Persecution by Voice Mail
Having recently come out of the closet as a big geek, I have no further shame in admitting to the world (or the various people who apparently load these pages each day) that the notion of time travel has always fascinated me, pretty much ever since I read (and re-read and re-read) A Wrinkle in Time as a small (smaller) girl.
On this particular day, in our year of madness 2005, I would like to go back in time to 1876, track down Alexander Graham Bell, talk him out of the lab and into the bar and get him so freaking drunk that he completely forgets whatever spark of genius/madness caused him to invent the telephone.
The days following the publication of Annual Manual are always, um, what's the word: shitty? Basically, it's call after call from those not included in our listings. People seem to assume that I should be able to somehow, through, I suppose, miracles of physics and weird Jesus-type maneuvers, cause a set number of pages to include infinite amounts of information and a handful of people to do the work of thousands. They expect everything that's ever been thought, done, said or invented to be included in the manual. Furthermore, they are astonished, outraged, confused and angered if they bought an ad but were not listed. I find this particular line of thinking quite aggravating and my bedside manner, such as it is, usually doesn't hold up much past them wanting to know why buying an ad did not result in getting listed. Now, I'm quite sure that if I went around to people and told them that if they paid money we'd write about them, they would find that unethical (rightfully so) and be outraged. But, having spent the money, they seem to be incapable of understanding why that didn't result in getting listed. So I ask you, readers, are people just…ok, ok, I promised myself not to use that word today.
I had intended to write this morning about the David Pfeffer/immigration stuff barely mentioned in today's morning papers, but I've been thrown off course by FOURTEEN voice mails this morning (they weren't all about annual manual, but the two that were so infuriated me that I may need to go walk around the block 10 times to calm down) that I've lost my train of thought. So, more later…
On this particular day, in our year of madness 2005, I would like to go back in time to 1876, track down Alexander Graham Bell, talk him out of the lab and into the bar and get him so freaking drunk that he completely forgets whatever spark of genius/madness caused him to invent the telephone.
The days following the publication of Annual Manual are always, um, what's the word: shitty? Basically, it's call after call from those not included in our listings. People seem to assume that I should be able to somehow, through, I suppose, miracles of physics and weird Jesus-type maneuvers, cause a set number of pages to include infinite amounts of information and a handful of people to do the work of thousands. They expect everything that's ever been thought, done, said or invented to be included in the manual. Furthermore, they are astonished, outraged, confused and angered if they bought an ad but were not listed. I find this particular line of thinking quite aggravating and my bedside manner, such as it is, usually doesn't hold up much past them wanting to know why buying an ad did not result in getting listed. Now, I'm quite sure that if I went around to people and told them that if they paid money we'd write about them, they would find that unethical (rightfully so) and be outraged. But, having spent the money, they seem to be incapable of understanding why that didn't result in getting listed. So I ask you, readers, are people just…ok, ok, I promised myself not to use that word today.
I had intended to write this morning about the David Pfeffer/immigration stuff barely mentioned in today's morning papers, but I've been thrown off course by FOURTEEN voice mails this morning (they weren't all about annual manual, but the two that were so infuriated me that I may need to go walk around the block 10 times to calm down) that I've lost my train of thought. So, more later…
posted by Julia at 8:37 AM
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