How to be a f*ckwit on the phone

The ring of my telephone strikes fear into my heart; how can I be sure that there isn’t a f*ckwit on the end of that line?

How to be a f*ckwit on the phone:

Don’t return calls.

Don’t respond to messages.

Don’t even listen to messages.

Don’t listen to messages till weeks or months later.

Have a phone message service operating on your land-line, unchecked for months while you are secretly away overseas on the trip of a lifetime.

Don’t check recorded messages for weeks or months, and still expect the caller to be interested when you finally call them back.

Don’t bother to write people’s phone numbers down when they give them to you. You can always call them later to ask.

Answer highly personal phone calls with your phone on speaker mode within earshot of a crowd of strangers or acquaintances, and don’t tell the caller.

Never do anything so ordinary as answering a phone when it rings: always return calls or messages at a time that is convenient to you, but which is probably not nearly as convenient to the other person who phoned you in the first place, who has three kids with ADHD bouncing off the walls, a toddler in the midst of toilet-training and a newborn baby with colic.

Expect others to communicate capably with you in your preferred mode of communication; call a semi-verbal autistic person just for a chat, ask a stutterer to keep it brief please, and tell a dyslexic to put it all in writing.

Get paid for being a f*ckwit on the phone; work in a call centre bothering members of the public in a faraway country at dinnertime to try to sell them stuff.

Run lots of telephones off one land-line, so that the sound of your voice is so quiet to callers as to be scarcely audible.

Use a defective cordless phone, so that the sound of your voice is so quiet to callers as to be scarcely audible.

Don’t get too hung up over minor details; what does it matter if you make a few wrong-number calls?

Make a wrong number call and then get a bit miffed when the other person doesn’t recognize your voice “It’s Sebastian calling!”

Leave your borderline retarded offspring unsupervised and bored at home for long periods of time, so that they can get on with their prank calls undisturbed.

Have three or more telephone numbers so that potential callers have to think “eeny meeny miney f*cking moe” when they try to decide how to try to contact you.

When a family member that you haven’t spoken to for months calls, ask them to get off your line as you are expecting an important call.

Expect the target of your phone call to be continually available to take calls at home on a land line, because she is a housewife and a mother.

Have an automated phone answering service operating that has no message recorded on it, leaving callers to wonder what the heck is going on as they waste the cost of a phone call.

Copyright Lili Marlene 2007

The Dickhead Quotient (DQ)

The Dickhead Quotient (DQ)
Are you a trendy dickhead? Our behaviour, choice of words and expressed beliefs reflect how much we lack personal integrity or unthinkingly follow questionable or idiotic fads and popular ideas. Try this quick questionnaire!


1. Do you love to use the words “resonance” or “resonate” in a non-scientific sense?

2. Do you often accuse other people of being “inappropriate” or behaving “inappropriately” without explaining exactly why?

3. Do you consider telling the truth to be an indulgent luxury or a highly risky strategy?

4. Do you use the words “articulate” and “intelligent” interchangeably, because you consider that the two words mean the same thing?

5. Do you believe that programmes that aim to promote everyone’s “self-esteem” are the answer to the world’s problems, while neglecting or ignoring real problems in your midst that cause real psychological harm to people?

6. Do you implement policies that explicitly aim to promote personal resilience, even though you have no idea whether such a trait can really be promoted by official policies?

7. Do you use the word “vibrant” to describe people or a social or artistic scene?

8. Do you often use the word “synergy” in a non-scientific context?

9. Do you diagnose depression and/or bipolar disorder in people that you hardly know, despite having no psychiatric or psychological qualifications?

10. Do you use the word “connect” in a vague, non-physical sense to describe situations associated with communication or relationships?

11. Do you use the word “rich” to describe literature, texts, ideas or use of language, but never people?

12. Do you prefer to use euphemisms such as “let go” instead of “fired”, or “fall over” instead of “fail completely”?

13. Are you currently fascinated by the idea of interpersonal empathy, but have little interest in the basic rights of others?

Scoring
For every “Yes” answer score 1 point.

For every “No” answer score 0 points.


Score of 0

You are almost certainly not a dickhead. Some people may admire your lack of personal pretension and ability to think for yourself, but these characteristics are liabilities if you wish to work within any large organization or government department.


Score in the range of 1 – 3

You are probably not a dickhead. You may be best suited to technical work.


Score in the range of 4 – 6

You are definitely a dickhead. Have you considered a career in the public service, teaching, arts administration, the performing arts, the literary world, social work, business, journalism or the ABC?


Score in the range of 7 – 13

You are a real dickhead and most likely an arsehole as well. You would be ideally suited to a managerial position or politics, or perhaps one of the least technical professions.

Signs that you may have an extreme male brain with a female body

you can’t help singing along with some male singers, but you never sing along to songs sung by female singers (except K. D. Laing, and she doesn’t count). You try to hit the same notes as Elvis, Jim Morrison, Billy Idol or Johnny Cash, or you do a duet with the late John Belushi singing “Sweet Home Chicago” on the Blues Brothers sound track

your 2D:4D digit ratio is .94 or less

your dream machine is a ute, a 4WD, an unusual vintage model or something that goes really fast, and it has a manual transmission

you would rather repeatedly poke yourself in the eye with a stick than watch an episode of “McLeod’s Daughters”

your best friend is a lesbian and you have monosyllabic male pet names for each other

or

you are a lesbian

your best friend is the school tomboy who loves to kick the crap out of boys

or

you are the school tomboy who loves to kick the crap out of boys

when you talk with your best mate on the phone you both enjoy tasteless and infantile jokes, but you never quite know what to say when she tells you about the way she feels about stuff

you can’t believe women are supposed to love talking on the phone, because you never have

you experience severe “brain jolt” while watching movies that have attractive male stars, as you alternate between identifying with the male character and lusting after the male character

you have refused to wear skirts or dresses since childhood

as you serve dinner to your kids you say “Here’s dinner kids, and if you don’t like it you can jam it up your arse.”

your favourite magazine to read is on the men’s side of the stand at the newsagent’s, along with the business magazines, the science magazines and the pornos

your job’s job description includes the word “cattle”.


copyright Lili Marlene 2007.