Friday, April 26, 2024

The Warehouse, A (more or less) True Story

Chapter One
Image by Ben Kerckx from Pixabay
Steve, lower right-hand corner, "catching up" on a Saturday morning (warehouse closed)

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device

"By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day." -Robert Frost


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I once saw a hard-working department manager of a SmartMart warehouse, Steve, a man with a handful of assistants and a bunch of employees, carrying a copy of Managing for Dummies while walking through the building's lobby on his way to his important department. 

Seriously.

Nearly everyone who worked at the warehouse, from the general manager to the dude in charge of a crew of employees associates of an outside contractor hired to keep the joint clean, me, passed through that lobby when entering or exiting the building.

When entering, if you turned right, assuming you weren't hung up at the metal detectors, you would enter the administrative offices. If you turned left, as most people did, you passed through the building's cafeteria, the primary portal to "the floor" where merchandise from all over the world, but primarily from China, was processed on its way to SmartMarts all over the region.

This meant there were anywhere from a few people to a lot of people (shift change) coming and going, day and night. 

It also meant that there were anywhere from a few associates (formerly known as employees) to crowds of associates "on break" in the cafeteria. I should probably mention that the overall attitude of nearly everyone who worked at the facility ranged, on a sliding scale, from cynical to openly hostile and that there was no love lost between management and labor. 

There was a security guard on duty 24x7x365 in that lobby sitting behind the "Command Center," a structure considerably less imposing than its title suggests by the way. 

The poorly paid, ever-changing associates of the Security Team, who worked for a different outside contractor than me (who also didn't think that providing benefits of any sort was either an economic or moral imperative) continuously interacted with management and labor and could be relied on to keep the company grapevine healthy.

As to why Steve, who was not a stupid man, arrived for work that morning with a copy of Managing for Dummies (bright yellow and black cover designed to stand out from its competitors in bookstores) on top of a pile of stuff he was carrying, I've no idea. 

Why he didn't notice this when he set his pile of stuff on the narrow table between the incoming and outgoing metal detectors that was for emptying your pockets of metal this and thats, and executing a quick reshuffle before anyone noticed, I haven't a clue.  


I was sitting in one of the cheap, uncomfortable chairs in the lobby provided for would-be employees waiting for an interview and supplicants waiting or hoping to speak to King John II. I was waiting to greet my boss, who had alerted me that he was on his way and had requested I meet him in the lobby. 

Officially, this roughly once-a-month visit was supposed to happen weekly. This was an important, profitable account, as I was regularly reminded, one of my employer's larger ones. My boss's boss wanted him to keep a close eye on me and suck up to King John as much as possible.

Fortunately for me, all that King John wanted was for my company to keep his warehouse and offices clean and not involve him any more than absolutely necessary as he had no shortage of other, more important things to deal with. 

My boss's boss, the owner of the company, who spent a lot of time out of town "on business," just wanted the checks to keep coming. 

My wildly overworked boss just wanted no customer complaints, as he was constantly putting out fires elsewhere. 

None of us wanted to interact with each other any more than absolutely necessary so I did my damnedest to make sure all the various and sundry powers that be that I served were happy, for which I was fairly compensated and rarely overworked.     

My boss was, as usual, running late, in a hurry, and didn't want to wait for me to be paged over the P.A. system by the guard on duty, my subsequent response (assuming I was somewhere I could hear it), and then make my way to the lobby from wherever I was in the ginormous warehouse or outside doing something in one of the multiple parking lots. 

This was the nineties. There was a battered phone/fax/answering machine combo in my tiny office, relatively primitive cell phones had only begun taking over the world, and anyway, the warehouse was more dead zones than not.     


Supervisor Steve was, I assume still is, a jumpy, high-strung soul. He was frequently seen working his mouth in such a way as to look like he was trying to free a morsel of food that had become permanently lodged in his teeth. 

I was awakened from the daydream I was having by a minor commotion caused by the fact he was dancing in and out of the metal detector archway and rooting through his pockets in search of whatever it was that kept setting it off. Bleary-eyed (first shift) associates, who had started backing up in line behind him were heaving exaggerated heavy sighs and mumbled "man-o'-mans" to rattle him. 

Some unkind member of the rank and file called out, "Hey, cousin Eddie, I thought they replaced the metal plate in your head with a plastic one?" 

People started laughing and Steve turned red with embarrassment... and anger I should think. He was a decent man, if not the most competent manager in the place, and he had given a break to more than one of the men standing behind him over the years. 

Yes, I said men, forgive me if I've triggered anyone. There were very few women working on the floor for some mysterious reason as there was no rule, written or even unwritten, against it. However, they overwhelmingly dominated the administrative side of things. For example, I don't think there was ever a man working in the HR department in the decade or so I worked there. 

The guard on duty caught my eye, glanced down at the shiny bright black and gold copy of Managing for Dummies sitting on top of Steve's pile of stuff and as hard to miss as a bright red maraschino cherry on top of an old-fashioned sundae then glanced back up and gave me a grin. 

While this was going on my boss entered the lobby and slipped through the outgoing metal detector, setting it off. He raised his index finger to the guard — who was regarding him with a, oh great, this dick is back again look — to indicate he'd retrace his steps in a minute while simultaneously dashing over to me. 

He bent forward and said, rapidly and conspiratorially, "Hey, have you been finding an excuse to just happen to walk by John's office and smiling and saying hi, if he's in there I mean, and the door is open, and saying something like, how's it going Mr. Johnson?, you know, like I asked you?"  


Steve was disappeared not long after the event in question. I can't prove it, and when I asked him he denied all knowledge, but I believe this long-gone long-forgotten security guard likely served as the occupational equivalent of one of those Japanese butterflies that cause tornados in America by flapping their wings on the other side of the world.
 
I heard that Steve is divorced now and attends AA meetings religiously — lots of grapevines out there. Also, he no longer looks like he's trying to eat his own mouth. I know that because a few years later we crossed paths in a Walmart. He was wearing a badge that identified him as a manager trainee. 

We pretended not to notice each other. 

(Stay tuned, new chapterettes will be posted regularly)

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Friday, April 19, 2024

The Elites

Image by Jo Wiggijo from Pixabay

NEWS RELEASE
For immediate dissemination

Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy — The planet Earth Inc. has announced that the battle of the New Millenium is underway. 

On the undercard: Normies vs. LGBTQ+++ 

Main event: Pasty patriarchal hegemonistic Euro-imperialists vs. Womyn and People of Various Hues 

Proudly promoted by the Purple Press: Down in power, but not out, baby!


This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"I worked with these liberal elites for 28 years at CBS News, and they were always throwing around the term 'white trash,' by which they meant poor southerners who didn't go to Harvard. I'm not sure why that makes them trash." -Bernard Goldberg


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

The real fight, the elites of America vs. the rest of us, ain't even listed on the undercard. Let me begin by defining some terms and providing a bit of background. 

There was a more or less widely reported news story back in January that lasted about a minute before sinking in the Dizzinformation Ocean.

{I can't imagine why, but then again you're just now writing about this, who's paying you off, Sparky?}

Do you remember the Occupy Wall Street protest of 2011 that lasted for 59 days? Let's send the 1% to the guillotine? 

Till relatively recently I've personally thought that a sub-class of the 1%, people like Bezos, Gates, Cook, Zuckerberg, the Google Gang, and a relative handful of mega-billionaire businessmenpersons — infected with the Woke Mind Virus (WMV) or willing to fake it — were the sort we should all be worried about and keeping an eye on.

{Not to mention no shortage of spoiled progeny, ex-wives, and awokened foundations that have turned on the evil capitalist who started them.}

This is true, Dana, but there are people with money bins bigger than anything Scrooge McDuck could even dream of who have plenty of money and power because of the companies they run and/or control. 

They're not only gazillionaires, they're titans with global reach and the power to shape what information (and propaganda) we have access to and the ability (and willingness) to "disrupt" entire industries for fun and profit.

And here comes AI. 

Big BUT, over the years a new class has evolved, the elites. 


At the behest of an organization called The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, the Rasmussen people conducted a survey that divided respondents into two groups, the general public and the elites. Then they issued a report based on the results. 

Elites are defined as people w/at least one post-graduate degree, who've graduated from a handful of prestigious universities, earn more than 150k a year, and who live in zip codes with more than 10,000 people per square mile.

They also are often either infected with WMV, or at least claim to be, to shield themselves from the rest of us and/or justify/rationalize their power and privilege. 

{That wasn't in the report!}

No, it wasn't, but this was, "In a time when most Americans have suffered a loss of real take-home pay, 74% of elites say they are financially better off today than in the past...." 

You might think that a survey that revealed the opinions and viewpoints of these people would go viral instead of sinking to the bottom of the Dizzinformation Ocean in short order, particularly given the results. 

But these are the people who have control of and/or work for the Un-huh! Nuh-uh! machine (the internet), media of all sorts, academia, Hollywood, woke HR departments, etc.

"While 40% of Americans say their financial situation is worsening, just 20% say it’s improving."


One of the happy side effects of the American experiment was the development of a hooge middle class, our largest population cohort. It's so large we divide it into three sectors: lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper-middle.

The rich, of course, have always punched above their weight. Money = power, but the middle classes traditionally have had plenty of power of their own. 

Many of the rich started out there, or even at the bottom, and retain middle-class common sense and sensibilities. It's still possible for the poor to claw their way up the food chain but it's much harder than it used to be.

Despite the hollowing out of America's industrial base, which used to finance the masses in the middle, there are still plenty of jobs around, at least at the moment. But even the ones that pay relatively decently require too many hours and/or two incomes for everyone in the house to keep their heads above water.

{Well, maybe, but... Wait, who's raising the kids?}

A century or so of slow but steady currency debasement, systemic inflation, and now living off the national credit card is catching up with our republic. 

The average Joe, Joan, or J. Bagadonuts technically lives in the same America as the elites but inhabits a different reality.


The full report is well worth reading, but I know how busy most of you are. Since this is a full-service column, here are some of the highlights of the report listed in its executive summary. 

"Below, we highlight some of the profound attitudinal differences between elites and average Americans:

- Nearly six in ten say there is too much individual freedom in America...

- More than two-thirds (67%) favor rationing of vital energy and food sources to combat the threat of climate change.

- ...70% of the Elites trust the government to 'do the right thing.'

- Two-thirds (67%) say teachers and other educational professionals should decide what children are taught rather than letting parents decide.

- Somewhere between half and two-thirds favor banning things like SUVs, gas stoves, air conditioning, and non-essential air travel to protect the environment.

- About six of ten elites have a favorable opinion of the so-called talking professions — lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, and journalists."

- 81% report never missing one of The Flyoverland Crank's weekly columns. 

{You made that last one up!}

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Friday, April 12, 2024

Snifftoss and the Reluctant Guest

A sort of short short story
Image by tenario1 from Pixabay

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device

"Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties." -Barbra Walters  


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),

Your humble correspondent has written a sort of short short story (short, short story? short short-story? a short... never mind). 


The speaker (mentally) executes a sniff and a toss of their head to one side. 

While the guest, technically speaking, can't hear the sniff or see the speaker's hair being tossed with thinly disguised contempt, the speaker's attitude is crystal clear.

The reluctant guest, a reasonably well-adjusted man of a certain age, comfortable with his introverted nature and whose social anxieties have declined in power with each passing year, had made the mistake of initiating the encounter in the first place, 

He was reluctantly attending a social function that he would've much preferred to avoid but there were more reasons to be there there than there were to stay home. Finding himself caught in a situation with the head-tossing dismissive sniffer that required small talk had led to him commenting on a television show currently enjoying quite a bit of favorable notoriety. 

Given that, nowadays idiot boxes are ubiquitous and range in size from square inches to square feet with thousands of entertainment choices on offer if you're willing/able to subscribe to enough content providers...

And that, he was old enough to remember that when there were only a handful of choices (available on a handful of devices that were fairly limited in both size, choice, and functionality) which made it possible to find common ground for discussion...  

He thought, he was on secure ground since even if the speaker thought the show in question was stupid they would have something to discuss. In fact, Snifftoss might even enjoy pointing out exactly why no H. sapin in their right mind would waste their time on such a cultural travesty. 

He thought, he was safe because he rarely watched anything that included commercials and was very picky about what he did watch, which were usually shows offered by one streaming service or another that he thought was of higher quality than the average rubbish on the menu. 

However, being smart enough, and having lived long enough to realize what he thought was a quality show would be considered rubbish by no shortage of other people had taught him to be both cautious and diplomatic about such things. To avoid hurting people's feelings when possible, but to hold his ground when it wasn't. 

Most importantly, he had learned to try and avoid feeding his ego by demonstrating his superiority to anyone, about anything. He had been paying attention long enough to have learned that it was possible to do this accidentally, that many of his fellow H. sapiens psyches, as well as his own, were veritable emotional minefields sown with an easily triggered this or that or even that other thing.


"Well, personally, I find it watchable. And obviously, they dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but there's just no there, there" said Snifftoss. 

RED ALERT! ALL HANDS ON DECK! SHIELDS UP! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

The guest, instantly grasping that Snifftoss was eager, and would be delighted, to explain themselves politely (but cautiously) replied, "Oh yeah?" 

"People of color? Check."

"LGBT plus? Check." 

"Powerful, non-stereotypical characters presenting as females? Check."

"But what's the point? It's yet another drama that hits all the typical high points that've been around forever. Love, sex, angst, adventure, sex, violence, revenge, God and/or the gods, more sex, occasional humor for a pallet cleanser, good guys v. bad guys, etc, etc, etc."

As I said, what's the point?"

At this point, Snifftoss stops and is obviously waiting for a reply. The guest was still on high alert, but only because he was slightly worried that escaping from this encounter could get ugly. Who was this guy anyway? Crap rolls downhill. What if he was in a position to somehow take it out on the listener's host, a personal friend of the reluctant guest, if he felt he had been slighted?

"Um..., well I suppose it's possible the point is just decent entertainment. In fact, I've wondered about this sort of thing for years. Why do we like stories so much, point or no point, beyond the fact we find a given story to just be a damn good story, well told? 

He was hoping to change the direction of the subject, fearing where he thought Snifftoss was headed, but he wasn't optimistic. 


"I see where you're going," replied Snifftoss, "I guess I'm just jaded. And after all, the postmodernists have freed us from the need for meaning and/or narrative."

The guest swallowed a groan and wondered if it showed on his face. He hoped that Snifftoss would next unknowingly contradict himself and start spinning meanings and/or narratives, which might prove to be interesting.

However, he thought it more likely that he would take the trail to Nihilismberg, oblivious to the fact that this was also a narrative — a dull, dark, boring one with a dead end. Inspiration dawned and he thought he'd try cutting 'em off at the pass and lay a didactic booby trap.   

"I've settled on the notion that all meaningful fiction is a form of distilled reality that contains fundamental lessons each new generation needs to learn, just packaged in a more palatable way than say religion, philosophy, or the like. Not an original idea on my part obviously, but it works for me, and my grandkids confirm it as far as I'm concerned" he replied. 

But I think I've learned all those sorts of lessons, so I don't understand why I still enjoy good stories so much. I must admit I'm also a bit jaded but I'm hoping to live long enough to meet a great-grandkid or two, that'll help get me through to the end. In the meantime, I'm trying to learn how to play the harmonica.

Any thoughts?" 

He smiled and politely waited for a response.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

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