What hapened at the client meeting

The whole chain of command was there: My anoying boss and her staff, includding me), the arrogent young nosepicking egotist wiseass 28-year old V.P. of Content, (who is her boss); The Lady Who Screams at Evereyone, (his boss); and finaly the Generol Manager, who is the boss of the whole Cyberblop loccation. He is sort of a jowly, red-faced old guy who was transfered in from Corporate (who owns Cyberblop), where he worked, like, 30 years. The G.M. is the kind of guy who if the Cyberblop startup division never existed, he woud of been out of a job on his ass. (It makkes me wondor if this wasnt why the Cyberblop startup divisoin was started at all: to providde a place for these useless losers).

I hate Friday meetings

And it was a totoly boring meeting. It started out with 30 minnutes of introductions, folowed by 90 more of total sucking up. Sucking Up both the chain of manageriol command, as well as to the Client himself. My pain in the ass boss kept saying Yep! Yep! Yep! like a little yapping dog after aneyone said anything, the G.M. kept sayin Harrumph! and shakin his droopy pendollous jowls ( I think just to stay awake) and the wiseass egotist guy got so confortoble pickin his nose in front of people he atcually started rollin it in his fingers till it got dry and flickin it on the floor, which is somthin he does when he is alone, and you woud know that if you were ever on the floor under his desk threading a lan cable in from the wall to hook up his 500 MHz machene, which why the hell someon like him needs it when the most poworful thing hes ever gointo use it for is to look at the Starr report online. I have. (I mean, not read the Star report, but was undor his desk.)

The thing that woke me up from my slumbor was when the client asked, "So, how to I get the messege abuot my product out to as many people as I can?" and the G.M. of Cyberblob said, "Waal, the way WE do that around the office is by e-mail.

"Harrumph!," he contineud, "I say you let us send the whole world an e-mail with your product on it!"

He went on to say abbout how we shoud use this ammazing new marketing tool: E-MAIL.

This is 1998 for Godsake. I coud not bellive there are people arround who donot know that spam is wrong. It sounds like I am makin this up, but it is so dumb, and so bad, that there can be NO WAY I am makin it up.

And so the next 40 minuttes consisted of the G.M. (and my yappy little boss who kept agreeing with him) blathoring out to the client, (who, between the three of them know NOTHIN about computers, or the web), some stupid plan whereby they woud pay us to spam half the world on their behalf, while the arogent V.P. of Pickin His Nose (who DOES know that spamming is a bad idea), tried gently to persuede them NOT to spam no one while still diplomaticolly maintainning the full ensconced contact of his lips with associatted expert suction and pressure to all the apropriate asses in the room.

"The Medium is the Messege," the G.M. mumbled half out loud in a throaghty harrumph at the end of the meeting to no one in particuluor. This is the guy (I swear) that the Dilbert cartoon is based on (at least it probly is) where the suport staff gave thier managor an Etch-A-Sketch instedd of a laptop becuase they knew he was so danm dumb hed never tell the diference.

Speakin of stupid

Junior called. He is our nieghbor. He left a phone mail which I listenned to aftor I went back to my desk. I geuss that is kindof mean to call Junoir stuppid. He is just slow. Plus no one is payin him two hundret grand a year to be G.M. of an unproffittoble web startup company owned by Corporate. Let me tell you that is allot of money in this part of the countrey.

Also did I mention that the stupid iddiot, (the G.M., not Junior), never washes his hands aftor he craps (and besides that on Fridays, he really needs to flush the danm toilat a second time at the minnimum after his afterlunch constitutional or atleast show a little shame for the sake of the danm swirlies he leavs in the bowl. Because I think this is the one day ofthe week where he probly has allot of gin to drink, eithor that or an awfull lot of cheese doodles. OK, I am sorry, once agian this mindless bitching of mine has nothin to do with the story).

Back to What Junnior had to say

Once agian, as usuol Junior was weeping morbidly. One of the criptozoologists who studies Granfather is so sick of Junior's crying that he once thretenned to prescribe some sort of horse or cow version Prozac for Junoir. (I think he was kidding becuase he never did. But it was enuogh to convints Junior never to cry no more around him.)

Junior told me that my brother had called him from on the escape route: AND THE CALLWAS A WARNING

While Granfather coud clearly be heard agonizingley screamming like a friggin animol in the bacgkround, my brothor said he called to say to Junior that him and Uncle Zeke were firmly and officialy warning him NOT to help me and my Dad in our pursiut of them to rescue the old basterd. They threatened to have Junoir deported to Alaska, (he is frightened of snow) if he dared help us: And that specifficoly meant driving us to the airport, or somthin like that.

I asked Junoir what Granfather was howling in agoney about. Between sobs he told me he was hollerin varrious and sundry Granfatherisms at the TV, (common, routine Granfatherisms), which for the old basterd was purely normol and to be expectad.

Things like:

"WHUT THE HELL'S SAM DONOLDSON'S PROBLEM?"
...and also, (while watchin the Guiness Book of Records show on Fox, his new favorrite show):
"WHOA, THET EVEL KNEIVAL'S SON SURE DO LOOK LIKE JOHN TESH."
And also:
"THET DRY-LIPPED, CRINKLY FACED OUTDOORSY-LOOKIN FELLER IN THE ALEVE(TM) COMMERCIAL SURE SKEEVES ME OUT, WHUT WITH HIS PINKY STICKIN OUT ALL PRISSY LIKE AS HE HOLDS THE PILL BOTTLE."
...and also at the top of his lungs with a ciggorete clenched tight in his teeth,
"DADBURNIT!! I DON'T WANT OPRAH TO CHANGE MY LIFE!"

At least all this gave me a clue to the fact that if aneyone was suffering from this kidnaping, it sure wasnt Granfather.

I told Junior to relax becuase no one was gointo deport him to a place he was never at. I also told him to punch a speceil code as to see where his last phonecall came from and then to call me back. If they were close to a TV, then they were in a hotel. The reason why my wily brothor called Junior and not me or Dad is becuase he knows that Junoir woud never think to find out the last numbor called. Aftor I got the number from Junoir I called dad's phonemail and left a messege for him with that numbor on it.

Aftor this, I had just one more thing to do:Try to log in MY DANM HOURS ON THE DANM HOURLEY SYSTEM

Exempt and Non-Exepmt

I do not know the diferrence between Exempt and Non exepmt only to say that I am the type of enployee who does not get salary or benefitts. I also must log in my hours every two weeks or else i do not get paid. Here at Cyberblop they used to have a stupid hard copy hourly sheet. They got rid of the stupid paper sheets in July and swiched to a stuppid online log in version.

Well ive been on the new stupid online system for ovor two months now and I HAVE NOT BEEN PAID.

The stuppid Log-In Time-Clock

There is this stupid system on the lan where you have to log in your hours for each week you work. (First you have to GET on the lan -- if even you CAN get on the lan). Next, you have to log into the time clock program. (Yeah, right, good luck). It is a stuppid timeclock system that only Cyberblop uses. Othor companies use versions of it, so I am told. More than half the time it dosent work. Some idiot consultent who smelled very badly came in and developped it. Then he left. They paid him a crapload of money.

But even still, every time I log in my hours, it crashes on me. Plus, the danm system is set to accept entries from employyees who log in ONLY between 4:30 and 5 PM on Fridays, on alternate weeks, so it can "auto-generate" a pay stub and check for me.

If you happan to be out on Fridays, or the danm system is down, you must wait TWO WEEKS for all the planets to line up on the next alternate Friday aftornoon to try again.

Auto-gennerrate MY ASS

Abuot 75% of the time you log your hours you get an errer message that says NOT ACCEPTED. No one knows why, but you just do. Even when the system seems to accept your hours, you lator find out that at the precice time you were logging your hours, (so you think you were), the system actualy was "down on THEIR end." The way you find this out is that you dont get paid.

Then, if you are stuppid enuogh to re-enter your hours, and it sees a doubol entry, why then it will knock out all your prior hours becuase the Cyberblop online lan based time clock dumb ass login systam is set up so no one rips them off. But the onley one gettin ripped is me.

"It all comes out in the wash"

The abbove line of crap is what Personnell told me in responce when I complainned about it. And hey, we dont even HAVE a personell department -- the one who told me that was Combover, that guy from payroll. (The Personell Departmant for Cyberblop is under Corporate, way over in Corprate, and Corporate is loccated in a city I never was even in before.)

Oh, PUH-leeze, "it all comes out in the wash." Try usin THAT line on peoplle you got to pay bills to, like the danm phone company.

Walter Miller's Homepage

Late Septembor 1998 Update