Since neither one of us was at fault, we were given reports to fill out and sent on our way. Good news.

I got home and found a check in the mail. I picked up another check a few hours later. Good news. At work, I found out that I had a week of vacation time coming that I didn’t know I had. More good news. And to top it all off … the McRib is back. Yummy news.

It’s a good day.

I hate telemarketers. I love this idea. Only I would have played it totally straight and got the guy’ name, home address, home phone, social security number and driver’s license number … and them posted ‘em on the Internet.

Heh.

[tags]telemarketers,pranks[/tags]

And the U.N. has approved sanctions — the horrors — in response to N.K.s nuke tests. And there’s no indication Bush is gonna do anything else.

Forgive me for thinking for a few years there that Bush “got it.” He doesn’t.

[tags]North Korea,David Zucker Albright Ad[/tags]

I’m on the phone with some third party tech support person (someone who isn’t an employee of the company with whom I do business) regarding my domain name registration. She’s trying to verify my identity.

I tell her my first name. “Bill,” I say. No, that’s not what’s on her records. I glanced at the domain’s WHOIS information the night before, so I know that’s it’s correct, and I tell her to check again. She tells me that she has something completely different. I ask if it’s “William.” She hems and haws and I tell her — with not a little bit of tone, I’m afraid, that “Bill” is short for “William.” Her reply: “How am I supposed to know that?”

Sweet mother of God. You are supposed to know because you presumably listened when people in your presense are called by different names in different situtations, and you learn the concept of the nickname. And somewhere along the line, you learn what these names are. Perhaps this airhead thinks “Bill Clinton and “William Jefferson Clinton” are two different people?

I’d take a spoonful of cyanide If I thought for a second I was a culturally stupid as this person.

And I still don’t have the issue resolved. Emails are flying back and forth. I may take my business elsewhere.

[tags]tech support[/tags]

My parents work there. The company is doing everything it can to make it impossible for people to work there on a full-time basis — except for the managers, who they will work to death if given the chance. And the company really hates having long-term full-time employees who earn more than some kid who’se dropped out of school.

You know that $4 prescription plan they are trying out in Florida? They are funding it with reductions in employee health benefits.

Screw ‘em. As soon as Mom qualifies for Social Security, she’s out of there.

But Dad likes to work, expecially in the lawn and garden section. He’s a born gardner and were he healthier, he could make a living at it.

Well, yesterday, he was using electric clippers to clip a free at Wal-Mart when the sliced the hell out of his finger. So, natually, Wal-Mart calls an ambulance, right? Of course not. They load him into another employee’s car and drive my bleeding, elderly, just-had-a-heart attack dad to one of thos eprompt-care places for some stiches. Of course, they tell him he needs plastic surgeon but make sure it’s fixed correctly. Had they taken him to the emergency room, they would have had one on call. Had they called the ambulance — which is what you are supposed to do — the E.R. docs would have had the personnel ready.

Meanwhile, Mom was having a a fit trying to get them to take Dad to the E.R. Meanwhile, Dad is telling everyone he was OK and that it was all his fault.

Had I been there, I would have picked up the phone, called 911 and told the store manager what was going to be happening and that if he didn’t like it, I would be happy to shove his head up his ass for him. And I certainly wouldn’t have let Dad sign anything. And I’m also cersonaly certain that nothing Dad signed in the personnel office right after he got back from the E.R. could possibly be used against him.

And get this: Dad gets a prescripion for pain pills and he sends me (I head heard abotu the accident by then) back to get it filled as Wal-Mart — he’s still in the personnel office filling out their paperwork — and the parmacist keeps me and my Dad waiting for a half hour while they get their paperwork in order. Because, you know, Wal-Mart isn’t completely convinced yet this is an on-the-job injury. Meanwhile, Dad is sitting there needing the paid medication THAT’S SITTING RIGHT THERE ON THE COUNTER.

[tags]al-Mart,evil,work place injury[/tags]