Author: Mark Alexander

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I know I’ve bitched about this countless times over the years, but it bears repeating. 80% of my job consists of doing shit that people should be able to do themselves—if they had the least bit of curiosity in understanding how things work.

What I do isn’t rocket science. So often I hear, “You’re a miracle worker!” No Virginia, I just think logically, and if I can’t find a solution to some obscure problem, I fucking GOOGLE IT.

What I’ve taken to doing lately is documenting how to do pretty much every simple, day-to-day thing that we get requests for and emailing the doc back to the user. It cuts down the amount of time I waste calling people and leaving messages (90% don’t pick up, the listed number on the service ticket is incorrect, or they never return calls). That way, when the inevitable email comes through weeks later asking “Why hasn’t this been addressed? I put this ticket in a month ago!” I can say, “Did you see the email I sent you the day you put in the ticket?”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t read it.”

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Flashback Friday

July 1983, Tucson AZ

“I realized I could get away with murder when I was six.”
Truman Capote (1924-1984)
AMERICAN WRITER

Those blue nylon pool shorts (that I strategically cut the inner liner out of) got me into so much trouble.

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Exercise for People Over 60

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.

With a 5-lb. potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax.

Each day you’ll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.

After a couple weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato bags. Then try 50-lb. potato bags and eventually tru to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I’m at this level.)

After you feel confident in that level, put a potato in each bag.

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