check out this conversation i had with a girl at work AKA SANDBOX STUPID COWORKERS THREAD

http://www.mndaily.com/images/dropcaps/o.jpghttp://www.ulaval.ca/fmed/bcx/image/t.jpghttp://pauillac.inria.fr/~rouaix/mmm/mmm.gif

me: turn off your monitor when you go home.
her: why?
me: cos it wastes energy and causes global warming
her: Well I like hot weather. It doesn't matter if it gets warmer, does it?
me: (sigh)

the next day . . .

her: I owe you an apology.
me: what about?
her: that global warming thing. I watched that David Attenborough program last night and he said that if the polar ice caps melt that'll effect the polar bears.
me: . . .
her: I mean, I didn't realise global warming affected animals too.

You could have maybe put a bit more effort into this

*distributes sheet with details of a plan where you put next of kin phone number in your phone as ICE, standing for "in case of emergency"*

me: "oh shit it won't work for me"
co-worker: (concerned) "why not?"
me: "my girlfriend is called ice"
co-worker: (blank look) "it's a brilliant idea"
me: "yes"

seriously what makes these people think about this shit all day? is there some disease in offices that makes people obsessed with illness/ diets and death? fucking creeps! worthy cause and all but still...so weird.

You were joking here, right?

-- nathalie (wotwotwo...), December 18th, 2006.

i think you're the only one who caught onto that. thanks.

OK OMG this is like the second or third time this year I've seen someone note this, as if it's some weird imbalance in the universe: have NONE of these bastards noticed that there are plenty upon plenty of nerdy Asian girls in this country? Who the hell do you expect them to date?

^ azns

MORE OF THEM

more pics, please

(which I find rather more distasteful and disgusting than the original comment, myself)

:-( You should have really explicitly made that clear cause, well, it wasn't very obvious from the dialogue you typed.

Right, next 'stupcowo'

Ah come on, without emoticons, you can interpret that, yes, as a serious comment but still see that it cuold be a joke. Just saying that, if it was, well, say, Stevem (wink wink), would you also have the kneejerk reaction: This is serious and racist? (Not saying it was a good joke. It's wrong... but still... y'know, cut the guy some slack.)

Damn, I have a cold, I'm thinking cloudily. :-)

re: harvell, "who jokes like that" - almost everybody i know. i think you forgot what it's like to be in your early 20's. or maybe you city folk are just sophisticated beyond my southern simplicity.

re: cutty, you know, sometimes stuff gets lost in translation over text. but if you really get as furious at me as your postings seem, you got serious problems. most the shit i post here is like 2 lines long and written when i'm drunk. if that little sets you off, you need to see somebody.

anyways, this thread is no worse than the regular "omg i hate you" type shit lfam, blastocyst, or whoever else responds to almost everything i post. the amount i care about this shit is roughly equal to the number of asian girls i've slept with. just a bit of fun, lets be cool! (cue cutty mental break down and "sonning" me in like 5 threads i won't even notice until revives weeks later)

i rarely have stupid coworker stories, i guess i'm lucky like that?

stupid customer stories, now that's another thing...

No, I am not Momus.

xpost!

Which, frankly, I don't have a problem with: who among us doesn't want to find someone who's into many of the same things we're into, and also happens to be (in our eyes) hot? One of the things that nerdy guys find frustrating is the feeling that their female counterparts look on their interests with contempt, or vague disinterest/disapproval at best.

I find it interesting that this is how you interpreted all that. Mine would be something more like "I wonder why it seems like, if a nerdy white guy has a girlfriend, she's more likely to be Asian than demographics/statistics would normally suggest?"* I mean, I can't speak for Mickey, but I don't think fetishism is as automatic an assumption as you're making it out to be.

*not an elegant way of putting that, but you know what I mean

me: you know how you always see nerdy white guys with asian girlfriends?
her: yeah
me: you'd think that'd mean it'd be easy.

In other words, it says: "If nerds can manage the fetishized prize of dating an Asian woman (any Asian woman), then why can't I?" This kind or implies a perspective where dating an Asian woman is come kind of competitive prize, and the fact that they're Asian makes them some sort of important commodity, as opposed to their being various sorts of people and maybe some of them dating nerdy guys for the same reason anyone else winds up dating nerdy guys.

Along came a choo-choo train,
Knocked him in the cuckoo-brain

ilx Momus wedding FAP plans need to be set in train for 2007.

wtf 'fetishism'

me: you know how you always see nerdy white guys with asian girlfriends?
her: yeah
me: you'd think that'd mean it'd be easy.

In other words, it says: "If nerds can manage the fetishized prize of dating an Asian woman (any Asian woman), then why can't I?"

This is only true if you assume that the speaker doesn't see himself as nerdy! i.e. "you'd think that'd mean it'd be easy [for a nerdy guy like me]". I'm not saying that this is (or isn't) what Mickey meant, but I don't think it's an unreasonable interpretation.

In some ways I think it's less of a stretch, actually -- I know a fair number of guys who are especially attracted to Asian women, and whatever's problematic about that, I don't get the sense that they're going around thinking that Asian women are like, magic totem creatures who can have any man they want.

He has been married before.

This is the strangest phantom sensation I have ever experienced.

i think you forgot what it's like to be in your early 20's.

-- phil-two (philtw...), December 20th, 2006. (later)

finally something in this thread that makes me laugh.

Other girl (boredly):
Yeah.

Me:
Red in the face from diplomatically struggling to maintain silence.

xpost to all this mammoth phone stuff.

him: "astrology is a science, and it's true just like all other sciences. if you weren't ignorant, you'd know that."

me: [tell him that's ridiculous, make analogy to the chinese astrological calender]

him: "that's stupid. the chinese don't know what they're talking about."

Name: Appreciation of Asian Women 101
Type: Common Interest - Beauty
Description:
Welcome to Appreciation of Asian Women 101. It doesn't matter what race you are. It doesn't matter what sexual orientation you are. It definitely doesn't matter how smart you are. Anyone (almost anyone, see IN ADDITON) can enroll because anyone can see that Asian women are God's gift to men and no other females even come close. All you need to be a part of this group is an appreciation for the beauty of Asian women, or perhaps an interest in finding out exactly why Asian women are the most beautiful women on Earth.
__________________________
_________________
IN ADDITION: "Appreciation" is the "recognition of the quality, value, significance or magnitude of people" (dictionary.com). It has become apparent to me that I clearly have not put enough emphasis on the value of these women, or women in general for that mattter, as they are more than purely physical objects of men's desire. They are beautiful, inside and out, and are to be treated with the utmost respect. If you only see these women as things that exist merely for the satisfaction of your lust or a creepy fetish, this group is NOT for you!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Date-White-Woman-Practical/dp/0919637264

Regarding all the hatred spewed forth against us asiaphiles by the coalition of Asian American boys who can't get laid and other assorted racists, don't think you are stopping even one of us from pursuing the women we adore, it just spurns us on, because it's really enjoyable to see you pissed off.

god there's a whole novel in there! i love running into unreliable narrators in real life.

This is next-level.

a) provide me with more information on their logged problems other than just 'this software is broken'
b) not send me logged problems for broken software, as that's not even my job.

2121

coworker is loudly going off on ups customer service over the phone

'this is unacceptable. where are my packages, erica?'

even a sandbox holds many treasures (such as this thread) (asian saying).

^otm. holy wow is this thread amazing

ugh, people

yeah that modestmickey post is like O____o

i have now rescheduled a meeting SEVEN TIMES in the course of 2 weeks. it's only 4 people, including me, and 6 of the 7 times have been due to one person, and similar to this:

other guy: hey zach, january 3rd won't work. can we make it january 4th?
me: sure!
*changes it to 4th*
other guy, 4 minutes later: *MEETING DECLINED* hey, i'm off work that day, how about the 5th?

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

i know it's just a little thing but the other 2 people in the meeting are up several layers on the mgmt. chain, and all they see on Lotus Notes is me changing the meeting over and over and over again like a lunatic.

modestmickey: die
― lexpretend (lexpretend), Monday, December 18, 2006 11:56 AM (5 years ago)

I hate how when people say "nerdy chick" they mean basically indie girl w/glasses and not the girl who wears sweatshirts w/appliquéd squirrels, has long uncombed hair, and is working on a series of fantasy novels.
― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 22:45 (5 years ago)

haaaa (sadface)

yrs,
someone who received many bleak looks of "why is that dishevelled appliqué-squirrel-girl cluttering up our scene" during her years of indie gig-going

yeah, i was serious about finding asian girls attractive. what about that automatically qualifies asians as exotica in my worldview, though? i also like girls with dark black hair and shapely asses. from what i understand, they are also very common. perhaps as common as asians.

― hm (modestmickey)

I haven't posted to this thread in a while cuz my job's been awesome. Sadly, I have to today.

The last two days have been, shall I say, EXCRUCIATING. I've been training representatives to take calls for a new service. Mind you, the training program for these reps has undergone a facelift the last two years. Gone are the endless, ineffective 'self study' modules, and the worthless Powerpoints, replaced by us training them from the actual call tools they will use when on the phones. Instead of brain-dumping oodles of info on them, training works like a two way conversation, with them interjecting with questions as we go. It has proved to be a success over the last year, and has previously achieved great results.

Prior to the end of training, I always lead an interactive hands-on session where I bring volunteers up front, have them navigate a simulated call situation, with help from their peers, and I reinforce good behaviors and force them to use the call tools appropriately to build muscle memory. This usually means that by the final week, they're ready to take actual simulated telephone calls with success ranging from good to great, and a few people who suck, whom we then give remedial training to.

So that was what I expected this week, considering the way training went (pretty well), and the simplicity of the new service. But no...it was a disaster. The simulated calls I have built in the past sometimes didn't go over well because they were too tricky or muddled, so I streamlined this batch and made it black and white -- all questions with concrete answers, all things we covered extensively in training.

And they have been shitting the bed. Usually it's just a handful, but at this point, we don't have anybody excelling. They aren't even expected to memorize -- they are supposed to use the call tools I spent hours building. But they're clearly just going from memory, which would be somewhat more tolerable if they weren't getting all of the answers wrong in the process.

I thought the first session was a fluke, and then it happened again today, similar bad results. I checked everything I built yet there are no deficiencies that would support this meltdown. I can only conclude that I got a bad batch of hires, none of whom have leadership skills. Even multi-year veterans of the company are not doing well.

Normally, I would look inward and go "where did I fail?" and usually be able to find something I could have done better, but this time, I'm really at a loss. There were no warning signs of this -- everything was working just fine, and this model for the last year has yielded great results. The only difference in the last three trainings I've lead is...the people I trained. I trained quality, experienced employees before, and I'm training scrubs now. I'm realizing that I could be held responsible for this failure even though this is like trying to lead a team like the 1990 Cowboys to the playoffs.

Just trying to figure out how to salvage at this point.