Thursday, August 14, 2008

FrontEnd and BackEnd

Yes, I know. My blog life has been neglected. Both in the writing department and reading. My excuse? I was super swamped at work. No, make that a present tense. I am super swamped at work. And while taking 20 minutes to write a post is very doable, no matter how much stuff I am buried in, inspiration refuses to strike an overworked mind. Well, that’s my story and I am sticking to it, ok?

If you read my last post, about the fender bender, well there’s more to it that the little apple green VW bug. The day after I go my car back, I got a call from the auto body shop telling me that I owe them $500 as the insurance deductible. “But, it wasn’t my fault. The other party rear ended my car. They are supposed to pay my deductible.” I tried to explain. The man was very understanding but told me I would have to pay and then the other party’s insurance would send me a check.

I called BigGeek and told him what had happened. “Call your insurance agent” he advised. “Give her the third degree. Tell her on no account will you deal with a third party insurance. Tell her we don’t pay hefty premiums for such shoddy service. You will deal only with her. Tell her you are not writing a check for one red cent. Also, when my car was T-boned by another car 5 years ago, I did not go through this. It was the other party’s fault and I did not have to pay any money upfront. Just rail on her. And of course don’t forget to play the I am shopping for another insurance company card.” So I called the insurance agent and while she tried to brush me off, I stuck to my guns and gave her the third degree. Word for word what BigGeek had told me. It worked. Or I hope it has. I haven’t gotten a call from the auto body shop or the insurance agent. And no news is good news, right?

But I digress. The point of the post is not really my insurance woes. It is how we, as a married team communicate to the outside world. I am the front-end, he is the backend. ALWAYS.

On lazy Saturday mornings.
BigGeek: Dottie, call Verizon. They have charged us $100 for the 20 min. phone call you made to London. Tell them what nonsense is this? We are not paying. Charge us by $0.10 a minute. This is thievery. Call them and yell.

Or on a busy Thursday evening.
BigGeek: Dottie call the construction guy and tell him to give us a discount on the walkway quote. Use your charm.

Or some random day
BigGeek: Dottie, tell Chip to stop making a mess. Look at the mess he is making.

Or the Sunday morning phone call to my in-laws
BigGeek: (to his mom, after she has asked him how our week was): Wait, let me get Dottie, she will tell you what we did.

And you can’t beat this.
BigGeek: Dottie, call M (a good friend) and ask him if he wants to meet me for a haircut and a coffee.

Early on in our marriage, I once complained to his aunt about this rather annoying habit. She laughed and shook her head. “That’s how all the men in this family are. Better get used to it.” And the thing is, now, I am used to it. I get annoyed, but I am used to it. BigGeek will always run in the backend. I would have said he runs like a daemon in the background, but BigGeek does not run on open source. So he runs on the Windows in the Scheduler, like a monitoring script picking up the slightest discrepancies, triggering a warning and feeding it to his error handler that makes phone calls. A match made in heaven. Indeed.

22 comments:

Yet Another Mother Runner said...

It's funny I was teasing a colleague at work that his wife is the User-Interface and he's the DataBase guy just earlier this week. And there is at least a bit of that going on in most marriages :)
But you sure can't beat the call you were asked to make to the friend!

By Deepa and Supriya said...

haha...at first i was going to borrow the first para in this post and make it my own...then I realised...i could borrow the entire post and make it my own..a match made in heaven indeed!!! and this morning as he walked out of the door he said..can u tell the (lawn mower) guy to rake the leaves in the front yard even as he waved goodby to me and the guy!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi there, could not help but de-lurk for this one. Word by word it matches with what happens in our house. Seriously.....I enjoyed reading this one.

And BTW I have all your posts and kudos to you on the Baking and Gardening skills. Awesome...

Chip is a very sweet kid..

-Sweha

Anonymous said...

Dottie,
You're well on your way to becoming a geek too!! Daemon indeed!!

I love Lucy said...

Sounds so familiar!
And if I put my foot down and ask M to make the phone call,he will spend an hour trying to find the person's email id and promptly send him an email.But call him, he won't!

Mira's mom said...

Too cute :-)Well, at our end husband does try to be the backend all the time but I refuse to be the frontend. So, he ends up doing all on his own :-)

B o o said...

In our case, Im totally the backend. I cant talk the talk! The weirdest thing in our case is when I asked him to book the first appointment for me with the Gyny when I was pregnant. He totally refused to call the hospital when I got my contractions! *blowing a raspberry*

rayshma said...

lol! u two are hilarious!! :)
here, it's the opposite! i script, he talks. i would rather hide under the covers than pick up the phone. even if it is to wish MY brother on his anniv! :D
and i used to talk for a living. sigh!

Anusha said...

lol! wah-wah - perfect match indeed! i used to be front end till i threw may tantrums and refused...so now it is 50-50. make tht 75-25.

TheGirlNextDoor said...

de-lurking for this one, coz this so sounds like hubby and me...i keep telling him that I feel I am his secretary, making all the phone calls. At one point he had a tummy ache and I had to call the doctor , so the conversation went like this:
Me(to doctor): The hubby has a tummy ache.
Doctor: What side?
Me(to hubby): What side?
Hubby: All over
Me (to Doctor): He says all over
Doctor: Is it a sharp pain, like a needle being stuck?
Me (to hubby) : Is it a sharp pain, like a needle being stuck?
...
You get the drift, until the doctor asked, can I just speak to him, please? :)
Love all your posts btw.

Choxbox said...

LOL!

tina said...

it was only after i read the post that i got what frontend and backend meant XP girl next door is right, the woman is the user interface and the man is the database in relationships such as these... why is that so? ^^;

Mama - Mia said...

:D

had a good laugh!! well your aunt can stand corrected that ALL men are like that!! :p

M wont even call the doc for Cubby's appt saying he gets all confused!! sigh!!

great post!!

cheers!

abha

dipali said...

This is lovely, Dottie! May the front end and back end always work in harmony:)

Trishna said...

hahahaa funny! I loved this post!

Unknown said...

Ah Dottie. My man is the bleddy same. The MIL fumes because he does all his communicating to her through me, and we live in the same house. Too much strong and too too much silent happening.

~nm said...

Hahaha! These men are all the same!!

I used to earlier get so angry at hubby whenever he would handover the phone to do the talking that one day i asked him "Why are you scared of talking to these people?" He coyly replied "Darta kaun hai. Yeh bahut boring hota hai!" I just rolled my eyes. He still does it. But there are days when I just refuse and he HAS to do this himself :)

bird's eye view said...

hee hee, that's very funny. It happens at our place too, only A and I play a game. If a call needs to be made, whoever manages to be first in saying 'You do it, I'm shy' gets to wriggle out of the call and the other party has to make it!

Savani said...

gnd: LOL. I suppose so!

orchie: ROTFL. These men! Better keep him and BG away from each other, lest they share ideas!

Sweha: Thanks for delurking.. can't believe you enjoy my daily language butcherings :)

desigirl: what to, what to do? we are like that only na :) I run daemons for a living.

i love lucy: hahahahhahaha. glad to know I have company!

mira's mom: god for ya! I need some lessons for ya!

boo: you certainly write the talk. and how. I don't think BG would have ever called the gynae. She was in his address book. He ofcourse did call and handed me the phone when I went into labor.

raysh: Wow. I feel for you husband now! poor guy.

kodi's mom: who is 75? you or him?

thegirlnextdoor: hey you are another one. your story is hilarious!!!

choxbox: come on spill the beans choxie.

mama-mia: same here :)

dipali: they do, they do :) thanks!

karmickids: ROTFL @ Too much strong and too too much silent happening.

~nm: Exactamundo. Darta kaun hai :P indeeed.

BEV: :) BG figured out to beat at that game a very long time ago :(

Daisy said...

happens in every house I guess.. like someone else said, hubby will search for an hr and get an email address to email someone than call!he will call me in the middle of the work day to ask me to call insurance agent/realtor/anyoneelse for that matter!!

Maggie said...

LOL! I'm tired of being the front end too... looking at the comments, it seems to be a common married male afflication :-)

Sands said...

my first time at your blog. This one so caught my eye given that I have one exactly like BG sharing my life. Drives me crazy especially on days when I am juggling one too many balls in the air. Lovely post, BTW!!