If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say, Don't Say Anything At All

This morning I was all too rudely reminded that it is high time that I find myself a legitimate job and/or someone offers me a legitimate job. This became all too clear to me when I attempted to log on to my computer and a pop up told me that my session had expired and I was advised to speak to my system administrator.

I am familiar with the process of large companies outsourcing their labor to India and this publishing conglomerate is no exception. Therefore, I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Bengladesh, India. When it became clear that they had no intentions of extending my session, I sought in-house help. I explained my situation to the "facilities coordinator" and that I had been relying on India's technical assistance. The facilities coordinator told me that I had not in fact been speaking to an Indian located in India, but an American of Indian descent who just happened to have an Indian accent. I explained that I am not a racist and that I understand that Indians in America quite often have Indian accents, but I am fairly certain that this Indian was located on another continent. He corrected me and explained to me that every time you call the help desk, you are in fact just calling the 11th floor.

Okay, I was willing to accept this as truth. But here is the thing, when nothing had changed in my situation; I called the help desk again to test his theory. I asked if this young man would be so kind to come up to the 17th floor where I am located to trouble shoot. His response was he can not, as he is in India, but perhaps he could send a person within the company up to my temporary post.

This debate aside, I was surprised to find out that when the problem was finally resolved and my session was extended for yet another six months, I was given a new password that would grant me access to the system: "Welcome to Your Life; You Should have Asked your Administrator for Another Year's Worth of Session Time."