1.  When in doubt, restart your computer.  You would be surprised how often that fixes whatever problems you’re experiencing.  Application crashed and you can’t get it to open again?  Restart.  Computer moving very slowly for no particular reason?  Restart.  Just about anything else?  Restart.  Seriously, restarting not only clears out the virtual memory that may have become bogged down the longer the PC has been on, but it ends any active applications running and gives you a fresh start when it reboots.  One of my my favorite British comedies, “The IT Crowd“, addresses this best.  When one of the main characters answers the helpdesk line, his introduction consists of “IT this is Roy, have you tried turning it off and on again?”  Brilliant, and entirely accurate.

2.  Don’t be afraid to use Google.  Search engines have evolved by leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, and now you can find just about anything you could possibly want using only the internet by making use of the tools available to you.  If you have a question about computers, the odds are very likely that at least one thousand other people have at one point had the same question, and the answer is on the internet just waiting for you to ask.  You want to know how to add a printer to your computer? Google it.  Want to know how to change the background picture on your desktop? Google it.  The internet is a vast encyclopedia of knowledge, you just have to pose the right question to get an answer.  If you get an error and you don’t know what it means, type the first sentence into Google and see what you get; chances are it will auto-complete before you’re half through typing because others have also had this problem.

3.  When in doubt, don’t do it.  If your printer stops working and you think that maybe prying it apart with a screwdriver will help you find the problem, don’t do it.  There’s a difference between being proactive and being ridiculous.  You can’t do everything for yourself.  Yes, you can use the internet to search for possible causes to your problem, but you’re not helping matters by taking tools to the machine to try and get it working again.  You have to know when to stop and ask for help.  Don’t call someone for help if you can’t find the power button.  Do call someone for help if the printer is powered on, has paper and ink, yet doesn’t seem to print for some reason.  If you aren’t sure you know what you’re doing, don’t try.  There is a pretty good chance you’ll only make matters worse (even unintentionally) and that isn’t necessary.  I have never been upset or frustrated with someone for having a genuine problem they need help with; what does get frustrating however is the person who calls a few times a week with problems that they’ve either had before or are easily fixed by anyone with common sense.  You don’t have to have a college degree in technology to get by on a daily basis, no matter how much you may want to pretend that’s the case.

4.  Try to be realistic with your expectations.  I cannot even attempt to count how many times I’ve gotten calls from family, friends, and people in the workplace where they express frustration over something not working like they expect, but their expectations are unrealistic.  Technology is amazing nowadays, I’ll grant you that, but if you think for a second that you should be able to restart your PC and have it back up and running in 30 seconds, you’ve lost your mind.  Yes, some will do that.  Those “some” would be the computers with a very powerful processor, a large amount of RAM, and that were made in the last year or less.  Please don’t expect your 4 year old Dell running Windows XP with 512 MB of RAM to restart in less  than a couple minutes.  It won’t happen.  If you are connecting to the internet using DSL and trying to load a 4 minute video on YouTube, please don’t complain that it takes a few minutes.  You are using a slow internet connection and accessing a data intensive website.  It’ll load.  You just have to be realistic with your expectations.  People who don’t understand how things work often assume they’re broken when in actuality they’re performing exactly as they should be.  If you want a fast computer, you’re gonna pay for it.  That $395 laptop you bought on sale at Best Buy isn’t going to be “state of the art” for more than a couple months (sad truth, but there you have it).  Don’t expect it to last you until your toddler graduates college.

5.  If and when your computer someday breaks, please be courteous to whoever you take it to for repairs.  If you call a helpdesk or a PC repair shop, please don’t yell at them or vent your frustration on them because your computer crashed.  They didn’t build your PC.  They didn’t fill it with data and crash it.  They didn’t have anything to do with it whatsoever, yet it is not at all uncommon for people in the IT field to bear the brunt of the frustration you feel when something goes wrong.  Being in the service industry doesn’t mean they should have to stand there and listen to you whine and complain and berate them.  I’ve had it happen to me all too often, and it’s uncalled for.  Things break, it’s a fact of life.  There is an entire professional field of people who are solely there to help you find the problem and attempt to fix it.  Just please be nice when asking for help.  The fact that you’re having to ask at all shows us that something’s wrong and you’re in need of assistance, so yelling and screaming about how you didn’t do anything and it just randomly broke one day isn’t going to help matters.

And there you have it.  Five easy and user-friendly tips for handling some of the most common problems you’ll run across.  Pain free, right?  You’re on your way to being self-sufficient.  Congratulations!

I love it when people call IT to open a ticket for something, then call us back 2 and 3 times a day to check the status.  We haven’t forgotten you.  The system kicks us constant email reminders letting us know there are pending issues.  We don’t need you checking up on us like we’re toddlers getting into the paste.

I just got off the phone with someone who opened a ticket a couple days ago and called in to tell me that it should’ve been a simple fix and there’s no way it should take 2 days to resolve; add to that the fact that he said “there’s no way you’re that busy” and I have no more patience.

Fact is, we are “that busy” and it’s mostly due to people like him.  You want us to fix your issue?  Don’t call us 3 times a day asking us the status – that takes away time it could be being worked on.  Don’t berate us for taking long.  That lessens our motivation to help you any faster than we’re already moving.

And most importantly, don’t presume to know how busy we are.  While I’m on the phone with you, there are 3 calls holding right behind you waiting for my attention.  The irony is, the reason we’re so busy is people calling all the time when there aren’t actually issues.  About half the daily call volume at any IT helpdesk is people either complaining that something’s broken when they’re actually doing it wrong, or calling to check the status of something they reported 30 minutes ago.

I love working in IT, and I fully acknowledge the fact that I probably wouldn’t have a job if some people weren’t so completely inept, but there comes a time when it goes beyond customer service and into being a kindergarten teacher.  When I have to tell a half dozen people a day that they locked themselves out of an account because they had their caps lock on when typing their password, that’s too much.  It’s just too much.

And on that note…it’s back to work I go.

Just about every job is customer service related in one way or another.  It really just depends on what you do and who you interact with, but almost every job requires some amount of human interaction, be it by phone, email, or in person.  However, this post isn’t about the people working on the CS side of things as much as it is about the people who in some form or fashion use that customer service.  While my particular observations will mainly be based on my work in the IT field (and will be presented as such), many are pretty universal.  So sit back, grab a pen and paper, and take notes ladies and gentlemen.  It’s time to learn how to be a decent human being.

1.  First and foremost, PLEASE do not chew gum or eat while you’re on the phone with us (and I speak for anyone and everyone who answers a phone as any part of their CS job).  The last thing I wanna hear in between sentences (let alone while you’re talking) is you smacking your gum in my ear, or chewing your granola bar.  As a common courtesy, you could wait until you’re off the phone to do that.  If you don’t, we reserve the right to pull up your address and send you a care package with laxative laced snacks.  Enjoy.

2.  The majority of the call centers you call for any kind of assistance have a queue setup where the agent’s phone automatically picks up when your call goes through.  They most likely don’t have a ringing phone that they have to pick up.  The reason I say this is because that also means that when the call is over, they don’t have a receiver to hang up – they’re usually using a headset that’s always on.  The moral of the story?  Please hang up when the call is over.  When the call is over and you just say bye and go back to what you were doing before (this mainly applies to people who call on speakerphone) without hanging up, we have to listen to you talking and rambling in the background, or manually release the call ourselves; and speaking from experiences, some companies don’t look kindly on any force-released calls because it could be construed as them hanging up on the customer.  So do us a favor – when the call is over, hang up.

3.  Depending on what you’re calling about, there’s a good chance that you’re going to be providing us with some specific information in order to help you.  Please don’t give us all that information in the first sentence you speak.  I can’t tell you how many conversations have gone something like this:

Me:  IT Support, may I have your full name please?

Them:  Yeah, this is Mary Johnson and I’m calling from 800-555-0000 in Nowhereville, USA and I have a question about my Dell Optiplex 780 computer running Windows XP SP3 and how it handles this program that I’m trying to use which was given to me by my coworker named David Rodriguez and I can’t seem to get it to install correctly even though his works fine.  What’s wrong with it?

Me:  Umm…so your name is Mary Johnson?

Please don’t flood the rep with information they haven’t asked for.  It’s overkill.  Call centers require information be tracked when people call in, and every ticketing system is different.  We have to move around from screen to screen to put your information in correctly to make sure it all gets handled and notated.  If you throw everything at us in one sentence when we’re not ready, you’re just gonna have to repeat yourself in a few moments and we both know you’re gonna get frustrated with us because you already said it once.  Please, just wait until we ask for the information.  Because if we feel like it, we can ask you for the information 8 times even though we already have it just to frustrate you more.  And we will.  Trust me.

4.  If you’re calling in to tell IT that your printer doesn’t work, the correct answer to our question of what type of printer you have should not be “umm…I don’t know, let me look”.  Prepare yourself.  You’re calling about a printer, chances are we’ll need to know what kind.  If you insist on not being any help at all, I’ll tell you that we also require the teeny tiny serial number on the back of the big printer, as well as the barcode number for the ink.  We don’t really need that.  But you must learn to be prepared.  Better to have more information than we’ll need than to keep us waiting while you look everything up.  There are other people calling for help, and they’re having to wait because you didn’t have any common sense.

5.  Computers can be fickle.  Sometimes, problems resolve themselves without any external influence.  Or sometimes, you might not be the only having the problem and someone else reports it and it’s been fixed.  Please don’t notice a problem, then wait 30 minutes to call and report it.  It might’ve been fixed already.  I can’t even express how many times someone has called to report a problem and in the middle of the call say “oh…well it’s working now” while they’re talking to me.  Please check before you call in.  You’re wasting your time and ours.  And I like my time.  Yours I don’t care about.

6.  Punctuation exists for a reason.  If you see something that has a hyphen or a period in it, it’s almost definitely meant to be there for one reason or another.  A perfect IT example would be what’s known as your IP address, a unique identifier of your computer on a network (or the web as a whole).  A basic example would be 172.24.14.3 which if read without punctuation comes across as 17224143.  That’s not helpful to me, because that could be 172.24.1.43 or 17.22.41.43 or any other number of combinations.  Those periods are there because they need to be.  When you give me the number, place them there.  You don’t get to pick and choose what you think is important – acting like that is probably why you’re needing to call in and report something isn’t working.

7.  Please, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world, do not call IT and read us the error message on your screen word for word with all the reference numbers and program names and so forth.  Unless we ask you to.  Which we won’t.  99 times out of 100, we don’t need to hear the whole message.  Most of the time we can get it by the first few words, or even better – by seeing it.  Send us a screenshot, or tell us what you were doing when it popped up.  It would be rude of us to interrupt you while you read that practically useless error message jargon, but it’s also rude of you to just keep going non-stop without taking a breath long enough for us to interject.  ASK what we need to help you, don’t presume to think you know what’s necessary.  You think you’re being helpful, so you get partial points for that – but you aren’t being helpful, you’re being annoying, so now you have negative points.  Bummer for you.

8.  If you had to wait on hold to talk to someone, I apologize.  Chances are there’s some kind of issue that’s causing a higher than normal call volume, or perhaps someone is out at lunch and there are less people operating the phones, or maybe it’s just a randomly high call volume afternoon.  The first words I hear out of your mouth don’t need to be “gosh it took forever to reach someone!” in an agitated and rude voice.  If you had to wait to reach someone, that means we’ve all been on back-to-back phone calls trying to get through everyone else who is also calling for whatever reason at that moment in time.  We know we’re busy.  We know it more than you do.  Don’t be an ass and get mad at us for it.  One of the nicest things I’ve heard someone say in a similar situation was something to the tune of, “Goodness, you must be busy since I had to wait a few minutes more than normal to reach someone.  I hate to be adding to that, but I do have a question for you.”  That person was awesome.  How hard is that?  How difficult is it to be polite?  From the trend I’ve noticed over the years of working IT and customer service, apparently it’s VERY difficult for people to be polite.  And that’s a sad truth.

9.  People who work in IT are usually big nerds who love gadgets and toys and doing things themselves.  It’s not always the case, but speaking for myself and most of the people I know doing similar things – it’s true.  As such, we enjoy building tools that help to automate the most common issues that come up.  What’s the number one issue in the history of IT?  ”Umm…yeah…I…uh…forgot my password.”  We hear this approximately 15 million times a day.  Give or take about 14.99 million, but it’s still a lot.  Most companies have automated tools in place that you can reset your own password, but nobody wants to use them.  The number one excuse people give when we ask why they chose not to use that tool is that they think it’s faster to call IT than to use the tool.  No it isn’t.  You had to pick up the phone, dial, wait to reach someone, give us your information, then we had to pull you up and reset it, then give it to you and wait for you to test.  All you had to do for the automated tool was pull up the site and type in your ID.  How hard is that?  How long did that take?  People use computers daily in this day and age, but they still seem afraid of anything automated.  Embrace the changes people.  Except for robot overlords.  Don’t embrace that change.  No good will come of it.

10.  Be conscious of how you breathe.  Right up there with chewing in my ear, people who breathe heavily straight into the phone are at the top of my pet peeve list.  It’s very frustrating to be trying to talk to someone and all you hear on the other end is deep wheezing because the phone is right up against their mouth and for whatever reason they’re gasping for air.  You’re not Darth Vader.  Breathe normally and quietly.  You sound like you just climbed 5 flights of stairs.  Which you didn’t.  Don’t lie.

11.  If the instructions on screen say to create a password with numbers and letters, don’t call us complaining of an error when you entered “password” and expected it to work.  Probably half of the calls to IT could be solved if the person calling had simply glanced at their screen to look for a clue as to what might’ve gone wrong.  In many cases, the error message itself will tell you exactly what you did wrong or how to fix it, but people will still call IT because they got an error and don’t know what to do.  Stop being afraid of your computer.  It would take you less time to read what’s on the screen to see if it’s something you can fix yourself than to pick up the phone, call us, wait on hold, then reach someone and try to explain it to them.  We’re here to help, obviously, but there are more than enough genuine problems to keep us busy – we’d really like it if half our calls weren’t “it says my password’s expired and needs to be changed, does that mean I have to change it to a new password?”

12.  Speakerphone is one of the worst features ever introduced to a phone.  It has some good uses, yes, but the bad far outweigh the good.  Please please please do not call anyone on speakerphone simply because you’re too lazy to hold the phone to your ear.  On speakerphone everything you do is amplified times 10.  Every key you type, every squeak of your chair, ever drawer you open and shut, and every word you feel the need to shout directly into the speaker – all of this is blaring straight into my ear.  It’s painful and infuriating and I’m not able to concentrate on how I’m going to solve your problem, because all I’m thinking about is where I’m going to hide your lifeless body that was beaten to death with the phone’s base station that you insisted on screaming into.

13.  If you call ANY customer service place and they know you by name alone, that’s not a good thing.  I don’t care how nice you are, if you’re calling often enough that everyone knows you, you’re calling way too much.  I’ve worked in a few different IT positions over the years, and in every one of them the IT department as a whole would discuss the people who called the most often.  Granted, we talked more about the rude people who called all the time and were no fun to talk to, but even if you’re nice – you’re still getting talked about.  Just understand that.  You may call and laugh when we recognize your voice, but we’re not laughing.  At all.

14.  No matter what position you’re in within a company, don’t call IT acting like you’re better than us.  I’m not saying this because I feel that I’m better than anyone else, I’m saying it because I deserve to be talked to like a human being, not a servant who merely exists to reset your password and install software for you.  Being a manager or a VP doesn’t mean you’re a superior human being above the lowly IT helpdesk.  Just remember, better or not, you’re still the one having to call us because you have a problem.  And I can just as easily reset your password to “AssHat1″ as anything else.  So be nice.  :-)

15.  Customer service is a mixed field.  You’ll get people who genuinely love what they do, and people who only see it as a job and nothing else.  I can look back on calls I have had to make myself and there were only a few where the rep I spoke with was overly pleasant and extremely helpful, above and beyond what was to be expected by the circumstances I was calling under.  I can also look back and remember many many more times when I spoke to someone rude who wasn’t interested in helping and even occasionally disconnected the call if they didn’t understand what I was asking for.  What’s my point?  Try to focus on the good reps.  I’ve had bad days before where my tone wasn’t what it should’ve been or where I was a little short with someone who frustrated me, and people will jump on any opportunity to demand to speak to a manager and complain.  However, I’ve had far more days where I’m in a good mood and pleasant and helpful, and I can count on one hand the number of times anyone has asked to talk to my manager to compliment me.  Don’t be so quick to complain and hesitant to compliment.  Nothing can make a bad day better like hearing someone tell you that you were really awesome and that they’d like to pass along their satisfaction to your boss.  If you talk a customer service rep of any type that has really helped you, take a minute and make sure their boss knows they’re doing a good job.  It makes all the difference in the world, trust me.

Alright, the list was longer than I thought it would be, and I’ll probably still add to it in the future.  But I feel very strongly about these things.  Maybe you do too.  Maybe you don’t.  The point is, just try to remember some of these when you have to call IT or any other kind of call center.  It makes a world of difference in how you’re treated, believe me.

I asked my manager to meet with me to discuss this new development.  He’d flat out told me back in February that he understood being a contractor wasn’t very stable work, and that he wouldn’t blame me for looking elsewhere – a fact I didn’t hesitate to bring up when he met with me 3 days after I initially requested the meeting.  I wanted to try and find some middle ground, to show him that I was willing, even anxious, to stay with Komen, but he didn’t seem to care.  The meeting consisted of me outlining my achievements in my time with the company, and the projects I was currently working on and what I had planned for the future, and why I felt it was time for him to meet me halfway and hire me.  While I was doing this, he was counterpointing with why he felt I wasn’t ready, and that he thought I just wasn’t “employee material” yet.

At one point he specifically told me in almost these exact words, “as a contractor, I can make one phone call to the staffing agency and in five minutes I’ll never have to see your face again.  As an employee I can still fire you, but I’d have to draw up performance evaluations, talk to HR, and possibly involve legal.”  I was shocked.  I asked if I had ever done anything to indicate that me being let go would ever even be an issue, and he quickly said that I hadn’t, but that you never know what’s gonna happen and if I were hired his options would be more limited as to how he could handle things.

That was enough for me.  I was tired of being treated as though I brought nothing to the team and that I wasn’t worth even being considered for a permanent position.  I laid it out on the table for him and said that with this other offer, I was prepared to leave if we couldn’t work something out.  He had already stated that he didn’t believe I was being productive enough to be hired (a fact I vehemently disagreed with), so I asked him that if he didn’t think I was that necessary, did he think the other person who works with me could handle the full workload on her own.  He stared at me and told me he didn’t get my meaning.  I looked at him and told him that I wanted to make it work, but would leave if we couldn’t.  All he could say was “okay”, and before I knew it I was already speaking the words that I’d never said before:  ”Consider this my official notice that I’m leaving the company.”

It was empowering, and terrifying all the same.  Again, I got an “okay” as a response and then the meeting was over.  I went back to my desk, and less than half an hour later he made an announcement to the entire IT department that I’d be leaving the company for another job.  Shock of all shocks, I recently found out that he had a friend of his from a previous job interview for my position, and that his friend will be hired shortly.  Show of hands, who’s surprised?  Anyone?  No one?  That’s what I thought.  Me either.  I worked my ass off trying to prove myself to him, and all along he was biding his time until I got tired of it and left, which I did, so he could bring in someone that didn’t know the job but was his buddy.  I’m so glad that people who make it to positions of management are able to put their own desires before the needs of the company; the person he had interview was obviously not technical in nature, and had no experience with the systems we use on a daily basis, and yet he got hired.  I find it very frustrating that he’d rather bring someone in with no experience and train them for weeks to months, just to do a job that I was already doing, merely so he didn’t have to hire me.  Personal reasons?  Probably.  But it’s done with now, and I don’t ever have to deal with him again.

This week was my first week with the new job, and I’m liking it so far.  The people are nice, and my cubicle is huge compared to any I’ve worked in before.  A strange thing to be considered a perk, but I love it all the same.  Leaving Komen was hard, but I didn’t feel that I had any other options.  In two interviews the new company I work for decided that I had enough potential to hire me as an employee from day one, yet my old manager couldn’t see that same potential after evaluating me for over 6 months.  Sometimes these things happen I guess, and I can only hope that it was for a reason.  Maybe this new company is where I’m supposed to be right now.  I’ll just have to wait and see.

I was sitting outside my class about an hour ago, having arrived about 15 minutes before class started, and the door was locked.  There’s usually a class that meets in the same room right before my class meets, so it’s usually unlocked when we arrive; sometimes they’re still in there and we wait outside, but if they’ve already gone for the night we just let ourselves in and wait for the professor.  When I found the door to be locked tonight, I set my stuff down and just waited for the professor to show up.  Over the next 15 minutes, more and more people from my class showed up, and almost all of them came right up next to me by the door and tried to open it.  Then they looked baffled that it was locked.

Umm…why would I be standing outside the classroom if it was unlocked and ready for our class to come inside?  Do you think I enjoy leaning against brick walls?  Do you think I like the noisy hallway filled with obnoxious students walking around on their cell phones talking about how hard the homework was last week and where they’re going to go to drink and unwind?  No, I don’t.  I could understand if maybe you’re the first one to show up after me and maybe there is some crazy chance you don’t recognize me as the guy in the back of class who constantly asks questions because he doesn’t understand the material in the slightest.  But when 30 other students from the same class you’ve been in all semester are also standing outside, don’t presume to walk up and think you’ll be able to open the door and save us from our inability to turn a handle and apply some form of push/pull effort.

I know I get frustrated easily, but come on people!  If the door was unlocked and the classroom empty – I’d be inside!  Same principle applies at work more often that I’d like to admit.  I’ll walk up to the elevators and push the bottom to summon the magical transport device, and 5 seconds later someone else will walk up and push the same (already glowing) button again.  Did I not do it right?  Do you think the elevator is going to come any faster?  If that was the case, I would’ve pushed the button 24 times upon arrival and your ass would still be waiting in the lobby since I would already be on my ascent to my floor.  Wake up people.  Pay attention.  Stop being so ridiculously oblivious to your surroundings.  Or I’ll start kicking you in the shin.

While I didn’t hate my last job, there were a lot of things that I didn’t like about it.  I can happily say that almost all of those things are not problems here at my new job.  For instance, at my last job the employees only got to sit down with our manager once every few months to try and touch base with our status and goals and to ask questions, but here I have a firmly scheduled 1:1 meeting every other week that allows me the opportunity to discuss anything I’d like with my manager.  If I have any concerns I can always feel comfortable approaching him outside of that 1:1 environment, but luckily I haven’t really had to yet.  It’s so nice knowing my manager is accessible when I need him, but not a micro-manager who checks on me throughout the day to make sure I’m okay and doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

It’s just a much more relaxed environment.  I don’t have to clock in and out every day, and I don’t have to have a strict 1 hour lunch.  I can come in a little late and just leave late to make up for it.  I can take a short lunch and leave early, or take a long lunch and stay late to compensate.  It’s all very fluid, and I find myself working even harder for this company than for the last because I’m so much more comfortable and at ease here.  I can listen to my iPod while I work, and that always helps the day go by pretty quick.  I can get on IM and talk to my coworkers as needed, but can also talk to friends as long as it doesn’t distract me from work.  This helps me keep in touch with Keith while we’re both at work, and I love being able to do that.

Since I’ve been here we’ve had multiple department lunches that the company picked up the tab for, we had a team-building activity that the whole IT department participated in, and we’ve had various other fun activities in the office that keep things from becoming stagnant.  I’m still a contractor right now, but I’m on the road to becoming a full-time employee, and it can’t happen soon enough.  I can’t wait to be brought into the fold and feel like a permanent fixture around here instead of just a temp.  Here’s hoping!

1. When you get on an elevator and I’m the only other person already on, there is absolutely no reason why there should be any physical contact between us.  I have never been on an elevator so small that two people can’t ride comfortably without being close to each other.  Step back.  Chances are, you smell and I don’t want you rubbing up against me.
2. If you walk up to the elevator and I’m standing there waiting, and the button is glowing, you can safely assume that I did not just choose that spot randomly to hang out at.  I pushed the button and am waiting for an elevator to arrive.  There is no need for you to walk over, make eye contact with me, and push the button 7 times – it won’t make the elevator come any faster.  It will however make me step on your foot when I get off the elevator at my floor.
3. Do not listen to your voicemails on speaker-phone.  We don’t care if your spouse left you a romantic message telling you to be confident and try your hardest.  We don’t care if your stalker left a message simply of their heavy breathing.  And we don’t care if you left yourself a message reminding you not to forget your gym shorts in the bottom drawer again.  Stop being lazy and pick up the damn receiver and listen to the messages instead of inflicting them on the whole office.  Otherwise, I’m going to call you after hours and leave a message stating that we’re foreclosing your home because your last mortgage payment bounced and our research shows it was due to your excessive amount of money spent on hookers, and then I’ll laugh hysterically when you listen to that on speaker-phone the following day.
4. I don’t care how much you love your ringtone or text message alert sound, nobody else in the office does.  If we hear it once, we assume you forgot to put it on silent and we let it go by without much thought.  18 times later, I’m going to beat you over the head with a 3 hole punch.  I don’t want to hear the same sound over and over again all day long just so you can feel important that someone is text messaging you.  You’re not.  The autopsy will confirm that.
5. If a meeting starts at 2 and ends at 3, an appropriate time to show up is not 2:52.  The meeting is over.  At this point, we’re all wondering where you were, and figuring out a way to punish you for not showing up.  Your half-hearted claim that you were busy and couldn’t get away from your desk is bull.  I saw you surfing Facebook earlier and updating your twitter all morning.  We will now shun you.  That big luncheon that was scheduled for next week which we told you was cancelled?  It wasn’t.  We’re gonna have a blast.  Then call you 8 minutes before it’s over and ask why you couldn’t make it.  Tweet about that.
6. You’re busy.  I’m busy.  We’re all busy.  When do you ever see me sitting around telling anyone who passes by how much I wish I had more work to do?  Oh yeah, it was never.  Stop trying to get me to do your job and mine as well simply because you’re feeling overwhelmed.  Once or twice, fine, I’m a reasonable guy.  Every day?  I’ll bite you, I swear I will.
7. Parking garages (and even parking lots) often have spaces designated as being for “compact cars”.  So why is it they’re always filled with Hummers and Ford F350s?  And I say filled because I mean filled.  They take up the whole spot, plus some overflow on each side, making it impossible for anyone else to park in the directly surrounding spots for fear of not being able to open their doors.  So instead of 3 cars getting spots, your one humongously oversized truck/SUV/tank gets it.  I would spread a rumor that you have tiny genitalia, but it’s no fun to spread a rumor that’s very likely true.  I’ll just consistently let the air out of your tires, and practice my voodoo.  Just wait.  I’ll getcha.
8. If you see me approaching the elevator and start pushing the button to close the doors because you want it to yourself, I will purposely run and throw my body onto the elevator and stare at you the whole ride up.  And if I get off before you, I’ll push the buttons for every other floor and then stare at you with a smile as the doors close behind me.  Stop being an ass.
9. If you need to have more than 30 second conversation with someone, schedule time in a small conference room to discuss your issues.  I don’t want you standing right behind me talking to someone about how the deadline for the such and such is tomorrow and you haven’t finished the thingamajig and you’re gonna jump off the roof if you don’t get it done in time since you’ll almost certainly be fired for being incompetent.  If I have to listen to you talking about that for more than 30 seconds, I’ll show you the way to the roof and advise you not to land in any bushes or soft objects below.
10. Please don’t bring Chinese food into work for lunch, and then eat it at your desk.  Just about every corporate building has a cafeteria – a place specifically designed to smell like food and facilitate its being eaten.  You wanna eat a sandwich at your desk?  Fine.  Go for it.  You wanna eat something that’s going to smell up the whole office?  Be aware that I’m going to lean over your cube and spray you in the face with air freshener to try and balance it out.  You have been given fair warning.
11. If you’re going to bring up every fundraiser your child’s school has and expect your coworkers to buy all that useless crap that we don’t really want, then you had better be willing to do the same when we start peddling our kids’ crap.  Too many times have I seen people sell popcorn, girl scout cookies, wrapping paper, and all other kinds of ridiculously random stuff to coworkers, then turn around and say that they don’t have any money to return the favor, all the while planning their next family trip to who-knows-where.  If you don’t buy the stuff I’m peddling, I will sneak sugar into your carry-on baggage and warn the airport that you’re smuggling cocaine.  Enjoy your cavity search.
12. Newsflash: sound travels.  If you’re listening to a radio at your desk, everyone you can hear it.  There does not exist a comfortable volume that you can both hear the music over the sound of your keyboard and mouse clicks, but still keep your neighbors from having to listen to it.  What’s worse is that the people who listen to music loudly at their desk rarely have commonly shared taste – they’re usually huge fans of heavy metal, deep south country, or polka.  Stop it, or I’ll be forced to modify the system files on your computer, and from now on when your computer starts up you’ll be greeted by farm animal noises, thus perpetuating the rumor I also started about your torrid love affairs with sheep.  Write a country song about that.
13. If you are cold, do not complain to building management and request the temperature be raised.  How about you stop wearing short sleeve shirts to work if you’re feeling chilly?  Some people are required to wear dress shirts and slacks, and those don’t really breathe very well, so said people get quite warm.  They don’t need you requesting the temperature be set to 82 so you can feel nice and toasty at your desk.  Wear a sweater.  Wear a jacket.  Get up off your ass and move around to stimulate blood flow.  When you’re cold, you can do something about it.  When everyone else gets hot, it’s not really work appropriate to strip down to cool off.  If you don’t follow this rule, I’ll be forced to sneak hot sauce into all the food you brought for lunch.  You won’t be feeling very cold after eating that.
14. Don’t print out a 300 page report all at once in the middle of the day.  Other people need to use that printer too, likely for one or two pages, and they shouldn’t have to sit around all day waiting for your document to finish.  Split it up into a few smaller sized pieces.  You’ll still get your report printed, but other people will be able to intermittently print their documents too.  Everyone wins.  If you don’t comply, I’ll steal pages 109-147 out of your report.  Hope there wasn’t anything important in there.
15. During a fire drill/alarm, do not push everyone out of your way to make it to the stairs faster.  We would all like to escape, thank you.  Pushing me over will not facilitate your safe escape without any repercussions.  Chances are, I’ll get back on my feet and make it downstairs just fine.  However, when it’s safe to return inside I’ll rush straight to your desk and start taking things.  And shredding things.  And then I’ll limp past you later feigning innocence as you cry over your missing Snoopy pen.
16. If you have to have a badge of some sort to activate the elevator or the parking garage or the door to your area of the office, please have it out and ready when you get to said spot.  I am tired of being behind you while you dig in your car to find your badge, or upend your purse in the elevator looking for it, or dig through your pockets all the while laughing awkwardly and pretending you haven’t done the same thing everyday of your employment here.  I’m tired of it, and so is everyone else.  If we can have the necessary identification ready and available when necessary, so can you.  Get with it, or next time I see you I’m going to rush over and tape it to your forehead.
17. We live in the 21st century, not the Dark Ages.  When it comes to trivial little questions or ramblings, an instant message or an email will more than suffice.  You can even throw in an “lol” or an emoticon and then go along with your day, never having gotten up from your desk.  But no, that’s no good.  You have to get up and walk across the office to talk to your friend, then walk back to your desk, then walk to someone else’s desk 3 minutes later with a follow-up question, then back to your desk, and so on and so forth all day long.  I tire of seeing your face walk past my desk.  Technology is a great asset.  I’m not asking you to plug your brain into your computer and disconnect all social interaction, just to be aware of the fact that your constant pacing back and forth across the office is distracting to those of us actually working, and your conversations are also a nuisance, one which could be accomplished even quicker and with absolute silence via the computer.  Take advantage of the technology, or I will build a sentient robot to shoot laser beams at you every time you pass my desk.

As you can see, I’m moderately bitter.  Working in corporate America is tough, but if everyone followed the rules we’d all be just fine.  Spread the word.  Or else…

And I did just that.  I met my manager and my coworkers (one of which I knew from Citigroup and had been looking forward to seeing ever since I found out about the job), sat through multiple meetings and training sessions, and then was thrown onto my computer to get to work.  I have email, a phone, and a tiny little half-cubicle that nobody else wanted but that I’m perfectly happy to stay in until something bigger is available.  :-)

It’s gonna be a great job.  I can already tell that even though things may seem a little tedious, that I’m going to enjoy myself at this company.  I’ll do my best at everything I do and try to keep my head up and look on the bright side of every situation.  I was unemployed for 8 months – I’m just happy to get my foot back in the door somewhere.

I stopped at Walmart on my way home today and picked up a few little things I’d like for my desk that I can’t really request from the supply room at work.  Organizers and such.  I’m gonna make myself comfortable.  I intend to be there for quite a while.

The interview was in the Renaissance Tower in Dallas taking place on one of the uppermost floors.  I could swear their elevators are Star Trek-like turbolifts, seeing as how the elevator moved dozens of floors in a matter of seconds.  I’d be anxious to see a diagram of how fast it actually moves, and probably wouldn’t want to ride again.  I was a little early (though the recruiter had told me to be there at 10 a.m. originally, the night before he sent me an email with directions and told me to be there at 9 which I received the morning of the interview and luckily had enough time to quickly get ready and depart) and waited in the lobby for HR to come retrieve me.

I was escorted to yet another upper floor and introduced to the interviewer, the man who would potentially someday become my direct manager.  He was incredibly nice and casual and the interview lasted for over an hour and a half.  He asked me a few technical questions to gauge my expertise and I actually managed to answer them all.  I remember one interview years ago where I was asked how to locate a network resource from a command prompt; the word “ping” eluded me and I stupidly stumbled around for a couple minutes trying to describe the simplest of network protocols.  Suffice it to say, I never heard back from that company and have since then been terrified of technical interviews.  After this recent interview however, I am much more confident about them.

As the technical aspect finished, we began casually chatting and the fact that I have an iPhone came up in the conversation.  His face lit up and he let me know that his entire team (him and 3 subordinates) all have iPhones, and that would make me the final piece of the puzzle.  I laughed and did backflips mentally – maybe this was my way in!  He did mention that he has no love for Apple products in general though, only the iPhone, so I kept my mouth shut on the fact that I own two Macs and no Windows machines.  :-)

It ended well and he told me not to expect to hear back for at least a week due to a number of other interviews he had to conduct.  I thanked him, left, and heard nothing for almost two weeks.  Then the recruiter called me and told me they wanted me in for a second interview.  Upon my arrival to that interview, the front desk receptionists told me that they don’t ever have anyone back if they don’t really like them, so this must mean good things for me.  For the second go around I met not only with my would-be direct manager, but his manager as well.  The meeting only lasted 30 minutes and was a little more intense and less casual.  They both asked me a few questions and admitted to being impressed with my answers.  I felt that everything went well, and left confident that I’d done my best.

I talked to my recruiter yesterday and he told me that the company has narrowed it down to me and one other candidate.  It’s the final lap of the race, and I’m pushing my neck out as far as it can possibly go without tripping before the finish line.  I want this job.  I need this job.  They’re supposed to be making a decision this week, which pretty much means they have until tomorrow to decide and inform the candidate of their choosing.  Supposedly.  This is all according to the information my recruiter has, so it may not be exactly accurate.

I’m going a little crazy.  I’ve been unemployed for almost five whole months now.  I’m tired of it.  I really hope I’m what this company wants because it sure sounds like the kind of place I could fit in.  Hopefully I’ll know tomorrow.

I have been without a job for almost four full months now.  That’s ridiculous.  I never thought it would take me this long to find something else after being laid off by Citi, but it has.  In all this time, I’ve had one interview and it was only by phone; I never heard back about scheduling one in person despite numerous attempts to follow-up.  Each week goes by with more applications going out, and no phone calls coming in.  For the first couple months I would go out almost every day to spend time with friends and relax just because I could.  Now I do so because I can’t stand the sight of the inside of my apartment.  On the days when I’m home, it’s practically torture to stare at the same walls all day, every day, with little time away.  The days just keep dragging on, and I find every excuse possible to stay busy so I don’t notice just how long I’ve really been unemployed.

I keep telling myself that I’m not useless.  I only do so because so many people around me have jumped all over me whenever I even hint that I’m feeling that way.  Since I was a junior in high school, I’ve only felt useful when working.  The few times I’ve been without work, it’s always been a very short time and I never had to put much thought into it.  Now I’m looking at how long I’ve gone without work.  Part of me wants to say it’s the way the economy is right now, and that there aren’t many jobs, but that’s just not the case in actuality.  There are jobs – I’ve seen them and applied for them – but none of them want me.  It’s a harsh truth, but there it is.

I have always been a night person, but more so lately than ever before.  It’s rare for me to be tired enough for bed before 2 a.m. and then I sleep in until around 11 each morning.  I usually wake up around 7 or 8 naturally, but I just don’t have anything to do to fill the time nowadays, so I just roll back over and sleep.  I send out resumes, I apply for jobs online, I pass out my business cards just about everywhere I go, but nothing comes of any of it.  I feel like I’m just moving from one day to the next, never really making progress.  I want a job.  I want to work.  I want to be useful again.