#work anecdotes

[therobotmonster]

Give 'em the Pickle! Sir, this is a call center.

The last job I worked at was a call center job. It was a nightmare, I'm still messed up from being constantly screamed at for ten years, but one thing I remember is the time we got brought in to watch one of those corporate training videos.

It was called "Give 'em the Pickle" or something like that. It took the form of a lengthy rant by the founder of a regional ice cream parlor chain (from a different region, no one had heard of it) about customer service.

The people showing it to us talked about the many thousands of dollars the company spent getting the rights to show this to us, so we should pay attention. Having not gotten a raise in the entire time I was there at that point despite them being promised annually at the time of hiring, my self control in that moment was saintlike.

The main thrust of the video was around an anecdote of a customer that came into the restaurant and wanted a second pickle with their burger. The waitress old them a side of pickles for 75 cents. There was an escalation, and the result from the owner was "just give 'em the pickle!"

Now, first off, it was immediately obvious to me that the waitress was just trying to do their job, and that had they just 'given them the pickle' before the escalation they would have had good reason to expect they'd get a chewing out for it.

After a few more anecdotes applicable only to retail and food service, the overpriced video ended, and we were encouraged to apply this in our on-phone work.

To which my immediate question was "what pickles are we supposed to give them, exactly?"

No phone agent had been empowered to provide any kind of incentive or consolation prizes to the customers. We didn't deal with money, there was no way to issue account credits, there were no products to send extras of, and there was no way to expedite service. In fact, all of our other training was around finding any means possible to deny service at every turn, as it was extended service plan administration.

My job was literally to be a pain-sponge absorbing the rage of customers who didn't read their contracts and were lied to by in-store salespeople and to keep those people from being able to talk to people who had the authority to help them. Only managers could do anything for customers, and if we escalated to a manager too often, you 'weren't doing your job'.

I was never told what pickles I was supposed to be passing out.

[reunitedinterlude]

phil being trolled (1, 2, 3)

[iinryer]

i keep thinking about chris’s “i tried complaining once, it didn’t work” line and also how he’s super witty and funny and perceptive and also A Teenager and how that all would influence the way he navigates a world that isn’t always accessible to him…

just imagining post-ladder-truck-crush-injury buck and chris both using crutches while buck is still getting used to things suddenly being inaccessible to him and getting like, little zingers of insights and life lessons from his best friend’s kid while out and about. chris showing him how he gets up and down the tall curbs when a sidewalk is blocked off unexpectedly, and very loudly and often proclaiming his distain for the “fuck-you” steps (the 1-2 tiny steps at the front doors of houses and buildings that immediately make that entrance no longer accessible)

like buck researches a couple of easy activities for them to try while he’s is still healing and tired and is looking into the establishment’s accessibility accommodations, and hey! the place says on the website that they’re wheelchair friendly! that usually covers his and chris’s bases, so they should be good to go. but when they get there it turns out that, while there IS an accessible entrance with a “ramp”, it’s actually the cargo loading zone that’s literally on the other side of the building which would require them to walk a couple of extra blocks up and back down the street on the other side. obviously they can still get in, but buck feels awful because that’s not what he wanted out of his preparedness. chris just tells him “it’s okay, it happens a lot actually”, and buck is even MORE sad about it, but chris just conspiratorially adds “this is my favorite kind” and starts making his way towards the set of like, idk eight stairs at the front of this building. buck is obviously confused and looks at eddie who just shakes his head fondly, sighs and says “yeah, he does this sometimes” before encouraging buck to follow. when buck finally reaches chris, he’s balancing his crutches on the first stair and turns to buck to whisper “now we get to make them feel bad about it” and proceeds to very feebly, very slowly—and buck has seen chris rough and tumble and rocket his way through things that could (and do) trip him up, this is the most dramatic act of put-upon helplessness buck has EVER seen from this kid—make his way up the stairs. he even sticks his bottom lip out into a little pout for good measure. one of the staff sees them through the glass doors and comes out to tell them about the “ramp” in the back of the building, and before buck can even think of what to say in response, chris is just telling them, very sadly, that he “wouldn’t be able to walk that far without getting too tired 😔😔😔” and continues his hammed-up, sad, slow trek up the stairs while a very harried staff member kind of hovers, not knowing what to do.

buck has to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing at chris’ act, and then again at the face the staff member makes when they catch sight of buck too, as he begins very dutifully following chris’s lead, eddie in their wake.

[webgottism]

if mota had nothing else it had that yaoi. a cohesive plot? no no noooooo. more than 4 characters that you actually feel like you know something about them? not a chance. but a ‘marge 🙄’ from bucky? an ‘i’ll be your best man so i can stand close enough to pretend its me on your wedding day’? of course. and for that i respect it a little more

[badhabitnun]

i think it’s fine if dnp clickbait us with “dan and phil are scissoring” or “date night in the life of phan” or whatever but i absolutely take offense in using the sacred names of VOLTRON and TUMBLR and FREDDY FAZBEAR and deliver absolutely none of that. come on guys

[peachdoxie]

what I think every time I come across an au where Danny gets zapped into the Ghost Zone when the portal activates

[eela]

big fan of the bubbles!

[whetstonefires]

okay so for the proposed very funny 'secretly half vulcan spock' modern coffeeshop AU scenario sparked by that concretes post, the only reasonable way i can see to set this up (without messing up vulcan culture in ways that would annoy me) is if Sarek crash-landed in Canada--probably alone in an escape pod, although if we want to make him the only survivor of a larger vessel coming down who evaded the government that could work too.

anyway Sarek doesn't have a sciences background to the extent Spock does, so i feel that finding himself in a 'stone knives and bearskins' scenario would be a bigger problem for him, and he'd have a great deal more trouble working around issues like 'i need some platinum to make this machine work' and his partner is like 'lol well i got bread.'

so he's stuck in canada trying to signal Vulcan for surreptitious rescue, and in the meantime he falls in with Amanda Grayson and they get him a fake identity and fulfill some cliches. and to their surprise they're reproductively viable, hello Spock.

so this fic is set like 20 years later and Spock is in college. i want to say in iowa because that's the natural habitat of jim kirk but spock is too much of a goddamn snob to go to school in iowa, they have no Notable Institutions, sorry iowa.

maybe he's got an associate professorship at the University of Iowa; academic job market sucks. Or maybe Jim left Iowa as soon as possible, being how he is, and they're in Big City.

the older they are the more you can stick them anywhere on earth for this. the younger they are, the more easily you can justify spock picking up a part-time job at the coffee shop. depends on where you want to go with the story.

anyway Jim runs (owner? manager?) the Not Starbucks indie coffee shop where Spock goes all the time (to get Not Coffee) and Spock being secretly half alien doesn't come up for ten chapters, except for how he comes across as spectacularly autistic and never takes off his stupid headband that covers his ears and eyebrows even when it's 102F.

[hephaestuscrew]

Minkowski would be so intense about introducing Eiffel and Hera and Lovelace to any of her loved ones back on Earth. She makes the crew sit through a PowerPoint presentation on suitable topics of conversation to discuss with her mother. She gives Dominik a folder of detailed guidance about how to interact with Hera because he's never met an AI before. She asks Eiffel several days beforehand if he has decided what he's going to wear to meet her family, as though Eiffel has ever in his life put thought into an outfit more than 30 seconds before getting dressed.

She tries to control every parameter of the interaction in a way that actually makes it more uncomfortable for everyone involved. She spends the entire time sitting right on the edge of her chair, looking anxiously between each of these people she cares about, trying to tell whether they are getting on, and attempting to communicate with them individually through urgent expressions.

And of course it doesn't work. Eiffel puts his foot in his mouth. Dominik is confused and curious about all the wrong things. Minkowski dares to leave the room for a few minutes and when she comes back, her mother is showing the crew her baby photos, and Minkowski knows she'll never live this down.

[anannua]

when i look up 'heart burn relief', it means i already HAVE heart burn, I am not trying to prevent it, I am trying to RELIEVE it 😭😫❤️‍🩹

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

LIGHTBULB MOMENT!!

When I'm reading fiction, there are usually stopping places, either because of pacing or chapter breaks or whatever. Sometimes it's just "Ok I've had enough for now" or "YIKES I need to sit and think abt that and then get distracted."

Its quite possible to Stop Reading and Go To Bed if I really so desire. I'm realizing the inherent hypocrisy of that statement. But staying up all night reading is a PLEASURABLE activity that I CHOSE for myself. Even if I regret it later, it was still enjoyable and I did get something out of it and, usually, at least in some small part of my mind, it was worth it.

Doomscrolling social media? No. Not. Ever.

Its unpleasant at the time, because I'm worrying about going to bed but unable to really log off. It's miserable when I DO get off and am trying to sleep, because I can see so clearly now all the time I've wasted and how could I have been so weak-minded. It's miserable in the morning with less than ideal sleep because I know I didn't lose sleep for any good reason. And it's miserable the whole day because there was nothing I gained from staying up all night doomscrolling, nothing positive added to my experience, absolutely zero reasons I'd ever choose to do so again.

And then I DO do so again, that very same night, and I'm cursing myself and hating myself because why, why, WHY can't I just go to bed???

Social media scrolls endlessly. There are no ups and downs, no stopping places, and even IF something profound comes across my dash and I want to stop and think, it takes GREAT WILLFUL EFFORT to actually do so.

Natural fiction has its peaks and valleys, it's slow points and fast points, it's build-ups and climaxes.

Human brains are wired for that sort of natural diversity in pacing. That's why books do it that way!! Because life is like that! Life has ups and downs, relationships have ups and downs, the day and the week has ups and downs. Relationships grow and deepen, work, effort, reward works on similar paths and cadences, even sex is supposed to have a build-up and a climax and then it's OVER, it's DONE, you can stop and rest and go about your day. Children are born, grow old, have their own thrills and "best day of my life" and then it all winds down in death, you can stop, you can rest (eternally in the presence of God if you so desire).

Social media robs you of the down-points, the lows, the valleys, the resolutions after the climaxes, the quiet peace of everyday life. Social media just has one thing after another after another after another, and yeah some posts are longer than others.

But none have the slow rolling quality of real fiction that sits comfortably in your mind, ready when you are to come back, and pick up where you left off, and explore the next nook or cranny of life and human experience.

[thefabelmans2022]

no one except steven spielberg is brave enough to hold open auditions and chemistry tests these days. no one wants to work anymore everyone just wants to cast twitter white boys of the month when they could be CREATING twitter white boys of the month.

[stuckinapril]

Why did you delete the posts abt marriage gurllll😭 (I mean it's totally your choice ofc) but I wanted to read them, I saw them at night and was feeling kinda sleepy and it was literally gonna be morning read😔💔

BC I WAS LIKE?? Why the fuck am I being a bummer about this. I was staunchly anti-marriage when I was younger, but the older I get the more I’m like. I get it. It’s a nice thought. I want to eternally intertwine myself w someone who’ll always have a loving glow for me too. And just bc that hasn’t happened to me yet doesn’t mean I’m gonna be a typical 21 year old gen z girl going on ab how love is not real. I wanna rise above it

[silverskye13]

Doing my best Etho cosplay today

[todayisafridaynight]

stiff shoulders

[peachdoxie]

Over the weekend I applied for a job that I really really want and I got an email saying that they've determined I meet the minimum qualifications for the position and my application has been sent to the hiring committee, so yippee! Crossing my fingers that they like me enough for an interview.