Had to leave work early today, due to headache, nausea, dizziness, general malaise and feeling-really-gross-and-vomitous-ness. On the way home, at one point I was behind a truck with a bumper sticker I hadn’t seen before, and was gobsmacked by: “Impeach Obama.”
Really? What are we going to impeach him for? Presidenting while black? Fuck off and die, you racist asshole. Or maybe we’re going to impeach him for not only being better than Arbusto, which isn’t saying much at all, but for actually being pretty fucking great, period – which then makes Arbusto look even more like the piece of shit he was. Or maybe we’re going to impeach him for releasing those torture documents that Arbusto would rather have had destroyed? Here’s the thing: any memo, any report, any piece of paper, even emails, any DOCUMENT, that is produced by a public office in the course of its work – that’s all a matter of public record, according to law. (I know this because I took a class and some workshops on archiving, and records management and retention/disposition. I could dig up the pertinent link to prove this to you, but I’m really trying to bitch real fast and then crawl my miserable ass into bed, so I’m not going to right this minute. Sorry. Also, if you ever heard shit like, “The CIA has a training pamphlet for assassins and you can get it if you just request it by the correct record number from this specific agency” – um, I don’t know about the assassin pamphlet specifically, but the rest is definitely true: you can actually request copies of all public records, or request to see/have access to, and as long as you request it properly – like, the right record number to the right office of record who retains it – they have to produce it.) That’s why we have presidential libraries/archives – to store all those records (which, in this instance, really refers to what most people would consider “documents”). And they’re public record – as in “on the record” and “available to the public.” So, getting your knickers in a twist because the documents were released and not shredded or conveniently “lost” somewhere so the public could never find out how fucking atrocious, heinous, inhumane, and ultimately INHUMAN your candidate really was? You’re not just being a whiny dick, you’re a whiny dick whining about not being able to do illegal shit. Shut the fuck up already and stop making me ILL. No thank you for making my headache worse, and adding “revulsion” and “just-plain-ill-ness at people in general for still being so shitty and hateful” to the malaise mix.
Yeah, so anyone with an “Impeach Obama” bumper stick, can eat shit and die, in my book.
Then I get home and have a more minor irritation, but I’m blogging it nonetheless because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a “mistake” but a specific someone trying to get back at an uppity bitch who doesn’t know her place (that would be me). I happened to remember, when I got home, that I needed to update my credit card info with ADT, since they auto-charge. (No thanks to whoever hacked Visa, and forced me to be given a new card, and then have to remember who to call to update my info with so I don’t get late fees. Booo to you hackers.)
The shorter version is, way back when we were getting ADT set up, everyone I talked to at the corporate office were wonderful and pleasant and a joy to work with. This one dude out of a more local office – and the only reason he called me in the first place is he was trying to claimjump our actual rep’s commission – anyway, this one dude out of the local office (closer to us, I guess, but I’m not sure exactly where they’re located) was a pushy, rude motherfucker who kept trying to bully me into getting a cell phone backup when I made it perfectly clear we did not want one, and he generally took that whole “do what I tell you, little lady, because you are too dumb to think for yourself” tone, which is sooooo not the tone to take with me. And I kept trying to be polite, and trying to get him to acknowledge my boundaries*, and finally he trots out some bullshit, smarmy-ass crap about how I should really just listen to him and do what he says, because 1-he’s my local agent, so I’ll be answering to him anyway “if anything were to happen”, and 2-he can provide better customer service than corporate could. About the first reason – *we’re* paying ADT for this service, so if anyone is going to be “answering” to anyone else, it’s ADT who’s going to be “answering to” us. Maybe he meant “work with” instead of “answer to,” but the choice of that phrase is a macho move to try and throw power around, and felt almost threatening, like, “If you don’t do what I want you to, when you get broken into, I’ll make sure sweet time is wasted before calling the police for you,” and fuck you very much. I did respond verbally, to him, about his second reason, by pointing out that, actually, corporate had been nothing but pleasant and helpful, while he, on the other hand, was not listening to me, was incredibly rude and pushy, and wouldn’t quit badgering me about the stupid cell phone backup that we adamantly didn’t want. At which point he said, “Well, you’re coming on pretty strong now.” and hung up on me. Yeah, hung up on me. I guess that’s another example of how his customer service is better than corporate’s. Anyway, I promptly called corporate to tell them that I wasn’t at all pleased with this bullshit, and that if he really *was* our local agent, I wanted to request a new one. Turns out, he’s not *our* agent, he was just trying to claimjump. So fuck him. I think he might have gotten in a little bit of trouble about it, and I think rightly so – it’s what he deserves for being such a pushy, rude dick to his clients, and also for trying to claimjump. (There’s probably another word I could use to keep from repeating “claimjump,” but it’s eluding me right now.) Anyway, so a couple weeks ago, “somehow,” at the local office, a cell phone backup got tacked onto our account, as if it had been installed. Luckily the credit card that got pinged for the accompanying charge had been deactivated by then and replaced, so the charge didn’t go through.
When I called corporate today to update my credit card info, they were like, “Oh, by the way, the charge for your cell phone backup was rejected and is still outstanding.” And that’s when I was like, “We don’t have a cell phone backup, please get me to whoever I need to speak to about clearing it up.” Which, after several transfers (because, honestly, I feel shitty and wasn’t explaining the problem very clearly – it had nothing to do with ADT’s people), ended up being a VERY NICE and helpful woman at our local office. (So, nice and helpful customer service can be had with them, just not from that one dude, whose name I don’t remember anyway, not that I would blast him on the internet if I did, because I’m fucking classy.) And she cleared it up for me, and apologized profusely. “I just can’t understand how this got added to your account in our office, when it’s clear in your file that you don’t have a cell phone backup.” Oh, I have a suspicion. But, since she took care of it, and the charge didn’t actually go through, I’m just going to chalk that suspicion up to…I don’t know, paranoia? NO – hysteria. Because that’s what all snotty bitches who come on too strong have, right? Anyway, I’m not going to worry about it. But if we ever get another spurious charge that somehow magically got tacked on our account by the local office, then I *will* call corporate up and have a little chat with them about that one particular dickbag and get them to look into it and make it stop.
Now I’m going to go take some ibuprofen and some anti-nausea, and “make out with my pillow.” (If you don’t get that, you should start watching The Unusuals.)
*My therapist says this is part of my mistake – that when people ignore the boundaries I’m setting, I shouldn’t try to gently point out the boundaries again and give them another chance to respect my boundaries. Instead, I should just be like, “I’ve been perfectly clear about what I want, so there’s really nothing more to discuss at this time, so I’m going to hang up now.” I think she’s kind of right – it *will* mean I’m being less passive and more assertive, but I think dicks like this guy are still going to interpret it as me being a bitch. Not that I really care what they think, they’re dicks.
