On employment and professions, and people's attitudes toward them.

There are many careers and professions in the world.

You can be a street sweeper, cleaner, musician, barista, cook, or whatever. You can work in almost as wide a variety of industries as there are jobs; hospitality, tourism, customer service, car sales, public service..., the list goes on.

You can do these jobs because you need the money, or because you can't find anything else (same reason, really), or because you love it.

Here's the thing, though.

Media creation

So, I'm using OpenShot to render the videos I've been taking about.
God, it's a slow mess. I have a reasonably fast PC, but by god, Windows Movie Maker was faster and more stable than this ten years ago!

Ugh.

Terms of Service for nitwits.

With the election of dangerous fools into positions of power or potential power across the world over the past few years (Pauline Hanson, George Christensen, Donald Trump, et al), we have seen a marked increase in the amount of markedly false arguments being made across the whole internet. While this is nothing new in and of itself, these publicly dangerous fools have allowed the nutjobs to feel safe enough to come out of the woodwork, so to speak.

We are seeing these crazies become more emboldened than ever to discriminate, harass, and spread lies, fear, and hatred; both on the internet, and in the real world.

As a socially responsible progressive leftie (a definition of which I will provide at a later time) who cares about his fellow humans, I cannot simply stand by and allow this to happen.

I recently had a heated discussion with a character on Google+ who boasted that he was "the guy that told a hijab wearing woman in front of her family that [he's] the infidel allah warned her about because she wouldn't stop staring at [him] and [his] family" and continued to insist that he was somehow the victim of aggression, and that what he did was socially acceptable - all this in a topic about Vegemite, mind you!

Now obviously, this shit doesn't fly, and I (and others) pointed out the folly of his argument, but he continued. Not being one to back down when I believe I'm right, I completely deconstructed this individual's argument.

This takes a lot of time and energy, so I have decided to start charging for it where appropriate. In addition to my day job, I have two bands. I write, record, and produce incidental music. I provide consultation services and advice in customer relations environments.

In short, I generally have better things to do, but considering the times we live in, I'm going to take these fools on and make them literally pay for it, if it takes more than a couple of replies.

So, if you've come to this post as a result of me directing you to view it in the course of a discussion, here are my terms of service as of today:

Obviously

Obviously.

Obviously, there are pi seconds in one billionth of a century.

Obviously, the Delorean's engine in the Back to the Future series was overdubbed with a V8 sound to make it more audibly appealing.

Obviously, the Lamborghini Countach is a pretty terrible car.

Obviously, the Sega Master System was a much more capable gaming machine than the NES.

Obviously, you don't want to refactor your quantum defibrillation rods.

None of that stuff was obvious to you, was it?

Obviously, your customer doesn't necessarily know what's going on. That's why they're calling you. Using the word "obviously", followed by a technical explanation of what's going on is simply belittling your customer, and gives them the impression that you're talking down to them.

You are not better than your customer just because you know how your organisation's obscure system works. Was it obvious to you when you first started there? If not, then it's definitely not obvious to your customer.

If you want a good day in a call centre, don't talk down to or belittle your customers. Talk to them how you'd like to be spoken to if the positions were swapped.

(having said that, things like "obviously you shouldn't put your child in a blender" is OK. You might want to call child protection if your customer suggests it, though...)

On customers, and their perceived intelligence levels.

I think the biggest (and probably hardest) thing to remember when working in customer service is that your customers/callers are (for the most part) not stupid.

Sure, they might not be able to wrap their head around what you think is a pretty basic scenario, but you need to remember that you do this for a living. You see this scenario many times a day and have months/years of experience to back it up. Sure, you can work out what the issue is and how to fix it by the time the customer has said no more than ten words, but the customer has probably never encountered it before and has a completely different world of experience to yourself.

Put it this way: I can write symphonies and play guitar like a pro. I can make people think I've done something life-changing for them at work even after I've told them they owe us a bajillion dollars... but I still fully expect to not understand a goddamn thing my mechanic tells me about the quantum defibrillation rods that hold the dihedral vector conversion unit in place in my car. My mechanic probably thinks I'm an idiot when he gets a blank stare after explaining something to me, but at least he has the good grace to not talk to me or treat me like one.

At this point, I'd like to recount Isaac Asimov's short essay, "What is intelligence anyway?"
(taken from http://talentdevelop.com/articles/WIIA.htm )

What is intelligence, anyway? 
When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me.
(It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.) 

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too.
Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. 

Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car. 

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test.
Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too.  

In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly.
My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters. 

Consider my auto-repair man, again.
He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me.  

One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand.
"The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"
Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers.
Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them."  

Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you."
"Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart." 

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Just put yourself in your customer's shoes for a moment before you start casting aspersions on their intelligence. You'll have a better time if you do.

Edit:
This isn't to say that stupid customers don't exist. They're just in the minority, is all.

Desmodus Reunion!

First time we've played together in nine years. On 45 minutes of practice as a whole band. With a new drummer.

Did we kick butt?

You'd better believe we kicked butt!