…and the Mill Creek development takes on a whole new meaning for residents.
…and another part doesn’t.
WTF is ‘Exotic Cleaning?’ From the somewhat haggard appearance of the driver I’d hope it doesn’t really mean what I think it does. Fat chance, literally.
…2 months ago she is taking the time to prepare exotic, home cooked meals for me when I get home after a long day at the factory:
Bon Appetit!
It’s been a few months of peace and quiet so I came up with a great idea: Let’s go get a kitten!
Well, the floors used to be clean and without hazards…
I should have as much energy as this 8-week old tornado. Four-legged little terror is into everything. At least it’s smarter than a human baby though; I can leave it home alone and it’ll likely still be alive when I get back…and the Department of Family Services won’t be knocking at the door.
Phone constantly ringing, clents wanting everything NOW, multi-task projects to manage…it can be a bit troublesome at times. With that in mind perhaps I should send the following e-mail to the other Service Department guys in hopes if improving, well, my existence. And the ‘Customer Experience’. You know…because I care.
Guys, I know we’ve all been trying very hard to get all the openings finished by the end of May, but I’m sensing that a lot of our efforts are being wasted by working in isolation rather than in tandem. And, if I may offer a constructive criticism, I’m beginning to think our time would be much better spent if we all stopped working alone, put our heads together, and combined resources so we can more effectively cover for my complete and utter lack of ability for the task at hand.
Yes, now is the time for us to combine our collective mental resources and work as a team in order to hide the fact that I’m bad at my job and don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing.
Look, we’ve all given it our best shot individually. And each of us—other than myself, obviously—is both very hardworking and extremely talented. However, I am a firm believer in the axiom that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Or, in this case, that the whole is great enough to mask the utter ineptitude of one specific part, namely me.
The way I see it, everyone in this department is working toward a common goal. Why should any of us have to face this alone? Why shouldn’t we realize that there is strength in numbers? Why shouldn’t we work in perfect harmony as a group? Why shouldn’t we all just combine our individual efforts to create the illusion that I’m anywhere near as competent and skilled as the rest of you?
Now, I understand that some people like to receive individual credit. They like to feel personally recognized for shouldering the lion’s share of a project and for really making it their own. But teamwork isn’t about who did this or who did that or who did absolutely nothing because he is a total idiot who can’t be trusted with anything important. Teamwork is about sharing both the credit and the blame, specifically your credit and my blame in this instance.
For it is only as a team that we can all equally shoulder the burden of making me look like anything other than a bumbling hack who brings absolutely nothing to the table. Only as a team can we overcome the many obstacles I’ll probably create because of being so bad at literally everything. And only as a team can all of my mistakes somehow end up seeming reflective of our department as a whole as opposedto just me on my own being a talentless fuckup.
We can do this, you guys. You, I should say, can do this. I can’t do anything.
Of course, pulling together as a unified group won’t be easy. Everyone needs to pitch in, and hopefully, when all is said and done, you guys will correct all of my stupid mistakes, do the vast majority of my workload for me, ignore the fact that I do not deserve to be a paid employee of this company, and maybe even let me slide right by when we all get equal credit for a job well done.
And look, each and every person in this department has their own strengths. Ryan is great with the customers. Mike’s great with the parts. Jason’s great with decision making. I’m a useless dipshit. The list goes on and on. But just imagine how much stronger we would be if we all chipped in together and completely glossed over the fact that I actively frustrated and impeded the process every step of the way.Sure, we could do the individual parts on our own. But wouldn’t it feel so much more rewarding to know that each person played in a role
in the final product?
Wouldn’t you feel better knowing that Rick, Jenn and Kate wouldn’t have to look at my final work with simmering rage and legitimate confusion as to how I was ever even hired?
So, I think it’s time now that we all find a conference room, lay our thoughts out on the table, and finally get to work on really covering my ass.
Are you guys ready? Then let’s go ’em! I’m going to go get some lunch. Call if you need me.
Think it’ll go over well?
Or, in all honesty, a day at the museum. Despite the Weather Channel’s week long prediction for a sunny weekend, the shitty reality is that it was rainy and cold today. A fine day for some culture, though, so off to the Cleveland Museum of Art. What the hell, it’s free; well, except for parking and the $15 a pop for the ‘special’ The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection exhibition, that is.
Of course I paid; with advertising like that, how could I pass it up? I thought I was gonna have to spend the day looking at surrealistic or impressionistic ‘art’ so the chance of “Decadence, Apocalypse and Resurrection” sounded like a cultural flotation device.
Not that I have anything against surrealism and impressionistic art but, really, you can see a lot of that shit if you go to any elementary school art show. No, really…you can. Picasso? Hell, if you tried any of that shit in second grade, you woulda got a got a big, fat F in art class. I think what makes it ‘art’ is the fact that some big dummy paid a lot of money for it. I’m not sure where exactly the fiscal line is drawn but it’s pretty much “Less than $1000, starving artist crap at the local Ramada Inn, over $1000, it’s gallery quality shit you hang on your wall and put a special light over, to be viewed with much chin tugging, pondering and tortured study when your turtle-neck wearing, I-Phone toting friends come over for cucumber sandwiches and Pinot Grigio. If you have friends like that, I mean. I do have friends who have I-Phones but they also watch Ren & Stimpy cartoons so it kinda cancels itself out. And I’d guess their opinions of art would reflect this guys: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule
Holy crap, just writing that dropped my blood sugar to 48 (I checked)…I must have some biological reaction to art. Eh, it’s nothing a box of Girl Scout cookies can’t fix.
As for the Pompeii exhibit, it was kinda cool just for the historical references to shit I really didn’t know. There were a few Andy Warhol prints that he apparently made by taking a postcard he found, enlarging it, removing the colors, outlining the shapes in black and then coloring it back in. You know, like an 8 year old’s coloring book. I guess when you’re a bit of a nut job who hung out with Lou Reed and various other wealthy, drug-addled fame-whores back in the 70’s you can get away with that. Again, if you’re a 5-year old who does it people give you shit for coloring “outside the lines.” When I was a kid my mother was never very concerned with how we colored as it was her belief that staying inside the lines inhibited creativity. Not sure if that explains anything with regards to myself but it is what it is.
Art? I dunno, this is from the same guy who painted a bunch of shitty looking soup cans and got richer.
The last part of the exhibit was a big room with a series of ‘paintings’ and some benches for, I guess, sitting and pondering the enormity of it all. There was some artsy-looking guy in there sitting on a bench talking into his phone, recording his ‘thoughts’ for later whatever the fuck I don’t know. Review, reflectiion, to bore the shit outta others? Who knows, but the below is a sample of one of the pieces:
It’s part of series representing…uh, something. The artist is Mark Rothko if you wanna read more. Point is, some leftover paint and an old roller, who couldn’t do this shit? I guess the point really is “Who could sell this shit?”
Here’s another piece from the Impressionists:
No, wait…that’s a picture I found that a 10-year-old made. He’ll no doubt be rich someday.
Anyway, it was all very interesting in a “What the Fuck” kinda way. They did have a children’s “Creative Zone” where parents could stick their kids to experiment with creative, artsy-kinda stuff. Knock yourself out, Mom and Dad; your kid may still grow up to be a garbage man. Or a pool guy.
Same sex marriage? My apathy regarding the issue knows no bounds. For these two, though, maybe they shoulda thought out the announcement was gonna look.
“Everyone got to see the fun part of it,” Brotzman said. “We’re the ones who saw a gun pointed to our face and felt we [were] about to die.”
“When [Bradley Turner] walked up, I just looked at him,” Berry explained. “He said a couple of words, threw a punch, and it was on like Donkey Kong.
[Turner] assaulted both of us first before we ever landed a hit. It was complete self-defense.”
The victims say they tried to lose the Turners for 40 minutes. They say their fight with Bradley was self defense and they did not know the Turners had a child in the car.
“The first time I looked up, honestly that’s when I saw the kids in the car,” Nathan Brotzman said. “That’s the only reason I didn’t keep kicking. That’s the only reason I kind of looked up to see what she was doing, because I looked up and saw the kid’s face just staring at me, crying for their dad.”
“He actually left, pulled the gun on us, pointed at us, and pulled the trigger, but it clicked. He drove away, came back, and we ran in the house and he fired shots in the yard and now he’s just kind of driving by back and forth,” Berry told the dispatcher.
Cliffs Notes:
The whole thing is just too damn funny.
Tough guy gets cut off by kids and, since it’s kids, he figures they might be some of those pasty-faced, video-game playin’ dweebs so he’s got a chance at some major dick-enlargement by showing them who’s boss with little risk to himself.
Tough guy chases kids for 40 minutes (likely cutting off many other people) while wife is either a) screaming in fear like a crazy lady, which probably gets her all hot, only encouraging tough guy as his manhood grows with each passing mile or b) is loading up the roscoe like a good gun moll.
Tough guy finally encounters kids, gives ’em a smack, only to find that the only video game these kids know is “getting it on like Donkey Kong” and after getting stomped finds his now ‘energized’ wife handing him a gun to help complete the climactic act.
Kids want no part of seeing that sh*t so in the house they go.
Tough guy comes back later to fire gun at house, a doofus-beard-wearing, pseudo-tough-guy version of cuddling in the afterglow. Meanwhile, his own kids in the backseat keep asking Mommy why Daddy now has ‘raccoon eyes’.
Beaten, bruised and exposed wanna-be-tough guy shaves beard in preparation for going to big house and holding onto Bubba’s belt loop for next for 4 years. As if getting your ass stomped by two 17 year-olds and plastered all over YouTube wasn’t humiliation enough.
In the meantime, his wife serves six months and discovers that women ‘really are more caring and open’ and switches to the other team.
Ooops.
…right next to your family/party license plates.
If you ever lose the sticker, you can always just drag some beer cans behind your car on the way home from the bar.
How about starting by learning to spell? For fuck’s sake, I hope this wasn’t a form letter e-mail you sent out to everyone who stopped by your booth in Atlantic City. Spelling errors like this, especially in the first line, just stand out like the bride at a shotgun wedding. Shit, man…fix yer’ friggin e-mail template.
“Let me teach you how to use the app so you can benefit from it?” Really?!? Well, I’m obviously not gonna have you teach me how to use SpellCheck. Nimrods.
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
I can’t quite remember the path that led me to this wealth of shoelace information but it’s overwhelming enough that I think I’ll switch to those velcro-fastened shoes.
Back in November 2012 I cashed out of the pension from my previous job, taking a rollover into a Traditional IRA at the local Huntington Bank office. The Huntington IRA pays jack shit as interest (0.25%) but, as usual, my procrastination regarding the matter pushed me up against the rollover deadline; I needed a quick place to park the money so Uncle Sam wouldn’t come looking to take 33% of it. I opened the Huntington IRA in about 15 minutes and had the money transferred to it. Of course, Huntington was pushing me to get involved with their ‘Investment Services’ and move the money to one of their ‘Suggested Pathways for Funds Growth.’ Yeah, whatever…just open the account and get the money in there before the deadline. If it makes you feel better to say you’re gonna call me in 2 weeks to talk about ‘better’ options, whatever.
I finally get around to opening up a Vanguard IRA Fund about a week ago with a mix of S&P 500 Index, Small-Cap Growth Index and International Index fund shares. Really coulda thrown a dart at a board for all I *really* know about this shit but the Expense Ratios on the funds at Vanguard are some of the lowest around so at least I won’t be paying much to maintain the funds. Obviously, part of this involves vanguard sending a letter to Huntington saying “Send us this guys money from his Traditional IRA.” So yesterday they call Margaret’s cell phone, looking to talk to me. Fuck up #1, Huntington, you have my phone #, why not just call me? Or was my # listed further down the screen you’re looking at and you just didn’t take the time to check that? Anyway, I get on the line and am immediately assaulted by some mouth-breather going through the “We here at Huntington ‘proactively’ review each customer’s accounts periodically to see if we can find ways to help improve your financial health with some of our services. We noticed you have a Traditional IRA and we think we could help you grow that with some of our other investment options.” Fuck up #2, Huntington; it took you over 4 months to ‘proactively’ try to up-sell me? After telling him I’m going in another direction and, uh, ‘assuring’ him that this is a closed matter he finally gives up and says “Well, I sure wish we could have got to you before you went to Vanguard.” Fuck up #3, dipshit; I haven’t mentioned Vanguard once during this call. Nice to know that the letter saying “Send us his money” that Vanguard sent has made it to Huntington. I guess in Huntington’s mind, a ‘proactive review’ means the same as “Oh shit, another one we missed. Someone should try a last-ditch effort to salvage this.” No wonder Huntington Banks presence around here is becoming less about actual banking offices and more about kiosks in the local grocery stores. That said, I do enjoy the convenience of having a Huntington Bank ‘branch’ at our local Giant Eagle; I really like the green pens they have sitting on the counter in baskets and always take the time to grab a few as I walk past.
I think we’re going to switch it up to ‘Ailment Of The Day.’ We’ll start with the early arrivals and whoever has the most interesting ailment/condition will have it written on the board. New arrivals can present their aches/pains/conditions and if they appear to be more interesting than the previous ones, they’ll earn the spot on the board. I will be the final arbiter of competing ailments, no if’s and’s or but’s. Ailments may be combined if all are concurrently occurring in the body at the time of presentation. No credit will be given for mis-diagnosed ailments (i.e. “I thought it was a heart attack but it turned out to be gas.”), nor shall a longtime history of various ailments (i.e. a ‘body of work’) be considered unless they ALL still remain as a symptom of a current condition. All ailments must be causing current, visible symptoms or be accompanied by a certificate of medical condition from a ‘real’ physician; none of this voodoo doctor/herbal doctor/faith healer/chiropractor shit. An anecdotal or documented history of hypochondria will result in immediate exclusion from consideration. What the hell, I’m running outta riddles.
I arrived the other day to find the below long, padded table near the lifeguard station cut down in height approximately 12″. It was explained to me that this was done to enable patrons to more easily climb up on said table for therapy sessions by the Physical Therapists. All I know is that if someone flops on up there and looks at me like they expect ME to do something, they better think again. I am not a masseuse, no matter what kinda tip is involved. And the first one one you weasels who adds a comment below regarding anything to do with a ‘Happy Ending’ will be summarily deleted and your e-mail will be spammed with all the donkey-porn I can find. So have at it…if you dare.
In other exceedingly irrelevant news, I find myself going through a Frank Sinatra phase as of late. In an effort to uphold my 7th grade teachers’ Progress Report notation of “Kurt has an apathetic attitude…” I find Ol’ Blue Eye’s “That’s Life” to be particularly entertaining:
Somewhat ironically, considering it’s popularity in the Southern Comfort ad campaign, I also find Odetta apropos lately:
I gotta be me…
…but right now I gotta go back to guarding the welfare of my upcoming ‘Ailment Of The Day’ participants. It’s friggin’ toasty-hot in there today.
What??? What the fuck are you trying to say, lady? And quit looking up at me with disdain and disgust because I have no clue what in the hell it is you are trying to say. De Vite?? What the fuck does that even mean? This is America, I speak English and understand it pretty damn well…been doing it for nearly 45 years now. Give it a try or help me out with whatever it is you want.
I have no problem helping you or working with you to span this vast communication chasm. But don’t you dare give me any shit because you can’t speak the language of where you fucking live. After much eye rolling on your part you finally got your point across: You want ‘The white…’
Guess what, I still can’t help you because even though I understand the words, this abstract concept of ‘The white’ still completely eludes me. And you can stop pointing in 46 different directions too ‘cuz that really isn’t helping. Oh fuck it, here’s a white plastic chair, a white exercise board, a white piece of paper and a white foam dumbell. Hopefully one of those works for ya’ because that’s about all the white shit I see around here. If there was a white foam noodle, I’d get that too but you might not like it sticking outta you ear.
Next time bring a fucking interpreter.
I’d just go home now but I’m afraid to drive with this white, hot, searing pain shooting through my skull. Dammit.
First off, I wasn’t even supposed to be at the pool today; I was supposed to be at the office enjoying free pizza and pretending to work, much like I did for the last 5 years with my previous employer. The lifeguard managers concocted some kinda half-assed story about a guard not being able to make it here so could I fill in. Yeah, quite the coincidence that those food-obsesssed cube-dwellers would find a way to eliminate 1 extra mouth to feed on the very day a complimentary lunch is provided. I remain skeptical.
In all fairness, I guess, one of them pretended to feel bad (e-mail is a great way to hide true emotion) and offered to have a pizza sent to my house tonight to make up for it. Nice and all but I really don’t feel it would be worth my time to get off the couch when the Pizza Hut guy showed up later with one of those little-ass Personal Pan Pizzas.
In other news, apparently someone decided to power-wash the nasty pool deck here. Lovely, and it was nice of them to move all our stuff before they did it. I woulda been even nicer if they had put it back instead of leaving it all piled up on the floor. Way to do a complete job assholes. I really have nothing better to do when I get there at 4:30am than to clean up the mess you left. Unless you count draining and scrubbing two 1000+ gallon stainless steel tubs, re-caulking a skimmer, checking the chemistry in 5 bodies of water and fixing any other leaks and shit that occur here every day. Oh, and, in general, the floor still looks like shit…especially where you decided to pause and let the floor machine grind through the color layer. The floor now looks like the skin of a leper; shit, maybe lepers could have done a better job. They likely couldn’t have done any worse, even if they were BLIND lepers.
I really don’t know what it is about this place that makes my hearing go to shit; I can barely hear somebody even 3ft away in here. I mean, it couldn’t be because most people are mumbling in some whacked-out, Czecho-sloven-ese dialect could it? Certainly the speakers 12″ from my friggin ‘ head that are blaring out Neil Diamond’s primal scream music that you just asked me to turn up so you could decide you hate it and are now bitching about it couldn’t have anything to do with it?
Some lady today was trying to tell me “I lost my shoe in the deep end…” and all I got the first 5 times was “I lost my suit in the deep” which, frankly, scared the living shit out of me. I don’t need to see none o’ dat shit, fo sure.
Fuck it, I gotta go back now…maybe something else will piss me off later that you can enjoy.
Do I smell pizza? No, of course not…it must be scented Metamucil.
“Apply a small amount to a soft cloth…” Nah, if’n I’m gonna clean a glass cooktop, I’m gonna clean the shit out of it. There was enough cleaner there to float a small boat.
And I’m not using no sissy-ass ‘soft cloth’; I’m gonna use a friggin’ beach towel. If you happen to stop by to swim this summer and we offer you a towel you may wanna check it carefully for chemical/solvent residue.
I was gonna fire up the ‘self cleaning’ cycle on this pig but I’d guess I should wait for adult supervision. The book says to take precautions with stuff and the door actually locks itself before it heats up to a fission-like temperature. Hey, at least I skimmed the manual before just slamming the door and cranking the heat up. Shit, next thing ya know I’ll be stopping to ask for directions when I get lost. I’m slippin’…
And considering all the polishes and shit I used on the stainless front of this thing and around the edges I don’t think I’ll be eating anything that’s been in there for, oh, about 6 months; that should be enough to burn all that noxious shit off.
…Mensch. After Google-ing it, I have to say that I agree completely.
A person of integrity and honor
It’s about time somebody recognized it.
Perhaps I forgot that a bit when I went with this riddle for the day:
While some found it overly dark and potentially ominous, it fit nicely on the board. Sometimes structure prevails over content. Besides, they are only so many riddles out there; beggars can’t be choosers.
Unfortunately, it’s not the kinda movie that may be splashed all over your local Cineplex right now. There’s no big guns, fast cars or promiscuous women.
Sadly, it’s more like the kind of movie your grandparents watch over and over again on their old VHS machine. Perhaps even more depressing is that there is no Tahnee Welch in my movie.
I have a ballet to go to. I hope it isn’t physically painful.
When we were dating all those years ago I actually told Margaret I enjoyed the ballet. And she believed it. Oops…
…when you fish out all the shit that’s covering the drain inside the gutter. A plastic glove, numerous transdermal patches, a variety of band-aids and medical tape. And one plastic sandwich bag. WTF is with that? I dunno, maybe someone was trying to get rid of their bag of pharmaceutical-grade Metamucil or something. It would seem that it took a deliberate effort to get that down there.
And yes, I wore gloves. And yes, I will be taking a bath in alcohol when I get home.
Plaxtex Fresh and Sexy Before & After Intimate Wipes. Saw the ad in last week’s Sports Illustrated and it appears to be causing a bit of a furor among mainstream folks. Lighten up, people, it’s kinda creative. The campaign, that is.
For high school boys’ sake I hope they fit in the wallet without leaving the tell-tale ‘ring’ impression.
“Hi…my name is Tazzie. I’m 14+ years old and I am in this cage because my owners moved and couldn’t accomodate me in their new home. This is likely the end of the road for me. Hopefully my previous owners’ children are old enough to be out on their own or else they may be sitting in a cage in an orphanage somewhere. They still cage children you know, just like in that Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that with regards to children but I’m a cat, dammit, this shouldn’t happen to me.”
Sigh…
“Farewell cruel world.”
OK, we stopped at a few animal shelters today, maybe looking for a new and entertaining member of the household. Our county had the above resident with his sad tale. I just gotta wonder who in the fuck dumps their pet of 14+ years because he doesn’t fit into the new life situation? Yeah, yeah…I don’t know the circumstances involved but still, can’t think of a better idea than to dump at a shelter where pretty much certain doom awaits a cat of that age? If moving due to age or ailments, don’t you have any family or friends who could provide temporary shelter while something less extreme than death could be worked out? This shit is harsh, to say the least.
So who among you out there is saying “Well Mr. Righteous, why don’t you adopt him?” Well, I just might. Adopt the cat, that is. However, if it were14 year old, gangsta-wanna-be, baggy-pants-sagging human child? Sorry sonny, hope those cage bars don’t dig into your back too much. Of course, I’m kidding. I think.
Also, there was a lack of young kittens at all the local shelters as apparently it is not ‘kitten season’. I was completely unaware that kittens were seasonal items but it seems they are.
Yeah, kittens are cute and cuddly and shit but the real appeal is to be able to mold them from an early age, to develop their personalities as a mirror of your own. That’s why our last cat of 21 years was referred to by strangers as ‘The mean one…’ while being excessively affectionate to us. And also being a scheming trouble maker with an extreme sense of self-importance and entitlement. Which part of that personality do you think Margaret instilled? I know which part I take credit for.
In addition to safeguarding the patrons of one’s facility, a lifeguard is also tasked with the betterment of the facility and its patrons. Given the upscale location of my facility, this can take the form of interpretive art displays utilizing avalable equipment. Witness these displays of water dumbells:
Notice the location in the second display. It sits 6″ away from the wall and is thusly totally dependant on the careful balance of each component to remain upright; no single component relies on the background wall for support and/or placement.
While I would like to claim credit for these impressive constructions, I remain, alas, a mere rookie lifeguard and currently incapable of such masterful creativity. These exhibitions were created by our Regional Director, a well seasoned and vastly experienced lifeguard.
I can currently only aspire to talents such as these and hope that through hard work and dedication I too may someday be able to accomplish such feats of creativity and balance.
Until that time, I remain humbled by such intense artistic impression.
3:34am
Must be fucking winter; this cold and snow shit is starting to get old. Yeah, I know…this is Cleveland, what do I expect? Well, I don’t give a shit, that doesn’t mean I gotta like it.
These garage door guys better show up to fix my busted spring like they said they would. Between 8am-11am they said; I hope they meant it.
No wonder the economy is fucked; service people seem to no-show half the time. And don’t call me later with some bullshit excuse about your truck breaking down or getting hung up at another job because I don’t fucking care about your other shit, I just want you to deal with my shit. If you can’t do that then don’t say you will so I can find somebody who can.
Do what you say you’re going to do. It’s the simplest concept there is in the service industry yet one of the most neglected. Amazing; well, keep it up you half-assed d-bags, economic Darwinism will get you in the end. I just wish I didn’t have to be involved in your failures you asshats.
Oh well, may as well go to work and prepare for the same people complaining about the same shit. Again. Always.
1% of the people providing 100% of the idiocy. Thank God for the other 99% who help to keep me sane. I appreciate their sympathetic eye-rolling when the same people are spewing the same nonesense. I guess we’re all in it together.
This is shaping up to be a wonderful day already.
Life's tough, wear a helmet. 