IT Gold: School days

(FYI-Yes, I graduated as of June 16, 2007)

Since I made a post along the same lines, I thought I’d stroll down memory lane and recall some of the biggest sucks of my old high school’s IT department. This will probably get quite long, so I’ll cut it here.

Note to room mates

Taking my food is not okay. Shit, I pay for it.I don’t have disposable money like you do. I work for a living and make $8.25 an hour. That roughly equates to $140 a week on my current amount of hours.Unlike yourself, I have bills. Credit card bills, phone bills, and grocery bills.You may argue that there are two of us living in the room you are renting out. Guess what? My girlfriend got shafted by her job and cannot help me.But the low blow is when you take half of my food and then buy a metric fuckton of food about 3 days later and forbid me to have any of your food.Jesus christ on a pogostick, learn some roomate skillz, please. 

Unintended consequence: iPod Video

Geez, this thing gets horrible battery life.

iPod touch: 1 hour of video and the battery doesn’t even look fazed.

iPod video: 20 minutes and the battery is 3/4ths dead, at half brightness.

I have no idea what the dealie is, but my iPod video does horribly at video. Music? It gets about 16 hours per charge. On video, battery life does a nosedive. I’m beginning to think this is something to do with the firmware, but i’ll have to see. 

Retail horror 4: Bags bags bags

Look, it’s about time I dished some pain on this subject.

People don’t seem to know what bags do which function best. This irritates the living hell out of me.

Asking for paper bags on all-produce orders? Venial SIN.

Asking for paper bags on bottled items such as two-liter cokes? Also SIN.

So here you go, the usual breakdown for what you should ask for.

If you want paper, make sure you are buying a ton of boxed items. Those fit perfectly into paper and work very nicely.

On the reusable bags, please, please don’t even bother with those. Those ones are so shoddy and can’t even hold their form, making it a pain for me to get anything into them. (I’ll back the ones sold by Whole Foods which have a black plastic bottom in them. Why any other grocer hasn’t outfitted their reusable bags with those, I’ve no idea.)

If you want to do your duty to the environment, reuse your paper bags, and/or bring in your plastic bags for recycling. For the love of god, we have a recycling box in the front of the store! 

One last bit of pain for those GINORMOUS Costco bags. Don’t ever ever bring those through my line, because I’ll likely tell you to bag yourself. And if I somehow stick around, don’t ever ask me to pack them light. Because I won’t. You bought those stupid bags, you should know as well as anyone else that those bags ARE MADE TO BE HEAVY.

I swear.

 

One last bit of humor, a conversation between my Front End Mngr. and me.

FEM: I’d like a bagger anywhere, anytime, any minute.

Me: Would you have a bagger in a house? With a mouse?

FEM: Wha-?

Me: Never read Dr. Seuss, did yeh? 

Retail Horror 3

Welcome to the third installment of retail horror.This time, I’ve got one blanket statement against some customers, one against another customer, and another round of pain for a co-worker. Let’s begin. My blanket statement: You know, on rainy days, I just totally HATE IT when customers ask me to help them out (And on this day, I had 3-bag orders and help out) and once we get to their car, the customer huddles away in their car while I get rained on outside. That’s just friggin’ rude as hell. We appreciate it when, y’know, you stay outside the car with us and lend a hand.I’ll throw in another bit of hate for the customers who see us busting our asses trying to bring carts into the store, but just ditch the carts in the middle of the parking lot. Lord, don’t you guys appreciate our work ethic? My lousy $8.25 per hour DOES NOT PAY ME ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH YOUR BULLSHIT.Inside the store: I was bagging this one customer’s order who is clearly put off that we don’t have any more yogurt in a bottle for her. So, what do we do? Raincheck.I fill one out, as she’s bitching that she’s in a hurry. *Kchhhhhht* There’s your raincheck, have a nice day. She stops, and looks at me like I’m an idiot. She reaches for the one yogurt she did get, and throws it down in her cart screaming “I DON’T HAVE THE TIME FOR THIS!” hands me the raincheck and points out I didn’t write the exact name, size, flavor of the yogurt she wanted. Never mind the UPC wasn’t enough. I write it in for her and she runs outside.This one’s good. I was closing one day, and someone left a cart chock full of perishables in the checkstands. I made a note of it, checked back here and there, and decided that after 30 minutes, something needed to be done about it. Since I was closing, all go-backs needed to be done, so I got on it. All of the sudden, this irate customer accosts me in one of the aisles, and without saying a word, begins reaching into my go-backs cart and slinging things around.”Can I help you?” I say.”Yeah, when I leave my fucking cart for ten minutes to go to the bathroom, you fuckers don’t fucking take it, you leave it there.”"I apologize for any-”"-Shit, it took me forever to fucking find this shit, now I can’t even remember what I bought from you fuckers. Thanks a fucking lot.”And he walks away, leaving the surrounding area in shambles.Thanks a lot for making my job a lot harder than it should have been.One more on our little friend checker who thinks he controls everyone: As my shift was about to end, I get paged on the PA system: “Could the clerk on sweeps call me at extension whatever.”Knowing it was this dude, I hung my head down, reached for the phone, and dialed.”What’cha need?” I ask.”Who’s on sweeps?”"Me. What’s up?” I say.”Well, the fucking garbage in here is overflowing and you have a lot of shit to do in here blah blah”.I hang up the phone and one of my friendly co-workers says “Him again?” I nod.”He’s such an asshole.” She replies.So, cut to the breakroom, where said trash debacle is happening. About 4 of my immediate coworkers are in there, and I begin to take out the trash, when Mr. Asshole takes it one step further by saying “MY, IT DOES LOOK LIKE THE TRASH SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT HOURS AGO. ALSO, I SUCK.” (That last part was inserted by me) Yeah, cursing over the phone was good enough, but having to make me feel like an idiot in front of like 7 people? You. dick.I’m thinking I should begin posting to Customers Suck or Coworkers Suck on Livejournal.

Azrael the iTouch is gone. Back to iFusion

Not sure why I did it, but I ditched my iPod touch (Which was named Azrael, after my favorite mix of VNV Nation’s Darkangel).This decision came as it’s time to file taxes (I guess) and get that hefty rebate that the Prez promised us. Using the money from the iTouch and some of the money from said rebate, I’m closing in on an iPhone.Why am I doing this? Here are some reasons.1. I am sick of overfilled pockets. I can keep my iPod AND my phone in one, small device.2. All the interesting things such as jailbreaks and the like hit the iPhone first, touch last.3. iPhone users got lyrics support and the enhanced Maps and webclip for free. Touch users have to pay. That’s totally lame, and if that’s any indication of how Apple is going to treat touch users in the future, I want nothing to do with the touch. 4. My current phone (Samsung SGH-A737) is a fine phone, but it puts 3G first, EDGE second. Thus, it never connects to the better EDGE network, always the barely-there-in-my-area 3G network. I can’t even place calls in 3G mode, it’s so bad. So why not get a kick-ass phone that is pure EDGE and not have to worry about 3G? Also, battery life.5. Glass. The iPhone uses glass, which NEVER EVER EVER scratches. The iPod touch uses a very scratch resistant type of plastic, or some chintzy glass, because it took some scratches very easily. There’s even a giant gash in the middle of the screen from something. I don’t know what.6. Unlimited data. That says it all. No matter what plan you pay for, you get unlimited data. (I pay $60 a month for 1MB of bandwidth with the Media basic bundle.)Need I say more?I’m hoping to scoop one up before the rumored 3G iPhone lands.

Testing the line breaks (Fixed!)

Hmm, do they work now?Let’s check. YES! They work just fine. You guys at the the WP forums are brilliant.All credit to wolfieb of The New Wolfs Howl for the brilliant fix found here. Therefore his blog deserves a plug here.If you are having irritating problems with Safari stripping line breaks, this fix should help out. 

This thing is just really pissing me off

Imagine this. You are trying so desperately to get on the internet with your computer which has gimped wireless while your girlfriend is tearing up your room and playing the most horrible music ever known to man out loud and you have to play your music through little earphones at such high volumes that you are likely to suffer hearing loss.That’s me right now, and I’m about to toss ‘em both out the window. 

Geez. Unions suck sometimes.*

*Union supporters, I am clowning on my union, not yours. I still support the concept of a union and what they do–but the one I’m in seems not to operate that way, hence this post. If you have insight, by all means, drop a line in the comments.

Hey, HEY. Stop clownin’ on the MacBook Air

I swear that if I hear one more person bitch about the MacBook Air being a shitty machine based on that it has no optical drive, FireWire, or more than one USB port, I’m going to reach through my screen and strangle their sorry asses.

These people do not get what niche the MBA is supposed to fill. These people don’t get that the MBA is not meant to be any sort of desktop replacement or home machine. It’s one machine you’d take with you somewhere–a subset of your home stuff.

Much like the iPod (I should say nano, but still), the MBA isn’t meant to keep everything on it. You may not keep your entire music library on an iPod. (Mainly the mini/nano/touch/iPhone) The MBA is not meant to keep your entire life on.

And even there, people still compare it to other laptops which have all the bells and whistles. GUESS WHAT, those are desktop replacements.

When I have my MacBook and I am on the go, I have never had to slip an disc into it, nor have I had to use my lone Firewire port or the USB ports. Same thing with my old MacBook Pro.

I seriously don’t get the Mac blogosphere. They complain endlessly about the MBA, and how it lacks everything. For what I do on the road, the MBA is fine. I’ve never needed to use an optical drive, never needed to use wired networks…etc.

At least Jason ‘O Grady gets it.

HD DVD is dead. You can find me crying in the corner.

Oh lord. Toshiba killed HD DVD, according to this link: http://gizmodo.com/357957/toshiba-kills-hd-dvd-official

Now, I usually wouldn’t care, but Sony won a war here, and Sony seems to have this attitude where when someone comes up with something and it is standardized, Sony doesn’t play along. Instead, they make their own proprietary take on said tech, and compete with them. Sony and Toshiba *could have* collaborated on one High-def format for us consumers. But no, Sony had to cook up it’s own, then use it’s position in the gaming market to gain an unfair advantage over HD DVD. By forcing Blu-Ray into the PS3, Sony would have an advantage if not during the first year of the conole’s life but after the first year of the console’s life. That’s akin to Microsoft abusing it’s monopoly with IE.

For more on how Sony just won’t accept a standard and instead has to come up with something totally proprietary, see this: http://www.everythingusb.com/sony-transferjet-14050.html

TransferJet will top at 375Mbits/s or 500Mbits/s optimal, in contrast to 1Gbps proposed in Wireless USB 1.1. Sony’s intention is to adopt the technology into camcorders and cameras first, as a secondary method of sending video to a PC, and ultimately, install it on all VAIO PCs and PS3s. Wireless USB surely has a rough road ahead.

Have a look at the second to last line. Sony’s going to slap this on the PS3, once again abusing their console market position as they did with blu-ray.

Seriously, don’t these corporate brats get enough of this?

Retail horror 2: Employees suck

I feel enough crap has happened to warrant a second installment.

Unlike customers, co-workers do not have to be classified into groups unless you are dealing with a company that has more than 200 workers or so. Therefore, I will be handling these on an individual basis.

The one co-worker I cannot stand is this checker who thinks he is the boss of everyone and everything around him. He gets on the PA system and asks people who are of lower rank to call him, where he promptly will tear said person a new asshole should they be not doing something that pleases him. I am constantly picked on by him, but thankfully, I’m not the only one.

Diablo 2 Sorceress Guide: 1.1 is coming

See the attached file for 1.1. Blizzard/Orb Sorceress Guide 1.1

10.5.2 = wireless breakdown

Seems like 10.5.2 isn’t getting along too well with my MacBook.Needless to say, Wireless = broke for now. 

Retail Horror

Some jobs can be total hell, some can be absolute heaven. In this case, retail work is almost never the latter, most of the former.

And I, the poor bastard, works said job in the form of being a courtesy clerk at a grocer. Pretty much, “everyone’s bitch” sums up my job quite well.

Inventory drops a box full of glass? They call us to come clean it.

Night stockers screw something up? Our problem, not theirs.

Here are some stories from what I consider to be the innermost circle of retail hell: Working at a grocery store.

1. The customers.

Customers are an odd lot some of the time. They don’t care for their own kind, be it cutting through lines or leaving carts halfway through someone else’s car window.

Some of the worst are detailed below:

The Parking Lot

The only time I’m ever out there is to pick up carts or doing service-outs. The former is full of hateful moments.Imagine this: You have about six carts gripped in your hands, trying to bring them about 100ft across the lot to get them back into the store. Then, some annoying customer slings a cart that he’s done with, making you stop everything to deal with this cart that this person has shoved at you and is now sitting in the middle of the parking lot should you decide not to catch it. After you stop your six carts and try to manage a seventh, some other customer decides to pull a cart off your length of carts–and following Newton’s law–they all begin breaking apart. Now you have a huge clusterfuck of carts that needs cleaning up, and all the corraled carts at the storefront are now depleted, with even more customers rushing your current location for more carts.

Then, as the icing on the cake, management begins bitching that no carts are at the storefront.

While that’s not usually how it is every day, that’s how it was on Super Bowl day.

It gets even worse sometimes. On busy days like that, I have to buckle the carts together (with the child straps) and pull six in each hand, for a total of 12.When I get to the storefront, people try their hardest to pull a cart off my line to discover that–oh snap–the cart won’t come off. So what would a typical, college educated American do? PULL HARDER.Same thing happens when I have the carts gripped from the side. Obviously the CART IS JAMMED ON MY FINGERS AND I’M SCREAMING “OUCH” FOR A REASON HERE, IDIOTS.

And then, we got the people in cars. Most of the time, the guilty parties are ones driving Mustangs, VTEC Hondas, or some other ricer type car. They drive Speed Racer-like through the lot, being a danger to me. When I have a load of carts, you don’t try to get past me, scratch up your car on my carts, get out and bitch that I should have been out of your way. You should have been out of my way, as any and all pedestrians have right of way over cars.

Inside the Store

This one is full of good moments, I swear.

The types of customers I really cannot stand are:

The know-it-all. Yeah, you idiots who think you are all smart and crap by knowing what we are going to ask you, and when we are going to ask it. These customers know when we are going to ask how their day’s been, if they want help out, etc, and think they are almighty shits or something.

Picky ‘tards. The type of person I can’t stand is the person who is overly picky about how they want their stuff bagged. For the love of god, just accept what is given to you. I am so sick of people saying they want double paper in double plastic with one meat item per bag and etc.

Taking that one further, I especially dislike people who request help out, but really don’t need it. This harms us in a couple ways: It takes away the help from the people who actually need it, and it takes a bagger out of the store, making management shit bricks. One time, someone actually asked for help out because they couldn’t carry a balloon. That’s right: A FUCKIN’ BALLOON.

Wasteful morons. I dislike people who take a cart for a two-item order, or people who take the motorcart and really have no disability. That just means we have to clean up after whatever mess they make.

But we also have those who irritate me…the employees themselves.

One example is our checkstand manager who doesn’t know what she’s doing. She calls all checkers up front when only two people are buying groceries. She just likes being on the intercom methinks.

Another one is a checker who thinks he’s the big boss of everyone. He asks courtesy clerks where they are, what they are doing, and if their responses don’t please him, he screams at them, or reports them to management. He also tries to play the checkstand manager.

There’s this really sweet checker…she’s really cool, would never do no harm. Management asked her to move to a regular checkstand from the 15-item limit checkstand because they needed more regular checkers. The checker I mentioned above proceeds to scream at her for not being on one of the lesser-item checkstands, and then proceeds to scream at management like he’s the head honcho of the place. Guess what? He ain’t.

These are just some peeks of how my job works. I know I’ll be writing more as it goes.