Still looking!

News update:
Well the job search is still going on, yesterday I went for an interview for a c/s position at Volkswagen Canada, Man they were fast. I thought the interview went rather well until they asked me what I knew about their company...I had to open my stupid mouth ( I read one too many books) So I began by letting them know that indeed I knew a little about their company for one I began by giving them a little history on their company.
It all started with a dynasty in the mid 1700's by a man named "Krupp" he was the original major German steel fabricator in a place called the Rhur in Essen (Germany). He made huge steel ingots that fascinated the world and blah...blah..blah..Moving on I then explained to them about his part in the Napoleonic era and the first world war....by the way I also explained that even though the Germans lost that war the Krupp's made all kinds of money from selling munitions to both sides. After that war the family took the French to an international court 'cause the French did not want to pay for the munitions used and guess what? Not only did the family win, they also got a certain amount per shell fired by the French canons because they mathematically figured out that each shell killed about 4 people ( on average) so they were also compensated for the people killed.?!?!? Yup weird!
Again moving on I then proceeded to explain that during the second world war the "Krupp" family went on to manufacture more armaments and also started to make the VW's ( Volkswagen) and by the way i am omitting certain historical points here (due to the length of the story)....They did extremely well due to the "free labor" they had at their disposal and the pillaging of all European companies. In conclusion one family member did go to jail for a small amount of time only to be released and have all his assets returned to him ( thanks to the Americans) and continued to be the largest steel manufacturing in Europe.
Well I should have seen it in "Herr Schmidt"'s" eyes, (the German recruiter) cause now that I think about it although this was all true I might have just stuck to the ignorant version which is ..Yup VW, great company, Great car,well made and from Germany! that might have been a little better.
Well go figure by the time I reached home and powered up ye 'ol compute to my dismay there was a message from "Herr Schmidt" notifying me that my application had been rejected. I thought to myself that that was quite a fast answer and looked at the time the message had been sent.....Again to my amazement the message had been sent 4 minutes after I had left his office.Oh well, but wait! There is a moral here:
No one (German) wants the new generation to know and/or remember these facts, especially someone who would be way too young to have access to that kind of information, I just hope VW doesn't still have some kind of Nazi death squad on reserve to hunt down people like me...If they do well, I am very sorry to have offended your history because none of that happened and no "slave labor" was ever used and the holocaust never happened and I am not Black!"
Thank you and please don't kill me!

Criminal records

Another sorry bit of news, as an individual from the c/s industry ( c/s= customer service) I was shocked to find out that working for a bank with a criminal record is non relevant yet working for a phone company with a record is unacceptable! Does this make any sense whatsoever????? Well in this realm I guess it does cause I recently applied for a c/s job at a phone company...no names ( Telus!!!!) and was told that due to the fact that I had a criminal record I would not get the job....But wait a sec. I just came from a major Canadian bank with whom gave me a great reference (unless they read my most recent post and decided to change their minds))..Ok 2 major Canadian banks.
Someone must have slipped something in my watered down Gatoraid 'cause I'm lost for words ( the first time ever) Let me pose the question to you my most dedicated readers does this make sense to you?
Well to me it sure as hell doesn't, anyways no bitterness intended, the banks were fully aware of my judicial stupidities ( not to go into details but it was for something really dumb that happened over 4 years ago) So I guess that my original post now clarifies allot now doesn't it? Yup!
In the industry you Can have a criminal record to work for the banks but not for the phone company!?!?!?
Well moving on I guess I'll have to re-apply to the financial sector to get a job which really does not interest me whatsoever but you need to do whatever to stay alive right?
What is the world coming to, I might as well go get a little inebriated go to the bus stop smash a window get picked up by the police go to jail, get 3 squares a day a roof and get privileges for taking government sanctioned university courses....At least that way when I do get out with some kind of business degree my good references will get me a managerial position at the bank and might take me away from the c/s industry!
Comments?

Armored cars and the lot

I used to live on the West coast of our country ( Vancouver to be exact) and had a few friends that worked for an armored car service called Loomis, you might have heard about them or have seen their yellow trucks all over the place but what you might not know is that they have two divisions the first being the armored car services and the second being a courier company. One night I ended up at this really interesting fellow's house party ( the guy was so bitter with the local bylaws and his idiotic bothersome partying neighbors that he did some research and found out that in the city of Vancouver you were allowed to have one chicken and one rooster per household...how or why he did this research is beyond my scope of comprehension) anyways standing in his backyard drinking a few watching these so called pets running around thinking to myself that although it was only beer, I might have had one too many cause being from the city I have never even seen a chicken unless it was frozen and from the food mart. I struck up an interesting conversation with a new found inebriated friend. He told me that he worked for the loomis company, I thought that was cool so I asked him where his gun was as a joke and he replied under the front seat of his car......Ok..... I didn't deliberate on that one but moved on, myself looking for a job asked him some questions and his answers were quite forthcoming , he told me that if ever he shot someone on the job( which he was looking forward to doing) there was a 10 000$ bonus + 6 months off.... Wow I told him not bad....He even offered to let me go shoot the damn chicken with his 38 revolver. I thanked him but refused the offer ( I hadn't drank enough to let that kind of situation happen..), eventually I asked him how much he got paid an hour and to my surprise he received 12$ an hour, I was amazed at how little he received and realized that getting shot or having to shoot someone for 12$ an hour wasn't my cup of tea. By now other people started to show up in the yard and I excused myself to chat with other folk and again I met this other guy who worked for loomis but the loomis courier transport company ( same mother corporation just different divisions) and again went over what he did, how hard he worked...and the obvious one....how much he got paid..... check this out, the guy got 15$ an hour I couldn't believe it I had to ask if he had a gun to which he replied absolutely not, it was the equivalence of Fedex or something. I had to introduce these two people cause my conclusion was mind boggling....The guy who transports the money could die at any moment and was paid less than the guy who delivered mail.... I could not fathom this logic, the money delivery guy realized it and got so upset and he was quite drunk that he wanted to go to the car and get his gun to shoot a chicken, he was persuaded to forgo that ambitious thought. I seem to recall that by then everyone in the party either wanted to shoot or eat the chicken and his male counterpart. Well also by then my mate was getting a little nervous due to drunk guys chasing that damn chicken around the yard and asked me to leave to which I did not object.
The next day I found out that no gun shots went off yet the chicken was missing and the money carrier quit his job but kept the gun, that was the last time I had heard from him but I still kept reading the paper everyday to see if at one point there might have been an article about some disgruntled (postal worker) employee somewhere going....you guessed it...POSTAL.
Eventually the guy who had the party bought another chicken (5$) and it became his best friend even sleeping in the house on cold nights....Welcome to Van!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn doctors!

More bitterness, Have you ever gotten sick or had to see the doc about some minor troubles?
Well hell, for one you've got two choices, going to the hospital ( full of crazed drunk folk all smashed the fuck out) or getting a family physician. Well to some this may not seem like a problem at all or at least until you've spent about 6 hours in the waiting room of some God forsaken hospital but to those of us getting older it may be a good idea to get a family doctor. I got a doc about 2 years ago and about 2 hours and 3 public transportation services away, yup middle of bumfuck Who knows where now you might ask yourself why so far right? Well welcome to Mtl. We have what's called clsc's which are the equivalent of small neighborhood clinics staffed with morons that barely made it out of whatever school took them in, most of the time after waiting about an hour their answers are all the same " you might want to go to the hospital and get that checked out". Well why did I go there in the first place?.... Cause it's close to home ( but now I kinda know better)....and again in my neck of the woods they no longer take new patients so I have to travel to hell to see a doctor who reminds me of Doogie Howser ( if you're old enough to remember that gay show.....no offence to the gay community ) and so today I needed to contact the doc to get an appointment.... some rude secretary told me that the next available spot was in July......to be honest I thought she was kidding so I laughed and asked again and the answer was the same , 9 months away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok in Canada our Free health care has its own issues but I never thought it would be that bad, so as flabbergasted as I was I took the appointment but asked the sleepy sounding weirdo on the other end if she knew what the time frame was to expect surgery in our beautiful country to which she lamely answered that she had no clue nor was it her business, knowing the answer I felt...nope...I needed to give her the answer to that one and it's about 6 months. She couldn't care less and I asked her if she understood the implications in question....( lost her by now) again I gave her the answer, I told her that had I been roadkill or something I would have saved about 3 months to see my doc ....go figure... moving on I booked my appointment to see the doc....9 months from now ( thank God I'm not dying...or am I?...no clue) The last time I saw a doctor I told him that I thought I had aids.....He asked me why and I told him that I was tired all the time so after all the blood tests and whatnot he told me to stop smoking pot and playing video games all day long and I'd be fine.
I then proceeded to book the appointment and tried to book another one for the year 2020...why you may ask? Cause I figure I'll probably have cancer by then and I won't want to wait another year to see a doctor....ok she did not see the humor in that one but hey! It sure as hell put a smile on my face! She then rudely hung up ( which makes me think that tomorrow I'll have to call back and make sure the appointment was indeed booked....hopefully it won't be the same Halloween witch as it was today!....also to make sure the appointment was booked for the year 2020)
Our health care system is one of the best in the world isn't it? Then again I know that had I been American I might have waited about 20mins. and seen the physician......but my Gucci alligator skin wallet ( NOT!!!!!!!) might have gotten a rather large crater smashed through it! and all the useless tests they would have told me I needed might have thrown me in the poor house or might have turned me into a bank robber (ok maybe a petty 7-11 rip off artist)
So what's the st way to deal with the health care system?...................Here's the answer .................
Finding a credit card, going to a private clinic! 10 mins., diagnosed under Jean-Guy's name, get my prescription and maybe even .... a plasma tv for the effort!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you!
Note from the idiotic writer: The last part is not true ( the credit card bit!)

Well now what?

Well guess what, I had to go and actually speak to the Dell c/s department due to the fact that my system went schizoid and/or went a little silly. I thought we had it bad here yet after speaking to Abu in India ( ok no pun intended that was not his name yet I couldn't pronounce it, I think his name was ......... ok blast that thought, to be honest here I called him bub then moved on to a different acronym.... buddy then dude....) well I'll give him "props" cause he tried really hard to have the issue rectified but he put me on hold for so long that by the time he got back on line I had figured out the problem on my own. Well I ( being the phone whore that I am) had to ask a few questions ( that kind of dazed him). My first thought was to ask him what time it was and to my surprise there was a 9 and a half hour gap which means that it was like the UnGodly morning hour of 3:....something in the morning..... Well moving on I asked ..."Buddy"... what was he doin' at work at that time, "Dude" answered that their call canter was open 2-4-7-365 which I thought was cool so I had to ask if he had a choice in shift (cause we sure as hell don't), he politely told me me that he did not so I told him " welcome to the club" a comment that he did not get nor did I try to explain that one so I moved on.
I know a few people from India yet I never really spoke to them about their country nor why they pray to the all mighty hamburger.....oooppppsss I meant praise the cow. So my next question was if they had a burger king or a rotten Ronnies ( mickey D's....Mc rotten....in laymen's...Mc donald's) in his neck of the woods where he went for lunch or breakfast or whatever. For one he told me that there were no woods in their downtown area then in thought It took "Bub" a few secs to answer, I think if it weren't for the fact that " ALL OUR CALLS ARE MONITORED" he would have cursed me in a foreign tongue then cursed my mother and whatever God I believe in and smashed the phone on its cradle. Feeling a little ignorant I moved on to the next question...Hey don't get me wrong, I have yet to speak to a person from somewhere else ( that far off that is) live without having to pay for the call so c'mon I was on a roll!
I asked him what kind of beer he drank..." Abu" told me that he did not drink but that the Heini ( layman's....Heineken) was the choice of most foreigners which I thought was ok too. Not to make him freak out I moved on to ask him why my compute was doing what it was doin' ( to waste a little time and to think something else up) after an awesome answer I asked him if he went to the strippers on Fridays cause that's what most of us do......He didn't know what strippers were and so I had to reiterate...peelers? Nope no clue so moved on, I needed to know if the grass was greener on the other side, to that he had a good quiet answer ( I think he forgot that " ALL OUR CALLS ARE MONITORED") He then proceeded to explain in great detail that they had the best smoke in the world but that it was imported from Afghanistan... I was amazed so I asked him if he'd ever read High Times to my dismay he had never heard of that magazine. Moving on, Two of the freakiest things happened
1- I liked "Abu"
2- I told " Bub" I'd send him a copy ( ok it was last months edition, but I doubt he'll really mind) but as he bragged on about the "Hindu Cush" and the likes I had to interject letting him know that In the U.S.A, we being from Montreal are considered the Colombians of the Great White North ( again I lost him) but I would not let that one die so I did spend a few giving out the explanation and he did get it! That " Dude" was a swift cool one, so in return ( I killed his talk time but in my enhanced oblivion, thought up a plan so he'd forgive my ignorance) Can you guess what I did next?
Yup.......I told him I'd mail him a little Mtl. Hydro green ( and by my word I will) " Bub" gave me his next door neighbors address and I told him I'd send it. ( C'mon I liked the guy and I didn't want to bait out his house!) and then we traded email addresses and said we'd be in touch. B4 hangin' up I also apologized about the big mack thing and he laughed. Very cool guy ( from a foreign regime). Said good night and parted ways.
So now you might think the story was over right?
Not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
About 15 mins. ago I get a call from "Bub" 's supervisor, whooopppssss man I felt a little stupid thinking of where I had brought that conversation and that they may flog him or use some other corporate torture on him ( I'm really ignorant about the foreign laws and whatnots)...So this guy sounding like a hit and run victim starts asking me " we are doing surveys about the services rendered" to be honest I almost had a heart attack, I thought it might have been some sort of corporate C.I.A call to see if I'd really be sending the "Dude" some smoke! My heart has never beaten so fast I actually contemplated smokin' all my stash at once to make sure I didn't end up getting raped by some amigo named Bubba in the semimax wing of the pen....yet in my clouded idiotic stupor I had an epiphany....We Canadians do not go to jail for the green, we get fined......Hell even that is no good but I listened to .....(we will call him .....Angus...ok maybe not but that sounds a good name as any!) Freaked out on a paranoid trip as I was I did not object to the survey, cause in our North American call centers we do the same. As it turns out it really was a survey and that "Angus" was "Bub's " supervisor.Wow!!!!!!!
So the stupid questions were forthcoming and I gave "my new found friend an excellent score".....Feeling a little more relaxed I asked the Dell supervisor from India a few questions also, pretty much on the same wave as my new bud. No sense of humour whatsoever, he was so offended by the "rotten Ronnie's" joke that he hung up, I thought that was kinda rude and actually called back and asked to speak to "Angus's supervisor" by the way to be able to do this you need a hands free phone cause patience is a virtue as in being on hold for about a half hour......Yup I really had nothing else to do....So speaking to his t/l ( team leader) I let him know that "Angus told me to go fuck the cow that Rotten Ronnie flew here with"......(I'll probably feel bad about that tomorrow but right then I thought it was the funniest thing ever) I told the t/l that I pray to some virgin cow and that me, fuckin' Uncle Rotten Ronnie's cow was just not cool and the t/l took the issue very seriously.
There is a moral to this however "Bub" will not lose his job, "Angus" will learn what c/s is all about and I have a new friend who will be getting a copy of High Times with a killer Mtl. hydro fattie in it.....sent to the neighbors! So all is well in the Indian call center and by the way I,ve had worst calls than that one cause I am a God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!( ok NOT!!!!!!!!! but I don't take myself too seriously nor my c/s job and I also think that that's why my t/l loves me at my mediocre c/s job! and that's also why I'm good at what I do!)
Any comments?
Notes from the author: As per international law I must add this disclaimer that stipulates this is ONLY a story, CIA and other agencies plz do not take this too seriously and there is no need to go flogging the emplyees at the call centers nor do you have to check all the employees eyes on Monday morning.

Arrests again!

Well to those who actually watch the news there were more arrests last week due to telemarketing here on the home front or better yet in OUR trenches.

Not to name any names ( Mike!) another t/m sweatshop was raided for selling *debit rolls* to our southern neighbors, I felt extremely bad for the people trying to hide their faces on the evening news cause they might be guilty, but of what you may ask yourself? Working hard for a paycheck? Or being under educated? Well nope they are guilty of defrauding the U.S. businesses, It would seem to me that that is a ridiculous thing to do cause the *owner* no names ( Mike!) had a new location the same day with new employees yet don't get me wrong he did have a fine to pay....let's see the company generated over 5 million a year ( tax free and mostly not on the books) and the guy gets slapped with a 250 000$ fine not including the fines that the employees had to pay....yet they ( the employed who did pay taxes) also got slapped with some undisclosed amounts to have to pay to the elected officials!Nice little realm hen?
Well isn't that the way business works? Let's use a few meager examples...Unless you've been living under a rock, we've all heard about the Enron thingy right? Well the bigwigs got away ( most of them) yet the ones that figured it all out were the ones that ended up with the jail time or the fines....Is that right? Of course it is, It's the North American way!!!!!!!!!!
Another example, the toy company Mattel......Ok this is a little different though yet still in the same field of getting rich on some poor dead toddlers back. We as a people blame the Chinese cause the products were substandard.... Hmmmmmm wait a sec did Mattel not know this? yup indeed they did as per memos found by a certain news agency the company had settled out of court all kinds of lawsuits b4 we the public found out about it. So in conclusion why should the Chinese be blamed if the corporations want a cheap ass product at the cheapest possible price knowing right well that the items in question may be hazardous to the young?
Maybe they ought to pay a little more and even then, pay the Chinese a little more to have safe products sent to us, no?
Nope is right, this is what we call capitalism........Fuckin' our own people at the expense of ( again...excuse the euphimism ) fuckin' foreign sweatshop workers....
Are you aware that if you look around your house or even easier look at what you are wearing, there isn't anything made in Canada or the U.S. for that matter is there? Nope is right... ok sorry maybe your undergarments are made here. So what happened? Well damn, EVERYTHING IS CHEAPER IN CHINA! Another example, in Canada we export our wood to the Chinese so they can make us tables, shelves and the lot only to export it back here for sale.....It would seem that in Canada there isn't anyone smart enough to build a table.......Hmmmmm.... *We is a stoopid backwood folk!*
Reality check, It's still is cheaper to do that then get an honest woodworker to make it and then sell it. So what is the economy based on if there is no longer anything made here? Well let's take a look at that.....Prisons.....mediocre jobs... and robbing others, nice thing to teach the young isn't it? A university prof. said it best....*What's the first thing a university grad says once receiving his diploma?.................WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH YOUR BURGER SIR?*
So in my eyes the best jobs are really in the industry of building jails ( cause there is a very large pool of recipients that will never be able to get straight) or in forementioned idiocyncracies (*TELEMARKETERS!*).....I almost forgot to mention the ones that aren't seen but make a rather good living .........THE GROWERS! I need not go into details, they are a good bunch mostly just trying to get by on something that is wild and would grow everywhere if the government wasn't so scared to not make their cut. ( God gave us this one natural thingy )
I think I've lost track of the point at hand so let me go and find ye 'ol bong out of storage and I'll get back to this tall tale later.
I welcome any comment even the ones that make me look silly ( I love the hecklers)
Ta-Ta
The colonel!

Montreal and its eloquent c/s industry

Well if you're reading this you've probably either worked in the industry or have horror stories from the service from yup you guessed it...people like me.
Well I guess I must start by saying welcome to Montreal, the telemarketing capital of the world.
Ok that might be a great assessment but not our city's best character traits.
Let's start with a weak recent history on the business itself. I guess we could start the day the phone was created or we can discuss crank yankers or the jerky boys but that would take too long and those memories make me laugh too hard ( which would make this impossible to be written). Let's mostly focus our attention on the fact that Montreal has a very large pool of ( partially) educated bilingual people eager to work and who aren't too fussy when it comes to kick back jobs. You see it started when everyone was involved with the telemarketing industry either in sales or in c/s, at first our elected officials jumped on the gravy train cause the companies were claiming that they were *training* individuals and so they required subsities from the other federally elected crooks, ( did I just say that....nope I WROTE IT! sorry there mister prime minister) and so the government gave all kinds of tax cuts and sponsored the program to which anyone with half a scam could get paid by hiring people from the pool get paid to train them. Also it's good to mention the even some colleges jumped on the bandwaggon yet I'm pleased to say that the courses were taken off cause some college mentors are good people who actually saw what the outcome was. Eventually the phone whores got a little older and that's where this becomes interesting, half of them decided that there was more money in robbing little old ladies by phone telling them about the *prize* they had won.....C'mon in montreal in the customer service industry everyone knows someone who now drives an M3 or a overgrown suv with the rims that cost more than what most make in a year. So they make their millions...really they do but that's not the story at hand here ( + people who made their money that way usually all have guns and a bad attitude so we'll stay away from that but do remember that it's quite prevalent)
Moving on, the honest side of the folks who just wanted to work and be good little citizens also got bored trying to sell things that were mostly free anyways, our fellow Southernly neighbors aren't the sharpest tools in the shed so the companies did make all kinds of money to the dismay of the employed who wanted only a weekly legit pay check.
At which point ( don't get me wrong all of this still goes on but not on such a large scale as b4), the government started to be pressured by our fellow neighbors and also publicly humiliated the Canadians so again our ( not by me) elected officials thought it over again and had to find a new industry for all those bilingual people with or without criminal records. Next is quite mind boggling, ALL THE CANADIAN BANKS jumped on board...... wait a minute my dad was a banker and went to get his mba or something that took many ...many years to get and now all you needed was a highschool diploma and not have a criminal record, that was too big....Which means that if you were in jail for anything else than murder, fraud or dope sales ( this one is debatable) you could spend your time constructively getting your GED and were sure to get a job with the financial sector when you got out. Nice hen?
Now all your private info is in the hands of people LIKE ME....sorry! Ok I ain't the one that would do anything with all that info but something that most people don't know is that most bank fraud is internal these days...( oooppps I think I signed something to the effect that this info would never be related to the general public.......hhhmmmm.....my name is jean guy Legros from the south shore...OR is it? ( got to laugh....hehehehehehehe)
The banks do not notify most people when fraud had been done, the consumer needs to advise the banks and have to prove the facts. The banks will never let the general public know how much fraud has been commited in the last quarter 'cause all their customers would lose faith in their bank system and at which time, the fatcats that would have to spend more than they are willing to spend in upgrading their
A- hiring policies
B-security networks
So I invite anyone (who actually made it through all of this) to either send word of your c/s horror stories or if you're in the field send me the icky stuff that the contract you signed told you not to talk about.
Let's spead the news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!