O O Ø O O O O
Top 5 Ass-chappers of 2002
We made it through another year, and a whole bunch of our asses are sore from the punishment that’s been dished out. Kjell and Ev are doing the smart thing, and riding it out by going back to school. I have a job again, so I can’t complain too much. Most of the folks I know who have had a rough year are getting back on track, but we’ve still got a ways to go. I thought 2001 was bad, but 2002 was worse. I thought a lot about the last year, and the things that drove me nuts the most follow, à la High Fidelity (although they’re in no particular order).
Jean Chretien
Jean, buddy, pal-o-mine, it is time to leave. No, no, don’t try to peddle political funding reform that looks good on the face of things, but actually sets it up so that it almost guarantees that no other parties will ever attain “Official Party” status. You may want to look good going out, but the truth is you’re a snake. I don’t know how you managed to stay so popular, because I can’t find anything you’ve done that has added to the value of this wonderful place. I’ll even go so far to state that I think you’ve done more damage in your tenure than Brian Mulroney ever did to Canada, but unfortunately no one seems to have noticed. Shame on us for being sheep.
You’re still hanging in after reneging on your promise to abolish the GST, multiple multi-billion-dollar HRDC fiascos, countless incidents exposing corruption in your government, lying about the costs of a gun control program that targets legitimate firearms owners, and doing whatever the hell it is you please in spite of what your constituents want or need. You’re not in power because you define good government, you’re there because the alternatives are a lot worse than you. Instead of abusing your power by telling your party how they will vote on key legislation, stacking the senate, and telling everyone what they’re going to do, how about doing us all a favour and letting in someone a little fresher.
I’m tired of my dollar being worthless and being tied to the US currency. Notice how we’ve lost money while the EU as a whole has gained on the US buck? I’m tired of hearing how your cabinet continues to blow billions of dollars through back-door contracts, incompetence, and the general inability to manage their charges. I’m tired of being faced with having to go to the polls with the same three moronic parties because the system here is so rigged no start-up parties can possibly succeed. I’m tired of the pork-barrel politics that continue to isolate Western Canada, the Maritimes, and that which is Ontario and Quebec further and further.
Step down. Let someone else have a go at the helm. You’re old guard, and the world’s changed just a bit the past twenty years. Too bad you were too busy wallowing in your own shit all these years to notice.
The Republican Government Down There
How did it all come to this? Our neighbours used to be the good guys who stood behind the principals of democracy and freedom of the individual. Now it’s more like “As long as you think exactly the same as we do, we won’t force our beliefs on you through the barrel of a gun.” I question whether the individual’s rights are actually being eroded, as the potential to perform these kinds of surveillance and arrests have always been there. It just seems that the government is now so confident in its ability to do anything it wants, that it feels it doesn’t have to pretend to care (read: “answer to”) what their constituency thinks anymore. In any case, the current government is doing whatever the hell it pleases, and seems to be saying that we must all do what they say, not what they do. (And, to be fair, a lot of folks in the US think this is okay.)
I would dearly love it if Mr. Bush and his seemingly intelligent staff actually tried to figure out why everyone was pissed at them, instead of promising to blow them all to kingdom come no matter what. To this end, I’ll try to offer a little insight to Dubya et al:
Say you meet someone some day out in the big world. You discover that they have similar interests as you, and you get to talking. As you continue to talk about matters, a bond forms, and you realize that you’re so compatible that you want to help each other out. When it comes down to the crux of the matter, you realize you’re friends. You tell your new friend how important they are, how good friends you are and will continue to be, and that you’ll always be there for them. They believe you. Time passes, and your new friend’s moment of need comes. They look to you for help, because they trust you, and you have told them you will be there. You consider the situation, and realize you really don’t like your friend (or worse, their pain is not worth the effort), and leave them hanging. If you were in their shoes, how would you feel? I bet you’d feel betrayed, would be super pissed off, and would even go so far as to hate your “friend”.
Sound familiar? Probably not, as you’re too concerned with finishing what Daddy started and making sure you and your buddies in the oil business make more money than Dog (sic). Try to apply the scenario above to the relationships the US has had with almost every Middle Eastern country over the past thirty years, and see if you can see some similarities. You might even come to realize that you’re acting just like a high school bully right now but I won’t hold my breath.
Do us all a favour and look at the root cause instead of rooting out that which stands in your way. You’re not scoring many points with most of your allies right now, and while you may be popular in your own country, people are starting to wake up. Election day really isn’t that far off.
Unemployment
Unemployment was a lot of fun for the first couple of months. I golfed, I mountain-biked, I played some video games, I slept in. After the novelty of doing whatever the hell I pleased wore off, I started looking for a new job. This sucked.
To all the recruiters, contracting companies, and HR organizations out there who received my resumes and promised to seriously evaluate my skill set, I would like to say “go fuck yourself.” You never had any intention of getting back to me. You took one look at my resume, saw I had no university degree, and put it in your blue filing cabinet. My years of experience, the type of work I had done, and the references I had meant nothing to you. You were more interested in whittling down candidates for a given position, and saw nothing wrong with screening instead of selecting candidates. Good luck in the next boom, I want nothing to do with you.
To those who were upfront and honest, and told me I wouldn’t get the job because of my lack of degree, I thank you for sparing me the trouble and worry. I still think you’re wrong, and missed out (Yes, I know, but I’m worth it, dammit!) on a good catch. Experience counts just as much as formal education, but apparently I am in the minority in this line of thinking.
I never want to go through that amount of BS again, so I’m going back and finishing my degree. The sad part is I’m not doing it to learn, but to get a piece of paper. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so naive in the first place by thinking my experience and ability to sell myself would keep me employed. Lesson learned, but I don’t have to like it. (It’s kinda like taking Buckley’s, actually.)
McDonalds Math
This one really bugs me, and I’m not sure why as it’s only 15 cents or so. I think the cash register programming at McDonald’s is flawed (perhaps they use Pentium IIs). I don’t eat there a lot, but do go every so often for my low-cal Bacon and Egg Bagel Meal, super-sized. The big board tells me the meal is $3.39, and supersizing it requires an additional 0.49, no tax included in either case. For this I was being charged $4.64. It struck me one day that there was no way it could be $4.64. Do the math with me:
($3.39 (meal) + $0.49 (supersize)) + $0.27 GST (7%) + $0.31 PST (8%) = $4.46
Either every person at McDonald’s is dyslexic and reverses the last two digits, or the math in the cash register is wrong. The receipt doesn’t show two line items because that would make sense. Instead, it itemizes each component of the meal and assigns a price for each, the total of which exceeds $3.88 every time. I have pointed this out to the people manning the registers and the managers, and get either an eye roll, the standard “the price is wrong on the board,” or “the machine can’t be wrong”.
I even go so far as to get them to admit that the total price before taxes is less than four bucks, and then spell out how the maximum amount of tax (at 15%) on a dollar is fifteen cents. Multiply that by four and you get sixty cents. Add that to $3.88 and you get a total that is less than $4.64. End result: see above.
I just want them to fix it, whether it’s the prices they advertise, their programming of the register, or the ability of the people manning the register to enter an order properly. I would expect it to be two buttons: combo + supersize - done. Instead, it seems to be something a little more involved than the firing sequence for an old Titan missile, and is about as accurate as Stevo counting his extremities. (He always comes up with “fwee.”) In the mean time, I argue with the staff every time to ensure I get my $0.18 worth, in the hopes that I’ll piss them off enough that they actually do something about it.
It sounds like a minor nit to be sure, but it seems to be very representative of the services sector as a whole these days.
(A Certain) Secondary Sex Characteristic
All my follicles on the top of my head gave out long ago. What’s the deal with all the new ones sprouting up in places where they have no business being? I’m sure you could have died happy without knowing this last bit, but it just seems so cruel that I had to share. Bah, getting older sucks.
Ok, I’m outta time. Gotta head out and make merry and all that. All my best for the New Year, and make sure you go and thin the herd properly this evening.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
PD DLXXX