To the snotty customer on IM -
I'm sorry there was lag time on my responses. I was fielding phone calls and can only multitask so much. (Layoffs suck even when you *don't* get the axe.) I was about to apologize, but you left in a huff, so no cookies for you.

WordPress "Art Direction" Plugin: Automation is the king of convenience. It’s also a killer of creativity and quality. Examples: MP3 vs. Vinyl, Transformers vs. Tubes, Xerox vs. Letterpress, Digital vs. Film. The newer technologies allow a quicker route to (perceived) gratification, but the older technologies always deliver a superior end result.

Every "old and better" tech was once the "new and inferior" upstart. When you are in your dotage, your grandkids will hang on to their hipster cred by denouncing (insert future music-tech here) in favor of grandma's MP3 collection. (more...)

"How are you?" when asked by a customer on the phone, is one of two things. 1.) A waste of air or 2.) an intrusive personal question. I normally ignore it completely and hop over to "How can I help you?". Most customers take the sidestep gracefully or never even notice it in the first place. (more...)

There are enough things about the modern republican party that offend me to my core that going though all of them would be a major undertaking, but one of the bits that has been getting me lately is the the idea that disagreeing with them = unamerican.

Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country — yep, we’re all traitors here in central New Jersey (the real plumbers of Ohio)

To which I can only say, to Sarah Palin and the Republican party at large, how dare you.

How DARE you tell me that I am less of an American than someone living in a non-coastal state. The last time we used geography as an indicator of patriotism, it went poorly; and there are so many other reasons why you could sneer me out of my citizenship. Why, I'm childfree, queer, and non-christian!

In spite of the fact that I am apparently dammed by geography and the defects of my own character, I do love my country, but I've gone for most of my life pretty sure that my country does not love me back. America has been breaking my heart for almost 20 years and I may end my life someday loving her from a distance (having toyed with the idea of emigrating more than once) but that doesn't mean that ANYONE gets to tell me that I'm less of an American than they are. No one gets to sit in judgment and deem me unworthy of my country.

I agree that gmail is a very nifty thing, but if you're running a small business, wouldn't it make sense that you do not rely solely on a free webmail app?

Since Google has decided to take my account away from me, the nucleus of our company communications has been taken away and now is replaced by a black hole

Has no one heard of a secondary email account? The one you route things to in case of disaster? Even my company has a few of these, and we're not the most forward thinking outfit out there.

Every now and then, I'll get a broadcast email from one of our customers for no other reason than the fact that I've corresponded with them and so am in their address book. Eh, it happens, and usually it's just PR or marketing info.

Today, one of my customers decided to send out a message to her whole address book about why everyone should vote for McCain - not something I'm going to agree with under the best of circumstances and her logic was... a little off. Ok, no big. Into the bitbucket it goes, and I'm on with my morning.

Only, no - that's not the end. Someone in her address book takes exception to getting the note, and hauls out the drama lama. She flings the drama lama right back at him, and now I have two strangers slogging it out in my inbox. This is when I stepped and and emailed only the two of them, and politely asked them to refrain from hitting reply all. Hopefully, that will be the end of it.

Though it'll be interesting the next time she calls up to place an order.

This makes me wanna cry today.

To my new upstairs neighbors -
Forget about banging around at all hours and playing your radio too damm loud, the fastest way to piss off your neighbors is to start fucking with their parking spots. In the future, do not park in any spot where the number on the ground does not equal your apartment number. It's a bad idea and will not improve your karma.

Y'r ob'dt,
Me.

And it wasn't even my spot that got nicked. The guy two doors down is mighty un-thrilled right now.

Did they stop teaching kids that 3ft. = 1 yd. at some point? I'm constantly getting folks who take the statement 100 yds. per roll as a puzzle up there with calculating molecular weight. Sheesh.

Customer in livechat: what kind of box do you recommend for homemade soap? they are a pretty standard size bar
Me: ::headdesk::

It never ceases to amaze me how many people assume that my job involves thinking for them. Or telepathy.