Last year, some time, Jared and Jordan were going through a phase where they would say, “With all due respect,” when none was meant. It was a way, they said, of getting away with telling someone exactly what you thought without them directly realizing you were trashing them.

With all due respect….

What has caught my attention is someone who calls in and says they are going to do something and then ask, “If you don’t mind?”

My response to that question is, “What if I do mind?” and, “Does it really matter?”

The reasons I have those responses are because I do mind, I don’t want to spend any more time on the phone with an individual than I absolutely have to. AND, they only ask if I mind after they’ve told me I am going to do something and are warning me of the action. The customer doesn’t really care whether or not I mind. That isn’t really the question. What they are saying is, “With all due respect…” and then proceeding to do whatever it is they were planning on doing anyway.

It is the nature of the beast. It is the nature of telephone support.

“Hey,” says anonymous customer, “I am going to eat children.”

“Great,” says anonymous support person, “I will sit here and listen to the children cry and scream as you eat them.”

And yet, people know, whether actively or passively, that when they ask that question they are not going to get an honest answer.

“If you don’t mind,” the customer said.

“But I do mind,” I said and then hung up the phone.

“What did you just do?” the manager asked.

The manage. PAH! They gave me an out. “I hung up the phone.”

“Why?”

“Because they asked if I minded and I did so I hung up.”

“That’s NOT what we pay you for.”

“Sure it is. The customer was helped. I was just sitting there listening to them do… hell if I know… and I got tired of it…, with all due respect.”

“What,” the manager gets a confused look in his face, “oh, well then… you’re right. Good job.”

There are some unspoken guy rules that, for many guys, have no need of ever being spoken of. These change, depending on where you are in the world and your culture. And for many of those, I have no clue as to define what they are. For the United States, though, and for Utah, I have a pretty good idea of what rules to follow.

One of the guy rules is that when there are a lot of open seats, two guys cannot sit next to each other. If you do, other guys might assume that the two guys sitting together are… uhm… weird. Gay. Homosexual.

I don’t, personally, care one way or the other about this particular rule. If you are that paranoid, then you shouldn’t be going out only with the guys. But that leads to another guy rule.

If you, as a guy, only, ever, associate with women, you must also be gay. You have to have guy friends (if you have friends) and you have to associate with them. Otherwise your sexual orientation is called in to question.

Guy rules. They make sense to someone. I don’t know who, but, you know, someone.

These rules extend in to the types of embraces that are acceptable in different social settings. For example, you can hug, but with that hug you have to beat each others backs – hard. I have a roommate that, on occasion, is very touchy feely. I don’t worry about him, because that is who he is, but according to the Guy Rules Guidebook, he is breaking some very serious rules whenever he actively (and seemingly randomly) goes around giving other guys a hug.

Or, take, dating. In Utah the first thing you do is check out a chicks left hand ring finger. If there is a ring there you don’t approach the chick with the intent of asking her on a date. Just not good mojo. She is taken, leave her alone.

Now, if she approaches you all flirty, then you can respond, in kind, and get to know her better; which is where a sub-rule comes in to play: If chick is only engaged and is still flirty, she is fair game until she is married. Meaning, you can pursue said girl because said girl may be engaged to a missionary and is not sure she wants to marry said missionary.

However, before proceeding on said assumption, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that chick is only wearing an engagement ring and not a wedding band; and that said chicks missionary is not coming home in two weeks. If said chicks missionary is coming home in two weeks it is necessary to allow said chick to discover whether or not changes in missionary are acceptable (or not) and whether she wants to continue being engaged to said missionary.

These are just the rules. I didn’t make them up. I just get to interpret them because, well, I live in this state and have to deal with the people.

There are other rules.

So, let’s say you are at a gas station and you see an attractive woman standing by her car. You choose to ignore the guy she is with and walk up to her and try to start a conversation. You don’t look to see if she is wearing a ring, and you don’t pay attention to the person she is with.

There are a couple of rules being broken. First, the guy didn’t look to see if there was a ring. Second, he didn’t pay attention to who the chick was with. These are both complete faux pas. You just don’t do that. It’s a guy rule.

And yet, it happens.

Another hint at what is appropriate, say, in the example of the gas station attendant, is that the chick then turns to the guy she is with and allows him to answer the questions, expects him to answer them. As the guy the chick is with your job is to answer the questions quickly and perfunctorily and with as little enthusiasm as possible. Under the guy rules guidelines this is a clue that what you, as interlocutor, are asking is not appropriate.

Now, lets say that guy breaking the rules doesn’t get it. He is still asking questions and hasn’t gotten the clue. He asks something like, “What are you out doing today?”

The answer, “I am out with my fiancé,” chick flashes ring.

Guy breaking rules responds, “Oh, I thought you were out with your dad.”

Fiance does not look old enough to be “dad” and with sunglasses on looks, if anything, younger – NOT OLDER. Chick tells guy, “I don’t get it.”

Guy breaking rules, says, “I was making a joke.”

Chick says, “I didn’t get it.”

Guy breaking rules walks away.

There are guy rules for a reason. It is like the Constitution and other laws. They exist so that people know how to communicate with each other and how not to step on each others toes. Not everyone follows the rules. Some of the rules exist so as to assure the people around them that the guy in question is secure about his sexuality. Guy rules are there to help guys get along with each other.

If you go to a different country, the rules are different. If you live in a different state, the rules may be slightly different. The point is that there are rules for a reason and those rules need to be followed.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this entry.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

So, at the moment I work for a support company. We support people who have their web hosting with us. It is a shared hosting environment, which means that a lot of people (about 400 accounts) share a single server and IP address. The distinction between most people, in this environment, is their username. In some cases, though, we will sell an individual a static IP address; however, they are still sharing space on a server.

As a result of this environment and the cost of the service, we get customers from all over the world. Literally. All over the world. Not all of them speak English. Those that do, sometimes, know there is an issue with communication. They know, in advance, that they do not speak well or clearly.

That I can deal with – when the individual also tries to be understood.

However, what get’s me, a lot, are the people who know this about themselves and don’t try to be understood. They don’t care. They expect that some special magic wand will be waved and there will be a tacit level of understanding that exists between person calling and the company being called.

It doesn’t work that way. Never has.

The issue here is that if you know enough about speaking English, and we only offer support in English, then you know that you, as a non-native speaker will not speak as well as a native speaker. That’s not really an issue. When you are willing to work with me, I am willing to work with you.

However, when you, as a non-native speaker, choose to not participate in the communication process, the process fails. I can ask, I can prod, but if you are not willing to try and speak with me, if you are not going to try and make the effort to help me understand what you are saying, then I’ve got nothing. I can’t help you.

Case in point:

Today I get a call from someone who had (to me ears) a distinct middle-eastern accent. I know this, in part, because of the domain name and because of his address information. His problem was that his index file was becoming corrupted. Not my problem. I don’t support index files. I don’t support code; but in his estimation, I should because I am the representative of the company (to him).

The issue was exacerbated by the customer telling me one domain and really meaning another domain. And all of this with an accent and vernacular that is not/was not compatible with my ability to understand. When I would say something like, “Sir, I want to help you, but I don’t understand what you want me to do, look at,” he would repeat, verbatim, the same thing over and over again.

So, I finally figure out what domain he is actually calling about. I look at the domain, click through the error messages, take a look at the code, and see that he is using a CMS (content management system) and I ask, “What software are you using to run your website?”

He says, “I don’t know what you mean.”

I say, “I can see from the errors that you did not code this website. What software are you using.”

He says, “I’ve uploaded this six times.”

I say, “I’m sorry, sir, if you are not willing to work with me I cannot help you.”

He says, “You corrupt my index file.”

I say, “Sir, we don’t do that.”

He goes on about something for several minutes and I sit back and just listen. Some calls just get to a point where nothing you say will change anything. I get that. When a call gets to that point I sit and listen to the customer rant and rave. I understand being upset and angry and I understand needing to vent and I understand that sometimes you just allow yourself to vent on the dude that answered the phone.

When he was done, which happens sooner or later (longest being yelled at time, current job, 30 minutes), they then ask, “Are you still there?”

My response, pretty pat, “Can I help you with your problem now?” and then I do what I can to make sure we don’t hear from them again.

Today, well… multiple problems; first, the dude wasn’t willing to actually try and communicate his problem. I wanted to tell him to use our chat function as most people can write English better than they can speak it; which is also true of native English speakers speaking other languages; second, dude finally said, “I will just reinstall it again, for the seventh time,” and then hung up the phone.

Conversation done.

However, this reminds me of Siraj.

Siraj was a teacher I had several years ago for Anatomy and Physiology. He was from Pakistan. He chose not to speak English very clearly. He told us that we would be lucky to understand what he said and that he would be testing off of the notes. He also expected us to be present every day of our lives.

Some tidbits about Siraj. 1) He’d been living in the United States for about 15 or 20 years, 11 of which were as an illegal alien. 2) He had the ability to speak perfectly clear and understandable English whenever he wanted to – as was frequently demonstrated whenever he decided to rail on the American government. 3) Siraj went off radar after 9/11.

He had an ability to make himself understood that he chose not to use. Most people do. You can change the way something is said and help the recipient to understand meaning. You do have that ability. And yet, some people, like the stereotypical American traveling the world, feel that you, the individual, should cowtow to them and their language. Accommodate me. Accommodate me. Accommodate me.

It is not an American ideal. It is a world ideal.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

It has gotten to be somewhat late in the day. I am on the verge of not caring about the website, in part, because I feel not as good as I want/need to be feeling. Work was work, and today, of all days, we had a rash of people who called and complained about their site security and the nature of the help they receive when calling technical support whose stated purpose is and has been to ensure that they can a) connect to their e-mail and b) troubleshoot problems to the point of it being a server issue or a code issue and then in the former solving the problem and in the latter sending them on their merry way. I like sending them on their merry way; but sometimes, you just have to be yelled at for ten minutes before you get to say, “Goodbye,” and, “Good day.”

That is, pretty much, my job – except for when people come to me and tell me they want me to write something to which I have taken to ask, “Do I get to be off the phones?” If the answer is, “Yes,” then I do the writing. If the answer is, “No,” then I look at them and say something to the effect of, “I might get to it, but don’t hold your breath.”

I bring that up because, in the course of my day-to-day life at the DAY JOB I have been told, repeatedly, that people will introduce me to the real movers and shakers in the company, the owners and people who really make decisions; but, also in the course of my day, I discover that those are blank promises not (actually) meant to be followed through on and (actually) meant to placate me as other people (in my estimation) make power-plays. It is, at the same time, fun and exhausting to watch. However, in line with that, I introduced myself to the one person in the company I’ve been told I need to meet, pretty consistently, over and over again and he told me, once he understood who I was (because, apparently, my name does come up on occasion) that he had some work he wanted me to do.

As usual, everything is taken with a grain of salt; but in this case, I think that grain of salt might prove to be a bit more effective given who I was speaking with.

Truth told, I am only interested in doing my job. If that entails answering phones, that is all that I want to be doing. If it means writing things, then I don’t want to be answering phones. It’s not a give-and-take thing, give a little to take a little; rather, I want very specific things and expect that, in the long run, I will get them or they will accept that I will do the job (very well, if you need to know) and eventually move on.

Moving on is inevitable. The question, here, though is when I move on.

At the moment, the plan is to go on for an MFA in Writing, though we’ve also discussed other options. Since I have at least another year and a half of school, and possible dragged out in to two full years (depending on load and foreign language requirement (I have to take one, its just a matter of taking one and passing)). After that, though, we head in to the realm of graduate school and the working world.

I did some updates to a few of the sites. In Order to Write is about to change CMS systems. CMS stands for Content Management System. I’ve currently got Joomla 1.5 running there, and I like the look of it; but the feel of it, after trying to make it work for what I want it to work for, just doesn’t fit the bill.

What I am looking for is a system that will scale what we are trying to accomplish with the site. At the same time, I had Joomla 1.0.12 running on Wollstonecraft Publishing, The Adventures of Alicia Grey, Mary and Kierk, and The Clockwork Princess and have changed all of those to a different CMS – the one I intend to use on In Order to Write. You can look at that one here.

Wollstonecraft Publishing has a single static page there. I’ve written some description and will expand on it, and maybe add elements, in the future. Since I work with people who code HTML all day I’ve been getting a hankering to try my hand (one more time) at the code thing and see what I can do with a single splash page. Nothing fancy, just stuff.

Beyond that, not a lot to report on. We are sub-40 days to the wedding. Erin and I and two of her friends (a married couple) went to see the Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant this past weekend. I am going to sit under the adage, “If you can’t say nothin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all,” which is not entirely true as some people have heard me talk about the pageant and my thoughts/feelings about it. I may have something to announce in that vein later, but, as for now, until we go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant, I think Erin and I are pageanted out.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

It is now Friday. Friday is the day before Saturday. Tomorrow, Saturday, I am hoping to have my windshield repaired. I’ve been parking on the street for a week now to avoid the sprinklers so that no more water (than necessary) gets inside the windshield. With that, I am planning, first thing, to drive to Salt Lake and have the company that installed the windshield to fix what they messed up last year. Every time I’ve gone up that way, they have told me to come back using stellar logic in explaining to me why I need to come back. Stellar logic is sarcasm.

Earlier, I bought three tickets for a hike up to Timpanogos Cave near Alpine. I’ve not done that hike (or gone in to the cave) since I was a wee lad with my father, younger siblings, and cousins. It used to be a yearly adventure we did. Somehow, though, that was tossed by the wayside. The plan, today, is for Erin and her brother to go with me. I believe Erin will go, I don’t know about her brother. I may have to buy an additional ticket depending on what I am told may be happening.

Last night I wrote the first draft of a first script for Jordan. I titled the script, “The Two Hitmen,” and then saved it and walked away. In my computer bag, today, are the notes Jordan sent me that I was pulling inspiration from, so I can write another of the scripts. As I said, and still have to follow through on, I told Jordan I’d have his scripts done by Wednesday next week.

I’ve also been working on a piece of fiction. Not sure how it is going to go, but I have a lot of the plot in my head and that is a good thing. Flipping through some of the books I bought the other night has helped me realize some of my problems in the past… on top of which, putting the elements of the story in to Dramatica and see what suggestions that has for me as I pursue writing this thing.

The working title is, Backward.

I did not get to the author interview last night. There are some significant steps that need to be taken – and going through existing questions is only a part of that. As my focus is for interviews to be more writing specific than just asking questions of an individual I think some of what Erin is suggesting (given what I’ve read on other authors blogs and sites) is right in line; but, more so, I need to look at this authors current body of work to make sure the nature and tone of what we’re asking is in line with what we are trying to accomplish with In Order to Write.

As a piece of gossip, I heard that my brother, Jared, broke his leg. Don’t know how it happened, but that happened in the same week he and Emily had their second daughter. My mom is on her way in his direction, what?, today to help with the girls. So, this week should prove to be interesting.

Beyond that, I think things are good. But, really, sleeping on an air-mattress is proving to be (long term) very interesting. I can see the appeal for them for a one, two-night sleep; but as a long term solution they are not optimal.

Oh, speaking of air-mattresses, I moved the bookshelves to The Married Apartment the other week. I’ve moved, I think, about 35% to 50% of the books over. The last two boxes (from two days ago) are still sitting on the front room floor. It requires me to unpack them and put them where they belong. The truth, though, is that I am highly selective where books will sit in the long-term and what is easily accessible to friends and relates when they walk through the door. I don’t really like loaning books, though I do loan books, and having someone I don’t, personally, know or like come and ask really causes some levels of anxiety in me. I don’t know why. So, there is a hierarchy of how books are shelved and where.

That and I have some books that are just not public information. You don’t get to know that I own them.

Anyway. That’s really it. Other than a planned trip to Manti tomorrow for the Manti pageant I think everything is hunky dory.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

Today marks two things.

First, it has been six weeks since the nasty finger incident early in the morning before work and I can now, officially, live my life without the specter of the splint on my finger (not that I’ve warn it a whole lot in the last two weeks). Woo-hoo. This is exciting. My finger is still sore and stiff a lot of days and I don’t have full range of motion with it, but it is better today than it has been in the past several weeks.

Second, TODAY also marks exactly 42 days, six weeks, until Erin and I get married. Yup. Six weeks from when I wrote this. Almost exactly. SIX WEEKS. SIX WEEKS. SIX WEEKS.

Thought I’d share.

I haven’t updated the website in a few days. This is not for a lack of trying, on my part. Rather, I work all day and play all night. Well, not really play. By the time I get off work and then do the things I need/have to do (and talk to Erin and her brother) and then sit and think about writing something as an update to the website it is late and I’ve not done anything.

So, as a result, I thought, “Take some time during the day today.”

Here I go.

Last night Erin and I went and paid off the fascist-pig-dogs also known as RC Willey. We no longer owe them money for anything, which makes Erin happy and allows me to move forward with other things in my life. Granted, I would’ve liked to delay that a couple of weeks (next paycheck) but, with all said, I am glad that we didn’t delay it.

After RC Willey we stopped by Petsmart or Petsco or Pets-R-Us or whatever the big box pet store is called near the fascist-pig-dog establishment we were paying off so that Erin could buy some spray in a bottle that would ward off male cats like spray areas to (I have no idea if this is true) mark territory or something.

As we left there I said I wanted to go to Borders and then drove to Borders. While there I was looking for the latest Fables graphic novel: Fables 9: Sons of Empire, that was supposed to have been sent to my from Amazon.com, but wasn’t and when I got tired of them not sending it to me I cancelled the order and wrote them an e-mail informing them that the lack of communication with them informing the public the book was “In Stock” was unacceptable and that I would find (for this one book) an alternate vendor. Which was the reason I wanted to go to Borders last night, you know, levels of alternate vendors. Top level vendor, for books, Amazon.com. They discount and I don’t pay shipping charges. Second level, for books, Borders stores – Borders offers me incentives, like discounts on books (though not as steep) and dollar amounts off when I purchase X amount in books. Third level, for books, is generally Barnes and Noble and other bookstores like Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, and used bookstores. Fourth level, for books, are other online book retailers. Final (and this is only as a drastic last case scenario) are the series of eBay companies that are evil and should not be used, ever.

Now, I did buy books at Borders, but that’s not the reason I went. I was looking for a graphic novel (glorified comic book) and I wanted it a week or two ago when it was released to the public. At this juncture, I went to Borders because, well, they are supposed to have stuff like that. They didn’t.

I was bummed.

Erin asked if there was somewhere else we could look. I told her it required us to drive back in to Provo. She said she didn’t care. After we were done we drove down to the comic book shop just around the corner from where I live. It is not intuitive in there, to me, and it is more a game shop than comic books. Comic books look to be a side bit, for them, that allow them to feed a desire for their customer base. As the graphic novel I want is produced by a DC imprint called Vertigo, and Vertigo is less super-hero based and more supernatural oriented with well thought out story telling and more artistic drawing to their work, it didn’t really surprise me that they didn’t have Fables.

We left.

After getting back to Erin’s, and giving her the receipt for my book purchase (I might update y’all on that later – much, much, much later… like months), I proceeded to pull the Borders stickers off the backs of the books. I’ve commented on this before, and I will comment on it again and again and again – I HATE THEM. And yet, they get a bit of my book-buying business. Go figure. It take, what, ten seconds to pull stickers and they don’t appear to leave residue so… I guess I am good with it.

Which then leads to the book purchases from last night. I purchased:

Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark

The Writers Complete Fantasy Reference, by Writers Digest Books with a forward by Terry Brooks

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Crawford Kilian (comes with a CD – not normally a selling point, but one in this case)

Writers Workshop in a Book, edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez with an introduction by Richard Ford

The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform your Fiction, by Brian Kiteley

This, by the by, is career development stuff and inordertowrite.com site development stuff. Combine the two (e.g. I want to write and I want to create a site for writers to gather writing advice, etc) and you get the idea of why I purchased them.

My mission, today, is to flip through and review the information and begin garnering what can be used as material on the website as well as what needs to be done to review the “useful factor” in each book. My mission tonight is to go through some questions Erin wrote yesterday and see what sophisticated, writing oriented, questions we can send to our first author interview… now that I am feeling like I am a week late on that one. He’s agreed to it, I need to e-mail him and let him know why I am running slow (it was hitting my head in the shower) and then get it done.

After all of that (last night) was accomplished I finally gave Jordan a deadline for when I would write a series of five scripts, five minutes each, for a utube thing he is interested in doing. He claimed that I’d already given him a deadline and I hadn’t. Love it when people mis-remember things. I’m very careful about what I promise – and in this area, I don’t make promises because… well… I don’t. I did last night, though, which means I have to go back to wherever I stored the notes for his five scripts and remember the structure of what I was planning on writing for the boy.

I’ll have to let y’all know how that goes.

On a completely different side note, I am going to (I think) add categories to this blog. That is only important if you are one of the … well … no one that uses the category listings to see what I’ve written in the past. The categories will, effectively, be copies of anything I write for other websites. If you are really interested in seeing what comes down the line, check the categories. In Order to Write will be one. There is, at least, another one that I will be marking, soon.

With all that, I hope this appeases some people.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond