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This morning’s meeting with UM never happened.
He’s been in and out of the office, and is supposed to be out all afternoon.
John’s busy doing monitorings, so he’s unavailable too.
I went to UM’s office at around noon to see if there was any news, but there was none, and he sent a message to his boss, and said he’d come to my cube and let me know if anything comes up.
I didn’t think it would have been a really good idea to go back there and start trying to lay down the law without listening to what he had to say, if anything, first, and it turned out he didn’t have much to say at all.
I went to lunch around 1:00, and ate chicken, green beans and potatoes, and had tea to drink with it.
The chicken was a little burnt, but not very much, and the potatoes and green beans were awesome.
The tea was like concentrated sugar.
I could definitely use a nap right now.
I put my name in the drawing for a huge TV they’re giving away.
It would be funny if I won it.

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I’m going to work this morning, and John, the upper management type, and I are going to have a chat about all this, specifically the counting my average handle time against me.
I’m going to explain that that battle’s already been fought and won, and then I’m going to ask why there’s a need to rehash it.
I’m also going to explain why my AHT isn’t being counted in the first place, and I’m going to explain, in detail, the legal ramifications of all this, namely that the company has backed itself into a corner with this, and that if they can’t get the interface fixed, then they’ll have to put me in another position, even if that means creating one in the local center.
They can’t ask me to move to take another position somewhere else, and they can’t ask me to even apply for it.
Since they created this problem, it rests on their shoulders to fix it.
I’m not going to be threatening about it, I’m just going to explain the facts.
I’m going to explain that I’m not going away.
They can’t fire me over this, and I’m not quitting.
All of my dealings with this individual make me very suspicious, and seem to justify my being so jaded.
He gives off the creepy corporate vibe, and It is my belief that all this about my AHT came about out because they’re grasping for straws.
I’m thankful that I have people like Ze’evi, who have been through this before, to give advise.
He’s never proven to be off the mark on this sort of thing.
I just wish I didn’t have to deal with any of this, and that I could just do my job like any “normal” joe.
I’m not looking to create a storm here, but since I’m already in the middle of one, I might as well make sure I don’t get trampled by it.

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Looks like I’ve got my answer about the upper management type I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
He spouts just as much BS as everyone else around here.
He fed me a whole bunch of crap about how we need to maximize my potential, and how he wants to find a way to put my many talents to good use, and how he’s talking to his people, who are talking to their people … and they’re supposed to have a solution sometime tomorrow.
He tells me he’s going to get them to rewrite the whole damn interface.
Right.
And I’m Jesus Christ.
This guy has told me everything except that he lives in a van down by the river.
I’m starting to choke on all this.

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I met with the upper management type at around 2:30 this afternoon, and he gave me the “I want to help” motivational speech.
I’m not totally sure whether I should believe it or not.
I’ve heard from other people he manages to get things done, but I heard that about everyone who’s ever occupied any upper management position here.
He recommended that we test out all known browsers, so we did, and none of the others tested worked.
Firefox, Netscape, and Opera were all no-goes with Jaws.
Back to the drawing board.

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I just came back from talking to the HR director.
I asked him if there are any other positions available in order to get out of this accessibility rut I’m in, and keep finding myself in.
He says there aren’t any in the local center, and that I can always apply for some other position in some other ConUs center, but that ConUs doesn’t relocate agents, so that would be my problem.
I’m supposed to talk to the upper management this afternoon.
Basically, I’m going to go back to the bigger management cubes, and then the upper manager here is going to call his boss, and we’re going to sit and talk about how the client doesn’t want to set up the mirror to the old interface, because that would cost too much money to maintain for two people, and we’ll be back at square one.
We’re going nowhere fast, and what worries me is that this will be used as an opportunity to tell me to have a nice day.
It’s definitely the path of least resistance, and right now I’m in the middle of a fight between two corporate whores who are more concerned about maximizing their profits, and could care less if one or two cube-dwellers get trampled underfoot because of something that was never their fault in the first place.
I’ve been yelling (figuratively) about this accessibility issue for the last three years, and it’s getting me nowhere, and looks like it may even signal the end of the line for me at this job.
Cary isn’t really helping matters.
He’s content to just follow the directives of his supervisor, take calls, then call the support team to do the work after clicking around awhile, and making the caller think he’s actually helping.
His justification is that they’ll monitor him eventually, see he’s screwing things up and then fire him, and then he’ll be out of the situation.
He’s taking it one day at a time, so that it doesn’t encroach on his sanity.
Whatever floats your boat.
Personally, I’m a fan of self-preservation.
I hate this job, but I can’t afford to lose it.
If I could afford it, I would have quit long ago.
So I’m interested in not only fixing the current crisis, but preventing future ones so that I can save myself future headaches.
I don’t think that’s too unreasonable.
I’d love to be able to just sit back, not worry about all this, and just wander aimlessly throughout life.
But in order to do that, I’d have to have no ambition, or even a desire to keep from slipping into the multitude of blind and visually impaired people who are unemployed.
As much as I hate my job, being unemployed is infinitely worse.
I detest having to rely on the charity of others, regardless of the level of sincerity.
It’s not that I wouldn’t be appreciative, and it’s not that I think people are incapable of giving wholeheartedly.
At this point in my life, I want to be able to provide for myself, without undue stress, and without having to worry about whether or not my livelihood is going to be jeopardized by some company’s pet technological abortion that lived.
Is that really too much to ask?

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I am definitely not looking forward to going to work today, only to do the same thing I’ve been doing since the 8th.
I shouldn’t even be able to put any time limit more than a couple of days on this, yet it’s turning into a two-week, possibly longer, phenomenon of stupidity.
I’m going to call in again this morning and see if I can get any information, and the permission to just stay here instead of going in and sitting on my can.
I’ve got a ton of laundry to do, and even if I didn’t, I could spend at least part of the day watching Star Trek, which is infinitely more interesting than watching the antics that go on at work.
They should be lucky I’m not world dictator.
All the idiots would be gone in one fell swoop.

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Not that I want to bring it up again, but the execution of Tookie Williams has, due to its media attention, rekindled the debate on whether capital punishment is a just penalty for crimes like murder.
Both sides seek to bolster their claims by citing Biblical passages, and it seems the favorite of the opponents of the death penalty is the following: ” … Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord … ” (Romans 12:19).
The verse quotes, (or rather, paraphrases), Deuteronomy 32:35, part of the well-known Ha’azinu.
It is used in the Christian Scriptures as support for the position held by Paul that Christians should not take vengeance against their enemies, and reassuring them that God will do the avenging.
But can this verse be used as a prooftext against the death penalty?
It is my aim, throughout this article, to demonstrate that this verse has nothing to do with the death penalty, and that both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures distinguish between vengeance and state sanctioned punishment of criminals,

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I never thought I’d say that about my job.
Stressful, exhausting, demanding, unrewarding and unfulfilling, definitely.
But never boring.
Then this week happened.
When I got to work this morning, I performed my now ritualistic walk to the operations manager’s cube and asked if there was any news.
I think after Tuesday’s melt-down, he’s been avoiding me.
Basically, after my post deploring the extreme lack of logic inherent in attempting to take calls when the system still wasn’t working, I attempted to convince myself to get on the phone, and ignore the fact that this wasn’t going to work, and just take calls and feed everybody a line of crap while I fought with the system to try to get it to work even though I knew it wouldn’t, but there was no convincing.
So I decided to take the course of action that wouldn’t get me in to trouble: talking to John about it instead of the more desirable yelling at the client’s minion.
John managed to get the management pukes to leave off having me take calls, but there’s been no information since.
So when I went to the OM’s cube this morning, he said he’s going to “push some buttons” today.
And what exactly has been going on all this week?
I seriously considered not coming in to work today.
It was raining, 30 degrees outside, and I would much rather be home, getting stuff done and watching Star Trek.
What makes it worse is that the OM said he actually probably would have aproved the request for paid time off.
This whole thing sucks.
This is an open trackback post.
You know what to do with it.
Send me a trackback, and link to this post, and you’ll be linked.
Enjoy.

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I want to know exactly what these people who have managed to get promoted according to the level of their incompetence are missing that would make it sink in that Jaws 7.0 hasn’t fixed the current database interface problems, and isn’t ever going to fix them.
We’ve already tried the upgrade, with no difference in usability, I’ve submitted all the accessability information, and everything was done in vain, because I was just told to try to take calls for the next hour or so and see how it goes.
I even illustrated, by turning on the monitor and literally letting the operations manager watch as I have to go in and out of forms mode in order to navigate the drop-down box in order to pick an option to use when searching.
He still says take calls.
I’m so pissed.
I’ve got half a mind to go to the client’s minion’s makeshift office, and yell at him, even though I know that wouldn’t accomplish anything but getting me fired, or at least in some real trouble.
I can’t believe he’s actually that stupid.
Or that he just doesn’t care that much, and is interested in forcing this God-forsaken new design come hell or high water.
I told the operations manager that we had a working link, and that theasiest way to fix the problem is to restore access to the link.
He says the client isn’t willing to do that until they see that the new version isn’t working, which has already been illustrated numerous times.
I really don’t know what to do anymore.
I’m sick and tired of pounding my head against a wall for nothing.

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I woke up this morning with a raging headache.
Not good.
I haven’t even gotten to work yet, and as of yesterday afternoon, still no solution.
I talked to Cary last night, and he says he’s taking calls, but he’s asking the callers to hold three or four minutes at a time while he wrestles with the interface and Jaws.
Completely unacceptable.
We can’t afford to keep doing that.
I don’t understand why they had to kill the link in the first place.
If they have to upgrade, fine.
But if they’re not going to involve us in testing the thing to make sure it’s accessible, then don’t kill the link.
It’s that simple.
I know I have a lot of sighted readers, but this is one of those times when sighted people really prove how inconsiderate they can be.
To the ones who have been helpful, I sincerely thank you.
But to the rest, please stop making my life difficult.

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I just talked to one of the techno-shepherds, and he told me that the client wants me to use the lates version of the screen reader so that my “testing environment” is the same as theirs.
I’ve already explained several times that the Java support hasn’t changed from V5 (the version I’m using) to V7.
All they did as far as internet applications is concerned was add support for Firefox.
They added some other Jaws-specific features, but no change in Java support.
And what the hell is this about a “testing environment?”
Yet another line of crap.
I was just given a link that goes to “the page cannot be displayed.”
We’ll probably have this thing figured out by the end of the month, just in time for them to break it again.

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I got in this morning to find that the link I use to access the database interface has been killed, and to top it off, the new interface doesn’t work with Jaws.
This is exactly what I thought was going to happen.
And as if things need to be any worse, the person who has all the information about who to contact in order to get the link operative again has been fired.
She wasn’t forward-thinking enough to pass on the information.
Probably wanted to keep it to herself so she could feel important.
There’s the client’s man, who’s perfectly happy to accept the declaration of accessibility handed down from the developers, and then there’s the HTML Specialist, (yes, that’s her actual title), who’s in his pocket, so the results will be pretty much the same from that end.
This is what happens when idiots get put in to positions of power.
We’ve gone through this before, I’ve made it a point to make suggestions and recommendations to the developers to make the damn thing accessible, and no one seems to listen.
Now we get to spend however long arguing this point all over again.
Well, at least this time, I have ‘net access.
I’m not too thrilled about sitting around here serfing the ‘net though.
That’s not why I’m supposed to be here.
I didn’t get up, find out that the conditioner I bought isn’t really conditioner, (not Andrew’s fault, probably some idiot put shampoo in the same place as the conditioner, and he just grabbed because he knows where the conditioner is supposed to be, and assumed that it would be there), then to spend most of the remaining time trying to get a comb and brush through my hair without doing any damage, just to come to work and find out that everything’s been totally screwed up because of someone else’s stupidity.
Why does stupidity have to ruin everything?
I’d love to find a way to make stupidity illegal.
To be fair, I realize that making changes to tons of code is very expensive, and that there are only two employees who require the changes.
But I don’t think it would require a complete overhaul of the system to make it accessible.
Java can be made accessible, it just takes a little consideration to do it.
Given my past dealings, the impression I get is that accessibility really isn’t a concern for more than financial reasons, and they’ll just continue to feed me lines because they think I’ll believe them, and because I really have no choice but to at least act like I do.
What else am I supposed to do?
It’s not like I can just expose some major scam and get the changes made.
If I go making too many waves, it could cost me my job, and I’m sure there’s something they could hide behind to make sure it doesn’t look like a discrimination case.
I’m definitely a proponent of capitalism, but there’s making a profit, and then there’s greed.
Based on what I’ve seen, I firmly believe that both the client and the company I work for are acting as a result of the latter, and not the former.
I wish I was wrong on this one.
The Business Of America Is Business,

TMH’s Bacon Bits, Liberal Common Sense, the Conservative Cat, and MacStansbury.org link to this.

Convergys, accessibility, Express Scripts, computer, MYSQL, database

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I’ve got some woman on the phone who ordered two different strengths of a medication, three months ago, and now claims she never ordered it, and we’re just supposed to credit her for it because she never got them.
The replacement policy is that you have to call no earlier than twelve days and no later than forty-five days after the prescription has been shipped in order to replace the order.
She didn’t, so we assumed she got it, and charged her.
Of course, she wanted to speak to my supervisor.
Somebody needs to tell her it’s too bad, she has to pay for it anyway.

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I got to work this morning, and found that they had turned the heat off last night.
I’m not kidding around.
They actually turned the heat off, and it’s still in the 20’s.
The people who worked the overnight shift litterally had to wear gloves to type.
John says he put in four service requests to have the heat turned on, and one to turn the air on when it gets to eight thousand degrees in here.
I can’t believe it’s really that hard to keep the temperature somewhere near normal.
Idiocy at work.
They released the new upgrade to the database interface today.
I’ve been instructed to use the old link, (which is running very slow today), until the client’s minion comes out, declares that the new version is accessible, and tells me to try out the client’s latest attempt at bestowing a gift on creation.
I get to be the guinney pig again, and that’s a direct quote from John.
I hate being in this positiion.
Why do I always have to be the guinney pig in these situations?
I know I’m the only one who uses a screen reader around here, but it feels like I’m the company’s experiment or something.
“Let’s set up some obstacles, and see if the blind person can make it work!”
Or is it just extreme ignorance.
Who knows.
I didn’t get the support position, or the supervisor position, so I’ll be on the phones a while longer.
There’s got to be a way out of here.
In the meantime, I’ll settle for a little heat.

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Since a good number of you read this blog via your friends pages on LiveJournal, I’ve decided to introduce a new feature to the site in order to acquaint you all with some of the blogs I have on my personal blogroll, as well as blogs I happen to find while browsing.
This morning, while looking at the Open Trackback Alliance blogroll on my sidebar, trying to pick which sites to visit in order to shamelessly promote myself, I found Less People, Less Idiots.
I’ve been sneaking peaks at it all day, (whenever I had a break during work), and I’ve laughed every time.
During lunch, I spent enough time reading it that I laughed so hard I cried.
It’s a mix of satire, black comedy, and political commentary, but you can’t really place this guy on any particular side of the debate.
And that’s what’s so cool.
He appeals to just about everybody, unless you’re thinking of Pat Robertson, who he makes fun of as well.
No one’s left out.
This site deserves your attention, no matter what side of the political battle you’re on, or what faith you belong to.
And in case you’re looking for something deeper, he doesn’t just make fun of people for no reason.
There’s always some message he’s trying to get across.
So give it a look-see, and leave him some comments.
Everyone’s bound to find something at least slightly amusing, and if you say you haven’t, you’re just ashamed to admit you did, and you’re feeling guilty about laughing, and you’ll probably be making an appointment with your shrink.

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