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."

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!"?

Depends. Ideally (for the sake of, you know, keeping my job) it would be a barely suppressed guffaw that either they wouldn't hear or I could play off as a cough.

Ideally (for the sake of telling the truth) I would say: "Well, nothing we sell here will help you. Thank you for calling [company]" and hang up.

I get telemarketers calling at work. I can generally tell them from other sales people because the telemarketers don't introduce themselves and their company (as a rule). I always tell sales people that I have to take a message and can't garauntee a return call and the telemarketers get put out because they can't take incoming calls. Or they'll offer to call later.

That's the point I get to say "I'm sorry but we don't do business with companies who are unable to provide contact information."

Although sometimes sales people don't get the hint that they probably won't get a call back with the "I can't garauntee a return phone call" and will pester me. I've handed out the messages! There's nothing I can do ! I suppose I could stand over whoever it is and make them call the sales person back but since we're talking about my superiors I don't think they'd like being bossed around by me!

...okay I will admit to sometimes throwing away the message. Depending on what the company is selling.