Marital Arts – Martial Law
I know exactly where you are. I know what you are doing. I know what you did last summer. Are you in the house alone?
How well can you ever really know another human being? You think that person is your friend? How would they react when the chips are really down? Or, in some cases, what have they already done behind your back? (Past tense.)
Believe it or not, I haven’t shared all of the juiciest tidbits about my boss. Not yet. But wait, there’s more!
Yes, I’ve deliberately held back when it comes to revealing all that could be revealed. The man is a veritable gold mine of asshat behavior. Call it some sick sense of decorum or good form, but (unlike him) I have my limits.
I do want to paint an accurate portrait of the lumbering mass but I have to be choosey. And some stories I’ll probably end up taking to my grave. But I have decided the following should be made available for public consumption. And it’s 100% true. I couldn’t make up shit like this.
One thing that makes the boss so special is the sheer totality of what he is. He brings his A-game to every person, every situation. Employees, of course. But also customers, friends, his children, and people he meets on the street.
Oh, wait. I almost forgot.
He also brings it to his wife.
Continue reading →
ABC News can eat my ass
The internet is not just a series of tubes. My God! It’s full of links!
Today, while my mind was contentedly numb and was clicking things on the internet like a monkey pushing a button for a reward (mmm, banana!) I happened to click a link that led to ABC News.
What can one say about the ABC News internet experience?
First, before you even get to the page, you are subjected to a full page advertisement and the option to “skip this ad.”
Here’s the link that aroused my ire and prompted this post: ABC News
The next thing you notice is that your browser says, “Hey. Psst! I have prevented a popup window.”
At the top of the page is a giant banner ad. It’s moving, of course. It’s flashing and trying to get your attention.
Near the top right of the screen is a rectangular ad area that flashes every five seconds or so, encouraging you to click “Play” to watch more about some ABC television show.
And then, without your prior consent, on the left side of the page and embedded in the article, is a video window. It automatically starts to play, sucking up your internet connection and most annoying of all, it begins to pump out sound from your speakers!
That’s just damn rude.
What’s the etiquette of stealing bandwidth from people who decidedly did NOT click “Play” on your video? And then surprising them with sound?
Is your baby laying in your arms asleep? Too fucking bad, says ABC News. We’ll wake that son of a bitch up. We have gots to get paid, yo.
Angry, I immediately located and clicked the MUTE button on the fucking thing. I was almost shocked when it actually worked. Alas, I was not that shocked when the click also brought up a popup window with yet another advertisement. Shit, I thought my browser was blocking those? Apparently not this one.
In the time I’ve been composing this post, that embedded video has been happily playing. Each time I go back and glance at that tab, the video is still playing, thankfully still without sound.
In a smaller box, still within the article, is embedded more advertising. This time a small box labeled “sponsored links.” Scroll down a bit to the bottom of the article and you’ll find two more boxes of sponsored links.
All told I found no less than five items on the web page labeled as “advertisement” or “sponsored links.” This does not include the ad I was forced to skip to land on the page. Nor does it include the two popup windows (one blocked, one that got through.) And, lastly, it does not include the commercial video that started playing with sound when I first loaded the page.
Hey, ABC News. I got a question, and then I have a follow-up. Greed much? And why are you such a bunch of motherfuckers?
I can’t help but wonder what percentage of internet traffic is bandwidth consumed by video and sound that no one ever requested? I bet it’s a lot. It probably ranks right up there with spam and porn thanks to the greed of organizations like ABC News.
This doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Television networks are the same people who decided to stick their logo on the corner of the screen when watching their programs. God forbid we forget what channel we’re watching. Except during commercials, of course. And then they decided to build in commercials during the programming in the form of moving images advertising the next show you should be watching. And then, naturally completing the progression, they added sound to those moving promos in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Fuck the viewer. The viewing experience be damned!
Never again will you be able to watch a show without being bombarded at the same time with commercials for the next show.
How much is enough? When will they say when? How many times do they need to get paid?
I’ve got an idea. How about making a web page that is informative with actual content and making the advertising proportional to the rest of the page? And how about keeping video and sound from coming on unless we ask for it?
Is that too much to ask? You betcha!
Is the audience the customer? No. The advertiser is the customer. And they’ll never ever let you forget that.
Moderation is not a word in the Advertiser’s Dictionary. Just how many boats can you water ski behind?
Hey, ABC News. Can I please read a news story without you spamming the fuck out of all five senses? That would be great.
The windshield and the bug
Here’s a little something I’ve been known to say quite often: The public is ugly. What do I mean by this?
Mainly it’s all about attitude. One that encompasses a sense of entitlement with extreme rudeness. We’ve all seen gigantic dill holes strutting around and treating people like shit. From time to time all of us may have even been that dill hole. Why is this?
My personal theory has to do with the school of thought that says “the customer is always right.” What a load of bullshit!!!
Most of us have been stuck in a dead end job at one point or another. And what, above all else, has been beaten into us with a stick? The old school paradigm “the customer is always right.”
This sort of saying is a tool wielded by idiots who think they are “managing” employees just by repeating some meaningless, old, tired, broken down phrase. Sadly these are usually the worst managers of all-time.
The phrase “the customer is always right” was originally coined as an advertising gimmick by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the guy who founded the British department store Selfridges. For more about the phrase and some excellent information debunking it as a way to achieve customer service, please see the excellent article Top 5 reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong.
So what do we miserable employees do with this horrible mindset that we’ve had beaten into us for our whole lives? Naturally when we go out in the world we trade in our “employee hat” for our “customer hat,” and then we let the good times roll. We treat every employee we meet just the way we’ve always been treated – like our own personal doormats!
Indeed, sometimes we’re the windshield and sometimes we’re the bug.
Now we have the spectacle of flight attendant Steven Slater and how he recently quit his job in the spotlight. Now there is a guy who simply got fed up with the public and how ugly we can be. This raises an important question: Just how much shit is one supposed to ingest in the interests of keeping one’s job?
An article from CNN floated across my screen today on this very same topic and it got me thinking. Here’s some excerpts from the article:
“I used to be a flight attendant. I left just after 1.5 years on the job. I was tired of not being treated with respect by passengers and management. After all these years, I still remember this kid saying loudly, ‘Here comes the trash lady.’ His father was laughing next to him.”
“The flying public in America is the rudest bunch of people I’ve ever seen. In my short experience, I was cussed out, spit at, had things thrown at me, and [was] threatened with all sorts of violence. The traveling public believes they should be able to ignore rules and do whatever they want and you are a just a slave there just to serve them, that is until the plane crashes then you’re supposed to be their savior.”
They’re preachin’ to the choir! I’ve been saying this all along!
Here’s a video to illustrate the ugly side of “I’m the customer” mindset. Here we see a woman in a drive thru reportedly at 6am and being told she can’t have any Chicken McNuggets. (When you get the munchies I guess you really get the munchies.) All this over fugging nuggets? All I can say is, “Wow!”
If this video gets removed by YouTube, you can also try this link on the New York Daily News. As of my publication deadline it also has the video.
All of this is just more convincing evidence for my upcoming book, Society of Assholes. Look for it in book stores soon if I can convince any employees to actually print the bloody thing. I’ll be the one pooping on them trying to force them to do and care about their insignificant jobs!
Personally I try to live by the Golden Rule. (I hope you were drinking Red Bull as you read this line.) Hopefully that means I’m more windshield than bug. Or is that the other way around?
In closing, please allow me to offer the following thought as both an American worker and customer: I FLING POO!!!
Please enjoy the musical selection that our chef has paired with this article.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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