Talkin' 'bout Uzi-Biotech

It has been remarkably useful for me these past few days to invite cold callers (sales reps who have never met me before who'd like me to open an account with them and buy enough gear to send them to Bermuda for a week) to call me back later in the afternoon. After saying this, they simply don't call me back whatsoever. Nice.

One of the downsides of surviving a layoff is that the remaining people in the department have no idea how to do the jobs previously done by those laid off. Today I got a voicemail from someone that basically went along the lines of "I have a question about something in the database that Jim used to take care of. Call me back." What? Am I supposed to know how Jim did his job? When did I ever say to you "if you have any problems with what a coworker does, call me because I know how to do his job, too"?

I find joy in having cute little stream-of-consciousness conversations with people in other departments. I imagine I sound a little like Robin Williams when I do this, but it's very relaxing to just shoot the breeze and get stuff off of my chest at the same time. Today the conversation started with whipping dead batteries at squirrels and meandered through The Phantom Menace, Clerks: The Animated Series, Cartoon Network, Liquid Television, and Æon Flux before finally ending on My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist and Mark Leyner.

The normal folks — none of whom have ever heard of Mark Leyner before, let alone phrases like "gallium arsenide sushi" or "i was an infinitely hot and dense dot" — seemed to humor me, but I admit I got some strange looks. Perhaps a short-lived dalliance in pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, Dennis Miller-esque stand-up comedy is in order.