One took some research, being a really bizarre question about Voxalot for Norwegian. It took Dixie Mae almost an hour to finish off seven more queries. Yeah, Victor really didn’t belong here, but not for the reasons he bragged about. Johnson–the guy running the familiarization course–was a great teacher, but smart-ass Victor had tested the man’s patience all week long. At the same time, he kept rubbing it in how educated he was and what a dead-end this customer support gig was. He was slick with words if he wanted to, he could explain things as good as anybody Dixie Mae had ever met. Ol’ Victor had been a pain in the neck from the get-go. She could tolerate such silence as long as the leerer was out of arm’s reach.Īfter a moment, there was the sound of Victor dropping back into his chair in the next cubicle. Angry, insulted silence? No, this was more a leering, undressing-you-with-my-eyes silence. Meantime, how about letting me do the job I’m being paid for?" "I won’t start being Bastard Consultant from Hell till right before I quit. " The weasel grin crawled back onto his face. "I’ll have you know I’m being articulate and seriously helpful. "And you’re not seriously helping the customers at all, huh, Victor? Just giving them hilarious misdirections?" In any case,"–he lowered his voice another notch–"I’m bailing out of here, um, by the end of next week, thus suffering only minimal brain damage from the whole sordid experience. I haven’t decided whether to play it for laughs or go for heavy social consciousness. You know, big headlines like ‘The New Sweatshops’ or ‘Death by Boredom’. " He thought a second, then continued more quietly, "But see, um, I’m doing this to get material for my column in the Bruin. "Then your first-rate creative mind is going to be out of its gourd by the end of the summer. I’m smart enough to know what’s not worth the attention of a first-rate creative mind. "That’s a mark of intelligence, Dixie Mae. "If you can’t take this, you’ve got the attention span of a cricket. " Well, it was the first day not counting the six days of product familiarization classes. "Gimme a break, Victor! This is our first day. But doing customer support at Lotsa-Tech was a real job, a foot in the door at the biggest high-tech company in the world. "Yeah? It’s going to get old awfully fast. Victor bounced up so his whole face was visible. "It beats flipping burgers, Victor," she said. "So how do you like the new job?"ĭixie Mae looked up from her keyboard and spotted a pimply face peering at her from over the cubicle partition. But in the future, that simple statement may take on meanings that Korzybski never imagined.