Curse you, Alexander Graham Bell...

How's this for irony: a guy (who looks a lot like me) hates talking on the phone (because he doesn't like phones or people much), but works the help desk for a computer company for a living. In doing so, he (me) has a laundry list of things he hates about Mr. Bell's great abomination. To whit...

Long-winded voicemail greetings:
There just ought to be a law. I don't want to hear all of your myriad office hours (which are usually different every single day of the month), I don't care about how to get ahold of you if it can't wait another 12 hours, I don't need the explanation of all the possibly permutations to explain why you can't come to the phone, GIMME A DAMN BEEP ALREADY!!! At the very least, there should be a Constitutional amendment saying all voicemail systems should say "Press one now to skip the bullstuff and leave a message" at the beginning of the message. Maybe even make it one of the Ten Commandments (we're not paying attention to the fifth one, anyway, right kids?)

Long-winded voicemail messages:
I'm with George Carlin. There's no message you can leave on my answering machine or cell phone voicemail that can't be condensed to, "Call me back." I swear, there are people out there who think the machine is alive and they're supposed to have a conversation with it rather than me. Here's the drill, people: once you get past the bit about "Hey, it's (name), call me back," I tune you out. If you start talking about how you were at the supermarket getting munchies for the game this weekend, and you wandered by the vegetable aisle, and you were checking out the sweet corn, and you remembered how much I hate sweet corn, and this made you want to call me just to say "what's up?"...I've already deleted the message 30 seconds ago. Thank you.

"This machine does not accept messages:
Then why the flake do you have it in the first place, you pretentious techno-smack? What's your next trick? Renting a doctor's office and hanging "this office does not see patients" on the shingle along with the caduceus?

Speakerphone:
Beyond a doubt, the primary cause for Paxil prescriptions among phone support agents worldwide. I know how tough it is to type with one hand. I know holding the handset in the crook of your neck makes it stick that way. I get it. I just don't care. You're still going to hell.

This has been a public service announcement.

Bathroom economics

I think I've figured it out.

My workplace has four restrooms, two on each side of the building. On my side, they regularly clean out any spare catalogs from the joint (Pampered Chef, Land's End, Pretentious Housewife Weekly, etc.). We're the phone support department: they need us productive all the time. On the OTHER side, where the programmers hang out, they get all the reading material they want. What does that say about THEIR productivity, I wonder.

Anyway, I think that whenever I get a different job lo these many years from now, I know how I'm going to spend my time jerking the company for some free income. I'm going to lock myself in one of the bathrooms on the other side of the building until someone comes looking for me. I call it my profit-to-productivity bonus: The longer I sit on the throne, the more money in my treasury without having to work for it. I'm thinking of bringing a 12-pack and my iPod to make the most of my time.

It's not like I haven't cleaned up plenty of shit for people since I've been there.