Early Morning of the Incompetents

So I've already had four customers. Four customers, and zero sales. All four customers demanded I work on their computer for free. I'm not sure if maybe they overheard one another demand free labor and each thought this was a brilliant idea that they should try despite the outhand rejection, or if it was just plain gross incompetents. I'm leaning towards the latter.

My first customer demanded I fix her DVD drive for free. Now, its not her fault a CD exploded in there (At least not from what she told me anyways), just bad luck. Its also bad luck that for some reason she purchased the warranty for everything on her ticket but her computer. Unfortunately bad luck simply isn't my problem. I'm not going to disassemble an entire DVD drive, vacuum out the pieces of your broken disc, clean the lens, see if it works, and install a new drive if it doesn't all for free. No amount of yelling, screaming, or threatening to take it to your friend the computer guy who will do it for free anyways, is going to persuade me. After all if you truly had such a friend you would have brought it to him in the first place. Not hauled the whole damn thing down to Circuit City and brow beaten the technician.

My next customer wasn't much better. She demanded I look at her Dell and tell me if she'd installed her NIC correctly. Why should I do this for free? Because she bought the NIC here. I told her that's all well and good, we charge forty dollars to install a Network card and verify that it is infact totally operational. No, no, no, this will not do you see, she's already installed the card. She just wants me to look inside the computer, verify that its in the slot correctly, then turn the computer on, and make the computer recognize the card.

'So', I said, 'you want me to install the card then.'
'No', she says, 'I want you to just verify that I have installed the card correctly.'
'If it was installed correctly, it would work properly. The card is returnable within fourteen days if you're having a problem with it. Otherwise, I will have to charge you forty dollars to install the card properly.'
'You don't understand', she protested, 'I've already installed the card. I don't want you to install it, I want you to verify that I have installed it correctly by making it work.'

At this point, I knew I was going nowhere fast. Reason is not a tool that this person would understand in the slightest, its something she'd pick up and bludgeon another human being to death with like a primal ape suddenly gifted with a shotgun (or computer for that matter). Thinking to just be rid of her by opening the computer and at least verifying that the card is actually in the PCI slot, I glanced at the back of the computer.

'Why do you have two network cards?', I asked.
'I don't have two network cards. That's why I bought this.'
'You do have two network cards. This', I said pointing at the offending port, 'is a network card, it came with your Dell. So, back to my original question, why do you have two network cards?'
'But I don't have two cards, they told me I needed to buy a NIC.'
'Whose they? You've already got an onboard NIC, does this one not work or something?'
'They just told me I didn't have one.', she babbled.
'Well you do, and its a good bet that is why you are having difficulty installing a second one. If you want we do offer a diagnostic service for sixty dollars where we can sort all this out for you.'
'No', she answered quickly, 'I think I know what the problem is now.'

I'm sure you do, if you couldn't even figure out that you already had a NIC, good luck figuring out why neither works. All in all though, I couldn't help but cheer inwardly at her departing form as she walked out the door.

The third customer for the day wasn't to bad. At least he was willing to pay for part of the labor. Not that I could perform it. You see despite claiming to be a 'computer repair facility', we lack a parts ordering department. So unless the part happens to be something we actually sell on the shelf, virtually an impossibility when it comes to laptops, I can't get it, and so can't do the repair. I explained this to the customer, that while I was fully qualified to do the repair, and had done so numerous times in the past, I could not order the replacement part for his computer. I suggested he contact Toshiba, and ask for the closest service center to him, and then even offered him a bit more help by telling him that either his screen was bad, or it was just the backlight. A bit of a mistake on my part I suppose, because he immediately wanted me to diagnose which it was. Just like my previous customer I once more explained that I would be happy to take a look at his computer, but that it was a sixty dollar fee for any diagnostic. Why should he pay for a diagnostic? He bought the computer here five years ago, I should do it for free. Besides, it shouldn't be that hard for me to diagnose the problem. What astounds me is that if these customers know the repair isn't that hard, why don't they just do it themselves? Oh that's right, they don't know how. At least he gave up graciously after I again explained that it would be sixty dollars.

My last customer this morning was a real piece of work. He walked in carrying a brand new computer and immediately brought it up to Customer Service. Never a good sign. He wanted a return, seems the computer was giving him a lot of error messages. As its standard procedure, Customer Service sent him over to me to check out the computer before they exchange it. Not that it actually does anything, if they're within the 14 day period they can still return the computer if they raise a fuss, but occasionally I'm able to talk people out of it. So I power the machine on, and as he said immediately I started getting error messages from a lot of programs that shouldn't be loaded in memory anyways. I dig a little deeper, then I see it. Virus. Norton caught it before it did a lot of damage, but its messed with a few programs in the registry and on startup. Nothing to serious, but since he bought it less then a week ago it'd be a wise idea to simply restore the computer. I explained all this to the customer, that there was nothing wrong with the computer, that he'd downloaded a virus and needed to be careful, and that all he needed to do was restore the computer by pressing F11 on startup and he'd be fine. The customer would have none of it though. It couldn't be a virus, he'd only had the computer a week. I explained that my sister has destroyed multiple computers in less then 24 hours, if you aren't careful that's what happens. This set him off even more. Of course he was careful, he is the pinnacle of careful. The cloth from which all other careful people are cut. I looked at him dead in the face and said, 'Well then you wouldn't have gotten a virus then. But you do, and you need to be more careful.' In the end he refused to take the computer back, he demanded a new computer, and they gave him one. I've a feeling he'll be back in another week, and he'll be outside the return policy (not like that's ever stopped anyone however).

I really wish I'd stayed in bed today. In fact had I not been personally told that I was on a last warning basis for calling off, or missing work (I've only called off once, had two small scheduling mistakes were I reversed two work days, and been more then hour late after calling it in because of some unforeseen disaster twice) , I'd still be in bed right now. Nice, warm, and comfy. *sigh* Need, new job.

Outtage

Just in case anyone happens to be wondering why I haven't posted in awhile, its as a result of a combination of things. First off, my internet connection is down at home. I believe the SBC DSL modem is shot, but I won't be able to contact them during tech support hours until Tuesday, which means I won't have a new modem until Friday at the earliest. I'm hoping it is the modem, because I can't afford to replace the router right now.

On top of that, as I've already mentioned, my hours have been drastically cut. I'm barely working enough to afford gas in my car to get to my job, so having enough time to post blog updates simply isn't possible.

Anyways, for those of you expecting to see me online anytime soon, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen.

Work today has just been a barrel of fun. First off we've got a problem with our printer. See, initially we had a nice color laser jet printer. Not top of the line, but it did its job. The problem is, the managers, and others constantly print off this thing, and we were running out of red ink on an almost monthly basis (Red being the color just about everything here is printed on). Laser Jet toner is not cheap, and the upper management decided that we, my department, was wasting to much expensive ink. Therefore they decided we should use a printer with cheaper ink, and we got a stupid little Photosmart printer. Some of you, I know, can already see the idiocy thats unfolding here. First off, a laser jet is designed for bulk printing, the toner costs a ton, because its 10 times as big, at least. A photosmart on the other hand, has a dinky little red (magenta) toner cartridge that runs out every other day. Since management has refused to buy us a new toner for the big laser jet, we've easilly run through 4 cartridges of red ink for the Photosmart. On top of this asanine situation, there are certain employees here who think its great fun to mess with the photosmart. They change settings on the damn thing, and otherwise prevent it from functioning normally just to screw with my department. To them its all a big joke, to me, its a friggen headache, since its such a ball explaining to another customer that he'll have to wait ten minutes while I fix the printer, yet again, thanks to my idiot coworkers.

*sigh*

In other news, good news, I had a great time RPing with Matt, Todd, and Val the other night. We're RPing through a semi original adventure of Matts in the IK setting. I'm playing a Dwarven Arcane Mechanik and loving it. I haven't gotten to build anything yet, but I'll probably do a bit of footwork this week in preparation for Friday to have a couple of interesting inventions ready. I think the highlight was the fact that Todd's character, and mine ended up owning a bar, complete with orphans, I'm going to have fun with this I can tell.

I'm a friggen idiot.

I don't know how the hell this happened. I checked the damn schedule three times. I could have sworn in front of a court of law that I was scheduled to work at 5 to close today, and that I was supposed to do a 9:30 to 5 shift on Monday. Well it looks like I'm a damn retard. Thats next week schedule, I was supposed to do an open to 5 shift today, and not work the rest of the week off. I just don't know how I could have mixed this up. I'm usually so careful about this, now I feel terrible. I'm in deep shit here for not showing up for my scheduled shift, I've lost even more hours thanks to my mistake, and my pleas for more hours are falling on completly deef ears now.

Whats worse is now I've only gotten 11 hours for this week, and next week I've only got 18. No one wants to hear about the cut in hours now thanks to my own stupidity. To them I'm just a complete mistake now, and why give more hours to someone so unresponsible. Not to mention the fact that I've completly blown my first impression with the new Technology manager.

Damnit, I already feel like a failure working at this place, now I feel even more of a failure for failing at a failure of a job. I'm sure that made almost no sense to anyone out there, but thats how I feel. No one will even talk to me about it, all I get is, 'We'll talk to you about it on Thursday.'

Right now I feel like just crawling into a hole somewhere and dying. *sigh*

Well....shit.

So I was having a good day today, planning on relaxing after I got off work. I wasn't happy about the cut in hours I got for the week but I figured it was one time thing but until an hour ago I was still having a pretty good day. Then the insane customers started comming.

I've got one woman screaming at me that her network card doesn't work anymore. She brought in a computer for a RAM install, and nothing else. I spent 10 minutes trying to explain how installing an additional 512 mb of RAM has nothing to do, what so ever with her Network hardware, but she just screamed at me and said it was suspicious that before she brought it in everything worked just fine, and after it didn't work at all. She's going to hit the roof when she finds out the labor is non-refundable.

I've got another customer yelling at me about his video card. He claimed there was a 9550 Radeon in his computer, and wanted to know why he couldn't play his games. I should have opened it up before I even took his money, and for that I'm an idiot, but he was making a big enough fuss about having to pay 60 bucks for a diagnostic that I forgot. Turns out, surprise surprise, its not a Radeon at all. Its a low end PNY GeForce card. Nothing was working because he tried to force Radeon drivers on the PNY card, on top of drivers installed for an even older GeForce.

Then I've got customer issues that I know nothing about because no one has left me a single note. Nothing. There are two computers here, one thats been in the shop before, and another whose only note is, call the customer. Call the customer? I just turned the thing on and it doesn't work. What am I suppose to tell him, that his computer doesn't work?

On top of all this, my hours have been cut in half again. Now I'm barely getting 12 hours next week. I think this is the real reason I'm stressed. I can't live on 12 hours a week, and its freaking me out. I knew this was going to happen to, so its not like I'm surprised, just angry and kind of hurt. Despite what the managers think, I work hard here. If it wasn't for me most of the computers wouldn't get fixed. Hell the computer thats back in here again on the table with no note was supposed to originally get a new HD since the old one was acting funny. About the only thing I can tell about the machine though, is that no new HD was ever installed, which means the technician I handed the project off to when I left for the night just called the woman up and told her, her computer was fixed without doing a damn thing. The managers don't see this though. To them, the fact that I'm sitting here reading stuff on the internet means I need to be let go. They don't see that I'm only doing this after I've fixed all the computers in my queue, straightened the software aisles, restocked the RAM, and checked tags along the Hardware aisles. I guess its the fact that I feel I'm underappreciated so much that hurts, while someone like my other co-worker who does no real work but kisses ass seems to never get in trouble.

Stuff!

So I haven't really posted in awhile again. There hasn't been all that much to talk about really. Everyone's finally back at college as of today, Todd left yesterday, so its kind of quiet around the loft. There are upsides to this of course, I've got time to play one player video games, but I do miss folks now that they're gone. I hope everyones taking care of themselves during their first week back at college (except Neal whose been back for awhile), and nothing too dramatic has happened.

I'm thinking about shaving again. I've had the mustache and beard since I was a sophmore in college, which seems like ages ago, so there's that going against it. There's also the number of customers who've commented that all of 'us' techs have the exact same facial hair, which gets on my nerves. I had this beard first, damnit, don't copy off me! And yes before you say anything, I realize how silly that is.

I had a good time yesterday painting with Melissa, Todd, and Matt. I didn't get to do anything I'd planned, but it turns out I'd forgotten all about MLK Day so everywhere I was planning on going was closed.

Not much else going on. I've answered all the questions on my blog so far, I should probaby torment a few more people by posting on theres but thats about it.

Everyone else is doing it

Its interesting to see other friends of mine posting this thing on their blogs. Since I'm intrigued by it, I'll post it here, and see if I get any response.

You can ask me ANY 5 questions:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:

No matter how personal or crazy, I promise to answer the questions 100% truthfully.Repost this and see what people want to ask you.

To be honest, don't limit yourself to just 5 questions. If you've got more, ask them. Its always been my policy to answer people in the most honest, and truthful way possible regardless of how personal, or embarrising the question might be.

As for the rest of you, I'll try to come up with questions for your blog, but give me awhile. :)

*insert witty title here*

Yesterday was a good day. I haven't had an all around, completly enjoyable, nothing bad happened day like that in awhile. I mean it, I have nothing bad to say about it. Work was nice, enough computers to keep me busy but not enough to make me work my fingers to the bone. There weren't any asshole customers, and the entire day went by in the blink of an eye. I actually ended up working an additional 15 minutes because I didn't look up and my relief was late.

I came home, showered up, went out with a friend for dinner, had a nice chat, then came back and watched West Wing with another friend until 1 in the morning. I have to admit, I'm surprised at how much I like the show. I don't watch much TV, but I'm really hooked on the West Wing now.

Anyways, todays been alright. Few problems here or there, but nothing thats much of a big deal. Hopefully today will end as happily as yesterday. :)

Ewwwww Work.

So the buggers have cut my hours. I'm getting about 12 less hours a week then I was previously and that really hurts. I'm going to call about that other tech job in a few minutes, hopefully my lack of A+ certification won't be a problem. The truth is, I've never understood A+. I've got a degree, and years of experience in the field, that should be worth 300x more then a silly A+ certificate. Unfortunatly, the world is ruled by HR monkeys for whom shiny little certificates (oooohhh look shiny) hold more weight then actual training and experience.

I suppose with the lower hours, I should really just cut my losses and plow through the A+ book and get the damn thing, it just feels like I'm caving in to an unjust system, and I hate that with a passion. I guess I'm being silly, but the idea of pretty much just paying some group 120 bucks so that they same I'm a good enough tech rather then letting my training and experience speak for itself sounds like a bribe.

I really need to get out of this job though, so I suppose I'd best tell my pride to shut up, and do it, because its taking a bigger beating from run ins with folks I went to college with who consider my present job a joke.

Do what with the who now?

I may have mentioned this before, but I am 100% oblivious to the mechanizations of the opposite sex. In other words, I can't tell the difference between a woman holding an every day conversation with me, and a woman who happens to be hitting on me. All those little signals that women give off to let you know they're interested in you go right over my head. They all get read as simple banter. To use an example, if a woman came up to me and said, 'Nice shirt.', I would read it as she liked me shirt, not as an invitation for me to ask if she wanted to dance. My brain simply fails to make a connection between the two, and the only reason I know that someone commenting on my shirt might mean something else is because I was told so by a friend. The connection doesn't make sense to me, and I'm unlikely to make it again. My clueless ness goes beyond what one might simply chalk up to simple male slowness. To put it bluntly someone could be hitting on me all night, then suddenly strip naked and scream out 'Do me!', and I'd probably just stand there in shock and wonder where that came from.

Since I can't catch on to subtle hints, and I'm not the kind of person to just hit on anything that walks, I have to pretty much hope that anyone who has an interest in me comes out and says so directly because I'm not going to figure it out any other way. I suppose this might not be much of a problem if I was a woman, but our culture has pretty much dictated that men must take the active role in pursuing a woman. This goes beyond the fact that our culture generally finds it less socially acceptable for a woman to ask a man out, the fact is I have yet to meet a woman who’s very interested in a guy who uses the 'passive' approach. Woman like the whole flirting thing, they like men to take an active approach a guy who just doesn't get that is going to be left in the dust.

It seems pretty silly to me to post this kind of stuff, and my natural inclination would be to just shut up about it, and deal, but I had a really good conversation with a friend about it the other night, and for some odd reason I feel compelled to discuss it.

The truth is I’m still dealing with a lot of shit that happened to me when I was younger. I know that sounds pretty weak, but its about as open as I can be. As much as I try to live my life and not worry about the past, I’m still plagued by a lot of its effects. This particular aspect is just one of them, and I’m not sure the friend I talked to last night really understood that.

Another Round-up

Its been awhile since I posted, what with work being so busy all of a sudden, and the new years holiday. As such I've got a backlog of things that I've been meaning to talk about, and rather then make individual posts, I'll just make one big long one again.


New Years
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The New Years Eve party was very fun. I had a good time, and I thank everyone who showed up for comming. I got there just as folks started to arrive, and the first of the burgers came off the grill. I scarfed down a burger, and quickly threw on the steaks I'd set out all day long, marinating in red wine, olive oil, and herbs. They were delicious. After the steaks, I quickly turned to the business of drinking heavilly. While no one there got completly and utterly smashed several of us were pretty intoxicated in short order.

I think everyone had a good time. We got in some multiplayer Halo, and Perfect Dark, plus DDR, and some card games. I'm still fairly iritated at TJ, what he did was low, and fairly dispicable in my opinion. Nicky showing up was a bit of a surprise. I figured she and her friends would be stuck in Peoria. I'm glad they did though, party wouldn't have been the same.

Part of me wishes we'd played a few drinking games, like Mario Kart, quarters, some of those stupid card games and I'll admit it I've always enjoyed drunken Truth or Dare, but the party didn't seem to be heading in that direction (ie getting just completly smashed), so I thought it better not to mention it.

Anyways after 2 in the morning, I sort of drifted off to sleep in the loft, and only woke up at 6:30 to find the place deserted, dark, and very cold. Matt, Neal, and I then spent the rest of New Years Day up in the loft, BSing and painting.

Work
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I was pretty upset when I finally got off and got home on New Years Eve because of what had happened at work. For those of you who don't know I was threatned with dismissal, and told I was 'on my last warning' (When I got any of the other 'warnings' I don't know), as a result of a customer issue. What kind of issue you might ask? Did I break the mans computer? Did I fail to meet a given deadline? Did I not answer his inane technical question? No, none of those things. I told him I couldn't sell him an iPod.

The gentleman came up to my booth and asked, 'Isn't there anyone working in iPods'. I looked over, and there was no one in the department, so I told him, no it doesn't look like there is, but you can grab one of the other associates. He told me that they were busy, and I said, I'm sorry but I don't work in that department, I'm a computer technician, I fix computers. He then started to get pissy with me, and demanded I call someone to help him. There wasn't anyone to call, if all the other associates are busy, and the iPod folks didn't show up, that means there's no one to call, and I told him this. He then blew up and demanded to speak to my manager. So I made him wait in the customer service line.

After about 5 minutes my manager came over and started to ream me out over this. I told him first and foremost making sure people in the iPod aisle are all helped isn't my job, I'm not a sales associate. He then screamed at me that if helping customers wasn't my job, that he wanted my time card right now, I was fired. The urge to tell him to piss off, fling the cursed thing at his head, and then beat the living shit out of the asshole who complained was so strong all I could do was grind my teeth. Again, according to the job description I was given when hired my job is strictly to fix computers as they come in, load software on outbound computers, and handle tech support calls. The Store Director would have none of this, apparently in his mind my job is also to sell TVs and iPods to, never mind the fact that I lack the physical ability to sell such a product. Thats right, I can't even physically sell the unit to the customer, its in a glass case, which I lack the keys to open.

When I pointed this out, my manager said I should have called him, he would have sold the iPod to the customer. Now here, he caught me, I've never actually delt with this particular manager on a similar issue. I have dealt with the other managers on enough issues just like this to know that generally they either say they'll be right there and leave me hanging, or tell me to do it myself. Finally after yelling at me for five minutes he told me that this is a string in a long history of complaints about my handling of customer service issues (hey lets not point out the fact that more often then not people leave thrilled with my service), and that I was on a last warning basis (again when did I miss the other warnings?)

Its absolutely crazy, but it has pretty much galvanized me in the search for a new job.

Sister
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So a few days ago I found a condom in my sisters coat pocket. No I wasn't snooping. I was trying to put my shoes on and slipped on the back porch. To balance myself, I reached out and grabbed at the nearest thing, her coat. So thats how I found it, purely by accident. I can't talk to her about it of course, she'll freak out, and her first defense of course will be that I was snooping and I'm invading her privacy. I wouldn't want to talk to her for the all best of reasons either.

First off, understand, I'm not one of those folks that think sex is evil, dirty or wrong, even outside of marriage. It's a natural act, and I don't see any problem with two consenting adults, 'getting it on'. That said my sister has been very judgemental of other people during her life when it comes to sex. She constantly has looked down on people she thinks are having sex prior to marriage, and goes around calling various people skanks. I've heard her rail against numerous people because, according to her, all they do is sleep around. The chance to possibly rub it in her face is almost over powering.

Of course thats just the wrong reasons to talk to my sister. There are many legitimate, and important reasons I'd like to talk to her about it as well. She just broke up with her boyfriend, and if that was involved, well thats an entirely different set of problems, and would certainly explain why she's so upset this time around. She's got to be very hurt and upset, and could use a little support. I'm sure if she is sexually active as well, given her past part of herself is probably feeling very conflicted, and knowing that her family isn't going to judge her for it might be a relief as well.

Of course chances are it was just a joke by a friend of hers, or a 'just in case' measure for New Years Eve, which would show at least a bit of maturity on her part. Still even this faint glimpse into my sister's possible sex life is enough to give me the jibblies. The jibblies and the natural brother instict that someone needs to get a good pounding for touching my sister.

Work Part II
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Damnit, I've made a pact with myself not to be late for work anymore, because I'm not going to give the bastards an easy way to get rid of me, and my friggen alarm didn't go off this morning. I was 10 minutes late. I thought I was still alright, since initially I wasn't scheduled until 10:00, but they changed the schedule again sometime during the week, and now I start at 9:45. Damn, Damn, Damn!

Also a big bundle of disks came from HP today. The complete restore library for the Presario and Pavilion line of computers, as well as HP training CDs for repairing their computers. This could be a sign that upper management has finally made a smart decision (I know, I'm not keeping my hopes up either), and has finally decided to get us HP certified. This means that not only does the store get to make money off of every HP computer I repair under warranty, it means I get certification for free. Unfortunatly no one at the store knows why they came. Even the Store Director is clueless, so thats not a good sign.

A Crazy Idea
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I'd already intended to post this idea today before I talked with Todd last night, but after our talk I definatly decided to post it. Geek TV. Yeah I know there's that lame G4 channel or whatever the fuck it is, but my idea has nothing to do with this.

Basically there is one somewhat unifying truth to us Geeks, we're more technologically adept then the average person. There are a greater number of technology gadgets in the average geeks home, then the normal persons home. Even your lowliest D&D obsessed geek who works at Burger Barn knows more about technology then your average person (I work at a consumer electronics store, trust me on this). If nothing else unites all our various factions, it is this one common truth.

That said, since the average geek has more technology then the average person, the amount of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) is likely to be higher in geek households. The thing about DVRs is that they allow you to record any TV broadcast at any time of the day, and play it back later, at your convinience. Thus my idea comes into play. A geek oriented television show (Gaming in all its various facets, computers, gadgets, do it yourself, and news) broadcast at 3 or 4 in the morning on a major TV channel such as 7, or 32 (at least here in Chicago), when the cost for broadcasting a show is almost at its absolute lowest (those damn car commercials and get rich schemes flood the airwaves).

You encourage people to record the show on their DVRs and play it back later at their leisure, perhaps the first episode consists about showing the audience how to build their own DVR out of spare parts. In addition you videocast the show out to the internet, and make downloads available. Naturally you couldn't use traditional advertising for a show like this, since folks with DVRs can just skip through the ads, so you'd have to get various companys to actively sponsor the show. As an example, on the show about making DVRs perhaps contacting Western Digital or Seagate to get money to mention their Hard Drives, or Tiger Direct for a mention as the source for some of your parts. Another example, perhaps contacting a company like Privateer Press, or Wizards about doing a show on one of their products. Granted you'd need to show you had an active viewership that would prove to these clients that an investment in your show would be worth it, but with some hard work I think it could be done.

The fact is, television like this is comming. As DVR usage grows a shows time slot is simply not going to matter. On top of that traditional television advertising is dying, as more and more people chose to skip the ads. I'm not sure if the market is quite ready for a show like this, but right now could be the ground floor for an opportunity like this, and waiting just ensures that someone else will do it first.

And Now for Something Completly Different
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A link about what various scientists and thinkers from around the world, consider to be their most dangerous idea. Quite a few of them are just pompous assholes, but there are quite a few interesting thoughts put forward, and it makes for an interesting read if you've got the time.