deathpixie | The printer hates me.

Three days in Appeals and I've managed to alienate the only printer available. Which is irritating, since I have a bunch of work I could be doing, but requires a working printer to do. Even more irritating, the techie guy was here not half an hour ago on other business and told me to call someone else, and now they're going to refer the matter back to him any way.

It didn't help that the person I spoke to treated me like an imbecile:

"Well, our systems show there's nothing wrong with it".

"There's nothing printing."

"There should be."

"There _isn't_. I've been trying for the last hour. There is nothing coming out of it and it's not processing data." *grinding teeth*

"Are you sure you're using that printer?"

"Yes.It's the only one we have that prints Courtlink. Only it isn't." *pictures the IT guy's bloody death*

*sighs*

I did a tour of the call centre that handles most of the enquiries relating to us this morning. They do a lot of other things to, like processing the speeding and traffic light camera films, identifying number plates for those matter, data entry of all the infringements the police issue (imagine doing nothing all day but deciphering police handwriting!), process payments (in a high-security glassed-off section even our tour guide doesn't have access to), and a bunch of administration tasks like the mail. I learned two things from the whole experience: 1) the Tenix people are a hard-working lot and we should forgive them the occasional stuff up since they deal with upwards of 3000 calls a day; and 2) I would rather stab out my eyes with a rusty paperclip than work there.

And speaking of eyes...

And I hope this cut works, otherwise [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] is going to have my guts for garters.

So, I'm watching it last night, and they get to the bit with Xander and Caleb, and I squealed out loud in outrage and shock. Because it's Xander. You don't do that to Xander. And of course the episode ended at a point where I wanted it to go on and now I have to wait (hopefully) until next week before we get anything else.

And of course, I couldn't get to sleep for ages (and the episode finished at 11.30pm, what with Channel Seven's idiotic programming, because I was thinking about the episode, and especially the bit with Xander losing his eye, and then I realised that the whole thing is reflecting the heart/spirit/mind thing of Season 4.

I knew my obsessive watching of those over the past few weeks would be useful.

Just as Buffy's heart, spirit and mind are being whittled away, so are the people who represent those things. Willow has been rendered ineffective through her fear of using magic (exacerbated by the backlash thing with the First). Giles has been distanced from her by the whole Spike set-up thing (prompted by the First appearing to Robin). And now Xander has been seriously damaged by an agent of the First. It's reflected in the way she's doing things. Her spirit is constantly wavering, with her crises of confidence about her abilityto win the war and the cost it will entail. She's losing the ability to feel, to empathise with others, locking her feelings up in order to become a better leader. And she's losing her tactical ability, her planning skills - the attack on Caleb, despite how obviously it was a trap is clear indication of this.

Of course, I could be horribly off-track here, but I'd appreciate those who have seen the end of the season not telling me that.