Joanne: A Rose Nylon by Another Name

I was in a three-day training last week. Before you get jealous thinking I was shipped off to a warmer land with a cabana boy at my disposal let me tell you I was trapped in an office with no windows, two laptops glaring at me and hooked to the training via conference call. For. three. entire. days.

Before taking this class, I think one should brush up their tech-savvy-ness like... oh I don't know... figure out where the Shift key is. Ladies and Gentlemen and Internet, let me introduce you to Joanne. A lovely lady, I'm sure, from Pleasanton, California that managed to make me scowl at her through the phone when we were only 45 minutes into Day 1.

To all my older readers - don't get all up in arms about what I'm trying to say. Other than Shift, she also had a hard time finding the F1 key. I trust that each and every one of you, if I asked you to, could manage to find those on your keyboard.

Here are some snippets (with what I was yelling at the phone):

Instructor: Okay, guys, now to get to B you just have to enter in A.
Joanne: Excuse me, I have a question. How do you get to B then?
I: You have to enter in A.
J: Then it will go to B?
I: Yes.
A: AUGH For the love of sweet baby Jesus! ENTER A!!
-----
J: I'm sorry, I have to leave for 5 minutes. Can you just talk really slowly?
I: (Silence that sounded like confusion and head-scratching)
A: WTF Lady?!
-----
J: Excuse me, I can't find that F1 key.
I: Joanne, the F1 Key is right above Q.
A: You make me want to bang my head into a bucket of nails!
-----
J: I can't hear you because there's people outside my window. I'm gonna miss some stuff so you'll have to repeat it all in a while when they're done.
I: Um.... Class, let's just take a break. Joanne, stay on the line.
A: (Chanting and pounding fists on desk) Toss her out! Toss her out!

He didn't toss her out. But, by the end of three days I was thanking the inventor of the mute button so I could mumble obscenities at her and figured out how to manage my anger.

Every time she started in with her meek 'Excuse me' bit, I'd head for the bathroom. Read a few books, wrote a letter to Santa and even had time to build a model train. By the time I'd get back the instructor would just be finishing with her and moving on. Awesome.