I'm Not Dead, I'm Just Employed

Hey Internet Friends,

How are you all going? I know it's been quite some time since I last posted on here, and I just wanted to send some kind of reassuring message that I'm not dead - I have just got a job.

I've been trying to gain employment for quite some time now, and I'm glad that I finally got one. I think that, had I stayed at the level of "Oh god I'm running out of money faster than it comes in" panic that I was experiencing, then Spud would have killed me and fed my body to the masses in the form of some kind of delicious pie. So, after experiencing the crippling agony of financial stress and "YOU ARE MEANT TO BE AN ADULT, YOU CLOD"itis, I finally got my stuff together and badgered a friend's mother into giving me work - woo, go me, and so forth.

I work in I.T. Customer Service Management. Basically, my job consists of sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day (although 1.5 of those hours is spent on Lunch/Morning or Afternoon Tea) and saying the same thing, over and over again, until I suffer some kind of debilitating aneurysm (at least, I assume that is the purpose, it hasn't happened yet, and I'm still saying the same thing over and over...)

Now, I've seen the IT Crowd, I know how people think of IT divisions and help desks, and I know just how bad some of the people there are at social interaction. I wanted to be different from that - I wanted to break the curve. I have an honours degree, for goodness sakes, and I'm a skilled linguist - I can be polite and eloquent and there's nothing they can do to take that away from me!

So what I started out saying was something along the lines of:

"Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, C.S.U. D.I.T. Service Desk, this is Dwaine speaking. How ma..."

"Yes I wa..."

"y I help you?"

This was all said in the most chirpy and chipper voice that I can muster, and if you've ever heard me get excited about something, you know that I can be pretty damned animated in the vocal chords when I want to be.

Of course, my greeting was followed by something along the lines of:

"Yes, hello Glenn..."

"Sorry, it's Dwaine."

"Oh, sorry...Anyway, my problem is just that..."

And then they launch into a spiel about how they cannot access the internet, or how they need to install some esoteric piece of statistics software that no other human being has ever had to use, but they need me to grant them installer rights.

Since then, however, I have noticed a growing pattern in two areas:

1. People are so excited to tell me that they have a problem that they're willing to cut me off mid-sentence to let me know about it.
2. Nobody will ever get my name correct over the phone

Thus, my greeting has now devolved into the following:

"Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, D.I.T. Service Desk, Dwaine speaking."

"Yes, hello Glenn..."

"How may I help you today?"

At which point they launch head-first into their pointless spiel, and I inevitably take control of their PC using VNC, and solve their problem my restarting I.E.

Still, no amount of not-knowing-my-name rudeness will ever stop me from being so chipper I cause their ears to bleed. I consider it part of my payment, knowing that whilst they are in PC hell, I can maintain a level of happiness shared only by Santa Claus and hyperactive children.

I almost consider it better than the money.

Almost, but not quite.