seryan

One year to the day since I was laid off, and I'm still unemployed.

‘The Manatee’ translates New Brunswick job ads for you | The Manatee

(The Manatee, which I'm guessing doesn't get much press outside the Atlantic Provinces, is our answer to The Onion. Still, sometimes it's sadly on point.)

Caller: So I have an appointment in *city* tomorrow with this place? They do the stuff you do before you get a job? Can you tell me what time it is?
Me: ...do you mean a job interview?
Caller: No, it's at the place and it's where you do the stuff and all that. In *city*.
Me: Well, unfortunately we're [spiel about what we actually do] so it wouldn't be with us. Were you maybe thinking of HRDC*?
Caller: No, that's not it.
Me: Are you sure? It sounds more along their line than ours.
Caller: Yeah, I'm sure. So do you have the number for the thing I'm talking about?
Me: No, I'm afraid I don't.
Caller: *huffy sigh like I'm the unreasonable one and/or lying* Fiiiine. *hangs up*

*Human Resources Development Canada. We get mistaken for them a fair bit.

If you call for tech support, and you ask what time the office closes, and your call takes forever because you don't know the basics of how to do sweet fucking ANYTHING? When you finally get your resolution ten minutes after the closing time, you may safely assume that the person you're talking to, on a Friday, after closing time, does not want to hear your fucking life story at that point. (Bonus: I was on vacation as of the end of the day.) I had to - politely - cut her off because I had an appointment at six. (Actually true, although if it wasn't I would have made one up.) It took twenty minutes and this was her second call of the day. (I did not take the first, thankfully, or I'm pretty sure I'd be in jail now.)

Let's put it this way: "Do I go online to open the browser?" after I'd twice explained to her what a browser is, is an actual goddamn quote.

And now, I shall make myself a daiquiri.

So there are bees in the basement now.

Steve caulked up the hole in the windowsill where we thought they were getting in. Proving that we're screwed if the hive mind ever takes an SF turn, the bees promptly began to look for another way out. They found it! Remember how the top half of the foundation is cinderblock? Remember what cinderblock looks like, with the holes? Yeah, they found a way to move through the foundation into the section of the basement where the walls are not finished to the top. There's a good six to eight inch gap between drywall and ceiling. We were downstairs last night moving the dryer off the washer, since you have to unstack them before the tech shows, and there was a bee! We're like, ok...bee. Just one. We caught it in a jar and released it outside and didn't think much of it.

Why yes that is the same mistake people in horror movies make! We'd just set down the dryer in it's temporary new spot when Steve stood bolt upright, looked at me and said:

"Shh! Do you hear bees?"

We looked and I saw a bee climbing over the edge of the drywall. I pointed. "There, there!"

"Where? Where is it!?"

"There!"

We caught him and put him outside as well. That wasn't the end of it. Of course it wasn't. I went down this morning to tidy a few things away and there were two more bees. They were up near the ceiling where I couldn't get them. (And I don't trust myself standing on a stepstool with a glass jar trying to catch a flying, stinging insect.) But I figured hey, one or two bees, no big deal. They're not hornets or wasps, they'll not sting you if you leave them alone. And yes, like the twit in the horror movie, I was hoping they'd go away.

No. The first words out of the repairman's mouth? "You have bees down here?" So I had to apologize and explain to him that this was a new development we hadn't had time to look after yet. He did the diagnostics and determined the washer needs a new locking mechanism, which is - dun dun dun! - on order. He also refused to come back until the bees are gone. Since I'm refusing to go into the basement for the same reason I don't blame him. There were four bees, this time, buzzing around the light and the basement, trailing little bits of insulation from their legs like tiny flying mummies or zombies. Zom-bees...

I called Steve and he wanted to find a way to block the hole up. I was like, "no, because apparently they can and will make holes in drywall to get out we are calling the exterminator." And then I did. They're coming tomorrow. (It was that or two weeks from now and this will not solve itself by waiting.) I feel bad, because I like bees and they aren't doing so well, species-wise, right now, but at the same time having a fucking hive in the foundations of the house is just a huge problem waiting to happen. Apart from the bees, the honey can attract other insects and predators and I just do not need that. Sorry, bees.

Then, after I called the exterminator and made the appointment for tomorrow, I realized that tomorrow is supposed to be the quarterly meeting at work. The exterminator comes at one, the meeting is at two. Unless this is the speediest pest treatment ever, I probably can't make it on time, and I can't just log in from home because you need to vacate the house for four hours after the treatment. I can't reschedule, because again a) two weeks and b) washer that won't be repaired while bees are present. So I get to call my boss and explain that I have to work from home tomorrow and might be late to the meeting because of bees. (I also can't make it to the company dinner tonight, but weeks before I had made other plans that I can't move, so that's too bad.)

This would be rejected if it were fiction. I'm sure of it.

Steve removed eight bees from the basement tonight. He also removed the caulking from the original hole, because if we must have foundation-bees, we'd rather they go outside thank you very much. I can tell they're back and guarding because when I went out to try and weed the side garden (which tends to get left because you can't really see it) that runs along that side of the house? They chased me. I don't care if bees are mostly harmless, they're not when they're defending their hive and I don't want them to get defensive.

So I got chased by bees. How's your night going?

So I  spent the last 20 minutes of the workday today on IM with my National-General Manager talking about Rush. Found out she's a fan the other day when she made a 2112 reference in a meeting. (I...do not remember what that section of the meeting was about. Financial somethings, I was drifting - you can do that easily on a conference call and no one the wiser.)

She works out of Toronto and flies up every so often. Wonder if I can get her to bring me a YYZ luggage tag? :P

As usual while we're waiting for Fulltime Coworker 2 (the new one) to be trained on the phones, I'm covering said phones while the Admin Coworker is on her lunch. I wound up taking as many calls in an hour as she'd taken all day, including this gem:

User: Hi, I'm trying to log in and every time I do it shuts me out and says something about a diagnostic.
Me: That's not one of our error messages. Is this only happening when you try to log in to [site]?
User: Yes.
Me: Alright, do you have a more specific error message?
User: Well no, not right now. I closed it out.
Me: OK, I'll get you to log back in again so you can get the error back, please.
User: Oh, I'm not in front of that computer right now.
Me: *Then why are you - oh, I give up.* Can you get to the computer?
User: No, but I can use the one that's right here. *she does* Should I login or register? I don't have an account.
Me: Yes, you need to create an account before you can log in.
User: OK, so I just fill all this out...I want to stay on the phone with you just in case. *I stay, because I know what she's describing wasn't a login error. Also, no average handle time!* It happened again.
Me: Does it display the error message?
User: Yes.
Me: ...
User: ...
Me: What does it say?
User: 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage' and below that it has the error message.

She starts to read of the instructions for diagnosing why IE can't display the page: I stop her. [site] doesn't work well on IE9, so my next step is to determine her browser version. I walk her through finding the 'About Internet Explorer' screen with surprisingly little difficulty and determine she's using IE 8. Strange. I test on my copy of IE 8 (having previously tested using Chrome just to make sure the site was functioning) and it works. If it was the cookies, I'd expect it to just not log her in, so I'm puzzled until she comes out with this:

User: Do you think maybe my workplace is blocking me from using job sites to apply for work?

Well yes. Yes I do think maybe your current workplace doesn't want you to apply for other jobs on their time. *sigh* She's going to try again tonight when she gets home. I'm sure there'll be no issue at all.

Twenty years after the popularization of the Internet, I am allowed to make fun of stuff like this. Admin Coworker took a phone call the other day from a user who wanted to know if she could access our site at night.

Because the office hours given on the site are 8:30 to 5.

Yeah. She called to make sure a website doesn't open and close like a store or an office. Apparently these exist - like the websites where you can register for a new account by logging in. (Our most frequent problem with users claiming they can't register.) See opening sentence.

Overheard at work:

Reporter 1: I'm trying to be a real reporter, but the cops won't call me back!
Reporter 2: *low, sinister voice* Welcome to our world.

Also, my day started with someone telling someone else to go report on a developing standoff/hostage crisis outside of town, and giving them directions. Usually it's a fire. At least I'm rarely bored.

Actual request from a client: