Just when I had begun to convince myself that the world of Dilbert was really only a joke, that Office Space was funny because it was a caricature of real life, I was smacked upside the head with the most insulting, meaningless thing I have come across yet in my career: the Professionalism Seminar.

It’s hard for me to even begin explaining what I find wrong here. Not because there’s so little I have a problem with about it, but because beginning to explain how pissed off I am about this whole thing is sort of like beginning to write a thesis paper: There’s so much to say that it’s hard to pick a starting point.

I guess I’ll start at the top and work my way down.

A couple of weeks back, the entire body of the company got an email from the President/CEO proclaiming a new, mandatory seminar for company “associates” to learn about professionalism.

Reading this, I already got pretty pissed off for more reasons than I can imagine. First off, since when am I an “associate?” Don’t “associates” work for fucking Walmart or something? I’m an employee, but I’m not an associate. And I need to learn about professionalism? What the hell is that?

Professionalism, in the context they put it, implies something regarding the behavior of a company employee towards customers. But what is a professional? Someone who gets paid to do something, right? So I could be a professional plumber, right, and come to work with my pants halfway down the crack of my ass, and I’d be exhibiting professionalism in a plumber context? “Professional” is one of those words that has lost any real meaning and taken on a power-tie, work-through-lunch, rhetorical feel. It means jack-fucking-squat. What the seminar should be is a “customer service seminar,” not a “professionalism seminar.”

I decided the instant I read that email that not only was I going to actively rebel against it, but would also definitely need to bring my GBA with me to entertain me while the drivel rolled out of the presenter’s mouth.

Just to be sure, I asked my supervisor whether I was required to go to this seminar. I mean, I don’t actually interface with anyone outside the company except for contractors. If there’s any actual customer interaction, it’s done through some customer-facing person. Besides which, I get commendations on how easy I am to work with all the time (not that you’d be able to tell by reading this, right?). What am I going to do with a seminar?

Yes, I was required to go.

A week or so after the first email we got a second email where “associates” could sign up for a seminar session using the little Outlook voting buttons. I scheduled my session for this morning at nine. Clicking that Outlook button was the least painful/insulting part of this entire process. Admittedly, by clicking it, I felt like I was registering for my own doom. My expectations did not fall short.

This morning at ten to nine I packed up my jacket, my GBA, and my bad attitude and went down to the meeting area. They had some Costco muffins out there so I grabbed a poppy seed one in hopes that not only would I be able to go through a professionalism seminar, but would also be attacked with a random drug test. Hey, let’s make the day complete, right? I took my muffin and sat in the back row with the guys from my department.

Nine o’clock rolls around and the meeting starts. I thought there would be more people here, at least people enough to sit in front of me and block the direct view between the presenter and my GameBoy. Sadly, this was not the case. There were three empty rows in front of me, leaving me in plain sight. No GameBoy today, even with the volume turned off.

The presentation was exactly what I expected it to be, which is to say, insulting, patronizing, and less than inspiring.

Insulting because my presence at this thing implies that the company doesn’t feel I’m doing a good enough job with customer service, and rather than tell me to my fucking face they would rather hide behind a what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander style mass education. Mass education has always felt insulting to me. This was just worse.

Patronizing because the content of the presentation seemed to me to be geared for teaching fourth graders how to work together in groups. Helpful tips like “be courteous” and “do your best” came to light. Man, I was unaware that being courteous and giving my best effort would be a good thing! Thanks for bringing that to light!

Less than inspiring because… aw, shit, man - anything insulting and patronizing is implicitly less than inspiring.

During this thing we got to do a “customer service exercise” where you have this worksheet with a circle in the center and four circles surrounding that. In the center circle, you write your name. In each of the four outer circles, you write the name of someone you interact with and how/what you communicate with them.

That’s it.

I’m honestly not sure what that was supposed to accomplish. Was I supposed to gain some sort of perspective from that? Maybe try to remember the names of the people I work with every day? I don’t know. That was the exercise. They called it “The Big Picture.” I call it “The Big Waste of Time.”

The presenter also brought about several interesting analogies. For example, do you know the difference between incompetence and laziness? I didn’t, until now. Here’s how you know: Pretend someone has a gun to your head and asks you to do something. If you don’t do it because you don’t want to, that’s laziness. If you don’t do it because you don’t know how, that’s incompetence. I’ll have to remember that next time I’m shitting my pants while someone has a gun at my head.

The presentation was closed off with us getting to see the new customer service mantra. Or, I guess they’re calling it something like the “Commitment to Excellence.” Here, you’ll love this:

I will provide premier service to both my internal and external customers. I will treat my customers as partners and will provide value in every interaction. I will hold myself and my team accountable for customer satisfaction and will do so by setting an example of professionalism, creative problem solving, innovative thinking, follow-up and follow-through. I will positively impact my customers and my company every day.

What kind of fucking rhetoric is that? It sounds like something that Cold War-era East Germans would all state out loud in a group prior to doing morning calisthenics and going to work in a government factory. Like some sort of Hitlerian pledge of allegiance.

To top it all off, we got to sign cards with this statement on them, then the President/CEO of the company will sign the cards, too, and we’ll get them back in shiny wooden frames, reminders of our commitment to customer service and the two hours we wasted hearing about it. And how many thousands of dollars went into that effort?

*sigh*

In the end, it was five minutes of common sense packed into a two hour meeting. They’re going to have more of these seminars to provide us with “additional skills,” but thank God they’re not required. I might be forced to quit.

There was a comments sheet to fill out as we left the seminar. What you see here is pretty much what I put on the comments sheet, except that I used both sides and pretty much ran out of room. Oh, and I gave them some recommendations, like using proper terminology (“customer service” not “professionalism”) and potentially targeting the content of each seminar to groups within the company since listening to how you should talk to external people really didn’t “add any value” to my already busy schedule. I’m pretty sure they’ll know which one’s mine because I’m the only one who seems to ever really bitch about stuff around here. Oh, well.

I’m sure this isn’t the only company that’s pulled shit like this. It’s my first experience with it, though, so I felt compelled to share (along the lines of “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!” sort of). I’m hoping the company doesn’t continue to become a mockery of itself, but I’m remembering now back to another email we got a while ago that told us about the new “reward system” where you can get a plaque that says “You Make A Difference” on it… and I’m realizing that we have no hope - all is lost already.

Went to the Winter Hawks playoff game last night. It was good to see our hockey friends again (when you sit next to the same people all season long but don’t see them outside the arena, those are hockey friends). We had a good time sitting in the luxury box and drinking free beverages while watching the game. It always puts a different perspective on the game sitting in a seat where you see the ice as a whole rather than being right up front. I definitely like being up front better - you feel more involved. Watching from up top was sort of like watching the game on TV or playing the Playstation version. Not so great, but very relaxing.

Oh, and we lost in overtime, so I was right about jinxing the game by attending.

I forgot to mention the dinner Jenn and I went to on Sunday night!

Jenn’s dad’s birthday was Sunday (I think… at least, that’s why we were at dinner), so we all went out to eat.

Rather than choosing some place in town, Jenn’s dad chooses this place out in Mulino (that’s pronounced “muh-LIE-noe”). Mulino is… Mulino is somewhere on the outskirts of BFE. You get on the road, you drive until you get tired, then you’re in The Sticks. You drive through The Sticks for about 15 minutes, and eventually you’re in BFE. Once you see the cows, keep driving and eventually you’re in Mulino.

To keep myself busy on the trip, I brought my GBA SP. On that trip I decided that, as fun as the game is, if you’re just over a cold, then motion sickness will get the better of you. It got really hot in that car, really damn fast.

So the place we went was the restaurant at some golf course. Honestly, I was busy playing GBA so I don’t remember what the golf course was called or really how we got there. That, combined with the light motion sickness, rendered this and the entire rest of the evening pretty surreal.

I’m going to call the restaurant “Gramma’s,” because everything in the restaurant talked about how “Gramma likes this” or “Gramma does that.” I find that most any restaurant Jenn’s parents want to go to usually has some sort of “down-home” theme that goes along with the whole “Gramma’s” motif. We’ve been to another restaurant, “Grandma’s” (same thing, right?), which was okay but not nearly as interesting as this golf course joint.

As we walked inside, Jenn’s car alarm decided to spontaneously start up and refuse to be shut off. Seriously, for like two minutes Jenn fought that bitch to shut off and it just wouldn’t die.

Got in there and sat down. Looked around and decided that this was probably one of the more Twilight Zone places I’ve ever eaten.

Lurch was the greeter. You walk in, you pass Lurch. I’m not sure what the guy’s real name was, and it really doesn’t matter. He was probably seven feet tall, skinny, medium tan skin, brown hair. Bald on top, and what hair he did have was shaved a quarter inch long. Lurch was wearing a maroon polo shirt with a white sweater vest on top. Lurch’s arms looked like he had a sweater under that polo shirt. Sorta ape-like. Scary.

The inside of the joint was done up to make you feel “at home,” I guess, with everything being made out of wood and given sort of an antique look. Things like old saws and disembodied windows hung from every possible location. It was verging on incoherent; too many unrelated things floating around. The lights were not up high enough to really see well, but not low enough to really emit any mood.

Checking out the menu yielded some interesting meal choices. All of the items were something like “The Farm Hand’s Favorite” or “Gramma’s Special Meat Loaf.” On the back, there was a list of “Gramma’s Rules” like “Gramma doesn’t allow elbows on her tables” and “Gramma’s chairs were not meant to be rocking chairs.” This was topped off by “Gramma includes a mandatory 18% gratuity for parties of 8 or more” (which we were) and “Gramma requires all parties of 8 or more be placed on a single check.”

Gramma didn’t occur to me to be the most flexible of people. I started to wonder where the line between “Gramma” and “Hitler” was, and realized it was probably a pretty gray area.

Not being a big vegetable or meat loaf fan, I ended up ordering the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, minus the side of broccoli, and a Mountain Dew to drink.

The Mountain Dew showed up almost immediately, which is good because I was getting thirsty. Being in small cups and with plenty of ice, I finished my first cup full pretty quickly.

For a mandatory 18% gratuity, the service at Gramma’s sure didn’t pick me up for a refill very fucking quickly. Seriously, like 20 minutes. No wait staff to be found in the meantime.

Went to the bathroom before the food showed up and no sooner did I open the door than some guy’s bowels blew out in the toilet bowl. I felt personally affronted. I couldn’t pee and get out fast enough.

Eventually the food showed up. Jenn’s dad’s steak was cold, so he sent it back and they nuked it for him. Good enough. When my food arrived, I discovered that Gramma’s favorite spice is paprika. Everything was covered in paprika. The mashed potatoes. The country fried steak. The plate. Everything.

Started eating, and that’s when the high school fiddle player started up.

I’m not sure if he was tuning up for like 10 minutes or if I just didn’t recognize the song. Then he took a break. Jenn said that if he played “Turkey In The Straw,” she was leaving. I told her I was holding her to that.

The fiddle player came back from his break and busted out with “Turkey In The Straw.” I glared at Jenn, and she laughed but wouldn’t let us leave. He also played “Danny Boy” and some other folk tunes, then went around serenading tables individually. I was prepped to throw a fiver at him to get him to stop playing entirely, but he never came to our table. Lucky him.

We finished up dinner and I passed on the apple-strawberry-rhubarb cobbler. Rhubarb. Ick. Jenn boxed both mine and hers up and we took it home so Jenn could have it.

Getting ready to leave, Jenn’s car alarm started going off again. She ignored it while we got our coats on and left, and the whole time it was going off. Eventually we got it to stop, but she said it was because someone had done something to her car. I figured someone had broken in to steal my GBA since nothing else about the car was worth anything, but we couldn’t find any damage or theft evident, so maybe the car is just stupid.

And that was that. We got out of there and drove the million miles home. I think next time I’m going to insist that we go somewhere, uh, normal.

The Winter Hawks never cease to piss me off. I pay like $500/seat for the regular season and they suck ass. All season long they lose. Then they try to gouge me for another $300/seat for the playoff tickets, after just barely making it to playoffs by the skin of their teeth. Thinking to outsmart them (and because I wasn’t keen to invest the $600 for more losing game tickets), I declined the offer. I’ll be going to the entire next regular season, though.

Now, of course, the bastards are winning - who’d have thought? - and I don’t have my God damn seat on the glass. Doesn’t that just fucking figure?

As luck would have it, Mom called me up earlier today and she got some free tix to the game tonight - game 6 of 7 - so I’ll be able to maybe see them move from the first to the second round. On the other hand, if I go, I’ll probably end up jinxing the whole thing and they’ll just lose. Which would make some sick sort of sense.

Went running errands this weekend and while at Fred Meyer I noticed that their video games are all 20% off. That’s a pretty good deal, so I picked up Metroid Fusion (for my GBA) from them. The sale’s on until the end of tomorrow, so if I can find a place that has The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (also for GBA) available, I’ll pick that up, too. I looked around for Amplitude (for PS2) but didn’t find it.

I’m pretty much over my chest cold now, and aside from some minor congestion, I’m doing well. Thanks to all the folks who left concerned comments on my blog (Tanya). Those who didn’t can take a long walk off a short pier.

My dad and I have been working out together on Monday and Thursday evenings in the fitness center at my apartment complex. Not that it makes weightlifting fun or anything, but it helps a lot to have someone to go work out with. Besides which, it’s cool to hang out with Dad. Dad rocks.

Anyway, that working out is helping to get me a little more active than I normally am. Which is good, because I’m back to wearing my older (larger) pants size again - up to a 36 inch waist from a 34. I suppose I should expect a little of that. My diet, while I’ve not been eating too much, hasn’t really changed, while I’m now working out and beginning to build muscle mass under my flab.

Of course, I’m not wearing larger pants because I’m buff.

Saw the latest John Travolta/Samuel Jackson film, Basic, on Saturday. I liked it, as did Jenn and my dad. Mom wasn’t too keen on it, but Mom’s not much for movies that twist and turn to hard. If you like movies that twist and twist and twist again, this is definitely for you. If you have trouble keeping track of who is really double-crossing who, I’d say you might want to pass on it. Or rent it so you’ll be able to pause it and write stuff down. It’s pretty confusing if you’re not paying attention, but for those who want to invest the time, you’ll be amply rewarded.

I added some new crap to the paraesthesia junk store including some t-shirts, a camisole, panties (extra points awarded for sending pictures of you wearing the panties), and a rather cool wall clock that I myself may have to pick up.

Give it a look, then buy lots of stuff, eh?

There’s something about porn spam in my Inbox that just gives me the warm fuzzies. Especially the myriad ads for “Enhance Your Penis” or “Extra Length!” That’s just great. Please, send me more of those because you know as well as I do that I click on every single one of them and find them all worthwhile.

NOT.

Some are legitimately clever, though. I think my favorite recent one had the subject, “Satisfy your woman you pindick.” That definitely makes me want to click it. Morons. People who spam people should be fucking shot.

Okay, so I found some GBA accessories I need to get…

• MP3 Player - This actually comes in two varieties: the SongPro ($100) and the Innovation ($60). The SongPro is better with more features and higher quality sound, so obviously that’s the way I’d like to go.
• TV Converter
  • So you can play the game on the TV instead of on the little screen.
• Personal Organizer
  • Turn your GBA into a PDA…
• Macro Kit
  • A kit with a small carrying case, a headphone adapter, headphones, and a car charger. At $15, I think I’ll probably just order this and call it a day.
• Ergo Grips
  • Hand grips that attach to the GBA to relieve cramps.
• Flash Advance Card - A card that allows you to put downloadable game ROMs on it and then play them on your GBA.

By the way, I’m still loving my GBA SP. However, I’m realizing that, as simple as the unit is, that doesn’t make the games any easier. I’m still as bad at Mario Brothers games as I ever was. That doesn’t make it any less fun, though.