Yesterday I woke up, got out of bed, and no, I didn't drag a comb across my head, and I haven't for quite some time. It's said everyday is an adventure, but I'd rather they be the self-discovery kind of adventure, or a long journey, not the "what a fuckin' adventure that was" kind.
When you get right down to it, keeping things in perspective, I really never have a bad day. My friend Ralph occasionally sends me a quote that he thinks I might enjoy. A couple of weeks ago the quote was "If you think you're having a bad day, try missing one." At least I thought it was clever. Yesterday was one of those days when I need to take a step back, breath in and out, and try to grasp just how fucking obtuse some people can really be.
I admittedly don't play well with others. That's why I never want to work for anyone. I'll keep a positive outlook on the path to self-actualization, unless they decide to foreclose on the house, then I'll go to work for some dipshit. But in the meantime, I'll try to learn to play better.
At the start of the day I'm usually pretty upbeat. I get up at 4:45, do my thing, and visualize what I want to accomplish. I get pretty excited about what lies ahead. I knew something didn't bode well when I went out to get my daily rag The Miami Herald and found it hadn't been delivered. My heart started to beat a little faster. My anal retentiveness was already in full swing.
I don't have my goddamn paper. For Christ's sake, is it too much to ask to have my fucking paper delivered each morning. That's why I pay for home delivery. Now what will I read on the crapper?
I waited until the designated past due time (6:30) to call to get a paper delivered. I had to call three times to get the proper recording, the helpful electronic information system decided to be as reliable as the delivery. When I finally got a human -the heavily accented recorded voice told me to "prez" one- a cheerful gentleman with a heavily accented voice told me my paper would be there within an hour. So I waited. Fuck him too. So I went to campus.
I had registered for a seminar about the new updates for Blackboard, a computer learning site utilized by universities. If it isn't exactly Blackboard, it's something similar. The professor I'm a graduate assistant for wants me to do some stuff on the site, so I thought attending the seminar would be a good idea. It was. Then everything turned to shit.
One of my duties (I used doody heh heh)was to have some fliers get stamped so I could post them up around campus. They need to be approved by some governing body before they can be put up. As of yesterday, what governing body that is, is anybody's guess. After an hour and twenty minutes of driving from building to building around campus, the proper authority remains a mystery. Like a good soldier I did what I was told, and went to where I was directed. Not once, not twice, not three time; come to think of it, fuck that "third time is a charm bullshit;" it was at my forth stop I gave up the ghost. Exasperated, I told the women who assisted me I wasn't moving until someone could be reached who knew anything, anything at all, that had to do with fliers being approved. Eventually, the first person I was sent to earlier that afternoon appeared before my eyes to rectify the situation, all the while reminding me she really wasn't authorized to do what she was doing. Who was you may ask, no one knows. It's one of the current great mysteries of life that I will ponder...but not for very long. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing; I was dealing with a fucking octopus here.
Look, I get paid the same whether I'm doing important research, taking out the garbage, or just jerking off. So it didn't matter to me I was jerking off mobile. Just my way of still seeing the glass half-full. And then I went home in bumper to bumper traffic for thirty-six miles... only to find my paper had not yet arrived nearly eleven hours later.
I had the pleasure of calling the infamous "customer service" line. As with most industries in America "customer service" is a very loosely defined abstract term. It's more like a virtual unreality video game.After I was told to "prez" one, I got a not so pleasant heavily accented gentleman who was neither "gentle," and "man" depended on your definition. In this case "spineless shit hiding behind a phone" could possibly fit my definition of "man."
When I came to the realization that the barely intelligible talking asshole on the other end of the line neither cared about me "the customer" or "service" unless you count "lip service." Finally, knowing a paper was not in the cards this day, without thinking, I was dumb enough to ask "why was there no delivery today?" Big mistake.
All he had to attempt to say was "I don't know" and I would have been happy. But no, he had to go into some verbal diarrhea about computer malfunction; though he didn't use the word "malfunction," I'm giving him way too much credit that even that word exists in his limited vocabulary.Then it was I needed to speak to home delivery blah blah blah. He may have even really said "blah blah blah" I couldn't really tell. I asked to be transferred to home delivery when I could finally get a word in. He told me they had gone home for the day. Of course they did. Disgusted, I hung up. I went into my office to do homework that wasn't done until nearly 11:00.
I didn't eat yesterday. Didn't have the time, dealing with all the incompetency in the world and all. As I made my way to bed I reflected on the day's events. What was there to be learned? How will I grow from my experiences?
God save The Miami Herald building if I don't get my fucking paper tomorrow morning. How long does it take to manufacture a firebomb?
No comments:
Post a Comment