*sigh*
...they came by my desk four times today. I didn't want to leave before 9 PM at the earliest; but here's the problem: it was dead f-ing slow tonight.
Around 8 pm call volume underwent an inverse step function; after 8:30 I took three calls in the next hour. First call: crazy dude worried about the mafia cloning his phone. Second call: dude was so high he forgot his social security number. Third call: someone without an account who wanted to buy a phone. The first call was the longest, the third the shortest.
Here's the problem: #Call_Center is a "clean desk" environment. It's also paperless, because some time ago some nimrod stole some credit card information; it's a firing offense to have paper and pen at your desk unless you're a supervisor.
No distractions. You may not read, you may not do puzzles, you may not knit or crochet or make jewelry or do any of a myriad of other crafts, not even when 70% of the evening shift has gone home early because there are no freaking calls to handle tonight.
I can handle a lot. I can take it when there's a queue and the wrap-up time is the only respite I get. I can handle being yelled at, I can handle having to stay late, I can handle idiots. I do not often require help from a supervisor because most of the time I can figure out how to solve the issues set before me. Usually, all I really have to do is get the supervisor to approve my solution.
But I can't handle being bored out of my skull.
After an hour and a half of near-zero work (with the latter sixty minutes consisting mainly of me sitting at my desk and moving my mouse to keep my computer from going into power-save) Workforce came and said to me, "Well, Ed, how about now?" It was 9:25, the fourth time they'd asked me, and I gave him the thumbs-up. I was ready to go home.
I can rationalize giving up half an hour of wages. That's okay. The first time they asked it wasn't even 6 PM yet; I can't afford to give up half a day, especially because of what happened on Thursday. At least today it was voluntary.
Let's face it: because of the clean desk policy, the only things I have to amuse me are a bent paperclip and a push pin attached to a twist tie. And because the TVs are permanently in "rules" mode now, the entertainment possibilities are limited.
Anyway, I lived through it, and I expect tomorrow we're going to make up for it with extra-high call volume. *sigh*
* * *
The Duck has seen Interstellar and pronounced it good. It really is good. And his review of it has just about given me a hankering to watch it again.
* * *
I was thinking about The Force Awakens tonight, on my way home, and something occurred to me--but there are spoilers here so be forewarned.
The Starkiller weapon--it's charged by devouring an entire star, right? That's made plain as we get closer to the climax of the movie, that once it's devoured all the energy of the star it orbits it's going to blow up the planet that the Resistance is on. It's a massive planet-destroying weapon which can fire its bolts faster-than-light so it can wreak havoc across the galaxy without needing to move.
...how do you use it more than once?
I mean, let's face it: if it's mobile, you don't need the FTL aspect, so you don't need all the energy of a star. (Proof: both Death Stars were mobile weapons that could easily destroy planets without absorbing stars first.) But if it's not mobile, how do you fire it more than once, or a few times? Even if you build it in an exotic star system--a double-trinary or something--you still can only fire it a handful of times before it has no more energy sources.
Starkiller Base is a contradiction, and it's "bigger is better!" without much justification other than, "This is gonna look awesome."
Plus side: this is friggin' Star Wars, which doesn't need any more justification than that. The SW franchise is hardly hard SF, and it's not like Starkiller Base ruins your suspension of disbelief when you have dudes hacking at each other with laser swords and using mind powers to choke each other and shit.
A fiver says Starkiller Base actually is mobile, anyway.
* * *
In the "Never thought I'd hear this" department, my wife just said to our cat:
"We'll get your shots, and then we'll get your butthole done!"
This is the world I live in. *whimper*