How IT are you? Find out now in our HILARIOUS quiz! Gor blimey guv. I jus’ bin dahn the ol’ rub-a-dub for a pokey alright sparrah do us a lemon John. Fret not, faithful reader. Be comforted that I have neither succumbed to Dickvandykitis nor do I have any compulsion to “do the old bamboo” – a suspicious euphemism if ever I heard one. I am merely rejoicing in being told that I …
A user calls to report a non-working printer. Do you...
Call the user from a non-caller ID phone, explain that there is a magnetic hysterisis problem with the hot-roll, and the user needs to reset it with a hairpin or large straightened paper clip. The user needs to locate the magnetic impulse wires near the top of the rollers, one red, one blue, and user needs to discharge this by pressing the clip against the red wire to evacuate the charge, and for best results, also needs to touch some other grounded element.
Wait for the bang and the smell or burning toner, go to pub when ambulance is in earshot.
Is this like "How do you do?"
Which should never be answered with anything related to your health, either good or bad.
Eg.
Q-How do you do?
A-Fine thanks.
Bzzzt wrong!
Q-How do you do?
A-How do you do.
Q-No, How do *you* do?
A-No, How do you *do*.
etc.
...profitzzz.
where there was a big Scientology thing going on. And they hook you in with personality quizzes which invariably are designed to show you that you are a good person but you need to spend £4000 on a course which will teach you to correct x, y or z personality defect which is holding you back and stopping you from becoming a millionaire like Tom Cruise.
Being a psychology undergraduate, much like Dabbsy's victim, I went to their in depth feedback assessment and promptly took apart their questionnaire, scoring each question for positive/negative bias, control question loading etc etc and left their interviewer (a very attractive young lady, what a surprise) as a nervous wreck. My girlfriend who had been given the hard sell by an attractive young man (again, what a surprise), told me she'd signed up for two years of courses and did I think we could live the rest of the year on just my grant money - which sent me into a meltdown. She was, of course, joking; which meant she won that one.
Not scientologists, but one of these jumped me today on my way to work* and unlike most of them, this guy were a bit rude: "I saw you look at us**. It will only be 10 seconds!" - with an aggressive tone of voice. He didn't touch me to stop me in my tracks past him though, or it might have turned ugly.
*My way to work is through a mine field: lady with coin jar for charity at shopping centre entrance (so I see her -twice- each day within 10 minutes), Jehova's witnesses, credit card pushers, plain old "got spare change mate" people... And that's just one point on my commute while I change trains.
**Of course I looked at you - for half a second. I wanted to see if I'm supposed to escape you or not as I walk past you. I don't have enough time between trains to learn how to fuck with you. It's a 20 minutes interchange, and I already spent 10 of those minutes in the shop.
My mate and I very much enjoy the delights of the harder end of the muscial spectrum, the delights of Decapitated and Amon Amarth are firm favourites.
I well remember heading to Brixton one bright sunny Summer evening to see Slayer play. The dear Scientologists had a little table set up right outside Subway along the high street, selling their snake-oil books and tapes. Well when of the most often used subjects for heavy metal songs is preachers of any faith trying to brainwash people into believing their tripe and nonsense. I waited outside Subway for my mate to arrive and all the while I was there, a good 30 mins, I started to feel a little sorry for those Scientoligists as they looked absolutely terrified every time a group of metallers walked past, sneered or passed comment and walked into Subway, then sneered and passed more comments on the way back. When it came time to pack away their little table I've never seen anyone shift boxes of unsold tapes and books so fast!
I once had a scientologist wanting to inflict a questionnaire on me, so, being a good sport, I went along with it. Answering all the loaded questions in slowly increasing psychopath mode wasn't the only thing that got to him. I think it was the combination of my slightly too bright smile, the way I kept staring fixedly at his right ear, and developing a slight twitch in my left eye that really did it. I was careful not to overdo it, I just subtly built it up. He bolted at the end.
I had just been rehearsing a part as an insane Columbian taxi driver in a student play, so I could keep the act up all day, if needed
personality defect which is holding you back and stopping you from becoming a millionaire like Tom Cruise.
The money would be nice, but I don't want to jump up and down on a couch while screaming.... OH.... they can fix that defect then... Where do I sign up?
(b) tell them to log a call with buildings management because stationery falls under someone else’s cost centre?
Every time. I spend more time writing something that sounds plausable and reassigning tickets than actually working. They eventually come back to me anyway but under a different project, one with enough hours that allows me to actually work on them.
D, keep them on the phone as long as humanly possible and involve as much tedious small talk as you can muster. In between the tedium try and get as may Monty Python quotes in without being obvious. Gauge their own assumed knowledge with near incomprehensible babble about flooded packet gateways, network degradation based on 443htz bleed-through from the local communications tower. Things like this will heavily dissuade idiots from calling you again.
Sometimes it's worth a small effort.
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