Day, and First night @ Gateway

Well, today was a pretty good day. Everything at HPI ran pretty smoothly — even customers were overjoyed to here me answering the phones with my silky smooth “Thank you for calling High Plains, this is Randal, how can I help you?”, instead of Henry’s “Dis is High Plains, How I help you?” and Jef’s “High Plains Internet, what the hell’s going on!?” Yes, HPI was good today. That work environment is really nice. I enjoy it a lot. Why? Read on …

So I get to Gateway at 3:25pm, nice and early. Clock in, find my new desk, sit down and get situated. Took my first phone call around 4:15pm. That went well. Then the headache really kicked in. Ugh, I thought, I’m okay. Next call. This call was about a mouse, and took like an hour to fix. Either the customers are complete fucking retards, or I am horrible tech support. Could be either. Anywho, by the end of that call, I have a runny nose. Take another call … this one lasts *forever*. I don’t even know what it was about. But it took so goddamn long I wanted to die. Took a break at 7:35pm, then lunch @ 8:20pm. Came back, and felt like shit. Pounding headache, sore, scratchy throat, runny nose, just shit. Then the lady’s video card wouldn’t work. AND I SPENT 95 FUCKING MINUTES ON THE PHONE WITH THIS MORONIC BITCH WHO SHOULDN’T OWN A COMPUTER AND WHO SHOULD BE SHOT IF SHE GOES NEAR ANY KIND OF ELECTRONIC DEVICE EVERY AGAIN! )(#q@%u)(#@@# I felt like shit, and this stupid bitch just tripped my trigger. I finally got off the phone with her at like 11:50pm. Took a 5 minute break, then took another easy phone call. Gateway sucks big fat donkey cock. I already dislike it a lot. And I really fucking hate being sick. Don’t forget that the whole time the fucking IT Draconians are marching the floor, looking for IT Policy Offenders, and the fucking ‘Work Force Management’ Nazis are running around making sure everyone is clocking in and out right on time and blah blah blah. Complete bullshit. And sick. What the fuck. I’m never sick. Fuck that.

Well, anywho, the worst part of the job is the mind-numbing amount of empty minutes I have where my mind wonders. Like, waiting for a reboot, waiting for a customer to stop being a freaking retard, waiting, waiting … I just sit there and my mind runs across stuff, and it’s all stuff that I want to stop thinking about, but it’s tough, and it all sucks. It really sucks to be having body pains due to sickness, emotional pains because of too much fucking thinking, and mental pains at people’s complete ineptness. Seriously, today was one of the worst days I have had in a *long* time. Yes, rather terrible. And I get to do it again in 6 hours! WOoOOOOooo!

*** 3 Way Update ***: First off, this other pair of boxers, by Ralph Lauren, are really comfy — I highly recommend them. Also, I tried my leather jacket on for the first time in a long time … man, I love that thing. It just feels so good, and I don’t look too bad in it either. And thirdly, I got the dice out of my truck and put them in the honda. Gotta have some flavor.

2001-09-05 03:45:06 – Laura

awww…poor randal. remember, the people calling tech support are the ones who forgot to plug their computers in 🙂 also, 10 DAYS UNTIL MADONNA IN LA!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO! i’m way to excited. not like any of your care, but college is a fucking blast this year. i’m content 🙂 love you all (unless you’re a dirty hippy like tore). hehe.

2001-09-05 09:39:58 – bastard

Randal, just remember, have a couple of tricks up your sleeve, like, don’t tell them your name… this is important for later on. Tell them utter bullshit, but in a way that people monitoring the phones won’t know… they don’t know you’re computer savvy. When they try getting shitty 5$ modems to work, ask them to try a dial tone test… when they realize that they’ve been hung up on, they will call back and demand to speak to "gatewood wayworth"… don’t ever give out your real name. If that fails, talk to craig about herb the hamster. I understand that this eases xeon’s call center pains greatly 🙂 Laura, I’ve already seen the madonna concert on HBO… that girl, she do opera, she wack, but she sexy, mmmm hmmmm

2001-09-05 10:44:45 – bastard

dice in YOUR honda eh, well thus begins the civic wars… got a name you can recommend to use in replacing my air intake system? Also, heard from mechanic, pressure in one cylinder is only 80, so need work in about 20000 miles, sigh…

2001-09-05 11:09:49 – rand0m

cold air / general better intakes for a 89 honda civic: <a href=http://www.simota.com.au/kits.html>Simota</a> <a href=http://www.aempower.com/air_induction.htm>AEM intake</a> <a href=http://www.knfilter.com/kits.htm>K & N Filter kits</a> btw, I don’t plan on ricing out the civic … but I’ll still own you anyday, unless you spend $4k hopping up your car.

2001-09-05 11:46:09 – bastard

well, i just got a credit card with 2500$ line of credit looks like the civic is going bye bye soon, in favor of better car

2001-09-05 14:57:31 – Burnz

Not that anyone cares, but little piece of information: If you need dental surgery, make sure you can wait three months for it. I get a consultation on the 21st with a possible surgery around Christmas. If anyone has any suggestions, or knows some blackmarket gum-cutters please let me know.

2001-09-05 15:04:45 – realbighead

Claim to be a college student. Seriously, after 1 phone call today, I have an appointment at 9:00 am tomorrow to see if they need to be taken out, and a tentative on Oct 12 to get them removed if necessary. If you pretend you have a horrifyingly bad schedule and can’t miss school, the bitches behind the desk will pity you and fuck over others to get you in. So, while pity fails to get you laid, it will get you good appointment times. And mittens.

2001-09-05 15:23:06 – bastard

damn, tore sounds like one helluva social engineer… too bad he’s majoring in liberal arts

2001-09-05 15:56:07 – rand0m

Oddly enough, I agree with Tony … are you in the right field tore? 😉

2001-09-05 16:31:08 – Burnz

I did claim to be a college student. I told them that thing were horrendous, and they said they would do it on my Christmas break at the earliest otherwise they would at least make sure I "only missed time right after finals." So help me god I am going to go cram a fucking medicine ball in their goddamn mouth to illustrate my plight. And you are a vicious bastard Tore. This whole easy going, gentle front is nearly flawless. Now to execute operation "Fat Lenin."

2001-09-05 16:46:24 – bastard

Fat Lenin: Da, zis komrade has a vad tooth, Da, ve must strike swiftly vit de hammer und ze sickel, to arms! Burnz:ahhhhh, my tooth, not with the hammer and sickel Fat Lenin: ha ha, you were not expectink ze hammer and sickel, operative tore has done his job well, da, ha ha ha (okay, where the fuck did i just come up with that)

2001-09-05 17:04:52 – Master Ha-reed

It is most definitely the former – "Either the customers are complete fucking retards, or I am horrible tech support." Tech Support is the absolute worst job in the computer industry if you have half a brain and dont like wasting time doing nothing. I did 3 months of it and came close to ripping my hair out several times because of stupid fucking incompetents that wouldnt be calling if they took 1/2 a minute to read something. I taught myself PHP and MYSQL plus some Win2K stuff while working tech support, so my advice would be to learn something new. On an unrelated note, if you’d like to spend a day away from the ordinary computer nonsense, CISCO’s holding a seminar in Denver to pimp its new AVVID Network Architecture (maybe you could persuade someone from HPI to send you up there….). Anyway, its free (at least for CCNA’s… I think for everyone though) and there is a chance to win free stuff. www.cisco.com/go/semreg/avvidmomentum/V894-132-XB

2001-09-05 18:34:02 – Xeon

To easy my call center pain i have taken a 3-way crash course in SQL2000, ColdFusion, VB.NET, and C#.NET. And yus when there is a supply the hamster has talked to me 🙂 … BTW does that mean that openings are coming up @ HPI?

2001-09-05 18:34:44 – Xeon

Ohh yah and I feel loved again by Laura

2001-09-05 19:02:46 – bastard

ahhh, calculus 2 is killing me!!! avvid, is that cisco trying to get into audio/video over ip?

2001-09-05 20:23:29 – Laura!

just for clarification: love does not equal play…hehe. and randal, it’s not flavor, it’s flava’. that way, when someone disses you, you can say "why you gotta bust my flava?" yeah. also, HBO does not beat the real madonna. no concert T-shirts!

2001-09-05 21:26:24 – Master Ha-reed

AVVID = Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data so yeah, it is CISCO’s attempt to get audio/video over IP Just one more step to the day that IP addresses and phone numbers are indistinguishable and a videophone is commonplace in every house

2001-09-05 22:54:34 – Burnz

How frighteningly Orwellian. Might be a good time to go hide in the forest.

2001-09-05 23:44:53 – rand0m

^^^^ finds dark cave, curls up on comfy floor to sleep out the technology era.

2001-09-06 02:33:59 – Xeon

sounds like a good idea to me

2001-09-06 09:46:27 – bastard

Thursday, almost end of week, and I’ve realized that this year as the last has gone by without much notice… All I can say is I’m in school so I must be making some progress in life, some funk, sighhh Anybody want to go mountain biking this evening over at palmer park?