Well I have FINALLY received word that she and the company will be "parting ways". Apparently, she will be allowed to buy her current client list from us and then we get to delete her clients and all her clients' inventories out of our warehouse and database.

I'd prefer that she just get booted out w/o anything, but if we can make some money off her and I get to clear all her crap out of my database, then that is still a good thing.

Now, my only concern is that our newest CSR is transitioning over to Sales and she's already "accidentally" put a couple of another salesman's customers into her group. I really feel that she needs a pre-emptive LART to help "encourage" her not to go along the same path as the other one.

I woke up late.

The program I download every Friday morning is being withheld indefinately due to an asshat flaming the download site.

I forgot my breakfast.

Drove to the gas station for a sandwich & my full coffee cup dumped in the cloth passenger's seat.

When I got to work and opened the building, the stench of sewer gas was overwhelming.

The PFY took a combustible gas detector around the building & discovered the gas was actually propane from a faulty forklift tank.

I opened the office window to air the place out & some clown decided to idle their monster truck right outside.

P.S. It's 1F (-17C) outside.

The power supply in one of the servers is making "peep" noises.

Microsoft really should take a look at Rome and how overexpansion eventually leads to collapse.

If Microsoft buys Yahoo, there going to frell it up just like they've done to Office. All their versions of office had a certain level of consistency and now Office 2007 has like tripled the calls I get for "how do I print?" "how do I save?" "how blah blah blah"

Heh, so, my day started out like Tekkie's

IE, a whole lot of not fun

Unfortunately, mine stayed that way for most of the day

Now, I DO do some phone support, but, most of our phone type support is done while we use logmein.com

Of course, there are some customers who don't HAVE 'net access, soooo...

Anyway, the first insane call was from this id10t who wanted me to transfer his carpet cleaning DOS based program to his new XP Pro desktop

So, he brings me in this... thing, I think it was an Abacus 1000

It might have been the 500 model though...

AND he wanted it to also PRINT from that same DOS program

OK, fine, I'll entertain yer absurd discussion... fer $125 per hour I say, hoping the price will make him change his mind and upgrade his program to something created in the 21st century

To no avail. Now, get this, the new version of his software only costs $500, so, I tell him that I estimate that this job could take up to 5 or 6 hours (@ $125 per) (more hoping he'll decide to make an intelligent decision, which would probably be the first in his poor, useless, life) to which id10t-zilla readily agrees

A guy named, uh, Fred, ;) does our radio ads. He came on-board cuz he's a geek and he used to do the "Geek Update" every thursday, so, we got alot of emails going back and forth, and then when HIS pc crashed (an adobe update somehow fragged his registry, and I repaired it in about 5 minutes with my precious ubcd4win) so, he already knew that I could do what I claimed I could do.

About 8 months later, a salesman from WXXX came by (who just happened to be the SAME salesman that the nazi had because he hired ME) and asked if we'd like to do some advertising on their radio station. TheBoss asked how can Fred do ads for a company that he knows nothing about? The salesman told him that I'd already done some work for Fred, and he's already convinced that I'm the best there is :))) (I love it when people actually APPRECIATE my talents) Anyway, the bottom line is that Fred does commercials for us where he actually SAID in one commercial "I don't think there's ANYTHING Spyder CAN'T fix!"

I didn't tell him about TSC

Ok, I cheat, and I take the credit. So what ? I'm a guy. I have an ego. I'd like to say my ego is as big as my dick, but...

In IT, it's not HOW you get the job done, it's IF you can get the job done

I had one boss who called me a weapon, "I point you at a problem and I pull the trigger"

Then I surf TSC...

I ask how TheKingOfDumb heard about us... He said that if, um, Fred, yea, that's the guy's name, likes us so much, he can't go wrong

Ok, so, I've got id10t-kingkong-zilla asking me to take some stone knives and bear skins and make a computer from the 21st century understand what the fuck it was trying to talk about

That was fun

And he brings me this printer that has a bird in it pecking out the letters one dot at a time!

Pal, you are SOoo getting overcharged for this !

I get it finished and printing in about an hour, but, keep it for a week so I can charge him the full 6 hours I estimated, AND I call him once a day to ask irrelivant questions so he thinks I'm having a problem

I call him, and tell him it's finished, he picks it up and sets it up in "his" office

Turns out he sublets an office in a fedex type office, and he's only there till noon... his complaint... the program doesn't show up as a full screen

WHAT!!!

Are you insane ?!??!?!

Fine, I go into the properties of the program, and set it to run full screen. Problem solved, Right ?

Wrong

He wants the program to make the thing take the full screen in a bigger font, which, even though there's a setting for that in XP, it doesn't work in his 900 year old program, but, I actually went down there anyway to try to make it work

The guy isn't happy with the font

Did I meantion that this guy's insane ?

So I set the thing up so that it fills the screen, and now it won't print

I up the ram assigned to the DOS program, and it stll doesn't print

Oh, this is bullshit. I've got 4 other people on hold who also want me to create miracles

I talk to TheBoss, and he says it's bullshit, and what id10t-zilla wants is new billable time

So I go BACK to the place, only to find that he closes at noon, and the only people left don't work for him... BUT there's a chick there who actually knows this anchient peice of shit stone knives and bearskins program, so I ask her to try it for me.

The birdie in the printer just sits there, waiting for a cracker (which is not a statement of race, it's just something that you put in soup) and doesn't print one single thing. So I go over and TURN IT ON

Which, surprisingly, works !

At which point, I leave.

I go back to the shop, tell TheBoss what happened, and he says...

"Fine, I'll go down there, tell him it's impossible, and sell him a $500, 15 year old, win98 pc

get in at 8 something am. 20 calls in queue. 5 people have called in sick. service level tanked HARD.Myself and the other supervisor are logged into and taking calls from 3 different queues WHILE trying to keep the place running.

and all due to a latency issue off our damned network.

perfect way to end off - everything going down in flames! from here i head off to a Government contract position.. more $$$ NO OT ( thankyouthankyou thankyou!) no benefits BUT - light on the tech side. truthfully i have no real idea as to what exactly the position entails, but its not a call center and its a foot in the door to an actual carrier!