Part 2.1
I was only two and a half weeks into my career as the "Webmaster" for BOBB Systems, and only two weeks into discovering that my job was way, way, WAY easier than the company thought it was.
Now, because it was 1997 and a number of people inside the company dismissed the internet as a "non-profit-generating entity" or a "toy", there was internal struggle and conflict from the first day I took the job. The only person who actually saw merit in the concept of putting this software company on the internet was my boss, Gary. He was a bit of a visionary; seeing a large amount of potential in getting a dedicated resource to understand the internet and harness its power.
Me.
And I did a fairly good job of it, if I do say so myself. I set up a relationship between BOBB Systems and Monster.com so that we received premium placement on this upstart's job seeking website. I had automated scripts posting our open career positions to USENET and funneling resumes matching certain criteria to the recruiters in our company. I set up an engine to allow marketing, HR and legal to post all of their press releases and articles to the website without having to send them to me first. I also created a page on our company's website where the software developers could release updates to the platform that BOBB Systems wrote for the CRM and Supply Chain sectors. And once my first week on the job rolled by, I suddenly found myself in possession of about six free hours a day. This gave me two choices:
- Go ahead and leave for the day and clue everyone in to just how little work was involved for such a high salary, causing a huge political riot and pretty much guaranteeing that my salary - or worse, my job - would be cut, or
-
Just make it look like I was working all day.
I'll leave it to you to figure out which one I chose.
Now, just sitting in front of a keyboard tip-tapping all day may be work in most departments, but I was under a massive amount of not-undue scrutiny. I had to go the extra mile to convey my state of constant job-related panic. I couldn't just use IRC and play You Don't Know Jack! - I had to incorporate other means of method acting, which is where 1-800-MUSIC-NOW came in.
I'm sure this seems quaint these days, but back in the day, the concept of dialing a toll free number to hear clips of music from your favorite bands and then - with the push of a button - order their album was quite revolutionary. And I probably single-handedly funded the first two quarters of this company's revenue figures, as I spent easly 3 hours a day just dialing in and tapping in the names of bands I figured they couldn't POSSIBLY have music for, only to be pleasantly surprised enough to push "1" and add that album to my basket.
Not only did this build out my music collection quite handsomely, it also had the double benefit of looking like I was on the phone with the support teams of one of the 300 or so IT vendors we did business with.
"Look, I don't care who ye need to call," said Darina, one of the company's international recruiters, "I need ye ta handle this!"
"Sorry, I can't," I told her as I speedwalked down one of the building's main corridors. While elegant and quite beautiful, the building's architect must have been a fan of The Shining, because he built the longest damn hallways I'd ever walked through.
"But I really need those CVs!" she yelped, her Irish accent shining through. "Where are they?"
"I don't know," I said, lying through my teeth. From day one, Darina had been one of the biggest objectors to my position - and she wasn't at all shy about letting everyone know. As the Technology Recruiter who was forced to hire me, she knew exactly how much I got paid and how old I was, and neither fact sat well with her. She took every opportunity to find ways to convince anyone who would listen that my job simply did not need to exist. So I found every way possible to inconvenience her in ways that required my direct involvement to repair. Such is the reason that the system had been dumping any and all resumes for the newly created and much needed Development Director position into a hidden mailbox on the server, just waiting for me to "find the virus" that blocked them and get them all flooding to her.
"Can't ye LOOK?" She half asked, half demanded; breathing heavily due to being half out of breath.
"I sure can," I said, finally reaching the doorway to my office. "But I've GOT to get on the phone with IBM and find out what the hell happened to the new hard drives we ordered!"
"Can ye look at my thing first?" She asked, propping herself against the frame of the doorway.
"Nope," I replied, plopping into my chair and slapping the space bar on the keyboard, waking my computer from the screen saver.
She sighed heavily. "Ye know, ye wouldn't even be here if it weren't for me!"
I scanned the monitor in front of me, catching up on the IRC conversation I'd been away from. With a purposeful motion, I looked up at her, locked on to her eyes for a moment, and said "Thanks." I then went back to looking at my monitor as if I was searching for a phone number.
"Look!" she snapped as she stood upright. "I can't do my job if I can't see the resumes! And I can't see the resumes because of yer stupid email thing! So yer the reason I can't do my job, which means ye need to fix this!"
"And I will," I said, and then gave a slight look of surprise at the monitor, attempting to sell a moment of 'Eureka!' from finding the number I needed. I quickly grabbed the phone and tapped out a sequence of numbers which, if you spelled it out on the keypad, might have read 1-800-OUR-HAMM. Or 1-800-MT.-PIANO. Or, more ostensibly, 1-800-MUSIC-NO... W.
"That's how you act?" she said, putting her hands on her hips. "Just... Pick up the phone, right in the middle of our conversation?"
"Obviously," I said.
"That's just rude!" She said. "Can't ye show me at least a little respect?"
"Welcome to 1-800-Music-Now," a voice spoke over the receiver, startling me. Usually, it's an automated voice which prompts you to press 1 to enter an artists name, or 2 for help (or, para Español, presione 3 ahora). "My name is Jessica," she continued. "How may I help you?"
"Uh... Hi Jessica," I stammered, "I need to check on the status of an order we placed a few days ago?" I looked up at Darina and adopted a pleading look.
Sorry, I'm on the phone, I mouthed, adding a gesture toward the handset with my free hand.
Her jaw opened wide and she gasped with exasperation.
"Sure, I can check on that for you," Jessica replied. "Can you give me your order number?"
"Uh..." I said, trying to come up with something, "I think it was O-I-C-U-8-1-2."
Jessica laughed. "Nice," she responded. "I like Halen too, but I'm afraid I need an actual order number."
Darina just stood there with her mouth opened.
"Uh," I said, "I actually, um... I don't seem to have the order number here," I said, "It was for some hard drives for BOSS Systems?"
"Err.... Hard drives?" Jessica responded.
Darina continued to stand there.
"Yeah," I sort-of answered. "For the IBM S/390 server."
"I um... Sir, we sell music," Jessica responded. "This is 1-800-MUSIC-NOW."
"Yes, yes, that's the one!" I chuckled.
The other end of the phone was silent for a moment. I took that opportunity to look up at Darina, who was busy converting the ambient moisture in the air into steam with the heat of her anger. With a wave, I mouthed
Shut the door, thanks! and returned my eyes to the monitor in front of me.
I wasn't looking at her, but having seen her do it several times before, I imagined what it looked like as Darina spun 90 degrees on her heel with nearly military-style precision and marched away, leaving a trail of smoldering ozone in her wake.
"Sir?" Jessica finally said. "I'm afraid you may have dialed the wrong number..."
"No! Nonono!" I blurted as I stood to close the door. "Don't hang up!"
"Sir?"
The door shut softly behind me. "I am SO sorry," I explained. "I'm at work, and I was trying to get rid of a co-worker, and I was expecting the automated voice guy thingy, and when you spoke it threw me off!" I chuckled nervously.
She sat silent for a moment. "Sir, I'm afraid abusing our service to dismiss your coworkers isn't really an approved use of our resources," she responded dryly. "I'm going to have to report you."
"Uh..." I said as I sat in my chair. "Report me?"
"Yes, sir."
"Report me to who?" I asked.
"Your boss," she said with a tension-breaking laugh.
I chuckled in return. "You had me going there..."
"Well how can I help you?" She asked.
"Well, honestly, I don't quite know that you can," I replied. "I was calling just to dial in a few names of bands just to see if you guys have them... It's kind of a game I play."
"Trying to stump the system?" she asked.
"Yeah!" I replied. "Something like that."
"Well," she said, "I can help you with that if you want... I can look up any band you ask for and just play back the clips."
"Really?" I replied. "Hmm... That's pretty cool... But I'm probably going to be a bit. I don't want to eat up your whole morning."
"Oh, it's no problem," she said. "I'll have to do it with the next person who calls anyway, I might as well talk to a Halen fan while I work!"
"Well, I'm not really a Halen fan, per se," I confessed. "It's just a funny title."
"Oh... One of THOSE," she said with a chuckle.
"One of what?"
"The people who don't believe in the holiness of Halen and won't be saved when Eddie ascends into heaven."
"Oh, GOD," I said with a smile, "Not one of those!"
"Yep," she answered. "He's Jesus."
"God, I hope not," I replied.
"Why not?"
"Cause if he is, then John Petrucci is Satan, and he's clearly going to win the battle and take over the Earth."
"WHAT!" she verbally sneered.
"Yeah," I continued, "And he's got big poofy hair. I won't want to be forced to wear big poofy hair when he takes over."
"You are so wrong," she answered. "Eddie plays circles around Petrucci."
"No," I replied without skipping a beat, "Eddie RUNS circles around Petrucci, because he has to do laps as punishment for being so much worse than The One True Petrucci."
"No way," she said. "No way no way no way."
"Fine, let's put it to the test then!" I said.
"How?"
"Dial up Van Halen's first record."
"Ohhhh...." she said. I could hear her smiling on the other end of the phone. She pulled it up, and the little automated man's voice went on to describe the album "Van Halen" by Van Halen. He then introduced a few tracks, one of them being "Eruption," which features every slobbering dork frat boy guitar-worshiping moron's idea of a bad-ass guitar solo.
"See!" she said at the clip's conclusion. "How can you not think that's worthy of sitting beside God in heaven?"
"Because of this," I answered. "Dial up "Change of Seasons" by Dream Theater.
"Gah," she replied. "Prog sucks."
"You suck," I replied. We both laughed.
The little automated man came up and introduced "Change of Seasons" by Dream Theater, and then proceeded to play clips from the middle of songs that had nothing at all to do with Petrucci's solos. If we'd been arguing Mike Portnoy's drum excellence, I'd have won fair and square. But for this partcular argument...
"Yep, totally great playing," she said sarcastically.
"That is TOTALLY not fair," I responded.
And so it went for the better part of an hour. Jessica and I argued about bands and music and who's better than who. We also found some middle ground, agreeing that the first six Black Sabbath records should be dipped in gold and enshrined at Angor Wat for worshipping throughout eternity. At the end of it, I purchased a few new releases I'd not yet snagged, including No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom, both to finally shut Mike up (he obsessed over that band before it came out) and to annoy Jessica, who hated Gwen Stefani.
"Okay, that's a huge order," she said. "Your total comes to two hundred seventeen dollars and ninety seven cents."
"Huh," I said, somewhat oblivious to how many albums I'd agree to buy. "Oh well, I haven't bought any other records this month."
"Heh," she said, "It's the second."
"Yeah," I replied. "I get paid on the first... Usually I'd have spent my music budget by now."
"And what is your music budget?" she asked.
"You don't want to know," I replied.
"What are you, made of money or something?" she laughed.
"No no, I just really like music."
"But... You ordered No Doubt," she replied.
"Yeah?" I responded. "So what?"
"I thought you said you like MUSIC."
"Shut up," I said with a chuckle.
She asked for all my order information, and I gave it over in a practiced cadence. "Alright, well..." she said, wrapping up our call, "Because you're nice, and because we both agreed on Butch Vig being a prophet and a saint, I suppose I COULD be nice and give you 30 percent off."
"Really?!?" I perked. "Well, that's pretty awesome!"
"Yeah... And, uh... I can't believe I'm going to say this..."
"What?"
"Well," she said hesitantly, "I NEVER do this, but... Would you mind if I called you later? Like... After work?"
"Uh..." I said, flattered but slightly cautious... Okay, fine, I'll admit it - I wasn't cautious at all. I was all kinds of "yes" but just didn't know how to say it right without sounding retarded. "Sure, I suppose."
"You suppose?" she asked, offended.
"Well, yeah," I replied. "I mean... Halen fans calling me isn't something I normally agree to, but because you gave me 30 percent..."
"PSSSSSSH!" she said, and then laughed.
"Well, alright then," I said. "Want my number?"
"You just gave it to me," she said.
"Oh... OH right, with the order," I said. "Yeah, okay... Well then, talk to you later I suppose!"
"There you go, supposing again..."
"Yep. Get used to it, I suppose a lot."
She laughed. "So much that I have to get used to it? Hmm... That's either a good sign or a bad one!"
I laughed in lieu of responding, because I really had no response to that.
"Ok, well... Tonight then!" she said.
"Okey," I responded. "And thanks again for the 30 percent!"
"No problem. Thanks for calling 1-800-MUSIC-NOW, and have a great day!"
"You too!" I said, hanging up the phone and looking for another reason to blow off work for the day.
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