Bad Children

Lst night an acquaintance of my sister called and asked if Kate could, and I quote, "mind her house" for the evening while she went to a party. Kate was busy, but the acquaintance was well and truly stuck, so I said that I probably could. "Great," the acquaintance said, "the kids will be asleep and everything." Whee, the children of a complete stranger! Mine for the evening! What could be more delightful. Oh, right - getting there to find that their mother, a beautiful but ditzy model - ideal Beauty and the Geek contestant - intended to spend 2 hours faffing about changing outfits and asking my opinion. ("I like the belt." "I think both pairs of shoes are nice." "Everything you own makes you look a bit like a stripper.")

Having squidged herself into some black Lycra, she left for the evening at 9pm. At 9.05, a pair of small boys appeared in the lounge and declared that they were hungry. I said that I didn't have any food (I had a pack of chips, but I wanted to eat them myself while playing NetHack in front of the TV), and that they should go back to bed.

"But you're Santa!" This was news to me. Also it was irrelevant.
"...what?"
"Mum told us! That you're Santa!"

I was spared having to point out that, despite the obvious physical similarities, I was NOT Santa by the older boy, whose name may have been Brad, reminding the little one, whose name was almost definitely Josh, that I wasn't Santa proper, just his chief helper.

"Oh, yes!" I said, rather unconvincingly. "You'd better be good and go to bed, or I'll tell Santa."
Josh yelled, "Santa Santa Santa!"
Brad said, "Can we eat those chips?"
I thought 'fuck it' and gave them the chips. They went to bed.

Ten minutes later I was deeply absorbed in a game of NetHack when Josh appeared in the doorway and said he had to show me something. It turned out to be a very small - one might almost say tiny - mouth ulcer. I explained that I could not instantly fix mouth ulcers.
"But you're Santa!"
So Santa taught Josh how to gargle with salt water. Brad, disturbed by the noise, came out and told Josh and Santa that they had better clean up the kitchen when they had stopped spitting. Santa was mildly embarrassed. The boys went back to bed.

Ten minutes later, Brad became thirsty. I poured water into him and tried to make him go away but he sat on the couch and asked me stupid questions about the North Pole while I was trying to play NetHack.
"I know you're Santa's helper," he said smugly, "because of this laptop. Is it a Christmas laptop? Is that a Christmas game?"
"Yes," I said. I also said, "Go to bed," but he ignored me.
"Do you know the other Santa's helpers?"
"Ummm...some of them. There are lots of us."
"Do you know Ben? He was our helper last year."
"Ummmm...YES."

At this point Josh charged out of the bedroom and announced that he, too, was thirsty. "SANTA," he shouted, "When you shoot the light-" here he pointed to the ceiling "-Santa falls out, because he is in the light! And so do you, because you are Santa." I thought he was nuts but it turns out his mother had told him Santa had hidden cameras in the light fittings. Of course.

The boys sat down and watched me play NetHack for about five minutes. I was surprised because NH is a pretty shitty spectator sport, but then Brad farted loudly and asked if he could have a game NetHack. So I taught Brad how to play NetHack, and then they went to bed.

Then somehow it was 10.45pm OH GOD and they CAME BACK with a million questions about Santa. Legitimate questions, but still.

"Where does Santa live?"
"Uh, the North Pole."
"Is that TRUE?"
"Yes!" (Small lie.)
"He could live at the beach."
"He is too fat and his beard is too big. He gets too hot."
"He could live UNDER THE WATER"
"What? Santa is a person, not a fish. He can't breathe underwater."
"He could wear a snorkel."
"...yes, He could. When he goes on holiday."
Can you breathe under water?"
"No! Go to bed."

The little one was going to be OK about going to bed, but then the big one sat on one of the chairs around the dining table, clung onto it, and declared that he was not going to move.
"Fine," I said, "if that's how it's going to be, that's how it's going to be."
Picked up the chair, carried it to the bedroom, dropped it on the bed and shut the door. That was the last time I saw them. Thank God. Santa is going to give them fuck all.

Children. Goodness gracious. Like people, but short, and mad.

Anyway now I gotta go put my band pants on (this is not a metaphor, I have a concert this afternoon) and stuff like that. Apologies for the boring post, but I had to share the horror.

Upsell

Rant Week continues, mainly because I'm really fucking sick of hearing people around me employ sales techniques which could all be neatly grouped together as 'Hitting Targets at the Expense of the Customer.'

Here is my favourite. Maybe you could use it too! In our defence, not all of my colleagues do this, but the ones that do make me kind of ashamed of being in sales. Also, I want to be clear that in no way is this condoned or encouraged by management. It's just some salespeople who have figured out that it's easy money and acted accordingly.


Grief: The Untapped Goldmine!

Basically this is hassling for images in death and memorial notices. (We have a 50-images-a-month target, and a lot of the death/memorial notices have pictures of roses and so on, requested by the customer.)

Imagine for a second that you are on the phone to woman a who is in tears because her son died a year ago and she is putting an In Memoriam notice in the paper. You have just completed drawing up the ad. Which one of the following courses of action do you think is appropriate?

A. Ask if she would like a picture as well as the text, maybe say something like, "Would you like an image with the notice - perhaps a rose, or a heart - or are you happy with just the text?" and if she doesn't want a picture say, "That's fine," and talk about something else, like payment options.

B. Ask if it is OK if you put a red rose at the top. When she declines, push for a yellow rose or perhaps a pink one. Mention that there are lots of others flowers available. Don't forget to make her feel guilty by saying that most people think a flower makes the notice more "special", just so that she is aware of the ordinariness of her notice. Try not to mention the price, but if the customer brings it up mention that while there is an additional cost, surely it's worth it for this kind of notice? The subtext, of course, is that no matter what your financial situation, if you don't shell out for a $30 rose you never really cared about the deceased.

When the caller says uncomfortably that she doesn't really want a picture of a flower, push harder! A good next question is "Was there anything he liked doing when he was alive? Maybe a picture of a motorbike, or fishing?" If motorbikes and fishing aren't met with squeals of glee, try darts and bowls. If the customer says that the deceased wasn't really that sort of person, move on to the next step: ask about adding a line of script at the bottom (for commission purposes, this counts as a logo). Push for a Rest in Peace, or a Sadly Missed. Everyone's that kind of a person. A good line is, "You've got Rest in Peace at the end here. How about we make that bigger, and in a nice italic font?" How could anyone say no to that? Especially when you're not telling them it's going to cost them twenty bucks more and get you one step closer to your logo target.

Having squeezed another $20-$50 out of the customer, get off the call and proceed to talk loudly about how well you're going on logos this month.


Man. Every time I hear someone doing this it's a real effort not to call the customer back and say, "I am so, so sorry." There are so many better ways to hit target and I am so fucking sick of hearing people do this one. That is all.

Colleagues / Twilight / Hatred

Heading from property ad: "Do you Dare to View?" I hope the agent has set it up like a house of horrors. "And here we have the bathr- AAHHHH! IT'S A GHOST!"

Does anyone else work with people who appear to have little or no control over their volume? I do. About three of my colleagues will, at random points throughout the day and for no apparent reason, completely forget to use their inside voice and start roaring. I would be a much calmer person if this did not happen.

Also annoying me this week at work: colleagues constantly talking about Twilight. My office is full of women, which is bad enough because a) they spend too much time bitching about each other and not enough time shutting up and letting me work and b) it is not enough to be a competent colleague, you also have to be everyone's friend* but if I have to hear about the time that Jacob ripped his shirt off/ how well suited Bella and Edward are/ how cleverly the books are written one more time I swear to God that I am going to become a vampire and kill them all.

*this is TRUE and male colleagues do not do it. I would rather work with a bunch of men who are constantly swaggering round the office comparing penis size than with a bunch of women who are constantly swaggering round the office comparing penis size but pretending very hard that they aren't.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." TINY MINDS DISCUSS TWILIGHT AD INFINITUM OH GOD. I'm going to transcribe a bit of the conversation so you can see what I have to deal with. This is happening RIGHT NOW. TO ME.

"When [some character or other] took off his shirt the entire cinema, like, took this huge breath."
"Well that's the thing about vampires, isn't it, it's a sexual thing."
"Well, it's society's way of dealing with gay people, isn't it, we have a phobia of that, so we have to create something safer." Vampires are safer than homosexuals? Just quietly, I know which one I'd rather have bite me in the neck.
"Edward isn't gay."
"He definitely isn't! Hur hur hur." EDWARD ISN'T REAL FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU
"Edward or Jacob?"
"Jacob. But they're both young enough to be my children."
"I know. It's so wrong, isn't it."
"It's so wrong! If I was Bella, I don't know which one I'd choose." If you were Bella you would be far, far away from here and I would be happy.

Sometimes they talk about True Blood. Which is not better. Can't wait until vampires go back to being a bit passe. (Can't make the accent on the e - sorry chaps.)

No News

Here are my three favourite non-news headlines of the day:

"Jennifer Lopez Falls on Butt" - in which Jennifer Lopez falls on her butt.
"Icebergs may threaten shipping" - No! Really?
"Tintin In the Can" - Oh, so that's where he is.

Nothing else to report - busy day wurkn, no time fo' blogn - except that I have a question about porn. How do they cast the actors? Do they hold auditions? 'cause that would be an amusing social situation. "I'm sorry, Harry, you and Jenna just don't have the right... fit."

NO. I am not going to a porn casting just to amuse you guys. The nudist camp was bad enough.