Dumasaphobia

I’m not so negative…

Published Sunday, March 31, 2013 | By Denver Fowler

It’s something I’ve been hearing a lot from people lately is how negative I am. Can you really blame me? These past 2 to 3 years have been complete shit. Bankruptcy, Divorce, Heart Attacks, Surgeries, having to give up my Dog for my move/living situation (which I wouldn’t wish upon anyone to live where I do), Car Problems, Weight Issues, spending insane amounts of money on medicines, medical bills, fuel and more… Then lets top this off with the amount of folks I deal with daily that are so self absorbed and rude. Yes, this makes for Denver to want to vent when someone asks how I’m doing. If I didn’t vent, I think I would explode. Sure, I can be negative. I can also be very positive. It’s just funny how folks tend to only pay attention to my negative side and practically ignore my positive side. Which in turn, kind of makes me negative because my positive side gets ignored.

How about noticing all the doors I hold open, the extra effort I go through such as to drive a person to the door so they don’t have to walk so far in the rain, snow or heat? Then I go park the car, and walk in the rain, snow or heat myself to the door. How about all the times I stood waiting, either to get from the parking lot to the sidewalk or from the sidewalk to the parking lot in the cold rain, snow or heat while cars no only drive by without looking, but completely ignore the stop signs posted by the crosswalks in their climate controlled cars. Whatever happened to the pedestrian have the right of way? It’s even funnier when I stop, and the person outside just looks at me like I’m doing something weird. How about when I finally get tired of seeing dishes that I didn’t make just sit in the sink and I wash them? How about all the free computer repair and maintenance I do? Free website work? Nearly nightly foot and back massages? Being pretty much the person to do the majority of the yard work or laundry?

Sure I’ve never been in a position to give anyone or loan anyone money. I’m not much good at home maintenance or car repairs. It’s not like I wouldn’t if I could. Does it make me a bad person just because I can’t?

It frustrates me to no end that my career choice has sunk from an appreciated job, to an expected form of slavery. I remember back in the day walking people through opening their computer and replacing parts, or installing drivers or diagnosing a multitude of issues. Now folks call me with an attitude right off the bat as if I somehow caused their issues, they refuse to give me pertinent information and expect me to perform miracles based on next to no relevant information at all. When I do fix their issue, they basically shrug me off and hang up. (I’m not alone in this either, I have been talking to many other techs who feel like I do.) My favorites are the ones that when it’s determined the problem is on their end. How irate they become and argue that it just isn’t possible.

How about those doors I go out of my way to hold open for strangers. It’s amazing how many can’t say “thank you”. I’ve even had some give me comments like, “I can do it myself.”. What happened to courtesy?

When I go for walks, I have to step off the sidewalk when a group of people come the other way. I do it to be nice. That and I swear I’m the only person in the world I know who would actually fall single file in a group if I saw someone coming the other way so they can have some sidewalk too.

When I go to the grocery store, it never fails. Someone has their cart on one side of the aisle, and their ass on the other. Blocking the whole aisle. If I say, “Excuse me.”, they sigh heavily as if I ruined their day. If I say nothing, they ignore me. Yeah, makes me want to just punch them in the face for being ignorant. But instead, I be nice and go around the other way.

When I talk to other people. They tell me their good things and bad things. I listen and if I feel I can help, offer suggestions. When I talk and of course, much of what is going on with my life is generally on the downside, I get told how negative I am. Yet I when I tell them things I have planned or how I’m looking forward to doing something, I get a “that’s cool” and little more. It’s almost as if they could care less. Granted, my good friends and family who care and they talk to me no matter what. I’m thankful for that. I can’t help that most of the things in my life are bad right now. However, if you listen carefully I have good things to say too.

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, Family, Friends, Rant, Society, Stupidity

Second Example Why I Hate Unions!

Published Sunday, November 18, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

Unions used to be useful when companies used to screw over their employees. Now all they do is screw over companies and interrupt customers. And in this case, cause a great American company to go tits up!!! As per usual, Foamy says it best. While you bitch about the government and unemployment, it seems unions are doing a pretty good job of contributing to the nation’s unemployment rate themselves. Now all we’ll get is rip off Twinkies and more government spending as 18,500 people desperately look for work. Again, fuck you unions!!

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, Hostess, News, People, Rant, Stupidity, Twinkies

Once again, All Hail Foamy!

Published Thursday, November 1, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

Once again, my Lord and Master has put things in perspective with exactly how I feel. Some people say I’m too negative and I should be more upbeat. They don’t understand because they refuse to see the world the way people like Foamy and I do. (well, the creator of Foamy) They don’t deal with the constant level of stupidity we do. But rather than let it build up and we end up exploding like a gory scene from Scanners. We vent. Deal with it or move along!

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, Foamy, Life, News, Stupidity

Fake Techs

Published Tuesday, August 28, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

You always hear me rant about customers, and how they have grown more and more lazy over the years. How they have become less and less appreciative for the work we do for them. However, it’s not just them that make me want to take a hot soldering iron to the eyeballs of the people that drive me insane in this industry. There are loads of so-called techs as well.

What a wonderful country we live in. People from near and abroad can randomly wake up one day, and decide they want to be a computer tech. They don’t even need to educate themselves to actually do the job. They will simply rely on real techs to do the work for them. They will make money from it. Even after years of doing this though, they still don’t know fuck all about computers…

For nearly 18 years, I’ve had to deal with this nonsense. I’m self taught and generally I can run circles around these people that want to be techs, but they don’t do any of the thinking process for themselves. My education came from books, other knowledgeable people in the field as well as hands on try, fail and research techniques. Yet, I’ve had to deal with all these other techs with certifications and experience they claim to have. They still don’t know loads of things that should be considered basic knowledge in the tech industry.

I’ve had and still have a desk tech job. Most of my work is done over the phone, using my memory, reference tools and various computers at my disposal. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had these fake techs call me up, and ask me all sorts of questions, some to the point of me walking them through what they should already know to help their customer. Of course, the company feels it is something we should do in case they bring us business in the future. I’m not seeing the scales in any kind of balance here.

I still learn new things all the time and I’ll never claim to be a super expert by any means. (Evil Genius yes, expert no – sorry couldn’t resist) I’ll be the first to admit if I don’t know something. However, I don’t make a business out of relying on everyone else to do the work for me. It is clear I have some colleagues that don’t share this outlook and manage to slide by.

Some of the things that come to mind that stick out in my head over the years (the shortened version, I got a little carried away at first):

I’ve taught an “MCSE” how to use telnet.
I’ve had to explain to a “A+ Certified” Tech about the extra power connector to the motherboard that CPU’s need.
Shown techs that have been in the biz for years, where to find Network Connections in the control panel of a Windows based OS.
Explaining keyboard shortcuts that should be known.
Explaining the importance of exact error messages.
Explaining that V.90 has nothing to do with video output.

The list of ridiculous things I’ve had to put up with over these “techs” is mind bending to say the least. Yet short of a miracle, they will continue to exist. Mostly because they always present themselves in a situation that any kind of negative verbiage in reprisal to their lack of knowledge, could potentially come back to bite you. Well… at least they do in my line of work. Because they can either be at one of my customers locations or are in a position to hurt my business if I refuse to help their brainless asses.

The best I can do, is either get out of the tech biz, or bite my tongue and grin. While ranting about it here. Also, don’t get me started on the billions of useless consultants in this world who couldn’t tell anyone the difference between a Mac and a PC, let alone give anyone a real educated opinion…

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, People, Rant, Stupidity, Technology

Life’s Little Evil Grins

Published Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

Sometimes I get just enough satisfaction out of the stupid decisions people make. Take today’s case. A customer who has had their website hosted with us for many years, but decided a few years ago they wanted someone else to handle the email. Due too their lack of making themselves aware of their decisions then, the decision they made today has interrupted their business. All because they didn’t think through the consequences of their actions. This is especially satisfying when they send me a snarky email from the domain in which we happen to control.

I’ll try to help explain what happened using a simplified chart (click for larger image), as many of you also don’t know how web hosting works either. However, I want you to see why my grin is so evil. See, the customer bought a domain name and got hosting with us some time ago. A few years ago, they decided they wanted a different company to host their domain email, but keep their website with us. In order to do this they did the following:

First they pointed their domain to our servers. This makes it so our servers answer for any requests for a website or email.
When they wanted to have another company handle their email, they asked us to point all mail to a different server. This means all email requests come to us, but are redirected to a different server that we don’t control.

Today I get a nasty little email stating they stopped using us nearly a month ago and that they insist we cancel their service. The email came from their domain.

Doing my job as I do. I check to see if their domain is still pointed to our servers. It is. So once I stop the service, all services will stop as well. Which means I can’t reply to their email as it won’t work. Even though their email is with a different company, all requests have to go through us to get to the other company. So now, none of their email works. I’m sitting here waiting for the call asking why their email doesn’t work. When they do, I will simply refer to the nasty email stating that they stopped using us nearly a month ago, and then point out I guess they still were using our services after all. I’ll also ask if they would like to continue service, or give them the option to go to wherever they got their domain from, and work out the DNS there. However, that option will take a few hours for it to fix their broken email. All because they didn’t think before they got snotty with me.

Ah.. Justice

Posted in News | Tagged Customers, Dumasaphobia, Internet, Responsibility, Website

Rudeness in the South

Published Saturday, May 19, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

I’m from Michigan. When I joined the Navy, I got to do a lot of traveling in my life. First to Mississippi, then to Virginia and then to many places abroad. Spain, Greece, France, Italy, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Pompeii as well as Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Israel. I now reside in Virginia. According to the sign on the way into the state from Maryland, this is the beginning of the south. All my life I kept hearing about Southern Hospitality and how nice folks are in the south. I don’t mean to be rude in saying so, but I haven’t met that many nice people in this here south.

I know some very rude people in particular. They happen to live just a few feet away from my home. You see, my current living situation has me on a very long driveway that has two houses at the end. The main house is where my neighbors live. I live in the smaller of the two houses. It was made quite clear to the people in both homes who has what property to take care of. We have a small patch on the left side on our house were or main door is, and a slightly larger patch going to a shed on the right side of our house. The neighbors have a large yard by their patio doors, a small front yard and they also have a very large field along the drive way. It’s fairly good size and would take an entire day to mow with a push mower. They have a bigger house and a much bigger yardage to handle. Plenty of space if they need to use it.

Our neighbors are also Southern Baptists. They have a lot of outings, cookouts and the like. It seems they are always on the go, and it’s always a church function. They brag to me about how their members are nice and how good the food is when they offer me to come to one of their cookouts. Though I would never go. Because these people are so completely oblivious of just how big of asshats they really are. Even though we bring up issues with them repeatedly.

One issue in particular, is where they have their fellow church members park when they come over. Apparently it’s too much to ask of these members to park in the field down the drive way and walk their happy asses up to the house. The driveway is only like a couple tenths of a mile long. It’s not like they’d have to walk the “Miracle Mile“. But instead they park in the driveway making it difficult for us to get in or out. Then, they also not only park in our little turn around area, but they just decide that it’s ok to park in our yard, on our grass, where we just planted a lot of new seed. It would be one thing if they did this once, we mention we do not appreciate it, and it didn’t happen again. But no, this is got to be the 10th time or so this year alone. Such as today:

Click for Larger Image

The weird thing today, is that, that’s the only car!?! No other cars around, but they happily backed through our turn around spot, onto the grass and parked there. I have a good mind to call a tow truck and have that shit removed. Talk about blatant rudeness! You’d think that being church going folks, they would “do unto others as they’d have done unto them”. Just pisses me off to no end. Even living in BFE, I can’t get away from Dumbasses.

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, People, Rant, Responsibility, Stupidity

Dumasaphobia Shirts are Back!

Published Tuesday, May 1, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

It’s been a long time, but I’ve finally brought back the acclaimed Dumasaphobia T-Shirts! All new sizes and colors!

If you have a fear of stupid people, this is the shirt for you! Click the image or here to order yours today!

Dumasaphobia and the phonetic spelling are copyright © of CastleRain

Posted in News | Tagged Apparel, Dumasaphobia, People, Stupidity, T-Shirts

The Demise of the Modern Vampire

Published Monday, January 2, 2012 | By Denver Fowler

I am a movie loving kind of guy, and I’ve grown up reading books and watching all kinds of movies and even games dealing with Vampires. But holy twinkling manscaping batman! Call me a traditionalist, but what the hell is with all the daytime Vampires? Take everything appealing about a seemingly young gay man, add sparkles, ignore decades of lore and throw them in high school with a set of fangs to pray on underage teen girls, and… TADA! Instant smash hit in the box office!

I guess between Hollywood and what I consider no-talent writers… Twilight, Being Human and the Vampire Diaries are the new Grease. Since today’s young girls would rather be seduced by a dead man who is supposedly a dangerous killer from centuries ago, who just-so-happened to put off his killing ways just for her. (nothing says pedophilia like putting a hundred plus year old man with a teenage girl in the movies) Apparently teenage boys who work on cars and get into fights with leather jackets and goofy hairdo’s will no longer… uh… do.

Between Twilight, Being Human (UK and US) and the Vampire Diaries it’s day time vamps for all! OK, I get that they aren’t real. I get that. But as a younger man, I had a fascination with Vampires and thought they were cool, mysterious and hey, the thought of living forever was a certain plus in many aspects. I even played Vampire: The Masquerade. Now they make me sick. Just as much as that god-awful series Tru-Blood that I my 14 year old daughter told me she had watched late at night during the summer. I become horrified to know that she watched it after I caught the first episode! It’s nothing more than softcore porn!

I mean what’s next? No more holy water, crosses or wooden stakes either? Hell let’s just make them invincible. My poor friends are the unfortunate victims of my distaste as they always suggest I watch the latest Vampire craze hoping I’ll come around. God bless them for trying, as they tell me “you might actually like this one”. However, twinkling vampires is as much of a turn off to me as inaccurate gunshot wounds do for my friend the gun enthusiast, and over done CGI effects that annoy other friends of mine. Sadly, for me the good old days for a T.V. series involving vampires is when Joss Whedon‘s Buffy and Angel series got canceled.

The only exception I make to this at all is the Blade series. As he was born from a pregnant woman as she was turned into a vampire. Took a bit of creative writing and even then, it wasn’t the highlight in my world by any means. I took it for the humorous aspects.

Today’s media is taking lore as far back as 1734 of Vampires as I know and love them, and simply bastardizing the living shit out of it so they can sell books and movie tickets so that female enthusiasts and emo-boys can get “satisfaction” in their nether regions as far as I can see.

Just my opinion, and I know I’m not alone. But I’ll take Wes Craven’s idea of a vampire any day over Stephenie Meyer.

Posted in News | Tagged Dumasaphobia, Sex, Teenagers, Vampires

Fine example of Dumasaphobia

Published Wednesday, December 21, 2011 | By Denver Fowler

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t suffer from Dumasaphobia {dŭm’ăs-ə-fō’bē-ə} The Fear of Stupid People. Over the years I have noted this continuing decline in our society that is a mix of lowered educational standards and technology making making the general populous lazy. The craze of texting is also becoming a severe problem in getting people to spell simple words properly. As well as all the near miss accidents I’ve avoided over the past few years. Nothing like looking in the rear-view mirror at a stop light just to see someone eyes get really huge as they look up from their “smartphone” to stomp on the brake pedal prior to colliding with the rear end of my car.

Although, continually I’m told that I’m being overly hateful or cynical of the human population. Yet here is a perfect example. This is a payment stub I received today from a customer. They couldn’t even do simple addition.

Click for Larger Image

If they can’t do this, I can’t possibly expect them to answer very simple questions like:

What version of Windows or Mac are you using?
When you click on the start menu, do you have 1 or 2 columns? (which is frequently met with “What’s a column?”)
What was the error message?

The list goes on. Things that would normally help me, help the customer. Now the best part is yet to come. In 1 month they will get a bill for $5.00. Call me up and complain to me that they made a 2 month payment and that I should check my records (and become angry with me because my records are wrong in their mind). This will lead to my asking them for a copy of the canceled check for proof. Once they have that then I have to show them their mathematical error. Just so they can say “fine” in a huff and make the payment. No thank you for finding the mistake, no I’m sorry for putting you through this trouble…

Posted in News | Tagged Billing, Customers, Dumasaphobia, Education, Payments

We can’t know everything…

Published Monday, December 12, 2011 | By Denver Fowler

It’s amazing how customers just automatically assume that if they call tech support, that the person they get knows everything about anything dealing with computers or technology. First of all, customers need to think about who they are calling and what they are calling about. If they call their Internet Service Provider (ISP), then they need to keep it related to the internet. Even then, they need to realize if it’s really the internet or if it’s the software they choose to use on the internet.

Just today, I’ve taken two calls asking for help about things that are beyond our control. Both times I’ve gotten the argument that I’m not being very helpful. Which is an incorrect statement. I tried to steer both customers to places that would provide better help than I could. Thus, helping them help themselves. But as always, people today are angry unappreciative twats that can’t understand that they should contact the product maker rather than a service provider. So of course instead of appreciating the help I did give, they just hung up in a huff because I didn’t instantly satisfy them.

The first customer had a problem that when he chose to forward an email in Thunderbird, the address book would come up all wonky with unusual characters. It’s a problem I’ve never heard of before, and we do not promote Thunderbird as a product for use with our service. We haven’t done so in years due to the many issues customers have had with it. I explained I’ve never heard of that before, and perhaps he could go to the software makers website and use their forums and see if there was anyone else with the problem and if so, what their solution was. Or he could also search the internet for answers by using keywords like “Thunderbird” “Forward” “Address book” “Corrupt” or similar. Of course, he then argued we promoted Thunderbird, and I said, “We haven’t promoted it in over 5 years and now promote Windows Live Mail.”. I proceeded to explain that even if we did, we don’t make the product, we have no relationship with any software maker, and that he’d still have to seek support with them for such an unusual case. If it were a common problem, perhaps we would be able to help.

The second customer, had no problems accessing the internet. Except if she used Internet Explorer. She proceeded to explain that it’s required for her to use it as she works from home and whatever she accesses only works via Internet Explorer. As there is no problem with the internet, the problem is clearly on the computer users side. Though I offered suggestions to help her out. I offered that perhaps a security software such as Norton, or McAfee or similar may have stopped giving Internet Explorer access to the internet. This is done through their program permissions in their own firewall. I’ve seen this numerous times in the past. So I suggested she check that. I also suggested she could contact her work and see if whatever program she uses that utilizes Internet Explorer has somehow made things go wrong. Perhaps also, she could contact a local PC repair person to take a closer look at the situation. Perhaps Internet Explorer has been corrupted and needs to be reinstalled. Of course she asked me to go through her security software, but unfortunately what she was using I have had no experience with. So I was unable to help her and she got pissy with me about it. I explained there are hundreds of security software products on the market, and no one in my office has training on anything other than what they, themselves use. There is no way for us to know all of that, and that she needs to contact the software maker for help. She hung up angry.

If you need help with specific product, call the product maker. Not some third party and get pissy with them when they don’t know how to fix it.

And stop calling us about your damned printers! Just because it’s got wireless, doesn’t mean we’ve been trained to operate your peripherals!!

Posted in News | Tagged Customers, Dumasaphobia, Responsibility, Stupidity