Another kick in the balls to the American employee is the decade-long movement to keep my white ass in a non-ergonomic chair staring at a computer for an hour longer than I really should. I happen to work a job right now that has the hours of 8 to 5. When I took it, I first thought, "Hey, this is great. I don't mind getting up an hour earlier, because I'll get home an hour earlier."
But then it got me thinking...when the hell did this happen? Didn't corporate America and Dolly Parton both coin the phrase "9 to 5?" When did this magically turn into "9 to 6?"
Subtly. That's how. Think about it. We still call these people "9 to 5ers," even though nobody works those hours anymore. No one is outraged that we have to work until 6 o'clock. It's happened so gradually over the past ten or fifteen years that no one blinks an eye. In fact, leaving at 5 pm will often get you the "Half day?" snipe from the receptionist.
Since it used to be the most common dinnertime, staying at work until 7 pm must have once seemed ridiculous. Now it's just working an hour longer. That's barely overtime. I'm positive that people in the 50's and 60's took lunchbreaks, but your day was over at 5 pm. That's when the whistle blew.
But one by one, workers must have felt they were climbing the ladder faster if they showed their commitment to their company. That meant working longer hours, working weekends, taking business trips with that guy you hated whose breath smelled like rotten foot.
Now we have to apologize if we want to get home at a decent hour. To see our wives, our husbands, our dogs, our kids, or just to wind down. People in other countries must think we're insane. We've just passed Japan for the most weekly hours put in by the American worker. Forty percent of our population works over 50 hours a week. And yet, we have fewer vacation days than any other industrialized country, and less time for maternity leave. Hell, we're one of only two industrialized countries that doesn't have fully-paid maternity leave (Australia).
What does it all add up to? If you factor in a normal commute time for an average work-a-day stiff, which might be 30 minutes, you have a total of 10 hours a day devoted to work. And let's say you're lucky and get 8 hours of sleep. That leaves 6 waking hours that you have to yourself, right? Wrong. You need about an hour to eat breakfast and get ready for work. And you need no less than an hour to wind down after a day frying your brain under florescent lights and a computer monitor before making dinner. Without counting any potential exercise regiment, let's just call it 4 waking hours of time for yourself.
Four hours out of 24. 1/6 of your time. Are we happier doing this? Are Americans completely nuts? Even Max Weber would crap his pants over this.
So the next time your CEO nudges you and says you're looking a little tired, just turn around and tell them "You know, Ted, I'd be feeling a lot better if you didn't take all but 17% of my life."
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Meteorologists are frauds
Where do I sign up to be a weatherman? This has got to be the best job in the world. You show up and make shit up for the next five days, then someone gives you six figures.
If you're a woman, if you look hot and have any science degree whatsoever, you're in. If you're a woman and want to get on the Weather Channel, you don't need a science degree, you just have to look hot. You don't even need to know how to read.
If you're a guy, there are no qualifications. Usually, you're the guy at parties who jumps into a lively conversation holding a Shirley Temple and says "Hey guys! What's up!" and everyone quiets down and miserably drones "Hi Barry..." You don't need to be hot. You just need a wacky name like Billy Thunder or Cotton Artichoke.
Your day is easy. When you show up for work, close your office door and promptly throw darts at the following bold predictions for the week: Partly Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain, Chance of Wind, Small Craft Advisory, Falling Rocks, Possibly Humid, Maybe Dry Unless It's Not, and Weather Possible.
If you say it will be Partly Cloudy and it rains, you're covered! If it's sunny, bonus! No one will be mad at you! Hey, you can even give people a low and a high, and if it's somewhere in between, you're set! This is a great career. I'm going to set up my own Weatherman Stand, like a lemonade stand but with me and a Magic 8-Ball.
In a way, we're all meteorologists. If you walk outside and it's cold, it's definitely cold. If it's raining, it's definitely raining. Really. Try it for yourself, you'll be amazed at just how accurate you can get.
If you're a woman, if you look hot and have any science degree whatsoever, you're in. If you're a woman and want to get on the Weather Channel, you don't need a science degree, you just have to look hot. You don't even need to know how to read.
If you're a guy, there are no qualifications. Usually, you're the guy at parties who jumps into a lively conversation holding a Shirley Temple and says "Hey guys! What's up!" and everyone quiets down and miserably drones "Hi Barry..." You don't need to be hot. You just need a wacky name like Billy Thunder or Cotton Artichoke.
Your day is easy. When you show up for work, close your office door and promptly throw darts at the following bold predictions for the week: Partly Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain, Chance of Wind, Small Craft Advisory, Falling Rocks, Possibly Humid, Maybe Dry Unless It's Not, and Weather Possible.
If you say it will be Partly Cloudy and it rains, you're covered! If it's sunny, bonus! No one will be mad at you! Hey, you can even give people a low and a high, and if it's somewhere in between, you're set! This is a great career. I'm going to set up my own Weatherman Stand, like a lemonade stand but with me and a Magic 8-Ball.
In a way, we're all meteorologists. If you walk outside and it's cold, it's definitely cold. If it's raining, it's definitely raining. Really. Try it for yourself, you'll be amazed at just how accurate you can get.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Dogs enjoy pants
They do. Jeans, shorts, sweats, boxers, briefs, banana hammocks, anything you can think of.
Daisy the Dalmatian doesn't get excited about a lot of things (read: food), but one thing she'll never pass up is sniffing my groin and leg area when I don a new pair of pants. They can be dirty, they can be washed, they can be right from the store. It doesn't matter.
The look she gets is very specific: This guy already has skin on his legs, and now he's putting another skin over that skin. Is he retarded? I've gotta check this out.
At first, I thought it was cute. But after years of this, and out of curiosity reading that dogs have over 220 million scent-sensitive cells in their nose (humans have about 5 million), I'm starting to wonder strange things. Things like "What exactly is in my pants?"
I realize dogs are naturally curious about smells. But Daisy really isn't. She'll occasionally stop on a walk to smell where a dog has peed. Oh yeah, I've smelled this jerkwad before. This is the golden from Milan Street. But she doesn't stick her head out of the car window, and she doesn't smell my shirts or my feet. Clearly, there is something consistently in my pants besides the stuff that's attached to me that's supposed to be there.
Could it be poo? Like, a tiny cubic nanometer-sized poo? Is this mini-poo in my buttcrack, or did it fall out into my boxers? If so, what is it about my pants that just come out of the washer that Daisy smells anyway? Does a scalding-hot washing machine not remove all the poo from my boxers? Can I sue the appliance company for this?
And if Daisy is smelling my wife's pants, does that mean my beautiful, sweet wife is walking around all day with poo in her pants? Should this make me feel better or worse?
I guess these are things they don't ask themselves in Darfur. But hey, I'm American. I have the time.
Daisy the Dalmatian doesn't get excited about a lot of things (read: food), but one thing she'll never pass up is sniffing my groin and leg area when I don a new pair of pants. They can be dirty, they can be washed, they can be right from the store. It doesn't matter.
The look she gets is very specific: This guy already has skin on his legs, and now he's putting another skin over that skin. Is he retarded? I've gotta check this out.
At first, I thought it was cute. But after years of this, and out of curiosity reading that dogs have over 220 million scent-sensitive cells in their nose (humans have about 5 million), I'm starting to wonder strange things. Things like "What exactly is in my pants?"
I realize dogs are naturally curious about smells. But Daisy really isn't. She'll occasionally stop on a walk to smell where a dog has peed. Oh yeah, I've smelled this jerkwad before. This is the golden from Milan Street. But she doesn't stick her head out of the car window, and she doesn't smell my shirts or my feet. Clearly, there is something consistently in my pants besides the stuff that's attached to me that's supposed to be there.
Could it be poo? Like, a tiny cubic nanometer-sized poo? Is this mini-poo in my buttcrack, or did it fall out into my boxers? If so, what is it about my pants that just come out of the washer that Daisy smells anyway? Does a scalding-hot washing machine not remove all the poo from my boxers? Can I sue the appliance company for this?
And if Daisy is smelling my wife's pants, does that mean my beautiful, sweet wife is walking around all day with poo in her pants? Should this make me feel better or worse?
I guess these are things they don't ask themselves in Darfur. But hey, I'm American. I have the time.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Stuff you don't need
If there's one triumph in the 21st-century consumer landscape, it has to be advertisers still being able to convince us to buy stuff we never needed. I know this has been a staple of advertising since Snake Oil, but this latest Visa ad campaign has really got me impressed.
You've seen them. They entail an efficient assembly line of consumerism, and the one cog in the wheel? Some jackass holding up the line by using cash over their Visa debit card. Yes, cash is the one thing that can stop the amazing machine of Capitalism.
Some Native American tribes used wampum, or polished bits of clamshells, to trade for goods and services. I guess this is where the term "clams" comes from when we talk about money. I want your cow, your cow cost 5 clams...I only have a ten, you give me 5 clams back. (Brings into question how much change you got if you actually wanted to buy actual clams, but that's someone else's blog. Trust me, it probably really is someone else's blog.)
Anyone who thinks a debit card transaction is faster than cash, even the ones under $20, has never been behind someone over age 70 in line.
Other stuff we didn't think we needed? How about Blockbuster still trying to compete with Netflix? I love Alec Baldwin, but when I hear his voiceover on the ads pleading with me to try to keep Blockbuster in business, more fun times. The sell? With Netflix, you have to wait for your films in the mail. With Blockbuster, I have the option to wait for my films in the mail, OR march my lazy ass down to the local Blockbuster store and rent one there. If this sounds really similar to the service they offered for 20 years, it's because it is the service they offered for 20 years. I switched to Netflix because I AM TO LAZY TO GO TOO BLOCKBUSTER. Just sell all the stores, Blockbuster. Invest in that "credit chip" we can all surgically implant into our wrists so you can compete with Visa's revolutionary debit card.
Lastly, where did this magical spell come from that convinced us that we needed cameras in our phones? I have lost the argument that there was social life before cell phones. I understand, I cannot bitchslap cell phones. I have one. I use it. However, I do maintain that their most efficient use is this sort of call: "Where are you?" "Behind you. I'm looking at you. No, the other way. I'm waving right now. I'm under the tree. Are you blind? I'm tapping you on the shoulder now. Now I'm touching your face. Okay, goodbye."
When I someday have children, trying to explain what life was like before cell phones will be like bringing out a record player. Or a TRS-80. Or a non-hovering automobile. I'm not sure who convinced me that I needed to be contacted 24 hours a day wherever I am. And I'm not sure why people get so irate because they can't reach you or you didn't "pick up." What did we used to do when we were alone? Were we always this unhappy just enjoying our own company?
But all that being said, I could never apply for lifetime membership to the Luddite Club (if such a club would allow a machine-printed membership card), as I was once broken down on the side of the road, and my cell phone saved me from a male rapist.
Actually, that was embellished for no reason. Being broken down was dramatic enough an example, there was no rapist. Anyway, that day, I realized that you don't have to just be lost or a brain surgeon on call to consider the accessory one that you felt you needed. Are they overused? Yes. But I use them, they're handy.
But the phones on cameras? Seriously, how did the American consumer just gloss over this? The phone companies made a way to make us pay more for phones, and we just accepted it? What are the biggest triumphs of this technology, finding out that Michael Richards hates black people?
Be honest. When this technology came out, did you consider it any different than putting a toaster on an ant farm? Or a duck call on a tire iron? Or a spice rack on a vibrator?
Now they're everywhere, and I have people yelling at me because my phone "still" doesn't have a camera on it and they can't send me pictures. I don't know. I just think Alexander Graham Bell never thought his "Mr. Watson, come here, I need to see you" would be diluted to "Dude, check this out, this girl is so smashed. I'm so going to score with her." CLICK.
I miss Pong. Pong was pure.
You've seen them. They entail an efficient assembly line of consumerism, and the one cog in the wheel? Some jackass holding up the line by using cash over their Visa debit card. Yes, cash is the one thing that can stop the amazing machine of Capitalism.
Some Native American tribes used wampum, or polished bits of clamshells, to trade for goods and services. I guess this is where the term "clams" comes from when we talk about money. I want your cow, your cow cost 5 clams...I only have a ten, you give me 5 clams back. (Brings into question how much change you got if you actually wanted to buy actual clams, but that's someone else's blog. Trust me, it probably really is someone else's blog.)
Anyone who thinks a debit card transaction is faster than cash, even the ones under $20, has never been behind someone over age 70 in line.
Other stuff we didn't think we needed? How about Blockbuster still trying to compete with Netflix? I love Alec Baldwin, but when I hear his voiceover on the ads pleading with me to try to keep Blockbuster in business, more fun times. The sell? With Netflix, you have to wait for your films in the mail. With Blockbuster, I have the option to wait for my films in the mail, OR march my lazy ass down to the local Blockbuster store and rent one there. If this sounds really similar to the service they offered for 20 years, it's because it is the service they offered for 20 years. I switched to Netflix because I AM TO LAZY TO GO TOO BLOCKBUSTER. Just sell all the stores, Blockbuster. Invest in that "credit chip" we can all surgically implant into our wrists so you can compete with Visa's revolutionary debit card.
Lastly, where did this magical spell come from that convinced us that we needed cameras in our phones? I have lost the argument that there was social life before cell phones. I understand, I cannot bitchslap cell phones. I have one. I use it. However, I do maintain that their most efficient use is this sort of call: "Where are you?" "Behind you. I'm looking at you. No, the other way. I'm waving right now. I'm under the tree. Are you blind? I'm tapping you on the shoulder now. Now I'm touching your face. Okay, goodbye."
When I someday have children, trying to explain what life was like before cell phones will be like bringing out a record player. Or a TRS-80. Or a non-hovering automobile. I'm not sure who convinced me that I needed to be contacted 24 hours a day wherever I am. And I'm not sure why people get so irate because they can't reach you or you didn't "pick up." What did we used to do when we were alone? Were we always this unhappy just enjoying our own company?
But all that being said, I could never apply for lifetime membership to the Luddite Club (if such a club would allow a machine-printed membership card), as I was once broken down on the side of the road, and my cell phone saved me from a male rapist.
Actually, that was embellished for no reason. Being broken down was dramatic enough an example, there was no rapist. Anyway, that day, I realized that you don't have to just be lost or a brain surgeon on call to consider the accessory one that you felt you needed. Are they overused? Yes. But I use them, they're handy.
But the phones on cameras? Seriously, how did the American consumer just gloss over this? The phone companies made a way to make us pay more for phones, and we just accepted it? What are the biggest triumphs of this technology, finding out that Michael Richards hates black people?
Be honest. When this technology came out, did you consider it any different than putting a toaster on an ant farm? Or a duck call on a tire iron? Or a spice rack on a vibrator?
Now they're everywhere, and I have people yelling at me because my phone "still" doesn't have a camera on it and they can't send me pictures. I don't know. I just think Alexander Graham Bell never thought his "Mr. Watson, come here, I need to see you" would be diluted to "Dude, check this out, this girl is so smashed. I'm so going to score with her." CLICK.
I miss Pong. Pong was pure.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Intro
I don't know you, you don't know me. You may like regular Pop Tarts, I might like frosted. But one thing we all have in common: everyone's sick of blogs. Blogs are like dentists or jewelers who sell engagement rings. Everyone's got "their guy." You don't really want to go, but you go anyway. And before you know it, you've got a stonecutter's drill 4 inches into your molar, or somebody just took a few thousand dollars out of your pocket and handed you a transparent rock that cost some kid his arm.
Most blogs fancy themselves as the thinking man's personal MySpace/Facebook/Hey Look At Me I Have Over 6000 Friends Have Sex With Me website. Most blogs have at least one post that reads "Went to Josh's last night. I hate him. I think we had sex, I can't remember." even if they don't know someone named Josh. Most blogs try to be meaningful politically or socially. Most blogs expect you to care about their children. Thirty percent of blogs don't believe in evolution. Half of all blogs aged 15 to 19 have had oral sex. Blogs can expect to be the victim of at least one violent crime in their lifetime.
I think you get what I'm trying to say. Wait, I don't really know what I was trying to say. Oh yeah, here it is: BLOGS HAVE BEEN DONE TO DEATH, why are you doing another one?
I have no defense. I am what I despise. I am a hypocrite. I have nothing new to add except a new perspective on shit you've seen every day of your life. Is that enough? No. It's not. That is why I recommend shutting out all blogs. Including this one. No one should care what I think about anything. So, in the spirit of Paddy Chayefsky, Stop reading this blog! Stop reading it right now, in the middle of this sentence! Stop it! I mean it! You will get nothing out of it! Nothing!
Most blogs fancy themselves as the thinking man's personal MySpace/Facebook/Hey Look At Me I Have Over 6000 Friends Have Sex With Me website. Most blogs have at least one post that reads "Went to Josh's last night. I hate him. I think we had sex, I can't remember." even if they don't know someone named Josh. Most blogs try to be meaningful politically or socially. Most blogs expect you to care about their children. Thirty percent of blogs don't believe in evolution. Half of all blogs aged 15 to 19 have had oral sex. Blogs can expect to be the victim of at least one violent crime in their lifetime.
I think you get what I'm trying to say. Wait, I don't really know what I was trying to say. Oh yeah, here it is: BLOGS HAVE BEEN DONE TO DEATH, why are you doing another one?
I have no defense. I am what I despise. I am a hypocrite. I have nothing new to add except a new perspective on shit you've seen every day of your life. Is that enough? No. It's not. That is why I recommend shutting out all blogs. Including this one. No one should care what I think about anything. So, in the spirit of Paddy Chayefsky, Stop reading this blog! Stop reading it right now, in the middle of this sentence! Stop it! I mean it! You will get nothing out of it! Nothing!
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