Narky Sarky Wednesday

or
Why I Can't Join Mattwa on the Wagon

Because my ongoing project for today is an assignment report for Hong Kong, which I would normally really enjoy but am finding very dull probably because I'm looking at a 4 day weekend, I am diversifying my usual methods of procrastination with a cranky burst of bile.

We have a very dull, poo-brown product which we only sell to the Australian public sector. The transaction is always made with a sniveling little public servant who considers themselves to be a highly important customer because we overcharge so much for the product that it’s probably the biggest thing in their puny little budget. It also happens to be the smallest thing on my pricelist and lowest scorer of care factor. (Is my haughty self important tone coming through yet? Do I even have to type out how much I feel I am above this menial task?) The product itself is FRAUGHT with DISASTER and makes my fingers BLEED whenever I have to even type the name of it, thanks to our good friends at DFAT and their association with this product. And sadly, now that Michelle is gone, I AM THE ONLY ONE LEFT to handle this itchy little piece of business, at least until Marina Manson starts on Oct 22.

A call comes through this morning from, um, let’s call her Rebecca C, because that is her name and she can tell it to you with the greatest of competence, explaining quite importantly that she needs me to send her one of these urgently. Today. I tell her to calm down (I don’t actually say to her “calm down” because that would be rude, but it is definitely implied in my patronising tone), give me her email address and I will send her the subscription form and details and blah blah blah. She does, I do, and it is rejected by her system for one reason or another. Let the 20 minute phone call commence in which I have to hover over my inbox awaiting an incoming from her that she tries to send over and over again, this time for sure, now is it working, I must have it now, no she doesn't want a fax, haven't I got it yet…. Then after ONE MORE TIME reading out my email address, it seems she doesn’t believe in hyphens in email addresses and has been persisting with a fullstop instead. Replying to her email still does not stop mine from getting rejected by her system.

So I finally get the form to her by fax, she faxes it back, then emails me to tell me it has been faxed back. Then, 20 minutes later, as I studiously ignore her fax sitting under my right elbow, another call from Rebecca to double check that I have received her fax. Which I have, I tell her. But as she failed to send in the second page, I am not sure what country she wants this for. If she tells me on the phone, I will jot it onto the front page of her fax ready for when I benevolently action it, in many hours, when I get a free minute. She wants South Africa but she will fax it to me anyway. She does. And emails me to confirm that she has sent page two, confirming that she wants South Africa, as notified by phone. When I do not reply to the last email, she phones again to confirm that I received the confirmation email regarding the fax confirming what she told me on the phone – that she wants South Africa. Using as few words as possible while still technically speaking English, I confirm receipt of all things related to this shitty little purchase.

The fax then gets moved over to the farthest most point on my desk, because I have had 1 too many dullards on the phone today and I make myself feel better about it by being petty and more ridiculous than the perpetrator of said dullardery. I mean, doesn’t this woman understand that I have a lot of important, big profit work today that I need to shirk with blog posting and facebooking and emails about lunch club?

Until the last phone call. From Rebecca. Asking me to confirm if she will indeed get the product by COB today. And with that last master stoke of brilliance, my will to fight buckles under me, my resistance tumbles away like a house of cards and the burocrat has bested me. In one last fastidious, i-dotting t-crossing transmission, Rebecca C from the NSW Department of Incompetence and Fuck-uppery has unwittingly worn me down. I can’t get that damned fax off my desk fast enough.

Hopefully she’ll pay her invoice one Aussie dollar at a time, by a series of ambiguously labeled direct deposits and faxed remittance advices with scan-and-email-back receipt confirmations.