As I am soon leaving this job, I'm going to share with you some of my favourite exchanges from my time in ye olde Computer Center.
At a job application website: "It's asking me for my resume; should I upload my resume or what should I do?" (Note: I am punctuating these sentences as I hear them in my head, but knowing this guy, there's no way in hell he'd think to use a semicolon.)
With the internet browser open on the screen: "How do I get to the internet?"
"Why is it deleting my browser history?"
"That's just something our computers do to erase any personal information you might've used while on the internet. It happens when you close the browser. It's just a security thing; don't worry about it."
"But I didn't close the browser, I just closed the window."
Thinking that browser did not equal internet in her brain, I said, "If you exited out of the internet, though, that thing is going to pop up."
"I didn't exit out of the internet."
Okay, maybe an actual error happened. "You didn't?"
"No, I just hit the red X."
(I cannot do this one justice in text, but I HAVE to write it down.)
At 5:30: "Hey sister, what time do y'all close?"
"We close at 6:00."
"Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man... Right! Man..."
(I wanted to see how long he would've gone on like this, but Daniel decided to say something to him. Damn!)
After maybe 3 nanoseconds of waving the card's barcode under the scanner light as though she were having a seizure: "I CAN'T GET THIS TO WORK WHY WON'T IT SCAN WHAT AM I DOING WRONG I NEED HELP IT'S NOT WORKING DO THIS FOR ME THIS THING NEVER WORKS AND I DON'T KNOW WHY AHHHHHHHHH!"
"How do I get to a webpage if it doesn't exist anymore?"
On the phone...on the quiet floor: "I'M AT THE LIBRARY SO YOU HAVE TO BE QUIET!"
(This one has nothing to do with IT, but it was pretty awesome. So, I work in a library, right?)
A mother to her child in the library: "Remember that place with all the books? I want you to go there."
(I feel like a jerk when I say stuff like this, but if I point at the screen, the try to touch the screen instead of using the mouse.)
"Where do I type in my pin?"
"In the box next to where it says 'pin'."
"Where do I scan my barcode?"
"Underneath the big arrow that says 'Scan Here'."
"What button do I press if I want a day pass?"
"You just touch that button that says 'Create a Day Pass'."
"I put in google in the address bar. Why won't it go to google?"
"Did you type 'www.google.com'?"
"No, I typed google."
After showing me one of those fabled emails from Prince Ahmud Jafar in Kenya or whatever: "Now, if I send him my bank account information, will anyone else be able to steal it from this computer? 'Cause this is a public computer, right? Is there some way we can delete this info after I send it to him?"
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
01 June 2011
05 June 2009
Racism is just silly.
Listening to: McLusky - Without MSG I Am Nothing
Blah blah blah, liver transplant, blah blah blah. I don't much want to talk about it yet.
So, I don't know if I ever wrote about this particular college experience of mine...I assume I must have because I was incensed about the whole event - so much so I dropped the class. Either way, the memory got dredged up, so I'll revisit it again with, hopefully, better writing.
My friend Clay posted a link to this article in google reader and I just got annoyed. I am not naive, not by a long shot. Racism is everywhere whether we like it or not. However, I have a great deal of misplace faith in the human race, it seems, because I still believe that people who are educated and are caring individuals would try to recognize when they participate in racism and try to correct their behavior. Seems reasonable, doesn't it? *sigh*
The attitude held by the administrators in the article further by the hell that is diversity quotas isn't only visible in the admissions process. I see it everywhere in the classes I've taken in at my university perpetuated by the professors and picked up by the tragically impressionable students. Here's my happy (read: infuriating) experience.
I took a class entitled "Racial and Ethnic Relations" my sophomore year of college. I was still a political science major at the time, so the class seemed relevant to my degree and I needed the unireg. One day the class was having a discussion about ethnicity specific dorm floors at certain universities. I was planning to take a backseat in the argument that day because it was already past my threshold of angry. (Thus far in my college career, I had learned something about my degree plan: Poli Sci classes are mainly comprised of militant, angry, and loud people who will take a side of an argument in a millisecond and fight tooth and nail for it, no matter how inane. We spent an entire class period arguing about the usefulness of the post office once... "We don't need the post office! This is the technology age!" "Yeah, and we, like, have fed-ex and stuff!" *facepalm* "Yeah, well I hate fed-ex!" /tangent ) The argument was this: "Race specific floors offer unity in a white dominated microsociety." vs. "Integrated floors are the only way to begin moving in directions to end racial stigmas." And anywhere in between. The argument wasn't progressing anywhere and was mostly just different, angry students reasserting their point with different semantics.
This was about half an hour into the class. Then, one of the usually quiet students (I wasn't one of those either. I spoke frequently, but I bounced from side to side and brought in new points as often as I could. More fun that way. It also kept the angry students from attacking my views outside of class. Some of them were wont to do that.) He asked, "If we have a black floor or a latino floor, is it also okay to have a floor of only students from agricultural families or all from Alaska?" He had a valid point. If the point of the floor is unity in an unfamiliar environment, why not groups of white students from different life situations as well as race-specific groups? The professor...ugh...her response was (verbatim), "When a group of black get together on a floor, it's about unity; when a group of whites get together on a floor, it's about excluding the black man."
The hell you say??? I'll never forget those words as long as I live. I couldn't even keep quiet anymore if I tried. Isn't that just condoning and even promoting racism?? Reverse racism is still racism and, yes, it is ever-present in the world, but any respectable educational institution should do its best to not only denounce such behavior, but also teach its students that a person is an individual, not simply skin or heritage. I'm pretty certain my argument fell on deaf ears and several of the angries who traditionally hung on her every word in the class set in to tear me apart for the rest of the hour.
Between that and the two Cs I'd gotten on papers earlier in the semester (which were, according to her, well written and well supported... Eh???), I'd had enough. I withdrew as fast as I could.
I don't have much of a conclusion for this... I still maintain my faith in humanity, despite it all. It's a lot easier to do as a teacher, I've found.
Blah blah blah, liver transplant, blah blah blah. I don't much want to talk about it yet.
So, I don't know if I ever wrote about this particular college experience of mine...I assume I must have because I was incensed about the whole event - so much so I dropped the class. Either way, the memory got dredged up, so I'll revisit it again with, hopefully, better writing.
My friend Clay posted a link to this article in google reader and I just got annoyed. I am not naive, not by a long shot. Racism is everywhere whether we like it or not. However, I have a great deal of misplace faith in the human race, it seems, because I still believe that people who are educated and are caring individuals would try to recognize when they participate in racism and try to correct their behavior. Seems reasonable, doesn't it? *sigh*
The attitude held by the administrators in the article further by the hell that is diversity quotas isn't only visible in the admissions process. I see it everywhere in the classes I've taken in at my university perpetuated by the professors and picked up by the tragically impressionable students. Here's my happy (read: infuriating) experience.
I took a class entitled "Racial and Ethnic Relations" my sophomore year of college. I was still a political science major at the time, so the class seemed relevant to my degree and I needed the unireg. One day the class was having a discussion about ethnicity specific dorm floors at certain universities. I was planning to take a backseat in the argument that day because it was already past my threshold of angry. (Thus far in my college career, I had learned something about my degree plan: Poli Sci classes are mainly comprised of militant, angry, and loud people who will take a side of an argument in a millisecond and fight tooth and nail for it, no matter how inane. We spent an entire class period arguing about the usefulness of the post office once... "We don't need the post office! This is the technology age!" "Yeah, and we, like, have fed-ex and stuff!" *facepalm* "Yeah, well I hate fed-ex!" /tangent ) The argument was this: "Race specific floors offer unity in a white dominated microsociety." vs. "Integrated floors are the only way to begin moving in directions to end racial stigmas." And anywhere in between. The argument wasn't progressing anywhere and was mostly just different, angry students reasserting their point with different semantics.
This was about half an hour into the class. Then, one of the usually quiet students (I wasn't one of those either. I spoke frequently, but I bounced from side to side and brought in new points as often as I could. More fun that way. It also kept the angry students from attacking my views outside of class. Some of them were wont to do that.) He asked, "If we have a black floor or a latino floor, is it also okay to have a floor of only students from agricultural families or all from Alaska?" He had a valid point. If the point of the floor is unity in an unfamiliar environment, why not groups of white students from different life situations as well as race-specific groups? The professor...ugh...her response was (verbatim), "When a group of black get together on a floor, it's about unity; when a group of whites get together on a floor, it's about excluding the black man."
The hell you say??? I'll never forget those words as long as I live. I couldn't even keep quiet anymore if I tried. Isn't that just condoning and even promoting racism?? Reverse racism is still racism and, yes, it is ever-present in the world, but any respectable educational institution should do its best to not only denounce such behavior, but also teach its students that a person is an individual, not simply skin or heritage. I'm pretty certain my argument fell on deaf ears and several of the angries who traditionally hung on her every word in the class set in to tear me apart for the rest of the hour.
Between that and the two Cs I'd gotten on papers earlier in the semester (which were, according to her, well written and well supported... Eh???), I'd had enough. I withdrew as fast as I could.
I don't have much of a conclusion for this... I still maintain my faith in humanity, despite it all. It's a lot easier to do as a teacher, I've found.
17 February 2009
Mixing Genres
Il semble que le mal ne cesse de mélange avec la bonne dernièrement. J'ai eu une magnifique soirée au sujet de joie qui vient de me suffit de faire face avec le reste de la semaine. Puis, j'ai entendu dire que je d'essayer été très difficile d'être gentil a quelqu'un était de parler de moi derrière mon dos. Vous savez, dans les pas belle façon manière. Je ne sais pas. Pourquoi feriez-vous que quelqu'un qui essaie d'être un ami? Sérieusement?
Compte tenu de mon histoire, quand j'étais beaucoup plus jeune et au cours des dernières années, je sais pourquoi je m'attarderai sur ce point. Je suis une personne auto-conscient. Je déteste que sur moi-même, mais c'est juste la vérité. Mon mécanisme d'adaptation de ces dernières années a été avoir un peu plus de personnalité à de satisfaire tout le monde et j'ai constamment me rappeler que ne tout le monde comme moi. Il est difficile de le faire, cependant. Je suis un peu déçu, mais je vais dormir et de porter un sourire dans la matinée.
Compte tenu de mon histoire, quand j'étais beaucoup plus jeune et au cours des dernières années, je sais pourquoi je m'attarderai sur ce point. Je suis une personne auto-conscient. Je déteste que sur moi-même, mais c'est juste la vérité. Mon mécanisme d'adaptation de ces dernières années a été avoir un peu plus de personnalité à de satisfaire tout le monde et j'ai constamment me rappeler que ne tout le monde comme moi. Il est difficile de le faire, cependant. Je suis un peu déçu, mais je vais dormir et de porter un sourire dans la matinée.
16 February 2009
Bad things and good things.
You know, one of the sad things about having an online blog is that I can't properly rant without having angry comments thrown back at me thus making me feel worse. That said, I'm still going to try. First, the bad things, then the good things.
Je ne comprends pas pourquoi les gens continuent à faire des choses qu'ils savent faire de moi la colère. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi ils pensent qu'il est amusant de continuer à faire des choses qui m'a bouleversé et pense qu'il est drôle. Il n'est pas acceptable d'aller dans ma chambre sans ma permission. Il n'est pas acceptable de se déplacer et de prendre mes affaires sans demander. Il n'est pas acceptable de faire beaucoup de bruit après que j'ai dit et répété qu'il est contre les règles de la maison. Il n'est pas acceptable de sourire a moi et regarder moi comme si je l'ai développé une deuxième tête quand il est bien évident que je suis en colère à vous d'ignorer quelque chose que je vous ai dit. Plus important encore, il n'est pas correct de me traiter comme un pushover. Jamais. Je suis prêt à casser. J'ai le pouvoir de faire le reste du semestre assez misérable et je n'ai pas peur de l'utiliser.
Now that that's out of my system a bit, here are the good things.
Schubert (new fish) made a bubble nest in his tank today which means he's happy. He still has a conniption whenever I drop food into his tank, but baby steps.
We made a BRILLIANT game plan for two large events later in the semester and I'm very excited to get going with them even though my life is going to be quite consumed as the semester continues.
Last night was quite a blast. Saw a friend's band. Drank... Had a great time with some really good friends. Nights at the Library are pretty rad, not gonna lie.
I made cake truffles tonite. Cake. Truffles. They're quite delicious, I must say. I got the original recipe here. And then I modified it a bit. I used Devil's Food cake mix instead of Red Velvet, 'cause the latter is quite messy. I chilled the cake type mixture in the freezer so it was less messy when rolling. I skipped step 4 and made well over 100 of them because mine were smaller. I also mixed peanut butter into the chocolate coating because I'm rad like that. Here's some pictures!
This is the rolling process...
Gretchen helping with the chocolate coating.
The finished product!
Brilliant!
I had some stuff I had wanted to get accomplished tonite, but I got caught up in other things. Obviously. I think I'm just going to go to bed and try to get the bad things out of my head.
Je ne comprends pas pourquoi les gens continuent à faire des choses qu'ils savent faire de moi la colère. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi ils pensent qu'il est amusant de continuer à faire des choses qui m'a bouleversé et pense qu'il est drôle. Il n'est pas acceptable d'aller dans ma chambre sans ma permission. Il n'est pas acceptable de se déplacer et de prendre mes affaires sans demander. Il n'est pas acceptable de faire beaucoup de bruit après que j'ai dit et répété qu'il est contre les règles de la maison. Il n'est pas acceptable de sourire a moi et regarder moi comme si je l'ai développé une deuxième tête quand il est bien évident que je suis en colère à vous d'ignorer quelque chose que je vous ai dit. Plus important encore, il n'est pas correct de me traiter comme un pushover. Jamais. Je suis prêt à casser. J'ai le pouvoir de faire le reste du semestre assez misérable et je n'ai pas peur de l'utiliser.
Now that that's out of my system a bit, here are the good things.
Schubert (new fish) made a bubble nest in his tank today which means he's happy. He still has a conniption whenever I drop food into his tank, but baby steps.
We made a BRILLIANT game plan for two large events later in the semester and I'm very excited to get going with them even though my life is going to be quite consumed as the semester continues.
Last night was quite a blast. Saw a friend's band. Drank... Had a great time with some really good friends. Nights at the Library are pretty rad, not gonna lie.
I made cake truffles tonite. Cake. Truffles. They're quite delicious, I must say. I got the original recipe here. And then I modified it a bit. I used Devil's Food cake mix instead of Red Velvet, 'cause the latter is quite messy. I chilled the cake type mixture in the freezer so it was less messy when rolling. I skipped step 4 and made well over 100 of them because mine were smaller. I also mixed peanut butter into the chocolate coating because I'm rad like that. Here's some pictures!
This is the rolling process...
Gretchen helping with the chocolate coating.
The finished product!
Brilliant!
I had some stuff I had wanted to get accomplished tonite, but I got caught up in other things. Obviously. I think I'm just going to go to bed and try to get the bad things out of my head.
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