Do you remember these machines? You would always (and still) find them in the lobby of your local grocery store, tucked against the wall as they beckoned every child to tug at mommy's sleeve and ask if they could have the spare change after mommy bought her groceries to have a piece of candy.
Well, technically, we never asked politely. We usually placed our heads up against the plastic, eyes glued on the contents as our parents knew we would make a scene in the parking lot/car about not getting ANYTHING WE LIKED from the BORING GROCERY STORE. Yes, we would say this loudly in the backseat of the car, besides ourselves and filled with indignation, that our parents would make us put away the groceries when we got home -- a.k.a. subject us to child slave labor -- without giving us any reward.
I remember these machines in particular. One would be filled with toy prizes encapsulated in round plastic. Another would be filled with jaw breakers/fireballs. The third would be filled with candy sort of like Mike and Ike candies.
And the last was filled with nuts. There was always a ton of nuts in those machines, and I can't remember ever buying them even when the three others were empty. The Mike and Ikes were always good to chew on when you just wanted to have something in your mouth after snacking on cookies.
I also stayed away from the fireballs/jaw breaker candy. I wasn't fond of eating really hot stuff, and the jaw breakers looked like beat-up marbles in the machine. If I found a machine that instead had gumballs, I'd jump at the chance to get as many as I could even though they looked old enough to use as cannon shot when evading a small third world country.
Then there were the prizes. You could find bouncing balls, green toy soldiers, key chain pieces, small magic slates or any cheap toy that you could fit into a container that was the size of an adult's palm.
There was always one toy that every kid wanted, but there were maybe two in the entire vending machine. And we would save up our money to fill up bulging pockets as we couldn't wait to get to the grocery store. We'd plug our change into the machine, holding out hope that this day would be the day that we'd get the prize.
Sometimes it was. But more often than not it wasn't.
I bet Clint Eastwood never expected the movie, "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" to be the most used cliche of all-time when describing a range of aspects concerning a topic.
I'm using it today to describe something that irks me: online forums
Online forums are good places to find information, if you're so lazy that you can't find the information yourself by doing a little research. Really, most people visit the strange land of online forums to get other people -- i.e. those good Samaritans who like to help, or those egotistical sociopaths who believe that all their information is ACCURATE, CORRECT, AND GODSENT -- to do the work for you in finding the information that you want.
Before I go on, I'm not referring to social media sites. Sure, they are types of forums also. But they are so much prettier with sparkly ads that try to coax you to try a free product so long as you pay $59.99 for shipping and handling (regular product price - $14.99). This rant post is strictly concerning online forums, especially online company forums.
Seriously, online company forums are like rogue cops. They question the authority of the company while hiding behind the big shiny armed Amendment right of "free speech." Half the stuff you read at an online company forum would never be posted on a bulletin board in the office's break room. The rogue cop would never walk down the rat maze of cubicle offices, loudly proclaiming what they don't like about the company right in front of the boss and still expect to work there the next day.
But this is exactly what online company forums do.
I've been a part of two different company forums. I won't mention names because I still work for them. But I wanted to dissect a recent comment made on one. The name of the poster won't be included. I only want this to be a "What not to post on a forum board and expect people to like you," type of post rant.
(The poster's comments will be in italics. My dissertation will be in regular formatting)
***
Dissertation 1:At the risk of being "blacklisted" by ...
This is the dare to the company. You know what is going to follow is going to be bad. But a person posts this anyway as a dare to the company to remove the comment and PROVE they are a bad company because they are engaging in the no-no censorship of the comment by breaking the amendment right of free speech.
"What are you afraid of, company? You want to know the truth? You can't handle the TRUTH. So go ahead and delete my comment now because you know if I said these things face-to-face to you I would deserve to be fired by creating a scene in your business environment that might effect company moral and disrupt productivity... um... yeah..."
Dissertation 2:I must say that the
demands placed [enter your profession] are completely unreasonable.
But, you knew what was required of the company before you applied for the job. That's how bosses determine if you are qualified for the job by listing all the job duties as a screening process so that potential employees know what will be expected of them. If they can't meet the supposed demands of the company, then they can seek a different job.
***
Dissertation 3:We are not
talking about a professional [enter type of company] where all [enter job description] can earn
$1,000 per week.
Um, I'll say this. The job that I work for pays you for the amount of work that you do. It's contract work. You don't receive a baseline salary. So you can, in fact, earn that much if you get enough work assignments. But you can only get assignments if you do professional work and treat clients with respect. So this may be a personal problem, not a company problem, if you are not earning what you want.
***
Dissertation 4: ...the owners... are trying to make their [company]... better than other similar [companies] to attract higher
paying clients, but that only seems to result in fewer [work assignments.]
Because, yanno, the purpose of the company is to lose money and fold under/declare bankruptcy rather than to grow in its business operations. [insert eye-roll here] So they are deliberately giving less work to their employees as a way to screw their employees over in making a living. [insert incredulous sigh]
***
Dissertation 5:Is anyone out there bold enough to criticize [company] when they deserve
it. I can't believe how many people are so meek and almost apologize
for failing to please the [company].
This usually happens when the disgruntled person finds an employee who actually says good things about the company.They are so astonished that they are actually offended by this other person. Nobody can actually be happy? How dare they?!?!?! What's wrong with them!?!?!?
Comments like this can go in a different direction. Like product reviews, most people will believe it's the boss who is spinning positive publicity to get people to buy into the Kool-aid. So they will entirely dismiss such comments as not being sincere. They will even go so far as name-call people (meek?) for having an opposite opinion from them.
***
Dissertation 6:Maybe I am out of place saying
what I think, but, I always speak up when I feel I am not being treated
fairly.
Lone crusader mantra. Martyr who is looking for disciples. That moment in a speech where the room goes quiet, as people are suppose to absorb what was said, realize the BIG TRUTH and begin to rally toward the cause... until the person does a cope out...
***
Dissertation 7:Maybe someone will start another topic [insert forum]- "[Type of Employees] Who Have a Problem with [Company Name] Policies?"
The cope out. Instead of creating this forum thread yourself, you try to intimidate other people to do it for you by calling them meek and not standing up for their rights when treated unfairly... even when they never said they were treated unfairly. Then THAT person can be blacklisted as you sit back, wiggling your thumbs and nodding at the company's actions as being bad, bad, BAD!
I have to say, this company is very open to suggestions if an employee is having a problem. In fact, they are so open that the CEO sent an email to all employees with his phone number to take personal calls so that he could address the problems and make things better in the company. When a person doesn't utilize the resources they are given to be happy with the company, then it's best to leave the company.
Trying to rally happy people to the cause is a fruitless endeavor.
The woman shook her head, momentarily feeling sorry for the little boy as she keeps on cleaning her home. She is used to such derogatory talk between the young couple and their child.
She is like a fly on the wall who would much rather buzz around the fallen donut crumbs underneath the statute of Fredrick Douglas riding the horse in Stanton Park. She imagines flapping her little fly wings, outracing the snapping beaks of the opportunistic pigeons as she buzzes around the trash and looks for a mate before she dies in her two-week lifespan.
She surely doesn't want to buzz around the trash-talk between the young couple.
"When are you going to put gas in my car?" the young woman asks.
"I just got this $1100 and you're worried about $20 of gas?" the young man snaps.
The talk degenerates after that, concerning numbers on cell phones and other babies's mommas and infidelity and returned wedding rings. The listening/not listening women shakes her head and sits down at her kitchen table. She turns on her laptop and says to the room, "Let the paranoia begin." Her fingers type on a few keys.
"shhhh! Do you hear that?" the young woman whispers, "She's on her laptop again. She's writing a book about us."
The man doesn't answer. Or perhaps he does, but the listening/not listening woman doesn't hear it for once. She continues typing on the keyboard, answering email and writing status updates on her Facebook page. She might decide to get a little writing work in later and play a few computer games. But at the moment, she sits and types and waits for the real entertainment.
"You know she's writing about my life!" the woman hysterically shouts. A screen door bangs when shutting - like someone walked out. Then it bangs again like someone walked back inside. It continues to bang, not so much as trying to be a noisy disturbance. It seems more like an interesting distraction, as if someone wants the woman to go dashing to the window and see what's going on.
The woman ignores the noise, knowing it will be drowned out by the restaurant fan when they start cooking for the lunch crowd. She doesn't want to know anything about the couple. She doesn't want to know about the cheating husband who she saw walking with one of his "other women" as he furtively dashed by his apartment hoping his wife wasn't looking out the window to spot him with his girlfriend.
The woman shakes her head at the memory, surprised she had made the mistake in thinking the girlfriend was the wife, until she saw the REAL wife a few days later after the incident, holding their newborn child like a fanny pack at her waist, the child's arms out on both sides, splayed like a window decal with rubber suction cups as he clung on for dear life. The mother's one hand held him in place along her half-naked body, her tee shirt riding up to her chest area while the other hand held a cell phone to her ear, holding the phone better than the child. She strutted about, wanting the attention of the neighborhood.
The woman snaps from the memory when she hears the voice of the man outside, using his outdoor voice loudly. He walks around the woman's open windows as he complains about the woman writing stuff about HIM, about the woman having a Facebook account, and about waiting to see whether the woman will go out today.
A laugh bursts out her mouth. She remembers how, when talking on the phone one day, about going out somewhere. After she hung up, the guy literally screamed, "SHE'S GOING TO THE SOUTH SIDE! YEAH, MAN! JUMP HER THERE!"
Of course, she wasn't going to the south side of town, she was actually going to the north side of town. But even if she was going in the other direction, she wasn't going to get scared off from doing what she wanted to do with her life.
With a shake of her head, she finishes typing, surprised on how much she got written in such a short amount of time. Nothing of what she wrote was about the two people and their child -- not about the wife beatings, the stealing, or their massive amounts of paranoia. The woman wrote what she wanted, cheerfully listening/not listening to their voices like soothing background noise. Like raindrops hitting a pane of glass during a brief summer storm. Like spring robins chirping as they built their nest in the eaves of the bakery.
There was nothing interesting to write about paranoid people who deliberately acted like crazy people just to get attention so they can play the hurtful victims. A cliche wrapped in a conundrum while pretending to be a paradox.
Even worse, she wasn't going to write about people who want to be written, just so they could feel as if their lives mattered to someone. That their lives meant something to at least one person. The writing woman shouldn't have to be that person. The husband's life should matter to the wife. The wife's life should matter to the husband. And the little boy's life should matter to both his parents.
They didn't have to seek attention from the world.. in such a bad way.
The Pittsburgh Penguins were the favorites in the sports world in going all the way into winning the Stanley Cup. As it was, we had been down players for almost the entire season. Sidney Crosby suffered from a concussion for most of the season. Evgeni Malkin had knee problems. Bruce Orpik suffered from an upper body injury. The list of injured players goes on.
But we were still the favorites. We battled into good standing and won home ice advantage. We were up against the Philadelphia Flyers during the first playoff game, who we've successfully beaten in the past. We had a good lead at 3-1. Then, we blew it. 4-3 in the Flyers favor.
Okay. No problem. We still have Game 2. Again, the Penguins played playoff hockey, getting into the lead again by 3 points. The final? Flyers-8. Penguins-5.
The Flyers were up 2 games from the Penguins. What had happened? No one really knew, or if they did they sure didn't want to say why. Game 3 also went to the Flyers at a score of 8-4.
The Penguins just looked like they couldn't keep up. We came back to win Game 4 at 10-3 and Game 5 at 3-2. But then we dropped the ball and lost the all important Game 6 at 5-1. We were out of the playoffs.
Instead of looking like this:
We looked like this:
Oh well, next year can again be our year. On to brighter news, the Overlord has discovered a thing called, "walking." She's starting to become quite proficient with it, as I would show you except I haven't been able to post any video with Blogger now.
I have the little blue video box appear and it says it's loading video. But I get a message at the bottom of the screen (I'm using Firefox) that constantly says it's waiting for a response from Blogger, and it doesn't seem to receive one. The last time I tried to upload video, I waited over 15 minutes. I'm not sure if it's not recognizing the video I created with my camera (I never had problems with video taken with my laptop) or if this is strictly a Blogger thing.
Okay. Times UP! Like the Penguins, you have disappointed me, Blogger. You're in my penalty box until I figure out what to do with you. I'll just have to post the latest photo of the Overlord, taken the day before the day before yesterday.
Have a good day, everyone. May your teams make mighty goals and drink gustily from their playoff cups.
The Overlord wishes everyone a Happy Easter. She hopes all your chickens poop colorful jellybeans and all your bunnies poop colorful eggs. And after you eat what the bunnies and chicks have to offer, she wants you to have a delicious time biting the heads off of the innocent chickens and rabbits as you feast on the gooey marshmallow and chocolate innards. (Don't worry. I'll tell her what Easter really means when she gets older.)
Hello everyone. I would like to ask for your help.
Consider making a donation to help out fellow author Richard Levangie,
who is undergoing neurosurgery (today) to remove a pituitary tumor. Any size donation is
accepted. As a thank you, you'll receive this anthology "Facing The Sun"
with stories contributed from 29 writers. The anthology is in .pdf format to download or print out. You'll find a
memoir piece of mine in this anthology.
Please visit Facing The Sun website for more information and to give a donation. For those friends who have already donated, I thank you.
