The subject line read: “Codeine for you”

My answer: “Yes, please.”

The other day I went into a local Gun Shoppe. I picked out a Sig Sauer P226 9mm hand gun. I asked the gent behind the counter his opinion of the weapon. His response was that it stabbed very, very well.

I then went to the grocery store. I asked the butcher if the steaks were fresh. He replied they were, he used some this morning to clean his bathroom.


Ridiculous? Of course. But no more ridiculous than the following conversations initiated by successful sales people in a highly technical company.


Them: “Our e-mail is broken.”

Me: “What makes you think that?”

Them: “When I send a message to that one guy it comes back with a ‘delayed’ message. Fix our e-mail.”





Them: “The customer wants to know if they have room for three Dell 2950 servers.”

Me: “No problem, they have at least 10 rack units available above their current install.”

Them: “But, I thought they still had room in the chassis for more blades?”

Actual chat session with AT&T Wireless:


KaosDad: HI! My daughter currently has a Pantech phone which is just not doing hte job. A friend gave me an iPhone as he upgraded - can I just put her SIM card int heiPhone and then actibvate the iPhone? Or do I need to go to a store?

KaosDad: Wow - sorry for the bad typing!

Taureeqah Ruiss: Ms. KaosDad, thank you for your response. We at AT&T appreciate your business and value you as a customer. I will be more than happy to direct you to the department that can assist you with your question concerning switching your daughters phone number over to another phone.

Taureeqah Ruiss: Mr. KaosDad*

Taureeqah Ruiss: Please contact our Customer Care department by calling 1-800-331-0500. You can also reach customer service by dialing 611 from your AT&T wireless phone. Customer service's hours of operation are Monday through Friday 7:00 am to 9:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm and Closed Sunday.

KaosDad: OK then - I'll do that.


Why do you have a chat room?

UPDATE

The weekend after this post I knew I had to get KaosGrrl's phone working, but dreaded the callto AT&T. I would have to do this on a Saturday. I was, undoubtedly, taking a virtual trip to Mumbai to speak with "Sam." KaosGrrl looked at me with those sad eyes that said; "Daddy, I love you and do not want to see you in pain, but you have to do this...." and handed me the gun.....er...phone. Miracles of miracles the call was answered by a sweet young lady in Texas who spoke perfect American, stayed with me for 45 minutes while we trouble shot an iTunes error (note: for the iPhone you must have an APPLE loging - NOT an AOL login).

The WHO, Mass Media & FUD

It is the job of mass media to capture eye-balls. Newspapers must sell paper, TV news must keep people tuned in to buy sponsor's products and web based news need visitors to click on pop-up ads. When one crisis flames out, then teh media has to find something new to excite the masses & generate revenue.

With the finacial meltdown now becoming old news, with the reports on executive pay becoming too disgusting to look at and teh certified death of Pontiac, the media needed a shot in the arm to keep eyeballs. And man did they get one from the World Health Organization.

The WHO sank their teeth into H1N1 Swine Flue Virus and held on like a puppy does to its toy. Spreading as much FUD as they could they kept themselves in the lime light and shoveled bucketloads of coal into the furnace that runs the mass media.

PANDEMIC!!!!!

Screamed the headlines. Thousands to die! World wide death toll expected to climb!

As of today, the worldwide case load just topped 1,000 confirmed cases with 27 confirmed fatalities. Again - that's worldwide. Compare that to 37,000 deaths from seasonal flu in the U.S. alone. This is hardly the image that the word "pandemic" conjures up recalling the mass graves of the Black Plague or the stacks of corpses from the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreaks.

Yet - the media still tries to capture as many eyeballs as they can by spreading as much FUD as they possibly can as fast as they can. Last night, on NBC news, some brave soul finally commented that this outbreak was far, far less leathal than the "normal" flu or even the common cold. The story was buried faster than a croaked goldfish.

Yesterday saw public interest start to falter. H1N1 was not at the top of all the papers and it didn't even headline the 7:00 News. Of course, the WHO and the media are not ready to give up the spot light, not yet. Now they warn us of the second coming - which could kill thousands.

Lemme run out right now & buy a gross of face masks.

I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised . . .

but I am.

Today, for the first time that I can recall, I was blatently lied to by a fellow employee. Two, actually. I guess I shouldn't be too amazed as they are both in sales. See, we have an internal IM system and yesterday (Thursday) three of us got a message from these two folks that a new client wanted six servers up & running by Monday AM - fours calendar days. We have some stringent QA standards - the first being we need a build sheet for each server to tell us what we are building. As of this writing I STILL don't have those.

We build ourown servers, so we kind of like to test them & put them under stress for 48 hours - it's this crazy idea that we want to float a quality product. So, as you can see, IF we got the signed contract Tursday (we didn't) and immediatly set to physically building the servers, got them into stress testing at 0000 Thursday/Friday, we could start loading OS at 0000 Sunday. The Linux would be quick but frakin' Windows takes at least nine hours so there we are Monday AM and we still have done NO QA and Oracle needs to be loaded which takes a day to do.

So, you see the problem. Today, our CTO called a phone meeting to discuss the issue. Durign the call the two sales folks flatly denied EVER having asked for a Monday delivery. They said they only "asked if it could be done."

BULLPUCKEY

How do you know when a sales person is lying?

Their lips are moving.