Some say misogyny. Some say chivarly. I say "You were wrong and I was right!"

Hey there, ho there kids.

It's cold up here in the Upper Midwest. 

When I say that, I don't mean it's the usual January type of cold where we get a chill when we cross the street to chat with our neighbors without our coats on.  I mean the actual high temp tomorrow of my home town is not going to cross the 0 degree line.  (And that's Fahrenheit, for those of you who deal in Celsius.  Fahrenheit means freezing is 32 degrees.  So....zero...that's pretty fartin' cold!)  And then, we have this delightful thing up here called WIND CHILL FACTOR which is going to bring the "feels like" temp down to a rousting -40.  And for funsies, we've had nothing but wind and

Do not adjust your set.  These are actual negative numbers.

constant, daily snow, so we are buried under drifts that move every day.  It's an adventure.

I'm telling you about the cold only as a preface to yet another one of my super sensible customer care phone calls I took the other day.  At Stuff, Installed, our customers tend to skew a bit elderly because much of the stuff we install involves elderly safety.  So a few weeks ago when we got the first bout of DEATH COLD an older gentleman called.  This is how that went.

Man:  May I speak to someone who knows about the showers you install?

ME:  Sir, I'm the customer service person, what can I do for you today?

Man:  I'd like to speak to someone who knows about the showers you install.

ME:  Sir, I can help you with that.

MAN:  I'm not sure you can.

Okay, I refuse to get all bunched up about sexism.  He's old, I tend to sound younger than I am on the phone, so let's just say he didn't think someone the age of his grand daughter could help me and not assume that he doesn't think a woman can help him with his stupid shower problem.

As it turned out, I could.  See, his shower was frozen.  That's what he told me.  Not uncommon up here when things get frigid.  Pipes freeze all the time.  I sent a tech and all was well.

Mostly because I never miss
a chance to quote this movie.

However, no one told me the whole story of that repair.  Sometimes I think the repair guys don't tell me how things turn out because they don't like having to go on repair calls.  To quote "The Breakfast Club"  'It's an imperfect world.  Screws fall out all the time.'

Well late last week Skippy bon Old Fart called me back, and this is how it went this time:

Man:  I'd like to speak to someone who knows about the repair I had two weeks ago.

ME:  Well, if you give me your phone number I can look that up and I'll be happy to help you.

MAN:  I had a fella out here two weeks ago.  I can't remember his name, but he fixed the problem.  And then the problem came back and I fixed it, but now I have the same problem. You go find that fella and ask him to talk to me.

ME:  Sir, I would need your phone number to look up your account and find out what it is we fixed and who it is we sent.

Man:  May I please speak to someone who knows about the repair I had two weeks ago?

At this point, I realize this could go on for awhile, and I am running out of patience about as fast as frost crystals are running up the INSIDE of my OFFICE door. 

ME:  Sir, I'm the only one here, so I'm hoping you'll give me your phone number, or your name, so I can look up the account and help you with your problem.

Man: (gives me the phone number.)  I had that fella here, he knows what to do.  But I have an idea how to keep this from happening."

ME: I see we fixed a frozen pipe?

Man:  Yes.  The part of the shower pipe that attaches to the shower head is right up by my roof and when it gets cold like this it freezes.

ME:  Let me understand this:  The goose neck shaped pipe that is attached to your shower head freezes because it's close to your roof?

MAN:  Yes.

ME:  Sir, I think you may want to look at your insulation.  Pipes freeze in this weather, but an interior goose neck shouldn't freeze.  I think this is an insulation issue.

Man:  Well the fella that came over, he knocked in the pipe and that fixed it, so I did the same thing when it happened again.

ME: Well, sir, I honestly believe you may need a bit more insulation in your roof.  (At this point I'm trying to imagine how cold it is in his shower if that short bent pipe that leads to the shower head freezes.)

Man:  May I speak to the fella that was here and fixed it?

ME: He's on the road at the moment.

Man:  Well, I have an idea that will fix this and I need help with it.

ME:  (because I have zero self esteem)  What's your idea?

MAN:  I want a bath tub thing, the part where the water comes out...what's that called?

ME:  Faucet?

Man:  No, the thing in the tub where the water comes out.

ME:  Faucet?

Man: No, wait...the pipe thing where the hot and cold water pour out of the wall.  The spigot.  No, that's not right.  Wait, faucet!  The faucet!  I want a bath tub faucet put in the pipe that goes to my shower head.so that when I turn the water off I can open the faucet and let the water run out.  That way the water will drain out of the shower head and it won't freeze.

Well, that's a good idea, with one small issue:  THAT'S NOT HOW FAUCETS WORK.  Opening a faucet is called TURNING ON THE WATER.  Now, you all know that button thingy on your faucet, the one you push down when you're done taking a shower?  That's call a diverter, and I'm thinking that's what he figured he'd do, just push that button and water would drip out of the faucet.  But that's not how things work.

Me:  Sir, I don't think we can do something like that.  (I look at his complete order.  It's a walk in shower.)  First of all, we'd have to rip everything out. (I look at his order more.)  Sir, do you have a hand held shower head?

MAN:  Yes.

ME:  With a hose?

MAN:  Yes,

ME:  And the shower head is attached to a hose and not to the wall?

Man:  Yes.

Me:  (Banging my head on the desk.)  Sir, the no pipes are freezing in your house.  If your shower head is too close to the ceiling on days like this where it might be freezing, I suggest you let the shower head dangle to drain all the water out of it. I also recommend you get your insulation looked at.

Man: No.  I want a bath tub faucet put in so I can drain the shower head.

Me:  Sir, in all honesty, I don't believe we can do that.

Man:  Well, then I want to talk to someone who does think we can do that.

Now, at this point what I wanted to say was, "No one in this building thinks we can do that because it's crazy, it's going to unbelievably expensive, and if you'd let your hand held shower head dangle upside down on these cold days it'll be fine.  You'll make it through this winter and let's face it, you aren't going to be around for next winter you old fart.  So stop saying insane things, and treating me like I'm a nine year old girl."

But I didn't.

Instead, I spied PM who just walked in, unaware that I was going to dump Mr. Nut Case on him. 

Me:  Sir, you know what?  My manager just walked in.  I'm going to have him talk to you for a moment.

Man:  Good. Now I get to talk to someone who knows something.

I'm sure he didn't mean that the way it sounded.  I'm sure he's from that era where men were men and women made pot roasts and dusted. I'm sure he meant to protect me from the evils of his frozen shower head and his obviously inferior insulation.  I'm not a women's libber, but I'd like to think that after being on this planet as long as I have I can command a certain amount of respect when I tell someone I know what I'm talking about. 

But I had a very good laugh.  After a very long conversation, PM came to my desk. 

Me: So, what did you tell him?

PM:  I told him we couldn't do something like that.  I suggested he have his insulation looked at.

The sad thing is...the guy probably did it because PM told him to.

Sarah's pre-Christmas Rant: If you don't know how to use the phone: DON'T TOUCH IT!

Good evening!

When I was in third grade, we had a class in school on phone etiquette.  It was part of our social studies class:  you know, the class that taught us how to function in an every day world without angering those around us?  Yes, social studies.  The study of a society.  And in that class I learned how to answer a phone properly, how to take a phone message properly, how to dial a phone, and how to communicate with someone on the phone. 

Almost 40 years later, I have a job because I can do what, apparently, fewer and fewer people are able to do:  Operate a telephone.

In this day of texting, email, and other forms of non telephone communication, I don't have to look too far to see that future generations are going to not know how to use a phone.  And I don't have to look too far back to find a generation...still living...that has always been clueless "about them new- fangled telephone voice machines."

Every day I dial a phone, and let it ring, and I either leave a message with the voicemail/answering machine on the other end or I talk to the person who answers the phone.  What shocks me, and what the source of my rant is today, is how few people know how to manage a telephone or a telephone conversation.

I've managed to narrow the categories of people who answer the phone to five.  All five are annoying, all five are clueless, and everyone in each of these five categories needs to go take Mrs. Carol Zimmerman's "phone etiquette" class.

1)  Can't be bothered because "Maury" is on.  But then again, Caller ID is just too hard to deal with because that involves reading and whatnot.

I'm shocked...SHOCKED at how many phone calls I make land into this category.  Seriously, if the phone rings, now that we have a little thing called CALLER ID, if you don't want to take a call from someone, you don't have to.  Your voicemail can pick it up.  So there's really no need, if you're deep into a multi-layered plot twist of a paternity test on Maury Povich, for you to answer the phone.  Really. No need. In fact, we as telephone professionals would PREFER you NOT pick up the phone, and then drop it on the floor, and leave it there while your television blares for three minutes which is about the length of patience most telephone professionals have with this nonsense.

This category also includes the people who will answer then immediately hang up the phone without bothering to say anything.  I realize I've been guilty of this in the past, but now I have to think:  Are we really that busy or that anti social that we can't possibly be bothered to say, "No Thank you?" (I guess "No Thank you" falls into the same category as "Thank you."

2)  Two ears, one mouth...can't shut the one and won't open the two.

I love it when people call me to ask questions and then simply will not SHUT UP to let me answer them and then get angry at ME because I'm not answering their questions.  The flip side of that fun coin is that when I do start talking, they immediately start talking again, making any attempt at answering questions impossible.  If you want answers, SHUT UP.  And if you can't shut your yap long enough to take a breath, then don't get bent out of shape when the person on the other end of the line doesn't start talking immediately...leaving a bit of dead air where your voice has been for the last ten minutes.

3)  Doesn't understand how to conduct a phone conversation from stage one.

Okay, let's review:  Your phone rings. You push a button or whatever, opening the line to the person who is calling you.  What next?  Well, obviously you say, "hello?" acknowledging that you're ready to speak to the person on the other end of the line.  Obvious, right?  Wrong!  Many of the people I call simply open the line... and say nothing.  And then I have to say, "Hello?"  And sometimes I get a live person, but more often I get nothing. More dead air.  So I say "Hello" again and then something will finally click in the person's brain and get the ball moving.  Now, what I'd like to say is this:  I say hello and then you say hello and we can start."  But I don't dare.  I have to go through this little dance because the person who picked up the phone maybe has some sort of social phobia  and can't speak into the phone.  I can sympathize, if that's the case, but I have to think there just aren't that many people with that specialized a phobia.

4)  Sure you can take a phone message.  Sure you can...

I leave a lot of phone messages.  A LOT of phone messages.  I will listen to a recording and leave a voice mail message a hundred times if I don't have to talk to some dimwit who picks up the phone but isn't the person I am calling and can't answer the one question I'm asking. I'll say, "Can I leave a message with you?"

Before you correct me, remember, I'm an English major.  Yes, I fully know I probably should say, "MAY I leave a message," but I've done this job long enough to know the problem isn't a matter of manners.  It's a matter of skill.  And rarely does the person on the other end have the skill it takes to write down a name, a phone number, and a four word message.  I say, "Can I leave a message?"  They always say yes.  I say, "This is Sarah from Stuff,Installed, and my number is..." and that's when 99 out of 100 times, the person on the other end will say, "Just a minute."

What follows is a multi minute search for a writing tool.   During this time I want to shout all sorts of colorful things into the phone about how telling a person they can leave a message is a verbal contract and by making said person wait and then repeat 2/3 of the message because you didn't have a pen is clearly a breach of that contract.  But then I realize that a person who agrees to take a phone message without having clear view of a writing tool is probably not going to know what I'm talking about when I talk about contracts.

5)  Drunk, angry, stoned, asleep, and driving.

I realize this seems like a repeat of the first category, but it's not because this includes those who dial me and get me, and then are furious because they got a live person on the other end of the phone.  Or, and this is always my favorite, I dial the phone and get the person who is clearly in the middle of some sort of personal crisis, so they start screaming at me and demanding to know where I got their number.  "Um, you gave it to me yesterday and told me to call you back today."  

I love being called a liar.  Because, see, I have nothing better to do with my day than to open the phone book...(what's a phone book, grandma?)  and start dialing random numbers.  Yes, that's exactly what I do.

This category also contains third shifters who need service calls, but refuse to answer their phones until they are dead asleep and therefore they get to rage at me about calling them when they are asleep.  I worked third shift.  If you don't want to answer the phone, you don't have to answer the phone. No one has a gun to your head.

As for those who are in an impaired state of mentality...stop.  Stop using the phone.  Stop filling my voicemail with incoherent mumbles and then stop complaining to my corporate office that I don't return phone calls.  Stop calling my number and hanging up just as I answer. And if you're in a bad mood, how about if you sit down with an episode of Maury?

Stop yelling at me when you answer the phone when you're driving.  You're breaking the law, not me.

And by the way...if you're in the middle of a domestic dispute, don't dial the phone, don't answer the phone, don't look at the phone.  I don't want to hear you and your significant other scream at each other.  Well, I do, because it's sort of entertaining, but really, it gets old when you decide you're going to treat me like some sort of free couples' therapy.

6)  You might be old, but you have had a telephone in your house since you were a child.  Stop pretending you don't know how to use it!

I've done the math.  Every person alive today (and I'm talking about industrialized nations here, I'm sure there are people on an island someplace where this isn't true.) has had a telephone in their home at very the least their entire adult lives.  My grandmother is 97 years old.  She's almost blind, she care barely hear, and she knows how to use a phone.  Ad if my grandma can manage it, everyone else can, too.  That means you don't get to pretend you don't know what to do when someone calls you.  You don't get to yell, "WHO? WHAT?  HUH?"  every time I try to say something.  I'm not Alexander Graham Bell.  Phone reception is pretty awesome these days.  Stop pretending you can't hear me.

Also, stop pretending you don't know what a phone is for.  Believe it or not, I'm not buying the idea that a darling little old lady is just randomly picking things up in her house until the ringing stops.  Don't answer that phone and then start shouting at your house mate that you "don't know what the hell the call is about. It's some damn thing or another."  Stop.  You know how to listen.  I know this because the minute I mention a big old discount you're able to focus in on what I'm saying.

And for the love of all that is holy, don't pretend you didn't get my 77 previous messages.  If you have voice mail or an answering machine, you've probably had it for eons and therefore you know how to get the messages.  The only person I've ever met who couldn't retrieve her voice mail message was Elsie W.

Do you really want to be in her category?

And finally, this isn't so much a category as it is a pet peeve of mine and since I'm giving you my pre-Christmas rant, I may as well throw this in:

Answering machines have been around for a long time now.  And yes, we've all fallen victim to wanting our outgoing messages to be personalized, funny, cute, whatever.  That said, let me just clue you in on how things are in 2013, now that we have voicemail, and digital everything.  I can speak to this because I've made about 1600 phone calls this month and this is what I run across all the time:

A) Sound clips taped from the TV or your favorite radio station are terrible.  No one can understand that garbled mess.  Erase and start over, this time with your own voice in a normal volume level saying normal adult things. you might be the biggest Princess Bride fan  (but you're not...because you're not me) but listening to some fuzzy, echo mess of you telling us you'll call us back and then Wesley saying "As you wish" from across the room is only a good idea in your head.  In real life it's terrible.  Stop it.

B)  Your children/grandchildren might be the apple of your eye, but their goo-goo gaa-gaa mess on your outgoing message only annoys everyone.  Yes, everyone.  Yes, even your best friend.  I'm the only one honest enough to tell you.  They aren't cute, they aren't adorable, they make everyone who calls you want to poke their ears out. And oh yeah, unless your pets have developed opposable thumbs, stop putting their names on the outgoing message.  I have four cats.  Do you really want to listen to, "You've reached the home of Sarah, Hubby, Peaches, Skippy, Jasper, Tacocat, Belle, and Jude" every time you call me?  Are you planning on leaving a message for the cats?  Then STOP!

C)  Only Dr. Suess is allowed to speak in rhyme.  You are not Dr. Suess.  Stop trying to come up with a cute rhyme on your outgoing message. It's terrible.  Stop it.

D)  The "press this number for this person"  Really?  Is your land line THAT busy that you have to have multiple lines for each child and each pet?  (true story)  I'm not pressing six to speak to Mr. Cuddles.  And chances are, if I want to talk to your kids, I'm not calling them on the phone.  So unless you are a business, stop it.

Well that's enough rant for this eve before Christmas Eve...I await your angry retorts or your comments of praise.  Whichever you prefer!

I put a comma after cheese...I'm going to keep saying "good-bye."

Good evening!

I realize we live in a fast paced, gotta have it right now sort of world.  I freak out if my children don't answer a text within five minutes.  But I've forgotten how I'd disappear between the hours of school ending and dinner starting.  My mother would have no idea where I was, but I knew if I wasn't sitting at the dinner table at a certain time, she'd blow the whistle and if I didn't hear the whistle, that meant I was too far away from home and I was sure to lose TV privileges for a week.

Have I mentioned the whistle? No?  That's a story for another day.

Anyway, I realize we live in a world where things move fast. They have to just so we can all keep up.  (Keep up with what?  If the thing or person we're all trying to keep up with would take a day off maybe this would be a better world and we wouldn't have to have PSAs on TV talking about texting and driving or talking on the phone and driving, or doing your homework while driving.)

we've cut out a lot of manners in the interest of moving more quickly.  We send e-cards because buying, addressing, and mailing a real card takes too much time.  (Frankly, finding the stamp for the card would befuddle me for at least an hour.)  We send emails instead of thank you notes...again, because it's too hard to find the address book/stamp/pen.  We text instead of calling because actually talking to a human takes time.  You can text or email anyone any time of the day or night.  I can email or text whatever thought I have and the person I'm contacting can get back to me when they have time.  And hey, if I don't hear them...well, I tried, right?

We message people on Face book because that's where we are most of the time.

I'm not complaining.  I'm right there with you.  I hate answering the phone at home because I do it all day long.  People know that about me.  It's easier to get me by text, email, face book.  I use abbreviations, too, because typing out "Laughing out Loud" takes too long.

But there is something I noticed lately that I cannot stand for.

No one says good-bye anymore.

Think I'm kidding.  Have a phone conversation.  Now, when you end the conversation, we used to say, "good-bye" or "see ya later"  or something of the like.  Not anymore.  I make dozens of phone calls a day, and I take even more.  I can't count the number of times I'm in the midst of saying, "Have a great day, good-bye" and the person on the other end has already hung up on me.

I get this from customers and coworkers alike.  It doesn't matter what the topic is, it seems like my phone calls all go like this:

"Okay, Mr. Smith, I have you down for 4Pm on Thursday."

"Okay." 

"thank you, have a great day..."  But by this point I'm talking to dead air because Mr. Smith is gone.

Did I miss a memo?  Is this the new thing now, sort of like dropping that comma after the second to last thing in a list?  (You know:  I'll have pasta, wine, cheese, and meatballs for dinner.  Now we don't put a comma after cheese.)

Well, I, for one, am resisting.  I still put a comma after cheese and I'm going to say good-bye, or something like it, to end a phone conversation and if it kills me, the people I talk to are going to respond in kind.

If I can keep them from hanging up on me!

Why I sort of envy Jack Torrence.

Good afternoon everyone!

The rumors of my demise have been exaggerated.  The rumors of the snow dumpage on my home state, have not. Here's a picture of my front door:

The pile you see there is a drift as it sat before we started shoveling.  I wish I had a picture of the garage door before we shoveled, but we had to dig out of the garage just to get this shot.  Waukesha got something like 12-15 inches of snow.  Other communities around us got almost 2 feet.  It was the drifting after the snowfall that nearly got us though.  And yet, here we are, 24 hours later, back to work!

Last night Peaches and I celebrated the end of a long snow day by watching that winter classic "The Shining."  Peaches loves scary movies, and, while she's really not old enough to be watching Rated R flicks, I justified it with the fact that I was watching along with her and saying, "If I ever hear you use that word, I'll ground you until Nick Jonas grows facial hair." 

Anyway, for those of you not familiar with the Stephen King classic, I'll summarize.

Jack Torrance, former school teacher, present writer, full time nut, takes a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook Inn in a remote part of the Colorado Mountains.  It's a 6 month stretch that involves complete isolation from the outside world due to the the narrow mountain roads and snow volumes.  Jack loves the idea of the isolation, since he's writing a novel.  (And all writers love this idea...complete silence, no outside bothers, no children yelping at the doors for food, homework help, juice boxes....

So Jack moves his wife and kid and his kid's imaginary friend into this huge and, ultimately haunted  (or cursed, so of depends on how you look at it,) hotel.  As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. 

Sitting there with my daughter, I tried to explain to her why the isolation was so complete, and therefore why the movie was so scary.  "This was before email, before the Internet, before cell phones, before Face book, before video games, and before...GASP...movies on DVD."  I always feel like such an ancient when I talk about things I didn't have as a kid that my kids have now.  And then when I tell them about the time there was a blizzard and my mom tied ropes around my cousins and me because the adults in the house were SICK TO DEATH of us kids and frankly, we needed to go outside...well, then I just sound like I lived next door to Laura Ingalls Wilder.

"Well mom, this must be a very old movie."

1980...yep, a very, very old movie.  I was her only a touch younger than she is right now when it came out.  Egads.

Watching the movie, however, I did find myself so of envying Jack Torrance.  Oh no, not for the whole, chasing the wife around the hotel with an ax and getting bashed in the head with a baseball bat by said wife.  And no, I don't envy him his ultimate demise....wait, you're yelling "spoiler alert?"  Please, this movie is 31 years old!  Sorry...didn't mean to ruin the plot for you!

What I do envy, which was shocking to me as I pondered it further, was the isolation! 

Think about it, from a mom standpoint:  No phones!  (I have a love/hate relationship with the telephone.  I love my ring tone.  I hate to answer my phone.  My children will tell you, I spend the first three rings of every call yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" at my phone.  Unfortunately, I do that at work, too.)

No phones, no texts, no one calling you or expecting a call from you.  Just thinking about eases my desire to shriek.

Emails sort of fall under that same category. Oh I definitely prefer email to phone calls.  (I almost prefer texting to phone calls.  Almost.)  And yet there are emails I could definitely do without.   For example:  I don't need to enlarge my penis, I don't need to refinance my home.  I don't need a car insurance quote.  I have never played the Irish lottery, so it's doubtful I've truly won.  And, really, I'm honored that some prince in a far away land needs my help, but no thank you, I'm not giving anyone my bank number. 

And then there are the emails I'm supposed to read and don't...I won't go into that.

Then there are the emails I'm supposed to read and I do...and it just aggravates me.  Emails from my kids' schools.  Really, wouldn't a phone call be easier?  (Oh, wait....)  Emails from my church, which are fine, except I get the emails so I don't have to have the printed version of anything in my mailbox at church.  Then it turns out I miss having something to read during the sermon...oh, wait, I mean during the offering, DURING THE OFFERING, so I pick up the printed version anyway.

Then there are the political emails I get.  How on earth did I get on some of these mailings lists?  Seriously, I know I lean to the right a bit, but frankly, I'm not quite ready to join forces with the groups that keep sending me these urgent emails about the evil those on the left are trying to do.  (I file those emails right next to the ones from the Nigeria prince who needs my bank account number.)  I don't believe I'm going to save the world by reading angry political emails any more than I believe I've won the Swedish lottery.

And then there are the emails from my mother.  These generally consist of reminders to send cards to various relatives, which I would do on my own thanks, I'm not a child!  (Oops, I did miss a birthday recently) but my favorite ones from my mom are the forwards.  She forwards first of all, all the political emails I've already deleted.  So I have to delete them twice.  Then she forwards all the emails that have been making the rounds for about ten years.  (Bill Gates has NEVER given me a dime for forwarding emails, I've never gotten a thing from Walt Disney's kids, and Apple bee's owes me roughly 200 dinners.)

Basically, I read emails from my close friends, and I love those survey things that ask you if you like bacon bits or croutons on your salads.  (Of course, that would imply I actually eat salad...)

So phone and email...out!  NICE!

Kids...well, I'd have to take them along, I suppose.  then again, maybe not.  I mean, they're pretty old.  I could just...leave them at home.  What harm could befall a 14 year old girl and her 17 year old brother if left to themselves for 6 months?  Really.  What harm?

Cats....no cats. 

Boss...nope.

Husband...well I MIGHT take him along.

I should note that since I started writing this blog yesterday, the following has happened:

1)  My cats set their whiskers on fire. (I'd feel sorry for them, but all three of them did it in the span of about three minutes.  I had a candle going, they jumped up stuck their noses in it, scorched the whiskers.  You'd think the first one would warn the other two.)

2) I helped shovel 24 inches of junky snow from my driveway

3)  I came to work. 

4)  I solved four website related issues, two boss related issues, answered five phone calls and just now had a text conversation with Dee.

5)  I called two teachers, texted both kids.

6)  Just got a phone call from my boss telling me, in ten minutes or more, that he was going to shovel his driveway.

It's taken me 36 hours to write this blog!  (Which is almost fine, since I've changed the topic at least twice.)


Still, I watched "The Shining" last night and a big part of me envied the wide open writing time he had.  How could a writer go insane when your biggest job is to WRITE?

It's what we all dream about! You know, minus the ax murder thing and all that!