Walter Miller's Homepage

99% figment. 1% imagination

Even thogh we all know its August this is

THE JUNE 1999 UPDATE

Page 4 of 7

Then all of a suddon out of no where a hacky sack flies into my cube and lands in my cup of tea spillin it everywhere. The donkeytoothed guy fishes it out with his bear hands and throws it, and there is Prince Charls stickin his grinning head up from anothor cube about 20 feet away. He laughs, and ducks, and then throws a handfull of somthin in my cube, splattoring on the wall hitting both the other consultent and also me right in my face. They are giant purple grapes. One of them hits my monnitor and slowly slides off in a trail of juice. There is friggin snoggy lookin grape meat everywhere.

"Clean this effin place up were goin outside to have a smoke," one of them said.

Later in the afternoon, yet anothor meeting

So, anyway, I am in one of these stupid meetings where we are all suposed to come up with a friggin purpose. You see the investors have pissed away so much money on us over the past 2 years, and alls they have ever done is change purpose 100 times.

A history of changed purpoce

Do you remembor that salsa comercial a few years ago, where a whole bunch of fat ass suits were sittin in a conference room, and their boss says, "Gentlemen, shall we be a company that sells salsa, or oven mitts?" Well that is the kind of place we are.

First we were a company that entertained. Next we were a compeny that "edutained," and then after that, "Infotained" and finaly, "Infotrained.

They changed that to "I-tainment, (and then iTainment), and then (you guesed it), "eTainment."

Oh, I allmost forgot: "Ultratainment." The consultent who came up with THAT one is still ultrataining his fat ass in Cancun on what he got paid and that was a year ago. (After this we became a content compeny, but that lasted only a short time becuase one of the investors, somone who admits that he "fears and hates computers" didnt like the word "content;" ...personaly, I think it was cause he didnt know what the word meant.)

After they got rid of content they just wanted to be a "portal," and then after this a "microportol" and aftor that, a "community" and then, a "macrocommunity."

(I also remembor one breif anti-web minimalist period arround this time where they wanted to be a web company that sold, produced, and did absolutley nothing; we were going to be, "The company about nothing." I think it was becuase one of the investors watched Seinfeld the night before. That concept didnt work out).

Then it was on to concentrait on retail, e-tail, c-tail, i-tail, EDI-tail, Push, Pull, Intramediate, eMediate, disintermediate, inter- and intra -disintermediate, and then just plain "value add" whatevor the hell that means.

Well, the compeny still hasnt made a friggin nickle. And we still havent rolled nothin out lately neither. And whatever it is we're gonna rollout, we bettor find out what it is, and do it fast, and roll it the hell out as fast as we can....

At least thats what our investors told our consultents to tell our managers to tell us.

Why?

Becuase the freakin deadline for the damn IPO is comin up.

'WHAT TO DO?' -- A big screamin fight.

"Yes, you had BETTER find something to do," one of the nasty consultents said to us in one of those frightenning all-hands meetings. Well there is this one guy who is a regulor employee, this guy we call Fluffy, (dont ask why), and he piped up, "Why dont YOU tell us what to do? YOURE the consultent!"

And then the consultent screamed back, "I cant tell you what to do!!", and Fluffy said, "Yes you CAN, and you MUST: Because you are the CONSULTENT."

Then they got into this huge fight abbout how the consultents allways "tell us what to do" when it concerns replacing staff with there freinds, but refuse to tell us what to do that will make us a profit.

"We cant promise you anything," the consultent said to Fluffy. And then Fluffy said to him, "Then what the hell are you doin here?

Right aftor this my pain in the ass boss, the toadfaced lady jumped in and treid to get evereyone to calm down. One of the regulor employees, this fat Russian programer started yelling, and then weeping. I work in the friggin zoo i swear it.

The next day a teribble time

It was a Wendsday, and on the next day, a Thursday, Granfather was scheduoled to go to the doctor. Not a criptozoologist, but a regulor human doctor. (This was the only way he coud get his prescritpions because the Pharmacy Plan wont pay otherwise; yes, they too know he is a danm animal.)

Since launching the giant load Granfather was slowley regaining his strength but it woud be a while before he was 100% better. For his own good, he kept the cardbord cone on his neck.

It is always traumattic to take Granfather to the doctor. But worst of all: In order to get the time off I had to take a UNPAID personal day from work. It is not fair.

He has to sit in the sun

I dont know what it is, but the old basterd is gettin more and more reppulsive every year. His back, ass, and the back of his legs are probly the worst. Have you ever seen the bottem of a melon when it gets all yellowish white and clammey? Well imagine a melon sittin in the garden patch so long that it started to rot. Granfather's normol color of his face arms and chest is this burnt-hotdog-sort-of-skinless-Tandoori-chicken reddish-orange, but this is more of a yellowy pissy white. Also his normally bristly thatch of hair is instead all matted. I canot even write about it anymore or else I will puke.

To prepaire for the Thursday apointment the doctor insisted that I sit Granfather in the sun for a few early morning hours on Wendsday to air him out on those clammy areas.

"YEH, WELL I AIN'T SITTIN' IN THE SUN TOMORROW."

I said to him, "Granfather you do not have a say in the mattor."

"OH YEH? WELL NOW I AIN'T EVEN GOIN TO THE DOCTOR AT ALL."

I started to espond but the cruel ogre cut me off an said, "ONE MORE WORD, AN' I'LL START BITCH-SLAPPIN' YOU."

After this me and him got in a big fight. Argeuing with Granfather is allways a waste of time. He usualy wins the argumment, but on the rare ocasions he does not, the old basterd always gets his pound of flesh. Ive never ended an argoument with him where I was not crying.

How he fights

He does not stick to the issues. He focuses on things that are wrong with ME, includding things in the past that are wator under the bridge at this point. Plus he calls me ugly and stupid. Those things may be true, but but they have nothin to do with him NOT WANTING TO GO TO THE DOCTOR.

He screams and spits and his screams are allways so bloodcourdling. Then he hits me. It is so houmiliating. It is not that the hitting hurts, it is just so houmilliating. Granfather always hits me with small stupid things too, so in case I call the sheriff on him, I will haveto admit, "Yes, Sheriff, Granfather hit me with that teaspoon. Then he winged arround that tiny box of dentol floss at me."

Granfather does this all on purpoce.