You know where I work eh?

I'm a middle manager in a call center
representing a major US cell phone company

so I currently have 20 people on my team...
most of them are hugely smart and relatively sane "nice" folks - and I won't lie - on the phones these people are way better versed in the vernacular of the job than I am - I'm the cheerlead/den mother/wicked witch of the west....jill of all trades/pencil pusher extraordinaire - that's me!

a couple can get "iffy-er" than me on occasion and recently we've had a few...shall we say, "dull knives" added to our drawer

ok
so picture this...
each employee sits at a desk, each desk contains a phone, a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor

each rep's job is to answer the phone and fix up the customer's account via the dozen or so dedicated software packages that we use

all of the rep's have inbound email, but not outbound
cos the company that shall remain nameless doesn't trust them enough to allow them access
er something

to qualify for the job - you only have to be able to type at 20 words per minute...but you need to understand the basic concepts of dedicated software programs
and
well, you know....Windows

and you really need to understand the concept that time is money
so tick freakin tock people!
tick freakin tock!

every morning I start my day out with some sort of version of the proverbial "pep talk" (ish).....
right after I whine about not being able to remember my own first name that is....

"everybody here?
is everybody present to the job at hand?
did everybody have a good night?
is everybody ready to go?
nobody killed the hubby er the wife er the kids last night right?
everybody got coffee? - no more coffee for you bob!
too tired? suck it up buttercup - we're about to rock n roll here..."

every day it's the same kinda stuff and every day I also have to make sure that they all start off on the same page..... cos that's what they pay me the "not so big bucks for"

"everybody got the tools you need to do the job at hand?
everybody got all the forms you need? I've sent em out via email conservatively 20 times this month - so if you don't have them it's cos you haven't saved em to your hard drive....need help with that? I can teach you"..."

rah! rah! rah!
sis boom bah!
you know the drill?

so today
one of the "dull knives"
spent an hour an 37 minutes
weeping
cos she can't find the forms she needs

well first off....
she can't find the information to tell her which form she needs cos she can't find the program that will tell her what form she needs
she can't find the program cos she closes all the "autoloaded" programs cos "they get in my way"
so
when all else fails - let's weep!
she is so far outta her element I'm not sure we're the same species

I give her some time to figure it out cos I've told her over and over
and
well
hope springs eternal

and then I remind her yet again for the umpteen billionth time that the forms she needs are in her email - cos I've been sending them over and over and showing her where to save them over and over
which brings on a whole new storm of weeping cos she's got the emails but she can't find the forms
then
she tells me "I've clicked and clicked and there's no forms"
I go to look
and she's clicking in the empty email

I point at the paper clip in the upper right hand corner of the email
"oh" she says
"what's that?"
"it's called a paper clip" says I...."it mean's that there's an attachment"
"what's an attachment?"she says

holy crap!
here it is 10 pm and I still have a vein in my forehead throbbing out a rhythm in response to those tears

this is just wrong....
on soooo many levels
~ahem~