And today started out so promising....

I woke up this morning, feeling refreshed, surprisingly awake, and in a really good mood.

That didn't last.

After 6 hours, and after assholes in traffic, issues with systems at work (which has been ongoing for a long time and probably our fault), and the general intelligence level of people calling into the Help Desk apparently dropping, I'm pissed off.

I can't tell you how amny times this has happened in the past few months. I answer the phone"

Me: Hello, MIB Help Desk.
Them: Is this the MIB Help Desk?

Uhhh......

And then there's the people that can't, for the lack of a better term, READ FUCKING INSTRUCTIONS!!!! Probably a third of our calls wouldn't be necessary if people read that one line that said to enter everything in capital letters. It's even in there twice.

But, no. And even when they do, I often get calls like this:

Me: Hello, MIB Help Desk.
Them: I'm getting the passcode mismatch error when I try to enroll.
Me (Sigh): On the enrollment screen, are you entering your first and last name, email address, and passcode ALL in upper case?
Them: Yes.
Me: All four of those fields? First name, last name, email address, and passcode? All in upper case?
Them: Well, not the email address.

Uhhh.....

I need out of here. Someplace where the products that are supposed to be the future of the company work on a consistent basis would be nice. Someplace where the customerbase aren't so uniformly inane would be nice. Someplace where one of the benefits is Jessica Alba feeding my grapes and pepper salami would be nice.

Did I forget to mention the psuhy customers?

Right before I started writing this, a customer called to ask if our system was still down. I told him no, that we'd been back up for about 40 minutes. As I was writing this, he emailed the entire Help Desk asking if the system was still down.

Yeah, I'm sick of this place. Sick of the people who call in every day, the tools and systems that are full of faults and bugs, of what I percieve to be a lack of support in bettering one's position here.

But I know me. I'll bitch about it today, but I'll be back here tomorrow. Can't pay the rent and car payments and for beer and pizza and new gear on disgruntled expectations.
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Speaking of gear, and on a much happier note (of sorts):

I tried to get that Bad Cat amp on Ebay. Lost the auction. But then two days later got a note, supposedly from the owner of the listing, that the winner had backed out and would I like to buy the amp at my bid price? Well, hells yes I would! Of course.....it turned out to be a scam. The invoice I got didn't match up certain key points in the original listing, like the method of payment requested was Western Union money transfer, (which Ebay tells you not to use as there are no safeguards), and more importantly the location. The amp was lsited in South Dakota, the invoice asked me to pay someone in London. So no Bad Cat for me.

Currently I'm looking into a Vox AC30. The demo video I watched last night sounded awesome. And although still pricey, it's a lot closer to being in a price range I can handle. I'll probably stop by Boston Guitar works this weekend and see if they have any.

Also, ZVEX finally put up a demo video for their Box of Rock gain pedal. Holy crap did that thing sound awesome! Can't wait for those things to hit the stores at the end of the month.

Which reminds me, I have to list the rest of my gear that I'm selling on Craigslist tonight and starting getting together my money to pay for the new stuff.
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And of course the best news: Two days until football starts. I'll be happier then.