Tech Stories

2. OT - Sleepytime Misdirection Last night, RedFaery asked me to go to the basement to check on the laundry in the dryer. I must have been really tired, because I opened the refrigerator, stared at it a moment, and thought "Wait, wrong door". [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments what even worse is when you stand at the diswasher holding a load of dirty clothing trying to figure out WHY somethign seems incredibly wrong... or looking at an empty dishwasher trying to figure out where the cloths are. -Harm I half expected Zul to be staring out at you. -McSmiley Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance. -ActingUpAgain So, that's what you meant on FB. Got it. -Captain Trips

3. All is Known New Sales Girl has been calling a client trying to demonstrate our product, and he keeps blowing her off. Today she called in and got his subordinate, who said, "You should be able to talk to him today. Fridays he comes in late and plays Solitaire on the computer until noon, so don't believe him when he says he's busy." [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments always keep your admin assistants happy - for they know all and essentially Run everything. -Harm Ditto nurses. -LDFeral Just like the school secretary when you're a kid. I was an AA for three years and had a fantastic bunch to work with... other than the woman who sat across from me, who dumped her passwords on my desk one Wednesday morning and ran out of the office never to be seen again... but that's another story. -AnneBWalsh ...and it sounds like a good one Anne - share! -TheCyberwolfe Department I worked in had one big boss, five little bosses, and fifty-odd people under them. I was the AA for the five little bosses and the fifty-odd people. Other woman (call her Dee) was responsible only for big boss. Big boss was a demanding kind of lady, but not unreasonable or rude. Dee was... we'll say skittish. Over the six months we worked together, she got more and more unpredictable and emotional, until I was actually praying that she would call off. One day she snapped and literally ran out of the office after tossing her passwords on my desk. Left a semi-hysterical voicemail on big boss's phone at 4 AM the next day confirming she'd quit. I managed everything in the department for the next month until a temp could be hired. -AnneBWalsh

4. Help a Reporter Out question I follow a Twitter feed for Help a Reporter Out, and they just posted a urgent need question: ericka@chickowski.com needs experts to discuss state of IT industry comp. to year ago after SQL Injection attacks. As a writer myself, I vouch for this site being a valuable resource for genuine reporters, so if anyone can help, I'm sure they'll be grateful. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments chickowski.com > Index of / Apache mod_fcgid/2.3.6 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at www.chickowski.com Port 80 -Stryker One

5. Soylent Pink is Chickens!!! http://gizmodo.com/5654066/chicken-nuggets-are-made-from-this-pink-chicken-goop [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments "parts is parts" -Captain Trips Hmm, looks like the pink yogurt my son likes...So, yogurt is chicken?!? -docbrown01 I thought about showing this to my seven-year-old, but I'd have to find something ELSE to feed him... -udoshan saw that yesterday, looks like frozen custard to me (still more appetizing than anything from McD's) -DedSysOp MRM (Mechanically recovered meat) is dirt cheap - about 10% of the cost of "real" meat. It what you get if you take a chicken carcass once the real meat has been removed, hit it with rubber flails & high-pressure water. In other words, cheap shite. NOW, ask me if I eat McPukeles "chicken" McNuggets. -lineswine I still remember when Jamie Oliver showed children how chicken nuggets were made, and they all said how gross it looked, but they still ate them afterwards. The same children didn't recognize potatoes were eventually made into French Fries. -Wraith556

6. Maybe she can give him lessons... As I'm going through old notes from long-gone sales reps, I found a real gem of irony. The client is in Turkey, and the last note given about the client says "She speaks well English". [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments The return of George. -AmazingKreskin Are havening George issues again? -Captain Trips

7. Reach out and touch-a touch-a touch me.. When you call a client in Denton, TX named Scott, is it a bad idea to ask him how Brad and Janet are doing after their experience in the castle? [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Only if they don't get the reference XD -ApolloSZ I'll agree you are on Rocky territory there -PoglaTheGrate Don't you mean ... Von Scott? <As the audience screams 'Zig Heil!'> -Necros Uhm, who? What? -Stryker One Great Scott!!! -Captain Trips And for the reference I am deigning to subject myself to the pop phenom known as Glee. -PolarCoyote I'm just a sweet tech-sexual... -Diptera Dammit, Janet! -Tekkie Most horrifying item I've seen recently... the "television" show "Glee" will be doing a Rocky Horror episode. My own response: WHY?????!!!!! -VoiceOfSanity Hey now, "Glee" is a fun show... But I still had to google the reference. -LazyLemming

8. Ethical question Do you get on the elevator with the heavily perfumed talkative sales drone, or do you take the stairs and be late for work? I chose the latter with no regrets. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I'd get on the elevator, and fake an asthma attack. *shrugs* Doesn't hurt to bump against & trip the STOP button, then block it with your body while you continue. *bfeg* -Grue Avenue three: let go an awful fart in the elevator. Silences the garrulous woman, overtakes the perfume, and you're on time. -vacuumtubes I like NR3!!! -jerrybear I'm with VT - may as well qunch that horrid aroma with a more natural one! make sure its LOUD too! pretend nothing is wrogn and look at them accusingly.. -Harm You know me. I'd take the elevator, holding my sleeve over my nose the entire time and ask them "what is that smell? do you smell that?" -redfaery VT Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtZgs8k8dU -Dr Jerkyl We're missing some details. 1.) Does the perfume smell good? I can tolerate a power smell if it's a good one. God help me the day perfume companies start producing fragrances like "Chocolate Chip Cookies." 2.) Is talkative sales drone hot? 3.) Is there a chance that the elevator could get stuck long enough that I can convince her we need to repopulate the species? -YourLastHope YLH - I would probably say "Nay nay" to all three of those... Do you know of any hot, promiscuous women who bathe in decent perfume? Nay nay! They're all old, ugly, and rotten, hence the need for the Walmart $10/gal pefume & pesticide combo pack. -exzyle2k YLH: http://tinyurl.com/yctvyu9 -evolvedstarfish

9. The Knoxville Dialect My conversation today, in trying to get ahold of the decision-maker to sell help wanted advertising in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is the last part of the dialogue: Sales PFY: They aren't here right now. You can probably reach them by e-mail thru our website. AUA: Ok, what's the address? PFY: Dubya, dubya, dubya dot sailor sales dot com. AUA: Sailor, like driving a boat? PFY: No, "sailor", like a sailor phone. In retrospect, it should have been more obvious to me, as I was calling a Verizon distributor. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments in the same vein, is it pronounced "banjoer"? -lineswine Sailor Phone: http://www.satworx.com/sailor-sc4000.php -Stryker One At least it wasn't "Sailor Moon" -Divinar Sailor Phone: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/224/475080138_d838a05197.jpg -Jack Ah, yes, the Southern U.S. accent -- there are no 1-syllable words ("yay-es"), and any over 3 get shortened. -Captain Trips Jack: that latter's called a sound-powered phone. (EG) -MadJack

10. She's a one of a kind, I guess... Talked to a woman today named "Unique". Appropriate name, I suppose. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Unless she has a twin. Or an army of clones. ...... wait, and army of unique clones? *confused* -TheGhost "Don't let that bother you, we are ALL individuals here." "I'M not!" -Captain Trips Unique New York! Unique New York! The Human Torch was denied a bank loan! -Biosynthetic Remember you'r unique. Just like everyone else... -ApolloSZ The voices in my head keep telling me that I'm perfectly normal. -Stryker One How do you scare a woman like that? Unique up on her. -linkv In my short and ill-fated career as a teaching intern, we had two girls in the school named Unique. Irony much? -AnneBWalsh as Helldesk would say "you're Unique, just like everyone else" -persephone Probably trying to spell Eunice. 8) -AussieFoot " Unique?! wow , so do you miss them? you know , the parts they cut off.. that testicles and all?" -Harm reminds me of a line from one of the "beverly hills cop" movies: while trying to BS his way past a receptionist, Eddie Murphy says he has 2 girls, "monique and unique". -Erictheblue

11. It's just not right... ...for the 64 year old sales drone sitting across from me complimenting another 64 year old sales drone with the word, "You go with your bad self!" I almost popped an eardrum trying to hold back the laughter. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Yeek! That phrase was old when *most* of us were kids! -MadJack That's a "phrase"? It has meaning, and was, at some time, well known? -Divinar Barry White used it alot iirc. Coyote's iphone attachment that was a wine holder that would play a few tunes of his when the bottle was removed from the cradle made me laugh so hard I fell under the desk. -AdmiralLaurie Wow, this just popped into my head. Haven't thought about it for almost a decade....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8gSAwrMdVw&feature=PlayList&p=7BB04FAFD3A840C0&index=0 -Biosynthetic IIRC, James Brown used it in 'Living In America', and knowing even that tends to show how dated one is... -MadJack

12. Names of the Day Two sales contacts I made today: Becca Wonderlick Sean Letwat $Deity-forbid they ever meet and marry... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Cathy Umberger..... Usernames here for faculty and staff are typically first init. last name, I made an exception for this case. -virusjtg Wow....sounds like an imaginary company for tax purposes. Kinda like...Nald's McDo. http://failblog.org/2009/02/13/mcdonalds-sign-fail/ -Biosynthetic Friend of mine when he was starting up bought an "off the shelf" company which he named "C#" so he could tell customers to make the cheques out to Cash -Zoomer Just recently I read about a bad marriage: Crystal married Mr. Ball. -Loren

13. Pretty Please? About two years ago, one of the graphic designers that worked under me had to quit. Due to poor choices, he lost his driver's license and lived too far away to make it to work. Nice guy, somewhat a comedian as well. Today the Help Desk got an e-mail from him that simply read, "Hey, it's $designer. I'd like my job back. That's all!" and it included his contact info. Yep, the Help Desk got that e-mail. I don't want to think he seriously believed that would work. Knowing how flakey he was, it's possible. But I'm choosing to believe he just did it for a laugh. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Given some of the stories on here, I wouldn't be surprised that some fishy actually got hired that way. -Stryker One Forward it on to HR they could probably use a laugh. -Starfury Well...he's looking for help in getting his job back. He -did- send it to the Help Desk, no? *bfeg* -Grue

14. The Personal Phonecall LART Various people have complained to me about others in my department gabbing on their cellphones instead of working. So it was time for yet another e-mail smackdown. Sent this out moments ago... More and more, as I walk around the department, I hear snippets of people taking personal phone calls at their desks – sometimes lengthy ones at that. I won’t belabor the fact that several of these phone calls can impact your production turnaround time, or that there are regulations against it. What I WILL say is that I now know more about your families, your love lives and your various job interviews than you probably want me to. And if I’m thinking TMI, you can be certain the person in the cubicle is sick of hearing about it. So, for your co-worker’s sakes, either: 1. Tell your friend/family you’ll call them back on your break, or 2. Take it out to the hall or breakroom if it’s urgent. And maybe, just maybe, I won’t use your personal lives as the basis for the next novel I write. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Oh, that is awesome! -rosemetal game, set, match. Bravo! -HappyCrappy Many, many sympathies. There is a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) sitting across from me who makes me want to scream "GET A FRIGGING DIVORCE ALREADY" at least once a week. Twice is more common. -AnneBWalsh You assume that there is ANYTHING in there lives that would be of any interest at all to the readers. If they are like most of the people here, that novel would be a major snoozer. -Griffin2020 Get a Universal TV remote, and when they're going into the sordid details on a personal call, just point it at them and start "clicking" the remote. When they look at you in confusion, tell them, "the plot-line was getting thin on this soap opera, so I was trying to change the channel and see what else is on, but it's not working..." -Voz Or you could play a prank on them. Get a signal jammer if its legal where you are. That should shut them up. -kennz

15. Creepy Applicant One of my Asst. Managers comes by my desk today, our busiest day, and hands me a resume from someone that walked in the door. No big deal - I glance at it, see nothing that would interest me (plus we aren't hiring), and I go back to my work. One minute later, she comes by, wide-eyed, and says, "Umm, he'd like to talk with you too." This is pretty uncommon, and my Asst. Manager is pretty savvy, so I knew there had to be a good reason. So I say, "Send him back." The guy wasn't really dressed for an interview, and was chomping on gum. Confused, I just ask him about a couple of things on his resume, let him know we aren't hiring but I keep resumes on file, shake his clammy hand, and send him on his way. Only took a couple of minutes. In the meantime, I get an e-mail from the Asst. Manager, saying "Sorry I did that, but he was REALLY creepy and wouldn't go away. He just hovered over me and creeped me out, but I figured you could get rid of him." Smiling, I simply type, "Well, get used to it. He starts on Monday!" And let that e-mail sit on her mind for a minute, then follow up with one saying "Gotcha!" The response was simple: "Dude, that was so NOT funny!" [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I guess you and me have different definitions of the word "Not" -Icelator

16. Gaaaghh! It's an infestation!!! It's no secret that the recession is causing all sorts of problems for companies everywhere. Less hours, less jobs, less, less, less. Now it's produced a nasty side-effect here that finally generates more - headaches, that is. Several of our sales offices have been shut down and consolidated. What I didn't see coming is that a couple of the sales reps from those consolidated offices are are moving HERE, sitting in the cubicles that used to house some of my graphic design staff! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Doth me see some cubicle sabotage coming up? -Ramblin Bleach 'em. -vacuumtubes Here's what works to make 'em go away: First, put a fan under your cube and mention Larry King when they ask about it. Microwave and eat fish and broccoli EVERY DAY at your cube. I'd give 'em a week. -Biosynthetic Tell them that the beatings will continue until their intelligence improves. :-P -Torinir I suggest shrimp egg rolls - they smell like something that's make a hungry cat gag when nuked! Taste good though... -digitalguy1127 My god... It's full of starfish. </obligatory> -Seamus What works here at my office is microwaving sardines. Our "Master of the Custodial Arts" does this on a weekly basis and it clears the whole admin hall out where he does it. :shivers:: -RA One word: Annoy-a-trons. -AmazingKreskin

17. Ooo, that's COLD! When my graphic designers create a help wanted ad for a client, we have them surf the web for the client's website. That way we can pull company-specific images and colors to use in the ads One designer was designing an ad for an Ice Cream Truck Driver for a company in a large Ohio city. The first website she hit in her Google search was a story about an Ice Cream Truck driver that was killed. Sure enough, same company. I guess we won't include anything in the ad about their "retirement plan"... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I *TOLD* that S.O.B. not to play "Turkey in the Straw" from his truck anymore, but he just wouldn't stop... -Biosynthetic Aw, come on. Nothing about being on ice? -Geminii So.. was the driver creamed by his own truck? -ShujinTribble

18. Design an ad for me! We create help wanted ads for our publications, and one has us laughing. Maybe you can help us design it! One of the requirements of the job is that the person must "bring major sex appeal". The position in question - selling gas and oil products. so, how do YOU think we should design this ad??? [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Put ALL the innuendo you can into a text ad regarding the drilling process, as well as what lubrication does for making things slide smoother, etc. You know, I've got an even easier idea for you - get Burrkiss on the line, he'll likely give you print-ready copy! -Grue Oh, the puns.. picture a hot chick with a word bubble.. "I've got gas. Don't you want some?" -NightSteel "Ready to handle more ? Be our ad whore! We're the Gas/Oil company 'sticking it ' to the consumer as it were. Wanna join us ? " ??? Nah. Not burrkiss enough. I'll leave this job to the professionals XD . -Necros ....Y'all wanna lay some pipe? -vacuumtubes I believe you get some Islamic women dressed in there full dress of theirs dancing in oil on a pole. Make the pole look like a piece of pipe. -DarkRookie It's a "hot, highly desired product and needs a desirable person to show it to its best advantage". -ManyHats I'm thinking Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears sludge wrestling in thongs.... -Biosynthetic My immediate thought was the 'independent front suspension' commercial! -TieDyedDinosaur Isn't the Shakira video for La Tortura (the one where she's belly dancing whilst dripping in oil) already a provocative ad for oil products. (I probably just drove the number of Youtube hits for that video up by quite a bit /bfeg) -elcapitane So, you need some to "sell petroleum and petroleum accessories". /butchered quote -Stryker One Ow. Just. Just ow. -Seamus Electra King :) -Geminii

19. Alanis would be proud! While proofreading a help wanted ad for a school district in Texas, I came upon this gem of a grammar issue: $SchoolDistrict looks to hire $Teacher I briefly considered changing it to the proper terminology, "is fixin' ta har", but I didn't want to get involved. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments ...I seek water. -vacuumtubes Ah heer bahnjoes! -lineswine Paddle faster! -ActingUpAgain No, that's right, it's the looks that'll get her hired. -Stryker One does she have to agree to be hot and have sex with her students? -CTYankee I drove by one down here named "Granny's Kuntry Skool" - seriously, that is the name on their building. Idiocracy, here we come. -Ramblin

20. Don't want to bump the link... ...and I don't know if it's elsewhere on the site, but this thread is epic and a can't-miss! http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=111777031 [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments My fave:"I'd hit that.....with the car". LMAO -BarmanVarn Note to sir: don't have your butterface GF pose, especially after you dun told her twice. (no seriously, that can't be eyeshadow.) -Seamus I think somebody already drove into her. -robbor 'Tis a classic, it's been on Fark a couple of times. I'm hoping that she's learned not to put her eye makeup on upside down by now. -SalParadise oh.my.freakin'.gawd. This is hilarious! But, seriously, what 62 pages & counting?! -rosemetal My favorite remark: "She looks like washes her face every night with a bear trap!" -ActingUpAgain OMG. I just threw up a bit... -Ulfgaard Nuthin' a paperbag couldn't fix. -Biosynthetic I bet Burkiss would hit it. -Starfury In a word....ish. Sexy...as a road accident. -vacuumtubes OMG! It's my sister-out-law if she lost some weight and found a man who could hold down a good enough job to afford a car like that. -concept14 NSFW -Madrigorne Madrigorn...Nationally Specified Fugly Woman? -lineswine

21. RedFaery sinus surgery update Following up on Red's post here: http://www.techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=77467 Everything went fine, no problems in surgery or recovery. They did do some packing, so the worst is yet to come tomorrow. Right now she's enjoying drugs and pudding cups. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Pass on some best wishes for a speedy and pain free recovery (although tomorrow is just going to plain suck). -Ramblin W00t! Looking forward to seeing her again once everything's said and done. -Seamus Glad to hear things went well - best wishes! -Grue You DID remember to eat all the enjoyable gas-producing foods today, right? You won't soon get another chance to fart-up the house "free of hassle", y'know.... *bfeg* -Grue Having had sinus surgery twice before, I can tell you there's nothing like the feeling when they pull the packing out. -SalParadise Mmmmm...Drugs and Pudding Cups. Isn't that a Rolling Stones song? -Biosynthetic Pudding Cups ? Drugs ? Packing ? And burrkiss hasn't commented yet ? Best wishes for you anyway, Red. Been there / done that. -Necros Awesome! Please pass on my best thoughts for a speedy recovery and well wishes for her health in general -rosemetal Glad shes doing good hugs to her from me. -HairTech I'm up for a minute, in a bit of pain but not too bad so far. I had packing with my first sinus surgery (this is third) and I know what i"m in for tomorrow. I'm planning on being nice and drugged beforehand. Thanks for the well wishes guys! -redfaery Glad you made it through so far, and good luck tomorrow. -evolvedstarfish Some Karma is on its way. -adarklite Sooo...you're "pudding" the drugs away swiftly? (Yes, a first...I've invented "The KarmaPun" tm) -lineswine The only part worse than getting the packing out is realizing that there's still another nostril to delve into. Glad to hear you're doing well, and here's to a speedy recovery! -Menor I found the recovery worse than the surgery. But this is her third time so I'm sure she knows what to expect. I'm going to have a polyp looked at on Friday. I'm hoping they can chop it out the same day. -thx1138 The packing being taken out wasn't nearly as bad as the first one. Packing wasn't rubber material like last time, this time it was just gauze. Popped right out both nostrils, very little pain, though I did get a little queasy. I've got that scene from Total Recall going thru my head now. -redfaery

22. Comedian on Bob & Tom There was a comedian on Bob & Tom this morning that was an engineer. He was talking about his experience buying a computer at an electronics chain, commenting that in order to work there you just "need to fit in the shirt." One of the salesman told him the laptop only weighed three pounds. When he asked in return, "Yeah, but that's only when the memory's empty! How much does it weight when the memory's full?" The salesman looked confused and said, "Let me go check..." [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments That salesman would be a great Blueshirt. :) -Seamus I remember back in the day that if you wanted to scare off a computer peripheral salesman, all you had to do was ask him if it worked with a Tandy. -Biosynthetic Nowadays, they'll just tell you it will if you buy the service plan. -LazyLemming BioS> that's because, technically, the Tandys weren't PC clones. Tandys were _PCjr_ clones. (hence the *lovely* built-in three-voice audio.) The non-standard plugs on the ports? Those were just a bonus! -LoTech /me misses his PC Jr. -unrenowned never had one of those PC jr's, I had a Kaypro P/S II. It had 640 KB of extended RAM... -NerfHerder 1) Apple II compatible, dual boot to CP/M. PSU failure cooked the board. 2) Commodore 128, power supply spike cooked the board. 3) Amiga 2000 + 1200 + another 2000, the board cooked the books and fried the company. Don't think I ever saw a PCJr in Australia. -AussieFoot

23. All is Known, Follow-up A follow up to this story: http://www.techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=75800 Within an hour, everyone knew about the e-mail, and I hadn't told a soul. Now no one is using their work e-mail for chat conversations. I love the grapevine, especially when I'm the one doing the gardening. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Holy shit ! that weird guy is reading all of our email! What should we do ? Um, stop sending it ? -Spyder19 nice. -drachen Well played, good sir. :) -Seamus ..as they all switch to texting on phones. -GoblinKing I've got a manager where I work that will hold up a cell phone and say "You can't make me money on THIS phone". -AngrySup They've already been using cells. If they can do it and keep their stats up, and avoid the trackable company property where I could get hammered for their actions, it's all good. -ActingUpAgain Nice one! /golfclap -rosemetal if the rumor mill works that well, plant the idea that 'cell phone text messages can be read by IT' -stiffarm

24. All is Known, Indeed! Long story short - I get wind of some of my staff e-mailing each other back and forth frequently, like an IM program. Against corporate policy for being unproductive - you guys know the drill. I access the server and check everyone's e-mail. The ones I suspected are indeed going back and forth. I COULD give them a warning of some kind to put on their record, but I think I can make my point a lot better, without hurting anyone, and for my own enjoyment. I pick a particularly long session that started out about business, but turned into conversation. I copied the last exchange between them and added my own two cents... Moron#1: delete all this, so we dont get introuble for emailaing Moron#2: I always do! haha AUA: However, the company server doesn’t – it automatically stores anything sent and received no matter what you delete. Please refrain from treating e-mail like an IM program. If this had been shown to anyone above me, it might not have stopped at a friendly reminder from me. The workstation of one of the offenders was close enough that I could actually HEAR her crap her pants... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments ...u so bad. No more pr0n for you! -GoblinKing Excuse me, you really should hand Depends with your LARTs? -CyBear I can't wait until you get home to tell me which morons it was. It's been a banner month for you catching people doing idiotic things. Awesome! -redfaery People seem to forget that it's not THEIR computer it's WORK'S computer. I don't use my work e-mail for personal use at all, that's what my Yahoo account is for. -Starfury My favorite rebuttal so far: "If I'd walked over there, we would have gotten caught up in a long conversation. I thought I was saving time." No, saving time would be to have the conversation on your break. Just...wow. -ActingUpAgain /golf claps/ nice one! -rosemetal *salutes* I just keep learning from the experts here! There's laying down the law and there's pointing out "I read your email". Guess which one I'd prefer? <bfeg> -Loon You Sir, are evil. I LOVE it! -lineswine

25. Well, that changes things a little... every month, new sales managers (new meaning "on board for 3-6 months") are brought here to the main office for more in-depth training. My department gets them for two hours - the first hour they spend with my asst. managers to meet the rest of my staff and learn what we do day-to-day, and the second hour is with me giving overall details of why we do things the way we do, plus answer questions. This coming Monday there were three sales managers scheduled to come in for training. I updated my asst. managers, gave them their schedules, and proceeded as normal. One of my asst. managers came to me a few minutes ago and asked, "Did you know that $bigcitymanager's last day was last Friday?" Obviously I didn't, as he was scheduled to come in for training! I'm not surprised, as things have been rapidly going downhill since he started in November - but I was hoping getting him additional training might help. Hmmm, the phones and e-mail seem to be working. You'd think someone would have told me this before NOW! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Bill them for his training anyway! Like a doctor's appointment: "Please cancel 24 hrs or more in advance or pay" -CTYankee

26. Whoa, whoa, whoa - slow down, Chief!!! Being a department manager, I often get calls routed to me that have no business coming to me, especially when others in my department are confused or flustered. Today I got a fun one - forwarded to me with no warning... ME: $MyCompany, this is ActingUpAgain. Insane Caller Guy: ACTINGUPAGAIN, YOUR COMPANY IS ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL! YOUR $satellitecity SALES TEAM WENT ONTO MY WEBSITE AND STOLE CLIENT NAMES AND PHONE NUMBERS! EITHER CEASE IMMEDIATELY OR I'LL HAVE MY LAWYERS SHUT YOU DOWN AND... ME: Sir? Sir?? SIR??? HELLO, SIR!!! ICG: WHAT? ME: I run the graphic design department, not sales. ICG: Then I need to talker to the owner of the company, now! Fat chance of that happening... ME: Have you talked with the sales manager of $satellitecity? ICG: I TRIED, BUT THE SALES REP DIDN'T PUT ME THRU! I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY TO GET HER FIRED! SHE WAS... ME: SIR!!!Let me transfer you to the regional sales manager. He can help you. ICG: Fine... So I transfer ICG to the RVP PDQ. At least HE got a warning of what was getting dropped in his lap to solve - cause I'm a courteous sumbitch... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Please tell us there will be a sequel. This is like a tv show that ends in a climax, and let you waiting to find what will happen next. -TheGhost Probably a salsman trying to pretext their way to someone they can sell something to. -McSmiley If it's a salesperson, they're screwed since I told the guy that got the call what it WAS about. As for a sequel, it's possible - I told the president how I helped him dodge the bullet, but was curious how the story turned out. So is he, and he may find out for me! HA! -ActingUpAgain and now the exciting conclusion of "Whoa, whoa, whoa - slow down, Chief!!!"...Will not be seen tonight so that we may bring you this Terrance and Phillip special *pfffppfftt*. -p3bk4c

27. Thank God it's Thursday! (NSFW) Like I do with all my little tales, I'll begin with background. Sharon was my director for the last play I was in, and she's a stereotypical old-tyme Broadway actress - drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and overshares her life. She was quite fond of telling everyone to never call her on Thursday mornings, because that's when she and her husband "get busy". That kind of oversharing... She's new to working with a Mac, and when she found out my department is full of Macs, she suddenly believed me to be an expert. Not true - I hire experts and trust their decisions. But I digress; the point is she now e-mails me with all her computer issues. Now we come to today. She writes to tell me she wants to write a letter, downloaded OpenOffice, and can't get it to work. So she wants my recommendation on a good word processing program. I ask our Mac guy for one really "user-friendly", he suggests Word for Macs, and I relay that to her. Her replay: On your and others advice I went out and bought Word, cause I've used it for years (with my pc) And you all keep talking about interfacing and it's problems. It's like a f*&%ing relationship with a god-damn machine! Would that they could cum on demand! Argh! To which I simply respond: "They only do that Thursday mornings. :) [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Bwwwaaaaaaaaaaah-ha-ha-ha! Best reply I've read today!! -vacuumtubes Couldn't get OpenOffice to work on a Mac? Should have tried NeoOffice. OpenOffice requires X11. The Aqua version of OpenOffice isn't stable. NeoOffice is a third-party Aquafication of OpenOffice and works very well. -Xiphiplastron She got the joke. She commented that "at least her husband works" -ActingUpAgain "Thank you. Come again." :) -Necros

28. Go! Fight! Win! TINK! I don't know about other cities, but Louisville, KY is pretty well known for the residents affiliating themselves closely with their high school. Every so often, I get reminded of just HOW closely... One of our graphic artists designed an excellent and effective ad. However, it was sent back to be reworked, because "it has the school colors of $HighSchoolHeHates". We now have to redo the ad because we weren't aware of his teenage learning institution. Rah, rah, rah, asshole. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Give them two options. One with HS colours he hates and one with the most garish and outlandish colours you can come up with. -Olorin Send it back in all pink. -Bobsentme Well, I hate the high school I went to - does that count? -Divinar "Rat shit, Bat shit, Pussy with a Smell. Otis, Gonna, Give 'em Plenty Hell!!" -vacuumtubes Simple solution, ask him what his high school colors were. Use those in place of the offending colors - no matter how bad it looks. -OgdenTechGuy That's professionalism at it's best. -Slartarama Sounds like my boss, he went to NC State...our website used to be Tarheel blue...Hilarity ensued soon after it launched... -ChildofCthulhu Whereas many of us from the northeast didn't know our school colors even when we were in high school, or even that we had school colors. -thx1138 I'm safe with school colours of Navy Blue and Bilious Yellow then -Zoomer Idiot boss made us swap all the patch cables in all the wiring closets because he didn't like the color of the old ones. -Foyle Where I am, I have to deal with battles between LSU purple and gold, Florida's orange and blue, and Alabama's crimson and white. Woe be the person wearing the wrong colors walking into offices occupied by such folks... -VoiceOfSanity I'm up to my ears in Aggies. Top that. -DuckyFuzz I could get away with wearing my HS colors of red, white, and black where I live now (Falcons and UGA Bulldogs), but if I show up wearing scarlet and gray (Ohio State), a lynch mob will quickly form. -cecil36 "....so tell me again, why are all the cables now tan and grey?" -FormerSithLord I just shake my head at the idiots who drive around down here (Marshall) with WVU stickers and sweatshirts and stuff. The two universities are archenemies, so there's a real chance they could get beaten. -Seamyst Oh fuck. I don't even OWN a R.A.F tie, never mind anything from my old schools. I know where I was & what I did, I've no reason to display it on the front of my shirt. -lineswine

29. RTFE-M! Due to many absences yesterday, we are seriously behind on getting our work done. So using the superpowers granted to me by the president of our little company, I create a contest to encourage speed out of everyone. Nice prizes for the 1st and 2nd place takers. I send out all the rules and regulations by e-mail - clear as day and pretty straightforward, right? As I walk by one graphic designer's desk, she asks, "How are you recording what we've done for the contest?" o.O I ask, "Well, what does the e-mail say?" She replies, "I don't know - I didn't want to spend time reading it when I could be working," smugly thinking she's made a funny. "Reading that e-mail IS working," says I. "Read it, and then see if you have any more questions." Then I proceed to stand over her while she does read it. I think her lips were moving... When done, she says, "Oh, well that makes it clear." YOU THINK??? [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Here's an addendum for your next such note: "Failure to read this before asking questions voids your right to participate in the competition" <ain't I evil?> -CTYankee Password is TINK -vacuumtubes Is she shneeerious? *looks around for pineapple* -lavenderrose the password is iwillskinyoualivewithapotatopeelerandwashthestripsinseawaterandrubtheminvinegarandhydrochloricacidbeforeyoueverthinkaboutdoingthatagaintome.gotit?tink! -AdmiralLaurie "...and change the password on my luggage." -ShujinTribble AHA!!! Found the comment that farked the page width... :) -Robster2001

30. What a GREAT idea!!! For about three years, I've been trying to get a technology advancement in our database system that will prevent my team from doing a lot of duplicate work. It will also prevent a lot of duplicate work on the part of the sales reps, but I haven't really been able to convince anyone of that. Today our Marketing Manager came by with our Brand Manager, looking at a form my department generates and asking about making changes to it to include stuff that doesn't pertain to my department at all. I revisited the technology advancement, showed how it would apply to this scenario, and his mind went into overdrive. He (the Marketing Manager) listed reasons I never could have possibly known why it SHOULD be implemented and SOON, and is taking it upstairs himself. Will he get credit for it? Probably. I don't care really, as long as it does get implemented so my entire staff winds up with less work, which means making them more efficient, with means AUA gets a bigger bonus. However, it's nice to know that I've found an upper-level manager that I can use the ol' Jedi mind trick on! "These ARE the droids you are looking for!" [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments NNiiiiiiice! -Seamus Careful how you use those Jedi powers, the last efficiency upgrade we did was followed by the layoff of 3 of 5 employees who had become redundant... -ChildofCthulhu I envy you your abilities. The only sure fire way I know of to get anything through the "minds" of manglement is with an engraved steel spike and a large hammer. It's a touch messy though. -Loon "It's simple.... Bob, Jim, these updates will speed handling time, increase efficiency, print thousands of dollars on the press in the basement storage area, and cause busty blonde Major Leage cheerleaders to dole out blowjobs to people wearing suits. Here are two copies of the plan..." -Mushroom Mushroom: I think I just found a worthy reason to wear a suit. Where do you say these cheerleaders of yours are? -TheDeathOfRats

31. Give him a Red Bull... Started calling on resumes to fill a need for a graphic designer. One I got the prospective client's mother - not surprising, since I hire most of my applicants straight out of college. The conversation went something like this: Mom: Hello? AUA: Hello, is $Applicant available Mom: Who is this? AUA:This is ActingUpAgain with $Company, calling in reference to a resume he sent us. Mom: Who? AUA: ActingUpAgain, with $Company, calling about his resume. Mom: His what? AUA: (patiently) Resume. Mom: Hold on, I'll go get him. I hear her put down the phone and waddle off to another room. Yes, I heard her waddle. After hearing hushed speaking tones, I hear her waddle back to the phone and pick up the receiver - and say nothing, for at least another minute. Finally: Mom: He's asleep right now - can you call back? AUA: Ok, when would be a good time? In 30 minutes? Mom: No, at 5:00pm (three hours from now) According to his resume, he hasn't been employed since last May - granted he may be working a 3rd shift McJob that has messed with his sleeping schedule, but I'd think someone interested in a potential interview in their career field would get their ass out of bed quicker than that. Needless to say, NO JOB FOR YOU! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Or he isn't done with his girlfriend yet. -TieDyedDinosaur In his defense, his mother might not have said you were calling about a job. She didn't seem to bright. -BarmanVarn I have a similar. I had gotten a gaming buddy a job, at the company I worked for, on my recommendation only. All he had to do was answer some simple questions in a phone interview. Idiot wouldn’t take the phone call at 10am-ish, because he didn’t have enough sleep yet. No job for him and my word was mud. -Year9595 Also in his defense she might not have woken him and asked him, she might just have checked he was still asleep not realising how important the call was. She certainly seemed to have no idea what the call was about. If someone was to lose a job because their relatives were SF then we would all be on the Dole/Social Security -Zoomer I agree with Barman. Also, in my case, if someone calls me and wake me up when I haven't had enough sleep, I'll probably be incoherent and I won't know what I'll be saying. Which will make me look to the person calling like I'm a total starfish. And it will be 'their' loss. -TheGhost It sounds like she would have had to look up the word 'resume', and you know the starfish doesn't crawl far out of the ocean.. -MacDaddy Lack of apparent interest = no job. He could have alerted her, "Mom, if someone calls about a job, please make sure to wake me." If she did, and he told her to have you call back, well, he obviously doesn't need the job that bad. I'd rather hire someone who will at least get up, take the call with "Yes, I'm interested, but as I work a graveyard shift I'm currently sleeping. Can I call you back later?" At least that shows an interest in the job. No, his mother not waking him is no excuse. No talkee, no jobee! -Captain Trips Eh... without speaking to the applicant in question, it's kind of hard to decide which way to go. It'd be a pity if someone really competent was overlooked because their ma was a basket case. -Geminii

32. Self-LART The background - we layout publications that are nothing but help wanted ads, and we do those layouts on Fridays. And I typically print out the layout list to use - not always, but typically. The situation - one of our cities wants to start about 2 hours earlier than normal, because they have a holiday party to start. No problem - in fact it helps us to get done earlier as well. The time for starting comes and goes, and I don't hear from the manager about starting. So I give him a call and ask if he's ready. His reply - "Um, I sent that list an hour ago, and your graphic artist has already started." After a moment of thinking about how stupid I was for not double-checking that, I laughing say, "Well, I guess it would behoove me to get up off my butt once in while and look around, huh?" This "moment of duh" has been brought to you by the letters "A", "U", and "A". [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story

33. Common Sense, not as common anymore? I always dread this time of year. The red tape paperwork to end 2007 and begin 2008. Not so much the filling it out or the meetings explaining why our health insurance cost is rising again. It's the amazing amount of questions I get where the answers seem so obvious. Do I need to fill this out if my info isn't changing? Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have handed you the paperwork. What market are we in? Ok, we are in 21 cities thoughout the U.S., and each one of these are our markets. Which of these cities do you work out of? There you go. What if I don't want healthcare/what if I want to change my 401k contribution/how much life insurance does the company pay for? RTFM! Should I put today's date? No, just pick a random one. I put July 4th, 1776. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Yeah isn't it a common thing that when a policy changes(such as healthcare), the associated cost changes as well? anywho someone needs to market a "Common sense is not so common anymore" bumper sticker -kumenchi Don't forget the new coversheets for the TPS reports. I'll send you the memo. -VIPERsssss This happens every year where I work. Open enrollment, final night. I get calls out the wazoo and we're not even the Benefits department. We're open and we're the help desk, so of course its our job to help their procrastinasses. -Darkridr I had a coworker once who didn't understand the difference between life insurance and health insurance. And she wanted to have a staff meeting (of the computer ops staff) to discuss how to fill out the open enrollement forms. I told her to go to HR with questions (like it says on the forms). -thx1138

34. Numbers don't register, appearently... The basic flow of work for us: Sales Rep sends ad request, we create ad and send it back with a source code, sales rep puts source code on list, we use list to layout magazine. Simple I had to e-mail two city managers, asking them to have their reps PLEASE put the source codes on the list, because we can't start without them. One actually wrote back, saying he was waiting on us to send his ads. Ok, I'll bite - I ask which ads he's missing. I know it can't be many, since we are completely caught up. His response: Company A. That's right, one company. I check on Company A - we just finished and sent it, so that one was now covered. So my reply now: Ok, what about Companies B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K? Still no response. I wonder if he's finally decided to get up off his ass and see if his staff is actually doing their job? [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story

35. Reduce, Reuse, and Resume! I got a resume today that was mailed in an envelope with a handwritten stick-on label in the "adresse" location. I could see that there was writing under the label, so I carefully peeled it off to find another company's name and address, attention their HR department. I scanned the resume, and didn't see "tree hugging hippie" written anywhere... >:) [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Guy probably tried to print out several envelopes and ended up having them all with the same address. Swearworthy. So, he labeled 'em. -NightSteel Not this time, NS. The address on and under the label was handwritten. -ActingUpAgain Huh. Oops. -NightSteel AUA- of course, with some of the applicants I've seen recently, the envelope being handwritten doesn't necessarily rule out the multiple-addressed envelope theory! -Voz

36. Accuracy NOT optional Do I even look at a resume where the e-mail header says that they are interested in a "graphic design jop? [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Yes, because you'll want to fold it into the perfect paper airplane to aim for the trashcan! ;) -FormerSithLord <looks at QWERTY keyboard>"Hmm, the 'P' and 'B' key are no where close to each other to be a typo. You make the call!" :) -rokitt It's a simple double-error typo. They fat-fingered the O catching the P along with it, then didn't hit the B hard enough to register. Combine that with poor proofreading and we have a recipe for a discarded resume. -OgdenTechGuy But what if the person really needs a jop? -Mushroom Mush - Then they're SOP -ShujinTribble Looked up "jop" on acronymfinder.com (didn't even know that existed!). Found "Justice of the Peace", "Joint Operating Procedure", and "Jumping Off Point" - none of which made sense, but made me laugh. One that DID make sense - "Job Opportunity Posting"! Too bad he didn't capitalize it - otherwise I might have considered him... -ActingUpAgain ST--you mean SOB? Personally, I could never understand people who screw up on their resumes. I mean, jeez, don't you know one single smart person who can proofread it? This one piece of documentation can make or break your chances at a job. -NightSteel The password is Rubbermaid. -vacuumtubes spell check doesn't even like it - i would say not to look at it myself. To me this says that they did not write it out first and check for errors in word or notepad, or any other word doc. -compbrat You need a jop? Well matey, you're S.O.L! -lineswine There's some jobs (like Otis Test Subject) that it really wouldn't matter - but your graphics design people are supposed to be detail-oriented. That means he's obviously not. So unless you want some really humiliating typos on your next company promotional brochure.. -veaudaux EvilStepDaughter had been at the Job Centre and came round with her CV on a floppy. I swear she sat in front of the laptop for ten minutes before asking where she put it. "You don't. fire up the main computer" -Zoomer yes, because you'll get to send them a note saying they didn't get the jop -stiffarm My mother used to be a university lecturer (until retirement). She lectured in Early Childhood Development. After seeing a lot of badly typed assignments, she asked me what were the spellcheck keys for MS-Word and WordPerfect. She would write on the assignments "The F7 key is the spell-check, USE IT!" (and the appropriate key for WP). After a few months she could pick the appropriate program purely by the look and layout of the assignment. "Old age and treachery will always beat youth and skill!" -Wraith556 As Stiffarm said, you get to send them the letter, "Thank you for your response to our advertisement. Unfortunately, we do not have a "jop" available. If, however, you had been applying for a "job", we would have been more than happy to consider you for the position. Better luck next ad." -Voz

37. Exiting the Exit Interview Properly... Just heard a good story in our company thru the grapevine. Breaking from tradition, I'll keep this one very short... Sales Rep gets fired (reason unknown). HR conducts exit interview with Sales Rep, and Sales Manager is allowed to listen in (this is VERY unusual, as managers normally get a written summary later), and Sales Rep appearantly had unflattering things to say about Sales Manager. Sales Manager calls Sales Rep at home to rip her a new one. Yes, you read that right - the Sales Manager called the former Sales Rep, now no longer an employee (not that it should matter) AT HOME to bitch her out! (insert a Keanu "whoa!" here) As of an hour ago, Sales Manager is no longer with the company. I can't imagine why... A Self-LART Darwin himself could appreciate [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments This sounds like a bit of a setup - HR, knowing that the manager would lose it, broke protocol and... LARTage ensued? :) -Robster2001 Criminal harassment charges to follow? -Stryker One And Sales Rep gets re-hired. Ta Dahhh! -AngrySup

38. Monday is Hawaiian Shirt Day... Next weekend, I'm leaving for our annual company meeting. There are several constants with each one of these meetings: it's in a nice location without any time to really enjoy it, I have to give an hour-long presentation over stuff I cover throughout the year anyway, and we have one main group activity that can be awesome or embarassing. Last year's group activity was awesome (a private poker tournament), so naturally the penduleum is swinging back the other way this time. I just received notification that Monday night's dinner is a luau, complete with limbo contest. And of course, we're encouraged to wear our Hawaiian shirts. Maybe instead I'll wear my coke bottle thick glasses and sit around muttering about salt with my pina colada, and putting strychnine in the guacamole... That's your cue, folks - let's hear those quotes! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I could have this place condemned... -Slartarama Red Speedo's and coconut oil all over your body! -TieDyedDinosaur I used to be by the window and could see the squirrels and they were married. -Hawk I don't know what happened, I must have missed a decimal point or something... Well, corporate accounts is sure as hell gonna notice $305,326.13 Michael! -starfishmagnet I was told I could listen at a reasonable volume between the hours of 9 and 11. -silvermoon Excuse me, I believe you have my... -Parilla The ratio of people to cake is too big... -ThinTheHerd Say hello to Lumberg for me! -exzyle2k I want pictures! -ShujinTribble I could take my travellers cheques to a competing resort..</mumble> -TekkieNerd Is you hour long talk about cover-sheets on TPS reports? -lineswine Are you wearing enough Flair on that Hawaiian shirt? -Stryker One So wear what you usually wear. When they look at you funny, say "What? You don't think they sell normal clothes in Hawaii?" -Ramblin PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?!?!?!?! -Zimmerit I can just hear the conversation if you don't wear a Hawaiian shirt, "See Todd over there? He's wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he's also got a killer smile. Most people wear them, and we encourage that. You do want to express yourself, don't you?" -Slartarama Thought 1) My Inner Lawyer sez the proposed limbo contest could open up a whole galaxy of interesting workers comp situations. Thought 2) My Inner Scumbag can suggest a whole lot more interesting chemical compounds to put in the guacamole ("I can catch my hand!"). -MeanDean WHY does it say paper jam when there is NO paper jam!?!? -unrenowned And if any wemon show up in short skirts. I see some HR issues for that limbo contest. -StarFishHearder Next year's activity will be a jump to conclusions mat. It's labeled with conclusions... that you can jump to! -concept14

39. As if nine lives wasn't enough... "As much as I can sympathize with your situation on being cash poor and no paid time left to take, and as sorry as I am for your loss, I cannot authorize bereavement pay for you taking time off to bury your recently-deceased cat." Relax, I was nicer than this in the response e-mail... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Why? :P Sounds pretty restrained to me. -Elfling "Perhaps you can remedy the cashflow problem, as well as saving on pet burial expenses, by taking your dearly departed to the violin factory?" -Learyban Leary, that is cooooold..... :-) -vacuumtubes Just call Kim's restaurant: 321-555-cats -drachen Follow-up email: Now I know whatcher thinkin'. Lotsa folks thought the same thing. But don't go up there, ya hear? Don't ya bury that cat up there. Sometimes...well, sometimes, dead is better. (Eh, that's as best as I can remember it.) -beerman I don't want to be buried, In a pet sematary, I don't want to live my life again... </Ramones> -ZorglubZ Buuuuuuut The cat came back....</Singing> -ShujinTribble You can only go to your cat's funeral if its tied to a family member at the time. -Darkridr The cat's in the kettle at the Peking Moon... I'll get me coat. -Chromatix

40. Procedure's there for a reason We've tangled with one high-volume sales rep for many years about proper procedure, as he likes to cut and paste previously-created ads onto blank forms to bypass my department, which is against corporate policy as his activities cannot be tracked. He's gotten away with it due to new, naive managers being convinced by him that it's perfectly legit. It's finally caught up with him. Our marketing person gets a request from him to put a blank proof into a Word document so he can do it electronically. She came to me to find out if it's ok. I had one of my assistants (his region, his responsibility) run it past our VP of technology, and the VP flipped out that this sale rep's work isn't being put in the database. I gave my assistant the honors of drafting the e-mail to this sales rep's manager CCing me, the VP of technology, the director of administration and president of the company as to why this form cannot be used. Shortly, I hear my assistant on the phone with the sales rep and the manager, both ripping him for ratting them out. Even with a migraine, he did an excellent job of basically letting them know that it's his job to watch for inconsistancies such as this, and that the e-mail was instructed by both myself and the VP to be sent, and any more questions and concerns should be directed to us. I stood by him the whole time, listening to make sure all was covered properly. I'm HOPING I get a phone call next, so I can repeat the same thing and add, "If you can convince the VP of technology to give me a call and tell me that it's ok, then there isn't a problem." That should pretty much put an end to it. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments *waiting with bated breath* Here's to a good LART! -Elfling Sale not in the database => sale not recorded against rep's name => rep gets no commission. See them scurry to comply! -Geminii

41. I'm givin her all she's got, Captain! I get a random e-mail from one of our sales managers, copied to their client. Attached is a PDF of an ad the client originally created (I'm guessing), with a note telling me to have it converted to a half-page and a full-page size to fit in our publication, and he needs it back first thing in the morning. I e-mail just him back, basically saying "Ok, have you sent all the paperwork we need? Also, wouldn't it be simpler for the client to revise their ad instead?" 30 minutes later, no return e-mail, and still no paperwork on our fax machine - and we're running out of workday. I try to call him, no answer. I call everyone in his office, no answer. Heck, I even call regional vice-president of sales, no answer. This region is notorious for neeping and trying to blame us poor sales, I've decided to take the only way out available to us. We are going to create the ads, possibly getting into overtime, with all the info provided to us. In other words, no billing info, no run dates, no way of finalizing the sale - but the damn ad will be there. And NO ONE gets the rest of this info in print from us until I talk to a human being in that office and make them understand how THEY kept us from finishing the job. I CAN make miracles happen - but you've gotta meet me halfway! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments "Or at least tell me whether its 'loaves and fishes' or 'raising the dead' this time!" -TieDyedDinosaur

42. Can't Grasp the Concept of Google I get a call from a sales manager about one of my graphic artists. The manager got a call from her, saying she couldn't get a website to come up for her to retrieve info to make an ad - but website seems to work for everyone else. I give a vague answer about the differences between PCs and Macs (my stock answer in situations I have to explore, but satisfying their need for something immediate), and off I go to check with my designer. I have her go to Safari and type in the website address. Her homepage defaults to Google, and she starts typing it in the search bar. I quickly stop her and say "If you have the actual address, you don't have to search for it." Her response, and you can probably all say it with her: "But it's always worked before!" So I enjoy saying "Well, you found that one in a million site that it doesn't work for - congratulations! However, I guarantee that going directly to the actual website when you have the actual website address will still be far more likely to work! So please, do that from now on." [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments You know, so many people do that. It scares me to think oof what would happen if Google got DDOSed. -Slartarama If Google got DDOSed, all those people would be off the internet. Why does that scare you? -concept14 Because they'll ALL BE CALLING US! -SirJosh YaaaaaaHoooo....ooooo ;) -FormerSithLord Lock homebapge to "about:blank"... only place to write adress is where it should be... I had a lot of those "Googlers" at my former work place. Setting the home page to "blank" did the job... -Dr Jerkyl DrJ - that just makes them fire up the browser, type in www.google.com automatically, and _then_ have the same problem. -Geminii

43. Sorry, left and right hands are shaking! I got a call from one of our sales managers yesterday that confused me. It seems the printer of our magazine for their market (and 11 of our other markets) claimed to this sales manager that we should be getting at least half of our dozen publications by 6pm on Fridays for them to meet their turnaround goals. This was news to me, and important for me to know if true, as I'm the guy responsible for getting the books done on time. Seems the printer was trying to blame this market for being too slow in getting us all our content. I urged her to call our distribution manager, and have her update me as well. Today I get an e-mail CC'd to me, from the distribution manager to the printer, asking where they got this deadline that SHE had never heard of either (the other person that would definitely "need to know"). I dropped her a quick note, letting her know about the conversation I had with our sales manager, and if she needed info from me to just ask. Her response basically confirmed my guess: the printer is getting their work done too slow, and is trying to blame us. They gambled that the left hand (sales) doesn't know what the right hand (my department and distribution) is doing in our quickly-growing company, and they just rolled snake eyes. Communication - the solution to 95% of the problems that occur at work. For the other 5%, gimme the bat! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I taste Aluminum Justice, and it be sweet.... -vacuumtubes Twink, meet the Platinum Baseball Bat of Truth. (Stolen from a member of the Church of Slack) -VoiceOfSanity That last line would make an excellent signature line. -Starfury put those shaking hands to good use--choking somebody -stiffarm

44. What's next - Spiderman getting amnesia? The worlds of comic books and soap operas combine http://www.marvel.com/comics/Guiding_Light Only thing to say - BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Forgot to mention, sorry about the pop-ups... -ActingUpAgain My mom loves that show, or used to anyway. Maybe she'd buy the comic, heh. -NightSteel ...What pop ups?</FireFox-Man> -ShujinTribble He did in the cartoon... It didn't last long though. -evolvedstarfish OOOoookaaaay, that's just wierd -Spyder19

45. To a faery, from the actor (OT/NT/ETC) Today is our second 1st wedding anniversary (I'll let you all figure that one out for yourselves). And I love her move each day. What's that? A collective round of people saying "AWWWWW"? Then my work here is done! :) [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I love her so much, I forget to spellcheck too, it seems... -ActingUpAgain Then you hold that tightly... every second. Don't MAKE me remind you how precious it is. -ShujinTribble Happy Anniversary!! May there be many more! -MadJack Yay!! *hugs Red and AUA* And listen to ST!!!! -taieena Awwwwww. Now I have to pick my melted self off the floor. I'm still in shock after 3 years of how luck I was to find the perfect person for me. -redfaery I apparently am left unable to type properly also. See the power of love people! -redfaery It's not "Awwwwwww...", it's HOOHAA! You're supposed to send off copies of the HOOHAA video! (at least to burrkiss, that is....) Congrats! -Grue Congrats! and many, many more! -FormerSithLord Congratulations folks! AUA: Either you got a letter wrong or were thinking of something else and missed a few. rf: Soz, had to be said. I can't be the only one it occurred to! -Loon AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. nice one guys:) -timelady Awwwwwh. -56Kdaytrader Awwwwwww. Many congrats! -Seamyst Congrats! Has it been that long already?? -evolvedstarfish Awwwwww... Congrats and several decades more! -Darkridr ...no--it _wasn't a Freudian slip! AAAWWS from the LART shelter -stiffarm why did my mind cross phrases to acting faery red up again? -PolarCoyote You two are so wonderful together! I wish you many more decades of anniversaries! -ManyHats

46. Free milk - no cow purchase needed! My asst. manager forwarded me an e-mail from a sales rep, a request submitted by a client. The gist of the message was that $healthcare company was wanting fresh new ideas for advertising campaigns, and was asking some of the design firms they'd worked with before to submit some. Now we aren't actually a design firm - we only design ads for our own publications. And I'll wager we're just as good, if not better, and definitely faster. What rubbed me the wrong way was that this client, and by default our own sales rep, was basically asking "Can you do this work with no promise of payment or recognition for your original idea?" Ummm....NO! I believe the sales rep is only thinking "if I help them out with this, they'll be grateful and buy some ads, thus giving me a commission!" I don't see them promising you a trade of any kind there, Genius! The best part - I can give a legal reason why we HAVE to say no. The images we use in these ads we don't own - we're licensed to use them for our publications, and would get sued blind if we "lent" them to anyone else. I'm sure we could make pretty designs without copyrighted images if we wanted to - but we don't want to. Which begs the question: is "Gimme the Bat!", "TINK!" or *headdesk* copyrighted? Cause I'm using them now, and it's worth every penny if I'm sued! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments "We don't have any budget for this new project, are there any idiots out there who would like to do something for free? We wouldn't actually be grateful and intend to be as arrogant and demanding as always, but simply can't pay anything. Anybody?" -TieDyedDinosaur I hold no copyrights to 'em. :-) -vacuumtubes Hmmm, that gives me an idea, what is the number for the patent office? Lart shelter away! I mean now dam it! What do you mean it is under repair? Help! -Gunpe Give your best ideas, so they can take them & have them done up by the lowest bidder. Competition. Gotta love it. (/evil) -MadJack $healthcare co.? Hmm...How about just sending them movie posters for Mikey Moore's Sicko? -beerman Send them "Idea. . . Pay someone one smart" well they did just ask for ideas -Zoomer

47. Turning Japanese, I really think so! Fun moment of the day: One of my asst. managers brings me an ad our graphic artists were asked to design. It was for a busniess in Cleveland own by a Japanese man, and the text was all in Japanese characters. I'm stunned. "I told them we're putting it on hold until they get us a translation," was my assistant's response to the salesperson. "And that you (as in me, AUA) would follow up with them on Monday." No biggie. We get a good laugh out of it and move on. An hour later, the same asst. manager comes up to me and asks, "Remember that Japanese ad?" - like I'd forget? "Appearently one of the sales reps was playing a joke on another, so it wasn't a real ad. However, the pranked sales rep isn't laughing, and she's taking it to their boss due to the lost productivity on deadline day!" Inter-office LARTing not involving me? Hot damn - pop some corn and pull up a chair! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments And how do you say "TINK" in Japanese? -vacuumtubes Babelfish says &#26085;&#26412;&#35486;) -ActingUpAgain Ahh well, didn't think that would work... -ActingUpAgain Will they let you have saki with your popcorn? -TieDyedDinosaur Ok, now Im wondering, if the ad had any jappaniese lettering on it and if so what it translated to -Belunar We don't care what it says. We don't charge by typesetting, hell, who prints that way anymore anyway? English, Spanish, Japanese, Klingon, the cost is the same. Now, once again, how many do you need, and what size? (eg) -MadJack VT, you say "Bakayaroo, shininasai" -crazymactech I'll bet the translation is lyrics to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhbwpb-pYPQ -56Kdaytrader "Japanese motherf**ker san! Do you speak it!!" <To the LART shelter! Banzai!> -TheGhost "Confusion - Good Taste"</Japanese T-Shirt> -ShujinTribble

48. Well done, grasshopper! About three months ago, I promoted a couple of graphic artists to an Asst. Manager level. One I gave a difficult city to work with - not because they are mean, but because they refuse to use common sense. That brings us to today. I hear this little conversation outside my door between this newer Asst. Manager and one of the local Sales Reps: SR: I need this ad to have eye-catching graphics! AM: Ok, but why are you telling me this? It should be written on the work order. SR: It is written there. I just wanted to tell you in case they didn't understand it. AM: (looking over the work order) Well, it's in English, so I'm pretty sure they'll get it! One barely restrained "guffaw" later, I'm a proud papa! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments "Sorry, it has to be on the work order. Please define 'eye-catching' in writing. Be as specific and exact as possible." -NightSteel LOL Ok I like that manager. -Belunar (da) Considering some designers & printers I know, I wouldn't be the least surprised if the designer went "Eye catching? I want YOUR definitiion of 'eye-catching', in case my defintion doesn't jive with yours. I want to know EXACTLY what you mean by EYE-CATCHING" (/da) Some of our designers 'up north' couldn't comprehend $Deity's last message to His Creation in thirty foot high letters of fire on the side of a mountain in sector QQ7 Active-J Gamma. (g) -MadJack

49. No, really - I give a crap! (kinda SFW) Without going into great detail, I'm in the restroom stall at work doing my business, when I hear two people come in. Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a box being dropped on the floor, the rattle of tools, and the clang on metal-on-metal fill the air. I finish my my business and exit the stall, expecting to see someone building a house. I see one guy standing at the urinal changing out the motion sensor, and another one sitting on the floor unwrapping replacement parts. Not a word is said, but they give me a look as if to say, "Oh, THAT'S what I'm smelling!" Sorry guys, if I knew you were coming, I'd have gone to the upstairs restroom instead... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Sitting on the floor in a public restroom? eeewwww :) -JoeLugian Pfft... Situations like that I stay in the stall and act like I'm on my cell phone... "I don't give a shit what your doctor says, she's still your sister!" has gotten me some of the oddest looks when I finally emerge. -exzyle2k Two reasons I love working nights: 1) Nobody else in the bathroom with me to complain about noises or smells, and 2) I get freshly cleaned bathrooms, cause our cleaning crew comes in during the evenings. -Bobsentme Bob, you're spoiled... You've never had the joy of having to tear apart one of those "hand towel on a roll" machines to get something to wipe your ass with. True story, a rest stop in Superior, WI had that about 7 years ago, and I had to rip it apart because there wasn't a scrap of TP to be found. I made sure I used the roll closest to the center so it was cleanest. -exzyle2k

50. Today is a glorious day! A brief bit of history: my first graphic design job was with my local newspaper. It was a cliquey company, and a young shy AUA never really fit in. The other designer, while helpful, was willing to throw me under the bus when the designer I replaced (left to raise her new child) wanted her job back. I was let go due to "not being good enough", and a devestated young AUA was left to pick up the pieces of his ego. That was about 1994. Here we are today, with me managing a department of over twenty artists and doing pretty well (financially far better than a small newspaper could possibly pay). I recieve about five resumes a day, and one caught my eye because the name was familiar. Then I saw the work history and realized it was that same woman. She's STILL working for the newspaper, but not happy obviously. I considered calling her in for an interview, if anything just to toy with her a bit, but honestly I can't. You see, she has a glaring misspelled wrong on her resume ("grapic"?), and by the standards we've set for calling people, she's just (say it with me, folks) "not good enough". [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I'd call her in anyway... to explain WHY she isn't being considered for the position. -TechnoTherapist Now, if only it was the designer who got you fired, as opposed to the one who got your job.... -Divinar There you have it - verifiable proof their opinions mattered for nothing back then. This by itself is awesome when it happens; tormenting them over it is a cheap amusement bonus. (And can be damn fun too.) -teivrann AUA -- you are a better person than I. I'd be SO tempted. -FixitWench hey, call her up for the interview, then realise at the interview the spelling mistake, and sy you can't hire her because of it -garwain But if you point out the glaringly obvious, she will fix it and get a better job, again based on your work...? -evolvedstarfish Would be realy twisted if the Graphic Designer you hired was under her at the same paper and let the help with the LART. -Belunar Pull a 'fun with dick and jane' Call her in, laugh about old times, get a picture with her and send her on her way, when she eventually calls back to see if she got the job say 'I'm sorry your just not good enough' (unless she's actually good, in which case you hire her and laugh about her spelling mistake, make an old enemy into a friend, and when she's least expecting it, stab her in the kidney and throw her off the cliff.) -drachen "Hello, is this $Newspaper? Yes, I'm calling in reference to your employee $Designer, who recently applied for a job here..." -Divinar The designer who got AUA fired is to blame, not the designer who AUA replaced. -momo Unfortunately you could potentially get in some sort of trouble for telling you why you're not hiring her. But this reminds me of another story. A friend of the family, about my age, told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to go to law school after college. He told her she wasn't smart enough to be a lawyer. That was back in the late 1980s. She's now the assistant district attorney in my hometown. -thx1138 thx - sometimes comments like that really get people motivated. -FixitWench

51. The LARTing of Winston - final chapter Some of you may recall the three previous chapters of the graphic artist "Winston", that involved me watching his activities over VNC. The included in turn 1. spending 2/3 of his day following sports websites, 2. viewing and downloading porn, and 3. viewing porn involving monsters (which still makes me shudder). The firing was imminent. Since this guy is 6'4", military-trained, and has a hot temper, I made sure one of my asst. managers was in eyesight the whole time (conference room with windows on the doors). At first I showed him the screenshots of the sports sites, and he didn't look too nervous. Then I pulled out the porn screenshots, and you could actually see his heart skip a beat. I must admit, he took it very well. He admitted that it was a stupid thing to do, and that the internet was very distracting to him, especially since he doesn't have it at home. He admitted embarassment for the whole thing. I don't envy him telling his wife why he was let go. Me, I have perfected the art of looking like I'm delivering news I'm "forced" to give, even though no one forced me to do anything. In reality, I was pissed that he'd been lying about distractions all this time I tried my best to help him improve his speed, as well as laughing uproariously in my mind at him. I'd being lying if I didn't feel that somehow I'm not that great of a manager since I didn't give him a chance to change. But my head is telling my heart to get the fuck over it - I should be fine by tomorrow. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Just glad that there were no police called for him attacking you or anything like that. -redfaery You did the right thing. If word got out that the guy was caught porn surfing and farking off at work and he WASN'T canned, then other people at work would start doing it, and if you canned them, they might have a court case. -NightSteel There HAS to be an example at some point and this clown was prime material. As a manager you aren't required to babysit children. Marking a line on the floor and telling employees to toe it is necessary. Obviously you are torn between gloating over the success of your actions and the impact on this guy's life. If you HAVE to cut him some slack, do it on the reference he is going to ask for! -TieDyedDinosaur Ah, the refference. This man is athletic (Well he IS into sports) and is very good at exactly the right solution to his needs from the web. -Zoomer On the one hand, he was stupid for doing that at work. On the other, sounds like he realised it was wrong. Still should get fired for excessive web browsing and for going to pages he shouldnt have. Realy makes you wonder though, his excuse was 'I dont have internet at home'?? WTF? Not an excuse. -Belunar Translation: this guy's so far in the closet about something (not necessarily orientation) he couldn't even find Narnia. Sexual repression at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. -teivrann You should've added as he walked out the door, "I'll see to it that you never work or eat lunch in this town again!" -vacuumtubes Personally, I feel like someone like that will not change, especially if they use the excuse of no internet at home. And c'mon, hentai at work? (that is what it's called, isn't it? I don't know.) Allowing that sort of smut could put you in a bad position, should someone else see it and feel that they are in a hostile workplace for allowing a kind of acceptance over women being diddled forcibly by monsters. -beerman If it is what I think it is, then it's a sub-class of hentai called "tentacle porn". For obvious reasons. -chazz (*PERK*) ...Did someone say, 'Tentacles'? -ShujinTribble "Hello, tentacle support" </Jebs Jobs> -lineswine

52. I can has big butt? Someone must have gotten tired of my run-on posts without paragraph spacing, because they bought me a star. That's twice in a row! Many thanks to my secret benefactor, again! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Now you'll never be able to fit in the door at home! -redfaery Actually you know it kinda sorta looks not half bad on you there big fella. -Rabbitt Yeah... someone's bein' nice to us... I mean, I can understand donating to ME... but YOU?! What's the world coming to? -ShujinTribble INVISIBLE BENEFACTOR -Mewtwo Ok, that was just awesome... -ActingUpAgain Well, they do usually show up in pairs dont they? -Darkridr Awww, your big butt is now obscuing my view of RedFaerys' big butt! (Congrats on the enlarged posterior) -lineswine yep, thats one huge shiny ASS... -HappyCrappy

53. He tops himself AGAIN! You may recall from Monday my story of a graphic artist (we'll call him "Winston", since this is turning into a daily update) that I watched (by VNC) surf sports pages, then the follow up watching him surf and download bad porn on Tuesday. Today, I got to watch him Google up "monsters (word deleted due to being vile) women". Thank God I'm an actor - I can pretend to not know just what a sick fuck he is. Scheduled for termination this Tuesday, which should be an interesting story as well. Stay tuned for further revolting developments... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments wow a precognative LART! -virusjtg "...and next time, do your pr0n surfing AT HOME!!!" -MadJack so... did you take screen shots? -TechnoTherapist I'd LART this jackhole right now, but I need the manpower tomorrow, and I'm on vacation Monday. If no one makes any sudden moves around him, he should be stable until then. No one here knows it's coming - only out IT guy that's 300 miles away pulling records for me. -ActingUpAgain Missed screenshots on this one. What I've got already is enough, and the last thing I want is that etched in my brain by seeing it again... -ActingUpAgain So was this before or after he tried disabling VNC? -redfaery He never did - the screensaver kept me from connecting. I'm still a *fish on this program... -ActingUpAgain I wouldn't be surprised if this wanker decides to sue after he's fired for "discrimination based on disability/addiction" and claiming his porn is an addiction. Of course, the company would have to prove that it's not only porn (check), a valid "acceptable use policy" paper signed and dated by him when he was hired (check hopefully), and that the violation offended other members of the workplace (check). Before you go home on Friday, rig up a pinhole camera in the office used to axe his ass, record it, and post here. I'd love to see it. -exzyle2k Yes, all checks. HR has trained me well! I wish I could do the camera thing - you'll just have to settle for my description of his facial expressions. -ActingUpAgain You need to find one of those plastic figures that went with the 'SPAWN' movie. I think there was one called 'Violator'. You could personalize it for him! -TieDyedDinosaur Work is a No Hentai Zone, folks -56Kdaytrader Sadly, I'd recommend getting a few screen caps printed anyway... time-stamped and everything. Doubly so if video were possible (showing him AND the screen). After all, spoofing incriminating digital evidence is easy enough... spoofing digital & video records... I'm guessing, no. I'm not one to side with HR often... Just with you closing the trap with rebar reinforcement. -ShujinTribble AUA - we use VNC at my place as well. I can give you some tips on tweaking the install... -PTSTech When they walk him out the door, get him this - http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/9427/ -MarloVino

54. Now I HAVE to fire him! You may recall my story yesterday about watching my co-worker's activities via VNC, and wondering how he can spend so much time looking at sports stats and scores. Turns out it's pron too - and not even good pron! Now I'll have no choice but to fire him - the IT department will give upper management a copy of the sites he's visited, so it's over my head. If it were just the sports stats, he might have still had a job... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments If I was ACTUALLY a designer, I'd send you my resume for his job (eg) -MadJack oh crap sweetie. And with you guys short handed due to vacations this week too. What this means folks is that poor AUA will be covering for this guy on friday which means I won't SEE him on friday, but maybe saturday morning. -redfaery ummmmmm.......What do you consider good porn? <sneaks back to Lart shelter> -thatgirl Fortunately, I can let him go next week - upper management will let me make the call as to when. As for what is "good porn" - it definitely isn't "virginoff dot com". The sad part - watching him drag and drop the pics into a folder I can only assume he's e-mailing to himself at home. -ActingUpAgain Our policy at my last job: if you're gonna have porn, it better be good porn... -SirBSOD ooh evil idea, do a video recording of his activities, call him in for a discussion, then show him the video -Belunar Thatgirl, I consider this good porn. <Walks up to Thatgirl dressed as Han Solo and unzips his pants> “You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!” <bfeg> -rokitt Agreed that particular site is not good quality pr0n. According to the samples I've seen, the camera and lighting guys don't have a fscking clue. After that, it's nearly impossible to assess any "talent" in the "actors". -Chromatix I have to LOL at people so retarded they look at porn at work. Seriously. How dumb do you have to be? -Elfling It better have some Japanese chicks with funny hair colors and tentacles, or he's FIRED! -56Kdaytrader with new and improved porn being added daily, I don't see the need to archive any. -ThinTheHerd Of all the policies my company has, I do wish they'd adopt this one. My co-irkers look at porn (realize we don't have anything vaguely resembling private offices or cubicles or even dividers like in the labs at school), most often in the form of dating sites with pornographic pictures of members and ads. Customers, I note, can conceivably see these pictures, if they're at the right angle, or tall enough. Wish they'd do *something*. -SouthernMyst I have never understood the urge to look at porn at work. If there's one place where I'm not in the mood.... -Parilla my office we have p0rn russian roullette we think of the most deprived pron we can think of search for it. Then we call it testing the antivirus. -r3tude

55. Learning a lot about sports After numerous reports from ticked-off co-workers, I'm monitoring a graphic artist via VNC for surfing when he should be creating ads. How anyone can constantly research the stats of their favorite college football team for so much of the day I'll never know (work for 5 minutes, surf for 15 is the pattern). After many print screens and a meeting next week, maybe that ratio will change... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Probably the same way I can spend all day looking at meme cat and cat macro pictures, and hang out at TSC and Yahoo Answers. But then again I figure I get paid to look pretty, not to work LOL. (Actually I do work but I have to wait for the phone to ring, I don't bring up the web sites while I am on the phone). -frprinterwiz Well, you can't research photos w/o surfing... (eg) (/da) -MadJack and no bad behaviour at work for you? - Off to the LART shelter! -thatgirl As he's explained it to me, if you can get your work done well, quickly and without errors, then you're allowed to occasionally goof off, it's when your work starts seriously suffering that he takes you down to the Lart woodshed and beats you with Otis. -redfaery I consider TSC and the like to be "technical training/research". -BarmanVarn What RedFaery said - unlike me, this guy's productivity is horrible. Makes more work for his co-workers. -ActingUpAgain What else am I to do when the fishie is running a time-consuming utility? -56Kdaytrader VNC/HTTP proxy fun: keep an eye on which sites this guy's going to, then block them in near-real-time. For extra fun, have them diverted in the proxy to a page which refreshes every 5 seconds and pulls/formats text from a file you have write access to. Pull up the file in Notepad, write a message, save the file, and five seconds later it pops up in his web browser. Even more fun if you can monitor him directly via security camera - if he goes to get someone else to look at the freaky personalised scary messages coming up on his screen, it starts redirecting to some really nasty lifestyle images indeed. Bonus points if the weird text messages made him think that getting his boss was a good idea. -Geminii

56. House-Selling Karma Needed! RedFaery and I tried to sell our house last year and move closer to Louisville. Crappy agents, no results. Our house is back on the market now, new agent. One nibble last week fell thru, but we have two more nibbles for today and Tuesday. So please send your karma to us by whatever means of transference you can (karma lions, tigers or bears, oh my!) - need really need for this to happen! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments <leaves a fresh cinnamon apple karma pie in the kitchen, and some delisious chocolatekarma treats on the table in the livingroom> -Belunar *loads up the karma kannon (tm)* -EtherRabbit New karmabirds able to fly and coming your way -Amicuspicarum <In a flash of smoke, a karma ninja appears!> -Galandar *casts house selling karma* good luck on selling -compbrat Some Texas Karma Chili coming up! -56Kdaytrader karmarsupials hopping across ocean mate:) -timelady all i got is house buying karma..I'll see if it can be converted to home selling. -neuman1812 should have asked for some "take kitties out of the house karma". I took the cats out with me so they wouldn't be in the way while the people were here and figured the one cat would throw up, no instead he decided to poop in the cat carrier, while I still had 20 minutes left before I could go home. Ugh. -redfaery Hmm... if you were buying, I could slime the house with Ectokarma, but since you are selling, I have to do the opposite. Unless your client doesn't mind a haunted house. <BEG> <Good luck!> -TheGhost Karma on the way. -adarklite C-5 wing loading up with freash karma...this may take a few hours. in the mean time feel free to use the ac-130 or the a-10 sqaud in whatever roll you see fit. -Harm I guess it's not a good thing when you don't see any sign the realtor has been there and your own realtor hasn't called you yet a couple of days later? Oh well there's still tomorrow's showing. -redfaery

57. Penny for your Thoughts! We constantly keep an ad going for hiring graphic artists, so I frequently get repeat resumes. One persistant gentleman I interviewed and turned down just sent me another resume, this time with a penny included in the envelope! Either he's wishing me luck, or this is the most pathetic bribe I've ever seen! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments :D I'd be really interested to hear his reasoning! -Elfling Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #3: Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to. -teivrann Honestly... it got your attention enough to post it here... maybe that's what he intended, to simply grab your attention out of a stack of resume's -TechnoTherapist AUA, have you talked wit the gentleman about his application before? If not, then he probably believes that his resume has just been overlooked to date. -Chipsterian Does this guy not remember that you already interviewed and rejected him? Maybe he has early alzheimers. -redfaery Actually, I admire the dude's chutzpah. And personally, most of my "better" jobs have been offered after I was turned down for the job I originally interviewed for. -CyBear The penny was undoubtedly to make the envelope slip out of the stack of 643 other resumes and get your attention. -TieDyedDinosaur Yeah, the penny was probably just to get your attention- you might have overreacted to a 1/4 lb of plastic explo$ive! -Voz

58. The need is obvious! Scanning the job sites this morning, I found that a famous Louisville theatre company is looking for a "Marketing Communicaitons Intern". I hope whomever they find knows how to run spellcheck! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments They will just claim poetic liscense! -thatgirl Clearly he's "detial oriented"... -Dante668 'Must be experineced at working with dyslexic managers.' -TieDyedDinosaur If the first word on the cover letter is "Hai!", they'll likely be hired. -Grue Instead of a paper resume%2C please submit a video of you presenting it...in interpretive dance. -missourimule

59. I love noobs! I had to call one of our sales reps, because he forgot to check a box on our work order. He jokingly says, "Sorry, I'm new here. I guess I was just an idiot!" And I happily respond, "Nah, you get a bye on this. If you'd been around long enough to know you didn't fill it out right, THEN you'd be an idiot!" He paused to think about that, then laughed. I think we'll keep this one! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments If he brings in donuts as 'penance', grant him another 'bye'. -TieDyedDinosaur Donuts are the universal peace offering. -Starfury donuts AND coffee will get you one free helpdesk ticket resolved. -neuman1812 As will pizza -MadJack donuts AND coffee will get you one free helpdesk ticket resolved. -neuman1812 Howjudodat, neuman? (eg) -MadJack Well, you see, he had to fold space and time so that when he clicked it once it was posted again at a later time.. that or he hit the button labelled "Go back one page" one too many times... *dashes back inside and bolts the door* Uh oh, who inverted the confines of the LART shelter? -spectreoflife Sadly, this noob is in another city, so no conning free chow out of him. Just guilt - delicious, fat-free GUILT! Bwahahaha!!! -ActingUpAgain Hold out for a fridge pack of Cherry Coke Zero. -56Kdaytrader Ya know%2C when I first got to the title%2C I read %22I love b00bs%21%22 Then I read the story and thought%2C %22well%2C the title is the perfect thank you%21%22 And they say we need sleep. %3A%29 -missourimule

60. You have chosen...poorly! The head of HR lent me her corporate credit card, since I have to make a big purchase and only have a 2K limit on mine. Two new Macs and a subscription to an online photo service later, there's still about $10K worth of room on there. Here is where you suggest what else I should purchase! She only said "just bring me the receipt." :insert big evil grin here: [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments The mind boggles . . . where to start? Hmmmm. . . think fast, before she asks for it back! -ManyHats What kind of online photo service? ^-^ -Ramblin wasn't there a LOTD for a 108 inch plasma TV? so when does that show up? -razmann Nah, go LCD, much better! Don't forget the 7.1 surround sound system -Caboose447 Ramblin - www.jupiterimages.com -ActingUpAgain A down payment on this: http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1 -Stryker One DUDE! Get one (DOZEN) of those kbrds with the built-in LCD's that change what the keys are... -ShujinTribble Thinking new alienware computers for tech support :P -StarFishHearder one of these.. or 4.. http://www.pyramat.com/pm440w-wireless-deluxe-sound-rocker.asp -Harm A T1 line and X amount of pre-paid usage? -Grembo all my company purchases are legitimate receipts and everything, its just the prices are upped at the shop and the differences added to my personal trade account i had a 37 inch LCD TV end of last year -r3tude Wait - HR is being helpful? Friendly even? You mad rash fool, can't you see it is a trap? Run away, run awaaaaaay! -K1W1

61. Someone's gonna get shot! Our payroll service didn't record our submitted payroll info on Tuesday, and none of our direct deposits went thru today. Fortunately, I'm in the home office, so I'll get a check cut today, and equally fortunate that I have not automatic withdrawls going out today. However, our company is having to wire money into our out-of-town employees accounts (about 100 people), because our payroll service (and I use the word "service" out of habit, not action) wouldn't be able to fix the glitch until Tuesday. It's gonna get ugly... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Yikes. This is why our "Best Service!" awards always go to payroll. Never tech support. -Bobsentme Even Worse News: They CAN'T do the wire transfer. They can only overnight the checks by FedEx! And people will have to come in on their day off to get them. Get a bar of soap - this one's gonna turn into a bloodbath!!! -ActingUpAgain I remember when that happened at my last job...hoo boy, not pretty. Then there was the time my pay was shorted... -RandalGraves thats only ever happened to me once.. and that was in my current job incarnation.. MAN did they scramble when a buch of pissed off techs showed up demanding to be payed. -Harm

62. I'm too sexy for my bonus! Some of you may recall that last week my boss asked me to estimate bonuses for my department, including my own. I pumped mine up a bit - reason: because I'm sexy! The bad news: he asked how accurate they were, and I honestly said "educated guesses". He then said he needed the real thing. He was prepared to take me at my word, and I missed that opportunity!!! The great news: my pumped up figure was ALMOST what I estimated anyway! I must really be sexy!!! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments I refer you to the Greatest tech of all times, Mister Montgomery Scott - "exaggerate" *ALL* estimates by a factor of three. -ShujinTribble I believe that was a factor of four. “How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?” (Scotty) -Gunpe Factor of *four*, Shujin. You are hereby put on Trekkie Probation until you watch every ST movie and episode, start to finish, in chronological order, to refresh your Star Trek trivia. -RiffRaff Woohoo! I'm going over to Shujin's house for a ST Marathon! -Divinar I'm still wondering what these so called 'bonuses' are. -persephone Woo hoo! I'm going over to divinar's house to raid his fridge and fill his computer with spyware while he watches ST with Shujin! -illiterate My "Christmas bonus" this year was a ten-pack of 'fun size' Snickers bars (from my boss: the company gave me squat.) -LoTech Management - it's where the money goes, suckers! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! -ActingUpAgain Don't feel bad people, I haven't had a bonus since I was a stockbroker at Scw@bhell call center. But I am married to AUA so I get to share in his bonus glories. Don't be too jealous, the money is already spent on catching up wedding costs and other bills. No fun with this money. -redfaery You mean I have to watch, "The Search For [$deity]" TOO?! "I'll die first!"</Jack Bennie> -ShujinTribble No Riff, do you mean every ep of the original series, or every series. I ask because that line everyone is enjoying quoting is from an episode of ST:TNG when he was speaking to LaForge. Also, no one should ever be forced to watch that swill they called Voyager. -squatchie666 I thought it was a "Scotty Factor" of six: "Normally, I'd tell you six hours, but you need it in two so you'll have it in one." -Captain Trips Now's probably a good time to mention that I have every episode of ST:TNG on videocassette (the original Paramount-produced tapes, not homemade) that I'm looking to sell. Hit me up if interested - letting them go cheap! -ActingUpAgain Squatchie: I mean *every* episode, in chronological order by stardate. Ergo, Starting with Star Trek: Enterprise first, then moving on the TOS, etc. If you're going to do something, do it right. (This, by the way, is a goal of mine for retirement, when I am bed-ridden and incapable of wiping my own ass, to watch every episode of Star Trek in order by stardate. Yes, I am a sick puppy.) -RiffRaff I think you misspelled the word... it's bone us. At least that is what I get. -srteach squatchie: I believe the Scotty factor was first revealed in Star Trek III: TSFS. -flapjackboy Appaently, if you read the ethical guidelines set forth by many computing groups, it specifically sets rules against artificially inflating the estimated turnaround time for a project. Me, I am more inclined to agree with Scotty-- give yourself some slack, in case something goes wrong. -linkv At my company this Merry F'ing Christmas holiday season, a bonus is when they give you 60 days notice but tell you that you don't have to come to work for the rest of your 60 days. -concept14 What about time travel? they did a lot of that... Then you get into 'when would you watch "Trials and Tribbliations" versus "More Trouble with Tribbles" as they were both supposed to occur on the same stardate, or do you go by the stardate of the opening scene? (am I putting too much thought into that just to screw with ya?) -evolvedstarfish

63. No, really - these are accurate figures! The CEO (my direct supervisor) pops in before I leave yesterday to tell me they need estimates of the bonuses for everyone in my department by noon the next day for tax purposes. "No problem!" says I I basically take the previous bonuses of the graphic artists, tack on some more money. My asst. managers are in a position to make a thousand more than before, so I include that. Finally, I bump mine up by, oh, a thousand or two - just cause I'm sexy. There, that should do it! My next task - convincing him to use MY figures instead of the actual ones we'll calculate in about 3 weeks! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Depends on how much he wants to be "bothered" to calculate the figures. -redfaery "Bob: $500"... turns page... "Jill: $750"... turns page... "AUA: $1.21 million?!?!?" "They're just estimates!" "Then why does it say 'Pay to the Order of'?" -maciarc hold on...what are these things called 'bonuses' that you speak of ? -persephone Lucky buggers... My christmas bonus was a new winter jacket with the company logo on it, after I just bought a nice new leather coat! -garwain I worked at a hospital and our pay raises were in July. We'd actually get the $$ in either late November/Early December. Management wanted us to see it as a "Christmas Bonus" but we all knew better. Glad I left. -Starfury I had a hand-written note added to the company christmas card that I'll get a bonus in January... I think the boss was scribbling it as fast as he could after one of our engineers gave his two-week notice ;-) -Divinar included in my bonus is 5 pounds of pistachios. Jealous? -beerman It's all about the decimal point. Employees want it moved as far right as possible, Management want it moved as far left. -vacuumtubes Bonuses??? My bonus was a spiral cut ham and a turkey breast. Tasty, yes. Useful, no. I'd rather have gotten garwain's coat...at least that is something that would last more than, oh, two meals. -grrltechie bonus? after what I heard today that they just laid off 25 people I guess my "bonus" is that I still have a job. so much for the spirit of the season around here. -halitech When I worked at Maverik (convenience store) my bonus was a turkey. But meh, I never expected a bonus so the turkey was a nice surprise. -OgdenTechGuy Just found out that our "bonus" is that we get to keep our jobs. -atomicbill My bonus is that we can put things on the table for christmas. -TheMacOne Wait..I'm only worth $500!?! Shit, Burkiss offered me more than that at the BBQ! (Ok, so it was a bunch of rolled up 1's behind the 20. Bastard) -Bobsentme

64. The babysitter is pissed! One of my asst. managers came to me yesterday. It seems a graphic artist was harsh over e-mail to a sales rep, and the sales rep wanted an apology. I read a copy of the e-mail, and I didn't see where it was harsh in any way, but I said to let the rep know I'd talk to the graphic artist. As I suspected, the artist didn't intend to be harsh, just direct. I asked him to talk with the sales rep just to communicate to her that wasn't his intent. While the artist felt a mountain was being made out of a molehill (which I agreed with silently), he promised to do so. He comes to me this morning, says he tried to talk to the sales rep, but she instead to the opportunity to lambast him further. Rightly so, he just walked away. However, I'm sure he feels I served him up on an ambush, so I'm a tad upset myself now. That will teach me to try and get people to work together more cohesively. Next time, I'll just send them to Thunderdome! It's bound to be more entertaining. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments {Chanting}Two men enter, one man leaves.{End chant} :0 -Gunpe She owes him an apology. This could go around in an endless circle. -gemachte It comes down to those three little words: Shut. Up. Bitch. -vacuumtubes Your primary issue is that you expect people to behave maturely and rationally. Ain't gonna happen. -TubPorsche VT: actually you can add a few more words to the end "...Go cook me a turkey pot pie" <The Breakfast Club> -Daywalker "...and tell Aunt Bee, bitch betta have my bean pie!" -missourimule AUA, I'm beginning to think you work for our KY branch... (except we only have a plant there, not an office) -MadJack It's not your fault, it's not your artist's fault -- sales people are Irrational and often Stupid as well (kind of like permanent 5-year-olds). The more fuss made, the more trouble will be stirred. My opinion: Back up your artist, and the next complaint from sales gets a really good acting job -- you act like you give a s&!t that they're upset, and as soon as they're out the door, it's all over. They'll forget, they have the attention span of the aforementioned 5-year-olds. -ManyHats

65. I'm gonna cut a bitch!!! We have been getting new doors installed in our offices for three days now. I'm still suffering from a migraine I had yesterday, and these bastards can't properly operate an electric screwdriver! I've heard more squeaks today than there are at an adult film convention at Mattress Warehouse! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Sorry the bastards can't be quiet for you while you're working. :( -redfaery Really? Squeeks? Huh, I use a waterbed, or someplace really uncomfortable. Like the back of a VW. :D -burrkiss They finally did stop, but until after my head was on fire and I "vurped" a few times. So I'm home in a dark, quiet room now. -ActingUpAgain Take the rest of the year off. You need it. ;) -TheMacOne props to burkiss for the mallrats ref -Tarantulus

66. Yuck This morning, I downloaded the waiting update, only to find it was IE 7.0. Thanks to reading some comments on here, I elected to not install for now. Just now, our entire company recieved an e-mail from our V-P of Technology, saying to NOT install it, as it doesn't cooperate with our online sales site. I fired hima quick note, saying that most likely many of the "starfish" sales reps probably have already done so first thing this morning, and that I didn't because I'd heard it was crappy. His immediate response: Yeah I'm seeing some, and yes, yuck! Thank you, TSC!!! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Give me Firefox, or give me death :P. -RamenMcTavish Microsoft Firefox, Ramen? -FixitWench Heh. I just d/lded it 10 seconds ago, but I'll only use it for the update access -ThinTheHerd MS has a tool to block the update via GPO or a login script. Also if you run WSUS then it only goes thru if it is "approved" -KalAshlar The only time I use IE is when IE Tab in Firefox doesn't seem to work right, so I don't care if it downloads or not, this is just my personal box anyways and there's nothing too critical on it. -areatech Yep, same here. IE7 breaks one of our primary sites for student data. I have WSUS set on "decline" for that baby! -computerdoc Just say NO... to IE7. <As if it was that easy...> -TheGhost IE7 breaks our timesheet program. We have WSUS, so it's not a big problem at the office. Outside users have been warned repeatedly not to install it. So far no calls. Funny how threatening not to pay someone gets their attention. -DuckyFuzz Wench, the world would almost surely go to pot if MS took over Firefox. I saw the website for it, it was hilarious. Although, the description of MS Firefox would probably be more accurate for IE 7, IMHO. -RamenMcTavish Damn, I'm glad they stopped making IE for the Mac! I feel for you PC types. Satan-possessed software/hardware is never fun. -56Kdaytrader you mean this one ? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/14/ms_firefox/ it wasnt a joke. -Harm Haven't installed IE 7 and not about to. I pretty much only use at (like whoever else said above), when IE plug in for FF doesn't seem to work. On another note, anyone ever tried that 3D browser? I can't remember the name of it, but have been wanting to try it. -FixitWench Amusingly enough, just finished talking with the gov't side of the IT dept here, who have resoundingly killed any thought of installing IE7 around here. Good, I say! Rarely have I seen anything get poked so full of security holes that quickly...even from M$. -Grayhawk My employer's official take on IE7: "Because the Internet browser is a critical component of our computer operations and has a direct effect on PC stability, please do not download the new Internet Explorer 7 yourself. It will be loaded onto your computer when it's approved." -Robster2001

67. Management Decision-Making Device No one ever wants to bump the link, so I guess I won't either... http://www.umop.com/rps101.htm I think I'll incorporate this into my deciding who gets raises this year. >:) [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Ah, so you are SIMPLIFYING the management decision making process! -TieDyedDinosaur Tiger Hand beats paper. Like totally beats paper. Always -VIPERsssss Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique beats anything. Even Tiger Hand. -Divinar If you go back to traditinal R-P-S there are two that I know of that win every time: 1) (Make a gun with hand w/ 2 fingers for the barrel) .88 Magnum - Beats paper because paper is found in school books / beats rock because it shoots through schools. 2) (make a little standing-up animal - index and middle fingers curved over like 2 big teeth) Beaver - Paper made from trees, beavers eat trees - Beavers sit on rocks. WINNAH! -ShujinTribble What happened to the Magic 8 ball? Or is that old school? -TheMacOne

68. Translator services are over! I have a manager under me that has her share of problems with making herself clear. I also have a graphic artist that doesn't put forth any effort to understand something, and prefers to come to me for clarification. Once in awhile, these two butt heads over, as you'd imagine, the stupidest stuff. Today it happened again. I got an e-mail from the graphic artist saying this manager told her an ad design rule that was different from what other managers have told her. So I hit Reply, copied this manager, and said: "This is a perfect opportunity for the two of you work on understanding one another. I don't care if it takes an hour and lots of research - discuss this issue until you each completely understand what the miscommunication is. Signed, AUA" Five minutes later, I get an e-mail from the graphic artist, saying, "Resolved - just a miscommunication." No shit, Capt. Obvious! Next time, do it yourself! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Hee! Hee! You said "under me"! Hee! Hee! -TubPorsche "What we have hear is...failure to communicate!" Had to be said! -TheSingingTech wow so you finally made it to the top, now your manager is under you? -drachen She's a sub-manager, which makes me upper-middle management I guess. -ActingUpAgain heheheh, you said 'Sub' -Psudo Take me now, sub creature. </Ghostbusters> -WinterWolf

69. It's good to be the king! I drive a clunker with 200K miles on it, and not surprisingly some things on it don't work anymore. The most troublesome thing so far - the latch that holds my hood down sticks. This has made it impossible to add oil, which I go thru like a hot knife thru butter. After many days of trying to pop it open, I finally came to the conclusion I won't be able to do it myself. So I promised my graphic design team I'd buy them pizza if they could open it for me. That's all they needed to hear - five guys decended on it and, with great effort, got it open. The beautiful part - I'm putting the pizza on my corporate card. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments But the question now is, "Will it stay closed by itself?" or is a bungee cord or a length of CAT5 needed? -Daywalker I've had cars that require somebody pushing on the hood while somebody else pulls the release to get it open. -Zayda Gravity will keep that heavy-ass piece of steel in place - no worries. I'm more concerned with the next time I need to get it open. Now I'm wondering if I can get new shocks put on for a four-course meal... -ActingUpAgain Personally, I wouldn't rely on gravity. Remember Bernouli's Principle. At freeway speeds, there can be a tremendous amount of lift generated over the hood. And that's the LAST place you want your hood flying up in front of your windshield! I suggest not taking the chance, but, hey, it's your life. -Captain Trips if it's front-hinged then leave it and see - you can always stop, and it's not like you'll be doing anything much anyway (with that 55mph imit you people seem to have) if it's front-hinged then if it catches the wind it'll come up, fold over the wnidscreen, maybe come off, maybe smash the screen, maybe kill you, maybe stick up completely removing your view at speed.... -trs998 I'm glad you finally got hood open. It's just funny you used the people at work to do so, but a good idea. -redfaery What's this 55mph limit you speak of? Hasn't been that low in years here in the states! 65mph in cities, 70mph in rural. (And for a time it was unlimited in Montana!) -Captain Trips My mother-in-Law and I saw someone pulling over on the freeway with their hood up. It looked like it had come up while driving (and it was rear hinged). Luckily, the guy was able to get it off of the road without hitting anything. -docbrown01 My ex tied a hood down with a twisted wire coat hanger instead of rope once. The hood flew up, cracked the hell out of the windshield, and busted out the sunroof. I had to pick shards of glass out of his head for hours. -Zayda Oh, my parent's bought a used Saturn from a dealership, and shortly later discovered that the release cable had snapped. The dealership refused to fix it under waranty, and so my parents bring the car back to them time after time for oil changes. They figure: make them work to open the hood! -docbrown01 Only 200K? My 90 Ford Ranger (daily Driver, work truck) has 306,004 right now.. It hit 300K les than a month ago... Damn, I drive too much... -VWFtech docbrown - Could have been me - I had that happen while driving home (Buffalo) from my brother's in Rochester in the snow. My little 89 Civic hood lifted, came flying back at the car... my first thought as it started lifting was, 'Oh shit! this is the last thing I'll ever see.' - meaning not get to see Fujin's face again. Fortunately the windshield didn't so much as crack. -ShujinTribble I had the opposite happen to me with one vehicle. It was a Volkswagen with nothing sporty about it. Hood would not stay closed. A friend told me he would fix it. He returned it with racing pins welded onto the hood. I felt like a real nerd. -FixitWench I have driven Toyota courier fleet trucks with 700,000 miles on the odo. Damn but those late '80s trucks --- 2.4 liter SR5 engines --- could take a lickin'. -MeanDean MeanDean, I hope you didn't burn your tongue. -FixitWench I had a friend in highschool whose dad restored old cars. She drove a '55 Chevy, and forgot to completely latch the hood down at the gas station a mile away. Hood flew up and smashed the windsheild. I'd hate to think of what would happen if a newer car did that. -Bobsentme well now days they make the hood out of the cheepest metal at the time of manufacturing, aluminum right now I think. aluminum will not do anything to the glass but it will probalby rip the top right of the piece of shit roof. Who thought "let's make cars as cheeply as possible and still charge a ton for them." probably had a job previously in the record industry(Read= CD's Suck) -drachen I've had the hood fly open twice on me. The thing to remember is: don't panic. you can still see bteween the hood and the dashboard- enough to pull over safely.. And for the record, both times the windshield broke, and the hood was bent beyond repair -ThinTheHerd

70. Karma Request (OT/NT/SFW/M-O-U-S-E) For the first time since we listed the house for sale over three months ago, we're finally getting someone coming to look at it! Please send karma for three reasons: 1. to help RedFaery and I get this mess of a house clean tonight, 2. to make them overlook the torn spot in the carpet and the soft spot on the floor in the laundry room, and 3. to fall in love with the stand-alone fireplace, the garden tub, and the acre of land upon which it sits! We really need this sale - the payments are killing us! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Very best of luck with it man sendin karma your way!! -starfishmagnet any spare karma I have is coming your way. good luck and hope you are feeling better as well -halitech Since the sale is now final on my parents' old house, I can send you the surplus House-Sale-Karma(tm) via express delivery. Just be sure to tip the UPS guy when he delivers the package, m'kay? -ralphp1024 (sings) What do we give to techies/ That brightens up their day?/ L-O-T...S-O-F... K-A-R-M-A! </Mickey Mouse march mangling> -Frazzled mega real estate karmarsupials hopping your way. good luck! -timelady "Dream Home" karma on it's way -TheMage18 Here's a tip, don't try to pull them away from anything. Allow them to browse freely and answer their questions to the best of your abilities. They will appreciate it more and realize you are being open with them. No house is perfect (not even brand new ones, been there, done that, wrote a book). Don't make it a point to point out the problems and try not to be nervous. Oh, and if you can, bake some fresh bread before they arrive, that can help alot! May your house selling karma be maxed! -unrenowned I sold a house this year, so here's my spare house karma to you. -concept14 Have some Viagra Karma for the "soft spot". ;) -missourimule

71. Please disregard this posting - I did! A couple of weeks ago, I sent an e-mail from my home computer to work. When I got to work, it hadn't arrived yet. I thought, "Hmm, that's strange" and meant to explore why, but promptly forgot about it - not a pressing issue of any kind. Today I decided to clean out my junk mail, and found it sitting there amongst the Rolex watch ads and cheap Viagra solicitations. It seems I consider anything I have to say to myself as unimportant. Needless to say, I considered this pretty insulting, and plan to fire off an angry e-mail to myself when I get home tonight. Now that I've unblocked me, I will get it this time. I'll probably have to take myself out to dinner to apologize to me - fortunately, I'm a cheap date. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Meaning you drink the cheap cocktails with lots of booze in them? -illiterate Thats not a cocktail! thats INDUSTRIAL TOILET CLEANER! -Tarantulus The sad part is when you give yourself less than a 50% chance of getting some at the end of the date. -namor Less then 50%? That would be an upgrade from my normal dates at least. -Enigo You get dates? -LoTech I took myself out on a date and said I‘m looking grand and when I got my courage up I asked to hold my hand. I took me to a restaurant and then a movie show. I put my arm around me in the most secluded row. I whispered sweetly in my ear of happiness and bliss and then I almost slapped me when I tried to steal a kiss. Then afterwards I walked me home and since I’m so polite I thanked me for a perfect date and wished myself goodnight. There’s just one little problem and it kind of hurts my pride. Myself would not invite me in so now I’m locked outside! -purplelinguist He's the only one besides me (his wife) who he is allowed to take on a date. :) -redfaery If I could stand beside myself, would I see me or maybe someone else...</STYX> -DuckyFuzz Wasn't there a woman a few years ago who actually DID marry herself? -Captain Trips I dunno, but earlier today I told a telesales guy to go and f*ck himself - does that count? -Gromit Identity crisis much? ;) -TheMage18

72. Pre-interview blues Simple backstory: hiring for graphic artists, and one potential hire is on vacation when I call, but he returns my message anyway saying that he's interested in talking when he gets back. No problem - I'm constantly hiring at this point, so I can wait. I leave another message two weeks later. One week after that, he returns my message, basically leaving his number and to give him a call. I take time out of our busiest day of the week to call. The conversation pretty much went like this: AUA: I'd like to tell you a little about what we do, to see if it's of interest to you. Artist: OK AUA: (gives details of programs we use, type of ads designed, and work hours). Does that sound like something you're interested in? Artist: Actually, I just started another job. Is it really that hard to say "Doesn't sound like something I'd like, sorry"? I'll get over it, you know... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments "That's okay, we decided to give it to someone else anyway. We just thought you'd be curious." -Dante668 Sounds to me like a "lemme check if the grass is greener over there first", which is another type you don't want. If you take a job, be ready to stick with it! -Grue Ugh. Conducting interviews is actually worse torture than being on the phones for 20 straight hours with hostile 'fish. At least, that's how I feel about it. -snowcrash Grue, I'd agree if it was a permanent position. If contracting, I'd do exactly the same - contractors are ALWAYS the 1st to go & so there is NO company loyalty involved. -lineswine

73. Lead them, with a leash if necessary! My graphic designers needed some morale boosts, so I decided to start a small program where the sales reps could pick some of their favorite ads designed that week, and I'd say which designer did it in a department-wide e-mail - public pat on the back, as it were. Nice idea, right? In order to find these ads (since we do 1,000 a week), the first week I asked them to identify them by company name and source code. First week, no problem. Second week, they started to forget the source codes. I spent extra time hunting them down - all for a good cause. After the third week, no source codes, and I spend over an hour hunting these ads! So I send a reminder e-mail, saying basically, "Remember to send the source codes with the ad!" This week, they all sent them with source codes! But no company name now. I'm gonna cut a bitch... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Reminds me of our asshat storefish. Despite the fact that we've been running this helpdesk for years, if we do not exactly specify in our IVR: "please leave name, store number, phone number and a brief description of your issue" they leave out one, if not all, of the above. Fuckholes. -TechnoCat "Hi this is John Smith call me" click. "ok john, your a fucknugget" -burrkiss

74. Someone get him aspirin and some glasses I've got a hummingbird that is trying to break thru my window at the office. You think after trying to do his Kool-Aid Man impression for three weeks with no success would make him stop, but no! First time I saw him, I thought, "Damn! That's the biggest wasp I've ever seen!" I've named him Dumbass. [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Remember the size of a hummingbird's brain. After all, that's why they hum - they don't have the brains to remember the lyrics! -Captain Trips perhaps if you put a small decal on the window. -illiterate Get your starfish to try the same thing, but leave the window open! -torgo He thinks the reflection is his brother, Dumbasser. -DuckyFuzz and doesn't like his brother very much? -illiterate "Hey, DUMBASS!!!" || "OH, YE--**SMASH!**"</Revised Childhood Memory> -ShujinTribble set up a mirror, maybe he'll try to avoid the on-coming bird. -Bynar

75. Whoh, my options changed! I logged in, and where the Message Board link was I see "Chat Room". I'm like all, "What the...", then I notice the star. Many thanks to the generous person that gifted me the big butt - and to think I'd been doing it the hard way by eating Twinkees! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Congrats on the increased sitting powers! -Tekkie Welcome to the Big Butt Club! That's a nice shiny star you got there!!! -fdiskcuresall BLIND-ed by the light! (Man... LOTS of presants this year... nice) -ShujinTribble The SSBBM was proud to sponser your large butt. Wear your Star proudly. -SSBBM I just noticed something. The font of the "days without a new star" counter shrinks in the same proportion the new star member's butt enlarges. It was 9 days this time. That would explain your butt turning so big it would take more than a week to transverse it. ;-) <Congrats!> -TheGhost And it's not a Death Star, so don't get cocky. <bfeg> -RiffRaff No... butt and ass that big could GET one... or three in it. -ShujinTribble Congrats!! -TechMama At least it wasn't Burrkiss enlarging your ass <And off to the lart shelter I go!> -Divinar How would you know, Divinar? This could be his preparation step. (Brain Bleach, on the rocks, please.) -LoTech *admires the view and then compliments RF on her fine choice of male specimens so she doesn't get thwacked for admiring* -taieena

76. Resumes I just looked at approximately 1,000 resumes collected at a job fair my company hosted, and got very depressed. What I saw was a lot of potentially great employees for many of the companies there, but the presentation was so poor on paper they'd never know what they are missing. Common bad ideas - listing your marital and parental status, attaching 4 pages of "letters of recommendation", submitting photocopies of your resume, having a resume that goes on for 5 pages, using the Word template (pet peeve of mine - every resume looks alike!), and using cursive fonts! [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments also a bad idea unless you really know the guy your submitting your app to: including a dime bag to sweeten the "pot". pun intended. -drachen Curse those cursive fonts! They shouldn't be included in Windows by default; you should have to buy them separately, pay a huge license fee, and sign an agreement that you will never, ever use them in any business or technical document! -Gaah But see that's just it, they -aren't- great employees. If they can't take the time to be even base-line professional on the potentially most important document of their career...what makes you think their performance would improve once they're hired? There are thousands of books and websites that help with resume writing, if they obviously didn't bother to consult a single one, that doesn't speak well of them. Good luck on the search! -shadowkat I'm with you, SK. Virtually none of them were applying for any design job we have - I was just combing thru them looking for qualified candidates. Some of the worst offenders though should know better. However, the ones with limited education just looking for a management position at a McJob I just want to write to and say "Here, let me help you with that!" -ActingUpAgain DA: A LOT easier SAID than DONE. I.E. -- An evaluation of my resume done several weeks ago suggested "emphasis on projects you've done that have helped your company." And that is? I do the same damn thing every day, in whatever I do. You take calls, You Take Calls. You do Data Entry, You Do Data Entry. You do tech support, You Do Tech Support. Special projects? Other things to make you stand out? When your day consists of doing the same damn thing, over and over and over (and over?) And you have to keep 10+ years experience, AND education, AND certifications, AND etc... on ONE page? There's only so much polishing you can do.... -MadJack < points @ shadowkat > Yup!, what she said. -Digital Dogcow I'm actually for the Template idea ... IF your info is going to be scanned into a database ( ex. Temp agency or other applicable bodyshop ). Having been in the industry since '87, I usually drop obsolete tech from it rather than make it look like a lot of fluff. I'll summarize it by putting "Legacy Systems:" and rattling off the old tech there ( DOS, Mac OS 6, Clipper, DBase III+, MS Mail, etc). -Necros Funniest one we ever recieved was for the job of assistant DBA. On PINK paper in blue ink (ow, my eyes...) was a very cutsey CV which spent the first paragraph detailing her children's accomplishments (I wasn't hiring them, crayon eating doth not a DBA make) before going onto her education and work experience (half a page, some of it relevant, some not) and then going on for 2 PAGES about her hobbies and interests and finished at the end with a picture of her family and signed by the kids. Don't know what the hell kind of ADBA she thought I was hiring but that one got tossed straight into the "you gotta be fucking KIDDING me!" pile. -CommanderData In my job, I'm also head of security for a luxury-level hotel. Over a number of years, I can count on one hand the number of people who have come in for an interview for the security department, in a suit-and-tie type of property, even WEARING a tie! But the funniest one was when I got an application that had been filled out at our front desk. In our state, security personnel can NOT have a criminal record, (only a few minor offenses are exceptions). This fellow had been working for a couple of security companies in the state until 3 years earlier, most recently on an armored car crew. NO employment shown in the last three years! For the question, "have you ever been convicted of a felony", he wrote "Yes, will explain at interview!" Let's see, working an armored car crew, then NO employment history for three years, and has since been convicted of a felony... anyone??? -Voz I think the funniest I ever saw was for a computer operator opening where I used to work. His cover letter said "I'm sure you will find my experience of great value to your company." Resume showed the closest thing to working with computers was "Landscaper" (read: gardener.) I guess he used a computerized lawn mower? -Captain Trips CD: She went on for two pages about her boobies??? Or your boobies? Oh! you said *hobbies*! Bummer. *walks away depressed* -missourimule Must admit that CV's are a tricky thing for me. I've tried the one or two page thing and had people tell me it didn't hav e enough details.... and that a three/four page version was too long. -fearmyroot Mine is in times new roman 11pt and a page and a half long, you hiring? -boxcar

77. National Meeting blown away! We're getting ready to have our annual national conference, this year in Key West. I get a phone call from the hotel group reservation person, saying that due to the approaching hurricane, the island is being evacuated, and there's no way to be sure we'll be allowed on the island this Sunday. All the airline tix that were bought months ago thru Travelocity are non-refundable, so this should get interesting! More when I find out... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments From Travelocity: Travelocity will waive all associated Travelocity change and cancel fees, as long we are notified prior to the day of your first scheduled outbound flight, for reservations affected by Hurricane Wilma. Please note we do not have the authority to waive airline imposed fees but we will work with our airline vendors on your behalf. Airlines are continuing to review and update their policies as the situation warrants. Currently, the following airlines have issued flexible change or cancel travel policies as a result of the storm. AirTran, American, Spirit, US Airways. [Call ASAP!] -VoiceOfSanity VoS: No fair, using your nick literally -DedSysOp I'll let them squirm for an afternoon, then mention that to them. Personally, I don't want to go - my flight out is 6am Monday morning. -ActingUpAgain Does this mean you're actually going to be home next week? And I was planning on having a wild party while you were gone! ;-) -redfaery Who knows? I hope I am, but once they decide on something, they see it thru. So I may be hanging onto a palm tree for dear life while giving my 1-hour presentation! -ActingUpAgain If there weren't a hurricane, you wouldn't want to go? To Key West? In October???? Where do you live again?! Maybe VoiceOfSanity needs to pay you a visit. :) -TechMama Because I'm flying down at 6am Monday, flying back at noon Wednesday - 14 hours on a plane total. Plus the only time we will leave the convention is to go on a 3-hour boat/snorkel trip. So of the 3 days I'm gone, only 3 hours will be any fun. -ActingUpAgain Wild party you say redfaery? Lotsa boobies? -momo PERKS* Boobies what, huh? >:) -StarFishHearder Redfeary, you weren't supposed to tell anyone. -Wolfie0827 What? You mean to say you won't be able to go out at night on Duval St? That's a lot of fun right there. PM me, or whiteboard me, or e-mail me or whatever, and I'll let you know some of the places I reccomend down there. -JH TechMama, I already live in Florida. Northwest Florida. I've already had my share of hurricanes this year (Dennis, near miss by Katrina) and last year (Ivan). *Gryn* I'd like the season to be over with, but knowing Mother Nature, she'll just be reloading for next year. -VoiceOfSanity Know what you mean VOS, I'm in central Florida - Charlie, Frances, Jeanne, Ivan, Rita, Katrina - somebody up there give me a break! Okay? -ecoli

78. Even managers like myself deal with it One of the functions of my job as manager is to write report after report. Some of these are useful to me, but most of them are for my supervisor to use to backseat drive. When I showed him two completely different reports that give him the exact information (just worded differently), he pretty much said, "Then you can use THIS one to verify the findings in THAT one!" Straight from the Dept of Redundancy Dept I think... [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments If it walks like a duck... -FrontSideBus ...quacks like a duck... -teivrann If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck I say get your gun out and shoot it like a duck! -redfaery No no, If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it MUST be a zebra. Please check if those feathers are striped. </PHB> -FrontSideBus Now Now...We are know the truth of it is if it weighs the same as a duck... It's a WITCH!!! [/MP&HG] -vrek quack (wobble) BANG.. Ouch! Hey watch it!!! -duckhead No, it must be a chicken then -Deadagent <runs down checklist> Feathers...Webbed feet...Bill on front of head...Watertight arsehole... Yup, its a seagull. -Gromit AFLAC! -Tekkie If it walks and quacks like a duck, pluck it's feathers, dress it, and bake it like a turkey (once you've shot it dead...) "Ah'd just LOOOVE a duck dinner..." BLAMM!!" <Bugs Bunny> -MadJack Oh, and make sure it isn't duckhead. -MadJack oooh, well luv a duck -Jax You're all quacking up again. -lineswine "So, how do you get down off of an elephant?" "You don't get down off of an elephant, you get down off of a duck." -Captain Trips

79. Inventive Help Wanted Ad Saw this Help Wanted ad, though it was inventive: Contact - Lois Lane Job Description - "Local Firm" Advertising is searching for a mild mannered designer from Metropolis. Candidate may or may not wear glasses, but they must be able to instantly transform into Super Designer at the first sign of a creative emergency. Our super hero will have at least 8 years of experience with a wide variety of villainous projects. Boundless energy and a positive attitude will also be necessary, as we will look to Super Designer to lead us in bold, new directions as a company. Super Designer will utilize x-ray vision to see right through creative challenges and suggest results-oriented solutions. Additional qualifications include: illustrate in a single bound; create print design pieces faster than a speeding bullet using all the latest design software; and develop web and flash presentations that are stronger than a locomotive (come on, you’re Super Designer!)"Local Firm" Advertising offers a kryptonite-free work environment that will truly appreciate your creativity. Application Procedure - If you can provide creative leadership that will put an “S” on the chest of our agency, please send your resume + salary requirements + your 2 best conquests to: "e-mail address" [By: ActingUpAgain] Comment on Story Comments Admit it AUA, it was you who placed that ad. I know about your secret Superman fixation! -redfaery Nah, we don't pay enough for Superman. Aquaman maybe... -ActingUpAgain What they don't say is that that you will have a underpowered computer in which the bleeding edge software on it will run like crap, they will want to pay you about 1/2 the industry standard and you will be expected to be tech support for all of their web/computer needs because you will be the Super Designer. And they will expect you to work long hours and take no vaccation time away from this hell hole. -kryliss Also, the printed requirements say you need 5 years of job experience with an item that has only existed for 3 years, need skills in a Microsoft application they don't actually use, and a cert in an unrelated specialty. The mild-mannered need not apply. -Mushroom Local company puts up cattlecall ads every week that say "Do you like to eat Doritos and drink Mountain Dew?" The job itself is for air purifier sales reps, such that you have to put forth 40 hours a week of effort to get 25 hours of paid time, so the whole appealing to the slackerbase is total bullshit. -Mushroom

Customer Misconceptions

Tech Rules

2. Another "resume rule" - While you can and probably do generate income selling items on e-Bay, it is not technically "work experience". [2006-08-17]

3. More of a Resume Rule: Do not leave for contact information ONLY your work phone number or your work e-mail address. Hiring managers like myself like to be fooled once in awhile that you are NOT the type of person that looks for another job using company resources! [2006-08-08]

4. Any new software that needs to be installed that WILL paralyze the entire company must be installed last minute on a short holiday week! This ensures maximum panic potential and one tired technician. [2005-12-21]

5. Yes, you can buy contentment for your subordinates. It comes in the form of chocolate, corn chips, Coke and Yoohoo appearently! [2005-09-01]

Customer Types

2. Unfortunate Company Name One of my contacts in Istanbul (not Constantinople) works at a company named "Jet Analz". Why is it named that? That's nobody's business but the Turks! [2011-02-17]

Co-Worker Types

2. Mr. Rude Oh, so you want to hang up on people that annoy you - thus in turn forcing these folks to call me (your manager) and bitch me out? Well congratulations, Mr. Rude - I've just cleared my schedule to sit with you and do nothing but critique your phone etiquette. Nothing makes me happier than riding your attitude into the ground like Slim Pickens does with bombs. YEE-HAW!!! [2008-04-08]

3. No Concept of Time This is the person whose region submits FOUR HOURS worth of after deadline work, then complains to her boss (then in turn to me) that we are taking too long. Sorry, but the Keebler Elves who magically do the work over here are on strike, and we lowly humans had to step in! [2007-09-10]

4. Overlooking the Obvious A new graphic artist follows a list to put paid ads in our publication. He left one out that was worth $9K. His excuse - "There wasn't a source code, so I couldn't find it." However, since it's the GRAPHIC ARTISTS that supply the source codes, it's a simple matter of looking at the paperwork ON HIS DESK to find it. Gimme da bat! [2007-06-04]

5. Reading Comprehension Challenged Not really a co-worker, as he's applying for a job here. The ad for Graphic Designer clearly states "Entry-Level", yet the 15-year veteran who lives four states away has a salary requirement of $60,000? Sorry, but next time, actually READ what you are applying for! [2007-02-08]

6. Frozen In??!? Just found out that one of my asst. managers isn't able to come to work because she's frozen in. Literally. Her door is frozen shut and she can't open it. If she ever figures out how to operate her hair dryer to thaw her way out, please give me a nice list of puns I can hit her with. [2007-02-05]

7. Instructions? What are those? We have two tasks to do BEFORE submitting an ad to a client: 1. Run spell-check 2. Proofread I don't give a damn if that seems unimportant to you - do it anyway. It's important to the guy forking over the cash that you don't spell the word "envelopes" to read "envelops". It's also important to the sales team that you put the right price on the ad - SOMEONE'S going to be upset if the correct price is "$298.68", yet you put "199.13"! This ain't rocket surgery... [2006-08-01]

8. "I have to take this call..." Ok, big meeting with the boss at 3pm. Got TONS of important stuff to cover, including my bi-annual bonus and the bonuses of my entire department. I show up on time, pull out the appropriate papers, and his phone rings. He answers, and after listening for a couple of seconds, he says, "I have to take this, sorry..." and out the door I go. Nearly two hours later, I'm still waiting for him to finish so we can resume. There's no way we'll be done before I typically leave. If I had hair, I'd pull it out! [2006-07-17]

9. "What Are You Up To? guy The co-irker from another office that, every time he calls you on the phone, says "Hey, what are you up to?" Pointing out the obvious (talking on the phone to a moron) never registers completely... [2006-04-28]

10. The Man in Charge who Knows the Least Typical workday includes my supervisor (one of the owners) coming to me at 10 minutes til 5pm asking for three hours worth of work to be done tonight by someone on my staff. Work that is more in line with what the Marketing dept. does - not the Ad Design dept. Just because my staff makes pretty pictures on the screen too doesn't mean we'll do their work too. [2006-02-16]

11. Interviewee #1 - The Hidden Past Only after you have them fill out all the paperwork, interview them, put them thru a design test, have them interview with your supervisor, and offer them a position pending background verification, THEN they inform you of those felony charges on their records. Yes, I said "chargeS"! [2006-02-10]

12. Interviewee #2 - All Degree,No Knowledge A glowing resume, complete with a AS in Graphic Design and a 3.6 GPA and Dean's List accomplishments. The interview goes well until you give them a design test to remake a ad "using their own style and flair" - and they copy the ad given, moving the picture from the left side of the ad to the right side. "Gee, I sure was fast, wasn't I?" [2006-02-10]

13. Interviewee #3 - Sure, I Can Do That Too While interviewing for a position advertised "Entry-Level Graphic Design", you get a candidate that wants to create his own position in the company that sells the ad, designs it, bills it, collects the money, and tells others what to do. Last time I checked, we spread those activities out amongst five different people! Switch to decaf and rejoin reality. [2006-02-10]

14. By the way, tomorrow's my last day... You hire a terrific employee, spend three weeks training them, and they pop in your office smiling and happlily letting you know that they "found a better job" and tomorrow's their last day because the new job starts Monday. But they "had fun while they were here!" Glad I could make your month a bit brighter, bitch... [2005-09-29]

15. E-mail woes Some days you're fighting an uphill battle... Two subordinates get in an e-mail catfight. It (for once) only goes back and forth once before it's brought to my attention. I have to have separate meetings with each of them on our busiest day to tell them both 1. what they did wrong, and 2. why and how it should have never turned into a big deal to begin with. As usual, a simple misunderstanding blown out of proportion. Because of the meetings, we missed a deadline and lost a client. While I'm explaining to my superiors why my team dropped the ball, the original catfighters are now on smoke break together having a wonderful time... [2005-08-26]

Customer E-mails

2. Subject: Will Smith would be...proud? As I hear the CSR confirm a business e-mail address, I am stopped in my tracks..."Your e-mail is 'jiggy6969@$majorprovider.com', is that right?" [2010-08-23]

3. Subject: Our Irony Goes to 11... Taken directly from a customer's website: "$Aviation Company continues to strive to bring our customer the qauilty product, service, and support that we come to be known for!" [2010-07-15]

4. Subject: Freudian typo? In designing an ad for a client, the sales rep said, "Waterboard client's logo". I sure hope he meant "watermark", otherwise we'll get in trouble with the United Nations!!! [2009-06-16]

5. Subject: Thanks, but no... Actually, an e-mailed cover letter and resume. A sentence on the cover letter (my emphasis added): "I believe I'd be a good ADDICTION to your team!" Your work is like bad medicine! Bad medicine is what I need! [2008-06-17]

6. Subject: NSFW, or anyone really... Not a customer e-mail, a spam e-mail that used the letters before the @ symbol and assumed it was my name. The result essentially read, "ActingUpAgain's nude videos - click here to see!" And here I thought the idea was to ENCOURAGE people to look! Why would I want to see myself nude? I can see that anytime! [2008-04-22]

7. Subject: I enjoyed this spam! As the title suggests, it isn't customer e-mail but a spam e-mail I got, complete with a .zip I have no intention of ordering. The e-mail body text said, "The magic box attached. Open it and travel to the land of joy." If you look carefully, it's a haiku! I appreciate art in every form, even if I'm just going to delete it. :) [2008-04-03]

8. Subject: My latest resume scare! A quote from the latest cover letter/resume I received, from someone with experience in the Air National Guard: "This job has also provided management skills and self-discipline, as well as secret security clearance, which can be useful in some situations." Scared yet? [2006-07-24]

EUPOTD (End User Phrase of the Day)

2. Actually, a Name of the Day: Richard Steele. From Ireland. And he was quite nice to talk talk to, for a Dick. [2011-10-27]

3. Actually, a User Password of the Day: jiggie6969 (nah nah nah nah na-nah) [2011-08-23]

4. Actually a Name of the Day: Dick Hordon. Sounds like someone isn't used to sharing! [2011-08-11]

5. Actually a Name of the Day: Richard Fritz. Not a Viagra salesman, to the best of my knowledge anyway. [2011-03-04]

6. Name of the Day: Paul Valov. Just the thought of this name make me drool! [2011-01-11]

7. Actually a End User Password of the Day: "dogslobbers". I had no words... [2010-10-06]

8. Actually, a Name of the Day: Tim Leacock. I read it run together in his e-mail address and originally thought the first name was "Timely". [2010-10-05]

9. Customer Name of the the Day - Candy Lovin [2010-07-21]

10. Actually a POTD from our VP of technology. I was testing the FTP site for a contact in India, and it took an hour to download a 55MB file. To which the VP responded (including the India site in the e-mail), "That is horrible! Tie the file to a pigeon - it would be faster!" [2009-07-28]

11. Actually a Typo of the Day that I found while proofreading someone's work: "We're looking for someone with a strong work ethnic!" I guess adding EOE to the ad would be redundant now... [2009-06-09]

12. Actually, a ME-POTD: "Security is when you have a vacation day, you have to split your tasks between four people - yet when one of them is on vacation, it only adds an hour to your workday." [2009-04-29]

13. Name of the Day: Cricket Hater [2008-07-18]

14. Actually, a Spam NOTD: Viagra Ilya That which does not ilya makes ya stronger! [2008-01-11]

15. Actually, a Job Applicant Name of the Day: last name is MOUSSA. I guess this person's assuming we want a new one? [2007-11-19]

16. Actually, a Quote of the Day from a resume, concerning a previous job: "There isn't a doubt in my mind that this particular employment was the most exciting, but yet, the most repulsive and disorganized." While the negativity probably means I won't be contacting him, props for having the stones to find a place on his resume for the word "repulsive"! [2007-11-12]

17. A MePOTD: after working my long Friday, sitting at home with RedFaery and asking her for the cat's favorite toy, and it coming out wrong: "Hand me the laser printer." Meant to say "pointer", but come to think of it, I'd like they'd probably know how to change the toner better than most people I work with! [2007-10-02]

18. A Me-POTD: Lots of construction going on upstairs, so we get a lot of loud bangs over our heads (most likely a nail gun). When person asked what that was, I responded, "Why that's the giant, coming to kill whomever isn't working hard enough!" Damn, I love being a manager! :) [2007-02-28]

19. I complimented the graphic designers in my department on their turnaround and accuracy, and added in the e-mail, "You are like ninja!" I think every one of them has done some form of "Hi-YAAA!" to me since! [2005-08-18]