Been a long week. The last few days at work before the weekend were annoying at best. Stupidity, rudeness, the usual.  The “best” one happened on Thursday….

I was in the middle of helping Idiot #1 at one of the four one-hour kiosks over in Electronics, when Idiot #2 walked up behind me and got my attention by hitting me on the shoulder. Okay, that’s a good way to get your ass kicked. Seriously. First of all, when I’m already answering another customer’s questions, don’t interrupt. Either wait or find another employee. Second…and more importantly…if you want to get my attention, just say “Excuse me” or ask for help. Don’t touch me–especially from behind, where I can’t see you and don’t know what you might be up to–for all I know, you could be some goon who’s high as a kite and is about to assault me.

And most especially, do not hit me on the shoulder, particularly when you’re behind me and I can’t see you.

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with people? You just don’t go around smacking people to make them pay attention to you. You should know that you’re crossing a line if you do that. You should know that some people might whip around and deck you just as a reflex action, before they realize what’s actually going on. And other people might give you a knuckle sandwich just because you’ve pissed them off.

At the very least, even if you don’t get popped in the face, you could be charged with assault.

So, this guy interrupts me with a whap on my left shoulder. I spin around and almost cock my fist back. He startled the shit out of me. Fortunately, I realized that he was just another dumbass customer with no manners and no patience, and even though he still deserved a good stomping because of his rudeness, I managed to reign myself in. Berfore I could tell him to wait a damned minute, he walked back to his kiosk, waving his hand at me, making the “come here!” gesture over and over. Not just once–he kept it up the whole way back to the kiosk. If he hadn’t deserved an ass-kicking before, he sure as hell had it coming now.

I told him, through clenched teeth, to hold on until I could finish with Idiot #1. What I wish I could’ve said was, “You motherfucker! I’m gonna beat you retarded! Even more retarded than you already are!”

So, I finished with Idiot #1 and stormed over to Idiot #2, glaring, obviously pissed off. I snapped, “What is it?” I was hoping that my tone would make him realize that he’d done something wrong.

Did it?

Hell, no. He was completely oblivious to how much of an asshole he’d been, how upset I was, and how close he’d come to leaving with half of his teeth missing. He just started going on about how he’d gotten his memory card stuck in one of the slots in the kiosk, and I had to go get the key, come back and open the kiosk up, and pull his card out.

There’s a lot more I could complain about, but I’d just crank myself up into a rage and I’ll have to go back to that shithole tomorrow for another week of misery. Don’t want to dwell on this stuff any more than I have to. Really needed to get this one out of my system, though.

Anyway. On to other stuff.

I’m still posting one or two segments of Load on Textnovel each day; up to chapter 23 now, and will post another shortly. It seems to be working out pretty well, so far. Even though I’m not an aspiring author anymore, as far as getting published goes, this is at least getting my work out there for people to read and drawing some attention. I’ve also got my eyes on another site, mentioned by one of the readers on Fanstory.com, which looks promising. Like Fanstory, there’s a monthly fee for posting your work, and this one’s a couple dollars higher than Fanstory’s, but it might still be worth it to try to get my stuff into as many outlets as possible. So I’ll have to think about that one….

Tonight at midnight (well, I guess I should say tomorrow at midnight), National Novel Writing Month starts. I’ll give it a shot, though the more I think about it, the more ill-advised it seems. I succeeded at it once and failed miserably every other time I tried, and each failure led to a bout of depression and self-loathing. Given how little writing I’m able to do thanks to my schedule, this is probably doomed from the start. Still, maybe a goal and a deadline will make me a little more productive.

Yeah. I told myself the same thing every other time I tried NaNo and missed the goal by a million miles.  But I guess I’ll just try one more time and see what happens.

I did make some progress on the outline for the third novel, which I’m calling The Lazarus Project at the moment. I’m actually taking an old story called “Dead Run”–which I was pretty happy with, except for the “meh” ending–and expanding it into a novel. I’ve had various ideas for a zombie story for years and years, and “Dead Run” was a good start, but I’m hoping that a whole novel will let me explore it more thoroughly. I didn’t want to do the typical zombie story, though, with slow, shuffling undead; I don’t care what the purists say, I find fast zombies much more frightening than slow zombies. Let’s face it, you can outrun slow zombies, unless you’ve got dozens of them surrounding you. But fast, cybernetically-enhanced, reanimated corpses? You’d be lucky to get away from one of them.

Anyway, I’m not sure if the title quite fits. The other option was Project: Phoenix, which I’m not sure about, either. But maybe I’ll think of something better later.

Another thing I’m doing with this book, as a “B” plot, is merging an old short story into it. I had this story/novelette that I’ve been working on, off and on, for at least five or six years, and never finished it. It was inspired by one of my friends during a chat one night, when she told me about one of her role-playing characters and suggested that I write a story with that character in it. Even though I’m not into role-playing–I’ve tried it exactly twice in my entire life, and didn’t care for it–I was intrigued by the idea and gave it a try. I’ve always liked the idea of taking a character from a either a middle-ages setting or a fantasy/swords-and-sorcery setting and placing him/her into a sci-fi setting. So, since I never managed to finish that story, maybe incorporating it into this book will help me actually finish the thing.

It’s been a week or so since I made any progress on Chaser, so I need to get back to work on that, as well. Between the two of these books, maybe I’ll be able to hit the 50,000-word goal even if I run into writer’s block on one of them.

Well, I guess that covers it for now. Time for dinner, and a little later, maybe a can of Viso to keep me awake past midnight….

Sorry I haven't gotten to any replies recently. Things kind of went over-the-top, even for me, including increasingly horrible conditions at work, the axel on my car breaking, the repair shop charging me almost double the amount they told me it would cost after it was towed in, and being horribly sick since Tuesday. Between all that, all I've really been able to do is sit here and seethe with rage.

A while ago I did post a new customer story at Customers Suck. But about fifteen minutes later, I got a message from one of the admins stating that my post was edited because someone was "offended" by my remarks about a customer's weight and using terms like "fatcart." I replied in a private message (and was quite civil about it), explaining why I disagreed.

A few minutes later, I got another private message from the same admin. Now I had received an "infraction" and had some of my access restricted. Why? For using offensive comments and arguing with an admin.

Oh, yeah, arguing with an admin. Arguing with people who are always right, even when they're wrong. That's a horrible crime, isn't it?

I've been down that road before.

When I replied to the first message, I said that, if I won't be allowed to speak my mind, then I won't be a part of that community anymore. Then I got the infraction for arguing with the high-and-mighty admin, so I sent one last, quick message--without cursing anyone out or insulting anyone. Simply saying that I'm done with that board, and goodbye. Then I logged out. And I won't be going back, even to lurk. I have enough stuff taking up my limited free time as it is. I'm not gonna waste any more of it arguing with an egomaniac who starts throwing around infractions (and will no doubt follow with threats of banning) the instant I refuse to grovel at their feet.

As I said, I've been down that road before, on other comment boards. It's a long road to nowhere.

Maybe I'll post the customer story here later on, if I have time. Right now, I should get started on the laundry. It's been piling up while I was sick....