totally, Jilli - I'm with you - but which style guide?? Chicago? Godforsaken GPO?

for the software side, I will join you in embroidery. A beautiful sampler with a large, red, sans-serif RTFM! spang in the center.

"May I speak with [Coworker] please?"

transfers call

2 minutes later

"[Coworker] didn't answer!"

"Ok."

Oh yes. I worked at a compeny that made me fill in for the receptionist during lunch hours. Cell phones were not common back then, and even the people who had cell phones generally didn't list them in the company directory or give them to the receptionist as a way to get ahold of them when any old jackass wanted to talk to them.

This happened all the time. They'd call for Soandso Buttcakes, I'd transfer them, they'd get Soandso's voice mail and transfer back to the switchboard to yell at me about how Soandso didn't answer, where the hell is he?

"I don't know, I guess he's not in his office."

"Well I need to talk to him!"

"I can let you leave a voice mail..."

"I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE A VOICE MAIL!"

"I can take a message myself...."

"I WANT TO TALK TO SOANDSO BUTTCAKES!"

"Your options are leave a voice mail or leave a message with me."

t strangled sounds of barely constrained rage

totally, Jilli - I'm with you - but which style guide??

Oh, the in-house one. Er, ones, actually. Only one of my writers ever checks the style guides before she comes and pesters me. She may have control issues and very few social skills, but she knows not to piss off her editor.

t work venting

In fact, the writer who is the biggest pain about not checking style guides is the one who used to be the editor for the team. She assumes she knows all the rules, and keeps forgetting that 1 -the style guides are occasionally updated; and 2 -because we got re-org'd last year, we've got a Brand! New! Divisional style guide to follow.

Remind me again why I went into tech editing? Oh right, the paycheck and lack of dress code.

Yes, Sean. Exactly.

I get angry in the moment. But once I'm off the call, I want to laugh. Someone told me earlier to make a coworker call him back. Luckily, I have the kind of relationship with the caller so that I could laugh and explain that coworker is grown, and I am not his boss. I cannot make him do jack shit.

"Because it is physically impossible for me to put you through to them. I am actually not able to do it for reasons involving not being able to bend space/time to my will."

We have a running joke in the office that everyone on the ops team has "bend the space-time continuum to my will" in our job description, since we're asked to do it so frequently.

When I'm working reception (and thank DOG only once a month), I get at least 3 or 4 calls a day requesting to be transferred to people in the UK offices. When I explain that there's this big watery ocean thing in the way but I can give them the number to call on their own, people get either very very confused or very very angry. And that's before I tell them about time zones...

2 things.

1) You know how sometimes people call you, and they're busy yelling at someone else when you answer the phone? You know how it's really loud in your ear, and really, really rude? What would your reaction be if the only part of the sentence screamed in your ear was, "I DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF CLASS!"?

2) 3 hours and 30 minutes until I'm on vacation!

And that's before I tell them about time zones...

"I can't tranfer you directly, as the phone systems in that office are not compatible with ours -- in fact, they're not even on the same continent, but that's a niggling little detail -- but more importantly, even if I could, those people are not in their offices at the moment. In fact, if I could transfer you directly to the person with whom you wish to speak, I think they will be less than pleased about you waking them up from a dead sleep."

happy birthday Beej!

and i just got an email from my mom saying she knows what she was doing 44 years ago today.

Once a friend called me at work (before we had our phone system) and her dog Harpo started barking while she was waiting for someone to answer the phone. She yelled, "Harpo, quit it!" just as my boss picked up the phone. My boss thought it was some bizzare prank call and hung up - he thought the person calling had yelled out, "Purple stomach!" at him after he answered the phone.

"I need your CEO's phone number."

"I don't have it."

"You don't have the number for your own CEO."

"No, sir."

"Don't you have an employee guide?"

"I do, but he's not in it."

"Well, how would you get a message to him, if you had to? Other than email?"

"I'd go downstairs, turn left, go down the hall, and knock on his door."

"Oh."