Yeah, although the name is shamelessly pirated, that’s exactly what this is. In the realm of sales, I lived by an alias of a person who no longer exists. I have so much to say, but want to truncate it for fear of simply rambling too much. The best way to organize my thoughts is categorically, so here goes…

The Workplace:

This dingy, dirty, disgusting warehouse that we worked at was located neighboring a cemetery…yeah, really nice view through the windows which would not open in a room with no immediate fire exit, violating safety codes mind you. Anyhow, getting to work was a trip, because there was a very limited amount of transportation that could actually take you there. The best part is these rare and hard to spot enigmas usually ran on no regular schedule…meaning you could easily be late. Showing up so much as a minute late prompted a response from management with a serious and stern look in your direction followed up with a condescending question with no right answer, “What happened?” There is no right answer to this question, have fun with it, say there was a gun fight and you were almost killed. The best part is the rules get more and more ridiculous as time goes on. One mouse or bug is spotted in the workplace, and we have mandatory face to face meetings with management urging us that we can’t eat at our desks. A week earlier, we are told we can’t take lunch unless it is at a specific time. Forget about eating if you get hungry, because you can’t leave your desk and you can’t eat at it. Starve, and do a good job. Better yet, when it’s busy, work an extra day. If it’s really slow, screw you, sit at your desk and make no money. As salesmen, we work on commission, which brings me to our next topic, customers.

Customers:

My God, how I wanted to say this so many times to the general population of customers out there: FUCK YOU! Yeah, that’s right. If you have ever called a call center, spoken to a salesmen in a store, or ever bothered anyone in your life, a waiter, attendant, paper boy…you should rot in hell. So many times I dealt with someone who had no intention of buying, and acted like I owed it to them to do their bidding. “The customer is always right” bullshit has got to stop. Let me give you people a nice piece of information, if you have ever done the following, you’re regarded as an idiot: Asked a representative a question twice, asked a question twice in a different way, asked for a break on price, acted like you knew how the system worked, acted like you could make no mistakes, asked for a price-match (more on those later), referred yourself as a good customer, answered any questions no one asked, put a rep. on hold for more than 1 minute, asked questions that you really aren’t listening to answers about, pretended you were going to buy to get more help, called to complain about a representative that really didn’t do anything wrong, asked for a better price and were not even going to buy, …you know I could go on forever.

As far as the price matching or price breaks go, when you work on commission, if you discount anything, it’s money out of your pocket. All you people who have wanted your “fair price” are cheats. You should have bad karma, and if anything bad happened to you around the time you did that and you asked God why…now you know why. The worst part about being a salesman at this place was that you couldn’t even tell customers you’re on commission. If someone calls up and is wasting your time, you can’t even get rid of them. You people (some of you) are maggots and should be stomped out of existence accordingly. I hope you know who you are and maybe knock it off starting right now.

Management:

These fucking guys … what a joke. They have secured a half-way decent job and cover their asses by looking to pick you off at the first sign of slipping on anything. Their job was to threaten you and keep you scared. You’d pretty much discover that they were all bipolar or schizophrenic. You never knew which of the manager’s personalities you were going to speak to. Each month, we were rated based on a number of categories…like a million of them. If your numbers slipped on one of them, it was a huge deal. We would actually receive write-ups (you know, like in High School) about these “slips.” Being that we get numerous calls of all sorts, you would think one would accept that this isn’t a science, and can’t be treated as such. They would play number games, generating percentages and holding it against you, of course if you made a mistake once, they didn’t weigh percentages then, they chewed you out. If you didn’t perform to their standards, which were completely subjective on a person to person basis, you would be threatened with being pushed down to a lower shift, suspensions, even terminations…yes, you could be fired for not selling enough warranties. Think about that next time you buy a TV or something and you’re offered a warranty. If you can afford it, just fucking buy it. You haven’t the slightest idea how hard you’re making a salesman’s life. This is why salesman try so hard to get you to buy shit that you usually don’t want. If they don’t move enough merchandise, they find themselves leaving a dirty warehouse in the middle of nowhere at 9 PM on a Sunday night every week. Ultimately if they didn’t like you, usually they couldn’t fire you unless you committed some outlandish behavior. They would just make your life hell until you quit.

My Co-workers:

You bond with your mates very fast because you all feel like a team being treated like garbage. A few salesmen will stab you in the back, but for the most part everyone sympathizes with you. You’re one of the gang. The first time you get written-up, usually the gang will greet you with smiles and refer to your cherry-popping. People there are over-worked and under-appreciated. The people that are there for a long time are taken for granted. Many people there are just stuck there, and the company knows this, so they push you and threaten you and constantly make you feel like you’re nothing without them and they are doing you a huge favor by forcing you to come in 6 days a week, 9 hours a day. You would think that management would feel some pity, never. They all cower and the beckon call of the mighty owner, making a zillion times more money than the rest of the staff combined. As time goes on, benefits disappear. Insurance plans get worse, match 401K out the window because the company “isn’t doing so well,” and then you have to listen to the owners spew out that they’re having the greatest year ever!

I really could rant about this forever, but I’ll stop here and spare you all. The bottom line about a place like this is pretty basic: After a while, you look around and realize there is no room for growth. My life was frozen virtually while I was there. I progressed zero in all that time. I found myself 3 years older and just angrier. Maybe work universally sucks, most people will agree, but work can suck Monday through Friday 9-5, not 9 hours on weekends, nights, and holidays, thank you.

I also posted this one on BWOAK. Texas Instruments has come up with a technology that allows for one TV to show individual gamers each a different screen via special glasses (along with the special TV). This is a technology they call “DLP DualView.” At the right price, this would be a great idea. At the moment, it’s stupid – here’s why.

The TV: This piece was quoted at CES as costing $1899. Bare in mind this is a DLP TV for later. Apparently there are two ways to use the TV. The first is that it can create 3D video by displaying dual images and the glasses would sort it out (which you can do with regular sets anyway) and the other is that it will filter out one of the video feeds so you can only see one (again via the glasses). The idea is that people look on your screen and use info that they would not realistically have access to to aid them. Some people call this cheating, I think it also can be classified as what’s called “meta-gaming.” No now instead of being able to do that, you’d get a jumble on the screen, something like what is pictured below. Is this really that useful?

The Glasses: $199 – with the hope that it will come down to $99 at some point. So right of the bat, for this to make any sense at all, you need two pairs of these, $498. So we’re roughly at $2400 dollars. Now wear the glasses, you feel like an idiot.

Oh yeah, you’ll have to have two game consoles. Let’s play the devil’s advocate and say that your friend is going to lug his over for this event, despite the simple labor of this being annoying. Now Player 3 shows up, “Hey guys can I play?” Nope! So this technology is useful if you only hang out with one person at a time who has the same game console and game as you…and feels like bringing it over. Or…here’s an alternative to what you can do with that same $2400 dollars…

You can buy 2 flat panel plasma TVs. Let’s go with the Panasonic TH-42PX75U, which I just found on Amazon for $1099. Two of them, $2200. DLP technology was great when it was the affordable alternative to big-screen flat panels. The price of plasmas and LCDs has dropped significantly in the last few years, many DLP manufacturers have fled the DLP (or any other projection) TV market all together. I selected plasma for the sake of this example since I feel it is simply the best picture there is. Moving right along, now you have two displays and you can feel like a king. Now you have $200 dollars left still. You and your one friend can have a nice meal together at a fancy restaurant for like $100. Maybe you can buy a new game on the way home…and then because this advice was so helpful donate the remaining $50 to us! 🙂

Although I have complained about customers in the past, this rant is more of a plea to ask that they (possibly you) just learn how to act as a customer. Too often customers come at you from the wrong angle, behave radically, or just act like jerks. Part of the problem is most of you have no concept of what being on the other side is like. Frankly, whichever comedian who ever said that everyone should work retail or wait tables as a job at least once is absolutely right. Hopefully this will enlighten you. I have accumulated some backup for this adventure however. The famous Denis K. who ranted about bad drivers now joins me as a fellow salesman…well former salesman, heh. To make the compiling of this work easier to follow, all M2J sections are in red, and all Denis K. shall be plain.

As a salesman I can tell you that if you contact a call center or walk into a retail store and speak to a salesman, in the sales department…sales, retail, and you don’t want to buy anything, you’re an idiot. Regardless of how justified you think you are, no, you are regarded as an idiot.

Although technically not a barter system, we still live in an environment where exchanges take place. People trade their money for goods and services of others. Smart business owners realized that they could merge these and trade money for goods and services. This has led to the initiation of salesmanship. These salesmen provided their service in order to sell a good. This is the basis of economy.

While most people realize that they need a salesman to aid them, the predominant majority has no clue on how to act in front of them and what they should or should not say. The salesmen contribute to the economy by being a means of currency redistribution but the general public still insists on their mannerless interactions.

I would really like to complain about assholes who fucking pump you for information and then either will buy somewhere else, or ask you to match a price of a so-called “competitor.” If they were really competition you would have bought from them. Part of what you’re paying for, at least what need to realize you’re paying for, is the service part of the equation. Do you like being able to call up anytime you want and ask 1000 questions? Try that shit at a Best Buy or any of these bullshit Internet retailers that you would never even buy from, none-the-less call up.

People seem to think that salesmen are there only to take their money and do nothing further. But what they do not realize is that treating them as such is counterproductive—especially when there is something that they need. However, when they need something, they will not let any of the salesman’s constraints stop them from asking a barrage of questions.

Yes, salesmen are there to make money off of commissions from the products they sell to their customers but that does not mean that the customer has to point that out. Especially in an industry with return customers, it is in the salesman’s best interest to do their best by the customer. However, certain people feel it is their duty, nay their goal in life, to point this out. In actuality, this is quite counterproductive as instead of thwarting the salesman’s tactics, it invites more. The salesman will have no desire to help such a customer—even if it costs them their commissions. A close relative of the aforementioned problem is the customer who finds it necessary to insult the salesman. Unless provoked, the customer has no reason to do this. Again, it is counterproductive. Insulting a person whose job it is to take your money is inviting displeasure.

Another type of customer we can do without is a rude one. There are several varieties of this nuisance, be it one who shows no respect to the salesman or one who criticizes everything that is said and done. A customer who does not even bother to say a simple hello or a different greeting of their choosing is rude. He simply goes into his shtick about needing help or having a question he needs answered. Another further type of this customer is one when asked “How can I help you?” responds with something that does not even remotely begin to answer such a question. Instead of actually explaining what they need help with, they cast doubt on the salesman by saying “I certainly hope so!” There is not much to expect from this jewel of a customer. His time is simply more important!

The above mentioned somewhat rings a bell of “The Prick” customer whom I have mentioned before. Treating people like they’re beneath you when you want their help is a huge mistake. If they are really beneath you, you wouldn’t need their help. Snap out of it. You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.

It is extremely rude (and I cannot stress that enough) to hang up on a over-the-phone salesman because you were not satisfied with the answer. That is akin to walking away from a salesman right in front of you because the device in mind does not meet some sort of convoluted objective that the customer has made up. Even if not satisfied, a customary “thank you” is in order. Acting as such ensures that on your trip back, the salesman will do their best to not help you as much as they can.

People who act in this manner are bullies. Unfortunately this isn’t grade-school and a salesman isn’t able to respond by socking this customer in the face. I remember a quote I once read that went something to the tune of, “Anyone you think is a nice person, but isn’t nice to waiters, isn’t a nice person.” This is applies to salesman and any other similar line of work as well.

As previously mentioned, most salesman have no need to lie. It would follow that the customer would not need to lie as well. To the salesman’s hindrance, that is not always the case. Since salesmen work with people every day, hours at a time, it is not to the customer’s benefit to flat out lie. Even over-the-phone salesmen can pinpoint liars and fibbers. Lying ensures an inferior service as an appropriate product is not selected nor is the salesman able to provide worthwhile advice.

I would like to throw in a slight amendment to this. If you as a customer are ever stupid enough to ask a question like, “Is this product good?” the answer is always yes, unless you are considering buying a more expensive item to begin with. A lot of people ask this question after they are practically done with buying it. What salesman is ever going to say, “Actually no, let me refund your money and stop you from making a mistake and buying this.” “Good” can be a relative term people.

It is perfectly understandable to expect certain things from a salesman. It is not out of the ordinary to ask a salesman for a price match when it is a policy of the company. It is however a different thing when they demand such a thing. Most, if not all, of these people realize that some of the prices they see are ridiculously low. Ridiculously low to the extent that they cannot possibly be a legitimate price. But that does not stop they from wanting your superior service at a price fit only a phony company. Threatening the salesman is ill-advised, as is yelling and promising a law suit. If they want such a price, they can simply purchase it from where they have seen it. If trust does not exist, why should this price even be considered?

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Just like above, you really should understand why there’s such a price difference between retailers. You think it’s okay to buy from them? Buy from them!

I would also like to remind all of you idiots out there, have your shit ready when you call any call center for anything! You know when you pick up the phone and call a center for whatever reason and get hit with a long hold time? Assholes like you are why that happens. Do salesmen a favor while you’re at it, don’t call up a sales line unless you want to buy something. Don’t start your research by effectively asking a salesman to do it for you. Do your own research, narrow your own selection. You’re a grown up for God sakes! You’ll find that you’ll not only be able to answer your own questions with just a little bit of research, but you’ll actually learn something in the process, that my friends is priceless. At the end of the research process, take your credit card out and perhaps have one or two questions ready. After the questions have been answered by the experts that you called for help, buy the item and pay full price!

Just remember, when you go into a retail situation as a customer, don’t be a dick. You’re dealing with some poor chap trying to make a living and get through the rat race just like you. Think about what you’re asking of someone, especially if their livelihood depends on you buying something and you waste their time knowing you’re not going to. You wouldn’t be happy if you were forced by some idiot to take unpaid time off of work for no reason. Believe me folks, if I ever run into you in a retail store giving the staff a hard time … they can’t say anything to you, but you better believe I will!

First, did you catch Tin Man? Well if you didn’t, catch Tin Man. I was lukewarm to the idea of a spin on The Wizard of Oz, this is definitely a 180, but quite fun to enjoy. The chick that they cast as Dorot- I’m sorry, “DG” is something of a weak actress, but the show is still pretty sweet and to her credit, some of those lines nobody could deliver well. I’m not sure where they got the name. The “Tin Man” isn’t exactly the star of the show, nor is it centered around him really. Although there is no official “Wizard of Oz” or even the merry old land of Oz technically, you’ll quickly see how they work things in cleverly. The world we are a part of is called the “Outer Zone.” The homage payments to the famous story are plentiful, believe me. This gives me hope that I can one day make my version of the 1939 movie, which is pretty much the same as the movie, except with Hulk Hogan as part of the team. Anyway, what was nice about this story was that it seemed to exist independently of the 1939 classic, carefully paraphrasing and not quoting.

…and then they released the wolves. (See, this post for that reference.)

[SPOILER ALERT!] In the last installment of this mini series, they tie the story into the original movie, very poorly as well. First of all, a movie like The Wizard of Oz is extremely sacred and if you dare fuck with it on any level, you need to do it right. Rather than bore you with the details of the scene, just watch it here, we’ll discuss afterwards…

So why did I dislike this? We have a whole story here operating on its own and now, as if we somehow need to give this tale credibility, we go back and say, “Look! It’s all connected!” Dorothy, in case you have forgotten, WAS DREAMING! It was all a dream! Remember? “You were there, you were there…” So, some 2-bit Sci-fi mini series writer just called Noel Langley a liar. Now, some of you who know more about the Wizard of Oz are aware that the movie is originally a novel written by L. Frank Baum, in which the adventure is not a dream, but in fact real. If you’re willing to buy that, fine, but we’re dealing with the moving pictures here. Frankly, that’s the version of the story we take for granted, coupled with fact that Dorothy Gale and the surroundings are black and white in this interactive tomb-simulation thing that she eternally rests in (despite the fact that she returned home and it was just a dream and how in the hell is she buried in Oz, or the “O.Z.?”). Now, to make this story fall apart further, if you buy the original story being reality, then what about the faux-wizard who ended up in Oz before Dorothy? Then he would be the first “slipper.” Finally, damn it all to hell, who they hell did they get to play Dorothy? Dorothy, portrayed by Judy Garland, was a very timid character. Despite this, they cast the role now as a ghostly, know-it-all, creepy little girl version of Dorothy, one I would liken to them whack-jobs from the hotel in the movie The Shining (the 1980 version of course). Based on the shot of Dorothy’s shoes, one could determine if the Dorothy we’re tying into here is the novel or movie Dorothy, if it wasn’t in black and white! In the novel, they were silver. They were made ruby for the movie, however, she never had these in black and white Kansas, which doesn’t help any. Dorothy was also less timid in the book, but that’s a far cry from creepy dead Dorothy pictured here.

I guess based on this research, we would have to guess that we were dealing with the novel version of Dorothy Gale (more or less). I just don’t see why they had to go this route. It’s the last 20 minutes of the final part of the series, they have already hooked us. I guess they felt the needed it for an inflated “cool factor.” The inconsistency is that the whole movie is self-contained. We suddenly are made to incorporate both stories together. Why isn’t it “Oz” then? Why isn’t it the “Emerald City.” All things considered, the series was entertaining and I’m willing to grit and bare the bad and unnecessary tie in with the original story. I just (as always) needed to complain.

Yes! My boss, Joe Friedman (the “J’ of “J&R Music and Computer World”), can park at hydrants because he is rich and rich people are above the law. I just needed to share with all of you.

Anyone who makes “slide shows” on youtube, Knock it off!!! No one wants to see still pictures of a band you like put to one of their mediocre songs.

To all portable media hardware manufacturers, please make a device that is truly plug and play. Make it drag and drop, and have all the application and codecs ready to go on the device. This would eliminate using software that we all hate and wasting our time converting.

To anyone who lives outside of the U.S. … we know…we really do know…if you think we don’t you’re basing it on the guy running the country and not his disloyal and disapproving subjects.

People, if we all decide to do something, we win the numbers game. Don’t want to pay all the extra fees on your cell phone bill that seem made up? Just don’t pay them. If we all do it, eventually they will have to just do away with him. In fact, how about we get unlimited calling and everything else, 40 dollars a month. That’s it, there’s no reason I should have to pay x¢ to send a message and someone else y¢ just so eventually, over (T)time, (x+y)*T = Big ass yacht for some douche working at T-Mobile. We all as a society say “We pay 40, that’s it.” They can’t stop us. Even if they try to pull the plug the groundwork is already a-lay if you will.

Vince McMahon…my once great Vince McMahon, what happened to you? So much careful thought and planning…became so little concern for prestige and giving the fans a feeling of content.

BluRay Vs. HDDVD, I think is starting to feel like a BluRay victory is closer. If BluRay discs outsell HDDVD discs 2 to 1, with the price of the players being more expensive on the BluRays by almost double mind you…I think that’s a bad sign for the HDDVD people. I don’t know what else you can do though. They each have half the movies, same quality really, the difference is the hardware, BluRay costs more…May HDDVD just needs a sexy girl in some marketing campaign … like the cavemen were to Geico.

Linux, you actually betrayed me! In what seemed to be a glorious day, your new update came out, 7.10 (Ubuntu). I have a graphics card in this machine that should be able to run you in its sleep, won’t work! Someone out there please just make a master list of hardware that is certifiable for Linux distros. Plenty of these companies have nonsense stickers and insignias that make their way onto the packing of this stuff, make one for Ubuntu, or any of the zillions of Linux distros and just pop them on stuff so I can buy optimal gear. By the way, I realized I didn’t know the plural of “Linux” so my cop-out method was saying “Linux distros.” Does anybody know?

Here’s a turn for everyone in the 180 degrees statement, I bought a Zune. That’s right, a Microsoft Zune, and of course how could I end that notion without the final part, the Zune I bought was Brown! Guess what, it plays music. What do I like about? The screen is actually nice, the music sounds good, navigation is easy. Pictures and Video are a nice bonus, I don’t know if that’s the purpose of this device for some, I just wanted a music player that was portable. What don’t I like? Syncing it to the software isn’t the easiest thing in the world. For one, it tries to two way sync, meaning unlock the way Apple does it, if you deleted a song from your library and then re sync, the song will be copied from your Zune to the library. Sometimes you will delete stuff discover it’s made its way back somehow until hunt around and find that the Zune software (also called “Zune” reads from sources and despite removing items from your library, it will simply reproduce them. Frankly I really don’t get why with all the Windows Media certified devices thing Microsoft did for so long, and building in a device tab and music store into Media Player, would they then make a second and completely devoid of that entire real program which the Zune uses to “sync.” One the music is synced up though it’s done and good to go, although the actual syncing seems to take a little longer than I thought it would, I guess I’m not used to 30 gigs over USB 2.0, but I miss Fire wire already, Ditching fast and more efficient technology for slower and older technology make a hell of a little sense. What can justify this anyway? People like flat connectors? It has the word “Universal” in it? Overall I like the Zune. Frankly given the option of getting an iPod (80 gigs at that) and a Zune w/30 gigs, Zune seemed to hold the interest. Perhaps dealing with Apple products just makes me wonder what else is out there, feeling as though worst that can happen is something not apple will be so unbearable and I’ll run back to Apple and they can have the bragging rights that they will so rightly deserve. Again, that was all a big what if, we’re only at the beginning of the adventure “M2J gets a Zune.” It was also recently that I had noticed that most of the girls on my prior top ten lists turn out pretty high up on the chain. I usually nab ones that are not strikingly obvious. Perhaps my sacred list possesses some blessing ability. Perhaps I am the CZAR of all chicks hot! I guess we’ll find out during my next list? hehe

Oh Smackdown Vs Raw 2008, I think this is the one where M2J’s contact wasn’t renewed. Simply put, the game play has just mutated again and again, it is now something else. Picking up this game for a first time and learning from here on in would work, but adjusting as I must do…ain’t gonna happen. Luckily, on that same day, when kiddies all over the country are going to be making “hardcore” matches of Cena and Bautista, I’ll be delivering the Delphin Diving Elbow Drop to one victim while my Tag Team Partner Curry Man delivers the Spicy Drop [CRITICAL!].

In my never-ending quest for knowledge, I found myself finally taking on the often-confusing realm of streaming my own audio over the international network, or “Internet.” Knowing some folk who DJ at Manhattanville College in New York (which you can visit at wmvlradio.com), I opted to listen to their shows when I could. A problem one day started, however, where the music was completely over-amped and distorted. It was practically impossible to understand what they were saying and the music was unlistenable. I decided to try to and help them as best as I could, not having any official ties to the school, doing this would require me to remotely trouble shoot and leave it to the internal folks running the show in my stead. The first step was to find out if the signal transmitting over FM was okay, it was. Right off the bat, we can deduce that the problem is the output to the machine streaming the audio or the machine streaming itself (or both). Meanwhile, I decided I wanted to see how this whole Internet radio worked. I had seen a zillion methods of how to stream before, but they all seemed confusing, application specific (as in what media player you could use to hear the stream) and frankly, full of geek jargon even I couldn’t understand. Finally I got to narrow some of the possibilities down and discovered Icecast. I think there’s a distinct possibility if you are still reading this you have had some woes with this program and it took me a while to figure out exactly how to do this. Despite how complex they make it seem, with all the configuration files and encoding dlls you need, it’s actually simple.

http://amateurtech.org/wordpress/?p=64

There are the directions I put together and put to work as well. Here is the link to my “radio” station, which is off 99% of the time. The benefit of having it is if I want to play a song for someone, from something or anything…whatever the reason, the ability to quickly broadcast something out live comes in handy if for nothing else.

http://m2j.us/radio.php

On a sadder note, my employer, who probably has already found this page because his amazing ability to act on paranoid micromanagement compulsions, needs to shape the frig up. You can motivate your team via fear, or…MOTIVATION! Why do you choose fear each time? It’s not that we don’t want to cooperate or get along. Everyone gets along there, no one has any strong gripes, partly because the disdain for the customers mixed with the intolerable nonsense coming from the big wigs. We always are told we didn’t follow direction, and we’re going to be fired and no one listens…if the majority of a staff is having serious trouble following some rules, one should examine the possibility that the rules are simply too stringent. Motivate, incentive, give people something back. Try it for a week, like really try it. …wow I could be talking about a lot of jobs in the country today…Well, all of you learn!

Some advice for some of the younger ones behind me. Although only a few years older, I can give you some heads up. Don’t sweat the special someone in your life too much after drama because regular, know when to burn it out than fade it away. Eventually you won’t care, you’ll have moved onto the next sweet special someone part 2 and you feel 1000 times better starting off with a clean slate and now just a little bit stronger than you used to be. At the first sign of any trouble this time, you bounce. Eventually this cycle always repeats. To those of you who are doing okay, don’t go too nuts either. These things have a way of coming down and the longer and more time you invested into this, you could find yourself returning back to a world which you no longer recognize. If you have met that once person that everything has been perfect ever since and still is and looks like it’s going to be…well, you win.

I’m Hulked Up Baby!

I want 2004 back again to just regroup and get going But I guess I’ll have to move passed it, that rut is just about over anyway. You shall see, You will all see…

In my adventures in the realm of retail, I have pretty much narrowed down a comprehensive list of customers that one will encounter. I would like any one of you reading this who has ever shopped anywhere ever to read carefully and determine where in the list you belong. One should also note that these categories aren’t mutually exclusive.

The Pretender: This particular breed aggravates me for several reasons. What this person takes advantage of (but doesn’t deserve) is the customer’s treatment. You see, as we all have heard at some point, “The customer is always right.” For argument sake, let’s assume this is true (it’s not by the way). Well as far as I am concerned, you are NOT a customer until you buy something, period. Until you actually buy something, you’re a shopper, not a customer, and there is a difference. The problem is, because of the politics that occur behind the closed doors of a business, you are granted the customer’s rights and immunities strictly for the potential that you (maybe) will become a customer. So what does this person do? Simply, they pretend. This person acts as if they’re going to make a purchase, for various reasons. Some like the feeling of being a customer. Some just want information and figure they’ll just waste a salesman’s time. Again, this person is NOT a customer, and luckily for them, the business still treats them as if they are.

The Caveman: Sometimes these aren’t all bad, but the caveman can be a very draining to deal with. The caveman doesn’t know anything about anything, it’s a wonder he even knows about stores. Whatever the caveman is interested in, he simply is more intrigued that the technology exists to produce the item of interest than what it does. What’s good about the caveman is that the level of shock sometimes will have him or her throwing their wallet at you. The bad is sometimes they’re just trying to learn more about this amazing new invention. Dealing with this can be very tricky, if you touch on the wrong topic, you’ve opened a can of worms. You may mention a technology or use of the item that overlaps with something else. Now you have to explain more.

The “Educated Consumer”: You can tell from the quotations that the consumer in this example is far from educated. The “educated consumer” is fully loaded with more useless knowledge than an Antarctica history teacher. They have studied long and hard all the buzz words that exist in the world, and also feel as if they know things about the business and are on the inside track…they’re not. The “educated consumer” for example knows that when buying a budget brand item of just about any genre, they’re much smarter, the foolish ones paying a lot of money for Vercace or Sony are just paying for name. Or maybe that’s what they tell themselves to justify being cheap? In either case, this breed will tell you you’re wrong on topics you know in your sleep.

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What’s the dilly with everything lately? For many years there was a very simple structure to people’s roles in society. I can’t speak for everywhere in the world, but this applies strongly to America. Let’s start with the government. For those of you not up to speed on American history, here’s a quick crash course: Back when the country was put together, millions of years ago (okay, like 230 years ago) we were at war with [Not So] Great Britain. Why? Well there was some dude over there named George who decided he was boss of the world, which for the most part was correct. Anything Britain wanted, they took. Basically, they were an empire. Now, we being America…at the time “The Colonies,” whom were under British rule, we figured, “No prob, we’re part of the big empire and since we pay taxes, there rests no doubt in our minds that our opinion matters.” Well, George the Douche King basically told us that wasn’t the case. We paid taxes, but uh, what we wanted or thought didn’t matter. So in a nutshell, we said, “Oh fuck this then…” and then we stopped paying taxes dumped a buncha tea out and kicked the shit outta them. I wasn’t alive to give any personal account of the events that took place, but I have many confirmed reports from trusted sources that say something like, George Washington yelled something out to the British survivors when they were on their battered boat headed home, something like, “Piss off, Fuckers!” I think he flipped them the bird too. So it was around this time that a buncha our forefathers got together and decided that we were gonna be our own country now. The United States of America was born. We made an Independence Declaration, but since this was the 18th century people used to say everything backwards to sound smart, it was called “The Declaration of Independence.” Grouped together with the Rights Bill (again, reversed so “Bill of Rights”) and some other stuff, we now had what was called “The Constitution.” Luckily it was only one word, so no backwards nonsense. Anyhoo, Laws were passed, many simple, but timeless, designed with great ideas of what was to come in the future. What was it that made America different? It was that the PEOPLE would run the country. At the time, this was like … what podcasting is today. The comparison simply meaning it was relatively new and while it had some traction, it was still a new way of doing things.
So now we had established that people would run America. No dumb kings or churches, the people would be the ones who decided what was best for the people. The common man was meant to run the country. Farmers, blacksmiths, grave-diggers…all potential leaders of the country…as well as any other political job that had an opening. The politicians would simply vote on bills, laws, amendments, work with the treasuries and deal out the money as per needs and fundings to be had, and then go back to their 9-5 once that work was over. How did you become a politician? Easy, your fellow man would have to be convinced you were understanding of what he wanted or needed. Ideally we had a country that ran on common folk adjusting things as they went along to make things better, ultimately, any decisions would benefit them as they would everyone! Something happened though. Somehow, at some point in our history…being a politician became a full time job. It became more and more important and eventually the law-makers and leaders of the free world were too important to be the “common man.” Suddenly, what we had was no longer politicians, but Royalty. The only difference is, they didn’t call it royalty, they kept the same names to the different ranks. Something else happened, the worst part of all…people got used to this…for the most part.
What happened next? we had a bit of a war on our hands. See, basically the Southern part of the country thought that they could basically be stupid morons and get away with it. They decided to make their own laws, ideals, money, and my favorite, made their own stupid flag. It was such a rip off of the originial and that is just in such bad taste. [scoffs] So the smart, handsome, sophisticated heroes of the North paid them a visit and basically wiped the floor with them, banged all their women, pissed on their flag and headed back home. Again, just a rumor I heard, but I have it on good word that Abe Lincoln would try to be proper and just snap, saying things like, “Well I want America to get along, but the south is just like a retarded brother to the north and they’re just a bunch of dumb hillbilly southern yucks.” You gotta love that man. He had balls. So even though the war was over and the North had clearly won…the south began doing things their own way. What this means is…the wrong way. They started all making outlandish claims, like that they won. Sometimes claiming that the war wasn’t over…they also spent a lot of time in church, perfecting their goofy accents and all talking about how sinful and bad premarital sex was…all the while having a lot of premarital sex. They have some weird Barbecue fetish too. Fucking wackos. I think it’s every southerner’s dream to lick BBQ sauce off of Jesus’s penis or something…while being sodomized and plotting to lie about it. Enough about them though, this is about America.
So we now have half the country being BBQ Jesus freaks. The other problem, is we have half the potential royalty of tomorrow coming from this land. Easy pickins, the new blood starts hollering about how when he’s in office, he’s gonna run things like Jesus did, and viola, he’s elected. All hail king BBQ Jesus. So with all uneducated people who from the south electing the few people with a greater mind than most from the south…a devious mind for the most part… slowly we have Jerk-off Southerners running the country (that’s the North and the South sadly). Even though we are supposed to separate church and state, the BBQ Jesus freaks of the south don’t feel that way…and part of their religion is simply making everyone have to think like them, or they are infidels. You can equate them to the Borg…give yourself 2 points if you got that reference.
Let’s review real quick. We go from free thinking commoners of the 18th Century being chosen to make the one nation we all share as perfect for all of it’s people as possible…to ultra conservative suppressive dickwads basically controlling their empire with an iron fist. They don’t even have to try now that the ball’s rolling. No one takes time to learn anything anymore! You see a name on the ballad, you choose one … if you’re even gonna vote, which plenty of people for the most part don’t for some strange reason. What do we have to show for it now? A nation which I personally once pledged to every day, making note of key terms like, “indivisible” and “liberty” now torn apart. One good way to judge how a country is doing is simply to look at the spectrum of money. If the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, something has gone terribly wrong. Well I’d say something HAS gone terribly wrong. Fatcat owners of huge companies, be them retail, record companies, motion pictures…and especially monopolistic companies like phone companies are nearly royalty themselves. The government once for the people, who would never stand for this kind of corruption and bastardization of the free world, is gone now and replaced by the elite royalty of which we are now under the rule of. Rather than help those in need, they collect money from everyone…collect YOUR money and spend it on…regulating radio to make sure shock jocks don’t say words like “fart” or tap Internet traffic to see what kind of google searches you and I do. I’m not sure how it has come this far, but it has. The powers that be have become too strong and the majority of their time in power is to figure out how to keep themselves in power and you beneath them. It has been this way for a while, but it wasn’t as publicly flaunted with prior kings of America. What makes Bush an amazing president, yes amazing, is that he is such a fucking buffoon, that he can’t even keep any of this stuff hidden from us. He’s almost flaunting it right before our very eyes, that this is how the government is, whether we [the people] like it or not…and SOMEHOW got re-elected…well again, I forgot I can chalk that up to the BBQ Jesus south.
In ‘clusion [my world, my words] I could easily blame the south for a lot of the problems with this country. In fact, I think I have done that somewhat and surely my feelings of this come through in this …dare I call it an article? But, blame only tells us whose responsible and after a certain point, focusing on blame only becomes counter-productive when more time can be spent on the solution. What is the solution? Well sadly, no one has a clear cut solution or…let’s face it, it’d be done with. However, why don’t we learn from what’s been stated above. Let’s maybe try and unify what our goals are. How about becoming more educated in politics. Learn a thing or two, don’t just wander in to the booth and throw away a vote. Being a politician is a cushy job with a lot of perks. Dick Chaney is basically a robot…and he shot someone for no reason. In the movie Robocop, Robocop tries to arrest the chief of the Detroit Police and within like seconds, he’s being shot at from every direction with orders [promptly followed] to have him destroyed. Dick Chaney though…shoots someone and no one gives a hoot. Getting to the point, being a politician is like royalty…and if politicians actually were under pressure to be applicable at their jobs…knowing if their weren’t that they’d be out on their ass, they might actually perform to some level above sub-standard. Fuck man, we live in a country where you can work a full time job and come away with like…less than 300 dollars a week and right of the bat the same government keeping you making this little amount of money takes almost a third of it?? Well this is fine by the people keeping things this way… while they’re eating their lobster dinners and smoking fine Cuban cigars…which you and me can’t buy because that’s illegal and only the rich and powerful are above the law. Please everyone, especially those of you who say things like you’re not that political or “I don’t follow politics…” …fucking follow politics! Shit if you had to hire someone to fucking garden you would at least meet them and evaluate them a little. You’re gonna tell me anyone could just waltz the fuck in to rule the country and you “don’t follow politics.” Fuck you! You don’t have to know the guy’s stance on everything, just watch one debate, read one newspaper. You know how when you write papers for just about anything, school/work at least, you tend to try and optimize the spelling and grammar? Well tell me how someone who shows what an ignorant douche bag he is like Bush can king of America when the fucking guy can’t spit out a complete sentence.

On a personal note, I am sorry to have put any readers who know me as being a little more lax and fun-loving through this read, but I have had so much pent up aggression and rage with this…I finally had enough. Anyone who knows me knows that I have always been a bleeding-heart patriot. I’ve always loved America and always was proud to be an American. I’m the guy that owns a billion different varieties of USA bandannas, shirts, and other attire. I’m the guy who gets a hard-on on July 4th. I’m the kinda guy that memorized all the songs this country has dedicated to it. I’m the fucking guy who wears red, while and blue feather boas on American holidays and isn’t embarrassed to be patriotic. A snap-assessment now would be to turn my back on this country and say I’m no longer and patriot or I’m anti-American. However, it dawns on me that this isn’t the case…I’m a REAL American! I didn’t turn my back on this country, nor did it turn it’s back on me. We let a few people with sticks up their asses ruin it for all of us and I know I’m not alone as a real American, patriotic or not, you’re out there. If you ever couldn’t pay a bill or had to eat fruit and cold-cuts for a week, washing it down with nothing but water just to get by because your fucking rich fat cat boss decided that bringing home 200 dollars a week is more than enough for any average person … then you’re a real American too! It’s long about time we take back our country and get things back how they were supposed to be…some sort of semblance of how our forefathers planned things out. Oh, and if you’re from the south…take note that just about every culture’s silly myths and superstitions are long since dead…Jesus turning potatoes into French fries or whatever the fuck he did that made him so popular is just another myth and you people have to learn that when guy can’t say big words like “nuclear” and is a burned out coke-head, he shouldn’t be president because he likes Jesus so much. You’re better off electing a guy whose really into spiders or something, at least spiders are real and accounted for. Thank you.

Wanna bitch back? Feel free to do so.