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The Art Of Seduction
There are not words, some days.
I...wait, wha?
Me: “Good evening, <my actual company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Is this a telephone company?”
Me: “.....Yes?”
SC: “You’re not a massage parlour too?”
Me: “…..No”
You’re going to have to bump up my pay grade several notches for those particular services. Also note the operative use of the word “too”. Meaning she was expecting a combo deal of telecommunications and full body massage. Call centre in the back office, massage tables in the front office. Two great tastes that should not be allowed anywhere near each other by anyone with a remotely rational mind. But look who I’m talking to and on what shift. Rationality rarely factors into my work here.
SC: “How much do you charge a month for an inbound account?”
Me: "I'm afraid sales is not in at this hour, you'll have to give us a call back in the morning."
SC: “Oh, okay. What time will they be open?”
Me: “They should be in after 8am or so.”
SC: “Alright, thanks.”
Hopefully, the morning staff can one day find it in their hearts to forgive me.
Quantum Leap
Me: “Good evening, <my actual company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Are they open yet?”
Damn, has it been 9 hours already? Time goes by so fast. I could have sworn it’s been all of 4 minutes since we last spoke. What madness is this? I must be hurdling head long towards the grave as we speak! Either that or the office has somehow detached itself from normal time space and now exists within its own dimension cut off from the outside world by all means except for phone lines. Dooming me to a eternity alone yet at the same time still forcing me to take calls until I perish from old age within the void.
I knew I should have bought more than a 6 pack of Coke Zero on my way in tonight.
A Likely Scenario
Time for a thrilling edition of Myth vs Reality!
The Myth:
Your son has been effectively kidnapped by Canada. We are keeping him confined and interrogating him. Possibly beating him with hockey sticks. We are not allowing him access to the outside world and not advising him of any of his legal rights. We can do that because he’s American and we’re Canadian so we only care about Canadians, not Americans so now he’s in Canadian Gitmo. Which is supposedly at YVR where he is being kept in jail. You know this because “a friend of yours” was in Vancouver once and they locked her up in the airport for an entire week before they let her go. Despite the fact YVR does not have jail cells, it has a holding area that is staffed entirely by domestic security guards and no one ever stays there for more than 24 hours. But none the less, maybe they are keeping him in the boiler room chained to a pipe.
He is only 20 and doesn’t know anything he’s just a kid. We are a cruel, oppressive country that does not abide by any sort of international laws or regulations thus we can lock him up forever with no reason. Which we apparently are doing. Also, Canada Immigration called you and asked you some questions which you thought was very very rude and they supposedly threatened you and your son. Because Canadians are internationally renowned for our ruthlessness and super villain like proclamations of doom.
Oh, and I am a horrible person and a waste of tax payer money because I cannot help you locate and free a person I have zero information about. Whom you do not know where he is, what’s going on or why its occurring nor have you volunteered a single reasonable piece of information for me to work from. Oh, and I am the scum of the earth because I won't pay for a $700 airline ticket to fly him home.
Does that about cover it? Good.
The Reality:
Your son is being denied entry to Canada. All this means is he’s being sent back home in the morning. He is not in a jail cell. He is perfectly fine and sitting in a waiting area until his flight in the morning leaves. Also, he went to Canada on a one way ticket on a brand new passport to meet a girl he’s known for all of a week off of the fucking INTERNET, that offered to let him stay at her townhouse. Yet Canada Immigration is the one you’re alarmed over in this entire scenario. If you show up in Canada on a one way ticket with an invalid passport with your only stated business being that you’re suppose to stay with a person you’ve never met before at an undisclosed location then yeah I imagine Canada Immigration is going to ask you an extra question or two.
Also, you do not have to pay for the return ticket. Additionally, you can get a return ticket to for around $200 on no less than 3 different airlines as long as you don’t mind a 30 minute layover. $300 for a non-stop. The only way it could possibly cost $700 if you were booking him first class for his triumphant return home or if he had the same mass and girth as a wildebeest and thus required 3 or more seats.
So in closing your son is an idiot for going, you’re an idiot for letting him go and I’m an idiot for having the courtesy to hear you out. You have lessened all that you have touched.
Hot....Tip?
SC: “This has to go to <lawyer>'s cellphone immediately. Joe Colburn. Nickname “The Boxer”.”
Me: “.....Alright.....how do you spell his name, please?”
SC: “Just put it down however you think its spelled. Put down nickname “The Boxer”.”
…you don’t know how to spell it? Also, why the insistence on a nickname? Does <lawyer> nickname all of his clients ala Dubya? Or do you think by adding a mobster like alias this will somehow indicate to <lawyer> that this is a big time case and thus expedite service?
SC: “Tell him that he’s at <RCMP Station>.”
Me: “So…Joe is in custody?”
SC: “Yeah.”
Me: “Sorry, who are you?”
SC: “I’m an anonymous tip.”
Me: “……Right”
I am not Crimestoppers. I do not accept anonymous tips nor will I award you $10,000 for any information that leads to a new client. In fact I actually require a name and contact information. Crazy, I know.
SC: “Keep on that, because another friend of mine was in custody last weekend and you guys totally failed! You didn't pass the message on at all!”
Get out of town! You mean you called last week, completely refused to identify yourself or give any contact information and left only a silly message about a supposed friend of yours that isn’t a client but has a ridiculous nickname and we didn’t take a message? To hell you say! Why that almost makes me really want to leave a message for you this time.
Almost.
Drain Bamage
SC #1: “Hallo?”
Me: “Hi.”
SC #1: “Who am I speaking to?”
Me: “This is GK, are you calling to place an order?”
SC #1: “Yes.”
Me: “Alright, what is your name please?”
SC: Voice #1: “……Sere…na….ke..uh....mfgl?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
SC #1: “I jus wanna check if dis…ummm…..jacket is still available.”
Me: “Alright-“
SC #2: “Here, let me talk.”
SC #1: “Jus a minute.”
SC #2: “Hello, I just wanted to know if this jacket was still available?”
Ah, I see the true speaker has deemed me worthy and will exchange words with me. Instead of using a clearly…damage…intermediary.
SC #2: “Can I ask you something? I don’t know, like it’s a men’s jacket-”
SC #1: “Yeeagha! Did you give da right number?”
SC #2: “Yes I did! It’s a tet….teeton, T-E-T-O-N jacket?”
Me: “Yes.”
SC #1: “Give me da phone!”
SC #2: “If I buy it for someone that has a chest of 40-“
SC #1: “It’s oaklyan blue!”
SC #2: “She said Oakley and blue or something?”
SC #1: “Plyanic blue?”
SC #2: “Panic blue?”
Me: “Olympic blue.”
SC #2: “Ooooh, Olympic blue!”
SC #1: “Huhheheh!”
SC #2: “I really don’t know about my friend sometimes, but I still love her.”
Something about the way you said that leads me to believe the rest of the thought is “But at night she still goes back out in the shed”.
I Don't Even Want To Know
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Uh, imma order 6 hoodies.”
6? An impressive number. I would question the practicality of that many, but since you have already ordered some odd $500 worth of pants I think practicality has long since died of dysentery on the trail here. Though I would caution you, there is a COD limit. You must struggle to keep this below a 4 digit figure if you truly wish to roll around in this illogically large pile of ridiculous looking gangsta paraphernalia. I’m not sure there’s a hoodie in the catalog under $100. And you are about to select 6. Like much of your daily life, you are about to embark on a brutal, tragic struggle with basic arithmetic. What will you do?
Me: “Alright, what size?”
SC: “Uh……hold on. Imma go try a shirt to see what size….”
……right, ok, not quite what I expected for your next course of action. There are so many strange implications in that statement I’m not even sure where to begin. For starters, it implies you are not wearing a shirt right now. Which is not an image that I, and indeed any living creature with the ability to visualize, needs. Secondly, the combination of “a shirt” and your total lack of knowledge of the not just your own clothing sizes, but the sizes of the clothes you currently have access to suggest that you are not going to go try on your own clothes. But rather someone else’s.
If I combine those two points with the level of rationality and coherency you have displayed so far I can only come to one conclusion: You have broken into someone else’s house drunk and ass naked then discovered our catalog mid way through fashioning yourself a toga out of the drapes. When confronted with the opulence of our selection, you were driven to call and lament your desires to me. And I, unfortunately being employed to listen to those desires, have no way to truly escape this conversation except to document your lusts.
......
SC: “Hi, uh, I called earlier?”
Me: “Yes, what I can do for you?”
Was 6 hoodies not enough? How many more hoodies must be sacrificed to satiated you? Won't someone please, think of the polyester?
SC: “Uh……uhh………………”
Me: “………..?”
SC: “…………………uh………..”
…..no rush, whenever you’re ready. Take your time. Whenever and if ever you remember why you touched the phone, I’ll be here.
The Art of Seduction
( And before you ask she sounded like the average college sorority girl )
Me: “Good evening, <company>, how may I help you?”
C: “Hi!”
Me: “Hi.”
C: “Would you like to have sex with me?”
Me: “Not particularly, no.”
C: “Not particularly?! <To background> I ask em and he goes NO?!”
Me: “………”
C: “What about now?”
Me: “No.”
C: “Well, what about now?”
Me: “No.”
I don’t know what sort of desperate quivering lust is driving you forward, but believe me when I say I want utterly no part of it. I’m not even going to begin to theorize why you’re calling a real estate office of all places to find someone to proposition. If your standards are truly so low that you’re aiming for “Anyone that will pick up a phone” as potential mate material you may find you’ll have better luck just randomly running up to some guy off the street and trying to get his genitals into your mouth before he can react. Which would come with the added benefit of negating any potential travel time to the target. Failing that, I am sure there are any number of inanimate objects around on the street that lack the ability to refuse your advances. Benches, lamp posts, waste bins, bus stops, possibly a Starbucks. Just try to avoid cars as you’d likely set off an alarm.
Really, you don't sound too picky at this point so just close your eyes, pick something and wrap your legs around it.
The Art of Seduction II
C: “I’m back! Hi!”
Me: “….Hi.”
C: “What about now?”
Me: "God, no."
I would surmise that the medium of choice in your art of seduction is crayon.
( She actually made 5 or 6 more dialed attempts at my virtue, but my on hold key had more patience than she did. )
Thats Not How This Works
Things I Can Do:
Send someone to fix your roof and/or drain.
Things I Cannot Do:
Send someone to trespass onto your neighbour’s property to fix his drain so it doesn’t pour water onto your property. It doesn’t matter if you claim to be friends with them. It doesn’t matter if you think they wouldn’t mind. It doesn’t matter if you offer to pay for it. It is not an issue of me not being compassionate or sympathetic. It is not an issue of me not “understanding”. It is a simple issue of it being illegal. I’m not calling up the on call roofing guy and asking him if he wants to trespass onto someone’s property and fuck around on their house without their permission because the woman next door promised to pay for it. He will either laugh at me or tell me where I can go lodge “it”.
I commend your persistence in trying to shop around for a roofing company that will break the law for you, but as you soon realized many of the ones in the lower mainland end up on my doorstep. Thus you were repeatedly thwarted in this bizarre criminal endeavour.
Finally, this is not a matter of me not “being a nice person”. Why don’t you go over onto their property and start screwing around with their house then explain to the police that you’re just “a nice person”. I’m sure they will fully understand.
And On That Note
I am not being “rude” by asking for your phone number. Nor am I being “rude” by explaining that because you apparently don’t have a phone number it may be difficult for the maintenance guy as he requires us to get a phone number. I am also not being “rude” by asking you to actually explain the problem you’re having instead of blindly sending the maintenance guy to your suite. Finally, I am not being “rude” by asking you the name or address of your building. I am simply getting the standard required information as put forth by your property management company. I get the impression you have utterly no idea what the word “rude” actually means. Either that or you are psychologically projecting your own flaws upon me.
You on the other hand, did not have a phone number, did not know the name or location of your building and could not explain the problem in any way shape or form aside from “water”. Yes, ok. Water. Very good. Water what? Water leak? Water flood? Water backed up in toilet? No hot water? No water period? Water what? I managed to somehow glean enough to classify it as some sort of water leak. But you would not tell me where the leak was or even if it was coming from the ceiling, floor, toilet, sink, etc. Just that oh my god there was water and your life was in jeopardy send the maintenance guy to my totally undisclosed location immediately.
Annnd rest. ( Horrific at work this week with the huge rain storm Saturday night. Rest is acutely required. )
I...wait, wha?
Me: “Good evening, <my actual company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Is this a telephone company?”
Me: “.....Yes?”
SC: “You’re not a massage parlour too?”
Me: “…..No”
You’re going to have to bump up my pay grade several notches for those particular services. Also note the operative use of the word “too”. Meaning she was expecting a combo deal of telecommunications and full body massage. Call centre in the back office, massage tables in the front office. Two great tastes that should not be allowed anywhere near each other by anyone with a remotely rational mind. But look who I’m talking to and on what shift. Rationality rarely factors into my work here.
SC: “How much do you charge a month for an inbound account?”
Me: "I'm afraid sales is not in at this hour, you'll have to give us a call back in the morning."
SC: “Oh, okay. What time will they be open?”
Me: “They should be in after 8am or so.”
SC: “Alright, thanks.”
Hopefully, the morning staff can one day find it in their hearts to forgive me.
Quantum Leap
Me: “Good evening, <my actual company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Are they open yet?”
Damn, has it been 9 hours already? Time goes by so fast. I could have sworn it’s been all of 4 minutes since we last spoke. What madness is this? I must be hurdling head long towards the grave as we speak! Either that or the office has somehow detached itself from normal time space and now exists within its own dimension cut off from the outside world by all means except for phone lines. Dooming me to a eternity alone yet at the same time still forcing me to take calls until I perish from old age within the void.
I knew I should have bought more than a 6 pack of Coke Zero on my way in tonight.
A Likely Scenario
Time for a thrilling edition of Myth vs Reality!
The Myth:
Your son has been effectively kidnapped by Canada. We are keeping him confined and interrogating him. Possibly beating him with hockey sticks. We are not allowing him access to the outside world and not advising him of any of his legal rights. We can do that because he’s American and we’re Canadian so we only care about Canadians, not Americans so now he’s in Canadian Gitmo. Which is supposedly at YVR where he is being kept in jail. You know this because “a friend of yours” was in Vancouver once and they locked her up in the airport for an entire week before they let her go. Despite the fact YVR does not have jail cells, it has a holding area that is staffed entirely by domestic security guards and no one ever stays there for more than 24 hours. But none the less, maybe they are keeping him in the boiler room chained to a pipe.
He is only 20 and doesn’t know anything he’s just a kid. We are a cruel, oppressive country that does not abide by any sort of international laws or regulations thus we can lock him up forever with no reason. Which we apparently are doing. Also, Canada Immigration called you and asked you some questions which you thought was very very rude and they supposedly threatened you and your son. Because Canadians are internationally renowned for our ruthlessness and super villain like proclamations of doom.
Oh, and I am a horrible person and a waste of tax payer money because I cannot help you locate and free a person I have zero information about. Whom you do not know where he is, what’s going on or why its occurring nor have you volunteered a single reasonable piece of information for me to work from. Oh, and I am the scum of the earth because I won't pay for a $700 airline ticket to fly him home.
Does that about cover it? Good.
The Reality:
Your son is being denied entry to Canada. All this means is he’s being sent back home in the morning. He is not in a jail cell. He is perfectly fine and sitting in a waiting area until his flight in the morning leaves. Also, he went to Canada on a one way ticket on a brand new passport to meet a girl he’s known for all of a week off of the fucking INTERNET, that offered to let him stay at her townhouse. Yet Canada Immigration is the one you’re alarmed over in this entire scenario. If you show up in Canada on a one way ticket with an invalid passport with your only stated business being that you’re suppose to stay with a person you’ve never met before at an undisclosed location then yeah I imagine Canada Immigration is going to ask you an extra question or two.
Also, you do not have to pay for the return ticket. Additionally, you can get a return ticket to for around $200 on no less than 3 different airlines as long as you don’t mind a 30 minute layover. $300 for a non-stop. The only way it could possibly cost $700 if you were booking him first class for his triumphant return home or if he had the same mass and girth as a wildebeest and thus required 3 or more seats.
So in closing your son is an idiot for going, you’re an idiot for letting him go and I’m an idiot for having the courtesy to hear you out. You have lessened all that you have touched.
Hot....Tip?
SC: “This has to go to <lawyer>'s cellphone immediately. Joe Colburn. Nickname “The Boxer”.”
Me: “.....Alright.....how do you spell his name, please?”
SC: “Just put it down however you think its spelled. Put down nickname “The Boxer”.”
…you don’t know how to spell it? Also, why the insistence on a nickname? Does <lawyer> nickname all of his clients ala Dubya? Or do you think by adding a mobster like alias this will somehow indicate to <lawyer> that this is a big time case and thus expedite service?
SC: “Tell him that he’s at <RCMP Station>.”
Me: “So…Joe is in custody?”
SC: “Yeah.”
Me: “Sorry, who are you?”
SC: “I’m an anonymous tip.”
Me: “……Right”
I am not Crimestoppers. I do not accept anonymous tips nor will I award you $10,000 for any information that leads to a new client. In fact I actually require a name and contact information. Crazy, I know.
SC: “Keep on that, because another friend of mine was in custody last weekend and you guys totally failed! You didn't pass the message on at all!”
Get out of town! You mean you called last week, completely refused to identify yourself or give any contact information and left only a silly message about a supposed friend of yours that isn’t a client but has a ridiculous nickname and we didn’t take a message? To hell you say! Why that almost makes me really want to leave a message for you this time.
Almost.
Drain Bamage
SC #1: “Hallo?”
Me: “Hi.”
SC #1: “Who am I speaking to?”
Me: “This is GK, are you calling to place an order?”
SC #1: “Yes.”
Me: “Alright, what is your name please?”
SC: Voice #1: “……Sere…na….ke..uh....mfgl?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
SC #1: “I jus wanna check if dis…ummm…..jacket is still available.”
Me: “Alright-“
SC #2: “Here, let me talk.”
SC #1: “Jus a minute.”
SC #2: “Hello, I just wanted to know if this jacket was still available?”
Ah, I see the true speaker has deemed me worthy and will exchange words with me. Instead of using a clearly…damage…intermediary.
SC #2: “Can I ask you something? I don’t know, like it’s a men’s jacket-”
SC #1: “Yeeagha! Did you give da right number?”
SC #2: “Yes I did! It’s a tet….teeton, T-E-T-O-N jacket?”
Me: “Yes.”
SC #1: “Give me da phone!”
SC #2: “If I buy it for someone that has a chest of 40-“
SC #1: “It’s oaklyan blue!”
SC #2: “She said Oakley and blue or something?”
SC #1: “Plyanic blue?”
SC #2: “Panic blue?”
Me: “Olympic blue.”
SC #2: “Ooooh, Olympic blue!”
SC #1: “Huhheheh!”
SC #2: “I really don’t know about my friend sometimes, but I still love her.”
Something about the way you said that leads me to believe the rest of the thought is “But at night she still goes back out in the shed”.
I Don't Even Want To Know
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Uh, imma order 6 hoodies.”
6? An impressive number. I would question the practicality of that many, but since you have already ordered some odd $500 worth of pants I think practicality has long since died of dysentery on the trail here. Though I would caution you, there is a COD limit. You must struggle to keep this below a 4 digit figure if you truly wish to roll around in this illogically large pile of ridiculous looking gangsta paraphernalia. I’m not sure there’s a hoodie in the catalog under $100. And you are about to select 6. Like much of your daily life, you are about to embark on a brutal, tragic struggle with basic arithmetic. What will you do?
Me: “Alright, what size?”
SC: “Uh……hold on. Imma go try a shirt to see what size….”
……right, ok, not quite what I expected for your next course of action. There are so many strange implications in that statement I’m not even sure where to begin. For starters, it implies you are not wearing a shirt right now. Which is not an image that I, and indeed any living creature with the ability to visualize, needs. Secondly, the combination of “a shirt” and your total lack of knowledge of the not just your own clothing sizes, but the sizes of the clothes you currently have access to suggest that you are not going to go try on your own clothes. But rather someone else’s.
If I combine those two points with the level of rationality and coherency you have displayed so far I can only come to one conclusion: You have broken into someone else’s house drunk and ass naked then discovered our catalog mid way through fashioning yourself a toga out of the drapes. When confronted with the opulence of our selection, you were driven to call and lament your desires to me. And I, unfortunately being employed to listen to those desires, have no way to truly escape this conversation except to document your lusts.
......
SC: “Hi, uh, I called earlier?”
Me: “Yes, what I can do for you?”
Was 6 hoodies not enough? How many more hoodies must be sacrificed to satiated you? Won't someone please, think of the polyester?
SC: “Uh……uhh………………”
Me: “………..?”
SC: “…………………uh………..”
…..no rush, whenever you’re ready. Take your time. Whenever and if ever you remember why you touched the phone, I’ll be here.
The Art of Seduction
( And before you ask she sounded like the average college sorority girl )
Me: “Good evening, <company>, how may I help you?”
C: “Hi!”
Me: “Hi.”
C: “Would you like to have sex with me?”
Me: “Not particularly, no.”
C: “Not particularly?! <To background> I ask em and he goes NO?!”
Me: “………”
C: “What about now?”
Me: “No.”
C: “Well, what about now?”
Me: “No.”
I don’t know what sort of desperate quivering lust is driving you forward, but believe me when I say I want utterly no part of it. I’m not even going to begin to theorize why you’re calling a real estate office of all places to find someone to proposition. If your standards are truly so low that you’re aiming for “Anyone that will pick up a phone” as potential mate material you may find you’ll have better luck just randomly running up to some guy off the street and trying to get his genitals into your mouth before he can react. Which would come with the added benefit of negating any potential travel time to the target. Failing that, I am sure there are any number of inanimate objects around on the street that lack the ability to refuse your advances. Benches, lamp posts, waste bins, bus stops, possibly a Starbucks. Just try to avoid cars as you’d likely set off an alarm.
Really, you don't sound too picky at this point so just close your eyes, pick something and wrap your legs around it.
The Art of Seduction II
C: “I’m back! Hi!”
Me: “….Hi.”
C: “What about now?”
Me: "God, no."
I would surmise that the medium of choice in your art of seduction is crayon.
( She actually made 5 or 6 more dialed attempts at my virtue, but my on hold key had more patience than she did. )
Thats Not How This Works
Things I Can Do:
Send someone to fix your roof and/or drain.
Things I Cannot Do:
Send someone to trespass onto your neighbour’s property to fix his drain so it doesn’t pour water onto your property. It doesn’t matter if you claim to be friends with them. It doesn’t matter if you think they wouldn’t mind. It doesn’t matter if you offer to pay for it. It is not an issue of me not being compassionate or sympathetic. It is not an issue of me not “understanding”. It is a simple issue of it being illegal. I’m not calling up the on call roofing guy and asking him if he wants to trespass onto someone’s property and fuck around on their house without their permission because the woman next door promised to pay for it. He will either laugh at me or tell me where I can go lodge “it”.
I commend your persistence in trying to shop around for a roofing company that will break the law for you, but as you soon realized many of the ones in the lower mainland end up on my doorstep. Thus you were repeatedly thwarted in this bizarre criminal endeavour.
Finally, this is not a matter of me not “being a nice person”. Why don’t you go over onto their property and start screwing around with their house then explain to the police that you’re just “a nice person”. I’m sure they will fully understand.
And On That Note
I am not being “rude” by asking for your phone number. Nor am I being “rude” by explaining that because you apparently don’t have a phone number it may be difficult for the maintenance guy as he requires us to get a phone number. I am also not being “rude” by asking you to actually explain the problem you’re having instead of blindly sending the maintenance guy to your suite. Finally, I am not being “rude” by asking you the name or address of your building. I am simply getting the standard required information as put forth by your property management company. I get the impression you have utterly no idea what the word “rude” actually means. Either that or you are psychologically projecting your own flaws upon me.
You on the other hand, did not have a phone number, did not know the name or location of your building and could not explain the problem in any way shape or form aside from “water”. Yes, ok. Water. Very good. Water what? Water leak? Water flood? Water backed up in toilet? No hot water? No water period? Water what? I managed to somehow glean enough to classify it as some sort of water leak. But you would not tell me where the leak was or even if it was coming from the ceiling, floor, toilet, sink, etc. Just that oh my god there was water and your life was in jeopardy send the maintenance guy to my totally undisclosed location immediately.
Annnd rest. ( Horrific at work this week with the huge rain storm Saturday night. Rest is acutely required. )
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