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Solitaire banned from POS!
2k3 April 2 - 9:38 AM HST
Hi y'all! Long time no write.

Well, here's a sampling of what I go through at work everyday. Significantly, it's an example of the idiot who's in charge and the crap we underlings go through to keep ourselves fiscally responsible. Jabba is the alias (obviously) of the store manager who gets paid twice what I do for doing one-tenth of what he's supposed to and leaves the responsibilites of the store to everyone else. I thought it was rather appropriate as he is slimy in appearance and ethics and well, he sits around like a bigass slug. Palpatine is the alias of our company COO/VP who's a rather likeable guy. He is smart and cordial guy who lets us be productive and creative by giving minimal guidance and a lot of support. Palpatine knows how to use a computer. The only bad thing I have to say about Palpatine is that he keeps Jabba in charge.

Last Friday morning...
Jabba: are there any games on the POS?
Me: yeah, they came bundled with Windows. why?
Jabba: I got a call from Palpatine and he told me that somebody was playing Solitaire on the POS.
Me: Really?
Jabba: Yes, they read the POS log report and it says that somebody was playing Solitaire using my password on the POS.
Me: Why would something like that be on the POS report? It has nothing to do with the POS data that's transmitted.
Jabba: Well I don't know but Palpatine said that it showed somebody playing Solitaire using my username and password and that was the day I was off.
Me: That's odd because the games have nothing to do with the POS program. Do you want me to just delete the games? I can let Palpatine know that the games were taken off.
Jabba: Oh no, that's alright. We're all adults here so you don't need to do something like that.
Me: But if it's going to be a problem...
Jabba: No, just let the other girls know that the game playing is pau (stopped). I know they use the POS to type up their schoolwork when it's slow and that's okay but they're not getting paid to play Solitaire.
Me: *sigh*
Jabba: Is there any way for Honolulu to see what we're doing?
Me: No, unless they've connected through PC Anywhere.
Jabba: Oh. Well, they must know because Palpatine called me specifically to tell me about it so no more game playing on the POS.
Me: I wonder if they have one of those spy programs that allows them to record all the keystrokes on the computer. No, that wouldn't be possible because the data transmittal would be larger than it already is. Hmm...
Jabba: Oh yeah and they wouldn't spend that kind of money to get something like that.
Me: Oh no, those spyware programs are pretty cheap these days. They record everything that's entered into the computer - every key that's pressed. It's actually kinda cool if you think about it.
Jabba: No, I don't think they've got something like that.
Me: Then how do you think they got that report?
Jabba: I don't know. All I know is no more game playing on the POS.

[writes on the whiteboard: "Everyone: No more game playing on the POS. We don't get payed [his spelling] to play games. Important!"]

It's a bullshit story he tried to pass off on me to tell us to stop playing Solitaire. It's his usual "Palpatine said:" command that's really his way of telling us to do something so that we won�t be angered that it came from him. For instance: "Palpatine said that we are not to change the settings on the AC control panel. I'm supposed to tape a protective strip of paper over the buttons so that it is not changed."

Mind you, this Solitaire/Games thingie is the dictate from a man who doesn't understand the basic workings of a computer. He thinks of the entire machine as "the POS." We've had the POS (point of sale) program since 1999 and he's turned down several offers to learn the basics about Windows. He doesn't understand what the difference between "minimize" and "close" is nor does he wish to learn. He doesn't realize that the computer isn't automatically connected to the Internet just because we've got the modem plugged into our phone jack. Yes, this is our manager

I usually take everything he says as crap when he prefaces it with �I got a call from Honolulu� because it�s turned out to be the case 99.9% of the time. The other 0.10% turns out to be actual truth that he�s trying to pass as his own story or to his credit. Notice how I confronted him about the POS and Solitaire being separate programs? He had this look of incredulity on his sorry-ass face when I said that and his reply stated the same. He probably thought I was lying about the keystroke recording programs.

Not to go off topic but I wasn�t certain about the spelling of incredulity but it turned out to be correct - hooray for reading!

I once witnessed him attempt to schmooze a diamond customer during a conversation about Ebay. The woman was shopping for a particular diamond and when Jabba told her we didn't have it in stock but we could get it from our broker she mentioned that she's been hunting on the Internet. He started spouting all this cautionary stuff about how it's good to research your stones with a reputable dealer and that the drawback about online shopping is that "you can't see the stone until you get it." Well, isn't that what happens when we bring things in for customers in our store? The woman gave him an odd look and said that the broker she was communicating with had scanned pictures of both the stone and the certificate on Ebay and that he had solid credentials. Jabba then switches gears and says "oh good - that's one way to go then. At least you don't have to put any money down for it. Ebay lets you get the stone and then pay them back for it later if you decide you want it." That's when I had to drop what I was doing and stare. The woman did the same. I think she realized that he had no clue about the workings of Ebay and that he's never even visited anything on the Internet. She hasn't visited our store since.