Tales From the Proletariat: My Job (Part I)

The great thing about working is that it brings you into contact with people who you’d otherwise never meet, and my job is certainly no exception. Between my co-workers, the clients, and the various agencies that we encounter, one could come up with a variety of personalities that can only be matched in diversity by an international airport. I am a clerk of the court.

My job is simple and repetitive; I answer inquiries from callers, process citations, and help with basic operations when we have court. Simplicity and redundancy often craft, aside from boredom, proficiency, and I’m an expert at my job. I’ve encountered every possible scenario, and I’ve heard almost every excuse that is to be heard. The excuses that I haven’t heard are beyond credulity, so in short: you’re not going to be able to be able to pull a fast one on me. This doesn’t stop people from trying, though.

Here are a few calls that I've received just today that illustrate this annoying tendency:

Caller: I just don’t know what to do. This is the first time that this has happened to me. I’ve never gotten a ticket before in my life.

Sure as fuck could’ve fooled me. Here’s what the computer screen in front of me said at the time. The names have been changed to protect the guilty as Hell:

Linda Marie Applebee (pseudonym for caller):

OFFENSE: SPEEDING
OFFENSE: NO DRIVERS LICENCE
OFFENSE: FAIL TO CONTROL SPEED
OFFENSE: FAILURE TO MAINTAIN FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
OFFENSE: VIOLATE PROMISE TO APPEAR
OFFENSE: VIOLATE PROMISE TO APPEAR
OFFENSE: VIOLATE PROMISE TO APPEAR

****************

Caller: Yes I need to change my court date.

Me: I’m sorry to tell you this (This was a lie, I admit), mam, but your ticket has turned into a warrant.

Caller: WHAT?! I called up there ten times in the past 2 weeks and the clerks told me to keep calling back asking for a reset and now it’s a warrant? This is BULLSHIT.

Dealing with an angry caller is akin to handling dynamite, but sometimes they can both be defused by an effort that is as easy as extinguishing a wick with one’s fingers. Every clerk in this office receives at least 10 calls a day requesting court date resets. There is a simple standard protocol for handling such calls, and it doesn’t include telling the caller to call back later and ask for a reset, unless the ticket is not yet on file. I had this caller’s file pulled up on my computer, and the ticket had been on record for about two months. Knowing this, I was able to reply and defuse her outrage:

Me: No they didn’t.

Moral of the story:

Don't lie to someone who knows your situation better than you do. It's hard to bluff when they can see your cards.

Our Anglo-Saxon-Jyske-Nordic-Greek-Celtic-Latin-French Language: Romeo, where the hell are you?

If you've seen a stage production of Shakespeare's paradigmatic "Romeo and Juliet", a few things might have struck you, the modern viewer, as being quite odd.

Take for instance the much-publicized scene in the Capulets' orchard, wherein Romeo is stalking listening to Juliet speak those lines that every English-speaking person knows (but not really):

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Upon hearing those lines, you, the modern viewer, might wonder to yourself "Why the hell hasn't that pussy spoken up yet?" and "It's obvious that he wants to get inside her prepubescent pants, and she wants him to".

But is Juliet really saying "Where are you, Romeo?" In the next few lines she eloquently blathers on about him being a Montague, wishing he was not, and all sorts of other well-stated teenage drivel. "Where are you, Romeo" doesn't fit into the context of the rest of the scene.

The reason for this is simple: Shakespeare didn’t write “Where are you, Romeo?” He wrote “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”. The adverb “wherefore” has since dropped out of the English language, but it still exists in a few of English’s sister languages. In Danish, for instance, it exists in the form of “hvorfor” (hvor = where + for = for), which means ‘why’. Knowing this, we can turn our attention back onto the original line and come up with this modern sentence: “Romeo, Romeo! Why are you Romeo?” Reread the scene with this translation in mind. If you had any confusion about it at all, then it should begin to clear up.

Introduction



After much pleading from my brother, laziness gave way to irritation, and I’ve finally embarked on a project that nobody in their right mind will give two shits about. I have nothing to say that is of interest, unless you’re fascinated by the etymology of the English language, and I don’t have tits like my comrade over here. So basically, this is a complete fucking waste of time for both of us - you, dear figment of my imagination, and me.

I’ve always found it interesting that a person who talks to himself is presumed to be insane and probably rightly so. Yet, blogging is an activity in which millions participate, and it is generally accepted by society as a sane endeavor. It’s conundrums like this that give me reason to sympathize with Orwell when he wonders “whether this earth of ours is not a loony-bin made use of by some other planet.”

Nevertheless, if you thought this site might not be insane, then you shouldn’t have made it past the title.

Here’s what you can look forward to, dear figment:

Tales From the Proletariat: a running series on stories from the workplace

Our Anglo-Saxon-Jyske-Nordic-Greek-Celtic-Latin-French Language: musings and speculations on our bastard of a language

Central Tendency: commentary on economics and politics

And last but not least…

Search For The Not-So-Elusive Moonbat: I read, analyze, and debunk the wildest claims in the political sphere so you don’t have to.