All in a Day's Work

Work today was something out of a movie. Well, maybe about half an hour of it was, the rest was plain old work - but gobs of fun all the same. Today, my boss, Garry, was privileged enough to be called upon by a very eager survey questioner from Microsoft Corp. As the Helpdesk Manager in I.T., Garry was the guy she was looking for; She had questions, and Garry had answers.... or so she thought. Little did she know that Garry had allowed me to answer the phone under the guise of his name, partly because I volunteered to do it (hey, where's your sense of adventure!?), and mostly because he hates dealing with stupid stuff like that over the phone - mainly surveyors and vendors.

I was looking over a work ticket assigned to the Helpdesk from the Tier 2 guys when I heard the phone conversation to my left. "Yes, I can get Garry for you, he's right here. Please hold. Thank you. *click* Garry, it's for you - some lady from Microsoft wants you to answer some questions for a survey."

Me and my stupid mouth. I was in the mood to mix things up a bit, so knowing how much Garry dreaded calls like these I volunteered my impersonating services. You should have seen his face, it was like Christmas morning. My coworker Robert chuckled as I picked up the phone with a cheery disposition, "Hi this is Garry. What can I do for ya?"

I thought it would be easy. The first set of questions were easy. Granted, I had no idea what she was talking about - something about whether or not our company uses objective or subjective means of determining how well a piece of software we use is comprehended by those using it. As I answered her questions, I thought to myself, "As long as she keeps giving me multiple choice answers, I'm fine." And then, like my tenth grade U.S. History midterm final, the "Fill in the Blank" section reared its ugly head. Out of nowhere, she starts asking me stuff about how we hire people, how I decide how I hire those under me, how many people I oversee, how many computers in our business, etc. I can hear her translating my words onto a computer, typing very heavily as I ramble along, BS'ing my way through the whole thing. As I'm just making this stuff up, my coworkers are trying to contain themselves. Yeah, the pressure was on.

Trying to keep my composure was the least of it. After those horrible questions about how our business runs, she brings out the big guns. Sentence construction so intricate and wordy starts finding its way into my brain, in one ear and out the other. "Uhhhh... Um... what was that?" Everyone around me is losing it by now - I'm losing composure. I would try to give you an example of some of the things she asked me, but I really have NO IDEA what she was talking about. Something about time-integrated management of our employees' functionality something something over the course of so many months. How important do I think something management discretion something is, and how does it effect the working environment for my employees?

Finally, I choked. I had no clue what she was asking me, and didn't have the slightest idea of how I was going to con my way past it. Master of all one-line getaways, I quipped, "I'm sorry, miss - I'm really indisposed at the moment, something has come up."

Pleading with me she says, "Oh no! We're almost done, just a couple more questions and we're finished."

"Send me an email." She got the email address for the Helpdesk, and I hung up.

After that, my name was, and will henceforth stay, Chris Wright, Helpdesk peon.