I love my Thai students' monosyllabic nicknames as much as I love their full Thai names -- especially since they have apparently fuckall to do with the full name, in marked contrast to the Western pattern of nicknames usually being some kind of shortening (or at least reference to) the full thing.

Whenever we speak of names I feel it is necessary to mention that I will never forgive a friend of Perkins' and mine who had a wonderful, lyrical Chilean surname and yet traded it for her DH's when they married. His last name? Gross.

And we will not discuss what they named their son. Whitefont: Max!

It'll be fine. Now that you know that it's right there, it wont be special anymore. You'll buy a bunch of stuff right off, then taper off.

That's what we've discovered since the 2 in the Boston area opened up. After a while, you're all, JEBUS this is far too expensive! Can't I get something in Target just as good for much cheaper? But the bath bombs and shampoo bars are pretty mildly priced, and those are what we get the most of.

Well, I'm unflaggingly loyal to Coalface and Happy Hippy. If I can get those locally instead of pulling my usual routine of waiting until the very last minute to order it because I forgot that I was running low, that'll make me happy.

-15º F.

Time to drive to work.

What's your windchill?

And why do I - 6 hours SE of you have to deal with temps that are only 5 degrees warmer?

(Yes, it is now a balmy -10 here in n. IL.)

Ooh, except it's not - now it's an even balmier -7. We very well may make it to 0 for lunch.

Woo-hoo! We're up to -2 in Chicago.

It's gonna get a lot warmer after today....

We're at -4.2.

I hope it gets alot warmer!

To my coworkers (I'm not yet sure which one is to blame--I've received conflicting reports):

Why, why, WHY would I say a orientation session for the new interns was scheduled for a conference room on the second floor of the hospital, and put that location on the orientation schedule, if what I really meant was that it was in the research & training building across the street?! Given that that would be CRAZY, why, WHY did you tell them to meet in the R&T lobby instead of coming to my office to be guided to the hard-to-find conference room, like I said on the schedule?!?!!

I haven't had a bite to eat or a drop of caffeine yet because I've spent my entire morning paging people and chasing the missing interns around the hospital campus. I finally located them and got them to the right place...but WHY did my coworkers think I'd put that room on the schedule if I didn't MEAN it? Yes, we usually use R&T for this, but all the rooms there were booked! I do what I can! What's the point of trying to organize this place if they just ignore what I do?!

The reps. Specifically, the morale of said reps. Usually we are not paid well, have crappy benefits and our job is, quite literally, to get yelled at for eight hours a day.

I'm always glad to read your venting MM. It goes without saying that you are hilarious, but beyond that, it's interesting to hear about the internal workings of CS.

I mentioned here a while back that an IRS rep who had been particularly helpful to me actually cried when I asked if I could say something nice about her to a supervisor. She said that she wasn't allowed (huh?) to connect me with someone on the phone for that purpose, but she gave me an address.

Three days after sending the note off, I got a hand written thank you from a regional supervisor.

Morale, and customer reactions are clearly a problem.

eta: Oh. And how wrong is it that it's acceptable in a seemingly civil society for a CS rep's job to be 'getting yelled at for 8 hours a day'?

I blame the anonymity of our society. People will say things on the phone and on the 'net that I would hope they would never say in person.

And yes, I know asshattery is rampant at airline desks and retail outlets...which I blame on the luxury we enjoy post-agrarian societies and the fact that people don't carry swords anymore as a matter of course...but GOD, I hope it's less so than what we see in faceless communication.