Word of the Day - Cockamamie

So...where to begin... I can only sum up today with the word "cockamamie." Go figure, the title makes sense.

So I get into work today, and a low level marketing type person tells me about some harebrained idea to have a cookout for customers where we can give out random crap, and that will attract people, because everyone wants useless shit.
Naturally, I ask, "what exactly would you want to be giving away?"

The answer, "I don't know... key chains, stickers, food, stuff like that."

My response, "so you want to have a cookout in the fall, when it's like 50 degrees, and attract people by giving them key chains?"

"Yeah..."

"Wow that's dumb."

And that, my friends, is why I get paid the big bucks. I can quickly point out a cockamamie idea from a mile away. And, I don't have to stay confined within my own area of expertise.

So that's how my day started. After that, I was approached with an idea of how to help sales better manage a program they use.

He said, "How about you change the program so that it can re-assign customers to new salespeople based on who the last person was that talked to them, instead of who was the last one to actually sell them something?"

My response, "how about you go fly a kite? That's not my program to edit, never was, never has been, never will be, and if you suggest that my entire job should revolve around managing your cluster-fuck of a database, you're severely mistaken."

On first thought, you may think I was overly harsh on this salesperson, though I fail to see how anyone can be too harsh on a salesperson. I assure you, he has a history of being an ass, and most every co-worker doesn't enjoy being around him at all. Secondly, there already is a database administrator that works for the company that is supposed to work on doing things that this salesperson suggested. My job is to troubleshoot basically to "fix the unfixable," because by the time an issue reaches my desk, 3-4 other people have unsuccessfully tried to troubleshoot. Exciting shit, huh?

So then another cockamamie idea came up. "Unblock my Internet access so that I can Google stuff and play games while I'm bored." My response, "that's exactly why your shit is blocked."

Go figure. I'm now a villain because I have to partially enforce work in the workplace. Is that such a foreign concept that I'm coming up with this cockamamie notion that you're supposed to actually work in the workplace? Are we all taking tips from government workers or something?

So work ends, and I attempt to get home. I have to drive across this bridge that is the only way in or out of town. It's rush hour, yet on a normal day, I can easily go through at a comfortable 20-25 MPH over the speed limit. Today, it's a parking lot. Not that I wish anything bad to anyone, but I wanted to see something at the end of all this to make the wait worthwhile. Give me a crash, a fire, end of a high speed chase, a raid, something. Anything. Why was traffic so backed up? The bridge was narrowed down to only one lane because they were re-painting the lane stripes. Whose cockamamie idea was it to close down 3 lanes of traffic so that way too many cars had to go through this one damn lane DURING RUSH HOUR!?!?!?!??!? My commute usually takes about a half hour. Today, 3 hours.

So that is why the word of the day is cockamamie. If you have a cockamamie story of your own, please share it in the comments.