Pinkerton's Weblog

Your Government Dollars At Work

For those who don't know, I'm a proposal writer for a living. This means that, on behalf of my company, I answer requests for proposals from all manner of companies.

Let me explain this: If a company wants product x, say, rather than just go out and buy it, they'll put the request on the the market, define exactly what they need, and let the companies come to THEM with proposals for fulfilling their requirement. Then they can sit at their leisure and pick through the documents for the best one. I write proposal responses for my company, trying to get companies to choose us to provide the services they've requested.

So I'm responding to a government request today for a database developer in Ottawa. Government documents are just fucking torture, by the way, for the anal way they make you answer everything. They set in specifications for the fonts and margins you have to use, for God's sake. And everything's graded. If they want, say, experience with tugging at your little sizzler, 2 years experience gets 5 points, 4 years gets 10, and 8 and over gets 15, for example.

Anyway, as I'm going through the latest request for proposal, I notice this hilarious requirement:

Experience within a Microsoft 2000 sever platform environment.
2 to 4 yrs experience: 4 points
4 to 6 yrs experience: 8 points
6 yrs and over experience: 16 points

Now... come fucking on. The goal is to get the maximum number of points, of course, so the candidate I'm keying in the responses for has gone for the max. So he's basically said, for every job he's ever had, that he has experience with Microsoft 2000.

So what's sillier: the government asking for 6 years and over of experience in Microsoft 2000? Or a programmer confidently responding that he's been using it as far back as 1994?

Sympathy For The Devil

"Hello, Rogers Cable, how may I help you?"

"Hi, thanks. I was just looking through my bill. You've been charging me $60 a month?"

[click clack clack] "That's correct, sir."

"For the internet, right?"

[click clack clack] "That's correct, sir."

"JUST the internet connection?"

[pause]

[click clack clack] "Yes, sir."

"Well -- well, that's insane. Sixty dollars a month? For the internet? I signed a deal for forty dollars."

"Yes, sir. However, because you have decided not to purchase cable television, we have to charge you twenty dollars for the connection fee in addition to your internet services."

[pause]

"You people are crazy like foxes, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Alright. Let's say I wanted cable. How much would that cost?"

"Sixty-five dollars a month. That's for basic cable only, sir."

"Right. So sixty-five dollars for internet and cable. Or forty dollars for just cable, plus twenty dollars for a 'cable charge', plus tax?"

[click clack clack] "That's correct, sir."

[pause]

"You people are such whores, you know that?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Look. Honestly now. Sixty dollars for the internet is insane. What deals do you have? Is there a Lite internet or something I could get or something?"

[click clack clack] "We DO have a Lite Cable connection, sir. It's twenty dollars less a month. However, it IS significantly slower."

"How much slower?"

"Our premium cable service, sir, is 2 megabytes. Our lite service is 125 kilobytes."

"2 megabytes? What does that mean? A second?"

"Yes, sir."

"I've been with you people for a year now. The day I get two megabytes a second is the day I'll gladly pay you $60 a month."

"That's optimum, sir."

"Okay. What's average?"

"About 750 kilobytes a second, sir."

"And the Lite?"

"About 250 kilobytes a second, sir."

[pause]

"Can I get the Lite version, please? NOW?"

[click clack clack] "Certainly, sir. But you'll have to speak to a different department."

"Fine. When are they open?"

"Next Monday."

"I see. We can't do this right now."

"I'm sorry, sir. You need to go through them."

"And they're only open one day a week?"

"Yes, sir."

[pause]

"GOD, you people are good."

"Thank you, sir."

"Fine. Whatever. Don't think this is forgotten. I WILL phone next Monday."

"Certainly, sir. I should mention that there is a fifty dollar downgrading fee attached to subscribing to Rogers Lite." (I'm NOT kidding here.)

"A fifty dollar fee?"

"Yes, sir."

"For DOWNGRADING my service?"

"Yes, sir."

[pause]

"I -- I -- this is amazing. You've actually perfected fucking customers over to a complete science."

[click clack clack] "Thank you, sir. Please be sure to visit www.rogers.ca to mention this service call, and your satisfaction with it."

[dial tone]