Utterly Pointless v. 1.0 ((first loves die hard))

I'm baaaack! Long absence cause by much mandatory family fun time. My parental units drive me nuts. But such is life.

I'm sill somewhat sleep-deprived, a fact which I'll be remedying this week, but in the meantime, I'm fuzzy-brained.

Despite the family fun time, I also got to hang out with my friends, and it was all fun and nifty ^__^

sales were good today. I doubt if I'm going to catch up to my goal - they don't adjust your goals if you're gone for a week, so I have to make a month's worth of sales in 15 days >.< But we'll have some good sales going on, so we'll see. I missed last month's goal by *2* freaking digital sales. Grrrrr! I made my premiums and even my HUD, so I could have had the snergled trifecta goal if I'd just had two more digitals. arglebargle!!

tomorrow's going to *suck*. Monday's after big vacations always do. and with the weather we've had, the snow and the wind, all the people whose lines got knocked out over the weekend and going to come home and find they have no cable. geck.

granted, we did get some of those tonight - I got a call from one nice lady who had a tree fall on her house O_o; It was weird - I went to set up a trouble call and already found one - the electric company must have let our people know, since the customer hadn't called before to set one up.

And I came to the nasty realization that unless I can get my VCR to start recording in LP mode, I *can't* tape the extended edition LotR - a four hour movie won't fit on a tape, not in SP mode. Grr. And it hacks me off, because I'm fanatical about keeping owner's manuals and original boxes. Hell, I still have the box and manuals for a computer that got thrown away months ago. But I can't find the VCR box. Or manuals, of course. Argle.

Why did some loser think it necessary to charge some poor sap for a reconnection when their disconnection was *our* error? And it wasn't even debatably their fault, like a disputed non-pay - no, this was 'i want my internet removed, but keep the cable TV' and the rep set up a disconnect for everything. That, or they were supposed to have disconnected the guy next door. We get those occasionally.

I had someone ask me what a phone number was. O_o 'My phone number? what's that?' Seriously.

I got to talk to a very nifty woman today. Her PPV movie (Insomnia - she has good taste) didn't come on, and I put on the next showing, but I didn't want to just say 'ok, you're all set', because for whatever reason, we'd had a lot of problems with that movie tonight. It was only 10 minutes till the new showing came on, so we chatted. We compared the two Harry Potter movies and discussed the LotR. She was a very nice and nifty person. With very good taste ^_^

Here's a weirdity - I was checking the comics I'd missed over the last week, and the Foxtrot family had Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday - just like us! Weird, ne?

I saw a magic show on TV tonight. It was much nifty. And I also watched 'Matilda', which was interesting. A little more deviation from the book than I'd have expected, but oh well. And although Danny DeVito did very well as Mr. Wormwood, I think they should've cast Steve Buscemi. The guy even *looks* the part - a little rat-faced guy! But then, DeVito directed and produced, so there you have it.

Well, I get 6 flex days starting January and 2 weeks of use-it-or-lose-it vacation time. Which is going to be interesting, because those two weeks are in *addition* to the week I'm already taking - that's accrued time from *before* the merger! (I win! ^_^) So while the new program isn't great, it's not as bad as I was afraid of. It's *complicated* though - flex time, fixed holidays, floating holidays, and vacation time. I much prefer the current simple system - "Here's 23 days. Do whatever you want with 'em." And I don't know what's being done about fixed holidays, since we're probably expected to work those days. I mean, we'll get time and a half for working them, but what will procedure be for getting them off? And god, don't get me into the *floating* holidays. I don't know what the *freak* we're supposed to use *those* for. I mean, really, who the bejesus cares about president's day?

but the 6 flex days (8 next year) can be cashed out, up to $1,000, if we don't use them *grins* And people wonder why I don't take sick days...

And lemme tell ya, I am one lucky bastard, because a lot of these bennies are only 'if you've been with the company for 6 months or more as of January 1st', and you get reduced bennies if you've been with the company for less. Well, on January first I'll have been with the company for *exactly* six months. *Phew!*

So all in all, this part isn't nearly as bad as I expected it. I'll regret losing the flexibility, but at least I won't be losing actual time. We'll see about the rest.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:33 a.m.//
//Monday, December 2, 2002//

meepages!

a belated glomp for my neechan, for generally being wonderful ^__^

I just got a bonus for over $300 O_O I had to look at the check three times before really grasping this. Actually, I take that back. I still don't think I *do* grasp it. (I can't have - I'm not thinking madly about how to spend it all -.-;)

All LotR fans need to go see www.barrowdowns.com - it has lots of nifty stuff, including quizzes which range from easy to impossible. Now, I consider myself a reasonably serious fan of Middle Earth, but even those 'difficult' quizzes which *weren't* taken directly from either the silmarillion or the book of lost tales were *insane*! It also has a nifty name generator for all races, which dubbed me (among other things) Wurraluk the Ugly, Gror Elfboot, Berylla Sackville-Baggins (;_;), Tror Crashingvisor, Firnlindeiel, an overweight wizard , a forgetful nazgul, an inbred bird-tamer, and a springle-ring-dancing Ranger *giggles* Oh, and I'm Frodo, too :p

well, I took the 'how emotional are you?' test and got 'freezer', which doesn't surprise me, and I took the 'how seme are you?' test and got 50%. Did you know you can get 120% seme on that one? that has a picture of muraki -.-; But the 100% (which was what my secondary choices got me) gives you a very nice piccy of tatsumi *giggles at the implication* I need to go play with that test some more, it was fun ^__^

I was doing stuff on the computer today and it popped up a little mesage that said 'hello' Apparently everyone's was doing this. It was very odd. Kind of cute, but odd.

You know, if you're playing Doom and the level designer left a computer area map lying out in plain sight, that's just never a good sign. It means that 1) you'll *really* need it, and 2) it won't help in the least.

Speaking of which, I'm currently thoroughly stumped by the first bonus level in TNT. This annoys me a lot, because I've been playing Doom for a long time, and I have a pretty good idea of level design - I know how these guys' minds work. And I am still utterly stumped. I tried giving myself all the keys, and I tried putting on 'no clipping' and running around the level, trying to guess the proper sequence to how the level plays, and now I have a better idea, but I'm still freaking stumped. Now I may know which point is A and which are B and C, and I even know how to get from B to C, but I still haven't the faintest idea how to get from A to B. Grr.

We had pizza at work on thursday. They let me have some, even though I didn't contribute to the pizza fund. Theresa even brought me some when I got stuck on a call and couldn't go over. That was very nice of them ^__^

Some dork stole a woman's debit card and used it to place a bet at the racetrack. Well, his horse won, but since he didn't have proper ID they transferred the $500+ in winnings directly into the bank account *snrk* Loser...

why are my sales always good on the non-sales-days?

I was visiting my brother's condo the other day and I was behind an SUV as I went into the complex. The dippy driver took the speedbumps in the complex at approximately two miles an hour. Now, that's annoying no matter what, but the guy's driving an *SUV*!! A vehicle designed to drive up a mountain! Does he really think taking a speedbump at 25 is going to hurt the thing??

*giggles* My dorkball brother was having a very brainless day. Not only did he stub a toe kicking a supposedly empty plastic bag, but he has these cute little decorative burner-covers...which he burned the hell out of one of them by turning on the wrong burner. Then he used potholders to remove the smoking, superheated object and toss it into the sink -- leaving one of the potholders on the barely-turned off burner until it, too was nicely charred.

And here's one heck of a kwinkydink - this afternoon I took a call from a woman who wanted to cancel a tech visit because the problem had corrected itself. Nothing unusual -- in fact, a few hours later, I answered a call and got a woman saying that she wasn't sure if she'd remembered to cancel a tech visit, and would I mind checking please. It was the *same* woman!! Now, we have four area call centers, each of which have a few hundred people working during the afternoon. But she got *me* again! Oddly enough, later that night I got a call from another previous caller of mine, but at least that was a couple of months ago!

Man, I love it when people call in and let slip that they're getting more cable than they're paying for. it's so funny listening to them wish they'd kept their mouths shut. This time it was a guy wanting to know how he could reduce his bill without losing X channel -- which he wasn't supposed to be getting!

And what the freak is up with the 'what would jesus drive?' jazz? I must have seen at least half a dozen editorials on that alone today! Am I missing something here?

Oh, and if anyone hasn't seen today's (sunday's) FoxTrot cartoon, I highly suggest you bop over to ucomics.com and check it out. it's *really* funny

I hate the people who refuse to alter their schedule to accomodate us, who won't go to a service center if their life depended on it, and who have kittens of asked to go without their TV for more than half a day. Well, dude, if you can only be available for one hour a day, it might be a little while before we can accomodate you! If you got a problem with that, go to the damned service center! Oh, and you'll leave the boxes sitting out on your front porch? great, you'll see the $600 bill when they get stolen, then!

Murgle. I need bed. jaa bai bai!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 01:46 a.m.//
//Monday, November 25, 2002//

rotten day.

we had a sales day at work where for every 2 premiums you sold you got a raffle ticket. the prize was a $20 gift card for a grocery store.

I sold 4 premiums. That would've given me a really good change of winning, considering that plenty of the people on the team didn't make even a single sale - it was a pretty slow night.

But no one told me when the raffle was. I had assumed that it would be at the end of the night, as usual, and instead of going to put in my tickets as soon as I made the sale, I was waiting until the end of the night. Partly because I wanted to see if I could make more sales, partly because I didn't want to punch out for something as trivial as that, and partly becuase I just didn't see any particular reason not to.

So imagine my surprise when, as I was leaving for my second break, and the boss came over to Tina, saying 'congrats, you won the gift card'

Twenty dollars' worth of groceries - that's my monthly food budget. That would've fed me for weeks, and I had a really good shot at it. But thanks to my own fucking stupidity, I threw away my chance at it.

Yeah, it would've been nice if they'd come around and asked if everyone had all their ticket in before the raffle, but for all I know, they did and I was just too damned deaf to hear them asking.

Except for the time when I was in the 'easy-sales' queue, this was my first sales night where I'd actually done well enough to have a shot at anything. Hell, it may have been the first sales night where I'd gotten *anything* - days where I can't make a sale aren't that uncommon. And a $20 grocery gift card is a damned sight better than a stupid walkman.

So for once, I actually had a shot at something good, only I was a fucking moron and blew it.

I think I'll go to bed and try to forget today ever happened.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 01:40 a.m.//
//Friday, November 22, 2002//

Sneep! I have lots of time off for thanksgiving -- all of next week save sunday and monday. Yay! ^__^ And all of it paid! *beams*

Sometimes I want to beat my co-workers. Like whoever the hell it was that told some guy that they'd sent someone out 'within 1-2 hours' to fix his completely-out cable, and then never did a damned thing. No template, no trouble call, no notes. By the time the poor man called back to see what was going on, it was too late in the day to get anyone out until tomorrow. Which would not have been the case if the thing had been done properly the first time. That's one of the hard things about working the night shift - I can never get someone out the same day, and that's what they all want. Unless a customer calls by 3 pm, then it's too late in the day to get someone out the same day. And no one likes hearing that.

And then sometimes I want to beat the customers. Like the woman who wouldn't have been happy if I'd offered her my firstborn child. Can you belive she was acutally asking for 'reparation for the emotional damage' that not having cable was causing her? She also claimed she'd been shut off illegally. Now, last I checked, nowhere are we contractually obligated to give anybody anything. We can refuse to serve a customer, just like any other business. And if they don't pay us, that's a damned good reason to do so.

Why would someone who's blind have cable service? And not cheap cable either. very odd.

There was an article in this week's TV guide about the kid who starred in the movie 'a christmas story'. And you know what's scary? There was a pic with the article, and he has not changed a *bit*, despite the addition of some 15-20 years. I saw the picture before I even glanced at the article and thought 'oh my god, it's the kid from 'a christmas story'!

And speaking of scary, there was an article on cnn.com about a hunter who shot a horse, thinking it was a deer. not uncommon you say? Well, for starters, the horse was white. And had a 12-year-old rider at the time. (the kid's fine; the horse is recovering) The hunter was 89 years old. Like I said, scary.

Some dude I talked to had a glitch in his cable box that allowed him to see *everything*. even all of the ethnic packages and possibly the sports pay-per-view packages as well - which is more than *I* get! That's one hell of a box glitch! But I won, becuase someone repaired the box glitch and he called me to get everything back.

*giggles* on the way to our team meeting, Mary Jane noticed the TV was on in the gym and decided to poke her head in to see what was on. She was treated to the sight of some half-dressed guy rearranging his attire right in the middle of the exercise room - the locker rooms being ten feet away notwithstanding.

They're revamping the coaching structure, which I think is a good thing. In the nearly 4 months I've been on the floor, the only coaching I've received is when our coach sat in on a couple of my calls and then graded me. We're supposed to get 4 graded calls a month, 2 sit-ins and 2 silent monitoring, plus our super is supposed to go over our metrics with us monthly. Up until today, I had only a vague idea which aspects of performance they were measuring, and I had *no* idea what acceptable standards for those metrics were. So the system can use a little revamping. But I worry that I won't do well enough to be kept (or to ever get a raise - they were big on 'merit-only' raises, as opposed to yearly). I really need to get my sales up. But my super thinks I'm doing well, both in that department and in others, which is a pleasant surprise. I won't make my goals for the month, but I'll be a lot closer than last month - maybe that's considered good for someone who's only been with the company for 5 months.

Remind me to later post the URL to the site that titled me 'wurraluk the ugly' *giggles* Mata!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:27 a.m.//
//Thursday, November 21, 2002//

thingiful day today. work gave us a new e-mail address. Yay. And it was highly amusing - they were sending out a memo about how the internal tech support is going to be changing, and at one point they actually said 'callers with such and such a problem can expect to receive little to no assistance until we can blah blah'

you know, for once I actually found some logic in Murphy's law! I was talking to a customer who was talking about 'it's always my favorite channels that go out!' and I realized, that makes sense - if any of your non-favorite channels went out, would you be likely to notice? How often do people really tune to anything *other* than their favorite stations?

you know, I found a flaw with the company's 'try to sell to every customer' line. What are we supposed to do when the person calling is not the account holder? We can't jack up someone's bill without their permission - so how do we handle those situations (which are very common with trouble calls)

I was so argled today - I spent some 15 mintues trying to troubleshoot with this daft old lady, missing half of my break in the process, only to have an 'outage declared' message pop up just as we were finishing the call.

Oh, and I got a *really* fun one - customer cals in to see why he's out of service. clear as day, notes on account say 'customer called in to find out what happened to x channel. when told it had been removed from the lineup, cust was irate and asked to cancel service - said he was going to satellite'. When I told the *customer* this, he had a fit - he said he never asked for anything to be cancelled, and who the hell was it that told us to disconnect his service, and why the hell had we let them when they weren't him, etc etc. that was a real picnic, lemme tell you.

I fixed a problem with someone's cable internet. How sad is that? Granted, it was largely due to a internet rep's careful notations on the account, but still...

some guy calls up and wants to know when digital service became available in his area because he wasn't aware of its implementation. this would not be an uncommon question, except that he *had* digital service!

and here's somehting that annoyed me. When we have to emergency schedule someone into a calendar that's full (because they're completely out of service, or because their tech missed their appointment or didn't finsh work that needed doing etc), we send an e-mail down to the support desk, who works with the dispatch team to schedule the appointment. Now, sometimes when we send down these e-mails they come back to us because there's some point of policy that we missed which results in the support desk being unable to process the request. This screw-up can be either blatant (ie, request for an out of service when the only thing the customer is missing are the movie channels, or a missed-appointment when the notes on the work order state that the tech was out during the time frame and the customer wasn't home) or subtle (the tech missed the appointment all right, but the CCP asked for a 4-7 time frame and we don't do installs in that time frame, only 1-5) Today I got a one bounced back for offering a time frame that the support desk couldn't use. So I got to call the customer back and offer a different time frame. I didn't really mind doing that because a) it was my bad, I should have read the policy more closely, so the egg belonged on my face, and b) it's not like the customer was going to realize I was the same person anyhow. However, on this occasion, after confirming the new time frame and re-submitting the e-mail, the same support desk rep e-mailed me back to say 'oh, I didn't notice it was a phone install too - the best we can offer is saturday. call the customer back and see if he wants to 8-12 or the 1-5.' Now, *that* annoyed me. I don't mind eating crow when *I've* screwed up, but if *she* just didn't notice that it was a multi-line install, why should *I* be the one to look stupid? I know those guys are busy, and i know they will sometimes go above and beyond by calling a customer when they could legitimately ask us to do it. but I still think she should have been the one to call them on this occcasion.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:15 a.m.//
//Wednesday, November 20, 2002//

Meepness! bargle...today was a bargly day

I really hate people who bitch and bitch about our service when they won't lift a finger to troubleshoot and refuse to let a tech come out and take a look because they're so damned convinced that they know *exactly* what the problem is, and it *must* be somehting we can fix just by flipping some magical switch.

grr.

And I hate getting an electrical engineer or former tech on the phone. it really looks bad when they know more than you do.

I may have signed up for needless overtime last week - I forgot I was tkaing a day off, so I bet I dont' get time and a half for it ;_;

and who on earth needs a flashlight to turn on their TV manually? if the light's *that* bad in the room, you're probably not doing yourself (read: your eyes) any favors gluing yourself to a glowing screen for hours at a time...

we had a fire not-drill at work. apparently someone smelled gas, so they evacuated the building. it was five minutes before I punched out, so I got to go home. except that I had to stand around in the freezing cold for 5 minutes first.

is it just me, or is it scary when someone tells me I'm more help than the tech was? and not just an install tech, either, but a trouble tech... x.x;

what kind of idiot am I that occasionally I just plain forget to go on break? that's sad...

it also annoys me when a customer refuses a trouble call in favor of taking the box in, even though we warn them that might not be the problem, and then get annoyed when that doesn't fix the problem.

some dork was complaining that their bill was too high. so I took a look at the bill and voila, they're ordering $35 PPV wrestling events every month, just like clockwork. on $40 a month service. and they wonder why it's so high?!

Do you know, some guy actually hacked into sadaam hussein's e-mail? the official iraqi government e-mail address. just by guessing his password. Honest, it was on cnn.com!

why do these men go out and buy these fantastically complicated pieces of electronic equipment that they know *nothing* about, and then call us to ask for help hooking them up? Hell, some of these *I* couldn't tell you how to hook up! it's not good ol' coaxial cable or RCA wires, or even SuperVideo, those I know about! Noooo, this has to have the red/blue/green video cable with separate components for your sound system! People, did it ever occur to you that this crap might not be compatible with the TV you currently have? or the cable box? Or...never mind...it's a guy thing. Just like they can't read the directions to figure out the hookup. Oh, and I love it when they all get indignant when I tell them our tech can't come out and hook it all up for them because the techs only carry coax, not the fancy wiring these guys need. 'what, you mean I have to *buy* wires?' Newsflash - you just spent thousands of dollars on this entertainment center - yes, you can afford another $50 for your fancy wires!

Speaking of which, when did it because the cable company's job to come fix some guy's VCR? For *free*, no less? Some guy, honest to god, was bitching because when the tech went out for a trouble call, he told the customer he didn't do VCRs. that wasn't the problem, btw - I could see the guy being annoyed if he set up a call and nothing got done. But no, we fixed the problem - the guy just wanted to have the tech do that too, for free (and on his less-than-forgiving schedule) 'what kind of service is that?' *cable* service, dude! It's like all the people who are asking me about their TV's menus. How in the blippty blarg am I supposed to be familiar with the specs of every single model of TV ever made? It's hard enough keeping track of half a dozen kinds of cable box and twice as many remotes!

the merger is offical. I am very wary - I'm not sure what they're going to be doing with some of our benefits programs, and that makes me nervous. I especially hope I don't have to cancel my vacation, which I might if they make me start accruing vacation time starting in january instead of now. I'll have to do the math tomorrow - because of the not-drill, I didn't get time today.

I like nice easy trouble calls. Like some guy whose box isn't working, when there's no box listed on the account. those are fun.

apparently the remote-eating dog isn't a lone phenomenon -- I was reading the notes on an account today to get some backstory when I saw 'customer called in to get new NIC card - her car ate part of hers'

I swear, every single person I talked today had some heinous problem or another. No one had one of those nice easy calls I just mentioned, every single mother's son of them had been out of service for at least a week, there were templates and notations all the hell over, it had been escalated to a tech supervisor and *still* wasn't fixed. what the hell am I supposed to do when the damned field just *can't* seem to fix things? *we're* the ones who get stuck holding the bag when the customer calls up screaming.

And I now have a cell phone. It rather annoys me, but oh well. Better than breaking down on the highway at quarter past midnight in january and *not* having one. And as much as it galls me to admit it, it's kinda cute :p It's very chibi - only about 4" long. Now I just have to figure out how to use it :p If you want the number, let me know, but keep in mind that 1) I only get 60 minutes a month unless I wanna pay out the ass, and 2) if you need to reach me urgently, I'm generally either at work or at home, both of which have phone numbers where I can be reached. If it's not urgent, you can leave a message on my answering machine or e-mail me at work. So I highly doubt that anyone I know is ever going to really *need* this numnber. But I'll give it out anyhow.

bargle. I need bed. nighty-night all

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:57 a.m.//
//Tuesday, November 19, 2002//

*growl* Yume is crabby today. My dorkball of a brother was supposed to take me out for my birthday dinner today. He had a team meeting, but said he'd call when he knew what his plans were. So I sat around all afternoon waiting for him to call, not able to do much of anything until I knew definitively that he'd be over at such-and-such a time.

Did I mention I hate dancing attendance on people?

So I finally get a call around 6, he's on his way. I figure, my whole day is wasted, but at least I'll get dinner out of it, right?

Wrong. Apparently after the team meeting the team decided to go out for some beers and some ribs. My dinner? 'if you wanna walk down to my car, there's some leftover ribs. I'm in guest parking'

Have I mentioned my brother is a dipshit? And of course I have nothing to make for dnner, because I was expecting to *get* dinner, and since I wasn't planning to go shopping until next week, I don't even have anything I could throw together - my fridge currently contains a few carrots, some juice, and a couple of bars of cheese.

So I have no dinner, and this makes me very crabby. I didn't plan a dinner this past week, since I figured that out of my 5 working days, I'd get dinner on my birthday, wednesday, and I could scrape together something the other 4 days. But no, I didn't get dinner wednesday and I didn't get dinner tonight. Since the thurday before last, my dinners have been: a quesadilla, a bowl of rice, a bowl of pasta, a meagre portion of mashed potatoes made from the two small potatoes that were still good, a couple of chicken strips, and one 'real' dinner of a whole batch of salmon patties. Aside from my lunches (a bag of oyster crackers, a handful of sunflower seeds, and a bit of dried fruit) this has been *all* the food I have consumed over the past ten days.

So I'm crabby.

(and before anyone starts worrying, *yes*, I have dinners planned for next week. I do *not* want to do this again!)

//Hotohori last sparkled at 01:55 a.m.//
//Sunday, November 17, 2002//

Meepage!! *happydance* Happy yume-chan today! I realized last night that getting yesterday off with pay equates to getting $125 sit around on my arse and watch movies all day instead of going to a boring-ass meeting and taking calls from weirdos all day! In case I hadn't mentioned it lately, I love my job! *beams*

And then today I had a caller so happy with me that he actually took the time to speak to the boss in my praise ^________^

And then I got to come home and watch Legend. Campy movie, but it has pretty unicorns and Tom Cruise - what more can a girl ask for? *grin* And now is the weekend! I will go see Harry Potter and watch more of my movies, and get taken out to dinner! Yay! *bounce*

I had a good weekend last weekend too - Cat was home for the weekend and we hung out and watched spiderman and generally had much fun. And my bro took me out to dinner in payment for a favor and I had the most succulent tender filet ever *.*

My mother actually got my a funny card for once! It has these two studly guys on the front over with the words 'it's your birthday, and these guys are looking for *you*!' and you open it and it says 'but since they didn't stop to ask directions, they ended up on this card' *giggles madly*

you know, maybe it was silly to rent harry potter when it comes out on HBO this weekend...*meeps* of course the advantage to renting things is that I get to watch them whenever I want -.-

there was this *hilarious* article on cnn.com - this guy went into a fast-food restaurant in sweden (doesn't this sound like the beginning of a joke?) and after eating he went to use the men's room, but there were no toilet seats. So he asks an employee about it, and the guy takes the customer out back and shows him the just-finished-running dishwasher, with the now-sparkling toilet seats wedged in among the grilling implements, baking pans, and cooking utensils! I swear to god, go look on CNN.com!!

I ask some caller at work to look at his box and see if there's a little yellow light to the right of the time display (this is the light that tells you if the power is on) he replied that there was not one, but two such lights. After much confusion, I ascertained that these were the dots composing the colon part of the time display 9:38 -.-;;;;

and then I had the other end of the scale - i went to try some troubleshooting and this woman had already done it all. And I don't mean just checking for loose wires, I mean she tried bypassing the splitters and *everything*! this is stuff I wouldn't expect anyone short of a trained tech to have done O_o sure made the call short and sweet, though :p

I love making sales off of other people's idiocy. 'hey, yeah, I called up earlier to order the biggest package you have, but all the guy gave me was HBO. Can I get the rest?'

Nifty quote of the day - 'a problem well-stated is a problem half-solved' - I forget who -.-;

Would you believe there's actually a movie called 'the terror of mechagodzilla'? And it's *exactly* what it sounds like. I saw a preview on AMC x.x;;;;;

some guy tried teling me that he was still getting a picture from his cable even when his box was off. and the scary part is, I think he may have been right! O_O;

Oh, hey, here's something that occurred to me in re: the whole gloating over LotR thing - remember how I said that the extended eidtion is going to be on PPV in December? Well, by request, I can make tapes off of cable for anyone who might be interested. I don't get PPV for free, but I do get it discounted for like $2.75 This also goes for any other obscure movies people might be hoping to find - I can do requests, and with all 300+ channels, whatever you're looking for is bound to come across my screen at *some* point :p No need to be shy in asking, either - it makes for an easy christmas ^.~ I acutally am doing this for my mom (who had to send me an eight-billion-item-long list in the hopes that I can acutally *find* something on there O_o her taste in movies is...obscure)

another thing i need to remember...I have to give my work number out to those who might be needing it - kouri-kins, don't let me forget that :p

And *MUCH GLOMPAGE* to all the people who wished me a happy birthday! I wuvs you all!!!! ^___________^

And I took that test too,a nd I am a 'cynical virgin' Surprise, surprise, ne? So Kouri's the laid-back virgin, Kimura's the idealistic virgin, and I'm the cynical virgin? Maybe for all the wrong reasons, as Kimura said, but I gotta say, I think they nailed this one *snrk*

And speaking of Kimura, my opinion of the whole class thing is that the prof has the right to direct the class as he choses - being 'on topic' doesn't matter if he thinks the tangent will help students to learn. but should *not* have used the phrase 'shut up'. even if the first attempt at reason failed, I think a firmly-voiced and final-toned 'thank you for your opinion' or 'that's enough' would have sufficed.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 04:15 a.m.//
//Friday, November 15, 2002//

hey ho the merry-o, it's after 4 am so I'm gonna keep this short. I just realized I haven't blogged in a few days.

I had a most excellent birthday! I took the day off of work *with* pay, slept nice and late, went out and got a scad of movies at blockbuster, stopped by a grocery store for some junk food, and parked my arse on the couch for more hours than I care to think about!

Monsters Inc is a very funny movie. I think I needs much catch it on PPV so I can make a copy. If I had 2 VCRs I could do it now, but...*sigh*

And I got the extended edition Lord of the Rings *smugs*. Most excellent and drool-inspiring! I won't say much, but it does amuse me that they went to the trouble of including the gift-giving at the parting of Lorien when 5 out of the 8 gifts were wrong *snrk*

I need to call the doctor because that thing that was supposed to go away in 2 weeks is still there and it's been...um...six weeks? *grins weakly* really, next time I'll call back in 2 weeks...honest...

And I have to call and harrass the phone company because that credit for my outage they said would appear on my bill didn't. Surprise, surprise...

I also need to go to the bank and get that check cashed - movie money *.*

and email my bro about dad's xmas gift...and there's my grandpa's bithday card *hides* I forgot to call on his b-day....even after I wrote it down on a sticky right on my computer x.x;;;;;;

I forgot I was working overtime yesterday until the day before. icky remindering. and it was a *bad* day to work OT, too - I think I took some 30 calls in my first 4 hours - that's as many as I usually take in a full day >.<

Speaking of work, remember those yutz employees I mentioned who just send a signal to the box and tell the customer to call back later if it still isn't working? I got a real special one of those. This dipshit sent a signal even though there *were* no boxes on the account. In point of fact, that's what was causing the problem in the first place! Once I slapped the serial number on and reauthorized it, things were fine! It took half a second to notice and maybe three to fix! Argh!

ok, I need bed. I have to get up early to run those two movies back to blockbuster for that $1 credit...jaa! *runs away*

//Hotohori last sparkled at 04:09 a.m.//
//Thursday, November 14, 2002//

wurgle. It has been an icktified day. For starters, everyone and their brother was having problems with the local channels today. Out of maybe 30 calls today, 7 were the exact same 'our local channels are having crappy reception'. Which I could understand if all 7 calls came form the same town. but these buggers were scattered all over northern new england. blargh

and I woke up feeling rather off (that godforsaken not-quite-a-real-dizzy-fit-but-close) but not quite sick enough to stay home (of course, in my case 'sick enough to stay home' generally equates to 'having the bubonic plague') So I was wretched from the time I woke up until about the end of the second hour of work. Then at around 9h30, the icks came back with a vengeance. I had to punch out and just be miserable for about 20 minutes before I could even function again. I should have just stayed home. Thank god I at least had the foresight to bring my meds, just in case. I still don't feel great and will be going to bed soon (i have to wait until 2h30 in order to set my alarm)

some dipshit caller has the same 300+ channel package I have and was having a giant cow because *one* channel was out and i couldn't get someone out until tuesday. she bitched royally about how she'd *better* get a credit for it. I can't wait until she sees that the credit for a single channel for three days is thirty cents.

i wish I had the money to pay $160 a month for crap like cable tv...

i got an e-mail today saying 'this e-mail has a virus'. Yay.

how does someone's cable box spontaneously generate a parental control code and lock half the stations on the box?

ok, bed now x.x;

//Hotohori last sparkled at 01:55 a.m.//
//Monday, November 11, 2002//

sneepage! I have a chibi headache ;_; but I will sleep soon and the evil headachy thing will go away.

I liked tonight's firefly. Particuarly the line...

"Well, will ya look at that! Seems we arrived just in the nick of time! What does that make us?"

"Big damn heroes, sir!"

"Ain't we just!"

*giggles* Ok, maybe you have to know the characters. but it was still funny :p

I'm Caine ^____^

I had a good day at work yesterday. Two digital sales and six premiums (why can't I ever do that on the sales days?), and I cut my wrap-up time from over an hour to 15 mintes. Of course, it was slow, so I could do wrap up work without acutally punching out of the pool, which is what made such a big difference. When the calls are coming in one right after the other, I *have* to do that, otherwise the wrap up doesn't get done.

I have a cute paper bat on the wall of my cubicle ^_^ And I got a call from a customer that once had a real live one in her bedroom. The cops hung up on her the first time she called because they thought it was a crank call. (this was not the reason she called, in case you were wondering. We were shooting the breeze while her son wrestled with coaxial cables)

We had an open house at work Friday, too. It *boggles* me, each time we have one of these, how many of these people come to the things dressed in jeans, sweats, teeshirts, ratty baseball caps. that is *not* the way to get a job, people! even if you don't *expect* that there's going to be an interview, you always want to assume that there is, just in case. Not to mention that 'slob' isn't generally the first impression you want to make on a potential employer -.-

and the food they have at these things is very yummy. Not just the usual cheese and veggie platters, but chicken strips, meatballs, sodas and cookies ^__^ Not technically for the current employees, but my experience is that we're the only people who really take advantage of the food -- most candidates are too nervous or too anxious to make a good impression to risk a bit of broccoli between the teeth. And it's not like I take *much*...just a little nibble ^.~

I got some dork BSP who fobbed off a call on me because the customer wanted to downgrade and 'we BSPs aren't supposed to downgrade people' *snorts* BS, if you ask me. But I got the last laugh -- I talked the guy into *upgrading* to digital! ^o^ Bwahahaha!

some person was trying to tell me that even though he was getting a message from his cable box on his TV screen, there were no wires whatsoever connecting his box to his TV. What the hell do you *say* to that kind of thing? 'dude, get real, in order to have the message, the two *have* to be connected in some way, shape, or form!' I actually tried something like that (only politer) The dude stuck to his guns *shakes head*

I just read "Tuck Everlasting", after having borrowed it from my brother. It's an excellent book with beautiful description and fascinating characters, and I highly recommend it. The epilogue is sad, though...

My brother took me out to dinner because I chauffered him around while his car was in the shop (thus reminding me why I don't go anywhere near any major highway during the hours of 4-7 pm x.x) We went to Bugaboo Creek and I had a truly luscious filet *blisses* It was the loveliest, most tender and yummy steak I have had in forever and a day...All the food was really good - I give it five stars ^.~

oki, now I goes beddly. mata ne!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:52 a.m.//
//Saturday, November 9, 2002//

Sneep! I just got a refund from the doctor's because the insurance company paid the co-pay on my hearing test ^______^

should I be disturbed that I continue to have dreams about my obnoxious ex attempting to abuse me?

my mother just talked to me for something like an hour and a half or two hours. Man, that woman can *talk*! I don't think I've ever held a conversation with her that's lasted for less than forty-five minutes x.x;

the damned republicans didn't just win this state, they won *everything*! Christ, does everyone *want* war? what is wrong with people?! Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, i'm entitled to bitch - *I* voted!

I'll be getting a cellphone this weekend *grumbles* I don't *want* one, I think they're the most annoying invention ever. But I still don't want to continue to commute half an hour up the highway at midnight every night without one. It's just a matter of time before I blow a tire or something equally hideous.

why is it that after I establish that the problem a customer is having is *outside* the house, they demand a tech be sent immediately, even though its 11h30 at night. hello, people...it's *DARK*! there's not a whole lot we can do up on a telephone pole in pitch blackness!

some guy called up to ask why he got more channels without his box then with one. answer - 'we forgot to install a filter on the pole, but your box still blocks the signal. Of course, now that we know about this, we'll be sending someone out to the pole to install that filter. If you wanna keep those extra channels you'll have to pay an additional $35 a month.' Bet he wishes he hadn't said anything!

And I managed to grace the quote list with the extremely eloquent 'I am *not* a bathtub!' -.-;

the worst thing for anyone doing phone support is someone with very bad english and an equally bad cellphone. Even when the interference was minor enough where I could hear the guy, I *still* couldn't understand him!

you know, it pisses me off that such emphasis is placed on sales in my job. We *have* sales people. We have door-to-door teams, we have the outbound telesales (telemarketing), and we have the 'sales professionals' (inbound sales). Why should the most important thing in *my* job be how many units I sell? Last I checked, I was a Customer Care Professional - shouldn't the most important aspect of my job be customer care? call me old fashioned, but I still think that a customer satisfaction is worth more than a premium channel added to an account. and what makes it even *more* aggravating is that they all stress how important it is to keep the customers happy. they don't say *anything* about how important it is to make sales. they just grade you on that more heavily than anything else. if you want me to 'educate customers about what we have available', that's fine, but don't make it the most important aspect of my job when it shouldn't be. *growls*

i love that they call us 'the front line'. Doesn't that make us sound like cannon fodder?

we're starting a new program wherein if call volumes are low, they'll allow people to go home early. Without pay, of course, but still -- this winter that'll be really useful. I don't really wanna spend an hour driving through a snowstorm at one in the morning.

you know, this is totally irrelevant, but I don't get the big fuss about the winona ryder shoplifting thing. OK, yeah, maybe the media blew it out of proportion, but she was caught red-handed shoplifting. she was witnessed by security guards and captured by security cameras. I don't think she's even denying it (though I haven't been following the case). OK, people, so she's a movie star. She still stole. Don't throw her in the lockup for years just to make an example out of her, but don't let her go without so much as a slap on the wrist, either. she stole thousands of dollars worth of stuff. give her the same penalty you'd give any average joe-on-the-street for the same crime - how difficult is this concept?

i know, fat chance. anyhow, now that we've ascertained the world is going to hell, I will be going to bed. night night.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:26 a.m.//
//Thursday, November 7, 2002//

well, those dorkball republicans won *growls*

and it looks like I won't be seeing my folks in February after all -- turns out they're going to be in europe while I'm on vacation. dunno what I'll do now - I probably won't have the money to fly anywhere, and a road trip in midwinter isn't a grand old time. sound familiar? maybe I'll just spend the week in front of the fireplace -.-;

I got a call today from a woman who was angry because when the tech came out to replace her malfuctioning box, he set the box to display the time and it was using up way too much electricity -.-;

*looks at her candy* you know, snickers and baby ruth bars are basically the same thing - nougat, peanuts, and caramel covered in chocolate. so why do baby ruths taste so much better?

we have some real weirdos at work. here and there around the center are those stand-up movie cardboard cutouts that you see in theaters. Someone took one from shrek and dressed up the ogre in a grass skirt, lei, and fruit headdress ala carmen miranda

and on that note, I think I shall go to bed.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:40 a.m.//
//Wednesday, November 6, 2002//

well, I got one that beats all tonight! I got a call from some guy whose dog ate his remote control *dies laughing*

it always annoys the piss out of me when some jerk's being totally uncooperative and then gets mad at me because I can't help him. Well, if one minute you're telling me that the remote works ok on the box but not the TV, and the next that the remote doesn't work at all, and *then* you're telling me that the box is frozen, and then no, wait, it's not frozen, it's giving you this error message, and this happens all by itself and I wan't touching anything, but actually, I was using the clicker at the time....it's damned hard to diagnose the problem!

not to mention if you can't or won't do *any* of the troubleshooting. if you won't answer a single damned question, or check for loose wires or read us the serial number on your equipment, or try programming the remote or checking the diagnostics on the box or unplugging the equipment -- there's not a whole lot we can do. two times out of three cable problems aren't anything that we can fix over the phone. but if you won't cooperate in the slightest, then the odds get a whole lot slimmer. as in, one in a hundred.

I have the potential to get into trouble for offering a customer $60 worth of free service today. however, my actions prevented her from getting $270 worth of free service, so I maintain I did the right thing. the boss wanted me to offer her a couple of free PPV movies. riiiight, $6 is better than $270.

I'm approved for my vacation time! Yay! Now I can..go... see my parents...erk...should I really be cheering?

still, a week in arizona come mid-february is probably worth it. I can survive for a week. (famous last words? -.-;)

people always claim that we don't notify them that they're about to be shut off for nonpayment of services. 1) we do. multiple times. 2) I don't even see why we should have to. we don't shut people off until their payments are two months late. I'm sorry, but if you're not gonna pay your bills for three months, you can damned well expect to be shut off. I have no sympathy. (of course, I compulsively pay my bills about 2 weeks ahead of their due dates, so...)

bargle. anyhow, I gotta be up early tomorrow - voting day! I may not know much about who I want to vote for, but I know plenty about who I wanna vote against *sigh....*

night night peeps!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:25 a.m.//
//Tuesday, November 5, 2002//

snarpings! another happy (and uneventful) weekend has passed.

I got to work wednesday and found an e-mail from the support desk saying 'hey, remember that request to have halloween off that we denied you? well, someone else cancelled, so you win.' so I had a surprise 3-day weekend. lucky me, huh?

in a similar vein, I am now approved to get new year's eve and christmas eve off. I'm still pending for xmas day, though...*crosses fingers*

I have the cousin Itt hat, and was such for Halloween. It was immense fun. But I gotta say - being Cousin Itt is a *pain* in the ass! The one question I got most was 'Can you even see?' (answer: no, not really) And lord, what it did to my hair ;_;

but it was still fun ^________^

it is so cold in here that my caramels have turned into hard candies. My apartment's going to have steam heat this winter - when I want it to be warn, I crank the shower to super hot and let it run for 15 minutes with he bathroom and bedroom doors open x.x

and in News of the Dorky, I received mail for a certain unmentioned ex-roommate (apparently this person was in such a hurry to bug off that they neglected to leave a forwarding address at the post office) to the effect that this person has been overdrawn in their bank account for a month. The account will be closed and sent to the collections agency. With a $5 per-day fee for each of the 29 days it's been overdrawn. *snrk* Which is very amusing, even if it delays my own collections activity. (spekaing of which, does anyone know where I can find some goons-for-hire?) I am *so* tempted to e-mail them to say "Congratulations, your valiant attempt at becoming a functioning adult has failed utterly and miserably. And ignominiously."

I *still* can't believe the KSC dining commons had 'brazilian pork butt' on the menu. how the hell do you brazilian-ize pork butts anyhow?

I've worked out a system which allows me to actually eat during the week. this pleases me. see, every weekend I make some sort of dish that can be stretched for a week -- soup, stew, lasagna, spaghetti sauce, whatever. that's dinner all week long. which can get...old, especially since there are only so many recipes that can turn one package of meat into a week's worth of meals. But it's better than nothing. which, knowing me, is what I'd do otherwise. And really, two square meals a week just wouldn't cut it.

I also still can't believe I was up at seven yesterday morning. I went to bed at three, as normal, couldn't sleep, gave up at seven and did three and a half hours of housework, then took a nice long hot bath in the newly-cleaned tub. then I went to sleep for another 3 hours and woke up naturally. and the weirdest thing is, I don't really feel tired. maybe my body decided that 10 hours a night was more than enough, and it wouldn't hurt me to not sleep for a day. very odd.

and I still like my brother's quote - 'who the hell flipped the 'winter' switch?'

Do you know, I got a call from someone today whose cable was out. I couldn't find their account, so on a hunch, I looked at their town, and sure enough, that town was serviced by another cable company. when I asked the elderly lady whether she was aware of this, she replied. 'oh, yes, but their phones are busy, so I called you' As my sister would say '...the hell?'

I can't find my taped copes of 'clue' and 'ruthless people' this makes me very sad. I love those movies and they're not on all that often. Bah. I hope that rat bastard didn't run off with them.

i got a lot of compliments on my dark angel costume at work wednesday -- even won 2nd prize in the costume contest ^__^ I attribute it to the 'ugly duckling syndrome' - normally for work I just throw on some clothes, run a brush through my hair, and pin it back. no one ever sees me actually giving a damn about my appearance, so when I do, it's quite a shock.

I have been a sales machine these last 2 days. 15 premiums in just 3 sales. life is good ^____________^

this is actual dialogue between a customer and me...

me: you said this has been happening for over 24 hours, correct?

customer: that's right

me: and when was it that you first noticed the problem?

customer: yesterday

naw, really? I thought it was two hours ago *rolls eyes* of course, these are the same people that, no sooner than I asked the first, most basic troubleshooting question (is this happening on just one TV, or all of them?) then she sighed heavily and yelled to someone in the other room 'i told you we shouldn't call these idiots!'

ok, so if you can't manage to find the serial number on your box, we can usually bypass that stage of troubleshooting, but it's fairly important to establish whether the problem is happening to jsut one box or is happening to the whole house.

Besides, what did she *expect* us to do? just say 'ok' and wave some magical wand and fix it?

what is it with people who don't pay for months at a time? seriously, like three months, six months, or even longer sometimes. do these people not pay their electricity or phone bills either? newsflash, people - it doesn't matter whether the service is as essential as electricity or as fluffy as your eighth cell phone - if it's a bill, you gotta pay it!

is $17 to have your cable fixed after your dog chews through a wire really so bad? if you called out a TV repairman or an electrician, they'd charge a whole lot more. if it happened to your phone line and the phone company had to come out, they'd charge a whole lot more. if a pipe bursts and you have to call a plumber, it costs a whole lot more. if you've got a satellite dish and you call those guys out to fix it, it costs a whole lot more. where do people get the idea that we are supposed to fix everything for free - even when it's not our property?

And it's the people who complain that they should be able to buy and own their own cable boxes instead of paying rental fees to us each month who bitch the loudest about how this is all our property, we shouldn't charge for the service call.

california had a 194 car pileup today. no one was killed. life is strange.

the National Right to Life Committee is protesting Oregon's assited suicide bill. Is it just me, or is there something really wrong with that? For starters, is you're looking for assisted suicide, you're obviously waiving your right to life because you don't *want* it. having the right to something is not the same as *having* to have it. For another - these people believe in the right to live, but not the right to die? Why is the one more sacrosanct than the other?

anyone that has ever had a bitchy computer needs to go to www.ucomics.com and real the Foxtrot dated Oct 31st. you will die laughing. Kouri-chan, you especially!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:25 a.m.//
//Monday, November 4, 2002//

what the *fuck* am I doing up and wide-awake at this horrible ungodly hour?

//Hotohori last sparkled at 07:26 a.m.//
//Saturday, November 2, 2002//

Kouri-chan, I took that psychological disorder test thing you your blog, and I gotta say the results rather distubed me -.- I am seriously fucked up, according the that thing - I only got a 'low' rating on *two* of those disorders. Although the two I got 'high' ratings on I can see why -.-; I don't think I'll be posting the results, but if you're interested, e-mail or IM me for details.

on that note, I think I'll go to bed x.x;

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:57 a.m.//
//Saturday, November 2, 2002//

Meep, happy Yume-chan today! *beams*

I got an e-mail from our support desk today saying 'hey, you know that request to have Halloween off that we denied you? Well, someone cancelled, so you're off tomorrow after all. Lucky you!' *happydance*

I think I'll take a nice stroll in the park with all the autumn-y trees and maybe go apple picking or find a pumpkin to carve. Or I can pick up a hat and go trick-or-treating as Cousin Itt.

after all, since I won 2nd place in the costume contest, I have $10 to burn! ^__________^

and yes, I know I'm too old for trick-or-treating, but dammit, it's *fun*! *pouts*

Anyhow, we'll see what the morrow brings. Maybe I can find someone to hang out with or something *snorts*

And now for tonight's wacky pairings!

hatori/shigure *snrk* kouri-chan...

dilandau/hatori *shudders* Poor ha-chan...

hatsuharu/yuuto O_o

omi/shigure *giggles* I don't know why this is so funny, but it is

ayame/tsuzuki ^.^;;;;;;;

schuldig/brad *gurk*

duo/hisoka (I dunno what's wrong with this picture, but...)

hiro/duo (so close and yet so far...)

omi/treize (wrong, wrong, and *wrong*!)

shigure/kyou (I dunno if that's really funny or really disturbing...)

zechs/seishirou (so, if those two are voiced by the same person, would it sound like....erk, never mind. *really* don't wanna go there >.<)

kaoru/kamui (was kaoru getting his angst-ridden, dark-and-moody teens mixed up again?)

akito/muraki (i swear, with all the pairings I've seen involving muraki, akito, and farfie together, those three must have some sort of *really* sick thing goin' on... *hides*)

farfie/fuuma (and it appears sometimes they drag fuuma in on it, too...*shudders* Just...if they get dilandau in on it too, I *don't* wanna know!)

yuuto/sorata (whaddaya wanna bet that someone's tried writing this?)

wufei/ayame (wrong in so many ways...)

okee, nighty-night for me - tomorrow's a big day! *beams*

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:23 a.m.//
//Thursday, October 31, 2002//

meh. very *very* quiet today - I had something like 20 calls the whole day long.

i think I logged onto the software at work as someone else, because when I added notes to an account, it wasn't my user ID. but what I don't get is that our accounts are password protected, so how *could* I have? I didn't get an error message when I put in my password - just a prompt that my old password had expired and to change it. when I saw that, I hit cancel, thinking I may have mistyped something (my password shouldn't be anywhere near expiration) and re-logged in - being more careful. so why were my initials coming up as kct and not kvt? unless a) i was careless both times, *and* b) whoever kct is, they have the same password as me. when I logged out as them and logged back on with my own id, the password had *not* changed. so did I go and change some other poor sap's password? O_o (those aren't the real user IDs, btw. call me paranoid, but hey *shrug*)

i got some guy demanding to speak to the president of the company. Yeah, right, pal. Like any CEO is available at 11 o'clock at night. Like you'd be able to get through to him even if he were.

LotR extended version is available on pay-per-view on december first. I'd call that worth $4 *drools*

Speaking of which, have you ever noticed that if you read a summary of the Fellowship of the Ring, say on a movie jacket, it sounds *really* cheesy? I mean, 'some poor unsuspecting sap inherits a powerful magical artifact that has to be destroyed before the Dark Lord can find it and use it to enslave the earth'? C'mon, that sounds *bad*!

Some chick I talked to was spazzing because she was worried that the tech would be late for the appointment I was making, because she was taking time off of work for this and it was costing her money. not unusual - but when I asked who the account belonged to, she named 4 different people whose names it could be under. maybe *she* works 9-9 six days a week, but not *one* of them is *ever* home during *any* of the time frames we offer?

I got to talk to some very lovely people today. they just needed help programming their remote. I like those calls. the problem is easily solved, and when you get it working, people think you're a god. a lot of CCPs don't like those calls because they get impatient when people are slow to understand. But you know, it was just a couple of months ago that the thought of trying to program a remote control was terrifyingly complex, so I can sympathize. It's all about communication, people. you can't assume that joe caller knows one one-hundredth of what you do, because he doesn't. And why should he? Did *he* have 6 days of intensive technical training? Nope! And that's what I tell all the poor people who apologize for being morons and bothering me for something so stupid. *chuckles* Talk about 'there, but for the grace of god, go I'!

I love the dinks that call up at nine o'clock at night and demand that we have a tech out at 8 am the next day, and anything less 'simply is not acceptable', and they 'will *not* settle for anything less'. I always feel really bad for dragging my super over to talk to these yutzes. Even if it is fun to watch him take them apart. He did something especailly amusing with this one, though I'm not saying what it is in a public forum. Don't wanna give the company a bad image, after all ^.~ Ask me privately and I'll cheerfully tell ^__^

And I got a hell of a nasty surprise -- apparently the manager of the call center was listening to calls and thinks she heard me tell a customer that the boxes were being 'crappy'. Now, you guys all know me; those of you in the area have probably seen me in action at work, and you know I *don't* swear in front of customers. After four plus years in public service, self-censorship just becomes second nature, even when you're matching a customer's speech patterns. Casual speech, yes - profanity, never. It's just drilled into me. I spent a good part of the evening confused and not a little upset. I think I figured out what it was, though - I bet that what I said was that the boxes were being *crabby*. Easy enough word to mistake for the other, and I *can* picture telling a customer that. Heck, I've told customers that their boxes were having a bad hair day. I mentioned it to my super and he thinks I'm probably right. He said he'd mention it to the manager, and let me know what comes of it, too -- which raises him up a *whole* lot in my estimation. It's one thing to back your employees up when talking to a nasty customer, but to do so in front of the bigwigs is a lot rarer. I hope it all turns out ok. I'd *really* hate for the big boss-lady to know nothing about me except for thinking that I use language in front of the customers. Especially since I've only been on the job for a few months and haven't had time to make enough of a good impression that something like this would be widely known to be ridiculous.

No time for pairings tonight - tomorrow is 'costume day' at work tomorrow, and I need my beauty sleep! ^.~

I wanted to be cousin Itt, but I don't have the hat *pouts*

//Hotohori last sparkled at 01:41 a.m.//
//Wednesday, October 30, 2002//

just random musings today...

how does someone manage to hear 'ten to twelve' when I say that their appointment is from 'one to three'?

The same dork who messed up the DVD promotion screwed up again on another account I dealt with. Man, I'd give my right arm to find out who it was so I could give them hell and a half for it.

why is it that when I tell a customer they can't get what they want, then don't believe me, but when my boss comes on and tells them the exact same thing, they believe him?

and *why*, if her mother's billing problem was such a major issue that it was giving the lady heart palpitations, did she allow it to go on for over a year without ever once bringing it to our attention?

And what right does some dipshit have, if he decides he only needs to be home by 4h30 for a 3-5 appointment, then finds that we've already been and gone, to demand that the tech come back out today? dude, that's a mere quarter of the appointment window! he bitched about having to dance around our schedule, but if couldn't make the damned appointment, why the fuck didn't he just *say* so? We have evening appointments, we work saturdays, we don't mind if you have a stand-in be home for you - you can't *ever* be home?

is it just me, or is there something especially disturbing about a *nursing* student pulling a gun on his classmates?

...and on the lighter side, I found a hilarious fic at ff.net - honda tohru and the 7 chibi sohmas. trust me, it's hilarious.

and today's random pairings! yay!

trowa/muraki *shudder*

seishirou/tatsumi (how much stuff d'you think would get blown to smithereens in the process?)

wufei/seishirou *snrk*

duo/shigure (ergh)

akito/muraki *hides under the bed*

shigure/subaru (is it just me, or is there something wrong about that?)

muraki/shigure (ok, my brain's hurting now. must run away)

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:17 a.m.//
//Tuesday, October 29, 2002//

well, the good news is that today was a nice quiet day at work. 23 calls in 8 hours ^_^

the bad news is that I had the dubious pleasure of speaking to one of the most truly frightening people I've ever had to deal with in my entire four plus years of public service.

this woman was not sane. she started off by warning me that she'd already hung up on 3 people tonight and would do the same to me if I didn't do what she wanted. that much didn't bother me. what bothered me was after that - she said a single channel was down and demanded I send an e-mail to our support desk (which is standard procedure, at least). I said I would and then went on to say that if that didn't work, we could send a tech out to fix her problem. that's when she started screaming 'no! no! no! you won't send anyone out! I won't let you!' she was just sane enough to be frightening. deeply paranoid - demanded to know if we had her social security number, insisted that there was a 'do not call' notation on the account, wanted to know if we were recording the call, and commanded me to make no notes on her account about anything. insisted that I email the support desk right there and then, while she was on the phone. this was her 9th call of the night, incidentally. she'd been the same way with everyone. just totally irrational without being nonsensical. it was amazing - dozens of notes all over the account, all pretty much exactly the same. she did all of the above, every time she called - which was always at least 4 or 5 times a night, whenever she got it into he head to call us. I managed to pacify her, but *christ*, was she scary! I've been screamed at plenty of times before, but always by people who are sane enough, just assholes. Never before by someone who was honest-to-god unhinged, and there's no question in my mind that this woman was. the mere thought of anyone coming to her house sent her literally into screaming hysterics. people who make no sense, I can deal with. those, you just nod and smile. people who are yelling because they're throwing temper tantrums over not getting their way, that's easy. those, you just be coldly polite and say 'that's the way it is' until they ask to talk to the boss. this was a whole other ballpark

the only people scarier than her were the drugged-up ogres who tried to steal from my store one time. few things scarier than people twice your height and four times your weight, who obviously have no respect for laws whatsoever.

i'm always amused at the people who think they know more about what I'm doing than I do. newsflash, people - I do this 40 hours a week. i *do* happen to know what I'm doing.

I got a real gem tonight - this guy has two type A boxes and a type B, an older model. the first type A box has no sound on two of the channels - except during commericals. then the sound is fine. the second type A box goes to all static, on all channels, every five to ten minutes. the type B box is fine ^.^;

and then there was the guy with no account. he called us up to see why his cable had been shut off, and he had no records of ever having had cable with us. i searched by name, address, phone #, social security number, a whole passel of different account numbers - even tried side-searches. Nothing. So I set him up as a new connect. God only knows how long he'd been getting free cable -.-;

and I think I'm gonna call it a day. my bed is calling my name...

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:13 a.m.//
//Monday, October 28, 2002//

Hello, peeps! totally ordinary day today. unless you count my little culinary mishap. it wasn't *my* fault the recipe didn't mention that it serves twelve! even if I did modify it..just a little...^.^;; hey, at least it tastes good! (which is a damned good thing, when you consider that I'll be eating it for the next two weeks...)

and congrats to anshin, who's getting married. i wish them both the best of luck, and apologize for the fact that the first thing that popped into my head on hearing the news was 'may god have mercy on their souls' ^.^;;;; (yes, I *do* have a severe allergy to committment - how'd you guess?) if it's any consolation, guys, that's been my knee-jerk reaction whenever I've heard that *any* of my friends are getting married x.x

boo has decided she gets to sleep on top of my. she climbs up ad goes all sprawly. it's very cute. also cute was when she hugged my leg. granted, she was attacking me at the time, but it was still cute :p

I found the funniest quote on the web today -- "And I will go up to the one-eyed man and say 'Hello. My name is Sumeragi Subaru. You killed my sister. Prepare to die.' " *dies laughing*

and one of the more amousing pictures as well -- http://arcana.keenspace.com/images/trip_sign.jpg *snrk* and another that, well, there's just something *wrong* about this concept... http://arcana.keenspace.com/images/trip_cemetery.jpg

oh, and some dork got shot by his dog while hunting. seriously, it was on CNN.com today.

More whacked-out pairings...yay!

momiji/fuuma (wrong on so many levels)

akito/shigure (and I *don't* want to hear about anyone attempting it!)

watari/hisoka (that might actually make an interesting... no, never mind...i think the site finally broke my brain)

Subaru/seishirou!!! Tada! even if it is backwards...

momiji/watari (I'm going to pretend I didn't see that one)

farfarello/watari (I'm *really* gonna pretend I didn't see that one!)

ayame/akito *laughs hysterically*

dilandau/shigure (poor gure-san)

yuki/shinji (i dunno, I think they'd have a lot in common. a total lack of self-esteem, for one...)

kyou/tsuzuki (my brain hurts)

momiji/muraki (*spoink* see above.)

hisoka/sorata (?!)

haru/heero *snicker*

schuldig/tatsumi (wrongwrongwrong)

I have infected two more people with this site, aletta and joy-chan (whose pairings you can see on her own blog, linked below) Yay! Some of Aletta's are...

Heero/Hisoka (eek)

seishiro/muraki (i dunno, that could be good for muraki. I got the reverse, myself)

Hatori/Ayame (argh!!!!)

and a quote -- "I guess if I signed up for a random top to bottom and got seishiro as my top I'd look like somebody just gave me an ice water enema too." *giggles madly*

you know, what with the stuffed rabbit, I'm just really glad that kuroneko-sama isn't in there somewhere....and has anyone else (besides joy-chan) noticed that the stuffed rabbit appears *only* on the seme side? that is truly wrong. in so many ways.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:25 a.m.//
//Sunday, October 27, 2002//

ugggh, back from the week of hell. Tuesday town A's upgrade went horribly wrong, resulting in 50% of cable converter boxes getting stuck on one channel. Wednesday, the same thing happened in town B - and town A wasn't fixed yet. Thursday, both towns were down. People were pissed, and the poor support desk was trying frantically to keep up with things by putting out a new fix every half hour - each of which would promptly get backlogged to hell. It wasn't pretty.

And it *snowed*! *extreme disgust* It isn't even *november* yet, for chrissakes!

we're having a sales day on my birthday and I could win some fun prizes. I already got the day off, but I'm thinking of repealing my request. I don't have any plans or anything...but then, my luck with drawings have never been good - and that's assuming that I actually make my goal.

we had a meeting with the marketing department wednesday. 300 calls waiting in queue, and they pulled 25 of us from the floor for an hour and a half. you know those Dilbert cartoons where dilbert goes to the marketing department and it's a fantastic paradise? I understand those cartoons now. I'm sorry, but every call is *not* a sales opportunity. when some guy's bitching at me because he hasn't been able to watch the cable he's already paying for for the last 3 days, I'm *not* going to be able to pitch him a bunch of *new* services! nor will I take the time to, when there's 300 calls waiting. I am a *customer care* professional. and while it may be poor service to leave customer in ignorance about products that might suit their needs better than what they have now, it's *worse* service to make them wait.

And another amusing thing is that they're telling us to offer discounts and free upgrades left, right, and center, when less than a month ago, we got 'revenue assurance' training, which said we weren't ever supposed to offer free anything - even if it meant losing the customer.

Oh, and then there's the new improved '30 day money back guarantee, *plus* free installation' on *all* services as a 'last-ditch attempt' to close the sale. my only question on that one is whether it'll be the customers or the salespeople abusing it more.

Granted, I *do* agree with offering free digital upgrades. who's gonna pay a $16 install fee to get a new box when they know they like the box they have? But still, a free upgrade on *everything*, free installations left right and center, *and* what amounts to 30-day free trial on *everything*? Why even *have* these charges and fees if you're never gonna levy them?

Most of us walked out of that meeting and proceeded to ignore everything we'd just been told. After all, the real world was waiting, massive call volumes and all.

and my cubemate moved, which is a bummer, because she was nice, my age, and the closest thing to social contact at work I had. The others are always remarking on how quiet I am. Should it worry me that I get so little social interaction at work when I have none at home at all?

I *detest* ad websites that override your homepage and set themselves as it, or add themselves to your bookmarks, or redirect you back to their page whenever you try to leave the page, so that all you can do is close the browser. Some of this crap seems uncannily virus-like for my taste...

*pokes* Kouri-chan, what happened to your fic page? I went by there and it had been eaten.

And I just got the *scariest* freaking pairing on the random generator - Farfarello/Akito. *shudders violently*

And then there's Kyou/treize *snrk*

Dark/Daisuke? Isn't that impossible?

Kyou/hatori?! BWAHAHAHA!!!!

momiji/yuki? eek!

Tatsumi/wufei...yikes...

And *why* do they have a stuffed rabbit in there?!

ok, my brain hurts now. beddy time.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:54 a.m.//
//Saturday, October 26, 2002//

blergh, a day of much sneepfulness. we had an entire city and a half go down, and I swear to god every single person in both of those cities called us. And no surprise -- the world series was playing! of *course* the lines were buzzing. the queue was over 300 people deep for at least two solid hours. thank god most of them (most) were decent about it.

you know, it's funny, we get these people who leave their converter boxes turned on twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, and get snarky when their boxes have problems. do you leave your stereo on 24-7? your TV? how about your VCR? Like most pieces of precision equipment, cable converter boxes really aren't meant to be left on all the time - especially those models that need to be off in order to communicate wtih us x.x;;

I had some guy call me up, bark at me to make a change on his account, get pissed when I asked for the necessary information to authorize him to make the change, and then hang up on me the second he was done verifying himself. Ten bucks says he'll call back pissed when he sees the $1.99 transaction fee that I didn't have a chance to mention to him. And god help him if he gets pissed about the missing channels which I also didn't have time to explain about, especially if he wants his old package back - an outdated package which is no longer going to exist, which he can't change back to - another little detail he didn't allow me to mention. *snrk*

I love the people who turn down appointment after appointment because they won't be home, then get pissed when the soonest appointment we have that fits their needs is a week out. 'you can't get someone out sooner?' of course we can, you just don't want to have someone be there for it. we're supposed to have our techs monkeying around on ladders and climbing poles and roofs at ten o'clock at night? get real. honestly, I think we're pretty flexible - for trouble calls, we hae appointments from 8 AM to 7 PM, we work saturdays, and we don't insist that the account owner be present, just *someone* over the age of 18. Friend, neighbor, relative, we don't give a damn. If you can't find *anyone* that fits that description, you're sad. Not to mention that we man the phones 24-7, 365 days a year. I can't get through to my damned doctor at two in the morning, but I can call my cable company! *And* we offer an on-time guarantee, *and* the most we charge for a trouble call is $17, *if* we charge at all... C'mon, people, compared to most utilities, I'd have to say we stack up pretty good!

I had the twiggiest call -- this poor bastard's TV had a picture on the top half of the screen while the bottom half was displaying computer code! Some it sounded rather like HTML - URLs and all O_o; And he didn't have a converter box, so it wasn't just a gremlin-possessed box. I can't wait to see what *that* turns out to be!

What makes a person decide to pay off their account after it's $800 and 500+ days delinquent? It didn't occur to you to maybe get around to it a little sooner?

you know, a lot of the time when there's an outage, we put a message on the phone line for people calling from that district. you know the kind - 'yes, we know about the outage and we're working on it. we'll get it fixed as fast as we can' My co-worker had somebody call in and go 'hey, I live in blahtown and there was a message on your phone that said we're having an outage.' ...yes, you're having an outage. we've already established this. what's your point?

I had some guy today ask me if I'd ever eaten moose meat. we get some *weirdos*.

I need to call about getting a cell phone. I don't want one and I can't afford one - really, I dislike the little bastards. but having a 25 minute commute home every night at midnight, I *know* sooner or later my car's gonna die, and I *really* don't wanna get stuck out on route 3, listening to murphy laugh his ass off, when it does.

Speaking of murphy, I have a new law for him -- if you grab a bowl full of food, the place your thumb lands will be the one place where the food inside slopped up and left a smear on the rim.

Oh, and Kouri-chan - I watched the video. that was the funniest damn thing on earth. for the rest of you, said video is an 'explanation' of yaoi, set to the song 'what's this?' from nightmare before xmas *snickers wildly*

and I've decided that the random yaoi pairing generator is so funny it's going on my links list. Here's just a handful of it's mad creations (yes, it's seme/uke)...

zechs/hatori (hmmm...)

omi/wufei (injustice! *snrk*)

treize/momiji (O_o;; shouta, anyone?)

fuuma/akito (scariest freaking couple on earth)

shuichi/heero (whoa, backwards!!)

sorata/ayame (bwahaha!)

fuuma/farfie (did I say scary?)

tsuzuki/dilandau (ARGH!)

schuldig/shinji (Like the kid wasn't f*&%ed-up enough as it was!)

dilandau/quatre (just...yikes)

momiji/akito (O_O!!!)

trowa/treize (Didn't I see a fic on this?)

kakyou/hatusharu (....meep....)

treize/brad (megolamaniacs, unite!)

ayame/kamui (*laughs her ass off* Lucky Kamui!!)

I'll be posting more of these - I suspect that this website will become a nightly ritual.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:30 a.m.//
//Wednesday, October 23, 2002//

meepage! Kimura-kins and Kouri-chan, you guys will be gratified to know that your seaquest ex-obsession helped me to solve this week's TV Guide crossword. thanks, guys! ^o^

my chibi boo-chan has hairballs again. poor thing sounds so wretched ;_;

I was driving behind a school bus the other day, and naturally the kids were making faces at me. So I made faces back. It was great fun ^_^

my phone is fixed. yay! now to just wait for the next phone bill and pray that the $80 doesn't appear...*knocks on wood*

dude, at work I talked to this guy with the *hottest* Australian accent! Think Paul Mercurio, those of you who've seen Strictly Ballroom or Exit to Eden, and you'll know what I mean - he sounded a *lot* like him. It was hard to converse through the drool! ^o^

how does anyone run up a $400 cable bill in just a month? It boggles the mind...

speaking of boggling the mind, you'd never believe how often people hesitate when I ask for their phone number and/or address. ok, maybe some of them have just moved and have new info, but still...incredible.

Speaking of addresses, there's a frightening number of people out there who don't seem to understand what that word means. Say their address is 330 main street, apartment 37, Boston, Mass, 02115. When I ask for their address, they invariably reply '330 main street.' ...yes? and? there's more to it than that, ya know!

and then there's all the people who, through an oversight on our part, have been receiving $45/month worth of cable for $7/month - and get incredibly pissy when we realize the oversight and install the filter that locks out those extra channels. and you should see the fur fly when we tell them that if they want those channels back, they have to pay for them. 'I wasn't paying for them before, why should I pay for them now?' Is it just me, or is that seriously bass-ackwards? A co-worker of mine even had one woman trying to tell her today that we ought to compensate her for her trouble!

oh, and I had this guy whose pay-per-view got shut off because he ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of PPV porn. so he's calling me up trying to get me to put on 'a movie' for him. I tell him no way. he says we told him it was ok as long as he called, rather than ordering with the remote. there's notes right on the account 'customer will claim we told him it's ok if he calls instead of using IPPV. It's not' So he gets all pissy and says he's paying for this (PPV is an essentially complimentary service) and what right do we have to make his life difficult when all he wants is to sit down with his family and watch a nice movie. Uh-huh - like it was *really* 'bambi' that you were gonna order? at quarter till midnight? suuuuuuuure....

sometimes it surprises me how embarrassed guys are about ordering that stuff. they must have no idea how many calls we get for that each day. they are so utterly ordinary as to not draw our attention in the slightest (unless the person ordering is a really old coot - ew). besides, it's not like we have any idea who they are, or vice versa (though haivng a local call center ups the odds just a wee bit)

and I really detest those reps who, when somebody calls in because their box isn't working, just sends a signal to the box and tells the customer to wait an hour and see if it helps. sending a signal takes effect typically with 2-3 minutes. hello, talk about first-call resolution? taking ownership of a call? try actually *solving* the problem, people! lazy lard-butts... I'm no fan of trouble calls myself, the customers are unhappy from the get-go and they're a bitch on sales. but that doens't mean I make them stew for an hour, only to vent of some other poor unsuspecting bastard. and the really irritating part is that these dorks probably have really good looking stats because of it. Nice short call times, because *they* never take the 45 minutes to *really* figure out what's wrong. pretty good sales figures too, I bet, because if they don't think they can sell, they just offload the caller and wait for something better.

Gah. anyhow, bed now. night! *waves to her adoring public*

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:54 a.m.//
//Tuesday, October 22, 2002//

bleh, late. narf to all addictive stories. but I just had to blog this down quick, the rest of the narf I can save for later (can you tell from the language that it's 3h30 am?)

I have gotta be the luckiest sonovabitch on earth. I got clocked going 77 in a 55 mph zone, and got off with a warning. the cop came back and he was like 'now, if you live up the road, you must know that the speed limit here's 55, and you were going 22 over that. you must've known you were speeding...' and I thought I was about to get my ass nailed to the wall. but then he continued 'I'm going to let you off with a warning tonight...' and I totally couldn't believe my ears! and it wasn't even a written warning, just a verbal one. so if I get stopped again, they won't have a record of it! i swear I was hyperventilating when I pulled back onto the highway. Hee! *.*

going to go flop to bed now. night-night all!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:30 a.m.//
//Monday, October 21, 2002//

well, here's my third weekend cooped up alone in the house. my phone is still dead, so I can't even call anyone. I know I'm solitary, but a month with no human contact outside of work is starting to get old. ah, well, sucks to be me.

I got my film developed. Either Anki, Kimura, or Aletta is going to die. That is all I have to say.

I dipped my fingertip in boiling water today. courtesy of some burnt-out nerves, it took me a couple of seconds to notice. and then I didn't do anything about it but blow on it to cool it off. i think my brain went south for the winter.

the junk e-mail I get has suddenly reduced itself to two messages a day or less. I think someone installed a spambuster when I wasn't looking.

And the one errand I really needed to run today, I forgot. I can't run it tomorrow because if the phone people need ot get into my apartment while I'm not here, I'll get whacked with the $80 fee - *and* the problem won't get fixed.

tomorrow i think I'm going to do my nails, have a long hot bath, play doom, and otherwise rot my brain. For now, though, I'm going to bed.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:29 a.m.//
//Saturday, October 19, 2002//

hey, just a quickie blurb for Kimura-chan about your rant. I found out a long time ago that you can't give until there's nothing left, because if you're giving your all, there there's nothing there to give. which doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but I'm having a hard time with the words. anyhow, you can be selfless, you can give 'till it hurts, but when you do, you're defeating the purpose because you're not in good enough shape to do anyone any good - yourself or the people you're trying to help.

maybe here's a way to look at it -- think of blood donors. if you gave every last drop of blood in your body, that's something like eight pints (please forgive if that number is insane) - and of course, it would kill you. Real-life blood donors give some, and keep some for themselves, and that way they can keep healthy, keep happy, and keep giving blood. Someone who takes care of themselves can donate over *270 pints* in a lifetime - that's a whole lot more than someone who gave it their all and burnt themsleves out in the process.

you *do* have to find a balance, or you just end up hurting. true, sustained selflessness is only possible for those who take real and honest joy in selflessness - and those folk are, have always been, and will always be as rare as a summer snowstorm. Be selfless if you want, but be yourself, too. Sometimes you have to be selfish to survive.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:09 a.m.//
//Friday, October 18, 2002//

Sneep, everyone. I actually got to talk to decent people today! I had to set this one dude up to have a tech come out and fix his cable. so I said 'let me see what I have available in the calendar' and he was like 'oh, no hurry, whatever you have is fine.' and when I told him that if the tech was late or missed the appointment he'd get $20, he's like 'oh, whatever, I don't care about all that.' goddamn, why can't *all* my callers be like that?

And another poor sap had been out for five days and then when he called, he got accidentally disconnected twice. And yet he was still perfectly pleasant.

It really is partly a matter of give and take. Yeah, there are some people who are gonna be dipshits no matter what, but the vast majority of people who call up steaming at the ears are perfectly normal, decent people who've just had a really bad experience - a box that keeps dying, an encounter with a really rude rep, or a vanished payment that resulted in a nonpay disconnection. And when they see that you're sympathetic, competent, and honestly *trying* to help them, they calm down fast. listen while they blow off a little steam, empathize with their annoyance, and then fix whatever's wrong - quickie recipe for happy customers. (most of the time -.-;)

Even some of the jerks have a hard time being jerks in the face of a persistently nice person. Some of them... It's funny, though - every once in a while you can acutally *hear* them getting ashamed *snicker*

And then I was looking over a bunch of feedback that people had sent to incompetent reps, and I found one complaint stating 'this person issued a $700 credit on an account. please review proper procedures for crediting accounts.' Now, to put this in perspective, $700 is like nine month's worth of service for a full-bells-and-whistles account, a year and a half if they just have standard cable. We reps are normally limited to $10 credits x.x

And then there's the woman who was protesting her box couldn't be broken, it was brand new. I looked at the account, and it was added back in january -.-;

my chest hurts and I don't know why. It's too early and too warm for the usual crap, and I'm not sick. very annoying.

I love the dorks who get indignant when there's a wait to be reconnected after a non-pay disconnection. I always wanna say 'well, if you didn't wanna get shut off, then you should've paid your cable bill!' I had one of those today. It always seems to be the people who are most addicted to the boob tube that are worst about paying for it. one of these days, I'm gonna snap, and when they bitch about 'I pay out the nose every month for this crap' I'm going to reply, 'no, sir, you're not paying anything at all, and that's the problem!'

I'm still working on this one account I've taken ownership of. The customer is 92 days delinquest with a $400 balance, of which $230 is late. Oh, and the owner has tried to pay it off with fraudulent credit cards at least half a dozen times. I've already put in one nonpay disconnect for her, but someone cancelled it after she made a payment that was probably less that the delinquent balance. (not kosher, in case you were wondering) At least the payment wasn't on a credit card *sigh* I'm not sure why, but being the stubborn bitch I am, I've decided I'm gonna keep setting up disconnects for this yutz until she finally pays off the balance. I can't keep other reps from doing stupid shit, but occasionally I can counteract it. And in case you were wondering, it's not malice -- we're *supposed* to do things like set up manual nonpay discoes, if we see an account that needs one. not to mention that ownership of and follow-up on accounts are encouraged.

anyhow, I got to bed early tonight *hugglies to all* later!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:34 a.m.//
//Friday, October 18, 2002//

My phone died. Verizon says it'll cost over $80 to fix it. So I hope no one wants to call me, because it looks like my phone may be playing dead for a little while. Unless I can somehow rearrange my budget so I'm spending negative $60 this month on groceries to cover the difference. You know how much *our* company charges to fix the phone? $17 - if they charge at all. God, I can't wait till we get phone service in Nashua. I'm gonna drop Verizon so fast it'll make them sick. And I'm gonna get stuck paying $25 a month for service I'm not getting, because I'll bet my ass they won't credit for the outage, and I can't disconnect temporarily, because reconnection will cost me $40. Of course, having the phone dead, I frankly doubt if I'll even notice the difference. Unless you count getting to stay asleep in the morning because the telemarketers can't get through. Thank god I have cable internet - as antisocial as I am, if I didn't even get *that* facsimile of human interaction, I'd be a sad, pathetic being indeed. More of one, anyhow.

And I need a new mattress. the old one's springs wore a hole and started poking me. I flipped it over, but it's not the kind of mattress you're supposed to be able to do that with, so it's all vinyl-y and makes crackling noises. But since it'll be a cold day in hell when I can afford acutal furniture, it looks like I'm stuck with vinyl crackle noises.

I rescued a chibi toad today. Not unusual. The unusual part is that I rescued it from my cat. It was a very small and cute toad. Just don't ask me how it got into the house.

But then, the fire I made the other day made a smoke ring at me, so maybe it's just my week for weird phenomenon.

You know, it's funny when people get all accusatory at me for not being able to fix their cable over the phone. It's like 'did it ever occur to you that the problem might actually be physical, and even if I know exactly what's wrong, I don't have a little fairy godmother wand that I can wave and make things unbroken?'

it's also funny when people call me up because they've scheduled an appointment wherein the technician is due to arrive between three and five PM, and they want to know where he is. nothing funny about that, you say? there is when they're calling at 3h30. That call was my old-record-breaker for most premature 'where's the tech' call.

And I love the people who'd rather have their grievance than a solution. Some old coot was bitching that his favorite program was taken off the air, and I told him that it was the station's decision, not ours, and I'd be happy to provide him with the phone number where he could voice his opinion. He preferred to bitch at me about how there was nothing good on TV these days.

I really wanted to strangle this one guy who was having problems. really sweet old man, and he was trying his best, but no matter what I told him to do, he did something else. 'all right, now we're going to push the power button on the TV set' 'ok, I did that, and the time came on' '...the time came on. on the box or on the TV?' 'on the box.' 'did you press the power button on the box or on the TV?' 'on the box.' He *kept* getting the two crossed. It was the simplest damned problem on earth - the TV wasn't on channel 03, and the box wasn't turned on. I could have walked any sane person through the fix in two minutes flat, but this dude made me twenty minutes late for dinner -- and I got the call ten minutes before I was *supposed* to have gone for it.

today has just been a royally shitty day. I'm going to go take a long, hot shower, cuddle my cat, and sleep lots. Thank god I just have to survive tomorrow before I get some weekend.

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:48 a.m.//
//Thursday, October 17, 2002//

blep! much talky today. long rambliness. I am still tired, last night was another wake-up-every-5-minutes night. thirsty, thirsty, hot, thirsty, cold, thirsty, thirsty...I went through nearly 3 whole glasses of water last night x.x

i rescued my plants from the cold. they will now be indoor plants until spring, which makes my apartment looks something like a jungle. they looked smaller when they were outside. but that is good - maybe help the seasonal depression if I can get a little green going. you should've seen me trying to detatch that damned fern from the railings -- took five minutes. boo's already trying to eat it, which isn't a bad thing. for one, it's got thorns, so it can take care of itself, and for another, the thing is four feet in diameter - it won't hurt to lose a twig or two

I saw the *funniest* damned bumper sticker today. it read "Hey idiot - you're driving a car, not a phone booth!" I *died*!

I can't believe Jerry Falwell called Mohammed a terrorist. That's like saying Jesus was a pedophile. Just...wow. fuckin' retard.

some poor dude I talked to today must have hung up feeling like a royal idiot. he says 'hey, I ordered the NHL PPV sports package, but I can't get tonight's game, it's all black' I said 'all right, we can certainly take a look at that for you.' and he said 'oh, wait...it's because the bruins are playing, right?' Right! we don't include those in the pay-per-view package because they air on local channels - not really fair to charge for what they can get for free, ne? he seemed rather in a hurry to hang up after that ^o^

and speaking of stupid, the guy who couldn't get a picture because his box wasn't turned on? Yi! again, nice to be able to roll my eyes while still talking chirpily. bet he felt like a yutz, huh?

Dude, these people I talked to yesterday had *8* TVs! For cable TV alone, they were getting whomped for over $120 a month! heck, nearly $50 of that was in equipment rental fees alone! O_o;

my breaks are annoying me. you have to be *doing* something on your break, or people ask you if you're ok. well, it's too cold to go to my car now, and I don't eat much at work, so what do I do on my break? sit around and daydream, pretty much. I gotta find a nice hidey-hole where I can do so in peace. Preferably one that isn't inhumanly cold.

why do people think that yelling at me for 5 minutes without providing me any information about their account is going to accomplish something? hello, if I can't *see* your accuont, I can't *fix* it! if you actually want the problem *resolved*, you have to work with me, even just a little! some woman called up, bitched herself blue in the face, demanded a $40 credit, and when I said I'd be happy to look into, hung up on me. I think she thought I was going to give her the credit after psychically asking my telephone for her account number or something.

I was in the middle of a call yesterday when my computer just went freaking nuts. something about performing a physical memory dump. it started scrolling numbers across the screen like mad in a full-screen DOS shell. I feel bad for the person I was talking to at the time x.x

some dork out there is running around stealing sales. this dork took my cubemate's order, cancelled it, and re-entered it under his own salesperson's number. we managed to find out who it was, but for some reason, she's not e-mailing his super. she says it won't do any good *shrugs* if it were me, I'd be howling the house down!

I actually managed to defuse a supervisor call today ^_^ some dork calling up demanding an installation later that day and if there's nothing available "then cancel someone to get me in" *rolls eyes* I managed to get the point across by telling him firmly that *no* we can't just randomly cancel someone else's appointment without their knowledge or consent, and *no* we couldn't get him anything sooner, and that's simply the way it was. like dogs, you just gotta be stern. and tell them that you'll check for cancellations morning noon and night and call if anything sooner opens up *cough cough*

which leads me to ponder the fact that these people invariably act like cable is a dire necessity in their lives. they're always like 'I'm gonna be without TV for six whole days?! what am I supposed to do without TV for six days?!' One of these days I'm gonna snap and recommend the library. or tell them that surprise, watching TV is *not* a necessary life function. or that *I* survived twenty-five whole *years* without TV!

remember what I said about the biggest deadbeats being the first to tell us what good customers that are? I have a corollary for that one - it's always the people who have just basic, or just standard - no boxes - who bitch first about how much a month they're paying for this shit, when it doesn't even work' I didn't hear the guy with the $120 a month bill telling me that, no sir! It's the ol' biddy who pays $35!

we started the project from hell today. from now until the end of december, we're electronically shutting down 1,000 cable boxes a day that are in people's homes, but not being paid for. what I wanna know is, how the hell did things get to the point where we had 90,000 unpaid-for boxes out there? doesn't anyone ever *do* this particular audit? and they the hell don't they have something in place that would generate a charge automatically whenever a box is assigned to an account? and *why* did they have to delete the serial number off of the account instead of simply disabling it? do you know how hard it is to get some of these morons to find the serial number on a cable box???

somebody called me up today to ask if he needed to program his new remote. I said 'well, it's possible, new remotes do sometimes need programming. but don't worry, we can walk you through that.' then he said 'but it works already' 'it works?' 'yeah.' 'well, then, I'd have to say you're all set.' 'ok, I just wanted to be sure' -.-;;;

but you know, just when you think the world is populated entirely by morons and assholes... some fellow called up because his appointment was supposed to have been from 3-5 today, and it was 6 and the tech hadn't shown up. would I be so kind as to tell him what had happened? I look up the account and cringe. the appointment's from 3-5, all right -- on october 24th. and it's an installation, too, which means he'll have zilch for the next week and a half. we can't even reschedule according to the 'missed or late' policy (which could get a tech out the next day), because the tech didn't miss or be late for the appointment, the appointment just hadn't happened yet. and needless to say, ther's nothing available in the calendar that's any sooner than the 24th. Naturally, I'm expecting the guy to go ballistic. Imagine my pleasant surprise when he's very nice and accepting of the whole thing, even though he was positive he'd been told the appointment was today. 'oh, all right then. well, we'll see you folks on the 24th, in that case.'

and I sold two $140 pay-per-view sports packages today -- go me! ^o^

everyone has to go take the 'which kind of kitty are you?' test! I got 'british shorthair' (Chrissy-neko!) but that doesn't count because it was trying to tell me I'm all cute and cuddy (?!) http://www.nekorevolution.net/test/t_kii.html

erk, it's now 4 am. blarg. and here I was gonna go to bed early because I'm tired...bye!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 03:01 a.m.//
//Wednesday, October 16, 2002//

*yawn* Tired day. Woke up thirsty at least a dozen times last night ;_; And I'm *cold*! I know, I'm just spoiled because it got cold so late last year, but the thought that it's gonna be like this, or worse, for the next 8 months depresses the hell out of me. The fleece blanket is draped over my computer chair, which makes it Officially Cold. It doesn't help that the office is *freezing*. I wore my warmest, thickest sweater today, and I *still* sat shivering for the whole eight hours. I'm spending my lunch break in a damned stairwell becaues it's the only part of the building that even vaguely resembles warm. Makes me feel like a damned hobo.

Oh, and here's something everyone needs to see -- game shows' most outrageous moments!

'name an animal with 3 letters in its name' 'alligator!'

'name a part of a person's body that there are more than 2 of' 'arms!'

Thingy. I had more interesting stories from work today, but I forgot to bring home the little paper that I wrote them on, so I don't remember any of them. Does this make me pathetic?

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:36 a.m.//
//Tuesday, October 15, 2002//

Sneep! it has been a very back and forth day. I had one hysterical call and one grind-your-teeth aggravation. So here's the funny story...

I'm trying to get a caller to describe her remote, so I know which model it is. I need to know this so I can give her instructions for it. Here is the actual dialogue...

Me - 'so, the number buttons on your remote, are they round? square? shaped like numbers?' Her - 'oh, they're just normal.' Me - '...ok, and what shape are they?' Her - 'they're in good shape!'

and later in the conversation...

Me 'is the box turned on right now?' Her - 'no.' Me - 'okay, we're going to...' Her - 'gimme a sec to turn this off'

and last but not least...from that *same* call...

her - 'ok, I'm gonna go unplug the remote and replace the batteries.'

And then the incident of much argfulness. We recently ran a promotion wherein new customers could get a free DVD player when signing up for cable. Now, this is for *new* customers only. It goes without saying that we had plenty of *current* customers who *really* wanted that DVD player. I had this one wretch who bitched and connived that *her* ad only said 'new *digital* customers'. well, the ad also says 'some restrictions apply' - we even got an e-mail about *that* exact ad.

so I told her she wasn't eligible, she argued herself blue in the face, I offered the 'consolation prize' (a free month of our gold package), she hung up on me. so, knowing she was gonna call right back and bitch at someone else, I notated the hell out of the account, ending with *****DO NOT GIVE THIS CUSTOMER A DVD PLAYER!!!! SEE NOTES BELOW*****, just like that. a few days later, following up with the account, I saw that she'd caved and gotten the free month of gold. End of story, right?

wrong! I was looking back at the account today, almost by accident really, and saw that some *DUMBFUCK* had ignored all my notes, ignored the e-mail, ignored the fact that the woman already *had* $33 worth of free service, and gave her the DVD player! this fuckhead didn't even take off the free package, so the woman was gonna get both. if I hadn't happened to check back, she *would* have. I took it off, needless to say. I can't wait till she calls back to bitch about *that*. I'd have taken the DVD player off if I could, too, but it was too late. *I* don't get a DVD player, why the hell should she?

and the hell of it is now she knows that if she bitches enough, she can get whatever the hell she wants, so she'd just gonna do it again next time she sees something she doesn't like. and she's gonna tell other people the same thing. *and* the dipshit's operator ID wasn't in the database, so I can't even look them up and send their boss a 'look what your idiot did!' email

Argles.

This is my job.

Along with all the people who answer the 'what are you seeing on the channels that aren't coming in? is it blue screen? Black? Or just static?' question with 'nothing at all'.

Or tell you that they've turned off the TV and box like you asked, when you can still hear the TV going in the background -.-

But I have lots of pretty Yami piccies, so that's all good. Some of them are much much numfulness.

And I have caramel apple slices, which are much yummage, even though the wax paper sometimes sticks to the caramel a little too closely. Ah, well, I guess a little more fiber in my diet can't hurt. Even if there probably aren't many calories in wax paper -.-

anyhow, bed for me now!

//Hotohori last sparkled at 02:52 a.m.//
//Monday, October 14, 2002//

Wah, looky looky, I have a blog! *is all pleased with self* Acutally, I'm pleased with my Kouri-imouto more, since she's the one that did the layout and all -.-;; (you can see her blog down in my links list) But isn't it spiffy? All sorts of yumful Hotohori-sama! ^__^

//Hotohori last sparkled at 12:12 a.m.//
//Sunday, October 13, 2002//

Testing, one two three testing....

//Hotohori last sparkled at 12:14 a.m.//
//Sunday, October 13, 2002//