Losing my (Blogging) Virginity

Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, I have actually posted to the blog. I realise I’ve held off for a bit, and I apologise to everyone. Except Andrew. This is something of a novel experience for me, being the first blog I’ve ever posted. The only issue I have is that, now that I’ve actually started writing it, I have no idea what to talk about. That’s always the problem with blogs, the first entry needs to be full of introductions, and witty remarks on the nature of the Internet, and all sorts of things like that – when, really, all you want is to just finish the damn thing so you can get onto actually discussing things that you’ve recently seen that you happen to find interesting

In a way, it’s a bit like high school essay writing, all over again. You’ve got all these absolutely fantastic ideas that you’d love to include but, before you can start, you still have to go through the motions of writing a suitable introduction. My problem then is that I was never any good at introductions. So, I think the solution to this problem is simply going to be to ignore the entire concept of an (good) introduction, and just dive right in.

I figure my first post should mention the place I spend the majority of my days which, unfortunately, happens to be my work. I currently work full time as a Helpdesk employee for an ISP. Since I’ve just deferred my University studies for one year, so that I can save up a bit of cash, I’ll probably continue working fulltime for this ISP for the conceivable future

Working in Helpdesk is a little bit like being a dole bludger. Technically, you have a task that you need to do (Taking calls, answering customers emails, and generally being a good employee). Practically speaking, though, your entire day is filled up with various activities that you think will distract you from actually doing your job. So, if anybody happens to ring a helpdesk employee, and they sound a bit irritable, chances are, it’s not your fault, it’s just that you’ve interrupted their latest game of Sonic the Hedgehog.

If it sounds like, usually, we do no work; it’s balanced out by the occasional ‘special’ customer that we get. You know when you’ve got a ‘special’ customer, because there’ll be certain hints that they give – their phone number will have an area code of (07), they’ll say they’re from Mackay (Stretching out the ‘ay’ sound at the end for longer than should humanly be possible), and their name will either be “Dazza”, or something that rhymes with it. Customers like this are the sort of people who the Information Age forgot about. They don’t really understand their computer, and they’ve got no idea what the Internet actually is but, God bless them, they really need to have it. Unfortunately, it’s usually up to us to help them, which generally turns out to be a cathartic experience for all concerned. It’s nobody’s fault but, by the end of the conversation, we’ll have both shouted ourselves hoarse, cried, contemplated hanging up, and generally drained ourselves completely. During the course of the call, I’lll gradually turn into shallow imitations of myself, only capable of occasionally muttering obscenities under my breath in a vain attempt to solve the problem through scaring the customer into developing some basic level of computer literacy. It’s a hellish experience, and when the call finally finishes, I’ll often wonder why I bothered taking this job...

Then I’ll start playing Sonic again.

Hmm. I think that’s about enough writing for my first post. It’s not really what I wanted to blog about, but at least it’s over now. At some point in the next couple of days (or weeks, or months), I’ll blog some more, this time about some interesting things that I actually want to talk about. Till then, hope you’re all doing well, and I look forward to reading some of the other blogs that people put on here.