Work

Speaking with a customer:

— I’m looking at the black. Can I have a lighter shade of black?

— You mean gray?

I worked at home today. Every province except Québec has its own civic holiday today. This means I’m working while the public transit workers are taking a break. Waiting for the bus, I called to check the timetable only to be informed that the first bus will only come at 8:50 AM instead of the usual 6:55 AM bus I take. It was pouring out in the time, so I decided to work from home… After which the rain stopped.

My coworkers celebrated my first year anniversary at work. On 20 July 2006, I quit my boring and stressful call centre job to work as a full-time Web developer. My dream job couldn’t be in a better environment. I thanked them for hiring me and saving me from the hands of the cell centre and we all digged in that cake.

About the pictures above. The first is me holding a piece of cake with my name written on it. The second is my best impersonation of the smiling angry lawyer I’ve mentioned before. Too bad I didn’t ask the permission to upload my coworkers’ impersonations! The last picture is all of us at work.

During my lunch hour right now, I thought I’ll share a few funny things floating around the office. When we can, we try to maintain our “quotes” blog with some of our funnies dialogues. Our blog, “Office Blither,” is available to all.

But here are a few things not available on that blog. Recently, we exchanged a few sites we came across while planning projects we need to work on with potential clients.

For example, this scary guy:

This guy is a lawyer. I’m not sure if he’s just too serious or trying to look mean. Maybe he’s related to Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro?

Moving on, one stock consulting company asks the following:

Now that’s marketing! It really makes you wonder!

A coworker of mine has been trying to speak up and argue with everyone without having any reason to do so. Many discussions we had recently has resulted to most of us wondering where he’s trying to get at.

Talking about my night out with a friend of mine in a nightclub. “I rarely go to bars or nightclubs. I may have went to them maybe just four times in my life,” I said, to which he replied “If you want to be socially accepted, you need to go out more regularly.” Note that 1) he’s a workaholic who may spend 70 hours per week working, including late evenings, early mornings, and weekends and 2) I am socially accepted and I have an outside life — I just didn’t accomplish that by going at bars. I have my own social events.

When I mentioned about another coworker being savvy of computer security to the point it borders paranoia, he said:

— Well, he knows more than you.
— He’s almost twice my age!, I replied.
— Yeah, but he knows more than you!
— Why are you comparing him to me? I never said I knew more than him about security!
— Don’t twist my words!
— I don’t even need to twist your words…

Another coworker intervened and told him that his words were far from being twisted and that he needs to think more before speaking.

This morning, he talked to me about his team members having entered time during the power outage we had yesterday:

— What kind of entry did you put during the power outage?, he asked.
— Nothing. I didn’t do anything because I couldn’t do anything.
— Well, one of my team members put time during the power outage.
— His computer had power during the outage. Even if he didn’t have Internet access, he could have done some things locally.
— But the server was down.
— Many of us keep copies of files on our computers. Maybe he did that!
— I sincerely doubt it!
— Well ask him!

If he “knows” more than I do, already knows the answer, and wants to assume what he doesn’t know, why did he bother asking me in the first place?

He also likes to talk to himself a lot… But I won’t interfere with his self-indulging monologues.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but it seems the workplace is getting tense recently. Not to the point when everybody is at someone else’s throat, but I have the impression that everybody is cranky. Let’s hope it’s just because of the summer heat…

Now, this is something worth to celebrate. During March, all of us at work ate cake once almost every week. The two first cakes were to celebrate two of my colleagues who joined the company a year ago. The third one was to celebrate the company’s eighth year.

Plus, every piece of cake was accompanied by a cup of milk which “Tastes like Homo!” The milk was quite useful at the first cake, which had black icing and made our teeth and lips go black.

I’d show you here my bosses’ faces, but you know, you never know when a client will discover my site and will cut their ties with us because we’re too crazy.

Finally, this is not something about an agent having made the most sales during the past week, or to celebrate a new customer. Fornicate that call centre feces!

Congratulations to my co-workers! Long live the company!

I got my first paycheck yesterday. Time sure goes fast when you like what you’re doing. My first assignment was simply to slice up a layout and put it on a Web site. One of my two bosses was glad when I showed him that everything was in CSS, without a single table. The second project I’m working on now is entirely running on ColdFusion. I’ve done very little CF before, but surprisingly enough, after just a few days, I was able to actually enjoy writting in ColdFusion.

I love my job and it’s by far a lot better than my previous low-pay job at the call centre. The advantages here are numerous:

• Better pay.
• Flexible time and less minimum hours per week.
• Transit takes a third less time and the bus is almost always empty.
• Supervisors know what they want and what they’re doing.
• Real large desk to work at with my very own workstation, which people don’t try to use all the time.
• The company is very-well organised, so I know what I need to do and I can be focused.
• Being focused and well treated, I work better, finish faster, and actually have a feeling of accomplishment at the end.
• I can now proudly say that I work in my field and not in some call centre.

There. Now I can actually brag about my job… Ha!

The people are great. The work is enjoyable. And the atmosphere makes me glad. What more can I ask for now? Plus, my boss already knows that I’m going in Japan this October, and he’s fine with that. Everything is just fine. I’m just glad that I’m not working in the dreaded call centre anymore.

Everyone runs Windows on their workstations, except the friend who refered me. And it just happens that he assigned me to a PC with Linux already installed on it. That’s another bonus!

He’s also a fan of Japan, though a bit more axed on martial arts. At least, more than I ever will be. Obviously, he named his computer with a Japanese word: “Neko,” or “cat.”

Is this how it’s going to be? Fine. I’ll name my workstation with a meaner animal. I thought about “inu” (“dog”), but some dogs can be pretty docile.

Now I know how I’m going to call it. “Tanuki,” the famous racoon-dog of Japan. Ha… Take this!

And I hope I won’t have to work in a call center ever!

Thanks to a friend of mine, after sending my résumé, I’ve got an interview last week at a small Web developement company for a Web developer position. Everything went great; the interview was actually fun.

Yesterday, I got the big news: they offered me the position. Flexible hours, possibility to work from home in case of emergencies (for example, snowstorms), small team, better pay, and not a call centre. A call centre is the worst environment for a Web developer. Obviously, I didn’t think twice before accepting the position.

I wrote my resignation letter today, showed it to my operations manager, who was really understanding, even glad that I was able to find something I like and was glad to waive the usual 2-week notice time. When I handed the letter to HR, though…

Human resources departements always make me laugh. Most of the people working in there seem to look down on all the other employees; they feel superior. I handed my letter to the head of HR and it’s like if I was insulting her, like she was deceived. I explained her about my new employer’s need for me to be in as soon as possible. I won’t lose my vacation pay, but she said that because I didn’t gave a notice two weeks before I leave, it is the company’s policy to never hire me again.

Well, big deal. The operations manager didn’t mind me leaving. I got my contacts… if ever I need them. (And I don’t think I will.) Besides, the company was doing a laying off a lot of people recently. Even though I was worried that they’ll let me go, it would have probably never been the case, but it’s better that I find something right away and not wait for a layoff to happen!

Tomorrow is my last day in a call centre. I’ve been waiting for this day since four years, and maybe a few months more. I’ll celebrate Friday by taking the day off.

“Thank you for calling! My name is Rémi. On which side of your face can I punch you today?” (Disconnects.)

It’s Friday and I’m tired. I want to get out of work.

I bought a pack of gum in the vending machine and I’m chewing at all its pieces at the same time.

Hopefully, all this chewing will dislocate my jaw and I’ll be eligible for work comp!