Bitter – Page 2 – HappyStinkingJoy

How Your Health Just Goes In the Toilet Once You Hit 40…

So about six months ago, I go to our Quick Care clinic to get a referral for a sleep study. I leave the appointment with the referral… and a brand-spanking new prescription for blood pressure medication. Stinking people looking out for my health. Anyway, so I had a six-month prescription, and that prescription was about to run out, so I figured that I better go see a real doctor about my blood pressure.

Now, when I went to Quick Care, my blood pressure was like 170/130. I’ve been tracking it ever since, and although there are times when it spikes in the 160/110 range (which is pretty much any time I get pissed off… which, as you can imagine, is almost daily), it’s usually in the 140s/90s. Still high, but better, no?

I make an appointment with an actual real doctor (figure I’m about at the age where I need a family physician). The appointment comes, I go to see the doctor, and my stupid blood pressure is still high. It’s 148/98. So, the doctor wants to double the dosage of the lisinopril that I’m on, and I’m fine with that. Aside from a constant nagging cough, I don’t really suffer any side-effects. Then the doctor tells me that he wants to check my cholesterol. Crap. I have no doubt that my cholesterol is high, and I’m sure that I’m going to have to fork out money for a prescription for that crap every month too. The nurse sticks a needle in my arm and draws a couple of vials of blood. I’m amazed at how dark the blood is… almost black… and I’m thinking to myself that may be part of my problem. With all of the tons of fat that I have eaten in my 41-years of life (’cause, damn it, it tastes good), the crap has actually morphed into actual oil in my system. Of course my blood pressure is going to be high with Pennzoil 10w30 running through my veins, and I’m way past the 3 month/3000 mile mark. Can’t I just get a stinking oil change and a lube job?.

I heard from the doctor’s office today. Low and behold, I have high cholesterol. SURPRISE! They called in a prescription for some statin-thingie to Walgreens, and as of tomorrow, I’ll be medicated for my condition. Possible side effects are muscle cramps, drowsiness, and liver damage. They recommend taking it before bed so that the side effects are less noticeable. The drowsiness thing happening while I’m sleeping makes sense. However, being awoken in the middle of the night with a charlie horse doesn’t sound very pleasant, and I’m sure my wife would agree with me on that. As far as the liver damage part goes, I’m kind of hoping to avoid that. I guess if I have liver failure or something, having that happen while I’m asleep might be a plus?!?

Why is everything that tastes good bad for you (and if someone tries to tell me that steamed broccoli or broiled fish “tastes good”… I may punch him or her in the lying, filthy little mouth)? “Everything in moderation,” you may say, but I would reply that moderation sucks. Stupid common sense. If I’m stuck in the Craphandle of Nebraska with nothing to do and no real future worth caring about, I want to be able to eat what I want when I want. Eating is one of the very few pleasures I have… and now it just happens to be killing me.

AARGH!

Apparently, high cholesterol makes one very pirate-like?

With the history of high blood pressure and heart disease that infests my family tree, I figured all of this was coming. I just hoped that maybe I was going to be the branch that could remain healthy. I’m telling you, optimism in all shapes, colors and sizes, leads to nothing but disappointment, which is why I usually do such a wonderful job of avoiding it.

Okay, so here’s the Catch-22. The potential side effects of the statin-thingie don’t sound very pleasant. So, I figure I need to lose about 20 to 30 pounds and start eating gross crap, which doesn’t sound very fun. Then, when I’m all sickly skinny and eating leaves and twigs, there is still a chance that I will need to remain on cholesterol medication. Stupid genetics. So, do I just let the doctor medicate the hell out of me and potentially destroy my liver (a problem that may never come to be… look at me, the stinking optimist) while I continue to enjoy one of the few simple pleasures I have in life: eating good food? Or, do I give up one of the few simple pleasures that I can experience in the Craphandle of Nebraska in an effort to extend my life so that I can potentially live out an extended life in the Craphandle of Nebraska with no simple pleasures? And even if I give up the simple pleasure, there is still the chance that I will need to remain on the liver-destroying medication, so I may actually give up the simple pleasure and still die of liver failure. Sounds pretty much like a lose-lose-lose situation to me. There… now I’m sounding a little more like the pessimist that I know and dislike an awful lot of the time.

So, now I have a doctor. He wants to see me again after about 30 days on the current medications to measure my progress. I should be proud of myself for taking some responsibility for my health and trying to be there for my family’s future, right? But all I can think about is how I’m 41… and it is just going to be a matter of time before Mr. Dr. is going to be thinking that he needs to be sticking his finger up my butt. Seriously… if I’m falling apart this much in my 40s, what bright, shiny stars can I expect in my 50s… and beyond? Well, with the Dr. seemingly intent on destroying my liver, I may not have to worry about it at all…

Stinking Customer Service!

If you were to judge this post based on the title, you’re probably thinking this is going to be me ranting about some crappy service I received from some crappy company that I need to vent about. Wrong. I am feeling the need to rant about crappy jobs in customer service, of which I have held my fair share.

You hear “business gurus” lament constantly about how poor customer service can destroy a company. I do not disagree. The gurus preach of the importance of customer service skills for every employee who could potentially come in any sort of contact with a customer or potential customer. Amen! The gurus don’t seem to understand why so many companies can’t provide quality customer service. I think I can help answer this question with one word: money.

Oh, I know, money isn’t everything; job satisfaction isn’t reliant on money alone; there are numerous ways to motivate employees other than with money; blah… blah… blah. The people who come up with these unrealistic views of the importance of money in employment have listened to the gurus for far too long! Money is the reason that most people go to work every morning. If you don’t believe me, think of it this way: if you won the lottery and would never have to work again for financial reasons, would you go to your current job every day and do it for free? If you would, you are either a very lucky person who has found your calling and are able to utilize your inherent gifts and talents in a satisfying manner or… you’re an idiot.

So, back to customer service. I am going to use my recent employment experience with an unnamed cellular telephone company for demonstrative purposes. The unnamed cellular telephone company was Alltel.

For anyone who has ever had to wait in line at a cell phone store to have an issue resolved, I feel for you. For anyone who has had to wait in line at a cell phone store to have an issue resolved and then took out your frustration on the person who finally waits on you… go pound sand! You have a problem; you would like that problem fixed; you’re mad because you’ve been in line for 45 minutes or so; so you yell at or cop an attitude with the person who you expect is going to fix your problem… seriously?!? Remember, this person who you are yelling at has probably already had half-a-dozen other nincompoops yell at him or her and your yelling is getting pretty close to the straw that is going to break the camel’s back. Do you want help or not? If so, please remain calm and speak the way you would like to be spoken to. If getting your problem resolved is not the true reason for your 45 minute wait in line and you really just want to yell at someone and make a donkey-butt out of yourself by causing a big scene to prove to everyone within a 4-block radius of the retail store exactly mad you really are… keep yelling, sap-sucker, ’cause when you finally finish your little tirade, you are most likely going to be told that your problem is unsolvable: “So sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to GO POUND SAND!” And it’s not that your problem is really unsolvable… it’s just that you have caused such a commotion and made such an… uh, to put it in acceptable English/slang/cockney format… “arse” out of yourself that you are beyond help. If your problem is actually fixed, a precedent is being set that people who throw a temper tantrum and behave like an arse get their way just to shut them up… and that is a precedent that is not going to be set. Why, you may ask, is that precedent not going to be set? Why will the squeaky wheel not get the grease? What is going through the head of the customer service representative at that crucial moment when he or she makes that uber-important decision not to help you resolve your problem? I can tell you in one succinct sentence exactly what is going through the mind of that representative: THEY DON”T PAY ME ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THIS. And Mr. and Ms. business guru, all of a sudden monetary reward is important to get people to perform in menial jobs!

“Well, if current employees won’t get the job done, fire them and hire people who will!”

While I put in my time at Alltel, the turnover rate was over 30%. What that meant was that for every 10 people hired, more than 3 people quit… and this was at a time when Alltel was striving for aggressive growth! Finding someone who is willing to deal with belligerent customers all day (and actually not making any real money unless selling to said belligerent customers) takes more than $8 to $12 dollars per hour, especially when the rules that are put in place to actually take care of a ripped-off customer are ignored by all levels of management from store management to regional management… and rules that actually benefit the customer are few and far between! Let’s look at an example from my personal portfolio of the crappy-life files:

A friend was having trouble with his cell phone. I had recently quit Alltel, but I was still the “go to” guy for friends’ and family’s cell phone questions. The friend had trouble with his cell phone ever since he first got it. He was on his third replacement phone (“replacement phones”, by the way, are often refurbished pieces of crap… as are “insurance” phones). His original new phone and three refurbished phones all froze up. He was about a two-weeks past his original one-year warranty, but he had received his last replacement less than a month previously.

I wasn’t a vast clearinghouse of knowledge for every rule and regulation of Alltel while I worked there. However, I did know every policy and procedure that was beneficial to our customers as far as receiving a POS phone (and there were a lot of POS phones) and what extents could be gone to in an effort to make a pissed-off customer happy. I explained to my friend that, although he was past the original one-year warranty on the phone, each replacement phone (exchange by mail phone, or XBM) came with it’s own warranty above and beyond the original manufacturers’ warranty. It has been over three years since I worked at Alltel, so I don’t remember if that warranty was 30, 60 or 90 days, but I remember that my friend’s was well within the XBM warranty period. I told him that, at the very least, he should be able to get another POS XBM phone. However, since he and had been through three replacements, there was a “lemon policy” that the store manager could apply which would result in a brand-spanking new replacement phone of like value. I told him to go to his local store, to be “nice”, not cause a big stink, and ask politely for the manager if the customer service rep wouldn’t help him. I stressed the “be nice.”

Well, he called me a couple of days later and told me that no one there was willing to help him. The rep and manager who helped her both said that I didn’t know what I was talking about. They told him that the XBM phones had no warranty of their own and since he was past his original warranty, he was out of luck. Pretty much, he got a big, “Sorry, sucks to be you!”

I was furious! I was ready to get on the phone with that stupid manager and give her a piece of my mind… and then I was going to call the district manager and let him know what had happened! Then, in a flashback, remembered what it was like to work at Alltel.

“Did you remain calm and stay nice?” I asked.

“Well… I started out nice.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I said. “Did you remain calm and nice throughout the conversation?”

“Well… no… but they weren’t willing to help me!”

“Did you yell?” I asked.

“A little.”

“Did you personally attack the person helping you?” I asked.

“Well… she was being a bitch!”

Now, I know that this friend can be a little demanding as a customer. He is the sort of person who will hold up a line at Walmart for 15 minutes arguing about a 25 cent perceived difference in the advertised price and the price that rings up at the register… even when he is wrong.

“Yeah, maybe I was wrong about that XBM policy thing,” I concluded. I was not wrong.

When I worked at Alltel, I never screwed a customer just because they treated me like crap, and employees who did abuse their “power” really pissed me off. However, I can think back to what it was like to be treated like complete garbage by an abusive customer. It wasn’t fun… and I tend to blame most of my current stress-issues on the two years I spent at Alltel. Every time I deal with just about any stranger in just about any potentially confrontational situation, I am braced for the worst… which is stressful. I couldn’t handle it, so I quit (and remain scarred from the experience). For those who can stick it out… if they need to screw-over the occasional asshole just to keep their sanity (and keep working there), more power to ’em.

By being the guy who always did everything in his power to take care of the customer, I developed a reputation as being the guy to go to if you had a problem. People would wait an extra half-hour in line just to see me with their problems, which was fine. The problem I had, with the Alltel gig being commission-based, was that those same people weren’t nearly as willing to wait for me when it came to making an actual commission-earning purchase… they went to the first available rep… and those were the straws that finally shattered the spine of the hump-backed mammal… because the money wasn’t there. The district manager told me, when I informed him that I was quitting, that if I just stuck around for four or five more years, I would start to see that loyalty from the problem-solving start to turn into sales. I told him that I would be dead of a heart attack before I would ever reap those benefits.

And you know what’s strange? I really think that if the money had been significantly better, I wouldn’t have minded dealing with the crap quite as much. It’s harder to get stressed about a situation when they actually are paying you enough to deal with it.

Why I Don’t Go to the Dentist…

I haven’t been to a dentist since I was 18-years-old. I’m now 41-years-old. For those of you bad at math, I haven’t been to a dentist in 23 years. The last time I went was at the urging of my parents before I went off to college. I was still on my parents insurance and they paid for the whole shebang. I remember it being painful, full of screeching drills and the smell of smoking teeth. I remember shots (notice the plural) in my mouth that didn’t seem to numb everything the way they were supposed to. I remember thinking to myself that the dentist was a skinny little preppy dude, and my 18-year-old body, fresh out of four years of high school football, could kick this jerk’s ass. I’m pretty sure that dentist was about one drill insertion away from having a little dental work done himself… at no charge. That was then.

This is now. I no longer fear the pain. The thought of having some dude sticking his hairy fingers in my mouth is unsettling, but it doesn’t prevent me from having my oral orifice examined. I don’t go to the dentist for the same reason that I don’t see a psychiatrist (of which I am plenty in need of seeing), I don’t go to a chiropractor, I forgo the use of an attorney, and I seldom set foot in a doctor’s office; I hate senators and school superintendents and city managers and CEOs and Hollywood actors and rock stars and successful entrepreneurs.

I have a severe case of class envy.

I hate people who are successful and make a lot of money. I don’t hate them for what they have… I hate them for making me realize what I do not have. I don’t hate them for their outgoing personalities and successful traits… I hate them for making me realize how low my self-esteem is and how my traits all suck. I don’t hate their money… I just do everything I can to not add to their wealth by sacrificing any of my lower-middle-class income to them. That’s one of the main reasons I hate paying taxes… because I know part of what I pay goes into those $150,000 salaries of those morons in Washington who can’t pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to do what’s right for the country.

I remember when I first moved to Scottsbluff, NE. I was in my early 20s and pretty fresh out of college. I was an assistant manager at Sherwin-Williams… you know… the paint store. That’s right… first job out of college was in retail management. Explains a lot about why I think life sucks, huh? I remember my college professors all warning about jobs in retail. “Once you go into retail, it’s very hard to get out… or to do any better.” I was hesitant to go into retail, but after sending out hundreds of resumes with only a handful of resulting interviews and only one actual job offer, I didn’t feel I had much choice. I took what was offered. So, I end up in Scottsbluff, NE making a salary of like $17,000/year working 45 to 55 hours per week. I knew this wasn’t a lot of money, but I could afford a crappy, mildew covered, bug infested little basement apartment, and I could pay my bills and put food on the table. Not good food, mind you, but food. I was also able to keep up on the repayment of the thousands of dollars in student loans I had accumulated. College… funny huh? You spend thousands of dollars on an education that never really seems to pay for itself. Where’s the ROI on a stupid business degree? I guess if you’re a doctor or lawyer, you must finally realize some return on that investment, huh? Anyways, even though I was making pretty crappy money for a college graduate, I was still pretty naive and felt that life might still work out and that hard work would provide it’s benefits in the future. In other words, I was still stupid

I can remember when my attitude started to change… when I experienced my “awakening”. I was driving in downtown Scottsbluff (it’s about five blocks long, so it was a short drive), when I was passed by a car. This was not just any car, this was a fancy little BMW sportster. You know, a silver little two-seater convertible jobbie. And it had vanity plates.

Vanity plates.

And guess what vanity was expressed on those stinking license plates?

“DRTOOTH”

I crap you not. Some dentist was driving around town in a $40,000-plus sports car and was letting everyone know that he bought that car through the cavities of the little children. That is the exact moment that I decided that I was never going to go to a dentist again. I was never going to help some arrogant SOB buy his next Mercedes or Beemer or country club membership or vacation condo in Las Vegas or Miami. Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid that doesn’t sound like the kind of party I’m interested in attending. Gather your wealth through the teeth of some other miserable assistant manager at some other crappy retail establishment, I’m gonna peace-out on this one.

And I have been peaced-out ever since. My teeth, of course, are falling apart. They are stained and cracked and filled with cavities. I don’t think there is much enamel left, because sometimes too hot or too cold makes them hurt. One of my back teeth that was filled decades ago when I last visited a dentist has had a huge crack down the side of it for almost 15 years. Finally, a couple of nights ago while eating spaghetti (spaghetti, for crying out loud), that back half of the cracked tooth just disappeared. I must have swallowed it. Better I use it as roughage then let some dentist charge me hundreds of dollars to fix. I have a wisdom tooth that has been trying to come in for the past 20 years, and it’s growing out of the side of my jaw. It gets a little sore and leaks a little pus from time to time (I originally wrote that “my tooth gets a little pusy from time to time”, but I originally thought “pus” had two s’s… and that sentence made me laugh for longer than was appropriate, so I changed it… and then I pointed it out again here, because… damn it, it’s just funny).

The strange thing is, my mouth never really hurts. Aside from the occasional sensitivity issues, and the wisdom tooth acting up on occasion, I feel little pain. I know there have to be tons of cavities in that sucker. I know all of the crack and chips should probably cause some discomfort, but they don’t. Even when that stupid wisdom tooth starts acting up, I just gargle with some peroxide, and it feels better. I brush at least twice a day, and I floss… I floss on occasion (special occassions, like Christmas and Martin Luther King’s birthday).

I know that I should probably go to see a dentist. Modern dentistry is what sets us apart from neanderthals… like the British. I know I could probably extend my miserable existence (oh yeah) by taking better care of my teeth. I can just picture the look on the dentist’s face the first time he gets a gander inside my mouth. You know how in cartoons the eyes roll like slots into dollar signs? Well, my dentists eye’s are gonna roll into Beemers. I just know it.

All-Powerful Google :(

So about three weeks ago, I post my previous entry to this blog. It’s all about how stress sucks and how I don’t handle stress very well. This was on a Saturday. It was my 100th post, and I planned on following it up with a 100th postaversary celebration, but you’re getting this instead.

Monday rolls around, and I get a phone call from my dad (one of my three regular readers) who says that his Norton is telling him he can get a virus if he goes to my site. I’m at work, so I don’t really have time to look at whatever the issue is (and I’m thinking in the back of my head that it’s probably just something screwy with Norton… or my dad). Throughout the day, I hear from the other two people who read this blog and they both tell me that my blog is apparently an “Attack Site”.

Sure enough, every time I tried going to my site on any browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox), I’m getting a message that my computer can get a virus my visiting my blog!?! CRAP!

Alright, so I start griping to anyone who will listen about hackers and their ilk who have fun making other peoples’ lives living hells for no apparent reason. I am of the conviction that all practitioners of cyber-terror (spammers, hackers, identity thieves, etc.) should be publicly executed… with stones. You know, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery-style. I may actually toss a stone or two myself. I bet you have some world-wide televised public stonings and the rate of cyber terror will drop drastically. Just saying.

So anyway, my boss overhears me bitching about some jackwad hiding a link to a malicious site in my code, and he takes it upon himself to remove the link. See, I don’t know anything about coding or PHP or HTML or any of that crap. I use WordPress because I’m not supposed to know about how to do that coding crap with WordPress. Thank goodness I have a cool boss 🙂

I’m all good now, right? The code is gone and my blog is once again safe. I figure I’m all in the clear. Except, I’m not. Because now I have to request that Google re-review my site to confirm that the bad stuff is gone. See, many of the reporting sites that different browsers and whatnot rely on to determine if a site is safe to go to rely on Google for their information. Googlebot is a web crawler, or “spider”, which scours the Internet looking for new web sites… and searching existing web sites for dangers to Google’s users. So, unless you can prove to Google that your site is clean and safe after it has been ruled compromised, a lot of potential visitors are going to get a warning page when they try to visit your site.

This is all well and good. I want to be protected when I visit sites, so I really didn’t have any issues with any of this. Where my issue comes into play is with proving to Google that I own my web site. This was not an easy task.

Google gives you like four different methods to prove you own your site. One requires inserting some “meta” doohickie into a certain position in your sites code. Well… that was out, because, like I wrote earlier, I don’t know nothing ’bout no stinking code.

Another method involved copying some HTML thingamagiggee into some section of your site on the server… blah blah blah. Again… HTML… not happening.

A third option for proving that I owned my site was by adding a DNS record to my domain’s configuration by signing into the domain register and… you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. Isn’t there an app for my Droid that I can just download… or maybe a button on Facebook I can click?

The final option is linking your web site to a Google Analytics account. HOORAY! I have a Google Analytics account, and I use it to monitor my web site. I figure this is going to be easy, right? Yeah, wrong. I try using that method and I come to the realization that I must not have the required asynchronous snippet in my tracking code. What exactly is an asynchronous snippet? Well, I looked it up, and I still have no idea. If I could figure out what a freaking asynchronous snippet was, I’d probably know how to add a DNS record to my domain’s configuration. FOR CRYING OUT LOVE OF PETE!

Alright, so I figure I’ll just contact Google and see if they can help me. HAHAHA! Did you read that? “Contact Google.” Exactly how stupid am I? Apparently, very stupid. One does not “contact” Google. Period. Seriously, go to Google’s web site and click on “contact us” on the bottom of the page. There is no way to actually “contact” anyone. There is no phone number, no email addresses, no mailing address… just recommendations to go to different forums and blogs and crap. When I first went to “contact” Google, they recommended that the fastest way to resolve my issue was to search their forums. Have you ever searched a forum? There is absolutely nothing fast about searching a forum for ANYTHING!

Okay, so I’m way past the point of literally pulling the hair out of my head. There are still hairs lodged in between the keys on my laptop’s keyboard. I figure “screw this, I’m done!”

“Oh, but it’s not fair to ask that Google have live people to help nincompoops like you,” says the tech geek who thinks I’m an idiot. “They are much too large of a company with way too many interests. Do you know how many calls they’d get and email they would have to respond to?”

Seriously?!? Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Their stock sells for like $600/ share. $600 PER SHARE! Yes, I just yelled it at you. You mean to tell me they can’t afford a customer service center… or 20?

Anywho, I gave up on the whole blogging thing. Figured it was supposed to be a way to relieve stress, not create stress. I was done with the whole thing. And every day I would try to visit the site and see that stupid warning page, and I’d get more and more pissed off. And I’d try to research a way to get the whole -prove-ownership-to-Google-thing accomplished. And I’d learn a little and get really frustrated and pissed-off, and I’d give up again. Lather, rinse, repeat… for almost 10 days.

Funny thing is, if I used Microsoft Internet Explorer, I could get to the site just fine… no warnings. Apparently Microsoft (and Norton, and McAfee, and all other leading anti-viruses) knew the bad code had been removed from my site and was a safe place to visit. Google (and Firefox… who relies on Googlebot) apparently has no problem listing my site as dangerous, but don’t apparently have the advanced kind of technology that allows them to periodically revisit sites it has condemned to see if anything has changed.

“But that’s you’re responsibility as the site owner,” says the Google advocate. I’m gonna have to call BS on that. Google, on the warning page, stated that they had contacted the site owner to let them know the site had been found malignant. I received no notification from anyone other than my dad and his Norton. They didn’t contact anyone… they just made a decision to make my site appear dangerous to much of the online community (which I understand)… even after it was fixed (which is inexcusable). Google has a crap-ton of power over the Internet. You could almost call it the “Googlenet.”

As we learned from Spider-Man:

With great power comes great responsibility.

It would take very little for Google to make the entire “review” process for corrupted web sites much easier (maybe even automate it)… and that would be showing “great responsibility.” Hell… if some random stranger wants to have my little stinking blog reviewed… I say, “Have at it!” Why does one have to prove ownership to have a web site reviewed?

Anyway, after 10 days of short bouts of learning… intermixed with long periods of full-on rage… I finally figured out how to FTP some HTML to the server I use to prove my ownership… and I got a clean review from Google. What exactly did I just write? You’ve got me. I did it once, and if I ever have to do it again, I may end-up bald!

The Life Cycle of Having Friends…

Remember when you were a kid and you had all kinds of friends? Well, unless you were the kid who accidentally pooped the pants in 3rd grade during math and everyone knew about it; then you maybe didn’t have so many friends. Maybe you were the girl who had her first “Carrie” moment during 6th grade English, and none of the kids understood why you left school early, upset and crying; until someone spotted the evidence of the early dismissal on the seat of your chair… your adolescence may have been a little rough. Or you were the boy who got caught enjoying Baywatch just a little too much when you thought no one watching… you may have had a few rough years. But aside from those few sad instances indicative of the cruelty of other children, many kids have lots of friends. And as you grow from adolescence into high school and up through college, you make more and more friends. By the time you get out of college, you probably have tons of friends… and I’m not just talking acquaintances, but real friends… you know, the kind of people you wouldn’t hesitate to call if you needed a good bailing out of jail.

At this point, we’re set! We have a plethora of friends and a brand-spanking new education just waiting to be developed into a life-long career of happiness! Guess what happens to many of us then. We pack up our belongings and move half-way across the country and start completely fresh in a community where we don’t know a single soul! Sounds exciting, right? Sounds like a true adventure, doesn’t it? Yeah… not really. It sucks, and years later, you will find yourself pretty much friendless as you roll through mid-life.

When I first moved to the panhandle of Nebraska (almost 20 years ago), I figured I would fast make new friends. And right out of the gate, I met a few people my age and we became buddies. Considering that the people in this community are very cliquish (which is something I didn’t discover until later), I was lucky. One of these buddies actually introduced me to the woman who is now my wife. So, yeah, I thought I was on a roll. Now see, where the problem comes into play in my example is the fact that I moved to a community where the young people are anxiously leaving in droves. In the small town of Glasgow, MT where I grew up, all of the kids always talked about how they wanted to get the hell out of Glasgow and actually do something with their lives. Scottsbluff and Gering Nebraska are much the same. Kids see what their parents have accomplished living here, and the kids want nothing to do with it. The kids want to actually find some measure of success in their lives, so they bail on the communities at pretty much the first available opportunity. My problem: I moved in as everyone else my age was trying to get the hell out. I escaped from one community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away to another community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away. The destination of my escape was another destination from which to seek escape. Most of those original friends that I made when I moved here have long since found more fruitful paths in other areas of the country. There are still a couple in the area, and I really enjoy hanging out with them, but the second thing to come along and disrupt the friendship cycle is kids, and I’ve got them.

Having children is one of the most rewarding things that a person can do. I don’t want to make it seem otherwise. However, having kids puts a huge crimp in any sort of social life that you may desire. You aren’t able to go out in public nearly as much once you have kids, especially while they are young. You’re at home trying to catch some sort of rest and instill in your kids the basics of being a functioning member of society.

Then the kids hit school, and through school and other extra-curricular activities, you are forced to confront other parent of other kids who are pretty much in the same boat as you. Once again, you start forming some relationships. Maybe you find a church or other civic organization, and you begin attending regularly, and you form some relationships there as well.These relationships, however, are more along the lines of “strong acquaintanceships” than they are the true friendships you had in your youth. In other words, these are people who are fun to hang out with while the kids are off playing and whatnot, but these aren’t people you would feel comfortable calling to bail you out of the joint.

Even these strong acquaintanceships you have developed through the parents of your kids’ friends and through your civic activities (and maybe even co-workers from your job) soon seem to slightly dissipate as your kids grow even older and their activities seem to encapsulate more and more of your free-time.

My wife is from the panhandle. Once she finished college, she really never had a strong desire to leave. However, neither does she have a strong desire to stay. She is constantly telling me that if I can find us a life somewhere outside of the panhandle that would make me less… uh, “grumpy” would be a polite way to put it, I guess… she would be more than happy to make a move. She, however, actually has some of the friends from her past here. Not many (most moved away), but she is occasionally able to have a “girls night out” or get together for coffee with a friend or two. I still have a lot of really good friends, but, for the most part, they are spread out all over the nation. If it weren’t for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t even know where most of them are. They sure in the hell aren’t close enough to bail me out of jail, if the need were to arise.

So, what’s next? You got me. My kids actually have some true friendships, and they are doing well in the local schools (even though the schools tend to piss me off from time to time). I’d hate to disrupt their potential growth in a selfish effort to find some sort of friendship or contentment in my life, so moving isn’t the most attractive option at this point. Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, just means it’s not the most attractive option. I try to keep in touch with the friends of my youth… at least those on Facebook.

I’m guessing that once my kids have joined the mass exodus of young people who leave the panhandle of Nebraska to better themselves in different areas of the country, the options for the wife and I will increase. We will be free to move wherever on God’s green earth we want to live. We will be short two mouths to feed as our college-educated boys head out into the world to try to figure out how in the hell they are ever going to repay all of those student loans. Of course, our bodies will have deteriorated even further, and God only knows what the status of our health will actually be in 10 or 15 years. I’m guessing that will be the next point in the cycle where new friends are made. We will probably find them at the clinics and doctor’s offices and pharmacies and, later, in the retirement communities. We will all sit around and reminisce about our kids, about the friends of our youth, and about all of the opportunities we probably missed by living in the panhandle of Nebraska.

Google Sucks

Stinking Google. I recently wrote a post about stupid Google and how they were giving away free netbooks for people to test their new Chrome OS operating system. Well, I never received my netbook. Apparently I’m not the kind of person that Google felt was right to test their netbook. I am, however, the kind of person that Google feels is right to purchase the new Samsung Chromebook. I believe Google may be mistaken.

I received an email from Google that read as follows:

Be the first to get a Chromebook.

Since we announced the Chrome Notebook Pilot Program back in December, we’ve been humbled by the amount of interest that we’ve received from users like you.

We’re excited about the brand-new Samsung Chromebook that goes on sale on June 15. Fortunately, we’ve managed to get our hands on a few machines a little earlier, and we’d like to make these available to you, our biggest enthusiasts.

When you buy your Chromebook, you’ll also be getting a limited edition, custom-fit Chrome sleeve designed by Rickshaw so you can carry your new Chromebook in style.

Our good friends over at Gilt, the premier invitation-only shopping site, have agreed to put these Chromebooks up for sale — but only for a very limited time.

These will go fast. See you over at Gilt.

Cheers,

The Chrome Team

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A few months back, you asked to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS, which is why we sent you this one-time notice. You will not be emailed again regarding the availability of Chrome OS.

I don’t remember asking to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS. I remember wanting a free netbook. I don’t want to buy anything. Nonetheless, I figured I’d check out Google’s friends over at Gilt to see what’s up. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking a Chromebook may be pretty reasonably priced. After all, I don’t believe the computer is able to run non-web-based software… everything is stored in “the cloud”. You can’t download software to the computer (like an office suite or accounting software or publishing software or anything like that). There’s not even a CD or DVD drive on this sucker, so forget having the kids watch a movie while you’re driving across the Nebraska interstate. Sure, there are some decent free online aps that can be used online, but I like to have a hard copy of some files and applications on my computer so I can access them when I don’t have Internet access or 3G coverage (remember… this is Nebraska). I’m thinking that I should be able to pick up a web-only Chromebook for a couple hundred bucks.

Do you know how much these stinking Chromebooks are selling for? The Samsung Chromebooks were selling for like $500! Seriously!!! I could get a decent real laptop for $500… why in the hell would I buy a web-only Chromebook for that price? I’m thinking Google and Samsung may have a little bit of crack-smoking going on at their corporate offices. Plus, now I’m getting all kinds of stupid spam from Google’s friends at Gilt (notice how close that is to guilt… and jilt?). note to self: unsubscribe from ~~Jilt~~ Gilt…

Of course… who knows… maybe these Chromebooks do some pretty amazing stuff. If they did, I’d be able to go on and on about how great Chromebooks are. But in order to rave about them, I’d actually have to try a Chrome OS machine out… and I’m not going to drop 500 hard-earned bills just to see if a Chromebook is actually worth $500 hard-earned bills (which I highly doubt). If only Google would have sent me my free stinking netbook when I applied for it…

Encouragement for Recent High School Graduates… I Guess…

In my last post, I pointed out how both high school and college graduates are often (usually) unrealistically optimistic. That’s me, destroyer of young dreams… but I only tell them for their own good. Better to have no dreams or to know that your dreams are probably unachievable than to dream and have those dreams shredded and left on the compost pile of life. Did I just quote Shakespeare? Wasn’t that in Hamlet? … maybe not…

I felt kind of bad for presenting the future of most of these graduates as the miserable abyss that, for most of them, their lives are going to become. I wanted to make a modest attempt, in my own very special and unique way, at letting them know that everything is gonna be alright. Here we go…

Sometimes, my family worries about the level of pessimism (or, as I like to think of it, “realism”) that I display on my blog. I spoke to my dad on the phone shortly after he read the last graduation post. He seemed slightly concerned.

Dad: “Son, I bet people who don’t really know you think you’re very bitter.”

Me: “Ya think?”

Dad: “You’re really not that bitter , are you?”

Me: “I thought you knew me.”

Dad: “I do, I just have a hard time believing you’re that bitter.”

Me: “Yeah, me sometimes too.”

Dad: “I mean… you’re really not that bitter… are you?”

Me: “Not always. Sometimes, I sleep.”

Dad: “… oh…”

Hahaha!

Nothing says “good times” like making your parents believe that they somehow failed you in your childhood and your current level of life-misery is all their fault. No worries, Dad. All of my pessimism is self-induced. Life has taught me that it often sucks without any help from you… although the short-gene that you have passed on to me hasn’t helped. How was I ever supposed to live out my dream of playing in the NBA when I come from short European stock? But, you just passed on what was passed to you, so not really your fault (I don’t want to piss off my dad… he’s one of 3 people who read this blog regularly.)

Ok, back to encouraging high school graduates. I think part of the problem I see with the whole free education system is that, by the time you are finished with it, you are still way too young to have a decent idea what you want to do with the rest of your life. “I’m going to be a doctor” or “I’m going to be a lawyer” you may say if you are one of them real smarty-pants-types… or you actually have parents with enough cash to help you get through medical or law school. But, do you really want to be a doctor? Do you really want to be a lawyer? You’re 18-years old. How can you really know what you want to do with the rest of your life?

You can’t.

When you are 18-years-old, you know you want an attractive person of the opposite sex to pay attention to you, you know you like hanging out with your friends, and you know that you like to eat food that, a couple of years in the future, is going to end up straight on either your gut or your butt; this is what you know about life. I’m 41-years-old, and I only really figured out what would have been pretty cool to do with my life a few years ago… and by then it was too late.

For my college education, I went the business route. 4-years and a lot of money went to Montana State University and the Bozeman community while I earned a bachelor of science in marketing. Now, I knew I could make more money if I chose something like engineering, but I always had issues with science. I didn’t enjoy it, so why would I want to apply it to my career for the rest of my life? Teaching sounded okay, but kids who took the teaching path seemed to be looking for the easy route. Besides, teachers don’t make squat, right? Business… no crappy science, and good money, right? Oh, how wrong I was.

There needs to be a large disclaimer when someone enrolls in a business program at the university level. That disclaimer would read:

This degree does not guarantee any kind of future success. This degree will most likely lead to some crappy job in sales or retail management. If sales and/or retail management aren’t what you are looking for, chose another program of study!

Of course, this disclaimer does not exist… until now. I am warning you, if you get a business degree (unless it is very specialized, like accounting) you will most likely wind up as an assistant manager at Walmart or trying to sell computer software to companies that don’t need it and who cringe every time they see you come through the door. This is a proven fact… well, I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure it’s true, which is almost the same as fact, isn’t it?

So, I went through college, got a crappy retail management job, and jumped from crappy job to crappy job every couple years. A few years ago, I realized that an education in literature would be more up my alley. I’ve always liked reading and writing. Maybe that teaching thing wouldn’t have been so bad. Besides, as crappy as I perceived teacher pay to be at the time I was making career decisions… in reality, I’d be making a hell of a lot more if I had been teaching for the past 20 years than I am now… and I’d have my summers off. Hindsight… it’ll kick your ass every time.

A few years ago, I figured, heck, why not try pursuing something that would be a little better fit with my personality. I enrolled in an online graduate program through Fort Hays State University in Kansas. I was gonna get me a Master of Liberal Studies with an emphasis in English.

“What could you do with that?” you may have asked. Well, boy howdy, I could have taught English at a community college.

“How does that pay?” you may have asked.

“Like crap,” would have been my response, but I was going through a brief period of insanity in my life where I thought maybe money wasn’t everything.

I enrolled, took a couple of classes, loved the classes, started to get a fresh perspective on life, and then reality smacked me upside the head. First of all, I stopped working for a company that had a really good tuition reimbursement plan, and college classes are not cheap. Second, I realized that taking these classes was interfering with family time (and my kids aren’t going to be around forever… they will get out of high school and, I’m assuming, move as far away from the panhandle of Nebraska as possible). Third, I realized that the odds of getting an actual job teaching English at a community college were pretty slim, and, even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to support a family on that kind of crappy pay.

See, even a seasoned pessimist like me can let stinking dreams and hope and all of that other positive garbage creep back in every once in awhile. I’m just glad that dream got smacked down before it grew too large. I was in my mid-30s when that one snuck in. I’m in my 40s now and any silly hope of getting an education that would lead to some sort of life-happiness is a thing of the past. Once you get family obligations and mortgages and car loans piled on you and once you get accustomed to a certain quality of life and start thinking about the prospect of being able to retire some day, going backwards financially to make silly dreams come true becomes what it really was all along… a pipe dream.

So, you may be wondering how these words can be construed as “encouragement” for recent high school graduates. I’m not exactly sure. I guess my words of encouragement would have to be:

DON’T STRESS IT!

Don’t stress the fact that everyone expects you to plan out the rest of your life through the choices you make at age 18. Plans change. Dreams change. Hopes change. And most importantly… YOU change. You will not be the same person at age 28 that you are at age 18, and 38 is going to make 28 look like a total stranger. You will see the world differently, you will value different things, and your passions may change hundreds of times before you leave life in this realm. Very few choices that don’t involve death are permanent, and any wound that doesn’t kill you will heal. Scars are badges of effort, and it takes effort to survive. Whether you accomplish your goals or realize your dreams, or if you end up living the disappointing life of the average mortal, you will get some scars along the way. Wear them with pride. They show that you made the effort.

Now, if you end up bitter and pissed at the world like me, I’m thinking I’m probably going to be looking for a protege to take over this blog in about 20 years (if I ain’t dead by then). If you are 18 now, you’ll be 38 then (which is how old I was when I started this bad boy) and we may have to get together and discuss you taking over old Happy Stinking Joy. See, even when your dreams are dead, you may still have something to look forward to… or not…

Graduations! Ahhh, what a waste of optimism…

WARNING!!!

Recent high school or college graduates, please don’t read this post. I don’t want to be held responsible for harshing your mellow at this time of great accomplishment in your lives. As you travel the road of life ahead, you will have plenty of time to discover the truths held in my words for yourself.

The wife and I took our boys to our niece’s high school graduation this past weekend in North Platte, NE. So, we spent a weekend watching young people being recognized for their accomplishments. This all got me to thinking… thinking how much people could accomplish with their lives if the stinking real-world didn’t have to come along and jack everything up.

I remember graduating from high school feeling like the whole world was out there waiting for me to conquer it. I remember having the same delusions at my graduation from college. At my niece’s graduation, I could read the same thoughts in the faces of all of those graduates. They were imagining their futures filled with limitless opportunities. Give them a few years. They will find the limits. Actually, the limits will hunt them down and stomp many of them into the ground. I know. The graduating class speaker was a well spoken young woman who reminded the graduates that they were solely responsible for their own futures. Graduates and school administrators say that kind of stuff at graduations. Graduates and school administrators believe that kind of stuff at graduations. Now, with graduates being young and naive, such dreams are expected. School administrators, on the other hand, should know better but are extremely biased in their perception of the true value of “education.” Aside from the field of education, I can’t think of a single line of work in the United States of America where further education guarantees higher earnings, seniority, and advancement. A large percentage of people employed in the field of education seem to have lost touch with what it is actually like outside of the field of education, and those people probably should not be allowed to speak at commencement ceremonies; they paint an unrealistically-rosy picture.
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Well, I guess we want to give these young people hope for the future, right? No need having them give up when a very small percentage of them are going to accomplish those dreams. As for those who will not accomplish their dreams, they will have plenty of time to figure out what their futures hold.

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Soon enough, most of these optimistic young people will be just like the rest of us… wondering why everyone misled us about how bright our futures were. For the kiddos, when someone tells you that you may need to set “new goals” or dream “new dreams”, this is them gently telling your dreams and goals are unrealistic (see, they lied to you at graduation… you can’t accomplish anything you want). Pick something less-hard to accomplish, or maybe just settle for what you have. Less hard and settling are what most of us do on a daily basis…

Stinking Google…

I like free stuff. I really, really like free stuff. Google has been giving away free CR-48 computers, and I want one, because they are free.

ChromeOS — Yeah... it looks like a plain old laptop

I want one. I have wanted one for awhile now. In fact, I sent Google my information so that I could participate in their “pilot program”. I think it was in January that I “applied” for one of these cool devices… which are absolutely free, by the way. Almost everything I do with a computer outside of my job is Internet based. I watch stuff on YouTube (owned by Google). I check my Gmail (owned by Google). I use the Google Chrome web browser (owned, of course, by Google). I read blogs on Blogger (owned by Google). Although this blog is not hosted by Google, I do use Google Analytics (owned by Google) to track traffic to this site. Most of the little short stories I have written I store in Google Documents (owned by Google) so that I can work on them from any computer with Internet access. Google Calendar (owned by Google) helps me keep my life semi-organized… at least in theory. My phone is a Droid (more Google). I put all of this information on my application to the pilot program. I figured I would be a shoe-in to test one of these little bad boys out for Google. Yet, I haven’t received one on my doorstep yet. Damn it!

I applied for the pilot program on a weekend. I remember coming to work the following Monday, and one of our phone techs was carrying a new netbook.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s one of them new-fangled Chrome OS computer thingies,” he said.

“Hey, I just applied for the pilot program this weekend,” I said. “How do you like it?”

“It’s pretty neato,” he replied. “It starts up real fast, and it’s quicker than snot on a skillet online. It even has one of thems fancy webcams.”

“Wow, cool,” I said, starting to feel a little jealous. “How long ago did you apply for the pilot program?”

“Oh, I reckon it were a couple a months ago.”

“And what did you say to impress them,” I asked, “you know, to get them to send you one?”

“Oh, I just said silly stuff,” he said. “I told them that it’d be neato to have one and that I’d scream it to the world how great they was and whatnot.”

I just stared at him. Seriously? He put something stupid like that and he got one? Now I knew I was a shoe-in, because my reasoning seemed so much more intelligent. I knew mine would arrive in the mail in a few short weeks.

Well, short weeks have turned into long weeks, and the pilot program is over. Stinking Google. I even own some of their stupid stock. Now I’m just pissed. In fact, my coworker doesn’t really talk like a redneck hillbilly, I just wrote him like that out of sheer jealousy.

Well, looks like I’m going to have to get rid of all of the Google in my life. Guess I’ll have to switch to Yahoo! for my mail and calendar… and stop watching YouTube videos… and stop reading Blogger blogs… and find a way to monitor my blog other than Analytics… crap. This is going to take a lot of work. You know, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Google would just send me a free CR-48.

Seriously, please send me a free CR-48, Google. I know that someone at Google will see this post, ’cause I’m gonna tag the hell out of Google in it. If you send me one… I swear… sigh… I’LL SCREAM IT TO THE WORLD HOW GREAT IT IS!!!

Social Etiquette… Sucks!

The worst thing about being an adult is not being able to speak your mind at all times. There is a certain social etiquette that dictates times when we have to internalize our thoughts. I don’t know who came up this social etiquette, but he or she and all of their relatives should be flogged with wet noodles throughout eternity. Social etiquette sucks. In fact, many aspects of our current society suck. At least to me, and that’s all that really matters. See, we all feel pretty much the same, but we aren’t allowed to say so, because social etiquette dictates that it isn’t proper to say that you only want what’s best for you. We have to think of the good of the whole. Did I mention that social etiquette sucks?

Oh sure, I care about others. I don’t like children suffering around the world, and my heart goes out to the people of Japan. I wish that everyone had a decent job, and I wish poverty and war could be eradicated from the face of our planet. But none of this changes the fact if I want to send out a smart ass email at work, I shouldn’t have to worry about who I offend. I’m a smart ass. Period. When I send an email, having to hide my smart-assness only limits me from being who I really am. But social etiquette dictates that I cannot be a smart ass in business related email… or with coworkers… or with customers. Screw that. Life is too short to have to pretend you are someone you really are not. But, I will continue to be polite and try to hold back on the smart ass comments while at work. We all need a job, right? And social etiquette dictates that we have to behave a certain way in order to perform that job, right? Did I mention that social etiquette sucks?

Part of the training for social etiquette begins when we are young. Schools, at times, seem to like focusing on social etiquette more than teaching things of real value. I have a son in middle school. That son recently fractured his foot in PE. So, he can’t participate in actual PE activities until his foot heals. In order to pass PE, he needs to show up and pay attention. Sounds pretty fair, right? Well, the son recently was docked points in PE. Was he docked because he didn’t show up on time? No, he arrived in a timely manner. Was he docked because he wasn’t paying attention? No, he was paying as much attention as could be expected from someone sitting on the sidelines and not able to participate. He was docked points because he didn’t have his shirt tucked in. Seriously, because he didn’t have his shirt tucked in, he lost participation points for that day. Social etiquette dictates that if your teacher makes a rule, you must follow that rule, even though the rule was put into place so that middle school boys can’t look up the shirts of middle school girls during various middle school PE activities and said rule really doesn’t apply to you… because not only are you not participating because of an injury you received in PE… but because you are not a girl. But, of course, social etiquette dictates that you can’t have a rule for girls that you don’t have for boys; that wouldn’t be fair. Social etiquette is all about fairness for the masses and doesn’t really allow for individuality. The whole incident hasn’t really led me to question why my son didn’t have his shirt tucked in. This incident has got me to thinking about why I had to pay my son’s medical expenses. I mean, if I were hurt at work during a work related activity, my employer would pay my medical expenses. My son was hurt at school during a non-optional school activity, shouldn’t the school pay for it? Just wondering.

Social etiquette is all about learning the rules and learning to do things in a manner so as to not upset someone else. Often, following social etiquette prevents someone else from being upset, but it leaves you really pissed off. In my 41+ years of life, I have usually tried to follow the rules of social etiquette. How has it benefited me? Well, high blood pressure and a constant upset stomach seem to be about the only things I can think of that have been the result of following social etiquette. In other words, social etiquette sucks. I haven’t made a fortune following social etiquette. I don’t have a plethora of adult friends because I have followed the ways of social etiquette. I don’t feel personally or professionally fulfilled because of the wonders of social etiquette. I haven’t gained respect through following the mystical ways of social etiquette.

I desire for my kids to think outside the box… to be independently successful on their own terms… to never have to answer to someone they have no desire to answer to. I want them, if someone is pissing them off, to be able to tell that person to take a flying leap. In my mind, this is the way to true happiness in this life. Selfish? You betcha, and each and every one of us would like to be able to do it. The schools are going to keep right on teaching social etiquette. The schools are going to keep enforcing the same rules that I thought were stupid when I was a kid… and I still, as an adult, don’t see the value in. I guess if we all want the same cookie-cutter society that we have had for the last century, this is fine. But we aren’t given the same promises in life that our parents were offered. My employer doesn’t offer a guaranteed pension, does yours? Social Security isn’t looking like it’s going to play much of a role in my retirement (even though I’ve paid into it every year since I’ve started working). I have a retirement plan, but not much is going in, and it sure isn’t growing too fast. At the current rate, I will not be able to retire (which, as far as I can tell, is when you can tell the whole social etiquette thing to take a hike). I want to be the crotchety old man who always speaks his mind and doesn’t give a crap what anyone else thinks. I may never get to that point, so at least I can wish that for my kids.