Tag Archives: society

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Human interaction. Some people don’t get subtly. They don’t pick up on the social cues that the rest of us understand naturally. Occasionally that means you have to do things that under any other circumstances would make you seem and feel like a jackass… but when someone isn’t getting the message, sometimes that’s all that’s left. If that means I have to stand up and walk away from you mid-sentence, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’m not going to apologize for it. As much as I’d rather handle it like a normal human being, I’m perfectly willing to be an asshole in the service of my own sanity.

2. The canonization of John Stewart. Stewart is a funny guy. I like the Daily Show. But I don’t get the left wing lionizing him for his take on Fox News. I mean does anyone not know they trend towards the right wing? I’m not sure that’s even a serious discussion. Like every media outlet, they have an agenda or an ax to grind. CNN, MSNBC, Sky, they all have their own brand of slant, but Stewart singles out Fox with glee as if they were the only ones pushing an ideology. It’s a case that could be just as easily made about just about every organization, everywhere. Then again, I guess it doesn’t hurt that the Daily Show’s viewers skew left… I suppose Mr. Stewart, too, knows how his bread is buttered.

3. Lunch. Turkey sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. Ham sandwich. Turkey sandwich. Salad. Turkey Sandwich. Meatball sub. Turkey sandwich. Turkey sandwich. Salad. Ham sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. As a cost cutting measure back in the dark days of the furlough I started packing my own lunch… but honest to God if I keep opening my bag and seeing nothing but deli sandwiches, salads, and wraps I might have to burn my cubicle to the ground. There simply has to be a better lunch than sandwiches, microwave “meals”, and leftovers. If there isn’t, the terrorists have already won.

Mood…

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Here as the week slides into the halfway point, I find myself in what I can only describe as “a mood.” It is most assuredly not a happy place, but it’s made worse because I can’t quite put my finger on what the problem is.

Actually, that’s a lie. A falsehood. A fabrication. I can identify with great precision the source of the vast majority of my angst and ill feeling. Except, of course, we’re not allowed to say things like that out loud. As part of our social contract, we’ve all agreed that we won’t call out bullshit when we see it. We’ll go along to get along and maintain the illusion of happiness with our little fictions. We won’t say anything that might upset the balance because we fear the consequences. I’m as guilty of it as anyone, maybe even more so because I can feel the truth physically twisting at my insides wanting out, but I hold my tongue for the sake of keeping the peace and preserving the status quo.

The whole illusion gnaws at me. Day in, day out, pretending that batshit crazy is perfectly normal and counting the years, months, days, and hours until you aren’t compelled to do it any more. Just one time I’d like to stand up, open my mouth, and let the truth fly out. Unvarnished, impolite, brutal honesty.

Good God, but couldn’t the world use a big heavy dose of that?

But we live in a world where words have consequences. So I swallow that honesty one more time. Push it back down into that place where it comes from. And pray to whatever gods are interested in such things for the power and good graces to let me smile and nod and not launch into a raving diatribe at inappropriate moments – knowing, as I do, that no good would come of it.

Ah, see? I feel better just for getting that small rant out in the open. My safety valve of a blog once again saved my soul.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Being polite. I realize the social convention that tells us it’s bad to walk around punching people in the face exists to protect all of us from each other. God knows there are probably of plenty people out there who would like nothing more than the opportunity to slug me with no repercussions, but still, there’s something infuriating about being in a position day-in-and-day-out of being annoyed to your wits end and not being able to say or do anything about it because it would be considered rude. The people who don’t get typical social cues shouldn’t be covered by normal social conventions. When I’ve turned my back to you and you keep talking, I should be allowed to punch you in the face. Invade my personal bubble? Punch in the face. Have no clue that others aren’t interested in a monolog about your top five worst medical problems? Punch in the face. Twice. You get the point. When someone lives outside society’s norms, maybe they shouldn’t be protected by those norms. If your feelings get hurt and your nose gets bloodied in the process, well, maybe that’s just a lesson learned… and yet for some reason when you tell someone they’re being an obnoxious douchecanoe, you’re suddenly the asshat. There is no justice.

2. Celebrities. You know the funny thing about celebrities behaving badly? Their asshattery is only covered by the news outlets because we all tune in. Justin Bieber getting a DUI? News. Brittany Spears flashing her hoohaw. News. Kim and Kanye doing anything? News. Except the thing is, it’s not news. People get DUI’s, show their lady parts, and are generally stupid every day of the year without it being the lead story on every website and newspaper in the country. Celebrities get the attention they do not because they behave badly, but simply because we allow it to be so. It’s the classic example of ignore it and they will go away. Or at least they’ll continue to get into trouble, but do it more or less in anonymity and without it becoming a spectacle. It’s a crying shame that we all can’t just agree to ignore these tools until they stop getting the ink they so desperately want.

3. Policy. As a rule, policy is something I’ve always considered a guideline. It’s the user’s manual version of how to do things – 98.9% of the time, policy coverers just about everything you’ll deal with on a regular basis. Conveniently, though, policy very rarely has the force of something more codified, say like a regulation or a law. That means there’s almost always a way to get an exception to policy (or in more extreme circumstances just ignore the policy because it doesn’t pass the common sense test within the context of new or extenuating circumstances). No one is doing themselves a service when the blindly follow something just because “that’s how it’s done” or “that’s the policy.” You see, the problem with blind adherence to anything is that it so often comes with unintended consequences… and those so very rarely end well for anyone.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. US Postal Service. I know they’re everyone’s favorite whipping boy. I’ve taken them to task a time or two myself, but I like to think it’s not a knee jerk reaction. When a bunch of people are talking about having a craptastic delivery experience, there’s probably at least some truth to the notion. Really, it could all be avoided if the package I ordered last Monday with an estimated delivery date of last Saturday had any sign of ever leaving its point of origin in Oklahoma. Sure, I know first class mail isn’t an overnight service, but it doesn’t seem excessive to expect the post office to, at a minimum, avoid losing track of a package that has a tracking number printed on it. At the very least, they might want to actually respond to a customer request for information from time to time. As a historic institution, I want to like the USPS, but there’s generally a reason I’m willing to pay a few dollars more to ship items through a more reliable provider.

2. McDonald’s. I’ve noticed two things about the local McDonald’s here in scenic Elkton. 1) They’ve never gotten my drive thru order 100% correct; and 2) When I go inside to complain and get the order corrected, the place looks like a damned sty. I’m not a regular, but sometimes you just want a Big Mac and super-salty fries. All I’m saying is that having had the experience of spending more years working at a McDonald’s franchise than I want to admit, the kind of service and level of cleanliness I see here definitely wouldn’t have passed muster back in the day. Im not saying I liked cleaning stainless or sweeping the lobby and more than these guys do, but I do think the standards 19-odd years ago were definitely better. Then again, that seems to be endemic, so maybe it’s just society in general that’s pissing me off and McDonald’s is just a symptom.

3. Harvey Weinstein. So Harvey has decided that he is going to make a movie taking on the NRA because he “doesn’t think we need guns in this country.” I guess violence is bad, except when it’s being used as a plot point to generate billions in revenue from such peaceful films as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Grindhouse, Rambo, and Django Unchained. I’m not sure Harvey commands the moral high ground on this one. Pot, meet kettle.

They be Heroes…

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I don’t quite know why our generation is so down on heroes. Culturally, we use to celebrate those who did great things… Armstrong walking on the moon, Patton racing across Europe, MacArthur wading ashore in his return to the Philippines, Washington as father of his country, Jefferson for the brilliant ideals of the Declaration. These were Americans who were held up to be admired and emulated along with the ideals of strength, personal courage, and duty. Today’s heroes are grown men who are paid millions of dollars to play games we all played as kids (and yes I know baseball players were always “heroes,” but until recently they behaved more or less like respectable members of society) or singers pretending to know how hard it is to “live on the streets.” Better yet is the celebrities who are famous, apparently, for being famous. I’ve never been really in touch with pop culture, but I don’t understand how we are expecting these individuals to fill in a role that had been occupied by the best and the most brilliant American’s of past generations. Good lord, what does it say about us as a nation?

Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving and it’s a holiday not only of celebration for the bounty of our land, but also of the Pilgrim Fathers who helped settle that land. These men and women crossed an ocean in the age of sail. They sacrificed their homes, left their families, and everything they had known in order to possibly carve out a better life in the Wilderness. Somehow we have demonized these heroes as well… We’ve called them ethnocentric (code for racist), we’ve accused them of being the first to breach the line of church and state… Incidentally, they were here before anyone had thought of separating church and state in case you were interested in putting in on a timeline.

Thanksgiving isn’t really a celebration commemorating some old guys hitting a rock. It’s a celebration of a people who gave up their safe (if religiously persecuted) lives to become among the first Americans. As we are all gorging this afternoon, I hope we’ll all take a few seconds and remember what an incredible privilege it is to be American and the opportunities it has afforded every one of us. Celebrate our history and don’t, don’t under any circumstances, let the veil of political correctness close your eyes to the heroes of our common past.