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Sep. 12th, 2008 10:05 amThis morning I noticed, for the first time, that the building across from my bus stop houses not a single insurance company, but *four*. One wonders if this is adventageous to Brown & Brown in some way that doesn't stem from competition? Maybe they all specialize in different forms of insurance? If they get a customer in who wants, say, death and dismemberment insurance and accidentally walks into the worker's comp office, do they toss the work elsewhere in the building with a suited "for you, my very good friend, I'll introduce you to Lombost, Smith and Jones, who do death and dismemberment like no one else"?
My friend Ed is self employed and he wonders about workers comp if he is injured and loses time on the job. He has medical insurance, but it's the time lost that keeps him up. I asked whether he'd considered getting it for his employees, but it was a complicated equation that he tossed at me, involving whether his employees had social security numbers, the cost of insurance for one vs. many, and how many could pay, what it would cost the company. I can't imagine Eddie, the blue collared, grease-covered, practical physicist, dealing with a building full of insurance suits. I mean, he looks like Buddy Holly, and he'd toss numbers at them faster than they could clean the tar off their hands after shaking hello.
I swear Ed can sense disingenuity a mile away, I wonder if he'd even make it in the door of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. Probably blow it up first, just to make sure everyone had an honest reaction, at least when he first arrived.
I made it to work and within an hour a tinny male voice was telling me he needed my attention, because a fire had been reported in the building. I am on the first floor and just packed up my computer into a drawer (we have a small problem with laptop theft), picked up my knitting (when I'm not actually noticing things around me during bus rides, I knit) and trucked it outside. I could still hear the intercom voice, though, and what struck me was the layers of repetition, deeper than a blues song. In the blues, you'd start with 'woke up this morning' and the next line would be whatever you did immediately afterwards (my aunt always used to sing 'woke up this morning/took my dog for a poop') and then the singer repeats those two lines, ABAB and proceeds to detail later in the song how it all went bad, right? The helpful tinny intercom voice added additional layers of lyrics! "May I have your attention please," he says, and then AGAIN, "may I have your attention please."
Note the punctuation. He's not actually *asking* for your attention.
THEN, after announcing two fold that there has been a fire reported in the building (a fire reported in the building), he doesn't ask but tells you to please proceed to a stairwell (proceed to a stairwell) and exit the building (exit the building).
Maybe he's not singing the blues, maybe the robot voice is singing a country song? Or folk?
Leaving aside that I am on the first floor and don't need to involve stairwells-instead-of-elevators, whyfore so much repetition? I mean, it *immediately* goes on loop and I heard the same echo announcement approximately a billion times before we were cleared to come back in the building? So why the call and answer, huh? Especially when he's answering himself.
Although, with robots, you never know, there might have been *two* robot voices involved in that announcement and the quality control on the assembly line had just been so good one can't tell them apart when packing up a laptop and knitting.
And now I'm wondering if those poor identical robot voices are in a futile search for self-identity and my reactions tanked their self-esteem. I think I may have to find out where they're keeping the robots and take them some cookies or something.
How are you, flist?
My friend Ed is self employed and he wonders about workers comp if he is injured and loses time on the job. He has medical insurance, but it's the time lost that keeps him up. I asked whether he'd considered getting it for his employees, but it was a complicated equation that he tossed at me, involving whether his employees had social security numbers, the cost of insurance for one vs. many, and how many could pay, what it would cost the company. I can't imagine Eddie, the blue collared, grease-covered, practical physicist, dealing with a building full of insurance suits. I mean, he looks like Buddy Holly, and he'd toss numbers at them faster than they could clean the tar off their hands after shaking hello.
I swear Ed can sense disingenuity a mile away, I wonder if he'd even make it in the door of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. Probably blow it up first, just to make sure everyone had an honest reaction, at least when he first arrived.
I made it to work and within an hour a tinny male voice was telling me he needed my attention, because a fire had been reported in the building. I am on the first floor and just packed up my computer into a drawer (we have a small problem with laptop theft), picked up my knitting (when I'm not actually noticing things around me during bus rides, I knit) and trucked it outside. I could still hear the intercom voice, though, and what struck me was the layers of repetition, deeper than a blues song. In the blues, you'd start with 'woke up this morning' and the next line would be whatever you did immediately afterwards (my aunt always used to sing 'woke up this morning/took my dog for a poop') and then the singer repeats those two lines, ABAB and proceeds to detail later in the song how it all went bad, right? The helpful tinny intercom voice added additional layers of lyrics! "May I have your attention please," he says, and then AGAIN, "may I have your attention please."
Note the punctuation. He's not actually *asking* for your attention.
THEN, after announcing two fold that there has been a fire reported in the building (a fire reported in the building), he doesn't ask but tells you to please proceed to a stairwell (proceed to a stairwell) and exit the building (exit the building).
Maybe he's not singing the blues, maybe the robot voice is singing a country song? Or folk?
Leaving aside that I am on the first floor and don't need to involve stairwells-instead-of-elevators, whyfore so much repetition? I mean, it *immediately* goes on loop and I heard the same echo announcement approximately a billion times before we were cleared to come back in the building? So why the call and answer, huh? Especially when he's answering himself.
Although, with robots, you never know, there might have been *two* robot voices involved in that announcement and the quality control on the assembly line had just been so good one can't tell them apart when packing up a laptop and knitting.
And now I'm wondering if those poor identical robot voices are in a futile search for self-identity and my reactions tanked their self-esteem. I think I may have to find out where they're keeping the robots and take them some cookies or something.
How are you, flist?
