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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Unsane at any speed.
The wife and I made it back this afternoon from the wedding we attended in New Jersey. Unfortunately, nothing much happened. Well, I suppose technically all manner of things happened, but nothing interesting enough to bother you fine folks with. The whole thing came and went without much of note, I’m afraid.
(To the somewhat-distant observer, that is. I’m sure that most people there were noting all sorts of crap, from the pre-ceremony to the after-reception party at the hotel bar. But I didn’t note anything, really. A good time I had, but noting I did not do. No. No noting was done by me. Enough Yoda-speak. Moving on.)
I suppose the timing or the wedding was a bit to blame.
(You know, if you’re the sort of person who looks for blame in situations like these. You really do need help; you know that, right?)
The ceremony was scheduled for 10:30am, you see. And yes, that’s an ‘am’ there, not a ‘pm’ whose ‘p’ was mangled in some horrible bendy accident. Ten-thirty in the morning, that’s when these folks chose to ‘get it on’. Um, betrothally speaking, that is.
Which puts these people a few long strides on the other side of the old sanity line, if you ask me. I suppose I’m just not a morning kind of guy. Personally, I do my best to avoid any important decisions before eleven, or even noon. My wee little brain just doesn’t function well enough in the morning hours for me to trust it with decisions or money or sharp objects before lunchtime. I can’t even imagine trying to get married, of all things, before I’d fully woken up. Hell, if we’d done our wedding that way, we’d still be sorting out the mess. I’d have put my tuxedo on backwards, and stood in the wrong place, and kissed one of the groomsmen when the time came. Who knows who I’d have ended up married to — my grandmother-in-law or somebody, with my luck. ‘With this ring, I do the what with the what-what, now?‘ Yeah, no thanks.
But these people pulled it off, so good for them. And in under an hour, too, which I was really impressed with. I learned on the trip down that it was to be a ‘Catholic wedding’, so I got a little nervous that the early start time was in effect to make sure the damned thing would finish the same day. I”ve heard about these multi-hour, fire and brimstone affairs. But it wasn’t like that. Nope, just a simple ‘da dum de dum, da dum de dum’, and then wham, bam, kissy-kissy, there you go, husband and wife, don’t let the door hit you in the bustle on your way out. Quick and easy. Very nice.
Of course, the downside to a morning wedding is an early afternoon reception, which is obviously sub-par. There are bucketfuls of wild and crazy shit that can happen at ‘someone else’s wedding’, you see — this is the type of event where some people really let down their hair and get loony. And loopy. And, not coincidentally, hammered off their ass. Which only leads to more shenanigans, the type that might actually be worth writing about.
But that shit doesn’t happen by the light of day. Oh, no. When these people lift highball to lips and see the noonday sun peeking through the window over their glass, they put on the brakes. Nobody minds being ‘the wild guy’ or ‘that drunk girl’ at someone else’s wedding, so long as they can slink off to their hotel room and sleep it off right away. But when they know they’re going to be up and among (semi-)coherent people for twelve more hours… well, the air comes right out of the proverbial balloon, and nothing terribly interesting gets off the ground. No stripping, or streaking, or puking, or falling, or dropping, or making out, or any of that good shit. So, I got nothin’.
(Six paragraphs about nothin’, apparently, but in the end — nothin’. Not much of a wedding, if you ask me.)
And so, I’ll have to find another topic for the evening. Any requests, while I’m here? Something you’d like to see tonight? Anything? No? Okay, I’ll just wing it, then. We’ll see how far that gets us.
How about this — I’ll talk for a while about stock options, and you can see whether that makes you want to bludgeon yourself to death with your mouse to end the boredom. Don’t worry — I’ll stop if it gets too scary. Your safeword will be ‘grumblecheese’. Feel free to use it if things get out of hand.
So, about these options. They’re becoming a royal pain in my assterior. They’re all from my last job, which ended in July. I had three months after my last day in which to decide whether to ‘exercise’ the options, and so I decided to sit on them until the very last minute. Which is rapidly approaching.
(My wife reminded me to start looking at them last week, but clearly, that wasn’t the very last minute, now, was it? A last minute, perhaps; one of the last minutes, but not absolutely the last minute. So I put it off until today, which is much closer. Gotta do these things right, after all.)
Anyway, here’s the problem. I was at this last company for close to three years. And they shoveled out options at a fairly steady pace. To make matters worse, the options awarded at the one time didn’t always ‘vest’ at the same ‘rate’, so they ended up in different ‘lots’.
(Oh, I should probably mention that — for the purposes of this post only — a word in quotes is some financial stock thingy word that I either had to look up or ask about at some point in this process. Or invent a definition for — I did that in a couple of cases, too, actually. I really don’t get out much when it comes to anything involving money, or stock, or vesting rates. Or rating vests, for that matter. Mr. Blackwell is speaking Chinese, for all I can tell in those lousy reviews. Can’t we all just wear jeans and get along?)
(I should probably also mention that I’m a moron. But really, isn’t that fairly obvious by now?)
So, I’ve ended up with no less than eleven different ‘lots’ of options. All with different ‘option prices’ and number of ‘exercisable shares’. Fine. I came up with a simple plan for dealing with these little bastards. Any ‘lot’ with shares below the current price, I’d buy. I’d then calculate — based on the current price — the profit I’d make by turning around and selling those shares right back. If that was enough to buy some of the shares that were above the current price, then I’d think about picking up a few of those, too. It would all depend on the numbers, and whether it was worth the hassle.
Well, the hassle, it turns out, starts way before that. The hassle begins when I read the sentence that says that a certain ‘option type’ won’t be taxed upon ‘exercise’. Which, of course, implies that other, less fortunate types will be taxed. Likely early, and almost certainly often. But at what rate, and by whom, is left to the reader’s imagination. So, of course, eight of my ‘option lots’ are not of the non-taxable type, meaning that they are to be taxed, which throws a big fat gorilla wrench into my neat little plan.
So now I’ve got to calculate not only the cost for the options that are priced lower than the current stock price, but then I have to calculate the tax for each lot, and add that to the total. Based on what tax information, I really can’t say. Twelve percent, twenty, thirty-one and three-quarters? Who the hell knows? It’s all gibberish to me. I can almost feel the little nerve endings sizzling in my brain. Ssssssssssss.
So clearly, I don’t know how much money I need, even to buy the ‘safe’ options that I should be able to turn an immediate profit on. This is to say nothing of being able to calculate said profit, deduct taxes from it, and turn around and decide how many more shares I could afford to buy with the remainder. (Allowing again for taxes on those options, like the good little boy that I am.) Excuse me while my eyes roll back into my head and I flop on the floor like a landed crappie.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do, but now I’ve got less than two weeks to actually do it. So ‘decision time’ is rapidly approaching. I think I may just send them all the money I can muster and say, ‘Here. Now exercise whatever you can with this modest wad of cash, and tell me what the fuck I ended up with. Just keep it simple and don’t make me dizzy, damn it!‘ Somehow, I think that might be the wrong approach.
(Probably because my wife just read that and said, ‘No, that’s the wrong approach.‘ Dammit! I’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling spouse.)
So maybe tomorrow I’ll get out my thinking cap and my pocket calculator and a number two pencil and see just what the hell I’m working with.
(Other than a handful of nearly-worthless options and a pint-sized brain.)
I’ll ask my wife to double-check my work, and at some point we’ll bite the bullet and make the deal. The instructions won’t match the size of the check, of course, but at least we’ll start the ball rolling. And maybe when the dust clears, we’ll have more money than when we started. I’m not counting on that, mind you, or even betting on it. But it’s possible, right? It’s not guaranteed to go shockingly wrong already. Only overwhelmingly likely that our money will leap down the shitter, never to be seen again. Still, those are better odds than I’m used to, so I guess we’ll go for it. It’s only money, right?
Anyway, that’s my current dilemma. Or at least the one topmost in my mind at the moment. I’m sure I’m forgetting a veritable plethora of other fine messes, but I can only screw up one thing at a time. So right now, it’s ruining this option thing. Tomorrow, who knows? I’ll crash the car or electrocute the dog, or accidentally sell the house or something. It’s always something around here.
Still, I have to say — it’s good to be back. I don’t mind travelling a bit every now and then, but I’m really most comfortable right here at home. Even if I do have to deal with options crap and laundry and all the other housy shit. Besides, on this trip, it was really good to get back to the friendly confines. Like I said, nothing much happened, and the wedding was held in New Jersey. New Jersey, folks. The old homestead may have some issues, but it’s not in New frickin’ Jersey, I can tell you that. So really, things could be worse. Hey, when I put it like that, those options don’t seem so tough, after all! Maybe I’ll get some ‘exercising’ done this week yet!
Permalink | No CommentsFly the friendly blog.
Well, I went and did it. I took a job.
Okay, that’s a bit misleading. I suppose I didn’t ‘take’ a job, per se. That makes it sound like I barged into some office, all commando-style, and ripped the employment away from some poor unsuspecting sap. Like I held him down and gave him a noogie, saying, ‘Stop firing yourself. Stop firing yourself.‘ and then stole his job away. But really, it wasn’t like that. Honest.
No, in truth, I was offered a job, free of charge. All I had to do was accept it, and write my name on the dotted line.
(Well, okay, it was really a solid line, if I’m going to be honest with you people. (For once.) And frankly, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a dotted line for signing. Where did this saying come from, anyway? Was there some shift from dotted to solid signing lines a few years ago, and the vernacular just never caught up?
Or was there a famous dotted line-containing document, and people just assumed they were all that way? Like the Magna Carta, for instance — did it have dotted lines for signing? That was for-frickin’-ever ago, too. Did they even have lines back then? Or words? How the hell did I get onto this topic, anyway?)
Okay, lost my place. What was I talking about? Ah, my brand spankin’ new position. Right.
(Not that it’s a ‘spanking position’, by the way. That’s just a figure of speech. I don’t expect any sort of ass-touching of any kind at this job, much less being asked to ‘assume the spanking position’, or asking others to do likewise. Oh, sure, there might be a little pat on the rump now and then for a job well done, and I certainly expect to do my share of ass kissing. But spanking? No. Not in the forseeable future. Sorry to get you unnecessarily lubed up over that. Down, boy.)
Anyway, it looks like I’ll start in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got to get orientation taken care of, and go in for a checkup and some tests. My new employer’s a hospital, see, and so they want to make sure that no one who comes in is… um, sick. Even though a hospital is full of sick people, all the time. They know how to handle that sort of thing. So I’m not quite sure why the people working there can’t come in with a touch of pneumonia, or a bit of tuberculosis. I’d think that would be a fantastic way to recover, while you’re working. You could keep your mind off the yellow and black shit you’re coughing up by getting in a couple of hours of work in between the heavy sedation and painful treatments. I’d think they’d encourage that kind of thing, actually, rather than trying to eliminate it. Makes sense to me.
But I suppose some of the patients there are hanging on by a thread as it is, so it’s probably not a good idea to introduce any new scary systematic diseases into their lives, either. So I guess I can see both sides. In any case, I’ll have to go through the testing wringer next week. Hopefully, there won’t be any surprises.
(Lord knows I have enough crippling diseases as it is, without hitting the germy jackpot again. Those little bacterial bugs and viral vermin can suck on my Leftwich, you know what I’m sayin’?)
So, I can take the next couple of weeks to relax, and really let myself go. I can finally stop answering the phone again, and thank fuckin’ heaven for that. In the past two days alone, I’ve talked to twelve people trying to sell me shit, or convince me I’d won something, or looking for cash. Bitches, bitches, bitches — all of ’em!
(Even the Boston Globe called, for about the thirteenth time this summer. Those assmunchers just won’t give up.
Me: Hello?
Them: Get the Globe! Get the Globe! Only two dollars, for a limited time!
Me: No, thanks.
Them: But it’s only two dollars. Two dollars!
Me: Really, no thanks.
Them: Well, how about the Sunday Globe, then? Only seventy-five cents! Far less than newsstand price!
Me: Nope. Not today, thanks.
Them: But you can’t beat this price! It’s amazing!
Me: No. Look, just no, all right?
Them: Everybody loves the Sunday Globe! There’s comics, and local news, and all sorts of goodness!
Me: Look, I’m not interested, all right?
Them: Okay, but just Sunday? It’s a really big paper! You’ll love it!
Me: Damn it, no.
Them: All the cool kids read it! Try it, you’ll like it!
Me: Not gonna happen.
Them: All the cool kids read it! Try it, you’ll like it!
Me: You just said that. What are you, some sort of hypermanic Annoy-O-Bot or something?
Them: All the cool kids read it! Try it, you’ll like it!
Me: Look, no. I’m hanging up now.
Them: Get the Globe! Get the Globe! Only two dollars, for a limited time!
Me: Christ, the thing reset. Somebody plug this thing’s finger into a socket, would you? *click*
Really, I thought I was done with these fuckers a long time ago. Apparently, they didn’t read my last ode to the Globe. Oh, well. Guess I’ll have to finally get that air horn I’ve been thinking about, and blow it in their friggin’ ear next time they bug me. That should be fun.)
Okay, where the hell was I? Still talking about the job? That sounds about right.
So, it’s pretty exciting. Soon, the money will be rolling in again, and I’ll be getting up early like most of the rest of you poor saps, and re-entering the rat race. I suppose it’ll be nice to be a fully-functioning member of society again.
(Well, mostly functioning, anyway. No reason to expect a miracle to happen, right?)
But it should be fun, and ought to give me some more material for you folks, as I bumble and fumble around the new office, breaking shit and pissing people off. Really, it’ll be a laugh riot. I may be looking for another job soon, if I get my ass fired, but you people will be entertained. And really, it’s all about you, isn’t it?
(What, it is? Really? Damn.)
Well, that’s it for now. So, enjoy the weekend, and I’ll be back with more on Sunday evening. Hey, maybe I’ll have some good shit from my weekend trip, too. We’re going to a wedding my wife’s old high school friend is having, and I won’t know anyone there. Certainly seems like a golden opportunity to get plastered and be arbitrarily rude to people I’m never going to see again, doesn’t it? I just have to stay sober enough to remember all the kooky shit I end up saying to people. It’s a very fine line to walk. I’ll let you know how it goes. Happy weekend!
Permalink | No CommentsBlogging for those who can’t blog themselves… and probably shouldn’t in the first place.
So, I’m taking a standup comedy class at a local adult education center.
(Yes, I know that some of you are well aware of this fact, and that I mentioned it here, and here, and even here. But some of these people are new, and I don’t want to lose anyone, okay? Lord knows there are only about three of you already.)
Anyway, I had my first class on Tuesday, and it was pretty cool. We didn’t do a whole helluva lot, really — just sat around and chatted amongst ourselves, and picked up some general info from the guy running the class. But I think that was because none of us had prepared any material beforehand. From now on, I think it’ll be a bit more involved. Which brings me to the matter of this week’s homework, which I’ve decided to share with you.
(In other words, I’ve decided that I don’t have anything else to talk about right now, and so I’m going to throw shit out there until I find something you’re interested in. And my standup workshop homework came up first. That’s the way it goes.)
So here’s what we were asked to do: come up with no less than five subjects that could be massaged (and rubbed, and otherwise inappropriately touched) into a short bit. Things to ‘riff’ from, in other words; ideas that might lead to a series of a few related jokes in the final act.
(Oh, speaking of which, I should probably start reminding you early and often that our class will be doing not one, but two live club shows in the course of our work, and I expect each and every one of you within the sound of my typing fingers to park your asses in the seats and then proceed to laugh them off. The asses, not the seats. Of course. You already knew that. Sorry.
I’ll have more specific information as soon as I get it; for now, all I know is that one of the dates is November 16th. So mark your calendars, you folks close to Boston — I don’t really give a pair of hooters whether you laugh at me, with me, or even about me. Just get your ass there and laugh it off, all right? That is all. For now.)
So, back to the homework. There’s a bit more to it than just coming up with the ideas, of course. He also gave us a few suggestions on how to generate those ‘sub-ideas’ that are the actual jokes, by finding associations and contrasts and shit like that which don’t make logical sense. And are therefore funny.
(Not that I’m suggesting that everything works this way, of course. There are many things out there that don’t make rational sense, but are absolutely, undeniably, horrifyingly not funny. Take tax law, for one. Any damned sense? No. Any hilarity, even a teeny shred? Nope, not a bit. Bitches.
People can be like that, too. Like Andy Rooney. His shit never made any sense. He might as well have been speaking Mandarin Chinese during his little bits, because I never knew what the hell he was talking about. And it sure as hell wasn’t funny. And that’s just one example. There are certainly many, many other people who make no sense and yet are soberingly non-hilarious. Just off the top of my head, there’s Billy Bob Thornton, and Charo, and that Gallagher dude. How long is he gonna milk that melon squashing bit, anyway? Get a fuckin’ life, ya dildo.
Oh, and I should probably say Drew Barrymore, too. She’s out of her tiny little mind, of course. But she likes taking her shirt of in public, so I’ll spare her. Any girl that’s willing to fling the old mamms around at the drop of a hat is okay in my book. And, um, I just dropped my hat, if you know what I’m saying. Uh, ‘oops’.)
All right, where the hell was I? Ah, the homework. Gotcha.
So, I thought I’d share my initial ideas with you. If nothing else, then you’ll have your appetites whetted for the shows. And, if you’re pretty new around here, it’ll give you a chance to dig through the archives a bit, because all of these ideas come straight from the blog you’re reading right now. (And don’t you feel special, hmmm?) So here they are, my Five Furious Fingers of Funnitality for next week. We’ll see which of these survive the next stage of development.
1. How I Got My Stitches (i.e., stupid games I played as a kid)
2. I Am Such a Damned Sucker (i.e., how gullible I am… er, was)
3. Grocery, Schmocery (i.e., funny things about food shopping)
4. Adventures in Interviewing (or Zolton, Master of the Universe)
5. The Wall of Wisdom (i.e., how to get people not to ‘share’)
Now, obviously, I reserve the right to decide that any of these are pure crap, or at least not fertile enough to turn into a minute or so’s worth of side-splitting material. But for the moment, these are the guns I’m going into battle with. They may jam, or blow up in my face, or shoot ‘dumdums’, but they’re the best I’ve got for now. I can only pray for better before the class ends. Because all of you people will be there to see what I’ve learned. It’ll be hard enough for you to still respect me when you see what I look like. If I lay a big fat hairy egg in front of you, you’ll never come back to visit.
And that will never do. I simply won’t have it. I shant. Shant, you hear me? Shant!
Permalink | 1 CommentReaders check in… but they don’t check out.
Okay, I need to hire somebody. I’m having some issues around the old house.
Oh, it’s not to clean the place up, though we could use that, too. And it’s not to balance our checkbook, no matter how much we need financial help. Hell, it’s not even to do work on our hundred-year-old house, certain pieces of which are in varying stages of falling-downness. No, all of these are minor problems that I’m sure we’ll eventually work out without requiring the assistance of an outside party. But there is one dilemma that’s just not going away, and I think we may need some professional help.
I need someone to come over and watch TV for me.
Yes, that’s right — television. As many of you may remember, my wife and I are the proud parents of a TiVo unit. She hasn’t really gotten the hang of it yet — she still tapes the same two exercise shows over and over, letting them copy over themselves in a seemingly endless circle without ever watching them. Clearly, she needs a bit of practice with this whole TV-at-your-fingertips thing.
But I’ve done a bit better. I’ve got maybe ten shows that I ask the machine to tape just about whenever they’re on — the Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, the Powerpuff Girls (that’s right, the Powerpuff Girls; if you don’t like it, you can suck my ass; I’m comfortable with my manly manliness), South Park, Coupling, and a few standup showcase series on Comedy Central. Actually, quite a bit of stuff. Add to that the occassional movie or special event that I want to see, and you’re looking at four hours or so a day being taped. Maybe more.
And therein lies the problem, you see. I’m not looking at four hours of television a day. Or even the ninety minutes or so it would take to watch it while whizzing past the commercials. And so, the shit starts to pile up. And up, and up, and up. And the thing can only hold thirty-five hours or so of material before it has to start chucking stuff to make room for the new shit. Which is not what I want. I taped that crap for a reason, and the shit ought to be watched before it gets recorded over like last week’s Red Sox game or some lame-ass Roseanne rerun.
That’s where my new hire comes in. I’ve decided that I don’t have to be the one watching this stuff, just so long as someone views it before it’s shit-canned by the TiVo engine. At least then the effort I made in getting the shit recorded in the first place won’t have gone to waste. Somebody will get their entertainment value out of my excellent taste in TV shows; never mind that it’s not actually me all the time. I’m willing to share the love. I’m cool like that.
So, I’m in the market for a couch monkey. Someone who can come over and sit in our living room for two or three hours a day, and watch the shit that I’m not going to get to. Ideally, the person would take notes on the shows, maybe even report on the highlights, but I’ll be happy just to know that someone watched the good shit that I recorded before it got whisked away back to the ether from whence it came. Honestly, the hilarity that’s sitting there now for a couple of days and then expiring is just appalling. I’m sickened. Really. Bleh. See? Bleh. Sickened.
So please, folks, if you know anyone who can do the job, let me know, all right? Things are already critical, and we’re leaving town for the weekend. Things may get taped and copied over that I don’t even know about. Oh, the humanity of it all! I may swoon, or whatever the manly equivalent would be.
(Belch, or something, I don’t really know. I was never all that close to swooning before, so I’m not really sure what the alternatives are.)
Hell, maybe you can do the job. Really, there aren’t many requirements, and you seem like a smart enough cookie. Look, all you gotta do is come by, check out the list of recorded shit, and watch five or six of the oldest shows. That’s it. You can even make yourself a sandwich if you want.
(Just don’t touch the beer, man. We’re not that close.)
I mean, really, how hard can it be, right? It’s the easiest job ever. A monkey could do it.
(Well, this monkey could certainly do it… but she’s too talented to ask her to do this. Besides, the commute to Boston and back might be a wee much for her.)
Anyway, if you’re interested, leave a comment to tell me why you should be my new couch monkey. Maybe I’ll get several responses, and we’ll set up a rotating system or something. You can even come over now to practice if you want — the spare key is underneath that ugly-ass plastic frog thing by the porch. Just let yourself in and give it a whirl. But remember what I said — the beer is mine. You’re gonna have to do a lot more for me than babysit my TiVo if you want to get your grubby hands on those puppies. I don’t put out for all the hired help, you know. You’ve got to earn the good shit, baby.
Permalink | No CommentsIf you’re not part of the solution, then you’ll probably like it around here.
I’ve had my weekly dose of telephone shenanigans today. I may not even answer the phone again until the weekend, for fear of overdosing on the weird shit that seems to come through the line every damned time I pick up the receiver.
First, it was the glass company. Which one, I don’t even know. But here’s the conversation, in its entirety:
Me: Hello, this is Charlie.
Her: Hi, this is <garble garble> from <blah blah blah> Glass. Do you happen to have a windshield with nicks or cracks?
Me: Um… no?
Her: Okay, thanks. Have a nice day. *click*
Now, maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that just a teensy desperate on their part? Are they really cold-calling everyone in the greater Boston area, just on the off-chance that they’ll get a few bucks’ worth of business? How many people do you think are sitting around with a big spiderweb crack in their car’s front window, just sitting by the phone waiting for a glass replacement company to call? ‘Oh please call… oh please, oh please, oh please. Don’t make me look in the Yellow Pages; it’s been six weeks, so call already! Call… now! Now! Now! Oh, why won’t you call me!?‘
Frankly, I don’t see it. The number of hits they get with this approach have got to be minimal, at best. Even with short calls — my conversation took all of about six seconds — they’re gonna get to what, maybe eighty people a day per dialer? Out of a couple of million or more within hailing range of their garage? And in those eighty or so people, they have to find at least one who has a car, has a cracked windshield, is too lazy to do anything about it, doesn’t already have a garage that’ll do it, actually has the money to pay for it, and is willing to give their business to some chick who randomly spam-calls them on a Wednesday morning. Who’s bright fucking idea was that?
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this sort of ultra-specific — and yet completely untargeted — mass-dialing does work, and I’m just behind the curve. Maybe soon all sorts of companies will be using this cunning and innovative technique. I can’t wait until we hear these sorts of things in response to our ‘Hello? in future:
‘Hi, I’m just checking in to see if you have a llama that needs to be spayed or neutered. Free spitguard and clipping shears if you make an appointment now!‘
‘Hey! We’re offering a two-for-one special today on thirty-foot steel girders. They’re great for skyscrapers, dams, reinforced bunkers — you name it! Now’s the time to stock up, because this offer won’t last long!‘
‘Hi there. Do you or anyone you know happen to need a replacement rear bumper for a ’73 Corvette? ‘Cause we’ve got ’em, and they’re cheap, cheap, cheap!‘
‘May I interest you today in an emergency organ transplant? Kidneys, lungs, liver… anything you have that might be critically failing? We’re number one in customer-patient satisfaction, you know.‘
God help us all. And this on the day that the ‘Do Not Call’ registry gets called into question. I can see the potential for vein-popping annoyance in my near future. And yours, too, unless you’ve been waiting for that big sale on jumbo-size steel beams or recycled hearts. In which case, just stick close to the phone. Your lucky day is coming soon.
The other telephonic tomfoolery to which I was exposed came courtesy of ING. You know, the savings account people that are always advertising with their annoying orange letters and dots and shit like that. Everything’s orange with them. I can’t help but wonder if they’re leading us into some fully color-coded investment options. Red for the people who like risk, and green for the retirees and conservative among us. Blue for overseas investments, et cetera. It’ll be the Garanimals of personal finance. ‘Oh, no, sir, we can’t possibly add that mutual fund to your portfolio. You’ve got mostly blue and purple in there now, and we couldn’t possibly add an orange. Think of the clashing!‘
Anyway, I was just calling them up to change our address. Everybody else in the world — including all of the mass-market weiners — have made the transition to sending mail to our new home. But ING has not.
(Maybe it stands for ‘Idiots Not Getting the message’ or ‘Intentionally Not Going to change your address; I don’t know.)
So, anyway, I had to call to set things straight. Which finally happened, but not until I’d been put on hold for a while, which is where the problem lies. Now, I’ve got no problem with being put on hold for a few seconds. really. I’m not one of those ‘Type A’ bastards who’s got to have things done now, now, NOW! And frankly, I appreciate the fact that ING chooses not to subject their customers to Muzak or easy listening crap or any of the other uncontroversial-but-dreadfully-eye-gougingly-boring forms of non-entertainment that many companies use to annoy the people they have on hold.
The problem, though, is what they do use to annoy the people they have on hold. Namely, a series of clever little radio commercials for their products and services. Which, again, is fine, I suppose. It seems a little self-indulgent to plug your own shit when you’ve got a captive audience who’s already called you, but fine — I can forgive that. And to be fair, the commercials are sort of cute, I suppose. They’re mainly tongue-in-cheek tales of the adventures of ficticious folks who either do, or should have, use ING’s investment products to build their money. No problem there. But they don’t start these commercials for each caller; they run constantly, just like Muzak would. And so, it’s quite possible to be put on hold in the middle of one of their little mini-plays, and hear something like the following, as I did:
Old Woman Voice: Oh, yes, I’ve been wanting to do this for years!
Old Man Voice: Aaack! Let go of the knob! Let go of the knob! Aaaauuuuaaaahh!
Now, maybe I’m the only one who finds that particular exchange somehow inappropriate — though strangely titillating — as a ‘Hold’ message. And a narrator did soon after kick in to explain what the hell any of this (and the minute or so that I missed before it) had to do with the services that ING is peddling these days. But then again, maybe not. I’m not the only smartass I know, after all, so I’m sure there are other folks out there who’d be inclined to wonder whether they’d accidentally stumbled onto a ‘Granny Humpers’ porno soundtrack. You know the kind, where ‘Dirty Gerty’ slathers herself in stewed prunes and does unspeakable things with a walker, or uses Grandpa’s ‘shakes’ to her own advantage. That sort of thing. Um, not that I’d know, of course. I’m just saying. Um, yeah. Moving on.
Anyway, I thought it was a bit odd. But for a company that takes six months or more to register a customer’s address change, I suppose that synchronizing their ‘Hold’ tapes to their callers is pretty low on the old priority list. So I shouldn’t really be surprised.
In other news (silly reader, seques are for kids), it looks like I may be gainfully employed again soon. I have one offer on the table. (Well, okay, technically ‘on the hard drive’, but I could print it out and lay it ‘on the table’ any time I want. So I’m counting it. Nyah.) I’ve also got another lead who are checking my references now as a last precaution before making me an offer, apparently. So as long as my old colleagues don’t sell me out — bribe money, don’t fail me now! — I may have two jobs to pick from. Oh, the decisions! Whatever shall I do?
I know — I’ll go pour champagne all over myself to celebrate! That always puts me in a good mood. Of course, I don’t think we actually have champagne in the house right now, so I’ll have to use cooking wine or tequila or something, but that’s okay. Any booze bath is a good booze bath, I always say. Maybe I’ll write more later, after I’ve dried off and sobered up. Ta!
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