In honor of your birthday, and in a further attempt to make amends with you, I shall post all my mspaints that are in my photobucket.







couple really boring ones of the layout of my apartment which I'll skip














The end

I think this is the only time you'll hear me say this: Brian (briachek) was right. Tech support blows after awhile. KILL ME PLZ K THX! Especially cuz the tech support I'm doing is with Turbotax software and it's fucking tax season. The past three weeks I've been working five 11 hour shifts being married to the headset answering the same retarded questions.

I've learned a lot about stupidity from here:
1) People think Turbotax = IRS. We do not accept or reject returns, we do not view your returns, we do not cross-reference DOB or SS#s to federal records, and we do not do anything with giving you your tax refund money.

2) People don't like to read the fucking directions. 99% of the calls made could be fixed by reading the prompts in the program, googling or looking at our support site. Instead we get people calling to say their program won't install because it can't find Microsoft Net Framework 2.0 installed on their computer. WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU NEED TO DO TO FIX THAT PROBLEM?

3) People think technical support agents are the programmers of the software and make the business decisions in the company. It gets irritating being made the culprit (why do you guys) for actions you have no part in.

4) People will call you for help, but also have too much of an ego to listen to your help. They call for help because they keep doing the same (wrong) process over and over and getting the same results. You start them on step 1 and they keep on going on with the wrong way and arguing with you about the steps and why their way is right. If you already know the answer, why the fuck are you calling for assistance?

5) People who start off the call with any variation of "there's a bug/glitch" will not be happy with any response except for, "thanks for bringing this to our attention, I will submit that to our programmers to fix so people won't be inconvenienced by it any more". Again like I mentioned above, these guys act like they already know the answer and there's no possible way they could have done anything wrong. This presumption makes them impervious to assistance.

Seeking other employment again... still working here in the meantime

Working with the general public is usually pretty bad news.

I did CS for a few months at my company - mostly 2nd and 3rd shift. For one particular customer of 3000 users, we had 7000 calls in the first month (split between myself and 2 others). Of those 7000 calls, 90% were users who had forgotten their password...

Update on the job situation: Monday morning I have an interview with (ECS) about an hour and a half before my shift. My tasks include upgrading, repairing, and installing components in desktops in laptops, and backing up computers. However, there's a few downfalls since it's through an IT staffing agency, Smartsource-inc (who I've done previous contractual work for):

1) No benefits. And I just had healthcare from my current job start this month, which made my prescription cost $10 instead of $60 (that I re-fill monthly) and I'd only have to pay $20 for doctor visits. I don't know if the healthcare immediately ends upon leaving the job or how much it costs to continue on the plan outside of the employer. I'm probably going to go without healthcare again for this contract.

2) The contract is listed as 2-3 months "or more". This isn't so bad considering my situation working in tech support for Turbotax since I'd be kicked out in April anyways due to the end of tax season. Plus, at ECS, they offer training and have many advancement opportunities, so it's likely that with my computer skills and my good work ethic (everywhere I work I get recognized for it), I'll become a full-time employee even at the end of the contract. I sure hope so! Even if not, at least I'll have more experience working with computers, won't dread going to work, and can return to studying for my A+ exam and finally get certified! I have a LOT of options from there.

I'm also unsure what I'm going to do on Monday if as I expect, the interview goes well and I get the job. The job doesn't start until the following week so I could either quit work that day and take a week off to celebrate escaping hell, or finish up my last week there. I really don't feel like torturing myself like that though.

And on the unusual circumstance that the interview doesn't go well, I've been talking with some of my friends who have told me flat out that since this job makes me want to kill myself I should just quit and take the time off to find another job. I could also take that time off to get certified which will then open up more opportunities.

Finally, in the "worst" case scenario, I can start my small business, PC Efficiency Solutions where I optimize people's computers as my job. I've done a lot of planning for it. My biggest problem from there is getting those first few contacts. I have a couple friends/coworkers in mind to help start me off, and I'm going to offer a referral incentive to increase my client base. I also can do some guerilla advertising (make an ad and post it on community bulletin boards with my name and number in rip-out tabs at the bottom) to decrease startup costs. More about my business ventures later... I'm hungry now...

Also, outta boredom, I deposited $30 into PokerStars and have been dicking around in the $1 games to try to get back into poker. I was playin 6max for a while but got tired of people short-stacking the NL5. You get the guy all-in and get like 65cents, lol. So now I just play the 45-man or more $1 tourneys. I'm def not playing to try to earn a lot of money or anything anymore. Just dicking around trying to get back into playing poker occasionally and making a few bucks.

Woot up to $140 on PS now! I ditched the $1 45-man tournies cuz for 3 hours the payout just isn't worth it. I'm now doing the $4 180-mans, and $5 STTs. Usually a set of 7-8 STTs and 1 MTT at once. Depending how long I last, I may fire up more STTs.

I've also been playing Starcraft a lot lately! esc[pd] on US-East and US-West at varying times of day and night. The only maps I really know are Lost Temple, Hunters, and Blood Bath. I'm still working on getting the solid foundations of the game down (like to keep scv production going in the expansion while building up troops, scouting my enemy, and being able to effectively attack - multi-tasking FTW) before I start moving onto other maps.

TY for the kind words. I've made a lot of changes for the better.