rbsn ~ excursive

am now sporting four holes inside my mouth. had four wisdom extracts in one sitting — total extraction time was only 15 minutes(!). didn’t know it could go so fast. about the only painful moments were the local anethesia shots. six(?) instances where i can feel the length of the needle sliding into my gums. good times. jaw is currently SORE. sore from the surgery (oh so lovely to have someone push down on yer lower mandible cuz he can’t seem to dig out a tooth). sore cuz i think i’m biting down too hard on the gauze at the moment. or maybe (oh shit) the anethesia is wearing off. swallowed my precious codeine pill already. hope it can hold off the inevitable pain.

while sitting around waiting for the doc to get around to me, found out that the patient before me was sedated. which led me to conclude, after much mulling about my “medical” history, that i’d rather get the pain than get knocked out. pain sucks but, imo, sucks less than nausea. pain is my anchor and, unlike anything else, seriously pushes my boundaries and self-control.

frustration sure is a pain in the donkey.

to all end users:

- listen. LISTEN TO ME DAMN YOU.
you are calling me because you are obviously stuck. so if you decide to call, have the foresight to actually listen to what i have to say. it completely defeats the purpose of the call if you persist in talking over me and telling me info that does nothing to help me figure out what the fuck you did in the first place to fubar shit up.

- give up the threats already, legal or otherwise.
you scream at me, i will ignore you. that shit pisses me off — it in no way puts me in a panic to help you. if you hated this software, then you’d have moved on and bought something else already. don’t gimme that angry/pissy act. i see right through it. further, by virtue of my innate personality, dickhead behavior puts you on my blacklist. this means that the next time you call, i will delay helping your ass.

- i am NOT your babysitter.
suck it up and try to figure shit out before you call. don’t any of you ever feel stupid going through the hassle of calling only to find out that, hey, the solution was Fucking Obvious?! tech/customer support does not mean holding your hand for over twenty minutes through a phone call just because your ass was too lazy to read the fucking manual. in addendum to that point, tech/customer support is not designed to repeat said walkthrough over and over again because your ass was too lazy to write down the steps — or else just Too Retarded to get anything.

- previous programming experience/software use means Jack Shit.
seriously. lotus 1-2-3 and excel are only similar in theory but not in execution or code. don’t claim to be a programmer and then consistently question why we can’t do this or why we can’t do that. cuz guess what. you didn’t write the damn program. therefore you’ve no idea what the backend is like. if i tell you it’s impossible, Suck It Down. ever tried complaining in endless phone calls to microsoft about adding so and so function to their office package? how far’d you get?! how many customization options does microsoft offer you!?!

- no service, no contract.
this is all there in the original contract you signed. calling every five minutes hoping to get a different response to your request only serves to piss off the entire customer support team — not gain you sympathy and a netmeeting conference. people who try to weasel their way out of reasonable requests for payment are scum.

- stop pushing the blame on us.
i swear, 60% of all phone calls are due to user errors and not program errors. find out who/what/how/when. if you can’t figure it out, then give us a call. this point is related to the previous one about how we ain’t your babysitter. for people who’ve been using the software for a while: you know where logs are located. use them!

- we are NOT your IT support.
don’t have one? GET ONE!!! we support the software, not your network/server/workstation/sql/adobe/microsoft/blah blah blah blah blah. there is a difference (surprise). don’t call yourself a smart business owner if you don’t know the difference.

- yeah, that’s right, there’s a charge.
who said things in life are free? negotiable yieah, but not free.

- learn how to Explain. learn how to Enunciate. learn Problem-Solving.
describe the problem and give up the whiny portion of the call. and by describe i mean, TELL ME WHICH SCREEN YOU’RE ON. tell me what you are seeing or not seeing. tell me what you did. tell me what you’re trying to accomplish. screaming about “it’s not there!!” helps nobody — cuz i still have no clue what it is you can’t see on what screen. screaming “it’s not there!” also will not get me to start a netmeeting conference with you — because the perverse, pissy part of my persona will force you to answer in painful detail to all of the above questions. because i severely detest anyone giving me commands. in which case, haha, ain’t you so so lucky that i picked up your call.

- communicate with your own people, COMMUNICATE.
i’ve lost track the number of times i pick up calls from managers screaming “your software is broken!!!!!” only to find out that, oh gee, your subordinates did A Stupid Data Entry Thing. and the manager person never bothered to actually discuss with the employee how/what/when something was done. like this morning when someone blew up because data was missing from one workstation. uh, your IT created a shortcut to the wrong shared folder ya dingbat.

- projects/requests/bug reports take time to resolve. DUH.
people are busy. we get a stack of calls and requests every day on top of already ongoing projects and testing duties. some of us go out training. expect a reasonable turnaround time — not an instant solution within the next 10 minutes. surprise — i’m not sitting breathlessly waiting for your next email or call and devoting my entire being to solving your issue. why don’t y’all ever respond instantly when we ask for payment?! pot, kettle, BLACK.

i guess the root of my complaints stem from the fact that the majority of HUMANITY lack common sense and the power to reason in a scientific manner.

too bad none of these precious talents are for sale anywhere.

glad there’s someone else out there who thinks that kind, benevolent mentor figures are in actuality, because of their extreme cleverness, severely manipulative puppet masters.

obiwan kenobi, i’m totally looking at you.

compared to dumbleydore though, i still heart kenobi more. The Sarcastic One is very much a flawed hero — his inability to see beyond the limitations of the jedi philosophy really narrows his world view and empathy. he totally fails anakin and subsequently devotes the second half of his life preparing luke for patricide without revealing all the history until forced to. that failing is what makes him complex. and i love that complexity. dumbleydore, on the other hand, is brilliant and clever and understanding and compassionate. while i love the character for the gentleness through the machinations, i just can’t connect with that. he’s like a father figure. versus kenobi who i can totally picture myself yelling at and slapping around because he can’t get over using people ruthlessly without apology. it’s a weird dynamic that probably reveals more of my character than i’d care to dissect.

craving for vacation time again. the desire to be sitting around doing something frivolous in a place that is not my house. god knows i’m frivolous enough while at home, what with the current stall in cleaning and all. my lame-o person is still recovering from the all-nighter from sunday when i re-read the deathly hallows. really hate this. if for no other reason, i’m starting my own business so i can finally switch my schedule around to night-owl. am not a morning person, never was since before high school. regular people life has screwed over my natural internal cycle.

the tibet riots are, needless to say, frustrating. as with most conflicts with china, they had it coming to them. but wtf with violent, riotous protests though. i don’t care how mis-treated you are. running around with swords and stabbing at confused elderly reeks of stupid.

laws are only as effective as those who implement them. my mother yells at me all the time to wear gloves when washing dishes. i break this rule all the time. and life goes on.

for those celebrating ma’s electoral victory — moderacy is useless if the guy is all talk and not much else. and what’s with the approving of casinos shit. wtf. really. how’s removing corruption from the government ranks any good if the guy who gets elected is advocating a means to increase corruption in society. where’s the logic in that!

so i should take it as a given that if it’s a prison story by stephen king, i’ll be stuck on the couch for a good three hours and then spend the rest of the day all emo-ish. and make me all anti-execution. damn all that brain werk, dammit!!

i really really really miss the prawnography page. soooo much cuteness of the squishable, giggle-fest variety. i get a little sad every time i’m reminded that it’s no longer available. sometimes i need to just save websites already.

for the past two weeks i’ve been rocking the ramen-style perm. it’s lengthened now but the curls are still tight enough that any ol’ clip will hold it up. my entire head actually feels lighter even though it’s still the same amount of hair. weirdness.

omg want. really really want. blue? led? shiny? check check check.

i’m not pro taiwanese independence. neither am i pro china-reabsorb-taiwan.

i’m pro People Not Acting Like Selfish Gits.

taiwan has developed its own culture, runs their own full-fledged economy, and is capable of sustaining a state of independent nationhood. that’s what they are doing right now, right this moment. china needs to let go already and move the fuck on. seriously. stop bugging somebody who’s proven that they are fully capable of running their own government.

taiwan, on the other hand, needs to stop electing greedy retards to office. stop pursuing personal interests over national ones. stop deliberately confusing personal interests with national ones. stop the blatant corruption. there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be independent — i just can’t stand how the DPP is going about it. crass, crude, to transliterate a chinese phraise: no water standard. KMT should realize already that cooperation with mainland treads precariously close to reabsorption. and without a careful leader, taiwan’ll fall into that black hole. and it should not. this is not the 1950s any longer. your leadership traditions may come from the mainland but they’ve moved in such different directions that taiwan really should stay seperate. fucking break up already. plenty of people stay friends with their ex. that should be only as far as it goes. dutch style on dates and none of this friends with benefits shit.

the ideal situation, imo anyway, would be that taiwan runs itself in a way that doesn’t invite global ridicule — or at the least doesn’t piss me off every time i turn on the telly and hear some idiot politican mouthing off slang as defensive against equally far-fetched criticism (not citing examples here because, god help us, they are rampant).

an uncle of mine once said democracy is a beautiful way to live — except that us chinese people are too selfish and greedy and require an iron hand of rule to pull them into a line of decency. so fucking true.