Carnival of Wank

I used to train call center agents how to troubleshoot technical issues with a specific piece of software (a tale for another time), and one class a particularly outspoken agent (who had a tendency to ask rather personal questions) asked me “Do you like grilled-cheese sandwiches?” Please keep in mind that the subject of the moment had nothing to do with grills, cheese, or eating.

I stood in front of the class, slightly perplexed, and pondered for only a moment before answering, “Yes….”

Undeterred by the skeptical look on my face, she asked another question: “If I made you a grilled-cheese sandwich, would you eat it?”

This time I didn’t hesitate before answering with a firm, blunt, “No.”

Everyone laughed. The girl didn’t seem at all surprised, and dropped the subject. I honestly have no idea why she asked (I never did ask her), but based on some of her other questions (again, a story for another time) I can only assume she had a mild crush on me.

I did, however, explain to the girl, and class why I wouldn’t eat the offered sandwich, and why I no longer take my shoes off if someone else me not to.

I worked as a field technician for a small computer for five or so years before starting the training job, and in that time developed a set of rules. Every tech that I know has some variation of them, and for good reason. The rules I’m referring to are how to keep yourself safe when out in the field, and they are as follow:

1) Never, under any circumstances, eat or drink anything offered by the customer, no matter how clean the house is or how healthy the customer/family looks.

- The story behind this rule: I came down with food poisoning no fewer than three times in the first two months of doing field work, all traced to what I’d eaten at customers homes. Hence the refusal of the offered grilled cheese. A clean house does not mean that the owner can cook.

2) When someone says, “Oh, don’t worry about your shoes – this place is a mess!”, DON’T TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!

- I’m your stereo-typical overly-polite Canadian, and I always used to take off my shoes when entering someones house. Not anymore. It took half-a-dozen ruined pairs of socks and a can of fungicide to learn that lession.

3) Always carry a pair of rubber gloves, a dust mask, and an apron in your car/truck.

- I had a new customer call up asking if we could pick up her computer. Not unusual in the slightest, as we offered the service to people with disabilities or those without transportation. After driving out to her apartment, I knock on the door, and nearly gag as the door opens. Inside the apartment were at least a dozen birds, some in cages, most not. Feathers and bird shit covered everything, and her computer was directly under three cages. I informed the customer that she’d need to clean the computer, and I’d come back to pick it up later. When I got it to the shop (after sealing it in a bag), I wore the aforementioned attire while cleaning the inside of it. This customer became know as ‘The Bird Lady’, and standing policy to tell her to clean the computer before we got there, and to take the near-hazmat-suit along. This is also when I started asking about Danger Pay.

4) Don’t worry about hurting someones feelings.

- See rules #1 and #3.

5) If someone says, “Don’t look in the folder named ‘Lioness‘ on the desktop!”, don’t look in the folder named ‘Lioness’ on the desktop!

- One of my co-workers (we’ll call him Tyler) experienced this one, and shared the lession around. A customer of ours, who was married and had (still does, from what I hear) a major crush on our boss, dropped off her computer and told him (our boss) not to look in the Lioness folder. Then she winked at him and left. The boss gave the computer to Tyler, who thought “Why not?”, fired up the computer, and had a look. Inside the folder? Gigabytes of home-made porn, with Mrs. and Mr. Lioness staring. The nickname stuck, and Tyler still can’t get the images out of his head years later.

So if you ever plan on doing some some field work, be it as a computer tech or an HVAC servicer, I’d strongly advise you create some rules of your own, or borrow these. Trust me – your body will thank you.