Problem Customers

Sorry if you were looking for my HNT pic of the week. There are some serious technical difficulties going on that are stopping that from happening. I'll make sure to have one ready next week in advance.

As you may have already read, I'm on the road right now taking care of a problem customer. I'm actually getting through to this one, and am feeling good about that fact. I figured out their main problem (because of my mad troubleshootin' skillz, yo), which was cascading into a dozen other problems. Since I'm doing so well, I attracted the attention of Murphy. My one day trip to St. Paul next week got cancelled and changed to a full week in Wichita to train another problem customer. These people had the best classroom trainer in the company train them a few weeks ago. They reported to my boss that she was incompetent and demanded more training from a different trainer. My boss stuck up for the other trainer (as she should) and tried to deal with them. They went over her head and forced it along. I got the nod to go there. Crap, crap, crap.

I know the other trainer fairly well. She is incapable of bad training. The only time I excel when compared to her is the fact that I can fix hardware and troubleshoot issues better than her. When it comes to basic classroom training, I pale in compairison which is a real neat trick given my skin tone. My boss apologized in advance to me, and handed them over to me lock, stock, and barrel because she "can't deal with those assholes anymore."

As much as I've said that I need to go have a few beers, I have only had a single beer the last two weeks. I probably won't tonight either, but I'm sorely tempted to. If I didn't have 8 hours of training and then a 6 hour drive on my plate tomorrow, I'd probably be at a bar right now. My stress level is peaking out, and my neck and back is feeling it. Anyone have good suggestions on what I can do to save my sanity over the next couple weeks?