Work Gripes & A Toyglobe.com Giveaway

So I guess its about time that I get back to my regular posting schedule which was sporadic at best. But I figured I'd blog about something other than just a giveaway and get your advice.... but wait...first...a give away. LOL

As you guys probably know by now I'm helping my husband get his blog off the ground for his company Toyglobe.com (Hey I'm doing the same thing for my work too...Trying to catch them up to 2009 instead of 1989!) So now Toyglobe.blogspot.com is following in my footsteps and doing a giveaway.

They are giving away a voice mixer helmet from Transformers 1. It changes your voice to where you sound like Bumble Bee! This is a perfect give away to win in order to have an extra gift away for that special little boy (or girl) in your life! Xmas? Birthday? Grad?

Click on to http://toyglobe.blogspot.com/2009/06/toyglobecom-give-away.html in order to enter this giveaway. It ends on June 18th and its easy to enter. You can also follow Toyglobe on twitter by following @Toyglobe

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And now back to our regularly scheduled bitchin'.

As some of you may remember reading a while back, I had a huge spat with one of my co workers. In fact, I think I may have gone as far as calling her a cunt which is a word that I normally reserve for really really really bad people. People have to push me in order to call them that but this lady has done nothing but get on my nerves. Each time when things are starting to smooth over she'll do something else to get me riled up and when I get riled up I remember everything from the past. My memory can be my downfall because I NEVER forget.

So what happened this time to where Stupid Ugly Bitch (SUB) pissed me off? I was in the office enjoying a quiet day. It was only me and my co-worker in the office. My boss was out for the day tending to his sick kid and the rest of our "office" is sales reps and they are always in the field. I'm sitting at my office doing my daily work, minding my own business when I get an email from SUB. SUB asks me if I have another companies item number for OUR product. I email her that "you were provided a listing of all items that Xcompany carries of our products with our item number, their item number, the product description, UPC code, and price". She writes back "Okay so since you don't have that item do you have these two items?" And I wrote back, "SUB, please see the attached file that you have been e-mailed numerous times. It has ALL the info that I have. If there is something missing you need to contact the buyer at Xcompany."

She leaves me alone...for about an hour. She then emails me and asks me about a project that i was working on a few months ago and completed long ago. She ask if its ready yet. It is. It has been for a while now. It's even been emailed to her. Numerous times.

Now lets get something clear, SUB has pissed me off many many many times in the past. (including earlier in that day) I always go above and beyond my job description to help her out (mainly because I think she is more stupid than gold fish that has an average memory of ummm 3 seconds?) but nope, not today. Instead of just automatically emailing her the file I decided to pull a bitch move. I type in the name of the file in my SENT messages folder and saw HOW many times I've emailed the file to her. I then write her an email in reply:

Dear SUB.

I have already emailed you this file on the following dates (enter dates here). Please check your old emails and save the file to your desk top or in another easy to access place as you will need this file. I cannot constantly resend you the same files. Please organize yourself.

Thanks,
LWP (Lovely Wonderful Person:) )

She then writes back and COPIES my boss and my co-worker in the file saying something along the lines of how my work isn't organized and how I shouldn't name files FINAL because its never the final copy and I should name files like SUBannoysthefuckoutofme06-10-09.xls instead of SUBannoysthefuckoutofmeFINAL.xls Apparently its more organized that way and a "standard" in all major companies and we should KISS.

EXCUSE ME? FUCKING EXCUSE ME? Do you kow what KISS stands for? Keep It Simple, Stupid. Yeah that dumb fucking cunt called me STUPID and thought that I was just going to sit there and take it. Well, I took the high road...kinda.

I reply to her and copy my boss and co-worker into it.

SUB,

As I mentioned in my earlier email this file has been emailed to you numerous times on the following dates. The problem does not lay with me not sending you the correct file or the way that the file is named. The file I sent you is a FINAL copy therefore the word FINAL is in there. Even though I have emailed you the file numerous times the file NEVER changed.

My suggestion to you would once again be to save all important files to your hard drive, on your desk top, or in another easy to access place because apparently you don't like looking through your emails. I will NOT change the way that I name files and send them out. The rest of the company does not seem to have a problem with this, only you.

Thank you.

I'm angry. I'm steaming. I'm about to blow a gasket. My co-worker who is in the office with me sees this and decides its best for him to stay away from me. I then open a new email window and begin typing.

I write an email to my boss.

Dear Boss,

As you know of over the past few months SUB and I have been having problems working together. I don't want this to reflect badly on me or my work but I find myself no longer wanting to work with her or to help her. The tone that she uses towards me on the telephone and in her emails is rude and downright disrespectful. In her last email she wrote that I should just KISS which means keep it simple stupid. I'd love to tell you that she didn't mean it like that or that she is unaware of how its used but she knows. We both grew up in Texas, we both went to school in the same district and she and I know the same meaning of that expression. I don't tolerate that kind of disrespect.

I would really like it if you could talk to SUB about her attitude towards me because I can not see our future work relationship working out very well if this type of attitude continues. Boss, I really love my job and I love this company and I would have to see that jeporadized because of someone else's actions.

Thank You.


So to this day my boss still hasn't replied to me so I don't know if I should bring this up again. I know for a fact that he barely reads emails from me because I email him and them right away follow up vocally so there is a possibility that he is unaware of my email, or maybe he knows and chooses to just ignore it and hope that everything will blow over. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you bring it up? Let it pass?

The reason I'm blogging about this today is because again today she decided to be a bitch. My boss was in the office and asked me to send an email to the sales rep to get them to try to push a product. PUSH a product not INTRODUCE a product.

SUB automatically emails me back asking me what is the item number, how much does it cost, and wanting to know all the details since we've never sold this before. THIS IS A FUCKING PRODUCT WE'VE BEEN SELLING FOR 3 YEARS...THE DISTRIBUTORS ALREADY HAVE THIS FUCKING INFORMATION BECAUSE WE'VE FUCKING SOLD IT TO THEM BEFORE YOU STUPID UGLY BITCH.

The other sales rep wrote back "What do you mean we've never sold this product before. Isn't this the product number a Xcompany selling at this price?! If there are only 200 left to sell across the country we shouldn't have a problem"

SUB writes back "No that was a different product. This is just the dispenser."

I write back,"No its not. It's the same product. Here are the two listings for this from Xcompany. Its the complete unit not just the dispense. Why would we sell a consumer a car and just give them the body and no interior or anything under the hood."

SUB calls me and asks if I'm sure. YES I'M FUCKING BLOODY SURE!!!!!!! I repeat this to her more than once and then just hang up the phone. I'm done with this bitch.

So there is my rant :) Happy reading...

Oh...and don't forget to enter my My GIVEAWAY!!!

An attack on my personality?!?

Seriously?! Like c'mon? Seriously? How can anyone attack my wonderful little, well okay, huge personality?

So maybe you guys need a little background information so you don't think that I'm insane or just rambling nonsense which I am in fact very good at! I'm a very loud and outgoing person. I'm an extrovert to the T. I don't hold a lot in and I'm not the type of person who beats around the bush, I prefer to beat the crap out of the bush. Basically, I get straight to the point without pussyfooting the subject. Maybe its a lack of tact but I have always preferred honesty and I like a plain delivery instead of a sugar coated one.

So below you will find two stories where I've felt that my personality has been attacked and why it bothers me oh so much.

About two years ago I had finished my schooling (for the 3rd time!) and ready to find a job in my field. I was so depressed because I couldn't find anything that seemed interesting to me and didn't require french. Living in Quebec the jobs were vastly limited because of our bilingualism. I went to one interview that was in the fashion industry, not too far from home, and right in the pay I was expecting to get. I walk into the office and I knew right away I could not work there. Sure its in the fashion industry, sure its great money and close to home but....the office reeked of smoke. I don't mean it smelled a little bit like smoke. It was like smoke had embedded itself on every single textile in the place, on the floors, in the wood work. I wanted to gag. I got an offer from the company a few days after my interview and I turned it down.

My spirits were dropping. I had been really selective about where I was applying because of the language laws and wouldn't just apply to anything because it was an English only speaking job. Finally a head hunter contacted me and asked me to come in and they'd help find me a job. This woman was amazing. She instantly fell under my charm and told me what a great personality I had. She loved my flair for life and the ability to talk to anyone about anything...in English that is!

So she called me back a week later and told me she had an interview lined up for me at a company that writes medical journals. I'd be calling people to purchase ad space, help with the layout, and plan their seminars, tradeshows, and any other marketing stuff. Sounded like fun to me! I get dressed and go for the interview and meet with the boss. We talk a bit about life in general and then we get down to the nitty gritty and talk about the job. After about an hour I leave the office and head home. I get home and the head hunter calls me back and tells me that the company I just interviewed with would like to offer me a job! I was sooooooooo excited! I got my very first adult job that NO ONE helped me get. (By no one I meant I didn't have to ask my dad for help, ask my husband for help, or anyone I know personally because we all know in this world its about who you know and hardly about what you know!). We had decided that I would start in 3 weeks because the company was closing for two weeks for summer holidays and I decided I would take that time to drive to Texas to see my parents.

I spend two days driving to Texas, 11 days seeing my friends and family, and another 2 days driving back. I had cut my vacation short in order for me to be in Montreal, well rested and relaxed and ready to start work. I get to the office 15 minutes early on my first day and the boss calls in and talks to one of the girls telling them that he would be late and that I should spend the morning getting better aquainted with the girls I work with and to find out their job functions so that our working together will be smooth. This way I'll know what they are doing and if they can help me, if I can help them and all that jazz. So I spent the better part of my morning watching people do very simple jobs, in my opinion. The boss comes in and decides to treat us for lunch. After lunch we go back to the office and I sit in with the boss to talk more about what is expected of me and what my first task should be. I sit in with the guy who is in charge of the layout and we go over all of the office equipment.

It's now about 2pm and the boss calls me in and tells me to go home and we'll start fresh tomorrow. No point in starting to work at 2pm only to leave in 3 hours right? So I say thanks, tell everyone goodbye, and I head out to the parking lot. As I am driving home I'm thinking how incredibly quiet everyone is in the office. They hardly talk to one another. They all have MSN and use that to communicate and if they have to show one another a file instead of getting up to talk about it or show someone something on another screen they do an MSN file transfer. The office was reallllly quiet. No music, no talking. I felt kind of like it was a morgue instead of an office. Oh well, I can adapt right!?

Well lo and behold. By the time I got home I had a message on my anwering machine from the boss saying that I was basically "unhired" because my personality didn't fit in with the rest of the office. I was too bubbly and happy for their office environment. Yes, those words were used in the message. I was crushed. I was freaking defeated, sad, mad, pissed, hurt, fuming, and highly annoyed. I put the phone down and started to cry because I was confused. How could me being happy effect a job? I would understand if I worked in a hospital and had to tell people that their loved ones have passed away but I worked at a company that published medical journals. I worked with young 30 something year olds who seemed equally alive as I was during lunch. I found out I had no recourse because every single job you start in Quebec automatically comes with 3 months probation to where you can be fired at any given time within those 3 months for any reason whatsoever.

I called my mom and blamed my parents for my lack of being able to find a job. They raised me in Texas where they don't speak a lick of French. Even the French teachers in high school had a horrible southern drawl that made it hard to understand. I was about to get married in a few months and didn't even have a job (the daycare job didn't count because my husband to be owned it) and that was partially my parents fault.

I blamed the fat bastard boss that just unhired me because hes obviously miserable in his life being fat and unable to find someone to love him. He was just a miserable prick that decided to rain on my parade.

I was incredibly pissed off. Not only was I pissed off but I stopped to think about how I was as a person. Was my personality really that big of a turn off? I thought about my life and how many people I was surrounded by and were they really my friends or were they just humouring me? I know I have a strong personality that can rub some people the wrong way but for the most part, everyone found my openness refreshing and found me to be rather humorous as well. I thought I was a great person, a lot of other people did too so why didn't this asshole? It really made me question myself.

Now lets fastforward to a couple of months ago.....

I have a facebook profile that is private or for friends only. I don't just add any random person to my facebook in order to make it look like I have a lot of friends and most of the people on my friends list I actually know personally or make an effort to speak to them on FB every once in a while (comment on photos/statuses). I had two "friends" on there that I had gotten into a huge tiff with a few months earlier. I have a few circles of friends and this one circle had just completely stopped making an effort at all. Not just with me and George but with everyone in that small group. I called everyone out on their fakeness and a whole riot ensued. The end result was that everyone was hurt and didn't mean to make it seem like they didn't care anymore. I decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and made plans for everyone to go for sushi. Everyone showed up, everyone talked, everyone had a great time and at the end of the night this was heard bouncing off everyone's mouths, "Wow I had a great time. We should do it again soon!". I said perfect! I would wait to see if we would do it again soon. I made the effort so lets wait and see now..

One month. Two months. Three months... Out of that group of 5 that got called out 3 made the effort. The three people would call to go for dinner/coffee/drinks/movies/just hang out. The other two (married couple) just fell off the face of the earth. So I decided since my profile is for friends only, why will I have these non friends, or rather fake friends on there. I deleted them. No phone calls, no text messages, no emails. Nothing. I went about my life in a merry fashion. Who was I to care if people wanted to be fake? I don't tolerate fakiness so I just moved on. I didn't make a huge deal out of it. I just deleted them.

I came home and told my hubby what I did and if he heard anything from them about it this is why. I explained to him what I just wrote above. He shook his head and said something about people getting offended but said that my life is my life. Well Sunday at church, at a memorial service for George's mother, something happened that I promised I wouldn't write about. What happened pissed me off not because it was something offensive towards me but because I feel that there is a time and a place for everything and a memorial service is not the time to be a child and be upset that you were deleted on Facebook.

After the memorial service George and I are driving home and I tell him what happened and he said he'd speak to a mutual friend about it to find out why something happened. I told him he wouldn't have to look too far the reason it happened was because of being deleted from FB. So the hubs calls the mutual friend any way only to be told that I was write it was due to FB. After my husband finished his conversation he tells me, "You know, your attitude is going to cost you a lot of friends."

I felt like slamming on my brakes in the middle of the highway. Are you fucking kidding me? My attitude (personality) is going to cost me friends because I don't tolerate bullshit? Just because person 1 and 2 are fake doesn't mean I'm going to stoop down to their level of fakiness. My attitude isn't costing me friends. It's helping me declutter my life. I don't have enough time to see all of the people that I want to see, having two fake people less in my life is great. It's a freaking relief.

I turn to face George and I tell him that he married me knowing very damn well the type of person that I was and my personality. I'm loud. I'm opinionated. I don't hold back. How is that costing me friends? Again, I took it as an insult.

I thought for a few minutes before continuing to speak and then I told George something along the lines of "Out of 30 people that know both you and I and the other couple how come everyone can't stand the other couple or doesn't get along with them? Why is everyone always talking shit about the guy and feeling so sorry for the girl? How come we are driving to a baptism that all of our friends are going to be at and they weren't even invited?" How is it that my personality is going to cost me friends when they are the couple that no one likes?

I guess the bottom line is this: I am me, if you don't like me then go away. Stop using my personality as reason for not being able to get along with me and just fess up that sometimes, not everyone has to like everyone and get along with everyone else. My personality isn't the problem, its your lack of one that is the problem.

So this morning I am sitting at my desk trying my hardest not to blog about what pissed me the hell off yesterday at church and I decided to get on Facebook. One of my therapies is to read blogs using Networked Blogs.

Well the lovely Mary McCarthy over at Pajamas & Coffee posted a blog on the Mommy Wars. It reminded me of something that I had written over the holidays on my Facebook "notes". I'm reposting it here as it got a lot of feedback on Facebook and it goes so well with what Mary had to say, although she posted in more more eloquent words then my angry self ever could!

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Okay so this isn't really a bitchfest or anything like my last note but this is something that gets on my last freaking nerve. The subject of HOW to raise your children, to be exact, should you or shouldn't you put your children in daycare.

I think that this is a very personal subject and its not up to someone else to judge what is right or wrong for your family. Some families can afford to have the mother stay at home for 10 years to raise the kids while other families can barely manage for the mother to stay home for 10 days. It's not up to you or me or anyone else to decide what is best for the kids or best for the family.

It seems that everytime we are at a family get together this subject comes up. One of my very overly righteous aunts goes on and on about how her daughter has sacrificed for her children by not working since she was first pregnant....over 12 years now. And how said aunt didn't go work for 9 years after she first started to have children. She believes that its the ONLY way to raise children. "If we were able to make do years and years ago why can't you guys make do now."

That irks me to no end. Maybe you were able to make do because you were used to having less. Maybe you were able to make do because your expenses weren't the expenses that people have today. Maybe your daughter is able to make do because she lives in her mother in laws duplex for free? Maybe all of that is why you think that staying home for years on end doing nothing is PROPER and RIGHT for children.

I dunno, I mean, I want to have children and I love children to death but I don't think that I have to give up everything in the world to raise them. I know that sounds wrong but I can't find the right words to say it in. I went to school and got an education to get my career. I love my career and I love my pay. Because of my pay and my husband's pay we were able to get ourselves a very nice house and we have a certain lifestyle that we want to maintain and do the same for our children. Just because I have kids doesn't mean I want to stop wearing designer clothes or drive lower end cars... I want to have that still. I want to have my kids living in a nice and spacious house, I want to drive my nice car still, I want to dress myself and my children in nicer clothes and if that means that my kid has to go to daycare so that I can go to work I will.

The government of Quebec gives you 1 year materinity leave when you have a child. You can take two years but only have one year paid but you are still guaranteed your position back at your job. I plan on doing that or going back to work after 18months. I don't see a problem with children going to daycare. I don't think its wrong, I don't think its abandonment. I do have a problem with parents who take their kids to daycare at 7am and pick them up at 6pm and spend no time with their children....at the same time I have a problem with stay at home moms who just talk on the phone all day and pretty much ignore their children.

But all that being said, I don't think that anyone has the right to say what people should or shouldn't do with their kids regarding daycare. If you want to stay home for 15 years, thats your decision. If you want to stay home for 3 years, thats your decision. If you can only stay home for 6 months thats up to you. You do what you have to do for your children and no one has the right to say anything.

I can't wait to have kids and have my aunt say something about it. I'll have a few choice words for her :)

Oh Piss Off Already

I had promised myself that I wouldn't use my blog as an output for anger. I had said that I would use it for more positive things and just keep a sort of online journal type of thing or whatnot but I can't help it. It's a proven fact that people are more likely to talk about a bad event then a good one so here I am complaining/bitching/ranting or whatever all over again.

My little nephew came over on Saturday afternoon and told us how he and his father joined Weight Watchers on Monday and how they had each lost 5 pounds to date. I was pretty impressed but then again remembered how the wrestlers were in high school. They'd starve themselves to death the entire day, sweat off the water weight and then make their weight at weigh in and then binge right after the wrestling match. CiCi's Pizza was a hit after our wrestling meets. They'd even stay open late for us if we called ahead. Always willing to help out our local school ya know!?

Anyway my nephew went on to explain how the points system worked and he told me how much his favorite foods were worth and how the points were calculated and how he got to his number of allotted points. I was interested. I'd like to lose some weight. I'd like to lose a lot of weight actually.

So I decided I was going to join Weight Watchers with my husband and we'd join our nephew and my brother in law. Hey, don't they say strength in numbers? I know its easier when you have a support team behind you and if two people live in the same house and are on the same "diet" then it had to be good right? We'd help each other out. We'd encourage each other to eat right, to exercise, and we'd help monitor each others points. (Really can someone please remind me that I don't need a large iced vanilla latte every single morning?)

I was supposed to go to my first meeting tonight, to sign up and all that jazz but plans didn't pan out with the rest of the family so we are going to start next week. We are still trying to eat healthy right now not even knowing how many points we'd be allotted.

Sooooo I went on WeightWatchers.ca in order to find out what my "ideal" weight would be and boy was I floored. The ideal weight for me was between 128 and 160. Ummmm isn't that a little, I dunno, broad? I mean, thats 32 pounds difference. I am happily in between that range but the bad thing is that I'm towards the end of that scale. In fact, I'm about to break the woman code and make my weight known to the entire world wide web, well, umm those that are reading this blog. I weigh a whopping 158 pounds. Yes, me. Those of you who remember me from high school, the little twig is now a full fledged branch.

I think one of the things that really irk me the most is I put on my Facebook status that I'm joining WW and I got mixed comments. I got the "it's great, look at me I'm a success" type of responses, I got the "WTF are you talking about you don't need it," and I got the "if you go there others will look at you funny" responses. I think it irks me because no one can tell how much I weigh because I'm one of the few people that dresses for their size.

What do I mean like that? I don't let my fat hang out. I'm not in denial about having gained weight and still try to squeeze myself into jeans that don't fit and do the muffin top thing, I don't still try to wear a small sized shirt and have my arms begging to be free or my boobs (little as they may be) hoping for some room. I have gained weight, I have purchased new clothes, and I dress for my new body.

Does it bother me? HELL YES. I used to be so fucking skinny. I used to get made fun of in junior high and high school for being so skinny. I got called ANA for anorexic (how original), I got called Olive Oil from Popeye because I was so skinny. I was a twig. In fact, I can remember my weight during those times because I was the same weight for 3 years at a time. Grades 7 thru 9 I was 92 pounds. Grades 10 thru 12 I was 112 pounds. After I graduated high school and moved to Montreal I had surgery and I dropped down to 83 pounds then I got put on steroids and I jumped up to 140. After I stopped those I leveled out the playing field and was about 120 pounds and I was sooooooooo happy. Finally a NORMAL HEALTHY weight. I couldn't get called a toothpick anymore....and no one would tell me that I looked like "a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter," (obviously when I gained weight my cheeks filled out). I was at a weight where people couldn't make fun of me.

All of my bones not only had skin on them but also some meat. I was sooooooooooooo happy!! I managed to stay at my healthy weight for many many years. I think about 6 of them (yes thats many years to go between 120 to 125 and back down. I was always right there in that weight).

I then got a new job and got married and I gained weight. I seriously blame a lot of the weight gain on my latte addiction that I never had before I started to work "a real job". So I'm determined to lose the weight I gained. I'm going to try to get myself down to a healthy 130 pounds, even lower if possible but I'm not delusional. I know that its hard and 120 or 125 may not look right on me anymore but I'm aiming for the stars.

So I guess I'll be using this blog to track my progress as well as the comments I get regarding my attendance at WW meetings. I wonder will the people who look larger at me make snide remarks as to why I am there. Will the welcome me with open arms? Will I feel uncomfortable?

But I've come to a conclusion and that is no matter what your weight is you will get comments on it. I've been teased to high hell for being skinny and people sometimes make jabs (literal and figuratively) at my extra weight gain. It's so annoying that no matter what weight you are people are going to pop a comment. To those people, I'd like to pop your fucking face! :) So basically, don't let people get you down. Let their negativity get you down, instead let it motivate you.

Stupid is ...Stupid does

So I seem to have fallen into some kind of blog writing rut. Well to be honest, I've fallen into a rut when it comes to all aspects of my writing. Reading has sort of taken over right now. I'm reading the Twilight series and reading a lot of Derryan's writing. The story is coming along so great I'm excited and very happy to be a part of it. A part of it as his agent, a part of it as his creative inspiration, but the biggest part of it because we are cell mates. :) Friends for ever and I'm so proud of him.


Anyway this blog isn't about Derryan and his writing (although for a sneak peak you guys should make friends with 'Angel Morland' on Facebook). I spent a lot of time today reading blogs and I noticed a common thread on most of them: STUPID PEOPLE. No I don't mean the writers were stupid, but they were complaining about stupid people and who am I to ignore such a delectable topic?

I've had a lot of recent run ins with stupid people but the one from a couple of weeks ago really really stood out. I was home sick for 3 days with gasto (seriously the most unfun sickness you could have. You can't do anything but stay close to the bathroom!!) So since I was home Georgie called me and asked me to call Bell Canada about our satellite upstairs. For some reason the satellite in our bedroom would constantly lose the signal and more than half the channels wouldn't show up. It was the most annoying thing ever but we never had time to call because we only watch tv up there for like 20 minutes before bed. I was home so I might as well call them.

Now before I get to the phone call let me give you some backstory to me. When I was 13 years old I was diagnosed with a disease called myasthenia gravis. It's an immune disease where my body produces too many antibodies and therefore gets bored of me not being sick and attacks my ATP cells which totally reduces my energy and my strength. It is managable but when I am sick or stressed my disease completely skyrockets and I feel like I'm dead. It ends up affecting my muscles so I'm pretty weak and have hard time going up and down stairs etc. When my disease acts up it can be bad to the point that you'd think I am physically disabled. In fact, the goverment of Quebec seems to think so and I have a handicap parking tag. Don't worry about me, I've come to terms with it...anyway.... By now you should know HOW I felt when I called Bell.

So I'm downstairs in my living room watching TV when George calls me to talk to Bell. I sit down and dial their number and go through this whole automated thing where I enter my phone number, say why I'm calling and blah blah. The lovely automated operator, Emily, informs me that I must be in front of the tv that I am calling to trouble shoot. I hang up the phone and drag my sick ass up the stairs and have my puppy nipping at my heels. Heaven forbid he be downstairs alone!

Now I'm in front of the tv that isn't working properly and I call Bell and when I get a human on the phone I realize that the trouble is starting, not the trouble shooting process. I get a guy named "Sam" on the phone and I can tell you one thing. Wherever "Sam" comes from Sam is NOT a common name. A more common name in his area is probably something along the lines of Harminder or Abu. His accent is really thick and heavy and I'm just trying to understand him clearly. We start trouble shooting by pushing a bunch of buttons on my remote and checking the settings on the receiver and all kinds of other not fun things. Finally "Sam" decides that it is not something he can fix by having me push buttons and now its time to see if the problem is with the receiver or not. He asks me to unhook this receiver and take it downstairs to see if it will work there. At this point I proceed to tell "Sam" that I am physically disabled and unable to move heavy furniture, disconnect the receiver, struggled down the stairs where I would have to move more heavy furniture, disconnect the currently set up receiver and reconnect this one.

At this point "Sam" tells me that it is protocol and that he can not skip a step in the trouble shooting process. I tell him that I work for a company that also has a lot of calls for customer service and that we too have protocol but there are special circumstances that require us to skip our protocol and just make executive decisions. I told Sam that I think he should send a Bell tech out to my house in order to replace the receiver to fix this problem as it is not the first time I am having the same problem with the same reciver. Sam basically tells me to go fuck myself and that he can't skip any steps. I ask to speak to a manager. I get a floor supervisor named "Dan". Believe me he wasn't a Dan either. After explaining the situation to him and getting the same result my blood is pumping and I'm furious. I want to beat the living shit out of everyone where Dan and Sam work. I ask to speak to someone else and then I must have gone though 5 customer service reps /pseudo tech agents and I start to demand to speak to someone in CANADA. I tell the last person I'm on the phone with, "John" that when I pay my bill I pay it in Canadian dollars at a Canadian bank for a Canadian service and I'd like to speak to someone in my country which is when I get a line like "Yes Jenny, I understand but Bell Canada has many offices all over the world if you hang up and come back into the queue you may get your call answered by someone in Canada or India." I roll my eyes and hang up the telephone. Are these guys serious?

I pick up the telephone again and start the process again. Instead of asking for tech support when Emily asks why I'm calling I say CANCEL. Wouldn't you know that within 10 seconds I had a lady named Sarah on the phone, and guess what, she probably was a real Sarah, from Canada! Sarah asks why I'm canceling since I'm such a valued Bell Canada customer and I explain to her how Sam over in India wanted me to risk my life, at the very least, my face, in order to save Bell some money by having a tech come out to my house. She's completely horrified at the situation and schedules an appointment to have a tech come to my house early the next morning and gives me 30% off of my entire Bell bill for the next 12 months.

What I don't understand is how you can ask someone who is telling you they are HANDICAPPED and UNABLE to go down the stairs to still do it just because the script on their screen tells them to. I was completely shocked.

A few days later I get an apology letter from Bell telling me they are sorry for my experience calling their call center and they gave me a telephone number to call in case I have any further problems with their services which they hope I don't.

So yeah, I kind of found that to be pretty fucking stupid. How does one go about asking a cripple to hobble down the stairs? And for those of you who know me, I can be really descriptive. I was explaining to Sam, Dan, and John how much work it would be for me to get the reciever and carry it down the stairs without me misstepping, falling, rolling down a flight of stairs before landing on my face and hitting my nose so hard that fragments of broken nose bones get into my brain and render me dead within seconds....

Ah, the wonders of outsourcing for cheap labour.