The Rabbit Hole: Not Our Job, Man

[Warph]

Why is it that going somewhere, buying something, calling someone.....
just about any transaction that you can name in America is about as nerve-racking
as a Iraqi grocery run?   

Why is it that seemingly everyone with a job along the great service highway is an
uninterested sociopath with the interpersonal skills of a wolverine? 

Why is it that I can't seem to go through the simplest procedures without a major hassle? 
For example, I recently subscribed to a magazine, and after paying for it they sent me another
of the magazine each week, one addressed to 'Philip Warph' and the other addressed
to 'Phylis Warph.'  Now, I want to know two things: One, how can they not know
they're sending two magazines to the same address... and two, how did they find
out about my cross-dressing?

You know, nowadays, half the people you ask for help say, "It's not my job,
man."  And the other half don't have a clue about how in the hell to do their
job.  See if this sounds familiar: Hotel clerks who, even though you requested a
nonsmoking room, give you a suite that smells like your dogs butt; maids who don't
give a crap about the "Do Not Disturb" sign and come through the door like
Sheriff Joe Arapio raiding the kitchen for green cards at El Pollo Loco; movie
ushers who constantly ask you to remove your feet from the seat in front of you,
but refuse to even shine their flashlight on the kiddie gang-initiation golden shower
taking place during "Chicken Little".

And excuse me for wandering into your restaurant, Olive Garden 'wait-person,' in a
quest for sustenance to jam in my pie hole.  But from the time you strap on the
Buford Pusser pepper mill to the time you drop your check on my table, do all of us
hungry patrons a favor and use your sense memory to portray a 'wait-person' who
gives a crap about the customer you're serving even though that customer rudely
insists on not being O.J. Simpson.  Okay, Garlic Breath?

Once I had a job cleaning toilets for a living--on the night shift, for chrissakes.  I didn't
even rate cleaning toilets during the DAY shift.  My bosses actually thought to themselves,
"Yeah, Warph's good, he's REAL good.   He's just not ready for the 'Big Show' yet."

I know jobs can be unrewarding, but talk about inefficiency.  I'd like to go on vacation for
a couple of weeks, call the paper boy, and ask him to suspend delivery during that time and
not come back to twelve newspapers sitting outside my doorstep, screaming to every lowlife
in the area, "Yoohoo! Over Here! Nobody Home!";  I'd like my groceries in a bag that will
actually contain what I purchased, and not open up like the bomb-bay doors on a "B-52"
as soon as my pickle jars are over the cement driveway; I'd like the universal remote I bought
to change the channels on my TV and not shut off my neighbor's home dialysis machine. 
And you know, while we are on the subject of inefficiency, why doesn't somebody warn you
that the "stay hard cream" will short circuit the "auto-suck?" Are you with me on that?  A little
too specific?  All right, let it go, walk away from it... it never happened.

And another thing, we're living in a time when personal boundaries are more blurred than the
camera lens in a Cher photo shoot.  You would think that thiswould help to generate more
openness between people, but all it seems to have
done is increase our mistrust.  We feel perfectly comfortable spending hours
online, sharing our innermost thoughts and yearnings with complete strangers,
but we don't even meet the people living next door until there's a huge
earthquake and everyone's out on their lawns at one in the morning.  As a matter
of fact, that's the scariest part of an earthquake... is hearing your 78 year-old
neighbors, Velma and Gus, explain how they had just strapped her into the
Vietnamese 'more bang for your buck' basket, when all of a sudden, she started
swinging back and forth, like King Kong's balls on a hot day. "Well, thanks for the
visual, Velma, I think I'm gonna go pick up a downed power line now, OK?"

And then there's this one.  One of the most disturbing trends in the demise of
personal privacy is the proliferation of hidden cameras.  They're everywhere now.
So what's with this?  I just don't think that's right.  When I'm by myself, I do things
that I would never do if I knew I was being videotaped.  I pick my nose.  I scratch
my itchy butt.  I squeeze blemishes.  I work at my stubborn dandruff patch.  I kick
off my shoes and bite my toenails.  I use whatever's lying around to scrape my
tongue.  I pull nostril hairs out and measure them with a small silver ruler I carry
on a chain around my neck and record their length in millimeters in an embossed
spiral notebook.  I pinch my nipples until my eyes tear up, and I straddle things
and yell "giddy-up," while slapping myself on the ass with a Victorian carpet beater. 
The point is, I should be able to pass my time waiting in line at the Post Office any
way I want to.

More important, I've had it up to here with corporations pushing the freaking
unions around.  You know that if you haven't been laid off by now, you're
working overtime.  Most large companies are lean and mean.  And so is the
service they give you: lean and mean.

Still, a lot of the blame falls on us. There seems to be this notion that good,
honest, hard work is something to be viewed down our collective snout.  That
doesn't make the workers at the bottom of the pole feel very good.  Does it?
If you want better service, the next time you see one of those workers in an
'Employee of the Month' photo in a fast-food restaurant, suppress your urge t
o make your friends laugh by ridiculing the guy as a dork loser with a bad haircut.
Instead, why not seek out the guy who actually took pride in doing his job the
way it was supposed to be done and thank him for dotting the i's and crossing
the t's and making sure there is toilet paper in the stall, and ketchup in the dispenser. 
Make that person feel good because he is the last thin blue collar line between a
frayed but still functioning society and full-blown "We'll be there anytime between
8 a.m. and 6 p.m. or maybe we won't even show up at all, butt face" anarchy.  All right?

And let's grab the reins as customers.  Don't stay on hold forever.  "What's that?
I should press one if I am calling from a touch-tone phone?  Hey butt-wipe, I'm
pressing flash, 'cause I'm hanging up now and taking my business to a human operator
that speaks english!"  Also, don't settle for the fish nuggets and the green spooge,
turn the car around, go back, and demand the triple bacon cheeseburger with the
chili fries you ordered!

And lastly, let's get our pride together, go to the whip, and regain our position at
the head of the socioeconomic pack!  How about less billions spent on getting the
'Political Pork' cherry, and a few more billions on tightening up our educational system. 
Forget the 'moment of silence' in the morning.  Let's shoot for a moment of SCIENCE, okay?

And it's time we stopped looking up Iran's ass, and you know why?

Because that is definitely 'not our job, man!'  ......Warph

[pam]

 

[Dee Gee]

Isn't this the truth, I get so tired of the service that is given to the public by hired help. There is some business' that I don't with go into anymore because of this.

[Judy Harder]

Ain't it the truth. I also liked the giggles. Thanks

[Diane Amberg]

But if that guy wants to run a shoddy business, isn't it his right to squeeze the left over ketchup back into the container, put the unused napkins back into the dispenser and refuse to wash his hands after using the bathroom? Isn't this a free country? ( sorry Flo and Pam, the devil made me do it!) 

[flo]

now you're tredding into terrirtory that is regulated by the health department

[Ole Granny]

Which is for our protection------------

[Diane Amberg]

What do you think about red light cameras?

[Mom70x7]

And then there's this one.  One of the most disturbing trends in the demise of
personal privacy is the proliferation of hidden cameras.  They're everywhere now.
So what's with this?  I just don't think that's right.  When I'm by myself, I do things
that I would never do if I knew I was being videotaped.  I pick my nose.  I scratch
my itchy butt.  I squeeze blemishes.  I work at my stubborn dandruff patch.  I kick
off my shoes and bite my toenails.  I use whatever's lying around to scrape my
tongue.  I pull nostril hairs out and measure them with a small silver ruler I carry
on a chain around my neck and record their length in millimeters in an embossed
spiral notebook.  I pinch my nipples until my eyes tear up, and I straddle things
and yell "giddy-up," while slapping myself on the ass with a Victorian carpet beater.
The point is, I should be able to pass my time waiting in line at the Post Office any
way I want to.

Now I've got images in my mind!               
               

[W. Gray]

Well, I do not know of a lot of men who would like to have a camera around one of those districts....