The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

people keep walking up you in the hall saying, "I'm so sorry. I'm really going to miss you."

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

An over-stressed subscriber soils himself in a letter.

But First, This Unsoiled Letter

Subject: Where have all of the random links gone?

Dear Fek,

How's it hanging? In issues past, the have usually been lots of random links scattered throughout the article. They don't seem to be prevalent in the current issue, or issues since issue 9. Have aliens sucked the randomness from your soul?

Is the "Let's play, "Who said this?" Heard in the halls of various software companies." a essay question section, or multiple choice? What is the recommended method of entries? and is there a prize?

So how large is the dining area at the Taco Bell on Shoreline (or did you get to finish that survey)?

Have you consulted Mozilla for advice on life, love, and business on the Internet lately?

A concerned citizen. (Pete)

Dear Pete,

You sure ask a lot of questions. Do you now work for the National Daily World Enquiring Globe? You know, those scandal sheets that make up stories about Princess Diana's favorite method of birth control, but follow the story up with a really shitty job of faking the Genuine Pictures in Photoshop? I really want to know, because I can do that stuff and I was thinking of getting a new job. Here's my audition piece.

Oprah Winfrey is Really Ronald Reagan's Secret Love Child!

Then I would doctor up a picture of Ronbo in the forties with a black woman holding a baby. Maybe drop in an insert shot of a shocked Nancy Davis with her mouth gaping open. (I heard she did that a lot in the forties!)

P.S. Your spelling SUCKS. I think you should paint Steph's car.

No! I'm tAlKiNg AbOuT tHe OTHER kINd of STRESS!

One thing I've noticed about The Valley is there's a lot of pressure here. Back when I did tech support I just thought it was us folks working the phones to explain how to download the pornography who had it tough. As I have moved into other parts of other companies, I have become convinced that everyone shares the pain to some degree or another. What's important is how you deal with it.

Back in those tech support days of yore, I wrote a book about how to use techniques of Tai Chi during the support phone call to deflect the customer's anger and thus not get so stressed out. That was my way of dealing with stress in that job. There were others. One guy would mute his telephone microphone and shout obscenities at the customer. This worked until his mute switch broke. It seems as if you can always tell who is new at the company by counting the minutes before you hear them swear. New people keep it under their hat for the first few months; but one day the brain explodes and sailor swearing class begins. There's nothing wrong with swearing in my opinion. It blows off steam. You just don't want to go off into a tourettes tie raid in front of a customer or your board of directors.

If it were only so simple as to tell your neighbor to go do something anatomically impossible, stress wouldn't be the killer it is. Most people end up with one addictive behavior or another. Of course we all know the coffee elite, who can tell you everything about coffee and Juan Valdez's burro's middle name. They need the beans vacuum packed and kept in a dark cool place until just before brewing. Then they use a router type of bean grinder, no not the blade type! The blade bruises the flavor and proves you don't know shit about coffee. And don't give them a drip coffee maker! No, to make a cup of Joe you need high pressure steam shooting through your fresh grounds. They tell you this while vibrating. My father used to open up a can of factory ground Folgers and take a heaping spoon full on those tough to wake up mornings, and chew the grounds directly out of the can. I think my mother would get a contact high by kissing him. If that didn't wake Dad up, it wasn't going to be a work day.

Of course coffee leads to the harder stuff. People in The Valley will take any stimulant to keep going on these 100 hour work weeks, otherwise known as "pussy shifts" to the people who never leave work and stay all 168 hours. Speed is no stranger to this land, neither is cocaine. Eventually, this stuff will kill you. You can gauge a person's age by their drug. The under 25 crowd still uses the street drugs that kept them awake all through college. The 25 and overs (you know, the OLD folks) use prescription downers to calm down those shakes. It's amazing how many people I know are using these. The best thing about the prescription stuff is you can actually talk to the person on prescription dope. A person on Valium is a lot easier to negotiate with than a speed freak. The problem with Ativan, Paxil, Prozac, Valium, Xanix, & Zoloft and the other prescription opiates is that if you're a guy, it disables your wedding equipment. No thanks, this is my year for putting the quarters in a jar. I have a United Way style thermometer measuring how close I am to my goal of $500.

I'm not saying everyone in The Valley is a dope addict. I'm just saying there's a lot of substance abuse of one type or another, legal or not. There's also a lot of "toy abuse" going on. People here can make an obscene amount of cash, and want to spend it on something. I used to walk through the parking lot at Netscape and pick out the cars of people who were granted pre-IPO stock options. They weren't driving Yugos.

Nerf is nothing less than the god savior of the Sillycon Valley Stressed. I once was in the Nerf Isle of the local Toys R Us only to run into one of the Premiere software engineers of The Valley. His arms were full of Nerf toys. "Loading up to write some code?" I asked. "Uh... no. Birthday party." Yeah, sure. Don't BS me you foam rubber junkie!

I'm way out of shape, over weight, and 18 months away from my 40th birthday. I grind my teeth and have boulders of knotted up muscles in my back. So what am I doing these days about stress? As you can see I am not a kid any more. For ten years now I have been getting a weekly massage. If your meeting is going past 5 on Wednesday, that's too bad. I have somewhere to go. It's important. I've also stopped caring about a lot of stuff. Not everything. I'll still so anal I know that anal-retentive has a hyphen. But the things I just can't do anything about, like people who don't know what a red light is for, or the IS department frying my mother board, I just stopped caring about. It leaves me much more time to torture IS people, or my manager, or writing this column. The Crapolla started out as my vent when some unwise manager [This is a redundant term. Editor] assigned me an early morning shift. From 7 to 8 in the morning I would vent into my email program and mail it to the entire department at 8:01 AM. Freely Associating and Psycho-Babbling have always been the best vents for me.

Great Bumper Sticker

Seen in the Safeway parking lot...
"I wonder if you would be able to drive better with that cell phone shoved up your ass!!!"

And Now Someone From Management Would Like to Soil Himself in a Letter

Dear Bob,

Glad to hear that meetings with you no long require a Bic lighter and a gas mask. However, learning about "Mr. Zipper" may disqualify you for your next big promotion where your admin would put a fresh Depends on your sorry ass every morning.

P.S. Can I have a job?

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"I found PARADISE......a full arcade - virtual reality, pool tables, the BEST Video games past & present. And the Best part - A FULL BAR!! Unfortunately it is in Texas, not here."

"I need a break. I need to break his knees, I need to break his arms, and I need to break his neck!"

"How do you know it's working?""
"How do you know you're breathing?"

"write what you would like about me or any of the methods i use to deal with the dim-witted, no-brained, dip-shit, bad-decision making, over-paid, people i work with."

"...if you even slightly mention my Mercedes Benz fetish, we all have to wind down occasionally! The Great Silver Teutonic Land Shark is a wondrous beast."

"......Whatever you saw me do.......I didn't do it.......it just looked like I snorted toner dust.......but I didn't inhale......honest!"
"....There's a difference between relieving stress and getting high......."

Excuse Me

I have to take my Hershey's syrup enema. There's just nothing else that calms me down.

Fek'Lar
(Destroyer of Laptops - Morale Officer - The Last Honest Geek)

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