A customer called in, and the line quality was just awful. It was a cell-phone with probably half a bar of coverage, and on top of it, the background noise sounded like a tin roof in a hailstorm - more than likely it was a noisy vehicle. I gave my greeting, and then the customer responded with… well I have no idea what. The noise and the constant cutting in and out made it near impossible. A few things for sure though, screw Political Politeness. Definitely a gravelly, rednecky, “I’ll fuck you up, boy,” kind of guy. He was probably in a tractor-trailer rig with the windows down going down the highway.

I thought the call was dropped because the line went silent. I kept hailing him to see maybe if he could still hear me so he wouldn’t hangup even though I couldn’t hear him. “Are you there, sir?”; “I could hear you for a bit, and then you cut out. Is there still someone there?”; “Hello?”; and so on.

He came back! The signal got a little better, and this is what came through: “Kiss my ass you yankee bastard!”

I guess to a redneck, someone who tries to hide their Texas accent wouldsound like a yankee. Oh well.

Kids these days. Such language!

I’ve complained before, but I’ve never really gone into detail what goes on at work. Let me introduce you to two things: The beginning of a new series, the “TSR Diaries” in which I wax pathetic; and the first entry!

My job is taxing. From the outset, I answer phones with a pre-scripted greeting, troubleshoot computers, digital cameras, and printers, and send out box-kits so they can ship their equipment in or authorize technicians to work on the equipment. Not so bad until you realize I answer the phone about 40 times in a day. That’s the way its supposed to work. In addition to this, I help out newer people who don’t yet have authorization to send out parts or service, occasionally take escalations, and sometimes do mentoring.

Most people on the phone are cool. They’re your average red-blooded American who just wants their stuff to work. There are some terms of the warranty we service that can be a tad ambiguous or onerous to people, but after explained in plain English, they understand and co-operate and everybody’s happy. Just like The Pax in Serenity, there are those that don’t “lay down.” You can talk these people down and make them calm, and things are a little tense afterwards, but just be careful and you won’t set them off again. Some, there’s just no amount of talking that can make them calm. Those go to escalations.

At the end of the day, I’ve talked to dozens of people about their failing equipment, and service denials are a dime a dozen. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just there’s finite number of things we can do. Some people don’t like that, and the abuse drags on a mind and body such as mine. but this first entry isn’t about that - you’ll just have to be patient ;).

Bob Slydell: What would you say ya do here?
Tom Smykowski: Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

At work today, pizza was provided in the break room as the first day of Employee Appreciation Week. It was Cici’s, so it was terrible of course, but I still helped myself to a couple slices. Come on, free pizza! Why wouldn’t I pass it up?

It got me thinking though. The slices were ridiculously small, something like 20 slices to a large pie. I know Pizza Hut will allow you give special instructions for how to slice the pizza. The example they give is “cut into squares.” That’s a pretty neat service if you ask me. Why not ask for something obnoxious though? The reasons are obvious, like not wanting extra off-menu toppings (gross) on your pizza, but how about a pizza cut into 7 slices?

Anything 5 slices and under require only a little thought. Everyone knows how a 5 point division works. 6 is an easy concept, the cuts go all the way through, the difficulty is simply in getting the slices all the same size; but from my experience in receiving pizzas for delivery, this mustn’t be a hard and fast requirement either - even on the standard 8 slice pie…

7 though. That’s tricky. It’s seven cuts, all halfway through. And on large surfaces, the middle is hard to find unless you mark it. And what are you gonna mark it with? A topping? Maybe not, overshooting the middle is acceptable for difficult cuts though so I’ll let that slide. You might get lucky and get an engineering major who’s putting himself through college on this one and end up with a perfect result.

And on the maximum side, anything over 10 is ridiculous. Even on extra-large pizzas, the slices get too small after 12. You might be able to do an 11-slice pizza on that size of pizza, but with the same technical difficulties as a 7 or even a 9.

How about cutting it into pieces that aren’t slices at all? A spiral cut that’s still one piece, or a pentagon or pentagram? That could be fun…

“Avoid the noid”

Weekends are turning out to be the best time for content around here - and I’m not even talking about my non-traditional Tuesday-Wednesday weekends that I have. Saturday and Sunday prove the best days to kick back and relax and play with my website.  There’s really a lot to do if you want; a public sandbox. Actually, a private sandbox that everyone can look into and see what I’m up to.  It’s more like a zoo I guess!

Saturday, I drew a Waffle Block. I need to scan it in and make it the front page for awhile. I’m proud of myself for sort of maintaining things around here semi-regularly. Oh, what’s a Waffle Block? Here, I’ll make it a little more clear:

[14:36] Bobby: http://img.waffleimages.com/…/nosferatu.gif
[14:36] Bobby: hahahah
[14:37] Steneub: blocked by work
[14:37] Bobby: dawww
…
[14:39] Steneub: no… can you put it on imageshack? waffle is blocked
[14:39] Steneub: waffleblock. hehehe
[14:39] Steneub: sort of like WCC
…
[14:48] Steneub: I’m currently drawing a Waffle-block
[14:48] Bobby: heh
…
[16:39] Steneub: my waffleblock isn’t perfect :C
[16:41] Steneub: butter and syrup will make it batter
[16:41] Steneub: LOLOL
[16:41] Steneub: better I mean
[16:41] Bobby: nono, batter

Bobby was trying to show me some images using Waffle Images, which I highly endorse as a matter of fact, but here at work it’s blocked by the filters. Boo. Some funny came of it though!

First things first: Definition of meme. I only put this here ’cause it’s a relatively new word to English, so I’ll be generous and educate those who don’t know.

I’ve got some memes that, well, let’s be honest here… I guess they’re more inside jokes in the vein of “You had to be there.” I’m just blogging about it and waving my dick in your face while I talk about how awesome I am at brandishing my genitals. But what else is blogging about or for, I ask? What, indeed?

But I digress far, far too much. Here’s the list and some explanations. Enjoy it or die in a lightning fire made of cars.

• Cocket Snatch
  Bam! Cocket Snatch! It sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Really, it’s just a derivative of a brainstorming session to title a game modification for Unreal Tournament 200X. We were taking an original, licensed game, Rocket Jockey (a totally killer game, by the way), taking the core gameplay, and making it our own. We couldn’t name our game Rocket Jockey of course, so we came up with a list of titles. Rocket Grab was one of them, but that just seemed gay. Enter: Cocket Snatch. It’s like Rocket Snatch, but this one is intensely funnier. Ever since this brainstorming session, Cocket Snatch is on the list almost every time for sake of tradition.
• Dollar Cakes
  When I was but a lad wandering through the nudity of the Internet, I saw a word. I couldn’t pronounce the word. I knew I didn’t like what I saw alongside the word. It was a label. But I didn’t know if pronouncing it “Buck Cake” was correct. I later learned it was Bukkake, but I just tucked this nugget away for later.Coworker Steve and I were talking, and as conversations go, teenage masturbation is a roundhouse subject. You can always follow the train of thought and logic back to it. I decided to dig up my “Buck Cake” story for him, and he remembered thinking the same thing too! Over the course of the week, we would mutter “buck cake” to one another, and burst into laughter. It eventually evolved into cakes costing one dollar (a buck). Hence, “Dollar Cakes.”
• Baggadix
  Once again, this one has to do with coworker Steve. He was being especially pissy, for who knows what reason. I kept telling him to eat things like “bags of hell” and “dicks.” It continued until I told him to “Eat a bag of dicks.” Apparently the possibilities here were endless. “Eat 10 bags of 20 dicks” was just one of the phrases uttered. Eventually I grew weary and simply said “bag o’ dicks.” It’s not a huge mental leap from here to get to Baggadix. It sounds like a breakfast cereal though, like Trix, so it stuck.
• Liquid Bees
  You know, sometimes I don’t even know. Just - liquid fucking bees, okay?
• Lemonade from the ass well!
  Kyle Naziaxier (hehe, another inside joke), Allison, and I were driving someplace. Kyle had a habit of lingering the ’s’ of “as well,” making it sound like he was saying “ass well.” I, being the goofball that I am, had to do something with it, so in a strange voice, I crooned,”Ass well? You can drink lemonade from the ass well!”

So there you have it. A strange look into why I say what I say. There’ll probably be another entry similar to this sometime in the near future as I recall more weird shit I say.