...getting back on track.

One thing that the holiday season tends to do is yank my world off the tracks, and it's in reaching the next year that I get things all steady and shit.

Like my car insurance.  I get a cancellation notice, plan to pay it, but it gets lost in the paperwork, and I get the cancellation paper on Saturday (Merry fucking Christmas).  To fix it, the paper and the website say I have to call my agent.  So I call my agent on the way their direction with the expectation that I have to stop in and sign papers.  But no, I have to call the insurance company directly to fix it (which I could have probably done before venturing out onto the shitty roads with a high potential for accidents had I known.  But I ironed it out, although I'm still a couple of bucks off (as the website posted a different amount than what they wanted and I paid that). 

Then there's the bank.  I go to the ATM before Christmas, pull out $20.  And when I open the mail Monday at lunch, that $20 overdrew me by $2, which cost me $30.  And my paycheck deposited the next day.  So the overdraft was legit, EXCEPT that the ATM let me overdraw.  And this at a time when money is tightest.

But oh well.  I did get my living room and the kids' bedroom cleaned, and the paper and cardboard from Christmas taken out and recycled by fire.  I tried to do the plastic too, but it was putting out too much smoke that the snowstorm wouldn't disguise it.  Yes, I was burning shit in a snowstorm.  But the kids were away, so it all worked out.

But the worst of it is that the weather is not cooperating for me to be at my peak.  I run slow when it's cold.

On Christmas Eve, we had snow.  It rained and melted all the snow away for Christmas day, replacing it with freezing rain (and I had to get up early to work, go to my family's (and eat bloody delicious prime rib and shrimp cocktail (YUM-fucking-O!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!  !)), got a bitch headache and fall asleep, then go back to work (although double time makes it worth it).  So I sat inside and relaxed the following sunny Saturday, only to have it snow like a bastard on Sunday.  Then it gets cold and icy and drifty on Monday.  Shit.

And then it's off to work, where the phones were ringing hard for the most part (one ISP we service has multiple problems and no one checking emails or answering phones (leaving us to stutter for pissed off customers)).  And that's on top of the usual cavalcade of the fucking dum.

Here's a hint:  When you call in to tech support, we don't expect you to know shit.  It's job security for us for you to not know shit.  We do expect literacy.  The ability to follow directions like "click on this" or "type this."  The ability to answer simple questions with some degree of accuracy, like "What lights are lit?".  If it's technical, then we'll do our best to work with the problem.  But if we have you type an email address in and instead of using the "@" symbol you type "dumbmotherfuckeratlalaland.net.com" then you should bathe with your computer.  At worst, your computer will fry.  At best, you reduce your impact on the gene pool.

To illustrate:



Scary thing is that I've had calls this bad in reality....