Posts from — January 2008

Recently, a DJ from a radio station here posed the following question to his listeners:

“Sixty-some odd percent of women would cheat on their boyfriends for a night with this person?”

Apparently it took the radio callers forever to get to the correct answer. They were guessing professor, ex-husband, mailman, so forth and etc. 

When I was later asked this question, I guessed it right away, as my first response.

Angelina Jolie.

It seemed obvious to me.

Sixty something percent of women would cheat on their boyfriends for a night with Angelina Jolie. This doesn’t include married women and it doesn’t include single women.

Ten percent of the population is gay? Maybe. But, damn, there be some bi-ness in our midst.

Here is something truly annoying. False experts. Very much like false idols in that people expound upon their many gifts and try their best to convert you.

The fact that you are the loudest, doesn’t mean that you know the most, but, man, does volume confuse people and turn them into followers.

I hate… HATE… when I am trying to do something, talking about something, trying to decide something, and someone suggests to me that I call someone that they know who knows about these things. I especially hate this when I know for a fact that I have as much knowledge and experience, maybe even more so, than the person I have been told to call upon.

Until you know my abilities, understanding, and experience with a subject, stop trying to sell me a guru who isn’t.

On my wall is an old ad, I think it was for Diesel maybe, that states “legalize the four day weekend”. I agree, and I hereby call for the four day weekend.

I am convinced… convinced… that if work schedules were made up of three nine-hour days, employers would see better results than they are seeing with five eight-hour days. That’s right, better results in thirteen less hours. Because people would actually work the whole time.

Hell, I might even work if i only had to work three days a week.

I’m just not convinced that humans are meant to spend more of their lives working and sleeping than living as themselves. Too many people are content to do so though, without any thought or fight. And so the cycle continues.

Temps are kind of like the glorified indentured servants of the working world. Think about it. You get a cubicle to work, kind of like your little plot of land, you get a small piece of the action in the form of a paycheck, but you don’t actually get the benefits of permanent employment. And when they are done with you, they send you on your way, without so much as a rucksack of corn.

But, on the flip side of that, I’m not sure the whole temp thing is very good for employers either. Sure, they save a fortune on benefits and the like, but they get employees with zero loyalty, and, honestly, zero concern over doing the job correctly.

Or perhaps that’s just me.

As a temp, I find that I just don’t give a damn. People ask me if I’m doing okay, if I have any questions. Of course I don’t, because I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me in the least whether or not I am doing the job right. I’ve come to collect a paycheck, not to aide your company in excellence. If something gets messed up, I probably won’t even be around to reap the consequences.

And that’s when I am actually doing the job they are paying me to do!

The best thing about being a temp is they have low expectations and it takes them forever to fire you no matter how little you are doing or how much you fuck up. I find this facilitates my tendency to do anything but work quite nicely.

When a guy that I work with recently got a call from his son’s teacher in the middle of the day, because the boy was being disruptive in class, was the guy embarrassed? Did he feel somewhat guilty over his son’s unruly behavior? Of course not!

What did he do? He blamed the teacher.

In fact, he said, “That teacher must have too much time on her hands.” This hypothesis came from the fact that she could take the time to call him in the middle of the day. It didn’t seem to occur to him at all that his son could just be so disruptive that she had to find the time in her busy schedule, and take time away from the other kids in her class who weren’t causing a problem, to call a parent.

His reasoning for his son’s behavior?

“He’s a boy!”

Well, glory be. Why didn’t she think of that?