Coworker Entitlement Strikes Again

Every time I think I’ve seen it all in the Twilight Zone<tm> (work), they surprise me. Mostly unpleasantly.

Today started off like any other day, with my wife watching the local Fox news. Unlike most other days, they were in the midst of their wall-to-wall Phillies coverage. In fact, Fox is changing their slogan to “All Phillies, All the Time.” They found it somehow made a difference if they dispensed with any of the usual fluff as well as any actual news. It certainly made a difference to my wife. There she was, sitting and enjoying the Phillies coverage, when down comes her husband, noticing the Phillies-only `news’ and immediately screaming at the television, as if the Fox programmers could hear and feel his outrage. All the poor lady wanted to do was watch the Fox Phillies coverage… errr… news…. Instead she got a ranting husband, which is even uglier in the early morning.

“Thanks, Stacy. We’re here at Bob’s Bar in Philly, where the fans are showing their loyalty with a morning helping of Philly Red Beer.” [patrons all dressed in red Phillies regalia and hooting loudly before falling into their special red eggs]

“Thanks, Dawn. We’re across town from Stacy, at Mulligan’s Irish Pub, which has gone red for the day. I’ll bet you don’t know why, Bob. It’s because of the PHILLIES!!!” [more red-garbed drunks shouting " YO! PHILLIES NUMBER ONE. DOOD!!!!"]

“Well isn’t that something? I used to be a model but made the transition to news host because I wasn’t smart enough for modeling. But enough about me - let’s go to Danny in the Phillies Mobile Van.”

“Danny, are you there? Danny? DANNY.”

“Oh, hi, Bobbi. This is Danny, live with the Phillies Cam, and I’m standing directly in the middle of Roosevelt Boulevard (that’s Route One for you out-of-towners who came to see your team lose). I’m having a hard time hearing you because I’m literally standing on the Boulevard and the wind from the cars is wreaking havoc on my hair. I’m standing out here today in support of our Number One Phillies. I have a Honk if you’re for the Phillies t-shirt on and people have been honking at me all day! Some started honking even before I put the t-shirt on. Yes, anything can happen with the Phillies are in the World Series.”

“Yes, Danny, anything CAN happen. Or could happen, if we could ever get it to stop raining. Ha ha. Over to Jill with the Channel 97 Phillies Forecast. Jill - what can the Fightin’ Phils expect for their game tonight?”

“Well, Bobbi, I’m glad you asked. It’s going to be a great day for our Phillies to take the field tonight and GO ALL THE WAY!” [cut to shot of random groups of incoherently screaming red-clad sports fans]

“Jill…. I heard that it was going to rain starting last night and for the next three days.”

“Well that’s what YOU heard. We spoke with Mother Nature earlier. It turns out she’s a Phillies fan too, so we’re going to have great weather. And all weather is great weather when the Phils are in the Series!”

“Uh… Jill… it’s snowing outside.”

“Bobbi - I don’t like the tone of your voice. Who are YOU to rain (or snow) on the Phillies parade? What kind of a person are you? A Chicago import, perhaps?” [cut to shot of random mob in random bar, cheering but starting to look concerned]

“Bobbi - are you the kind of person who doesn’t LIKE the Phillies?” [crowd growing restless, somebody throws a bottle at the camera, somebody else shouts `HEY. SAVE THAT FOR THE GAME, IDIOT.']

“I get the idea you have a PROBLEM with them Phils. Do you know what we DO with people like you?” [mob chanting KILL HER - KILL HER!]

Pause for station identification.

[slightly bruised with too much makeup] “Welcome back to Fox News. We understand that people have been complaining about this newscast, stating that the only thing we talk about is the Phillies. This is patently untrue. In fact, let’s go to international news with Jon.”

“Thanks, Bobbi. In international news, several heads of foreign countries will convene at the White House tonight, where they will sit with President Bush and watch the Phillies win the World Series.” [crowd cheers]

“And today in financial news, we look at our sports stadiums. Yes, we all paid to have them built and yes, we never expect to get anything back on our investment but… but….. hey - how about them Phillies, eh?”

Oh yeah, I eventually made it to work safely. And good thing, too. Even the trees were celebrating the Phillies’ standing by sending random branches to the ground, if not entire trees. I swear I saw some newslady fly by in the wind, followed by an angry mob, but this was before my first pot of coffee.

I got stuck in meetings and generally not being productive (yes, same thing). All of the sudden one of my coworkers comes up to me to tell me something `very important.’ I feared the worst, but no, the coffee machine was working perfectly.

It would appear that some people `found out’ that their Department of Computer Geeks has programs that spy on them while they’re using their computers.

Let me stop here to explain that this was never a secret and `found out’ means four weeks after they watched it being done while repairing a user-inflicted problem on their pc, they realized it could be done.

But this was not enough for the folks to whom we provide service, no sir. Something needed to be done. Someone needed to call meetings. Someone else needed to escalate. A third one needed to involve Human Resources and a team of amateur lawyers, otherwise known as the Payroll Department.

The hue and cry was deafening. People were spoken at. Demands were made. They began gathering pitchforks and torches, only to discover that the torches kept setting off the fire alarms.

I suspect that within the next day or two, my entire department will be called to be put on the rack in front of the Executive Committee to explain this heinous abuse of power and tools.

Did I mention that our population has a certain sense of entitlement?

We will have no choice but to answer honestly. That Windows Remote Desktop, included with every copy of Windows, is the enabling technology and that if they’re sore over this, they need to complain to Bill Gates himself.

Then we’ll pull out the Big Guns<tm>. We will tell them how much time and money the company saves by using remote tools to repair and manage networks and desktops, including at remote sites. How green is that?

What they also fail to grasp, not for the lack of putting it out there, is that we have a strict No-Care Policy. We don’t care what people are doing, so long as the equipment and network are ok. Yes, we can read your mail. Yes, we can listen to your phone calls. But why in the known universe would we want to?
And where would we get the time to do all of this alleged eavesdropping? Who do they think we are - the NSA?

Imagine being so important that others try to spy on you :)

So that’s all from the Twilight Zone<tm> for tonight. I’ll be back soon, hopefully after Fox News forgets about the Phillies and instead finds something else to talk about instead of news.