Phone books vs. Interwebs

I don't think any explanation is necessary here:

To all Staff:

We received yesterday afternoon one copy each of the 2010-2011 Verizon White Pages telephone book, a Verizon Super Yellow Pages telephone book and a smaller size Verizon Super Yellow Pages Companion Directory. These books/directories are kept on a lower shelf in the mailing area on the second floor of the building. As a reminder, the internet can also be used to search for a telephone number and an address (although not all business contact numbers are listed in directories or on the internet).

Special K

I have a message with no message

Dear M:

I just wanted to provide you with a “heads-up.” Prospective Intern will be sending you a brief email regarding employment beginning this fall. She did not provide a telephone number or message to me to give to you.

Special K

She didn't give you a message to give to me, and yet here you are giving me one, from her. Weird!!

I'm sorry. So sorry.

Dear M:

My apologies for disturbing you. You just received a telephone call from Lisa of MA Company. She wanted to speak with you about mailing something relating to a show. She did not leave a telephone number, email address, or mention which show to which she was referring. She stated that she was going to email you a message – even though she knows that you will be out of the office until next week. I have no further information for you, sorry.

Special K

You're sorry? Somehow I don't think you are. And even though I read this on my Blackberry while relaxing on the beach, I still wanted to punch you while reading it.

Um, are we "on-line"?

In the continued saga of getting books to Germany, Special K sent the following to S:

Dear S:

The post office has not yet returned my telephone call regarding the mailing of catalogues to Germany. Checking the costs of sending these boxes of catalogues via on-line is $205.00 (one box of 6 catalogues is $123.03 if calculated “on-line” and one box of 3 catalogues is $71.73 if calculated “on-line”). I am still awaiting a response or confirmation from one of the area post offices.

Special K

I love sending things via on-line, don't you? By the way, the people who are conducting business over the phone are the same people who would type “on-line.”

Prank call awesomeness

Ii just introduced a new reader to the blog, suggesting that he should consider prank calling Special K to shake things up a little on this Wednesday afternoon. He was kind enough to do so, and provide a transcript (names have been change to protect the guilty):

JB: Hey there, this is Jay Bruce calling about your email problems there.
SK: My email?
JB: Your company's email system is all messed up. You got anyone there with last names that start with C or X?
SK: See what?
JB: Last names that start with C or X. Yeah - their email is not going to work for the next fifteen minutes. The whole damn C and X systems are down.
SK: [silence]
JB: Alright, please tell anyone there with those emails that it's all messed up.
SK: [silence]
JB: Okay, you take care. Bye now.
SK: Buy what?

[end of transcript]

I went to share this with my coworkers and we were all about to pee ourselves. And since I AM, indeed, an employee whose last name begins with one of the aforementioned letters, I came back to my desk and called Special K to tell her I was having trouble with me email and asked if she was having problems with hers. She said no, and that she had no idea what was wrong, but that sometimes in the morning she has problems opening hers up and that it can be slow. She suggested I let S know, because she's our resident "expert" (you know, like she makes BCC fields reappear and other magic like that). I said I had, with no success. Special K told me that if she had any ideas, she would email me.

Then she came downstairs about two minutes later and asked if I was sure mine wasn't working, and said she had opened hers, and "there were a couple of icky ones waiting for me--you know, about sex." But that she gets those all the time.

My sides hurt from trying not to laugh, and it's taking all my willpower not to sign her up for gay porn now.

My dentist keeps weird hours

I just want to preface this entry by saying that my dentist--who is now dentist to S & L--has the most awesome name in the history of the world. Unforunately, I can't type it here because even though I make fun of retards, I think it would be wrong to put his porn star-like name here for all the world to see. Let's just say it's sorta like "Dr. Adonis De Milo."

Anyway, I recently had to go to visit Dr. Pornstar to get fitted for my sexy new night guard. I suspect that it's a result of having worked here for more than 3 years, but lately I have started to grind my teeth down to nubs in my sleep.

I made an appointment, and they called the office to remind me of said appointment. However, they called early enough to avoid having to actually speak to anyone (one can only assume that they have had the misfortune of calling before, only to have to go through Special K to reach me). Special K checked the voicemails upon her arrival and left me this note:

Thurs. 11/6/08
(8:55 am)
M-
A Telephone message was left for you on the answering machine.
Thurs.
8:23 am
It is a courtesy/reminder/confirmation call for:
Monday, November 17 in Dr. Pornstar's office at 1:00 (pm?). No telephone number was left in case you need to make a change to this plan (I also left this message on the answering machine in case you need to review it).

Special K

Ok, a few observations:

They left the message on THE ANSWERING MACHINE. are you sure it wasn't YOUR MACHINE? There are so many machines here, I am glad you clarified...

"It is a courtesy/reminder/confirmation call"? Which one is it, Special K?!

Monday, November 10 in Dr. Pornstar's office at 1:00 (pm?) Nope, my dentist keeps weird hours. It's 1 am. Dentists now do this really cool middle-of-the-night scheduling. It's convenient.

Yeah, I'm a bitch, I shouldn't be so critical. But man, it's so annoying that she can't just leave a message that says:

M-Your dentist left a message reminding you of your appointment at 1 pm on 1/17.

The heat is supposably working

In many offices, the office manager would be aware of things like "there's water dripping through the ceiling," "our security cameras don't seem to be working" and "damn, it's downright arctic in here since the heat won't come on." Not Special K. It took having Awesome Accountant coming in and mentioning "Special K, it's pretty cold in here, have you turned the heat on?" for her to say "My, but is IS cold" and scurry off to figure out whether the fact that it's been about 65 degrees may have something to do with our heating system.

Numerous phone calls and several days later, she finally managed to get "our" heating guy in yesterday. And yes, we request the same representative of the company each time because apparently if we don't, it's like "trying to reinvent the wheel" (this according to The Boss Lady, not Special K, as Special K hasn't figured out wheels yet). So "our" heating guy came in and (according to Special K) determined that--like last year--birds somehow destroyed it? Somehow this seems treatable, and like something you might think to monitor, or at least think of when the heat fails to turn on for the second year in a row. Instead I imagine her sitting outside watching flocks flying into our vents and saying "ooooh, birdies!" while clapping her hands.

So "our" heating guy returned with an assistant today. They fiddled around, and things seemed to be working upstairs, at least. However, this also happened to be a morning where we had a large shipment leaving the building, which necessitated leaving the exterior doors open for several hours. It's about 45 degrees outside, with 45 mph gusts. The end result? It's freezing. Inside. Like 57 degrees cold (ok, that isn't freezing but I am from a warm climate, deal with it). Not cool.

However, when I asked Special K about it this afternoon, long after the truck departed and the lack of heat was quite, quite clear, she announced that "supposably" they fixed everything. Oh really? Is this why it says it's 57 degrees downstairs? And my fingernails are purple? And despite the fact that I have gone scavaging for abandoned sweaters and odd articles of clothing to layer upon myself, I still cannot feel my extremities?

Then Special K admits that she wouldn't let them really test the downstairs heat control, so she didn't know for sure whether it was working. This is where I get really frustrated. For the past several months, I have had a temperature-sensitive consignment stored in our building. Thus I very, very clearly explained to Special K that the temperature MUST remain between 68-72 AT ALL TIMES. I made a post-it and stuck it to the thermostat, lest she forget. I was impressed that she seemed to be handling it well, even going so far as to leave a large, hastily scrawled note for our cleaning person to let her know not to adjust it.

But alas, Special K didn't QUITE grasp the whole memo. In her mind, the temperature could not go above 72. Somehow realizing that it must also stay ABOVE 68 degrees was entirely too much for her to take in. Thus she warned "our" heating guy not to touch my thermostat for the downstairs temperature control. I told her that I put it on 80 degrees and "ON" rather than auto, and no fan had come on. So she called the company and they announced that "our" guy couldn't come back until tomorrow. Then she came down to check for herself, standing in the adjacent warehouse and waving her little hands around in the cold air to see if maybe she'd catch a draft of warmth and be able to claim the heat was working. During this special little heat dance, I went upstairs and told The Boss Lady that it was freezing, I was miserable, the shipment I had been storing was made vulnerable to the TOO COLD temps that Special K couldn't seem to acknowledge. So I got permission to have Special K call the company and announce that this situation was dire, and called for extreme measures--we could have someone besides "our" guy return.

The phone rang a moment later, and Special K went scurrying past me and suddenly a great blast of warm air started surrounding my office. When I asked her what had happened, she explained that the assistant to "our" guy--the one who was fishing for dead birds in our building's vents--had turned off the downstairs "system" this morning. And despite the fact that the whole point of their service call had been to turn the heat on for us, he didn't think to flip the switch before leaving.

Part of me is so grateful for this newfound warmth that I want to hug Special K. The other part of me wants to slap her for spreading her stupidity to "our" heating guy's assistant. Seriously, in the spread of the retard virus, another one bites the dust.

"Travis's" are the thorn in the side of society.

This blog has been picking up steam and acquiring new readers and fans. For that, we applaud ourselves, and, well, Special K too. For years, I have had friends who liked to ring me at work to hear Special K's robotronic phone operating procedure. There is a renewed interest among friends and friends of friends in calling the office now.

Probably taken aback by the voice ("you mean that's a person???"), the caller asks Special K if "Travis" is available. Special K, in her signature monotone, answers that "this is a business, not a residence." Caller tries then get directions, which then just flusters Special K to the breaking point.

But let's back up. Special K's immediate response to the request for "Travis" implies that no one named Travis could possibly be employed. A "Travis" could only be at his "residence." Because, you see-- as I've now come to learn-- the Travis's of the world are never gainfully employed. A "Travis" is at home all day on the couch eating cheetos and watching Tyra all day and sucking away at our tax dollars. Damn Travis's! Get a job, Travis, and for god's sake do something with your life! (And quit giving out our number!)

Identity crisis

Special K sometimes gets a little confused taking phone messages. Often the names are hysterically misspelled. Sometimes it becomes abundantly clear that she has no idea what the hell each of us does in the office (we're an office of 6 people with distinct roles--it's not that difficult).

One day I returned from lunch to find a "While You Were Out" slip on my chair. On it she wrote

Ben Thomas called. He is or knows Dave Gilligan. Please call him. XXX-123-4567

Now, I could be wrong, but I think if the guy is Dave Gilligan, he can probably identify himself as Dave Gilligan. There's no need to offer up another name to throw me off. Somehow this didn't strike K as strange, and that worries me...

Whoa, that's a person?

Special K has a special way of not being able to perform most of the tasks that would normally be handed to a someone in her position. This means that we all get to take on really fun, menial tasks for her. But one thing she does do is answer all incoming calls to the office. Now, some people have told me that our receptionist was "delightful"--she has a sing-songy phone voice, and Special K is always eager to please. But the sing-songy-ness is a little over the top. So over the top that I don't really give out this number to friends. But one day my cell phone was dead, and I emailed a friend to tell her to call me on my office line so we could make after-work plans over the phone.

She did. And after Special K put the call through, I asked Jen what she thought of our whacko receptionist. Her response? "Whoa, that's a person? I thought that was a recording!"

She gives Amtrak's Julie a run for her money.