As you will no doubt listen to in the next Station Nation, OR AT LEAST YOU’D BETTER, I had an interesting day yesterday leading up to the podcast. The day started off like any other day, with me in my bed alone because my wife had to deal with my son being an asshole all night, thus no sex especially since she’s segwayed from being sick into being on her period and no doubt will segway back into being sick, so we all know rape is a likely future scenario.

Naturally I’m awoken not to my alarm clock, as I’ve already punched it about 5 times, but to my daughter, who once again is playing in her room at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM when she knows she’s not supposed to be awake. I calm her ass down (aka scream and yell and threaten bodyslamming), then start to prepare myself for what I already know is going to be a day of shit.

See, earlier in the month, back when I was on the super awesome overnight shift where nothing ever happens, I was scheduled to do a shitload of sales training via online training videos. While I still wholly object to the idea of a high level tech support agent doing ANYTHING remotely close to sales, I still would’ve done the training all the same had it been set up correctly for me.

Assuming management was being dumb again, I didn’t say anything until last week when I also remembered it was due by the end of the month and e-mailed one of the supervisors, who immediately berated me for it and re-sent links. So yesterday, all day, in between calls, I listened to the horseshit that is “handling customer concerns,” “closing the sale,” “moving the conversation forward,” etc.

And again, while this is legitimately interesting stuff, I’m just not a salesperson, so I’m more or less jut playing along. Of course, this was especially annoying because it wasn’t just stuff I could read, oh no. It was stuff I had to listen to, participate in, and much more. As a result, I couldn’t really do it while I was on calls, so I ended up having to stay over just to finish it all.

Of course, I may not have had to stay over were it not for obnoxious and stupid customers. Lately we’ve had to deal with more and more customers. Now I know…that does sound a little strange, but hear me out. In a position like this, most of the time you’re providing advice to techs in the field or agents that call you up unsure of what to do next. In the event you DO have to speak to a customer, it’s usually because it’s something the agent absolutely cannot handle and may require a technician to be dispatched anyway or it’s a tougher computer issue that may need to be referred to a professional.

Lately, however, management seems to forget we actually do have a customer service department and throws us in the customer service queue to “help out.” Although, if that was the case, you’d think they wouldn’t put “get sales” in the same e-mail, but I digress. As a side note, usually they don’t even bother telling us anymore or apologizing, which adds further insult to injury.

So while I’m trying to learn why I should sell and how to build rapport with customers, I’m also dealing with a customer who’s complaining that her bill should be adjusted every time her Internet goes down for even an hour, even if she doesn’t call in, and yes, even after I gave her a very handsome credit for her next bill. Thus I was running a bit late when leaving work, but no biggie as I knew I would probably still be there before 7:30 PM.

I’m calmly driving home, mulling over the events in my day, laughing them off. Everything’s going swimmingly, just peachy. I think to myself “Self, it really hasn’t been that bad of a day, but let’s go get a beer.” I concur with myself that that sounds like a jim dandy idea. I proceed to stop at the stop sign before this weird ass intersection in the small town I live in, then pull forward to go to the market I normally get beer at when HOLY SHIT RED AND BLUE LIGHTS OH MY JESUS.

But Cool Face was ineffective!

I calmly pull into the market parking lot and wait. “What did I do? What happened? Is it me they’re pulling over?” The officer gets out and, sure enough, tries to claim I ran the stop sign. I’m 100% complaint when I realize…my insurance has lapsed. Out of sight of the officers, I’m panicking as I frantically search for something, ANYTHING, that will convince them I have some sort of insurance…and find nothing.

I continue to at least look like I’m searching when they come back and state that I need to sign the ticket. They give me a copy and just tell me to have proof of insurance when I come to court. They pull away, I breathe a sigh of relief, and get out of the car. And this should let you know how awesome the guys are at the market…as soon as I get out of the car…”Oh, they got you too, huh? Man, that guy’s an asshole…been givin’ tickets to almost everyone coming here lately. Cobra, right?”

FUCK YEAH

The “Cobra” he was referring to was a King Cobra, Gun Sage’s po’man’s beer of choice, and with a somewhat depressed nod, I entered. I then slowly made my way home and informed my wife of the news. While she’s fairly confident we’ll be fine, I’m still worried as fuck about my license and car. Either way, we begin Station Nation and everything seems fine at first, but then three very distinct and annoying things begin to happen.

One, my wife feels the need to interject about every other sentence, much like in real life. Two, my son feels the need to SCREECH right behind my ear to the point I almost turned around and popped him one. Three, my daughter has been sentenced to her room to clean it up…and I hear her playing. So here I am with two interjecting, interrupting, pace-breaking motherfuckers behind me and my daughter being asshole of the year in the three ring circus as well.

A reasonable recreation of my daughter’s room.

Either way, it was a fun Station Nation and hopefully it will be edited well enough to not explode your eardrums as you listen to it. Next time, however, I’m carrying a taser for when I do SN.

Category: Comedy, Rants, Station Nation | Tags: 3, anger, beer, blood, brat, car, child, cop, hood, insurance, jerk, morning, my, Nation, parent, police, punk, station, today, vengeance // 7 Comments »