Retail Therapy

When you work in retail you learn several things very quickly. The first is that people are not only rude but crazy. The second is that you work for these rude and crazy people. The third is that you will on multiple occasions find yourself in fits of hysterical laughter at recognizing that the store you work in is actually sucking your soul out. And finally, that everyone should work in retail at least once in their life.

I sped into the parking lot today needing to be at work at 6:00. Technically 6:04 after that you're late. 12 late or tardy punch ins in like a year and you can get fired. I've debated testing this theory but decided I don't need to give my managers another excuse to fire me. So i'm driving rather aggressively to the back of the parking lot. How they expect me to be on time when i have to walk a mile just to get to the doors is beyond me. I successfully navigate the deep trenches and treacherous breaks in the parking lot that may more commonly be called potholes but if youve seen the size of some of these holes a successful navigation is in your best interest. (One time i showed up to work and there was a towtruck actually removing a car from one of these holes  by the time i'd walked my mile into work the car was only halfway removed and yes i'm being completely serious but it may also have been only a nightmare). I throw my car in park and start powerwalking towards the doors. A quick glance at my watch reveals the time of 6:01. Theres a solid chance i'm at work on time today. During the powerwalking session i do a fast headcount of the cars in the parking lot mentally assessing how late we're going to be there.

*this is a disclaimer for all of you that don't know better. we close at 10. but when youre shopping until 959 it means we don't get to leave at 10..maybe not 11 even..it might be til 12..this isnt your teenage bedroom and theres no need to rebel. just clean up after yourselves*

Luckily there arent that many cars. I walk through the doors and am transported into retail land. It deserves its own form of government or at least government experiments. 3 human robots tilt their head smile and say hello to me. In unison.. on command...it is this conformity that does most of the soul sucking. I place my robot face on and monotone hello back. Its going to be another one of those nights i guess.

This is why i need Retail Therapy

Furry Vengence

What the hell is this movie? Its like.. Dr. Doolittle meets... crap. This is of course based solely off the commericals as I have not seen it. But any movie that is essentially a "save our planet" movie that comes out a week and a day after Earth Day on a scale of 1-10 is stupid.  Not because of the save our planet theme nope..just the missed marketing opportunities

If you only deserved a brain

Albert Einstein once commented (forgive me for the actual words slip my mind and i'm too lazy to look it up properly..i'm sure you can search for it) that those individuals who march happily along with everyone else have already earned his contempt. They do not deserve their large brain when clearly the spinal cord would have sufficed. While I always found this amusing and to some degree life affirming I fear that sometimes statements like this can be taken too far the opposite. Does a rebel make a non-conformist? I think its just as easy to be a rebel as it is to be a follower. The rebel really is only someone who turns their back to everything. I say blue pen they say red. I believe the real value in Einsteins words (or anyone who has spoken directly or significantly about conformity..Nietzsche, Shaw, Twain, Ralph Waldo, etc) is that the real struggle is finding who you are and sticking to those values regardless of what the majority says or does. It's not blatant disregard for the majority view.

 Let me steal somebody's elses words and or well give them credit perhaps where they do not deserve it. Charles Pierce (that's what i'm going with anyways) spoke of three stages of adult thinking and conceptualizing. Black and White, Relativism, and Committed Relativism. It is my belief and probably the truth that most people do not leave the first stage. Those in the majority that tend just to follow along "marching happily" and the rebels who see things as only this way or that. That's a huge group of people. Relativism is the stage where people come to the understanding and recognition that two people in an argument are both equally right and equally wrong. That your own view on the situation or world is relative. Everything is relative. Reaching this stage is an important step but the people that get stuck here and unsatisfied or unhappy. Life has no meaning if all things are true. This leads to the existential crisis. If all things are true (and therefore nothing is true) how does one make meaning out of life? The true non-conformists has reached the committed relativism stage then. They recognize that all these options exist and that all of them are true but have chosen their own views and values and have committed to them. They may walk with the majority but that does not make them conformists.

Good luck on your journeys.

BBC

While i may tell people that the letters I'm considering having tattooed on me are only because i'm a freakishly huge fan of the British Broadcasting Co. (which..would actually be really strange.. though not entirely out of the realm of possibilities..i digress) in reality these letters stand for something much more powerful than anything the Old Country could put out. BBC is something that has affected everybody at one point in their lives. Perhaps you have not uttered the real words before, or maybe you've not even thought them exactly, but I can with almost close to certainty declare that if you knew them you would have.

Bitches. Be. Crazy.

Perhaps you wont go as far as me in believing that this is a state of existence to the point of having it permanently inked on you (if you're wondering its gonna be in huge 8 inch letters stretching across my back..or perhaps on my forehead) and to be honest I wouldn't really recommend it. Popularizing an expression like bitches be crazy may actually take away from the real life affect and truth it has. But when you have female drama in your life and you just can't explain it (rarely we can) shake your head, raise your fist at the heaves in spite, and mutter BBC for me.