Harbingers of the Stoopid
Monday, 24th April 2000| Hey, I’ve got a neat idea: the first company to not try to piss me off? I’ll say something good about you in a book, okay? –News of the Stoopid [NotS] |
Corporate America [NotS]
For the last two months or so, we at Wasted, Inc. [where Wasted, Inc. are Gremlin, himself, and he] have been announcing, if not fully explaining, the various delays in the release of News of the Stoopid [NotS]–a potentially-forthcoming novel from WastedDiscourse Publications. Disturbingly, at the time of this writing, the damned thing still hasn’t come out.
This, for those who have been wondering, is exactly why:
26th November 1999 to 11th December 1999
News of the Stoopid–an arguably-popular subsite of gremlin.net–spawns a novel outlining every brainless thing that I could think to document for a couple of weeks. The initial reaction to the announcement that NotS is becoming a novel is favourable and encouraging: people can’t wait to read it.
Of course, they’ll have to wait, for a few reasons….
Early January 2000
Happy new year–if not a new millennium. The Y2K ‘bug’ fails to do much at all to any computers alive. Ironically, while the software and BIOS remain fine, the screen on the Sony Laptop burns out–two or three weeks after Sony’s warranty expired.
‘Fortunately’, the computer came from SoundTrack; several hundred dollars added to the purchase price extended the warranty by a few years: the screen, and anything else which no longer works, is covered. SoundTrack will repair or replace, at their option, the computer.
By January, the novel had been fully produced–graphics, et cetera–and was finished; a final process through the Sony into Portable Document Format ended postproduction.
However: the Sony broke. In DuhMoines.
The are no SoundTracks in DuhMoines. There’s an Ultimate Electronics, who SoundTrack own. So I called them.
I explained the problem to them. They told me to call Sony.
I didn’t call Sony: I called Denver, and explained the lengthening story to SoundTrack’s corporate office. They told me to tell Ultimate Electronics to fix my computer.
I did.
Ultimate Electronics relented and told me to bring in the Sony.
I brought them the Sony. No one there would admit to telling me to bring them the Sony. They assured me that they couldn’t fix the Sony.
Here, things become convoluted. They had me call WarranTech.
SoundTrack evidently sell Sony computers and WarranTech warranties.
WarranTech put me on hold.
Over an hour later, some rogue telemarketer happened across me out in the Outer Rim Territories–just between the points in which Jim Cameron’s Ellen Ripley and Arthur C. Clarke’s Frank Poole were respectively found. Being an ExtraSolar scavenger, Ackbar here spoke nearly enough English to dogmatically read Troubleshooting for Dummies at me for half an hour to see if maybe the screenmode was set down to 8Bit. While I’m fairly certain that it was still at 24Bit, where it always was, I couldn’t swear to it since the screen was burned out and wouldn’t display the Properties Window.
Ackbar eventually decided that I was way over his head and jettisoned me back out to Plutonian Hold.
Just as I was beginning to dehydrate, he happened across me again and gave me an Approval Number. Then he opened the airlock again; a moment later, I got a dialtone. Apparently, I was done with Ackbar.
I gave the Approval Number to Ultimate Electronics, who gave it back. They couldn’t fix my computer whether fixing it was approved or not.
Instead, they sent me to their ArchCompetitor: CompUSA.
Ultimate Electronics are on Merle Hay Road in DuhMoines, just south of Johnston; CompUSA are halfway to Omaha on University. I drove there.
I found out two interesting things at CompUSA: A) the Sony was fully dicked and would cost twice as much to repair, part for part, than it would cost to issue a newer model at wholesale, and, B) WarranTech suck, never pay anyone for repairs, and CompUSA told them to goto hell last June.
I called Ultimate Electronics from CompUSA and told them those two things. The manager told me to bring the Sony back to them, and they’d replace it for me. He also mentioned that I should hurry, they were closing in ten minutes.
So it turns out that they haven’t quite finished that Concorde on Demand programme yet; I sure as hell didn’t have time to drive there–even in a Formula. So that didn’t work.
The Next Night
The next night, I got the computer to Ultimate Electronics, only to find out three cool little things: A) the manager was off on a cruise for a few weeks, B) he hadn’t told anyone anything about me or my Sony, and, of course, C) Ultimate Electronics can’t fix my computer, and I should take it to CompUSA.
17th February 2000
I finally got Ultimate Electronics to take the Sony, which had been broken for over a month. They didn’t replace it; they said they’d send it back to Denver, where the corporate office could look it over before authorising the replacement.
I gave them the Sony, and I left.
22nd March 2000
Having called several times, I finally got someone to find the Sony in the system. It was at Sony, in California, being fixed.
They–SoundTrack–gave me Sony’s phone number and the laptop’s Work Order Number, and ejected me back to the dialtone.
I called the number, which was wrong.
I found a number for Sony, which was also wrong, but they knew the right one. I called the right one.
I gave the right one the Work Order Number, which was wrong.
They were able to find the right one through the laptop’s serial number. They’d received it on the twentieth, and hadn’t had time to fix it in the last forty-eight hours.
I can just about accept that. You could get backlogued enough to take a couple of days to get to a new project.
Why, on the other hand, it took SoundTrack thirty-two days to get the laptop to Sony was a mystery–above and beyond which part of ‘repair or replace’ could ever involve Sony.
Sony didn’t know why it would take SoundTrack over a month to send it out.
7th April 2000
I walked into SoundTrack’s corporate office in Denver. The laptop was still at Sony, of course. According to Denver, DuhMoines didn’t send them the laptop until the middle of March, accounting–kinda–for the missing month.
Also, Sony were nearly done fixing it. Once they were, they’d get a purchase order from WarranTech, wait for it to clear the banks, and send the laptop back to Denver, who would send it back to DuhMoines…even though I was in Denver again.
I left.
That was three weeks ago. I still haven’t seen my computer yet.
December 1999
The book, finished, goes to BookCrafters to be printed. The cover, according to someone in the sales department, has got to be set at 150dpi, instead of the standard 72dpi/ Okay. I burn the 150dpi cover to CDRom and SnailMail it to them, along with the .pdf. I can do that: the Sony won’t break for a couple more weeks.
Late January 2000
After the Sony has broken, the people at BookCrafters who make books instead of money let me know that the cover must be 300dpi instead of 150.
Great.
Things I can’t do: A) EMail them a .tiff, since .tiffs can suddenly be viruses now, B) send them any disc made on an Amiga, and C) have anything done on the book until they get the new cover.
Early February 2000
I find a Windoze machine with a discburner and make the .tiff CDRom for BookCrafters. I SnailMail the hell out of it to get it there that week.
Middle February 2000
I find out that the computer I used didn’t actually reformat the cover. BookCrafters still need the cover.
Late February 2000
A week before the book is supposed to be released, I use Hunter’s computer to fix the cover and burn the disc. I send it off to BookCrafters.
Early April 2000
BookCrafters finish the bluelines and get them to me. Acrobat didn’t embed the fonts. I can fit the fonts [which can't be EMailed, since .ttfs are viruses now too] on a diskette. Back in production.
24th April 2000
With any luck, the damned book will finally be out next week.
December 1999
Having formatted the book to .pdf, I add a few elements and set it up as an EBook. Now the audience can get the electronic version, if they prefer it.
January 2000
The new server, from which the EBook could be downloaded, runs into problems. Meanwhile, I read over the contract at BookLocker–they have nonexclusive rights to sell the EBook, which will be A) read thoroughly and B) either approved or rejected. Like this:
Your book must be accepted for publication on Booklocker.com prior to being listed. Once you receive a letter of acceptance, you will be provided with very detailed submission instructions. We reject more than 70% of incoming proposals, so please make sure your proposal is perfect. Books rejected by Booklocker.com are not eligible for future consideration. |
March 2000
BookLocker finally approve News of the Stoopid and list it for sale on their site.
While it can be ordered, the Author Login suggests that exactly zero people have purchased the EBook, also, exactly zero people have hit the listing at all–including myself and various others who had hit the page and, in some cases, bought the book.
April 2000
A bit concerned about the row of zeroes in the Author Login, I EMail BookLocker to ask what’s wrong with the counters.
A few days later, they EMail me back:
We are terminating our contract with you at this time. It has come to our attention that there are instructions for making pipe bombs in your book. We can not have books containing this information in our inventory. If you would like to remove that information from your book, we can put it back up on the site. Angela Adair-Hoy |
So…they read the book…they approved the book…they sold the book to someone who called something inflated and inaccurate to their attention…and they banned the book…and we’re still not sure how many people bought it, or if BookLocker intend to forward the royalties back to Wasted, Inc. before or after Wasted’s lawyers sue them into extinction.
Present Day
Seriously: if I ever encounter a company which fails to suck like a hungry plecostomus–assuming I’d recognise that, at this point–I’ll let the world know how utterly cool they are. Who wants to be first….
Look: there are exactly three possible conditions. A: we know each other; that’s immaterial to this. B: I work for you; that would include website design; I get money, and you get a website, and everyone’s happy. C: You work for me.
If you are in the unfortunate position to work for me–whether you fix my computer that I paid you to fix when I bought it in 1998, or approve and sell a book I’ve written, or bring me coffee or sell me clothes or cigarettes or petrol or Pringles or whatever–if you work for me, you do what you’re told. You don’t give it your consideration; you don’t respect my opinion; you don’t provide novel excuses: you do it. Or: you’re fired. Why? Because you’re in a service industry. Because you don’t get paid until the customer is finished and happy and out the door and thinking of which friends to ring up and tell them how cool you are or how much you suck.
And I’m not being tyrannical about this: it’s reality. If you suck, I’m done with you, your company, your product, whatever. If you suck, I’m going to warn people that you suck. I–unlike most, in fact–will even be fair about it. BookCrafters are wonderful; their sales department are greedy, retarded sophists: employ them at will, but don’t take the sales department at their word.
If you suck at me, I’m going to warn people about you. You’re not going to sue me for libel–not successfully, anyway. You might not go bankrupt–WalMart have pissed me off to no end–except to the end that the explanation is in News of the Stoopid [NotS]…which is concurrently banned and not yet released.
That’s it. That’s exactly all of it.
And, of course, that’s just my opinion; in writing.
–Gremlin