The One About the Stoopid Company’s Logo

Category: weekleez

The One About the Stoopid Company’s Logo
February 27, 2002

excerpts from jaimie’s month…  

yeah, so last week i was having problems “connecting” to the Internet. oh waitaminute….  

hi kids!
(mustn’t leave out the schtick) yeah, so last week i was having problems “connecting” to the Internet. i would try to “log on” and the error message would pop up and tell me that my “username” and/or “password” was wrong.  but y’see, i’ve had the same internet service for the last six years.  i haven’t changed the words that go into those spaces ever.  they’ve always been the same.  so i figured i was being “sneaker-netted” by jimmy or liz.  sometimes they use my password to surf.  it’s “illegal”.  but that’s ok, when they sneaker-net me, i just turn around and sneaker-net someone else… it’s kinda funny really. i sneaker-net the church.  BAH-hahahahahaha! 
“stealing the church’s internet! you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
don’t think of it like that. think of it like i’m surfin’ with Jesus.   

anyway, i had noticed that for three days in a row someone was sneaker-netting me. and then i noticed that at 7:30 in the morning it wouldn’t work either. and that concerned me because i know that jimmy and liz aren’t early risers.  so i decided to call up my ISP.  i’ve only ever called the numbskullz once, and that’s when i set up my account, so i wasn’t really sure what to expect.  it went something like this:  
ok well first i had to listen to a confusing automated menu and choose an option which closely matched what department i needed. i think i chose “service, technical service, and support” which is kind of like “redundant, redundancy, and useless redundant”.  but i was in a bad mood so maybe i was just nit-picky.  

so then i talk to a human:
“hi this is ted can i help you?” i don’t remember what his real name was. so i’m calling him ted.
“hi ted, i’m sure you hear this all day long, but i can’t connect to the internet.”
“ok. what’s the error?”
“wrong username or password.”
“ok, what’s the username?”
“blahblahblah”
“oh ok.  it says here your account expired.”
expired? what does that mean? coupons expire… milk products expire…
“oh.  what does that mean exactly?”
“um, what?”
“how did it expire? did it “go bad” or did i not renew a contract or something?”
“um, it says you haven’t paid the bill since the 17th.”
“what? but that can’t be. Visa pays the bill and i pay visa…. so how did-“
“oh ok. hold on.”
*click*
“hi this is mary can i help you?” was her name really mary? of course not. but i can’t remember it, and it’s not important anyway.
“um, yeah, ted told me my account expired.”
“oh, well did you pay your bill?”
“well, see it’s on the visa account and-“
“ok hon, what’s the last name?”
“pickle”
*typing noises* “it says here hon you haven’t paid the bill since the 17th.”
“ok, but it’s on the visa account there must be an-“
“let me check something hold on ok hon?”

and it’s at this point that i nearly lost my mind.  not because of anything anyone has said thus far, but because the lady, “mary”, set down the phone and then i can only assume (uh oh) what happened after that by the noises i heard. first, she set down the phone. clunk. then she picked up some papers and shuffled them at the phone. shuffle shuffle shuffle.  then she opened a desk drawer and rustled around in it then slammed it shut, but it must’ve bounced back open so she should probably slam it again, harder of course, so it’ll shut right.  and then she picked up a metal folding chair WWF style and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of the phone, desk, and everything else in that room. then she picked up what was left of the phone:
“ah, i think *puff puff puff* i know what the *puff puff* problem is, hon.” she was out of breath.
“yeah, i’m beginning to get an idea…”
“y’see we had updated the system over the weekend and on some of the accounts i forgot to type in their payment method and i’m sorry for the inconvenience but everything should work now because i typed in your payment and i’m so sorry hon, but everything should work right now. ok hon?”
“ok, thank you for fixing it.”  
the end, hon.  

it’s all true doncha know. 

when she said, “let me check something” i figured i would hear some typing noises, a coupla mouse clicks, maybe some mumbling. what i did not expect was the cacophony of sounds that would come blaring at me.  it was so funny.   

ok here’s another little story for ya. i like to call it The Continuing Story of the Logo From Outer Hell. look, it’s long, and probably boring to all of you who don’t work with computers and logos and morons everyday.  but i really need to vent on this one.  

i work with company logos all the time. no big deal. but every once in a while there comes a logo, a logo so stupid, a logo so lame, a logo so incredibly bad that i immediately call laura and say, “ohmigawd! this logo is like, um totally like bogus!” derp! well, i don’t really say that but i do call her up and we laugh at the pathetic logo and then we go about the rest of our day. for this particular logo i think my exact words upon seeing the terrible thing was, “wow. a million dollar corporation paid for that? suckers!”

this logo involved a globe.  a green globe. but anyway, the company was very proud of their logo… at first.  and they brought me all kinds of stuff with the logo emblazed on it as well as the file of the logo on disk so that we could put their crappy logo all over their trucks.  no big deal… at first.  

it would take two weeks for me to explain just how bad it all got, but it did involve a zillion phone calls, this conversation, “hey, your logo on the business card is different that the one on the letterhead, which one do you want on the truck?”
“what? no that’s the same logo.”
“um, sir, the letterhead has a different globe than the business card.”
“what? no it…um…oh, well, i guess it does.”
“how about i just use the globe that shows the western hemisphere?”
“um, yeah. ok. no wait…use the one that has the united states on it.”
“good idea, sir.”  

it involved rush ordering two huge rolls of very expensive vinyl, lettering a truck in the dark, and this phone call: “we’ve decided to change the colors.” see, that was after ordering $600 worth of GREEN vinyl and lettering two trucks.  now it’s a red globe. a  r e d  g l o b e.    

geez louise. but all of that stuff was the beginning of the story and like i said, it would take two weeks to rant on that. so this “continuing story” is the part that comes months afterward. it’s the part where other companies in town are now having to use this logo and they call ME when they have a problem. now let’s remember, I DIDN’T DESIGN THE DAMNSTOOPID LOGO!! and besides, that piece of crap isn’t my responsibility. it’s the idiotic company’s property.  right?  

so i guess that the company needed some shirts with the logo embroidered on them.  so the company calls me and asks me to e-mail the logo to the guy who does the shirts. and me, being too nice to say, “look, i’m busy making signs, maybe YOU should e-mail YOUR logo to the schmo.” but no, i say “sure” and proceed to send the shemp the logo in Corel version 6 ’cause i’ve had to send stuff to that shemp before and i know that that’s the version he’ll need and by golly aren’t i nice?  

so he calls me and tells me that the file i sent was empty. what? empty? so i send him another one. empty.  so he gets kind of huffy about it and tells me that he’ll come on over and bring his own disk and he’ll show me how to use the computer because apparently something isn’t working on my end and so i tell the guy to “just bring it”. so shemp comes over and i open the file and the screen is blank and he yells triumphantly, “see! i told you there was nothing there!” and so i very calmly scroll down and, hmmm, there’s the logo.  where it has been the whole time.  but this jerk, who “uses this program all the time” is too stoopid to scroll down or click “select all” or even try anything!  so i sent him away with his tail tucked ‘tween his legs. served him right.  

a couple weeks later the company calls and asks me to e-mail the logo to one of the local printers. and instead of saying, “no! i don’t have time to mess with a freakin’ printer, a printer who will not use the same program that i use, a printer who will not be able to open the file i send over, a printer who, with all of it’s printing knowledge, will not be able to tell me what kind of file their computer can read, a printer who…”
you get the picture.  instead i say, “sure.”  

so i e-mail the logo as a jpeg, so they’ll be able to see what the logo looks like and i put the phone number of the sign shop in the e-mail thinking maybe they would call me and tell what kind of file they’ll really need because i know they probably can’t use the jpeg for anything. well, the printer didn’t call me back, but the company did.
“yeah, the printers need the logo in grayscale.”
grayscale? there is no “grayscale” for that logo, if anything it could be in black and white, but no grayscale.   so i send it to the morons, printers, in black and white. and i hear nothing back from any of them. this was two months ago.   i get a phone call today, from the company asking me to send the same printers “color differentiations”. i don’t even know what that means.  and the lady says, “you know, like the separate colors?”  oh sheesh.  ok, so i separate the colors for these meatheads and send it. and when i send it i put the phone number of the sign shop so that if they have any problems they can call ME and NOT THE STOOPID COMPANY, so i won’t get any more confusing second-hand phone calls.  

i get another phone call from the company. 
“why did you send the printers such a bad file? they can’t use it. she says it’s a dot matrix file and it’s horrible. she can’t even scan it because it’s so bad!” she says this in such a way as if to say, “why are you trying to sabotage the company?!”   

ok. um. what the hell is a dot matrix file?!  i mean, this knucklehead is just making up stuff now.  and why, WHY would the printer need to SCAN a picture that is ALREADY in the computer?!  look lady, i’ve got a sign shop to run, i don’t have time to teach you how to use your freakin’ computer. so i ask the shemp from the company to give me the phone number of the imbecile at the printers so’s that i can talk to the moron myself.  i know, glutton for punishment.  

so i call the lady at the printers and it turns out she’s stoopid. i ask her what kind of file she needs and she says she doesn’t know. and so i ask her what program she’s using and she says, “quark?” and i say, “ok, so maybe i’ll try sending it as an adobe file and maybe that’ll work?” i mean, it’s not like she’s got any bright ideas, or if she does she’s keeping them to herself. so she says, “yeah i have adobe illustrator on here. and hey, could you send your phone number so i can call you if it doesn’t work?” oh yeah! i’ll send my phone number so you can CALL ME! WHAT A GREAT FREAKIN’ IDEA!  I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT TWO E-MAILS AGO! YOU MUST BE A GENIUS! HOW DID YOU EVEN GET TO WORK TODAY LADY?!  

this lady calls me back and tells me that the file didn’t work and i ask her what i should try next and she says, “well i don’t know!” as if SHE’S the frustrated one!  i mean, i have 14 signs i have to finish TODAY and i gotta fix this waste of oxygen’s problems too? so i tell her i’ll try one last thing and if that doesn’t work she’s on her own and she says well maybe she’ll just come on down here with one of her disks and get it off the computer herself.  i tell her don’t bother, she’s using a mac and i’m using a pc.  and she says, “oh.” and then she said something about how much she hated the logo and that she wasn’t sure if “all this headache is worth it” and i nearly lost it.  i dunno how that lady had a headache over her part in the “logo saga” she hadn’t had a single thought all day.  

so i called laura and she figured out how to send the file to the FREAK and so i call the parasite back and tell her that i’m sending her a file that WILL WORK and she says, “ok, i guess i’ll try it.”
and do you know what? 
it worked.
and do you know what?
that ungrateful bitch didn’t even thank me.   

i wasted an hour on that leech. so now jaimie has a new policy. “oh you need a logo, file, etc? well i need a snack.  bring me a Snickers and make sure you have an IBM formatted disk when you come over.”  

next week’s epitomb: jaimie tries sushi.  

jaimie “keep yer fork” pickle

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