him completely on the subject of American empire, or that he has a lot of good ideas about taking the corruption out of government. Dude wants to outlaw the Department of Education. He's what the internet might call "ax crazy."
(An aside: I'm listening to the soundtrack to the first Godzilla movie as I write this, which lends the activity an emotional intensity that's hard to describe. Godzilla had some intense goddamn music. Ifukube Akira is legend.)
I haven't been writing hardly at all, especially since the overtime business, and it's really kind of bumming me out. Half the reason I'm writing this blog post right now is to warm up and get the juices flowing. If I'm stuck in a dead-end job, I might as well work on some writing. That'll get me feeling better.
You know, speaking of Godzilla, I finally got around to figuring out how to get back my best ringtone ever, the old-school Godzilla theme music. Hells to the yeah.
Anyway, this post is kind of Eeyore-ish, and, well, I feel Eeyore-ish right now. I fucking hate my job and since that's more than half of my waking life, that kind of takes precedence. In general, though, life's not so terrible. I went and saw Streetlight Manifesto and Reel Big Fish in concert a few weeks ago, and they kicked all kinds of ass. The 24 hours I got to go home for Christmas were pretty sweet. Always good to see people. I'm still really enjoying living in Seattle, though I wish I had money to actually do shit. And now I have my Godzilla ringtone back. There. Happy ending.
Okay, now I'm gonna go write something crappy about fictional war criminals on Mars that I sympathize with more than the dumb fucking southerners who call in every day. That says a great deal about either me or them. Or maybe both.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Sick Days
Welp, I've missed two days of work this week because I probably have strep throat. I say "probably" because when I went to the urgent care on Sunday to get meself checked out, the instant test came back negative, but the PA said that those things are only 80% accurate, so based on my symptoms, she went ahead and gave me antibiotics. Since said antibiotics have pretty drastically improved my situation in the last couple of days (although I still called in sick yesterday), I'm inclined to believe it was strep after all. Just a sneaky little strep that didn't want to show up on the test. The bastard.
I went and saw New Found Glory in concert a week and a half-ish ago. They were pretty rockin'. I'm a child of the early 2000s; can't help my love for pop punk. I was surprised by how many youngins were there. Especially since they all seemed to know the old songs, too. I sure as hell didn't listen to ten-year-old B-listers when I was in high school.
Other than that, my life is less than interesting. I'm floundering through NaNoWriMo. I'm just having a lot of trouble with the characters for what I'm trying to work on. There's only one that I feel like I know at all, and I feel like he's monstrous hard to write well. Oh well. Nothing's good in the first draft. We endure.
Turkey Day is coming. And I fucking love turkey.
Also, I just discovered that two of my favorite bands, Reel Big Fish and Streetlight Manifesto, are going to play a show in Seattle on December 14. This is especially exciting because they already did a tour together that didn't come anywhere near Seattle (the closest they got was San Francisco, if I recall correctly). Tickets have already been acquired. I'm pretty psyched. (Shit, I almost wrote "stoked." What's happening to me?) How nice it is to live in a city where things happen.
Here's some music.
That is all.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Adventures in Customer Service: The State of the Art
Let's start a running series, shall we? We'll call it "Adventures in Customer Service." Herein I shall bitch about how much customer service sucks, surprising no one. (An original thesis, I know.)
In any case, here are some general thoughts on customer service. Generally speaking, customer servants are there because they have to be, not because they want to be. This is definitely the case for me. I met the first person I've ever met in my life who openly professed to genuinely loving customer service exactly three weeks and a day ago. Most people just hate that shit.
There are a lot of reasons, but they can basically be boiled down into one: people are fucking monsters, and your job in customer service is to suck up to them no matter what they say to you. Seriously, people gotta get genuinely abusive before I'd even think of calling up a manager and saying, "Hey, can I hang up on this fucker?" But there's plenty of emotional abuse you can take up till then that's just part of the job. Individually, most of these interactions aren't so bad. Dickish, sure, but who doesn't deal with an asshole every now and then?
No, the part that sucks most about customer service is that these interactions happen constantly, eight hours a day, five days a week, ad infinitum until you get another job. For most of us, that shit adds up. There are a rare few who can genuinely shrug it off, and don't let it bother them. The rest of us just pretend we can when a manager can hear us.
What most people don't seem to understand is that customer servants have very little genuine power, and even less to do with the problem that they're calling about. I'd hazard a guess that 98% of my daily contacts are not related to a failure of customer service in the slightest. (According to company statistics, full 50% of our contacts are 100% related to customers not fucking reading, but that's a story for another post.)
A few people get this. Even angry ones, sometimes. Today, actually, I had a lady that was pissed about some other thing or something. Livid. But at one point in the conversation, she said something along the lines of, "Now, you know none of this is directed at you personally."
Thank you, lady. Now I do. This may not seem like an important thing to say. You may think that customer servants assume that shit. Guess what: It is important, and we don't, because usually people are wishing us, personally, all sorts of ill will. So if you're pissed, super-extra pissed, about some shit, make sure to take a deep breath and remember you're talking to someone who had nothing to do with your offense, who can only pretend to a modicum of independence, who tells you the company line because s/he has to. Because, at the end of the day, customer service people aren't really there to serve you. We're there for the same reason every other employee is: to make the company some motherfucking money. The company believes this is best accomplished by providing quality customer service and that's why it pays someone with a master's degree $12 an hour to listen to inbred rednecks complain about how it's your fault that their illiteracy prevents them from being well-informed.
So be fucking nice. Because here's what we all wish we could do:
And one day, one of us somewhere just might be able to do it. I can only hope.
In any case, here are some general thoughts on customer service. Generally speaking, customer servants are there because they have to be, not because they want to be. This is definitely the case for me. I met the first person I've ever met in my life who openly professed to genuinely loving customer service exactly three weeks and a day ago. Most people just hate that shit.
There are a lot of reasons, but they can basically be boiled down into one: people are fucking monsters, and your job in customer service is to suck up to them no matter what they say to you. Seriously, people gotta get genuinely abusive before I'd even think of calling up a manager and saying, "Hey, can I hang up on this fucker?" But there's plenty of emotional abuse you can take up till then that's just part of the job. Individually, most of these interactions aren't so bad. Dickish, sure, but who doesn't deal with an asshole every now and then?
No, the part that sucks most about customer service is that these interactions happen constantly, eight hours a day, five days a week, ad infinitum until you get another job. For most of us, that shit adds up. There are a rare few who can genuinely shrug it off, and don't let it bother them. The rest of us just pretend we can when a manager can hear us.
What most people don't seem to understand is that customer servants have very little genuine power, and even less to do with the problem that they're calling about. I'd hazard a guess that 98% of my daily contacts are not related to a failure of customer service in the slightest. (According to company statistics, full 50% of our contacts are 100% related to customers not fucking reading, but that's a story for another post.)
A few people get this. Even angry ones, sometimes. Today, actually, I had a lady that was pissed about some other thing or something. Livid. But at one point in the conversation, she said something along the lines of, "Now, you know none of this is directed at you personally."
Thank you, lady. Now I do. This may not seem like an important thing to say. You may think that customer servants assume that shit. Guess what: It is important, and we don't, because usually people are wishing us, personally, all sorts of ill will. So if you're pissed, super-extra pissed, about some shit, make sure to take a deep breath and remember you're talking to someone who had nothing to do with your offense, who can only pretend to a modicum of independence, who tells you the company line because s/he has to. Because, at the end of the day, customer service people aren't really there to serve you. We're there for the same reason every other employee is: to make the company some motherfucking money. The company believes this is best accomplished by providing quality customer service and that's why it pays someone with a master's degree $12 an hour to listen to inbred rednecks complain about how it's your fault that their illiteracy prevents them from being well-informed.
So be fucking nice. Because here's what we all wish we could do:
And one day, one of us somewhere just might be able to do it. I can only hope.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
So... let's try this again
Ah, blog. How you must loathe me. I'm the neglectful parent who promises to do better just often enough to keep your hopes up. And the worst part about it is, I genuinely mean it when I promise to do better, which makes it even more hard for you to swallow when I inevitably fail to follow through.
But I promise, blog, this time is different. This time, I'll be true. And update you every once in a while. At the very least, I'm going to use you as a warm-up before I write. Except for today, because I have other shit to do, and I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to write after this. Well. Fuck. There went that plan.
Here's a random thought: I don't much care for getting dressed up on Halloween. I fucking loved it when I was a kid. My moms made some epic costumes, and that shit was the best. No sarcasm in that previous sentence; my mom's Halloween costumes are among my fondest childhood memories.
But nowadays, I'm way too lazy for that shit. And unlike my mother, I suck at sewing. I can do basic tasks, after a fashion. (When the apocalypse comes, don't ask me to stitch you up unless there's literally no one else around, or else you'll end up with a hell of a scar.) But complex stuff is beyond me. I don't have the machinery and I don't have the training.
Nor am I really a sculptor. I'm hella creative, it's true, but those energies are poured and always have been poured primarily into writing, drawing and building little plastic models. Costume-making is just not really my thing.
Anyway, some stupid portion of my brain forgot that I like to dress up like a lazy alcoholic for Halloween and enjoy beer and movies rather than costumed hijinks. This is how it ended up being arrange that my roommate and I will be dressing as Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Thanks to the assistance of my lady friend, my last-minute Moby costume is actually pretty impressive. I'll put up some pics when I have them.
I imagine I'll have more things to ruminate on in the future. I keep meaning to write a post about work, and my opinion on customers and humanity in general, but I'm not super fond of what customer service does to me, so I'm fighting that one off for now.
We'll see.
But I promise, blog, this time is different. This time, I'll be true. And update you every once in a while. At the very least, I'm going to use you as a warm-up before I write. Except for today, because I have other shit to do, and I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to write after this. Well. Fuck. There went that plan.
Here's a random thought: I don't much care for getting dressed up on Halloween. I fucking loved it when I was a kid. My moms made some epic costumes, and that shit was the best. No sarcasm in that previous sentence; my mom's Halloween costumes are among my fondest childhood memories.
But nowadays, I'm way too lazy for that shit. And unlike my mother, I suck at sewing. I can do basic tasks, after a fashion. (When the apocalypse comes, don't ask me to stitch you up unless there's literally no one else around, or else you'll end up with a hell of a scar.) But complex stuff is beyond me. I don't have the machinery and I don't have the training.
Nor am I really a sculptor. I'm hella creative, it's true, but those energies are poured and always have been poured primarily into writing, drawing and building little plastic models. Costume-making is just not really my thing.
Anyway, some stupid portion of my brain forgot that I like to dress up like a lazy alcoholic for Halloween and enjoy beer and movies rather than costumed hijinks. This is how it ended up being arrange that my roommate and I will be dressing as Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Thanks to the assistance of my lady friend, my last-minute Moby costume is actually pretty impressive. I'll put up some pics when I have them.
I imagine I'll have more things to ruminate on in the future. I keep meaning to write a post about work, and my opinion on customers and humanity in general, but I'm not super fond of what customer service does to me, so I'm fighting that one off for now.
We'll see.
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