Sometimes … A Picture is worth a thousand words.

If anyone has a spare few of these, please send them my way so that I don’t have to take out a second mortgage on the house just to fill the gas tank.

     “Hey, Mark, I need a small project done by 2PM.  Can you do it?”
     “Sure,” I said assuredly.

     But that was early this morning.

     “Hey, can you help with this other thing?”
     “I have a 2PM deadline on the first one,” I tell them.
     “It’ll only take a minute.”

     Wrong.

     Back on track, an hour later.

     “Hey, Mark?  I need you to hold up while we send you some more specifications.”
     “Okay, but… we’re running out of time here.”
     “It’s nothing major.”

     An hour later, I get the new information and have to sart over.

     “Hey, Mark, can you do something else for us?”
     “Look, I spent two and a half hours off, and I’m running out of time here.  You need your first project at 2PM, right?” I ask.
     “Yeah, but this is more important right now.”
     “Okay…”

     Another hour later, I’m back on track.

     “Hey, Mark.  This other guy over here needs some software installed.”
     “I can’t,” I told him.
     “Why not?”
     “I don’t have time, since you need this done by 2PM,” I explained.  “But I can do it after that.”
     “Yeah, we have to have that.  But if you can’t do this for us, then we better find someone else to do all of it.”
     “Well, you could, but I’ve already done this, that, the other, and spent an hour and a half on the first thing you asked for.  If you be patient, then I can get you taken care of.”
     “Yeah, ok.  Well, we need that by 2PM.”
     “Great… talk to ya then.”

     Back on track.  It’s 1:15PM.  I have forty-five minutes to finish.

     “Oh, but, Mark, we really need…”
     “Okay, do you need your project by 2PM?”
     “Yes, absolutely!”
     “Okay, I’m trying to finish it, in the next 45 minutes, so if you could just make a list of what all needs to be done and e-mail it to me, I’ll be happy to knock that out promptly at 2:01PM.”
     “Yeah, well, we have to have this, too.”
     “I can’t do both right now.  Both are very involved projects, and I need to finish this one by 2PM.  In 45 minutes, I’ll do whatever else you need.”
     “Well, that’s just not acceptable.  Haven’t you ever heard the customer is always right?”
     “Yes, and if you ask me to complete a task by 2PM, I’m going to, if you’ll allow me to.”
     “Oh, yeah, well, I think we’re just gonna scrap the whole project and find someone els to do all of it.”
     “Well, I could certainly do them, but I think perhaps you guys need to prioritize your needs a little better.  Here it is with forty minutes to spare, and I’ve only been able to work on a five hour project for about two hours.  I can get it going, but I can’t do it and talk on the phone and do all of these other things.  If you can bear with me for forty minutes, I’ll get you all taken care of it.”
     “All of it?”
     “Your project at 2PM, and everything else by 4:30.”
     “That’s not acceptable.  You said by 2PM.”
     “Yes, sir, for the original project.  All of these other things are peripheral, and taking the necessary time away from that project.”
     “That’s not acceptable.  We’re going to find someone else!” he yells as he hangs up.

     I call back.  “Ya know, there is the matter of your bill.”
     “You didn’t have the project finished by 2PM.”
     “No, but you contracted my time to do it, and proceded to use that time to finish several other, smaller projects.”
     “Apparently, our time isn’t important, Mark!”
     “Excuse me?” I monotoned in disbelief.

     I do the impossible.  I do a good job.  And above all, I treat my customers with respect and proceed to my duties in a professional manner.

     “So you’re not going to pay me?” I ask.
     “Why?  You didn’t get the job done.”
     “No, but I got three others done for you in the time where I was supposed to be finishing a project.  I explained repeatedly that I couldn’t get the project completed by 2PM if you continued to come to me with other, less important requests.  You said that these were just as important, and I stopped to complete those tasks, as well.  I am not a time traveller, and apparently, that is what you need.”
     “Yes, we do.  So f$*& you, Mr. Steel!  We’re finding someone else.”
     “F$*& ME?  Apparently, sir, you have a problem with my performance, though I fail to see how that could be, considering all of the assistance I’ve offered you today.  Perhaps you should find someone else.”
     “Don’t f$*&ing cuss me you piece of sh….”
     *click!*

     I will not walk away empty handed, and then sit there to be insulted and screamed.

     A little respect is never too much to ask.

     Funny that it’s now 2:06, and neither their projects nor their additional side tasks are completed.  I wonder how long it’s going to take the next guy?

     [ And if you’re said customer — who pretends to be my employer — do you realize that I QUIT?! ]

One week to the day after I was wed to my prince, I was on a plane to Germany for a business trip that would keep me away for 10 days.  I can’t say I’ve ever been happier to be home than I am now.

I realized there are so many  little bitty things I manage to take for granted every single day.  You better believe the following is a tribute to those things.

Ice
I never really realized just how damn much ice  meant to me until I didn’t have it in my drink, for 10 days.  No friggin ice.  Luke warm yacky soda with no ice to chomp on. Damn.

Soda
Well, the German people have soda.  But they don’t have a friggin clue what Diet Coke is, no.  They call that shit Coke Light.  It’s super sweet and it tastes like real Coke.  And without ice it is simply undrinkable to my spoiled American palate.  And Diet Dew?  They don’t have Dew at all, let alone Diet Dew Light.  Damn.

The Dollar Being A Dollar
The US dollar is nothing more than a flipping piece of paper at the time of this writing.  I’m here to tell ya, by the time I paid the currency exchange fees and the exchange rate being as it was… my damn dollar was worth less than 47 cents, my friends.  It was extremely apparent to me just how bad it was when I came home to do my expense report and found that for 10 days, with exchange rate, I had spent more than $400 on food and drinks alone. Damn.  Wait!  Rachael Ray would be totally impressed, that would be $40 a day.  Go me!

Courtesy on the Road
Well, not that we have the most courteous drivers in the US, especially in the states that start with “I”, but even those numbnuts are courteous compared to the asshats on the autobahn.  Hello dickhead, get out of my tail pipe and learn to use a signal other than the bird!

My Man
Now this es muy imporante.  I never in my life thought, with all the traveling Diva does, that I would be homesick for my man.  I thought, I’m gone all the time.  It’ll be no big deal.  WRONG!  After more than a year of seeing his face and hearing his voice every single day… I realized how much I need those things and how much that he means to me.  Oh God, I’m getting all mushy again.
But seriously, doing without Diet Dew with ice on the autobahn was enough to make me want to walk to the coast, buy a boat and start paddlin my ass back home.

     Apparently, Ashwin Khanna, the illustrious “Win $2500 for posting about my blog!”, is well on his way to being labeled “notorious.”

     Ashwin, henceforth known as “Asswin,” is nothing more than an 18-year-old, aspiring scam artist from London who seems to think it’s okay to use bullshit tactics to improve his search engine ranking … much like our last Asshat of the Day recipient, Steve Gallay, who used everyone who participated in a “Win $50!” contest to improve his search engine ranking by posting very little information about a missing child with links to his homepage instead of to an informative artcle.

What Serr8d said about Gallay applies perfectly to Asswin Khanna, as well:

…he’s definitely a royal flush of an asshat…

Just to let you know, Asswin, you’re only 18 and have an entire life of fraud ahead of you.  Nice to know you’ve started out so well!  I mean, what’s next?  Impossible-to-win footy boards?  A small pawn-and-loan-slash-fencing-operation here in Barnet?  Maybe a few billion e-mails asking for assistance in helping you get the money out of the bank account of a dead relative?
Seriously, Asshat, what you’ve done is Fraud, plain and simple.  I hope someone takes a whiz in your Shreddies with video identifcations security.

Tips: Contest Blogger, My New Hustle, Fracas