The Next Day

Originally posted Friday, October 07, 2005

Today is Friday and normally I would be alone. However, after yesterdays little disaster, I have requested that Sped, also known as the lead teacher, come in to help clean things up a bit. The director strolls past my desk and nods as he walks by, then freezes in his tracks turns to me and says “I heard there was a problem while I was gone yesterday?”

“Yeah, dumb ass decided it would be a good idea to deny access to the E: drive for all students.”

“Why would he do that? They need access to that server for their tests and all online material.”

“Yeah no shit” I say “well besides that, he also changed a lot of the web settings making things even more complicated, and changed all the local profiles to a more public one.”

“Wow! sounds like you guys had a fun day.” He says with a chuckle

“Oh yeah, about as much fun as pouring alcohol into open wounds.” I respond

He grimaces at the thought before asking “Well need any help cleaning things up a bit?”

“No, I told him since he made the mess he can come in today and help clean it up.”

“And he better of agreed?” he asks

“Yeah, he said he will be here around nine, so until then I will get to work on cleaning things up before students start coming in.”

“Very well then, sounds like everything is under control so I will just continue on.”
Not remembering why he came out here in the first place he turns and heads back to his office, while I begin to devise an attack plan to fix yesterdays problems as quickly as possible. It’s not long before things start piling up real fast.

“I can’t open this document!”

“Yeah me either” shouts another student

One of my less talented students, and by less talented I mean thinks he knows a lot about computers but really doesn’t, walks up to me and says "don’t worry I already tried several computers and got the same result.”

“Great….” I say running back to the server room to check the damage, only to find what I had suspected. Each time a student tries to print a document from the printer server they are denied access, mean while their computer keeps trying to access the printer locking their machine up. Thus every print sent to the printer gets hung up in the print queue also locking up the server. So I quickly clear out the print queue and reset the server, looks good, run back to the lab, too late, 4 other students have tried printing.
I yell out loud “No more printing, the server is down, I will let you all know when you can print”

I run back to the server while behind me I can hear my computer wannabe student giving some off the wall explanation as to why the printers are not working. Once again I clear the print queue and reset the server. Run back to the lab to begin working on the computers themselves only to find the printer now in pieces.
“What the hell happened?” I say looking down at a dismantled printer. From out of no where my computer genius pops up.

“Oh….ah, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the printer itself, so I took it apart.”

“WHY????” I ask him

“I was looking for a paper clip?”

This catches me so completely off guard that I just stand there with my mouth wide open not knowing what to say or how to respond.
“Ummmm……yeeeeaaahhhh….." Scratching my head in confusion "Explain this to me?”

“Well one time, at this place I worked, we had this printer, and it got jammed cause someone put a paper clip in it, so they asked if anyone knew anything about printers….”

“And let me guess, you raised your hand?” I ask

“Yep, and I took it apart and found the paper clip and fixed the problem.”

“Well great, now put this one back together because it has nothing to do with a paper clip.”

“Well I would” he says “but that was just a little inkjet printer, I don’t know nothing about these big fancy laser printers.”

“And yet you proceeded to take it apart anyway?”

“Well I figured I could learn something new.”

“Are you by any chance related to our lead teacher, Sped?”

“I don’t think so, why?”

“Never mind!”

I look down at what used to be the main printer for the students shaking my head.
“Well good thing fuck head will be in here soon” I think to myself.

I glance at the clock, 8:30am, and I am already breaking a sweat. Meanwhile I head into the medical lab to start working on those computers. As soon as I walk in I can see that I neglected to tell the medical students not to print. Off to the server room again to clear the queue and reset the server. By now I am getting pretty bogged down with other problems as well so I decide to redirect the printers to the one in the IT lab until I can get this mess sorted out and some help.

9:15am, no show from dip shit.

10:30am still no show.

At 1:30pm my printer is completely jammed up with requests from so many students trying to use it, the server has been reset numerous times, the printer queue is all fucked up, students are beginning to bitch about the response time at the school to resolve matters, and my lead sac of vomit has yet to show his ugly little head. I have narrowed the problem down to his little public profile that he created, but don’t have the time to sift through all the policies to determine what the hell is wrong with it at this time, so I head into the directors office. There is no need for words; my facial expressions said it all.

“I take it he never showed up to help?” the director says to me.

“Nope, and I am having a hell of a time trying to keep up with everything out there by myself and determine what the hell is going on with his profile he created. I either need the time to go through the policies one by one, or we need to do something more drastic”

“Hmmm…..” he says “well, easy enough, let’s just get rid of his profile.”

“Fine by me.”

With a few clicks of his mouse on the server side I watch as he renames the public profile, and resorts back to an old profile we used to have.

“Go check things out and let me know what happens.”

I head back into the lab and reboot the first computer I see to reset the profile. I open a word document from the web…..no problems…….print……and….and……nothing.

“SHIT”

Then I remember, oh yeah, my main printer is still in pieces, it printed to the other room. Running into the other room I am greeted by the familiar sounds of squealing rollers and the smell of burnt toner.

“Woohoo it worked” I shout.

I send out a message to the students to reboot their machines, and one to the director letting him know it worked. Shortly after the director walks out and confirms that all is well. I explain in more detail what the “Lead Teacher” he hired did the previous day while he was out. He assures me that he is going to have a long talk with him come Monday morning about proper change procedures.

“Oh really?” I ask “Again?” I ask

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks right back

“Well this is the eighth time he has done something so drastic that in the real world he would have been fired.”

“Are you counting?”

“Yes….but that’s beside the point, he knocked out the entire network for the students for several hours. If this was big corporate America, not only would he have been fired, they would have sued his ass as well.”

“Well don’t worry” he says “I will get him straightened out Monday morning!”

“Really...seems like this is a regular game between you two and nothing ever changes, it’s like you don’t give a shit……...or……..”

“Now see here, my first concern is the same as yours, and that’s to make sure the school is operational for our students and that will never change.”

“Good, then make sure he understands this time the ramifications of his actions, and that next time he needs to fill out a change request form so the rest of us can see what the hell he is doing and solve a hell of a lot of trouble in the first place.”

“Don’t worry; it will all be taken care of!”

Finally at 4:30pm, 30 minutes before we close, I get the main printer put back together and running. I spend the last half hour restoring the original printer to each machine before locking up the school. Tomorrow is Saturday and I am not on the schedule this time. Thank god for that.

I need a vacation

The Introduction of Special Ed (Sped)

Originally posted Monday, October 03, 2005

Stupid is as stupid does sir!

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers, and never ever underestimate the lengths at which one will take his or her own stupidity to new levels in order to make the people around them more miserable.”
Mr. Cheese-Sept. 2005

12:00pm I walk into work.

"Oh thank god you’re here" the nurse explains to me in an exhaustion of breaths as if she has just run a marathon.

"Ummmm, ok, what's up?" You'd think I’d have learned by now to play dumb as if I heard nothing.

"Oh it's bad…..none of my students can work on their online material, and some are having problems printing, and he said not to touch the computers this morning and now I can't get word to open and then…."

"Ok, slow down; let’s back up to “he said"

She rests her arm on the nearby chair to catch her breath and begins to explain. "He said not to touch the computers in the lab because he was making some changes."

"And by "him" you mean the dumb ass that calls himself the lead teacher?"

"Yeah, that'd be the one" she says

"So what did he do?"

"I don't know but now everything is messed up"

"Ok, let me get situated and see what is going on"

With that she wipes the sweat from her brow and heads back to the front line taking enemy fire from angry students as she enters the lab room. My shift began at 12:00 today, and I know the Nurse is scheduled at 9:00am. So by my guess it's been down all day. I log into my computer and sort through 300 emails (I really hate a full inbox filled with stupid questions) from students, other teachers, corporate and the director. After a few clicks the entire list has been added to the spam server so I don't have to worry about my email box getting full every half hour. Since I don't see any major activity from the lab room I decide to head in and see what’s up first hand. The first thing I see is our fearless leader sitting at his desk surfing the web.

"So what's the deal with the medical lab?" I ask

"I dunno, something about they all can't access their online training" he says without diverting his eyes from his computer screen.

"Why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"Well, I checked into it, I don't know what’s going on." Still focused on the eBay item flashed across his screen.

"Really?" I give him a puzzled look raising one eye brow "You didn't make any changes to the system that would cause this?"

"No, nothing!"

"Are you sure? Because the nurse said you told her not to touch the computers because you needed to make some changes this morning."

"No nothing, I swear."

"Ok, fine, I’m going to go take a look at it." With this I head off to the medical lab to see first hand what the hell is going on. Upon entering the room I can see that several students are freaking out because they can't do anything and the nurse looks like she is about to have a nervous break down repeating over and over to herself in a low voice “find a happy place, find a happy place”.

"I don't understand it" she says looking down at one of the computers "It all worked yesterday."

Step by step I watch as she guides me through the process they use to access their material online. I then instruct her to try and login in herself with administrative rights. Shortly after I hear her say that she can log in no problem and everything works fine. I take a closer look.

"You have a different option when logging in." I say

"Yeah I always do" she says

"Well what happens if you click the other option?"

"It does the same thing as when a student logs in."

Now were getting somewhere. After two hours of checking every setting and trying to log in myself it is still not working, but I have determined that student logins are getting blocked by something. I tell the nurse not to worry I will get it working but I need some time to interrogate a certain witness. I head back out of the medical lab to confront local genius boy one more time.

"Are you sure you didn't make any changes at all to the system, no matter how minor it may have been, because it appears the students and only the students are being blocked which tells me there is a permission issue with the server" I ask him

"No, I already told you I didn't."

"Ok fine"

I walk back to my desk and call an old teacher friend of mine waking him from his mid day slumber. After several minutes of explaining the situation to him he tells me he has seen this before but can't remember what it was or how to fix it.

“So what did he do?” He asks me

“I don’t know he won’t tell me”

“Why won’t he tell you?”

“I dunno, maybe he’s trying to raise the bar for stupid people alike.”

“Hmmm…. You could be on to something there……..anyway here’s what to do in the mean time…..”

He then tells me I need to contact the head of the medical training at corporate and he will be able to tell me what is wrong. After hanging up the phone I begin to type a very detailed email to the head of the medical training team. I then walk back into the next room to tell dumb ass that I have alerted corporate to our situation, he proceeds to tell me that he has done the same but instead with a phone call. With that I head back to my desk awaiting a response.

About 20 minutes go by before I get a response from corporate. The email reads as follows.

"Just so we’re both on the same track, DON'T EVER DENY ACCESS TO THE E: DRIVE AGAIN. This is needed for the students to access in order for the online training and tests to work."

"Hmmmmm…..what an odd response" I think to myself.

-TAP-TAP-TAP "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand, I never denied access to the E: drive in the first place"

-CLICK- "Send"

Moments later my inbox sends the familiar sounds that a new message has arrived, and it is in response to the email I just sent.

"Funny, that’s not what the other teacher has just told me on the phone. Just don't let it happen again." So the bastard made changes to the system lied to me continuously when asked about any changes and then pinned it on me.

I take a deep breath and go to my phone where I dial up the fuck head in the next room over the intercom, what happens next can best be explained with an old movie quote.

Remember that part in the movie "Rambo II" where Rambo picks up the two way radio at the end and calls back to head quarters to his commanding officer, yeah I think it went something like this.

Rambo: "Murdock... "
Trautman: "He's here."
Murdock: "Rambo, this is Murdock, we're glad you're alive. Where are ya? Give us your position and we'll come to pick you up!"
Rambo: "Murdock... I'm coming to get YOU!"Rambo:

After screaming at his ignorance for the next five minutes I walk back into the medical lab dragging him by his ear to rub his nose into the first keyboard I can find like a bad puppy that just pissed on the floor.

"So you new all along what the hell the problem was and watched me for the last two hours scramble to fix it while you sat at your desk and did nothing. Then you had the balls to blame the whole situation on me?"

"Well I didn't think denying them access to the E: drive would be such a big deal"

"Why the fuck did you deny it in the first place, everything was working fine"

"I just didn't want them to have access anymore."

"Did it ever cross your fucking little brain that there is a reason the students have had access to this drive for the past ten years?"

"Well I fixed it now, so you can just calm down." He says with a smirk as if he had just saved the day.

I stand there for a minute still awe struck at the entire exchange that just happened not believing the stupidity I just witnessed and debating if I should go get my blood pressure checked by the doctor cowering in the corner after watching me berate the other teacher in front of the entire class.

Back at my desk I slowly begin to calm down and try to focus back on other matters.
Yeah, this lasts about 10 minutes before…….

“Ok now the program you made isn’t working’ the nurse says standing over my desk.

“It’s a script……..” haven’t I gone over this already? Anyway….

Immediately I head into the next room and grab shit head by the collar.

“Ok fuck nuts, what else did you change that now my script isn’t working?”

“Nothing……..”He says struggling to keep his composure “all I did was reboot each machine”

I walk back into the medical lab to survey the new problem. After several minutes of fighting with the systems to get them back to normal I reboot a machine. Once again my script is not working. I then log in as administrator to find out the local profile has been deleted and there is now a public profile being used on the server which is missing a very key component to the success of my script.

“Hey ass breath, what’s with the public profile?”

“Oh yeah I did change that too.”

After berating him for several minutes he makes the necessary changes to the profile for my script to work. Once again I walk back to my desk and try to begin a normal day’s work. This lasts for about another ten minutes before……..

“Now none of the students can open a word document from the web, and when they print it is locking up the computers.”

“HOLY GOD FUCK, what the hell is going on back there?”

This is starting to get really old and I am about two steps from taking the lead shit fuck to the ninth floor and making him a permanent addition to the asphalt in the parking lot. I ask him once again if he knows what the hell might be going on.

“Nope, I swear this time I haven’t changed anything else.” He assures me

“Ok, fine” and I head into the medical lab one more time. (If your asking yourself why I’m the only one fixing these issues, don’t worry I am still asking myself that too)

This time I see that the reason the computers are locking up is because there is no access to allow word documents to be downloaded from the web. Good thing to, with all those damn text viruses out there one can’t be too safe. I reset all web settings to default and then head back to the server to clear the printer queue. Things are back up and running for now and everyone is happy. I walk back into the room with monkey dung and explain what I had to do to fix the situation.

“Oh yeah, I beefed up security on the web and changed all default program settings” he says

“Oh, how interesting, so when I asked you AGAIN, if you made any changes to the system that would cause the problem in the medical lab, you said you didn’t.”

“Yep”

“But you did” I say with assertion

“Ah…..no, I didn’t” he says once again

“Ok whatever, Sped”

And thus, stupid is as stupid does sir

I think Clark Griswold said it best when he said……..
And I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol? Listen While you read along!

The Day Of Reckoning

Originally posted Tuesday, September 20, 2005

“Got a minute” the director asks as I stroll in.

“Yeah sure”

As I enter his office he tells me to shut the door. Oh goodie more good news coming my way, I can’t wait.

“I want you to know I am backing you up all the way and this decision is not coming from me but rather from corporate.” I don't like where this is going. “They have told me that I need to cut your hours back.”

“BACK????” I yell “How much more back can you get?” I ask “I’m already only getting 33 a week and now you want to cut back more?”

“Well” he stammers “Like I said this is not coming from me”

“Yeah and you obviously don’t have the balls to stand up for anything”

“That’s beside the point” he tells me. “They said no more then 26 hours a week.”

“Are you fucking insane? I can’t live off of that, hell I can’t live off of what I am getting right now.” You know that whole thing you always hear on the news about teachers not getting paid enough, yeah it’s true.

“The only way I can increase your hours is to get your certifications completed”

“Would you shut the hell up about those damn certs for one god damn day?”

He sits there twiddling his thumbs for a minute and then says “Aren’t you working on a new program to help out the medical team”

“Yeah” I answer with little enthusiasm

“And how is it going?”

“Just fine I say”

“How long before you think it will be done”

“This is a problem you have been struggling with at every damn school for the last two years with no results. I have been working on this for less then a week and you’re already asking when it is going to be done?” I repeat my earlier question this time a bit louder incase he didn’t hear me “ARE YOU INSANE?”

“Oh, no, no, I understand I was just saying, ah, well if you get it done we can submit it to corporate and maybe that will help influence them to hire you full time.”

“Yeah whatever, are we done so I can go back to working on it now?” I say this as I am already walking out the door. The director really doesn’t get the hint whenever I do this to him; he instead continues to talk louder and louder as I walk off hoping I might turn around, but by this time my mind is already thinking of devilish ways in which to strike back.

I sit down at my desk shooting glares at everyone across the room warning them that this is not a good time to come bother me. The medical teacher sitting behind me turns around and sees my disgust.

“So what was that all about?” she asks.

I explain the whole situation to her in detail “and then he has the audacity to ask me when this damn program will be finished.”

“Wow” she says “so what are you going to do?”

“I will finish this damn thing and make it all pretty and solve his little two year dilemma.”

“And are you going to send it to corporate?”

“Hell no, they can kiss my ass”

She laughs out loud turns back to her computer screen shaking her head “you know” she says “I think I’m going to like you working here”

So for the past week I have been working on a simple script to automate a very tedious task of setting up a certain exam we have. It usually takes a teacher anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to set up a machine for this one test. After the test is complete all traces of it must be whipped so as no one else can sit down and cheat off of the last person. My script basically does everything needed in less than 2 minutes. Unfortunately the school does not have the necessary software in which to create a good script, so I had work on this mostly at home.

I finish the script exactly one week from the day I started. Nothing big, scripts are easy and fun. In total it came out to be just under 35 pages of code. I bring the medical team in to test it out. Each one giving approval and shaking my hand at solving a task that has plagued them for over two years.

“This is amazing” one explains “you don’t know how much time this will save us, how much agony you have taken from us” Dear God he looks like he is about to cry. It’s like these people have never seen a simple script before.

One of them looks at me and asks “So now what are you going to do with it?”

“Now” I say rubbing my hands together as I develop my evil plan “now I renegotiate my hours with corporate, muhahahahahaha” Ok so there was no evil laugh and I was only rubbing my hands together to get the Oreo cookie crumbs off of them, but its my story dammit.

After each medical teacher walks out of the director’s office praising my script (still don’t see what the hell the big deal is, IT’S A SCRIPT PEOPLE) the director calls me back into his office. I stroll in all proper and sit down.

“Well, looks like your little program is a huge success”

“It’s a script, but anyway yes” I give out a fake chuckle as if I really care

“Ok, well ship it out to corporate and attach some instructions, also get some beta testers from other schools so we can make sure it works on other systems as well, then…..”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down” I say “What makes you think this little thing is going anywhere?”

“Well because other schools have the same problem and need this.”

“And that concerns me why?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter; you made it here so technically you have to send it out since we own whatever you make while working here.” And this is when it got really interesting.

“Um, actually” I say adjusting myself to sit up straight in my chair “as I said before, it is not a program, but rather a script which was created using software you do not have at this school, or any other school. In fact I had to use my very own personal copy at home to create this. Therefore I am the owner of such said script and I get to say what, when, where and how this script will be used.”

The director, now the trap he has fallen into says “So you’re saying you’re not going to let other schools use it?”

“No, not at all, I think you misunderstood me” I say smiling and slouching comfortably back into my chair to ease the tension.

“Oh good” he chuckles “for a minute there I thought…..”

“You thought what? That I was going to tease you all with what it can do and then rip it from your greedy little paws.”

“Yeah”

We both laugh for a few seconds before I cut him off “well there of course is the licensing fee I will need to charge the school for the use of my software, plus royalties for each subsequent use, not to mention a bonus to my company…”

“Your company?”

“Oh yes the one I created about a week ago just before I started this project. Quiet funny actually, seems my new company specializes in writing complicated scripts for companies much like yours to automate daily tasks making everyone more efficient and saving the company a lot of money……..ALOT of money. Here is my card” I say passing him an impressive card detailing my new company "call us sometime and we can work out a price"

“This is ridiculous if you think we are going to pay you for something you wrote for us in the first place” he plays the part of good director bad director so well “I mean we could just get the software and write the script ourselves”

“True, true, and that particular piece of software runs about 150 bucks right now”

“Well see that’s not so bad, maybe we will just to that then”

“However” I intervene “in order for the script to run as an exe you will need the compiler as well, and that bumps the price of the software up to around 600 bucks. Not to mention the time and effort you will need to spend learning the language, then creating a script to produce the task at hand. How hard could it be, I mean you’ve only been sitting on this for two years now, I’m sure it will be a snap.”

“Ok smart guy, what is stopping me from going back to any machine right now and just taking it and then redistributing it on my own. I mean it’s your word against mine right?”

“Yeah that would have worked real well If I hadn’t password protected it with 128 bit encryption.”

“You didn’t?”

“Oh I did” I say leaning over his desk and glaring at him “not only that but, enter the wrong password too many times and the script thinks you are trying to hack in and it is then told to start deleting registry keys until the system is rendered useless”

I cross my hands over my knee and a smile emerges from ear to ear.

Let the negotiating begin!

Take Out Or Delivery?

Originally posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Today was answer phone day. Seems like working alone is becoming an all to familiarity.

-BEEP- “Hey, can you take a question from a student, seems he can’t log into the web site or something and needs help”

I'm in a good mood, I'll play along. “Sure” I say “send him through” Moments later my phone springs to life ringing aloud. It’s early, but not to early to have some fun I think to myself. With a quick jab from my hand I send the receiver airborne catching the cord in my hand while deliberately allowing it to bounce off of my desk like a cheap yo-yo. After about five or six bangs on the desk, I grab the receiver and hold it tight in my hand while running it across the carpet as fast as I can in a forward/backward motion creating the illusion of bad static. Bringing the receiver up to my ear.

“Dominos pizza, take out or delivery?” I say

“Ah, isn’t this the school?” a confused voice asks on the other end.

“Nope wrong floor let me connect you” With that I hang up the receiver and return to my daily obligations. (Surfing the net for free porn to download on our T2 line)

-BEEP- “That student is back on line one, says something about getting transferred to a pizza place and then disconnected” The voice from the speaker phone tells me.

“Ok send him through, and this time try not to screw it up ok! I don’t want to tell the boss you’re the reason our students are complaining.” Ever see one of those ant farms, where all the ants look so busy bouncing into each other and the walls around them, all of them in some kind of big hurry yet none of them look like they have any clue as to what is going on? Yeah well, ever since our secretary quiet 2 days ago that’s kinda what it looks like around here, so messing with anyone answering phones is a highlight of my day now.

“Well…..I thought…….I mean…..I hit the……”

“Stop bubbling like a fool and send the call through for Christ sake before the student gets upset from waiting so long on hold” I tell him. My phone begins to ring once again. And ring. And ring, on the last ring before voicemail I pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Yeah hi, I’m having some trouble with the web site” He begins to explain to me in his own terms what he thinks is going on. “when I log in I see a screen and then it disappears, so I closed it, but when I typed the password it said error, so I went into tools, but the audio isn’t coming up, so I opened another and then got in, but I got a Java collision error, so I rebooted, and the static from the carpet made the mouse jump, so I…….”

I interrupt at this point “Have you been drinking sir?” I ask

“No…………….” long pause of silence “why?”

“No reason, how about paint chips?" I ask"

"Ah no I don't think so" He says

"Well never mind, anyway, can you or can you not log into the website?”
“Yes!”

“Yes you can log into the site, or yes you can’t log into the site?” Now I'm getting confused dammit.

He reaffirms his first answer again “Yes!”

“Ok sir, I don’t think you are understanding me, when you double click on the blue "E" on your desktop, and then type in our website and click "GO", you are prompted with a login and password box. Right?

"Yes" he says

"ok" I say "now are you entering your user name in the username field?”
“Yes, yes I am” He assures me.

“Good, were getting somewhere, now below that box is a password box, are you entering your password into that box.”

“Yes!”

“Very good, and after typing these in and hitting the enter key….”

“The what key?” Ok, I think I have determined what the problem is at this point, he is a fucking moron. I begin walking him through each step as he is actually doing it.

“Ok, so you are now logged into the web site and can see your course and course materials, right?”

Once again he assures me with his standard response “Yes!”

“Very good, now what happens when you try to start the lesson?”

“Well that’s when I see a flash and nothing else happens”

“A flash huh…….did little people tell you to walk into the light?"

"huh?" he responds

"Never mind……. anyway, did you read the warning that popped up when you clicked on the lesson explaining that a new window is going to open, and in order for it to open you need to turn off pop up blockers on your machine.”

“Ah no……I always just click through those, I don’t have time to read them all you know” He says.

“Right but you have enough time to call me and waste the last 20 minutes figuring out what is wrong instead of just reading a 30 second message from the school that would have solved everything.”

“Yes!” He says once again. (This guy should do really well in the corporate world)

“Well, turn off your pop up blocker and everything will work just fine, not to mention you can keep fueling the ever increasing spyware fire on the internet by clicking through all those messages that pop up.” (No wonder we have so much spyware, with idiots like this, I don't know why I'm not doing it.) Dead silence, I wait for a response. Tapping fingers on desk, place phone down, walk to coffee machine, get a cup of coffee, bullshit with a few students, finish coffee, run to bathroom, walk up to 4rth floor to see how construction on new business is coming and to steel whatever tools are lying around while the construction workers are on lunch break, return to desk, pick up phone which is still silent. “Anything yet?” I ask

“Nope….not….yet……oh wait, yep its working now, thanks a bunch.”

“Great” I say placing the receiver back into its resting place.

Not more then two minutes go by and again –BEEP-, (DAMN now I know why the secretary left, the damn phone never stops ringing.)

“What now?” I announce to the speaker phone.

“Ahem, ah, I have another student having some trouble at home with the course they are taking, can you help them out”

“Yeah send them through”

My phone begins to ring again, I grab the receiver and place it up to my ear, “County Sheriffs office, is this an emergency?”

“Ah, whoops I think I got the wrong…….” She trails off.

“hold please” I say, placing the call on hold and continuing my surfing ways.(Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to play phone pranks on people) A student waves me down in the next room needing assistance in logging into a test. I decide to actually go to his desk and log him in rather then VNC into his machine, besides I need to get up and stretch anyway. As soon as I enter the room, I realize the mistake I have made. Suddenly twenty students are staring me down like lost puppies all with questions needing to be answered. Great, looks like I will be in here for a while. Twenty minutes later and a lot of lying, bullshitting, and making false statements, I return to my desk to hear the most annoying beeping noise emitting from my phone.

"What the hell is that awful noise" I say outloud.

"You have someone on hold" the teacher across from me says.

I glance at the phone to notice that line one is still holding ever so patiently for me.
Hmmmph, that’s so sad.

I decide that they should be rewarded for waiting so long, so I pick up the phone and press line one. “Hello?”

“Oh good, someone is there, is this the school?” she politely asks.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“Well I logged in”

“yes, yes, your already farther then my last caller” I say

“huh?”

“Never mind, continue on please” I tell her.

“and then as soon as I start the course a PRE-TEST pops up” she says with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

“Ok, and what, you can’t go any farther?” I ask not knowing what the problem is.

“Well I wasn’t sure what to do”

“What do you mean” I ask her

“Am I supposed to take the test?”

“You do understand the concept and definition of PRE, right?” (picturing some fat girl in high school with no clue to this previous terminology)

“Ya, I think so”

“Ok, a pre-test is something you take before anything else, hence the term pre. It is there to test your knowledge of the course before you start it so can skip areas you already know”

“But how am I supposed to know anything if I am just starting the course?” She sounds very confused now.

“The pre-test only tries to determine what, if anything you know thus far by giving you several questions you might see throughout the course, that’s it. After you take the pre-test the course will begin.”

“Really?” she says sounding astonished. “Wow I have been sitting here for two weeks thinking I shouldn’t take that thingy”

“Wow, well glad I could be of help.” I respond rubbing my forehead as an ever increasing headache is beginning to form inside my head.

“So, if I have anymore questions can I call you?”

“NO” –click-

-BEEP-

What the fuck, is this ever going to stop?

Wanted, good secretary to answer phones and answer simple computer questions, bad pay and stupid costumers, call for more details.