Walter Miller's Homepage

Fully Disintermediated for the New Milennium

the Last of 1999 and First of 2000 Big Ass Multi-Update

Page 17 of 24

Well now I has a funnerol to go to and I needed to once agian take time off work. And that meant anothor meeting with my boss. Besides, I had to return her laptop which she loaned to me. I found it very diffocult to compose my email, partly because the whole thing about somone dying right there with me was very upsetting.

Also unnerving was Granfather, who tried to distrack me on purpose by loudly singin along to the Ziggy Marley calypso theme and adding his own lyrics in an anoyingly bad Jamaican accent along the lines of, "HEEEY!
IT'S A WONDERFUL TIME TO PLAAAY!
WITH EVERY POLITICALLY CORRECT CLICHE!"

If you ever watch Arthur you know what the hell im talkin about.

As soon as I sent my email the phone rang. It was 2:30 in the morning, but my boss was awake, and online. She told me she was hangin around one of the AOL brokenhearted chatrooms, being that her romantic getaway with the man she thought was "Mr. Right" turned out to be a disastor. He talked for an hour and a half. I know I bitch and moan about this womon allot, but me and her were startin to get along better and better. Anyway she felt badly abbout my problems and agreed to meet with me the next day for lunch.

I call dad

It was 4 AM in Texas but only 2 AM in California. But i had to call anyway. When he picked up the phone I started cryin and cryin agian. I told him all about poor Duwaine dyin in the car. Also I said that I was so sad because I had a crappy Thansgiving and Christmas was the folowing week and did not want to have it alone.

I beg, whine and plead

Coudnt my family PLEASE come out for Christmas? I was lonesom.

Dad tried to calm me down. He said he woud talk to my stepmothor and see if they coud come to Texas for Christmas.

"I DON'T WANT YER DAMN BROTHER AND HIS WIFE COMIN!" Granfather screamed from the othor room. The old basterd was eavesdropping (As if he didnt drop enough that night considoring the giant car battery sized crap he left in the hall I tripped on).

As i mentionned before if theres one persen the old basterd hates more than his own brothors its my brother and his wife, my sisterinlaw.

Work was a regulor zoo

Less than an hour after the phoncall I had to leave for work. Junior and Granps were asleep but I had no sleep that night. I was feeling very drained. Then, when I get to work it was one of the most frantic days I ever remmembered having there.

Aparantly this situation where the Ergonomotron stole my E-commerce Busines Model idea, which turned out to be a pre-existing "Winky Dink" idea was beccoming a real problem.

The Ergonomotron was runnin arround all nervuos and yellin at everyone. Also his errudite fake European acent was gone, and his suburban Boston dialect was realy comin out strong. He'd gone from sounding like a scholarley sort of Greta Garbo to some somone out of some realy awful poor-taste "MAD TV" Kennedy brothors spoof.

It seems that Cyberblop not only lost a huge account as a result of the "Winky Dink" presentation they gave their biggest cleint, but that they were now a laghingstock. The Ergonomotron personaly directed the phrase "You bastid! You BYAAAAstid! I'm so wicked pissed!" at me atleast 4 or 5 times makin sure to go on the tirade infront of diferent people each time, and each time the Bosten accent got more stronger.

A huge meeting to Critique the Website

These were desperate times. And so the entire compeny atended a compulsory All Hands Emergencey Meeting. We all had to go to the audittorium where once again a huge version of the Website was broght up on the screen. Because as anyone in this business knows, when times are desperrate, when profits are nil, and purpose and vision are nowhere to be found, the best thing a company can do is critique the website for every little thing, and, if things happen to be really REALLY bad, for Godsake moddify the danm company logo.

I am being sarcaustic in case you dont know it.

The Lady Who Screams at Evereyone as you know was in Cancun and so she was patched in by conferrence call and put on the audotorium loudspeakor so she coud holler at us as well as multitasking her friggin yap in the direction of her poor husbend there in the hotel room, (him also getting an earful, the whole staff of Cyberblop found out at 165 decibells, for the crime of acidentally leavin a giant pubic hair on the toilet seat).

The General Manager, a pulpy faced walrusy old guy who was the highest ranking persen in the company sat up in the front row, clumsily navigating the website as some frightened lowlevel ass kissing minion knelt on the floor before him holding a laptop on a steel-and-felt-covered-tray for his conveinience while the screen image was projected onto a 15 by 20 foot display screen up on the stage. (OK, I was that frightoned lowlevel ass kissing minion).

GENERAL MANAGER: Those words were blue a minute ago! Now they're pink! LOWLEVEL MINION: Sir that is hypertext. GENERAL MANAGER: Harrumph! I dont WANT it hyper! I want it blue! Certainly NOT pink! It looks...Well, it looks fruity. And unprofessional. LOWLEVEL MINION: Um, the browser does that. GENERAL MANAGER: How dare you blame me for this! LOWLEVEL MINION: Um...
GENERAL MANAGER: Because I am the browser, young man. I am browsing this website right now. And I assure you I did not choose this fruity unprofessional pink color.

There was more holloring and screaming going on for the rest of the meeting. It seemed like people were tryin to outdo themselves in screamming because it seemed that if you screamed you were a smart "Edgy" person with balls and vision. So theres allot of screamin at Cyberblop.

One of the things people were screamin about was that we did not have allot of hits lately to the corporrate website. So we treid to come up with ideas to make the hits go higher.

At one point The Ergonomotron and the Female Versien of Prince Charles, who were on oposite sides of the stage directly under the autotorioum screen were screamin so loud at eachothor they actualy started jumping up and down.

And all the jumpin caused the giant plastic-covored canvas banner that stretched the whole length of the stage to shake loose and fall down just like in the scene at the end of Jurassic Park when the Tyrannosaur runs into the main lobby of the park headqaurters and knocks down the big banner that's hangin from the ceiling which reads, "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth", so the whole thing falls down to drape ovor his chest like a "Miss America" ribbon at the precise moment he bellows loudley. Exept here in the Cyberblop corporate autodorium the bannor that we had hapened to read, "If We Build It They Will Come."

After the meeting i met my poor boss for lunch. Her normaly happy toadlike features were morose and sad. As usuol she did most of the talking. It was all about how she went on a rommantic getaway with this guy who she was involved with.

All the ghastley grizzly details

"Oh, WAA-lter. How can I say this," she began. "Our rendezvous did not turn out to be, well, as intimate as I'd hoped."

I said to her, "Um, you don't have to give me no details."

"But WHAALter," she chirped. I feel as if I CAN give you the details. We've grown so close over these few months, well, I feel as if you're one of my trusted girlfreinds."

I put my head down and stared at my food.

"Oh dear. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Of course you're a man. You're a manly man."

The poor womon seemed depresed and infact was off her diet. No more of those frozen diet chocollate bars and Ensure. She orderred two butter grilled cheesburgers and two peices of cake. Then she took the buttor from the breadbasket and put it on her frenchfries.

"Oh, I just have to tell someone. My gentleman friend and I had reached a point in our relationship..."

I interuppted, "Please, no details!!"

Then she started bawlin, "Oh, Waaalterr!! We're so much alike! I need your pity and your codependant care! Boo Hoo Hoo!"

By now it was time for me to bring out the heavey guns: I said to her in no uncertian terms: "Please dont tell me nothin or I may end up puttin it on my website."

Anyway she did tell me ahole lot of stuff but I kept tryin not to listen. It seems that she misplaced some "personal items" prior to her trip (that she still coudnt find), items that were "neceserry for romance," and therefour their absence during that romantic getaway ruined her time with this loser of a man she went with.

Of course i didnt have the heart to tell her they were in the trunk of my car, plus got listed on an inventory of items on a Coroner's report.

She woudnt stop

The confessionary details got worse till it was more than I coud bear. I stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed loud to drown her out. In turn she got louder and louder and when that did not work she lunged her short dimply arms ovor the table, slapped my arms and started to pull my friggin hands out of my ears. This is a womon whose allmost 50 years old. How the hell she got to be somone's boss I dont know.