10/1/08

I mentioned yesterday the possibility that I might tell about an idiot confrontation, remember? Well, it has been idiots all the way down for me this week. No, that’s not really fair. The lady at the courthouse might not be an idiot. Let me start at the beginning. Last week when I took off to go to the dentist, I also stopped in to see if Shichi’s license plates were in. They were not. The lady at the counter said she’d call when they arrived. She did not, but that’s getting ahead of the story. Another lady at the courthouse, who I know from church, had also said she’d call when they arrived. She, also, did not but again this is getting ahead of the story. She did call to say that they expected the plates on the 29^th or 30^th of the month. That would be Monday or Tuesday. I waited until Tuesday to actually call them about it. But let’s go back to Monday for a moment. I arrive at work to my pager going off. “Can you meet Execubot 2000 in the Board Room and help him hook up his laptop?” I reply in the affirmative and head for the Bored Room. There, I meet a half dozen folks with paper nametags. Not a single railroad person to be found. One of the nametags starts to tell me what they need to do. I say they need a railroad person to log in to the computer before we can do anything. He calls Execubot 2000 who says he’s on his way. I wait. About fifteen minutes later, the room begins to fill with very important looking people, all with paper nametags. Still no railroad personnel to be seen. Another fifteen minutes later and here comes Execubot 2000. I get him logged on but before he can give me his presentations, he’s called away to talk to the Minister of Transportation from Tanzania. No, that is not hyperbole. These folks were representatives from several African nations here to talk about railroading. Well, the nametag from earlier hands me a memory stick and we get his presentation loaded and running. And since it is time to start the meeting, Execubot 2000 starts the friggin’ meeting! I'm left standing there with my thumb up my ass. I grab my laptop and leave. I'm mumbling that if you know people are flying in from the other side of the friggin’ planet, you ought to know in advance that the meeting is going to happen and you should plan ahead for setting up your presentations. I figure when Execubot 2000 is ready to do his thing, he can call me and I'll come back. It might take half an hour to get there, but I'll come back. So I go to my office, fuming about idiots. Not a great way to start a week. Well, Execubot 2000 does call a little while later but it is to show the BNSF promotional video in the Viewing Gallery. Apparently we didn’t make the touch panel control “executive proof” enough because they couldn’t figure out pressing two buttons. You touch the button marked “BNSF Promotional Video” and if the two bars are green you touch the button marked “Start Promotional Video.” How tough can that be? Well, too tough for Execubot 2000 apparently. They somehow got the wrong video to play. At least that is what I gathered from the two Underling ID10-T units buzzing around the door as I arrived. After Execubot 2000 finished showing off the dispatch center, which should have come after the video if they had done things correctly, I ran it for them. Gee, all I had to do was touch two buttons and it worked fine. Go figure. I head back to my desk, fuming about stupidity again, and wait for lunch time. After lunch I get another call from Execubot 2000 back in the Bored Room. The computer had “locked up.” I use quotes because all they needed to do was log in again. It is really sad when someone comes to me, of all people, for computer help! Anyhoo, I did wind up having to change the batteries in the keyboard for them and things worked better. At least I didn’t hear from them again all day. Well, except to ask if I could meet Execubot 2000 in the Grand Canyon Room Tuesday morning to help him set up his laptop. Tuesday morning I'm in the GCR waiting and he’s only a few minutes late. At least no nametags had shown up this time. I get him set up and head to my desk. Other stuff happens, like the Town Hell Meeting I mentioned yesterday, but I'm mostly left to my own devices. Around 1100 h I call the courthouse to check on my plates. Yep, they are there. I find out that they are open until 1700 h so I make a plan. I'll go down there right after lunch. I head towards the courthouse around 1400 h and find a parking spot right next to the door. I put a couple dimes in the meter and head up to the counter. I wait for a moment in a two-person line and the same lady who “helped” me Wednesday came available. I told her that I was told my plates were in and that I'd like to get them. She found them in the back and started the process of transferring that number to Shichi. She enlisted help because this was the first set of myplates.com plates she’d done. She got that done and tried to charge me $1.75 for the transfer. “No,” I said, “I also need to renew the registration on this and the 2007 Nissan Versa.” Well, she got the registration renewed… on the Versa. I wrote the check for $71.23 or so but as I was leaving, something was itching at my brain. “Did I pay for registration on Shichi?” I asked myself. I'd seen the window sticker with that plate number so I assumed I had, somehow. Sure seemed cheap though. I went ahead and drove back to the office. I got back by 1445 h so I didn’t feel too bad about skipping out. Once back at my desk, however, I discovered that the window sticker for Shichi was only good for another nine hours. Yep, it was a current sticker set to expire at midnight. I called her back and ‘splained this. She said she’d have it all ready if I wanted to come back. I hung out for an hour or so and left again at 1600 h to go back to the courthouse. I got another good spot by the door but there was plenty of time on this meter. I went in and paid for another year of registration on Shichi and got a sticker good until 09/09 instead of 09/08. And with that transaction complete, I went home. Now I'm back here at work and we’re planning to go to the shop tonight. We’ll see what Gregg’s story is this time as to why he can’t bring Matilda to us and we might make a run to go get it. We’ll see. You may have noticed that I have revised the spelling of Shichi. I decided that since her license plate does not have the hyphen, neither will the “official” name of the car. If you didn’t notice, well, never mind then.