Out of the Icebox and into the Maelstrom

Yeah, so I got moved out of my old cube, the "Icebox", the day after I posted my first blog entry.  At first I was pretty excited about this because freezing your nads off all day long is not conducive to being a productive computer programmer.  My new cube is a comfortable temperature and the papers on my desk no longer swirl about like they have been caught up in an Antarctic tornado.  I am also closer to a window so I get a lot more filtered sunlight in my cube, but not so much that it causes glare on my monitor.  For the first couple of hours after I moved into my new space I was in heaven.  But then I started to notice my neighbors…

They are loud.  Really loud.  And obnoxious to the point of inspiring me to commit acts of physical violence.  Some of this is not their fault, because I am sitting next to a bunch of (gasp) Customer Support Analysts!!!  That is right, some management genius thought that the way to get the most productivity out of us programmers was to subject us to constant distraction.  The phones ring all day, the CSAs talk to people all day, and I am just 3 feet from some of them. 

Now, I am not getting down on the CSAs for doing their job.  Somebody has to provide phone support.  But this is a big building and it would be nice if I were not right next to them.  Oh, and it would be a lot better if one of them was not a crazy, booming-voiced, foul-mouthed old hag.  I call her Gentile Jane because she is anything but. 

Gentile Jane is about 5 feet tall, 50 years old, hairy faced, and has a very nasal voice with no volume control.  She has a horrid personality with the countenance to match and she loves to swear really loudly about whatever moron she just got off the phone with.  It was funny the first couple of times I experienced her rants, but now I just want to hit her with a paperweight.  Hard.  In the head.  Until she SHUTS THE F#CK UP!!!!!!

As soon as she hangs up the phone she starts berating the customer very loudly.  You can hear her clear out in the hallway.  This is how she ends a typical phone call…

GJ:  "…Okay, glad I could help.  You have a nice day and please call back if there is anything else you need."

*click* (hangs up)

GJ:  "You stupid c@cks#cking, mother f#cker!  What the hell is wrong with you!?!?  That is the third time this b!tch has called this week!  When the f#ck is she going to learn how to f#cking use our mother f#cking software?!?!  I am not a goddamn owners manual you dumb b@stard!!!"

One thing that is hard to comprehend is how she is still working here.  If you heard someone in your office talking like that on a regular basis, and you were a manager, would you want to keep them around? 

Now, on the one hand, I can sympathize with her frustration.  A lot of times in Customer Support you wind up dealing with issues that have more to do with the user being ignorant than with the software malfunctioning.  However, this is not news.  Everybody frigging knows that customer support jobs are frustrating.  She knew it when she took the job.  Why the hell did you take a job in Customer Support if you hate talking to people and helping them?  Are you a masochist?

She is the worst offender in the department, but there are others who are also constantly complaining.  This makes no sense to me.  It would be like me complaining about all the typing I have to do as a computer programmer.  If I hated typing, I would find a new line of work, not break into a swearing tirade every time I finished a page of code.  How bizarre would that be?

*click*tap*tap*tappity*tap*tappity*tap*tappity*tap* (me typing)

Me:  (stand up and shout over the cube walls) "Gahdamn!  Am I going to have to type all f#cking day here?!?!  I mean Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, when will it end?!?!  Am I just supposed to sit here and type for-f#cking-ever!!!!"

So, the upshot of all this is that I wear my headphones and listen to music all day in an attempt to drown out Gentile Jane and her cohorts.  It is not always effective, but I find that as long as I listen to a lot of hard-core rap music, all the swearing she does just kind of blends into the background.  In fact, I bet I could record one of her rants, get Lil Jon to create a beat for it, mix that sh!t together and we would have a number one hit record tomorrow.

It could happen.

Probably.