The Line Sirkit

A few years ago I worked as a customer service representative at a large, world-wide computer company. I don't really want to say which one it is, so for the purposes of this blog entry, we'll go ahead and call it Hell.

I first started at Hell during the summer of 2006. The group of newbies I was hired with were in a training class every day. For the first week we spent our days in a classroom, learning applications and procedures. The next week we were put on the phones, taking calls from irate customers who had all kinds of computer issues. Not technical ones, just customers needing help tracking their Hell package, or exchanging their Hell Computer.

My very first phone call. I was incredibly nervous to take the phone call, but I lined up my notes in a neat stack, did a quick review of my opening script (Thank you for calling Hell, my name is Julie, how may I help you today?) and accepted the first call.

Now first of all, I was so nervous I stumbled over my opening lines and could feel myself blushing furiously. All during training we heard all kinds of horror stories about furious customers, bomb threats, screaming callers, and complicated issues. I just knew that my first call would be a doozy.

And it was.

The lady who was calling Hell that day was incredibly polite. Oozing with sweetness and Southern charm. And when I say Southern, I mean Southern. Picture the deep swamps of Georgia, then go a little further South. Little more. Little more. Yep, that's where she was from. Very, very strong accent, a lot of ya'lls and yes'ms. She spoke incredibly fast and I was getting very flustered as I was sorting through the information I had on my notes and scrambling through the complicated computer system.

I took a deep breath and asked her to please explain the problem again. She, again very politely, said "No probm ma'am. The som'n som'n line sirkit and ya'lls som'n som'n, k ma'am? So I kulled the please and ya'lls...." I was lost. I calmly placed her on hold and then took off my headphones and shot a panicked look around the room. I found my trainer and explained what was going on.

"I can't understand this lady! She's talking about a line SIRKIT or something? Help!"

I got back on the phone with my trainer by my side and asked the woman to repeat the problem slowly, explaining that I could not understand what she was saying because of her accent. She laughed and again blathered on about a line sirkit with little pause for breath. I was near tears now. I started to think she was talking about something related to the circuit board, which would be a technical problem. I started to direct her towards Hell's technical support team, but she insisted it was not a technical problem.

This went on for about twenty more minutes. Her talking about line circuits, and me confused and unsure of how to help her. I asked her if she was talking about a computer part. She said no. I asked her if something was wrong with her computer. She said yes. I asked her how we could fix the problem. She said "I need a new computer because line circuit."

Wait, line circuit?

Then very sloooowwwwlllly she said "Ma'am lass nigh' there was a big stome (storm). There was thunner and LINE and all a suddn, LINE CIRCUIT. Now my computer's broke."

"Ooooooh, there was thunder and lightening and lightening struck it?"

"Yes'm. Line circuit."

I think this is where my deep loathing of the word ya'll was founded. Hearing that word sends shivers down my spine. It reminds me of the day I cried over the southern woman calling Hell's customer service about her line circuit.

Parade of Fools.

Our annual 'Western Days' parade was last weekend. The parade is meant to celebrate our Western heritage, and each entry in the parade is supposed to be Western themed, so lots of covered wagons and horses and cowboys.

The past few years the parade has slowly become a little more, well, parade-like. As in, more marching bands, cloggers, local business floats, and candy being hurled at young children.

It wasn't really cold, but it wasn't warm either. Jackets were definitely needed.

We arrived at the parade a little too early, so both kids were restless. Chloe threw a huge temper tantrum because she wanted to sit in baby's stroller. You can see that I am very tough and never give in to her whining.


Meanwhile my mom held Alivia, who did pretty well until 2 minutes before the parade began. Major meltdown time.



Because I live in Idaho, The-Hicksville-State, we saw a group that had entered their mud covered trucks in the parade. For the sole reason of umm...showing off how dirty they were? The group does a lot of 'muddin' and I guess they wanted to show the city how classy and cool they are. Don't believe me?


And I am not even joking, there were about 10 trucks in a row that would rev their engines and fling mud as they paraded down Main Street. 80% of the drivers had a mullet and no shirt, and I am pretty sure I saw several cans of beer nestled in their laps.

It was sad. Just sad. Even worse was the group of pot-bellied rednecks lining the street that cheered "HELL YEAAAAAHHHH" as the trucks passed.

Chloe loved the horses, but was completely shocked that they were allowed to poop in the middle of the street. Every other minute she would check to make sure the poop was there, and loudly proclaim "Ewww, that's nasty. There's poop in the road. Look at that! Poop there. The horse pooped, look, look. Ewwww!" But she was secretly delighted.

After the parade we walked across the street to the city park to enjoy the food booths (hush puppies, mini donuts, elephant ears), then we all laid down and nearly died from the overload of sugar and grease. It was great!

The best part of a busy parade?

Coming home with exhausted kids.