Stupid Work Annoyances

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:53 am

that makes me giggle...

people do the same thing around here:

"Wow, there's no one here. I was just in the Sprint store, and it was so busy!"

well, did you want to wait 45 minutes in the busy sprint store, or did you want my immediate assistance here?

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:55 am

bullD, what do you do?

Reba, i feel your pain. i used to work at 3 Girls Bakery. EVERY FUCKING DAY people asked if we were the three girls. Right next to the sign that said we'd been open for almost 100 years.

(please note that it didn't matter how many people were working that day, or of what gender. ugh!)

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:25 am

I love going into Twice Sold Tales (a used bookstore for you non-Seattle denizens) with all of the cats hanging out (many!).

I especially love the uber-snarky signs all around the checkstand letting the customers know what questions, if asked, will deny you the right to buy books.

If I remember correctly some of them are:

How many cats are there?
What are the cat's names?
Where do all these cats come from?
Can I get a discount on this book?
Can I get this book for free?

The list is considerably more extensive than that and there's also one for things you might consider doing that will get you persona non grata status including:

Whining if you get scratched or bitten by a cat you were pestering
Doing heroin in the bathroom
Not paying attention to all the signs

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:30 am

I LOVE that place! (there's one by my house, too!)

I think another one of the things on the list is: is it midnight yet? (on the list, right by the clock (all books are half-price after midnight))

RebA! · Post by **RebA!** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:34 am

The one in fremont is cool too. She has a sign in there that reads "Unruly children will be caught and sold as slaves"

She has a great kitty in there as well.

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:36 am

Rian Jackson wrote:bullD, what do you do?

Work: currently Longshoreman which I will probably do until I die; also, mucho construction experience so I still do some of that from time to time.

Studying: Architecture which I will follow up with finishing structural engineering.

Play: motorcycles but mostly bicycles, oh, and three wheels on the playa.

ehh, there is more but then, we can save that for the sweaty half naked hug.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:54 am

RebA! wrote:The one in fremont is cool too. She has a sign in there that reads "Unruly children will be caught and sold as slaves"

She has a great kitty in there as well.

that one is going solo very soon.. being named after the cat, i think. my favorite is the cap hill branch. it's responsible, lately, for the fact that i dwell in a library.

bull: were you part of the dock protests where the cops opened fire on the longshoremen and other protesters? 2003, i believe?

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:03 am

the one near my house is expanding as we speak!

but yeah, the cap hill one takes the cake...

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:04 am

Rian:

Nope. That was fucked up however.

fucking cops, grrrrrrrr.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:07 am

GuinivereElise wrote:the one near my house is expanding as we speak!

but yeah, the cap hill one takes the cake...

since when is there one by your place? i thought it was UDist, Cap Hill, and Fremont?

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:09 am

GuinivereElise wrote:okay, it's teeny, but it gets me:

when I'm at work, I sit behind a desk, in a spinny chair with rolling-wheels. I can't sit in the typical 'sitting' way for very long, so I have a tendency to tuck my feet up under my ass and, in effect, 'kneel' on the chair.

If one more customer comes in and comments that either a)they could never sit like that at work because it's uncomfortable or, worse, b)they THOUGHT I HAD NO LEGS (!) I swear, I'm going to go postal.

"Oh I didn't have any legs when you came in. I grew them very quickly in order to be an effective ambassodor to your planet."

Needs some work, but there's a possiblity there. . .

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:19 am

fishy: I love it. yes!!!

Twice Told Tales on Mercer.

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:26 am

he he he, get everything set up to photograph and the battery's go dead in the Camera.

Rian: why do you ask about the protest?

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:36 am

bullD wrote:he he he, get everything set up to photograph and the battery's go dead in the Camera.

Rian: why do you ask about the protest?

i just remember it. i couldn't go; i was holed up in Oakland in a national meeting for one of the big protest group thingies.

i just remember it getting ugly, wishing i was there, and then it being a real rallying point for a lot of people in the months after.

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:40 am

yep, it was big news here for a while.

Unfortunately, I was not in town when it all went down. I was actually up in Washington working on my parents' house. Boiled my blood though...

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:51 am

bullD wrote:yep, it was big news here for a while.

Unfortunately, I was not in town when it all went down. I was actually up in Washington working on my parents' house. Boiled my blood though...

DC or state? did we just switch locales for the weekend or something?

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:00 pm

Rian Jackson wrote:
bullD wrote:yep, it was big news here for a while.

Unfortunately, I was not in town when it all went down. I was actually up in Washington working on my parents' house. Boiled my blood though...
DC or state? did we just switch locales for the weekend or something?

State. yes we did, funny.

CoworkerLurker · Post by **CoworkerLurker** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:34 pm

theCryptofishist wrote:
Rian Jackson wrote:discussing this whole thing with Coworker he says that he knew i was a freak a long time ago, before we really knew each other.

now i'm really scared.

he then came back and said that his perception of me did change - he just came to his senses.

well, if this person were my boss, i could have used him to further Villainous Schemes. But it doesn't look like it's gonna work.
Dang, can we get a narrative from CWL about this? I wanna know what it's like to achieve freakiness instead of being born freaky.

(and of course your right, the other guy would have wanted to have freakiness thrust upon him, as it were.)

I gotta confess- sometimes I miss Fishie's point, and sometimes her wit eludes me.

This time, I really didn't have any idea what she wanted me to explain or describe. So I asked Rian, who suggested that maybe she's assuming that I am now a freak, but didn't used to be. I think that's pretty funny, because to my mind, neither assumption is true. I have achieved nothing, except varying perceptions of Rian, and a deeper appreciation of the people she keeps company with.

So, on the freakiness front: no birth, no achievement, no thrusting.

(And part of my appreciation- paradoxically- is this- none of those people have attempted to thrust. I'm glad they can accept a non-freak. Or whatever in-between thing I am.)

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:49 pm

Rian Jackson wrote:
bullD wrote:he he he, get everything set up to photograph and the battery's go dead in the Camera.

Rian: why do you ask about the protest?
i just remember it. i couldn't go; i was holed up in Oakland in a national meeting for one of the big protest group thingies.

i just remember it getting ugly, wishing i was there, and then it being a real rallying point for a lot of people in the months after.

What I remember about the labor dispute (was it a strike--Iv'e forgotten) is the line of big ships in the bay waiting to unload. It was shortly after I began this job, and the Division Director has a corner office with a great view of the bay outside port of Oakland, and there were like 12 ships just sitting there. I was moved.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:58 pm

CWL
Maybe it's tracible to the feeling that some of us dyed in the wool freaks have that there's got to be something definite in the freak mind like a switch, either on or off and therefore that there is some sort of explicable experience that might shed light on our condition.

CoworkerLurker · Post by **CoworkerLurker** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:05 pm

Again, I'm confused- I would know anything about such an explicable experience...

...how?

...why?

I mean, I also find the idea that it can be explained very interesting, but...

completely beyond my ken, I'm afraid.

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:06 pm

stupid work annoyance #528:

customers who get entirely too pissed off by the fact that I don't know the intricate workings of a phone that WE DON'T EVEN MAKE.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:10 pm

CoworkerLurker wrote:
theCryptofishist wrote:
Rian Jackson wrote:discussing this whole thing with Coworker he says that he knew i was a freak a long time ago, before we really knew each other.

now i'm really scared.

he then came back and said that his perception of me did change - he just came to his senses.

well, if this person were my boss, i could have used him to further Villainous Schemes. But it doesn't look like it's gonna work.
Dang, can we get a narrative from CWL about this? I wanna know what it's like to achieve freakiness instead of being born freaky.

(and of course your right, the other guy would have wanted to have freakiness thrust upon him, as it were.)
I gotta confess- sometimes I miss Fishie's point, and sometimes her wit eludes me.

This time, I really didn't have any idea what she wanted me to explain or describe. So I asked Rian, who suggested that maybe she's assuming that I am now a freak, but didn't used to be. I think that's pretty funny, because to my mind, neither assumption is true. I have achieved nothing, except varying perceptions of Rian, and a deeper appreciation of the people she keeps company with.

So, on the freakiness front: no birth, no achievement, no thrusting.

(And part of my appreciation- paradoxically- is this- none of those people have attempted to thrust. I'm glad they can accept a non-freak. Or whatever in-between thing I am.)

Man... that's freaky...

CoworkerLurker · Post by **CoworkerLurker** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:14 pm

I know- that occurred to me as I wrote it.

But, really, I'm of neither world.

(is that meta-freaky?)

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:19 pm

btw, the coworker from yesterday is acting uncomfortable and distant.
see what you get?

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:21 pm

CoworkerLurker wrote:Again, I'm confused- I would know anything about such an explicable experience...

...how?

...why?

I mean, I also find the idea that it can be explained very interesting, but...

completely beyond my ken, I'm afraid.

Um what I was trying to get to in that post is that (especially when you're a child and believe that the world makes sence or will one day when you grow up) sometimes freaks believe that if they could find the key they could "fix" themselves, and that my original post could perhaps be best attributed to the idea that this time maybe I'd get some useful information. Your "how" and "why" were in fact legit to the first questions and in some sence implicitly awknowledged by me in my 2nd post. You don't have the answer, there is no magic knowledge. My attempt to pry the forbidden answer out of you was wrong-headed and ridiculous.

Still not being very clear. . .

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:23 pm

Rian Jackson wrote:btw, the coworker from yesterday is acting uncomfortable and distant.
see what you get?

Should I sidle over to him and say--if she'd gone out with you, you'd feel really uncomforable?

I know, not helpful. Sometimes I think you shouldn't ask questions if you can't take no for an answer.

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:28 pm

Rian Jackson wrote:btw, the coworker from yesterday is acting uncomfortable and distant.
see what you get?

insecurity,,, sad actually.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:28 pm

theCryptofishist wrote:
Rian Jackson wrote:btw, the coworker from yesterday is acting uncomfortable and distant.
see what you get?
Should I sidle over to him and say--if she'd gone out with you, you'd feel really uncomforable?

I know, not helpful. Sometimes I think you shouldn't ask questions if you can't take no for an answer.

what a fabulous mental picture....

i think part of his deal must have been my familiarity with levantine culture (hes from Lebanon). But hell, it's not like i tell my friends over there exactly what this community is like. They couldn't take it.

Just because i can play chameleon doesn't mean that the parts that disappear don't exist, you know?

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:29 pm

theCryptofishist wrote:
CoworkerLurker wrote:Again, I'm confused- I would know anything about such an explicable experience...
...how?
...why?
I mean, I also find the idea that it can be explained very interesting, but...

completely beyond my ken, I'm afraid.
Um what I was trying to get to in that post is that (especially when you're a child and believe that the world makes sence or will one day when you grow up) sometimes freaks believe that if they could find the key they could "fix" themselves, and that my original post could perhaps be best attributed to the idea that this time maybe I'd get some useful information. Your "how" and "why" were in fact legit to the first questions and in some sence implicitly awknowledged by me in my 2nd post. You don't have the answer, there is no magic knowledge. My attempt to pry the forbidden answer out of you was wrong-headed and ridiculous.

Still not being very clear. . .

Murky waters there, Fishy...

As a former (and current) freak, let me say that there is no difference between freakiness and normality. The freak is often made to feel 'freakish' instead of 'acceptibly different'... especially by childhood peers. It is only at the point where the 'freakisness' is accepted and embraced is there true liberation for the freak. At that point they become one with the 'normal' world and are able to interact with it without too much trouble. It is also at this point that the 'normal' becomes a freak if they are unable to accept the freak as 'acceptably different', and they, then, become the freak.

At least, that's what most of my imaginary friends tell me.... except for that one that demands that I attack Neil Diamond with five pounds of butter, slatering it over his head, and shaping it into a pyramid...