The title post was intended to be ironic, so don’t be jumping on my neck, it’s too shiny for that.

Anywho, the reason for this post is the astounding lack of manners from my generation, below and some above. I know now that I’m going to turn into one of those old men who look and tut at the younger generation as they beat and drink themselves stupid while swearing at each other, But well feck it I’m on the way there so why stop.

I work behind a desk, in a shop, in a town. Not a single day goes by, where someone points at something that they want without uttering a word, not to mention the lack of please or thank you. I’m talking about coming into the shop, staring at me, pointing to a computer and sitting down. Then there’s the twats who wander in, grunt “computer upstairs” and wander up there without allowing time for me to give them a number. It’s as if people expect to be waited on hand and foot because they’re a “customer”, I don’t know if it’s just me or society in general, but where the hell have manners gone?

Now I can’t tar everyone with the same brush, I do have quite a few people my age and below that ask politely, don’t even have to say please, it’s just the manner in which it’s done. I’m not asking for everyone to be verbal in their politeness, just a little bit of manners like waiting in the queue, not cutting in front of someone, not cutting in on the conversation while I’m trying to deal with or help someone, not tutting loudly because the person in front is taking more than 5 seconds to pay, yes you’re wearing a suit, but it doesn’t make you any more important.

I’m starting to feel old and grumpy. I don’t like it, but I certainly don’t think it’s acceptable for society to lose its veneer of civilization, wasn’t that the whole point of evolving and culture to better ourselves?

I’m well aware that I’m not the pinnacle of polite/cultured society myself, I swear (a lot) and enjoy dirty jokes, I enjoy watching TV and drinking beer.  The difference between me and the people I complain about is I won’t answer my phone while dealing with someone that I’ve engaged, i.e. a banker, barista, shop assistant. I’ll say thank you when I’m leaving, I don’t throw my wrappers or rubbish on the ground, it’s how I was raised. I’m polite, overly polite at times, but this brings me to the point of my rant. Why does modern society appear to be coming mannerless?  Was it always this way and we’ve never really changed? Maybe I’m just whining too much and should become less polite to people if they’re not willing to show equal respect. Or maybe it’s time to burn the cities down and start again.

Anywho, old man Rob needs some coffee so I’ll wrap this up.

Don’t be an ignorant mannerless twat. Thank you.

So haven’t posted in a while mainly because I’m busy, busy, busy, busy …….. *stares at wall*, and easily distracted. I’ve a ton of semi-ready posts, but they require a lot of editing before posting, so I’m gonna hold off on ‘em. However, the gist of some of them are; a load of friends are leaving the country, so I’ve been busy catching up with them, there will be drinking and on top of it all I have a job and college to attend (neither are fun when hungover). So essentially I’m chasing my own shadow which it seems is 20 steps ahead of me, wish I had his organizational skill.

Work over the next while will probably take up a lot of time, lots of ideas to implement and projects to chase up on, there’ll probably be a post on that too, as soon as I get my arse in gear. I need to not need sleep. So in conclusion members of the internets, I’m not dead, just sleeping.

So I was just talking with Daniel, well more at him than with, about a customer who came in asking to check email, then sat at the computer and launched Google Earth. Fair enough, each to their own (think she eventually got to her email), when an idea dawned on me, it’d be pretty cool if you could track where your email came from, maybe even follow it on it’s journey. It would have no practical uses other than amusing you once or twice, or even to see how routing works.

But thinking about this another idea pops out. How about plotting all the major hubs that are used for data transfer and see how efficient the Internet actually is. Would it be possible to map the Internet? Honestly I can see no other purpose for this other than satisfying my curiosity. It’s just an idea, maybe even an end of course project for college. We’ll see, more research is needed.

A little searching around for Internet Mapping Project, I came across some old projects, but they’re in excess of 4/5 years old. So this may be something newish and fun to do if it hasn’t already been done to death.

So here I am in work again, and anyone that knows me, knows I work quite a bit. Not that I do anything overly hard or exciting. I’ve a ton of stuff to do, I could be designing, learning how to code new things, working on projects, browse the vastness of the internet, read forums and so on.  Yet I find myself utterly bored staring at the screen waiting for the day to be over. I suppose I have it in my head, that work is for doing my job type work, despite having the time to do plenty of other stuff. Hell, I had to push myself to even write this. I don’t think the warmth is helping, it’s warm enough today but the added 22 computers, a vending machine, networking gear, a printer etc… doesn’t help. I work better in the cold. Must be a troll thing.

So where was i? Oh yeah, upcoming projects/stuff I’ll be working on when I get time off work:

• Operation Sleep - No real info for this yet, maybe soon.
• Certification - Sanity or Computing? I’ll let you decide.
• Smoothwall Server
• Cisco Certification - Ongoing for a while now :S
• Deployable multi-solution mini-servers.
• Automated / managed wifi network - trying to design and buil a solution for easy user addition/billing.
• Advance knowledge of: C++, Java, Visual Basic

Also hai to Daniel who had his earthquake cherry popped in Japan. If for some bizzaro reason his girlfriend is reading this, I said EARTHQUAKE cherry.

To update on this wonderful working day in Longford I have a riddle for you (and the answer too):

Q: How many kids clad in “designer” track-suits does it take to set up a bebo account?

A: Five, and they wrecked my head every step of the way.

I’m actually surprised at how difficult it was for them to read the basic instructions, pretty dismal if they can’t actually read.  On top of it all no feckin manners. I hate being a desk monkey.

On another note, people are scum. It’s my job to keep an general eye on what’s going on in the Café, make sure people arn’t looking up porn, keep the place tidy etc.. so on a ramble just tidying, keeping a general eye, there’s a guy looking at an escort site taking down numbers. I personally don’t approve of whoresites, but there’s no policy against it, short of dodgy pics, he gets a call and directs someone to where the shop is.

So ten minutes pass, he’s off the site at this point (can see his screen from the desk), and in wanders his wife and kids. Was disgusted, it’s one thing for some guy perving, but a married guy with kids, c’mon. Maybe himself and the wife are into that sort of stuff, but I doubt it.

So here I am in work, just working away fixing a laptop at the desk (I work in an Internet Café), when I get a phone call, a guy calling to ask if I’ll get him a number off a website.

Normally I wouldn’t do this, if you’re not willing to come in and pay to use the computers why should I? But I’m in a relatively good mood, so I say, feck it why not. I ask him the site address, not gonna post it obviously, turns out it’s a feckin Irish escort site, then he blurbs out, “just give me the number of any of the girls there”. Jesus feckin Christ, who the hell rings up a random Internet Café looking for escort numbers??? Of course I didn’t give him any number, I don’t think it was a prank call either, as there was no laughing.

Not as strange as the guy who asked me to look up womens knickers before. I love my customers.

Ok so I wrote this rant years and it still holds true to this day, people never learn. I need content and I’m a bit on the hughover side (fun last night :D) so this is a copy and paste from my bebo page written over a year and a half ago.

As the title says how not to piss me off in work (this is not directed at friends but is more of a rant than anything).

1) Don’t complain about the price of things after you’ve used a non-essential service, i.e. an Internet Café. No the price shouldn’t be what you think it should be, the price is what it’s displayed ON THE PRICE LIST, the same thing you checked when you came in!

2) Wait your bloody turn, I can only do one thing at a time. Don’t demand that I go help you especially when i’m busy with another customer.

3) Please don’t try to argue that after an hour you couldn’t log into your email and therefore you shoudln’t have to pay, no matter how many times you shout or raise your voice.

4) When wearing headphones try and remember that you don’t have to shout when talking to the person next to you.

5) Just because I work in an Internet Cafe doesn’t mean it’s ok to wander off the street and ask me what is the best broadband provider, how much they charge and what speeds they have. Do you walk into a shoe shop and ask who their supplier is and how much they charge? I thought not.
I have no problem giving advice to people I have seen at least once or twice before but not just random people.

6) Nobody wants to hear your music. Especially from a mile away, if ya want to go deaf you’re on the way. They’re personal music players, I do not want to hear your thumping dance music, I get enough of it from the passing cars. And what the hell is with that squeaky voice dance crap?

7) Pen + Monitor + Idiot = Angry Rob

Chairs are for sitting on oddly enough. Balancing on one leg is fantastic, until you fall over and try to claim for being an idiot. (The braindamage was there before they fell over, I swear.)

9) I am not a low cost babysitter. Don’t even think about leaving your kids here unattended, while you go off shoe shopping. I’ll call the social welfare people.

10) Last but not least, do you think it’s acceptable to be looking up porn in a public place? Well here’s a hint, it isn’t.

This has been an AngryBob Industries PSA