LoL

A top ranking wimminz in the organization decided that she and her immediate minions were going to get the latest iPhone (prettier than the almost year old Android phones they had). As an IT monkey, I got the short straw and had to set them up. Not a problem, right? These are iPhones, made for the clueless, after all.

So, activation and account setup done, I then needed to make the emails flow. Again, no biggie… but I’m ordered to not change their email passwords, nor am I cleared for them to give me those passwords. Instead, I set all up so that all that is needed is to input the password, leave the phones at that window, and type out very basic instructions for doing so. The wimminz are in their second daily two hour meeting and I’m going off-shift, so I leave the phones and instructions. OOPS!

There was much screeching on my phone last night. One of them managed to follow instructions and had her phone working. The rest? Bending my ear. Telling me how important it is that they have their emails working, that it is impossible to be without email access for sixteen hours. Proving to me that they could not follow basic instructions, either written or spoken.

This morning when I came in, I changed their network passwords, took back the phones, set them up fully and handed them back, at the ‘enter new password’ line and ensured that they did so. As my boss said, “You know better than to listen to them, dumbass.” Yep, I did. A lesson refresher, thinking that supervisors paid many multiples of my salary have any clue. I was going to be screeched at no matter what, so I should have done it the right way, and let them be distracted with their new toys afterwards.

I’ve read a lot of your posts but I’ve never commented. I’ve never really had anything to say until now that I thought you might find interesting.

Recently I was curious and I tried to track down the quote about man and his religion that you attributed to Vonnegut. Took me a while, but it turns out that it’s from a book called Servants of the Wankh by Jack Vance. It was published in 1969. In England it was changed to “The Wannek”.

I don’t remember if you have the full quote somewhere. Just in case, it’s:

“It occurs to me that the man and his religion are one and the same thing. The unknown exists. Each man projects on the blankness the shape of his own particular world-view. He endows his creation with his personal volitions and attitudes. The religious man stating his case is in essence explaining himself. When a fanatic is contradicted he feels a threat to his own existence; he reacts violently.”

I’ve read two short stories by Jack Vance: The Last Castle and The Dragon Masters. It was many years ago, but I remember that both were good – unusually for sci-fi they were somewhat philosophical and meditative.

You might particularly like The Last Castle. I recall that it dealt with the last city on Earth facing extinction, not through disaster or through powerful enemies, but through its own suffocating social system and lack of effort to maintain its civilization.

Two quotes from The Dragon Masters that I saved:

“It sees that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.”
The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.
“Are these not facts?” asked Joaz. “How do you reconcile them with your faith?
“The Demie said mildly, “Facts can never be reconciled with faith.”

Kergan Banbeck threw up his hands, turned once more to the sacerdote. “How can I halt his nonsense? How can I make him see reason?
The sacerdote reflected. “He speaks not nonsense, but rather a language you fail to understand. You can make him understand your language by erasing all knowledge and training from his mind, and replacing it with patterns of your own.”