work
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
by badr
The population of this country is 300 million.
160 million are retired.
That leaves 140 million to do the work.
There are 85 million in school.
Which leaves 55 million to do the work.
Of this there are 35 million employed by the federal government.
Leaving 15 million to do the work.
2.8 million are in the armed forces
Which leaves 12.2 million to do the work.
Take from that total the 10.8 million people who work for state and city governments.
And that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals.
Leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.
Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.
That leaves just two people to do the work.
You and me
And there you are,
sitting on your ass,
at your computer, reading jokes.
Nice. Real nice 
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
by badr
Today I get a call from my buddy Patrick, where he explains a weird error with his computer a Dell Inspiron | 1501. I decide to give Dell’s wonderful Chat with a Tech Support Agent service and following is an actual transcription of a tech support chat session I had with a Dell representative. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Well, mine anyways.
System:
Thank you for choosing Chat support. The next representative will be available to assist you shortly. While waiting, check some of our self support options above. No fear, you won’t lose your place in line!
Session Started with Agent (160019_Dan)
Agent (160019_Jerry):
Thank you for contacting Dell Technical Support. My name is Dan and my rep ID number is 160019. How may I assist you today?
Badr:
This is my third time trying. I was disconnected the previous 2. I have an Inspiron 1501 and I am getting 2 error messages when I try to boot the computer. PXE-E61: MEDIA TEST FAILURE, CHECK CABLE and PXE-M0F: EXITING BROADCOM PXE ROM. I get the error messages when I turn on the power and it tries to boot. Once the error messages show up, when i hit any other key it just beeps. The only thing it will let me do is turn off the power. I Googled the messages and the results were not conclusive.
Agent (160019_Dan):
I am really sorry for the inconvenience caused as we are facing some problem with the network. I’ll be glad to assist you. Please provide me the service tag of the system. Please give me 2 to 3 minutes to pull up your account information.
Badr:
Service tag: XXXXXX
Agent (160019_Dan):
Please try to wiggle LCD cable.
Badr:
What?
Agent (160019_Dan):
This is the problem with the LCD.
Badr:
Ok. What LCD cable? The LCD screen works fine. The computer will not boot. Last time I check an Inspiron 1501 was a laptop and has no external cables to “wiggle”.
Agent (160019_Dan):
Please let me know if you have external monitor with you?
Badr:
No. Laptop. LAPTOP!
God save us from outsourcing. Is this what I have to look forward to now that the McDonalds in Hawaii are starting to outsource their drive-thru’s?
When my friend called me again I explained him it was a HD failure. He asked me what he should do, and I gave him the best advice I can give a friendf of mine. I told him, “Your machine is 2 years old, runs windows, dell’s support sucks… Go buy a Mac”.
Monday, June 16th, 2008
by badr
Today I got an email from my boss which I am going to share with all of you:
Hey Man, I’m sorry to let you know I will not be needing you anymore for this assignment, I have tried to work with you, but you have missed too many days and I keep finding myself having to explain to your users why you are not here, this is very hard because I know what you have going on, but unfortunately I have to make this discussion. Therefore, you need to call your recruiter and see if they can find you another assignment. I will not tell them anything bad and if you need to you can email and get my contact info and use me as a reference if you need to.
This is my reply:
to: kgeorge@cnmc.org
from: gilbertpalau@gmail.com
subject: work…
Dear Kevin;
Fuck You!
Cordially;
Gilbert
ok.. ok… that was not my reply… this was:
to: kgeorge@cnmc.org
from: gilbertpalau@gmail.com
subject: work
Kevin;
I think this is not right. I had to pick up my GF from her release form the hospital a day early. I had no way to go around this. I didn’t have an early warning as if I had known as early as friday I would have made better arraingments, but you know as early as last week that tomorrow or today I was going to be doing that. So it was very easy to explain our clients I had an emergency or a personal matter to attend to. Its not like other people in the team have not taken personal days off to deal with somethings. What do you tell the customers then? As I have been there, they usually tell them, that X or Y person is not available that day and they help them anyways.
I got out of my way many times for the sake of issues the team was not prepared to handle and in many ways used my creativity and technical background to help the team when some things came up. I always worked hard to meet the demand, and I always fixed myself when there were things I needed to get better at doing.
You have put me in a very difficult spot as of right now, because this entire situation was something that has been very difficult, draining and stressing and I was clear when I explained myself to you, that as soon as she was back I would not have this issues anymore.
This is really letting me out to hang dry, when I never let you guys or the team hanging dry.
But I guess this is how it is.
Good luck with the rest of your endeavors.
Gilbert
PS. I have never been let go or fired over email. Thanks for always displaying your professionalism.
Friday, June 13th, 2008
by badr
Monday could be my last day of work at the Children’s Hospital. I overheard several of the bosses saying they are going to cancel all the contractors because of lack of funding…
This is not good.
Monday, May 12th, 2008
by badr
So in the up and down, left and right of my last two days of moving stuff, (this past friday and saturday), We got the rest of the things from Amikolle, and our bed. Then we cleaned up the boxes and other shit we had in the apartment, and in that process I lost my ID card from work, a smarttrip card from the Md. Metro with $50 in “fare money” and my 4Gb Cruzer USB Key. The usb key had all my tools for work. It looked like the encryption key in “Iron Man”… well kind of.
So I realize I haven’t seen the thingy with the ID, Smarttrip card and USB Key, so I tell Amikolle, I am going to look for it. I literally turned the house upside down, then I asked her to look for it and she did. No where to be found, my id, my smarttrip card and my usb key are gone, forever. Shit Happens.
So today, I approach the security office, and I explain the dude, “Listen I lost my ID Card, this weekend because I was moving and I must have lost it in the moving in and out…”, so the guy looks at me and tells me, “Well you got to pay for it in admissions… there is a fee for making a new one.”, so I look at the guy and ask him how much it would cost (here I am thinking it will be $5.00, my bank charges $7 for a lost credit/debit card and they’ll make it on the fly.), and the dude tells me, “ummm I think its going to be like $20 bucks”.
(this is where I flip out)
“$20 bucks, are you out of your fucking mind???” (well i didnt say fucking to him, but I included it for the sake of drama). “What does the new ID card has that is made out of freaking platinum or gold?”, or does it have fucking RFID components?
Fucking shit. Not only I loose $50 bucks, my usb key and my work ID and now I got to add fucking $20 for a freaking ID Card.
Fuck!
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