Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 12:57:14 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The joys of working in a bookstore
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 10:11 AM 4/5/05 -0400, Candy Madigan wrote:
>Oh that's so true.  I had a friend who worked at B Dalton's people used to
>come up to her and ask for "that book on Oprah, the one with the green
>cover, you know, the author had a beard."
>
>At 05:55 PM 4/4/2005, you wrote:
>>http://www.sob-story.com/2004/pre2004/09.html

I think every job gets events like that.  At a hotel I worked at in
Virginia Beach long ago I had people coming in in July looking for a room,
no reservation.  We'd been booked since April, same as every other hotel
and motel within 10 miles of the beach, just like every year.  While
walking along Pacific near there, about 3pm on a sunny day, I was asked for
directions to the ocean (Pacific parallels the beach, one block back from
the ocean...Atlantic is the only street closer).  I said just to go east
anywhere...and was asked which way East was.  Hello?!?

At McDonalds I had someone come in and order a burger with *nine* pickles
on it...no more, no fewer.

Since turning pro on programming I've had bosses ask me, with a straight
face, if we have any undetected bugs in the software.  They also ask me how
long I think it will take to implement softwware for a protocol I've never
used, on an OS I'm not familiar with, for a software design that isn't
fully specified yet, but which keeps changing, and they want the estimate
accurate to within a month.

Then there are just the "rude bastards".  I once worked at an Exxon Car
Care Center and had someone pull in at the pumps, in a major rain storm (a
"Frog Drowner" as we called them), honk for someone to come out *right now*
(rather than in 3 minutes when the rain would have slacked off
considerably), not want any gas, just directions to Virginia Beach Blvd
(why he didn't pull up at the door to ask I have no idea...hence "rude
bastard").  The station was on the corner of Rosemont Rd. and Virginia
Beach Blvd...and the idiot had come in off of Virginia Beach Blvd to ask
this question.  He got directions to Virginia Beach Blvd., but they were
not by any means the most direct route...they were about 10 miles longer
than the most direct route...which he'd have gotten if he hadn't been a
rude bastard.  Sometimes it's good to be the agent of instant karma...I was
a bit drier by the time he went past the station again, honking his thanks
and wishing us Hawaiian good luck.

-- Mike B.
--
Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.