Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Degeneration
I have come face to face with the devil. No, it’s not me. Not this time. I can’t talk about myself in every post, can I? Sometimes the devil comes in the form of a sweet little girl.
Why is it that when strangers see a baby, an adorable child, or a cute little dog they feel it’s suddenly socially acceptable to interact with same and/or the adults involved?
I hate that. I’ll thank you very much to stay the hell away.
My wife is one of those people. A toddler in a restaurant stands on a seat and stares at my wife. She’ll smile and wave and stuff like that. The nerve.
So the other day there’s a mom and her cute little girl in a restaurant. I was eating my tacos and minding my own business. My wife saw the little girl and smiled. Then, when the mom wasn’t looking, the girl stuck out her tongue at my wife. Three times!
Mom looked back and the little girl went back to adorable peaches and cream. Mom was none the wiser.
The behavior was calculated. The behavior was deliberate. That little girl knew exactly what she was doing. And it wasn’t an innocent act of cuteness, either. There was something vicious behind that tongue. The Marquis de Sade would have proudly declared she had a bright future.
My wife mentioned something about giving the girl a swat on her tushy. It takes a village to raise a child? Try touching someone else’s kid and you’ll be sued until the cows come home. The bank robber that brandished a firearm the other day? The cops arrested him then he was released due to a lack of jail space. Step in and do a job that a parent isn’t willing to do? The catch-and-release program will suddenly be canceled and you’ll be doing hard time. Don’t even think about trying to tell a parent their business.
Me? I mumbled something about “guns” and suddenly I was the one in trouble. My wife accusingly said, “You always take things too far.”
Hey, lady! I’m not the one sticking out my tongue at strangers, so there!
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The Sneaky Entitlement Society
Two affluent men are running for the office of President of the United States. That means it’s time for another round of one of our most-cherished traditions: finger pointing at the bottom-sucker “entitlement” folks.
Strangely enough, despite the type of things I normally write about the workplace, I’ve never been fired from a job. Weird, right? Inconceivable! You’d think a hater like me would be one of the first to go. Yet, somehow, it’s true. And, as a result, I know remarkably little about things like Unemployment Insurance (UI).
I gather it works like insurance. When employment is high, employers are paying more taxes into the UI program which creates a surplus. When there is a recession, less revenues are paid into the program and payouts (in the form of benefits to the unemployed) increase. The net result is a social net that saves for a rainy day and minimizes the disastrous effects (on society and the individual) when there isn’t enough work.
The program is paid for by employers in the form of payroll taxes.
How am I doing so far? I might be wrong on a few of the details but I think that’s about it.
The fun part, of course, is that the program is based on the premise that there isn’t enough work. In other words, if you quit or get fired, this program isn’t for you. Move along, move along. I guess that basically means it covers employers who are laid off.
Every one of my lateral or down-spiraling career moves has always been preceded by a “take this job and shove it” phase, so no unemployment benefits for me. Because I’m a responsible worker I’m left to dream about other avenues of escape like Mama Compensation.
Is the person who receives unemployment insurance benefits part of the “entitlement society?” You tell me. In the meantime, I think I may have found someone else who is. And it might not be who you think.
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Blogfather: I’ve Ordered A Hit
Bad news, ya big jamook. The Blogfather is going to hit your place of business. I saw what you did and it … irritated … me.
If only I can find a place to park. Dammit. That’s literally whack. The parking gods have granted you a reprieve.
The keyboard is mightier than the tommy gun, so I’m not going to use bullets. My weapon of choice is this bluetooth keyboard.
Eat it.
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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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