work

Just now I answered the main phone line at work. It was a young woman with an Asian accent asking for one of our managers. From her flat, speaking-by-rote inflection and her mispronunciation of the manager’s name, it was obvious that she was soliciting something. Very ordinary stuff - I screen at least a few sales calls for this gentleman every workday.

“He’s not in at the moment,” I replied truthfully, although if he had been here I would have said the same thing. “Could I take your information and have him return the call?”

“Yes, please,” she answered. “My name is Jingle, that’s spelled J-I-N-G-L-E.”

I stifled the impulse to say, “Get the fuck outta here, it is NOT!” Mr. Professional. Instead, I let her give the rest of the info and think I was writing it down. She wasn’t calling from an overseas call center, but from a company I’d heard of in New York City. I ended the call and sat back to ponder.

My first several thoughts were probably what you’d expect: what kind of sadist would saddle their child with a name like “Jingle?” I’ve known some people of my generation whose hippie parents gave them names that were a little loopy, but come on. If your name was Jingle, wouldn’t you gladly trade it with someone named Summer or Leaf or Harmony?

Or, wait - could Jingle be a nickname? Maybe an approximation of a foreign name that Americans wouldn’t be able to pronounce? Still, in either case wouldn’t a sensible person adjust her name in adult life to something a little less… I don’t know, hilarious?

Then it dawned on me… OK, I get it - “Jingle!” What else could she be but a telemarketer?

Seriously, people, have you ever encountered someone with a more ludicrous name? Any theories as to what her last name might be?

You may have hired the wrong direct mail
marketer when…

I have this friend from work who used to sit on the same floor as I do, although we technically work for different companies. Recently his company got separate office space a few miles across town, so every couple of days I bundle up the mail for him that still arrives at our building and forward it along. Pictured at left is an item I sent to him today, including the post-it note I couldn’t resist attaching. The first comment on my note is self-explanatory; the second… suffice it to say they got the name of the company slightly wrong.

From Yahoo! News/Reuters:

Barney the guard dog went berserk at a teddy bear exhibition in England and ripped the stuffing out of Elvis Presley’s beloved bear Mabel, exhibitors said on Thursday.

Wookey Hole Caves, a popular holiday destination in Somerset, southern England, was drawing children with its display of 1,000 precious teddy bears. The collection was so valuable that the insurance company insisted the exhibitors guard it with dogs.

[The museum's General Manager said the dog] “started with Mabel… almost severing her head, and then went mad. It took about 20 minutes to bring him out.”

Dozens of other bears were shredded too. Mabel is the property of a local aristocrat, who says he paid 40,000 pounds ($75,000) at auction for the bear.

As for Barney, “he’s going to be retired to a farm where he can chase chickens,” the manager said. “We’ve told the security company we don’t want anything nasty to happen to Barney, but we don’t want him back.”

But wait, there’s more. Cheek & Bluster has managed to finagle an exclusive interview with Barney the doberman. He spoke to me earlier today by telephone from his new home at an undisclosed location in rural Britain:

“The bear was looking at me funny,” Barney explained. “They pretty much all were. What was I supposed to do?”

Barney, trying to muster up the motivation
to pursue wayward poultry

The former guard dog explained that there is long-standing animosity in the canine world for stuffed animals. “Ask any dog,” he declared. “They don’t actually DO anything, they just sit there. And yet kids want to cuddle up to them! Why? What have they fetched, eh? Who have they scared away from the front gate?”

The reddish doberman stated that Mabel, the teddy bear formerly owned by Elvis Presley, had specifically provoked him.

“She said, ‘Hey mutt, you think you’re special? You know everyone’s coming here and paying to see us and not you skinny kennel-dwellers, don’t you?’ I mean, I’m a professional, but there are some things that can’t be tolerated, you know?”

Even without trash-talking, the lure of pouncing upon a teddy bear is virtually irresistible, according to Barney, 4. “They stare at you with those beady eyes, and you just want to throttle them. They’ve got those plastic noses, and that stuffing… I’m telling you, there’s nothing like getting your jaws on one, whipping it around and watching the stuffing fly. It’s cathartic.” He paused for a moment to control the drooling reflex.

“Retirement is all right, I suppose,” said Barney, whose future plans include fundraising for his own neutering-reversal surgery. “Chickens aren’t much of a challenge. How far can they really wander off to, you know? I don’t get to eat them when I catch them, either, so it’s all a bit dull. Still, there are always plenty of new sniffs to be had, and the sheepdogs are a friendly enough lot. We have a laugh, chase lorries down the lane, that sort of thing.”

I was in the break room this morning making my long-overdue first cup of coffee when a co-worker named Aly came in to get herself something. She expressed her appreciation for my coffee mug; it’s a plain black mug that says “WTF?” in large white lettering. I ordered it from ThinkGeek.com.

“Thanks,” I replied. “I like it too.”

“It reminds me of something that happened with an old boyfriend of mine,” Aly continued. “He had this dog, and this one time he was trying to teach him to fetch, and he said, ‘Come on, Timmy - what would Jesus’s dog do?’ I thought he should make leashes or dog collars that said that. You know, like ‘WWJDD?’”

“I’ll tell you what Jesus’s dog would do,” I said. “He’d pee on your leg and turn it into wine.”

She doubled over laughing, almost spilling her coffee. I think if I had timed it just a teeny bit better I might have induced a genuine spit-take.

So now I’m wondering… what other cool and/or hilarious things would Jesus’s dog do?

You know your work has cheap-ass break room provisions when you find yourself adding sweetener to your cup of hot cocoa.

Pfft. And people wonder why I bring in my own coffee.