Failure Is The New Salvation

Bear With The Technical Mumbo-Jumbo

Our Help Desk phones are supposed to interface with our computers by using software that tracks the minutia of each call routed through it. The software is a micro-manager's wet dream, e.g, a manager in a remote location could observe that a particular clerk in some distant office was taking an average of 6.8 seconds to answer their phone. The manager could then broadcast a morale-crushing memo requiring all phones to be answered within 5.0 seconds...the software is capable of generating endless gobs of statistics and there is nothing in the workplace quite so dangerous as a power-obsessed long-distance manager with access to vast amounts of statistics.

Luckily, the system crashed on Day One and hasn't shown so much as a flicker of life since.

Pants On Fire

I missed most of it, but there was a incident today that went like this:

A field agent came in with a boxful of "broken" computer gizmos that belonged to his crew and said he had spent three hours on a Help Desk call. No one at the Desk had any knowledge of such a call and at some point my Boss got involved in the exchange. My Boss asked Field Dude for his ticket number from the call, seeing as how our Ticket system does work...the agent gave my Boss a bogus number and a search by name and other info turned up nothing- at which point the field agent admitted that he lied-LIED!- about the three-hour phone call because he thought he'd get faster results if he submitted a falsified complaint in person.

My Boss was still in a state of disbelief when he told me what happened. I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't- the guy really did make up the whole thing and get caught red-handed in his web of lies. There's a great deal more to the story, but the point is that once someone has admitted to lying on a critical issue, it's impossible for me to give credibility to their words regarding anything that follows. This is true in all situations, not just work.


Dude, Where Is My Car?

Last Friday I went out back to fetch something from my car. My car was nowhere to be seen.
On a hunch, I called the company that tows unauthorized vehicles from our building's lot.

Me: I think you stole my car.

Them: Where was it and what make and model?

Me: [answers questions]. It had a parking decal on it. I live here and I pay for that parking space. You stole my car.

Them: Can you get it today? It will cost $650. We have had it since Wednesday and it is $100 per day to store it.

Me: You stole it. I'm not giving you money, in fact, I'm getting ready to call the police...who told you to tow my car anyway?

Them: Well, we will waive the $250 processing fee.

Me: Great. I'm suddenly $250 closer to hiring an attorney.

Them:...why?

Me: To sue you.

Them(squirrely-like): Um, it was your, um, er, Property Manager who called.

So I called my landlord and he adamantly denied having my car towed. He sounded genuinely angry over the incident and said he would call the Towing Trolls. I had my car back on Monday, no charge to me...now I have to clean it out and sell it to make room for my new car.

Anybody in the market for fifteen gallons of gas and four new tires? I'm asking $750, which I know sounds like a lot- but it comes with a free* 1990 Volvo 780!


*If I waive the $250 processing fee and the storage charges.