(no subject)

So before I realised yesterday that I was going to spend the entire day saying things wrong, I made a help request on delicious.com. They just did a code push; among other things (including a bug that wouldn't let me edit or delete bookmarks for about two days) this code push removed a major functionality. Previously, when you bookmarked something, you could look at a list of your tags and select the one you wanted; that list is now missing. This isn't normally a big deal, unless you're keeping a bookmark archive of fanfic and multi-tag each story with eight to ten tags across half a dozen categories (character, genre, rating, etc).

Then it becomes an issue!

So I emailed them and asked if there was a tickeybox that would allow me to turn on the "view your tags" option, because I would really like to view my tags when I bookmark. I said, you know, a) I'm sure this is the code push so you probably won't be able to do anything about it, and b) if that's the case, your service has been lovely but is now pretty useless to me, so let me know and I'll move on. I figured I'd get a standardised reply.

BUT NO. MY "CASE" HAS BEEN ESCALATED.

Subject: Escalation Notification
This message is to inform you that your del.icio.us Customer Care inquiry will require additional work before we can provide an answer. We are routing your issue to a Technical Support Agent with specialized expertise.

Escalation is a pretty common term, but it always makes me LOL, like suddenly it's not just tech support anymore. Now, the knives have come out. For a while my stepfather worked in customer care on the ESCALATION TEAM, and I always pictured him in a climbing harness with a hard hat, scaling a cliff to get to some user who was stranded and desperate for help.

At the bottom, the email said "Please do not respond to this message as no one will see it." I almost responded with a long email about my deepest feelings and secret fears. Think how freeing that would have been.

(no subject)

I just received an invitation to The 31st Annual MAILCOM Conference & Exhibition.

As far as I can tell, MAILCOM is like a fan convention, only for people who really love business mail. There's an exhibition hall where you can learn about the latest in mail technology. I could go to a seminar on Mail Systems Management or learn how to secure my distribution options and develop mail disaster preparedness. That's right, kids, I could be not just safety captain but also an expert in mail disasters.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: the Leadership Luncheon keynote speaker? George W. Bush.

Let me show you the layers: I could go to a convention about the mail. At this convention about the mail, I could go to a luncheon focused on developing leadership skills in mail handling. I could, at this luncheon, hear George W. Bush give his opinions of leadership in the field of postal service management. I could pay nine hundred dollars for this.

I mean, okay, I'm a Doctor Who fan, so I can't really throw stones. I work in administration and I enjoy it and work to develop new skills for it, so I'm on shaky ground when it comes to dissing other professions. And I'm sure there are people out there who love the mail and spend all their time thinking about the mail, and for them MAILCOM is the big event of their social calendar. I'm sure the mail is a very complicated system that needs this kind of attention. I bet people hook up at this thing. But oh my god it's so hard to look at the brochure and not just roll around behind my desk laughing.

I wonder if they cosplay as different famous mail carriers. It's odd how many I can think of off the top of my head. Moist von Lipwig, Mr. McFeely, Il Postino, Cliff from Cheers, that Postman who always rings twice...

Oh my god, Wikipedia has a list. They have more than one list.

I feel like I should go crash it just to see what attending the biggest Mail conference in the US is like. I do handle our office's mail, after all. But somehow I don't think BossBoss is going to fund this as a training expense.

(no subject)

I think I just snubbed Rahm Emanuel.

I didn't mean to do it. I was walking to the train, and my foot was aching from the cut and I had a headache and my headphones in and there was this guy, standing in the El station. When he saw me he came forward, smiling, hand outstretched.

Now, when a stranger does this to you in a public place in Chicago, generally they're either trying to get you to sign something or buy something. And while I am all in favour of signing things and buying things, there's usually an interminable sales pitch first.

I just wanted to get to my train.

So I did what I always do: I gave him a friendly smile and shook my head and darted around him.

About two feet past him, as I was carding into the station, I thought, huh, he looked familiar. I'm a little faceblind, otherwise I'd probably know whether or not it was, actually, Rahm Emanuel. But I think it was. He does the train-meet-and-greet thing a lot.

I'M SORRY, MR. EMANUEL. We'll do lunch, right?

The amount of facepalm, you guys...