Gentlemen, you may be excused. Don’t blame me if you don’t care for the content of this post. You have been warned by the title and the category and, well, this warning.
You know, I think we already discussed how I have reached that phase of my life where I would cheerfully strangle, well, everybody if they’re around me at the wrong time. And no, I’m not exaggerating. In fact, I would have had words with God Himself if He had the nerve to be around me two weekends ago. And they wouldn’t be kind words, either.
The weekend before last, I was furious with Ukrops because their U-Scan machine a) didn’t accept my putting canvas bags on the bag rack, b) didn’t have an attendant around to make the machine accept my bags and c) stopped allowing me to skip bagging after the sixth item so that I had to pile everything on the bag rack and then put the articles in my bags after finishing up. I was furious. And by “furious” I mean “approaching Hulk-level rage.” I got to my car in the parking lot and was wondering what on earth was the matter with me, and why I was so angry. I was still angry, but it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense for me to be furious with Ukrops over some stupid computer problems. And then it hit me. Raging hormones. Teenage-level rage. The one I described in my last post about this subject.
It is absolutely astonishing to me that I have to relive the worst parts of my teenage years when I am supposed to be leveling off in my mellow fifties. And I am very, very mellow compared to the person I used to be. (Yes, really. No, I’m serious. You should have seen me in my twenties and thirties, when I didn’t bother keeping my anger in check, like, ever.) I mean, I know life isn’t fair. But to feel like I’m thirteen again? That’s just wrong on so many levels. These hormonal fits of rage are unpredictable. But they feel exactly like the ones I had when I was a teenager. And may I say: This sucks. This really, really sucks.
The good news is that my cycle is, indeed, settling down. (You boys can stop reading now. The ones that get all weirded out over women talking about—menstruation.) (EEEEK!) So phew, no 150 days a year for me, and no every three weeks. I’m approaching my old 28-day cycle. The bad news is that I also have unpredictable hot flashes. There are nights where I wake up drenched in sweat every hour. My usual time seems to be early morning, six-thirty-ish. But sometimes four, and sometimes seven. Not a day goes by when I’m not suddenly sweating in a room that was otherwise perfectly comfortable until that moment. I keep looking at the thermometers to make sure the AC is working.
I would say I now feel some kind of sympathy for what my mother went through, but that would be a lie. Really, I don’t care about anyone else’s hot flashes. Only mine. (Or is that the raging hormones speaking again? I can’t tell anymore.) I mean, I know what they’re going through, but it seems far less important than what I’m going through. Yeah, I think the hormonal fluxes are making me a little more selfish, too. I don’t recall being this way.
I have a couple of friends who are watching me keenly, what with their being about to go through the same thing in a few years. So I get to be a guinea pig on top of everything else.
“Golden years” my ass. This isn’t golden. It’s annoying.
There’s a reason I try to avoid using self-checkout lanes in stores. They never work right.
And also the fact that stores are using them to justify laying off their cashiers. Every time you choose to use the machine instead of a lane manned by a human, an accountant somewhere gets one more piece of justification for getting rid of another employee.
And, FWIW, I think the same reasoning applies to using EZ-Pass on the highways. States are using them to justify laying off toll-takers. You save 5-10 minutes (or maybe only 10 seconds if there’s no line), and somebody else is declared redundant and loses his job. Not a fair trade, IMO.
You’ve got to be kidding. It takes far less time for me to drive to NJ and back using my EZ Pass than it does paying tolls.
I’m especially shocked that you, a former resident of NJ, think that toll-takers should be kept. In NJ, the only way to get a job as a toll-taker is through political patronage. The job pays monstrously high salary and overtime pay for what is, at best, a job a ten-year-old child can do. There is no skill involved beyond giving change.
It’s not my responsibility to supply jobs for people who are too lazy or stupid to get a job that requires skill. And it is especially not my responsibility to pay those people $70k per year with overtime. Go google some articles about how much they make and then come back and complain to me about the poor babies losing their plum patronage positions. States SHOULD be laying off toll-takers. Let them get real jobs.
Kroger is a union store down here, and they have the self-checkout lanes. I’m not seeing any lack of employees. Late at night, when they have only one checkout clerk and everyone else is on stocking and cleaning duties, the self-checkout lane is a blessing.
No, I’m not kidding. And your complaints are a result of all these people having been let go.
When there’s a 20-lane toll plaza, and only two lanes are staffed (and long lines behind them), that’s precisely because everybody else has been laid off. You don’t need 18 empty lanes to satisfy EZ Pass users.
As for the grocery, I see the same thing. Lots and lots of unmanned checkout lines, even when the store is packed full of customers.
Have you also noticed how banks have closed entire branches because of ATMs? If nobody walks inside, then the entire staff is useless and gets let go.
Maybe you prefer to work in a society devoid of other people (and, I’ll admit, there are times where that’s appealing), but there’s something seriously wrong when all of the “menial” jobs are replaced with automation and people without college degrees have nowhere to go but on the welfare rolls.
No, when you see long lines in the only staffed lanes it’s because people refuse to buy the EZ Pass tags. The difference in traffic patterns is very easy to see and track.
I’ve noticed that banks have closed entire branches because of the consolidation of the banking industry.
David, you’re coming at me with anecdotal evidence. The plural of “anecdote” is not “data.”
I say again: Why should someone earn above $70k annually to take coins and make change in a tollbooth? That’s more than I make managing over 50 websites for my company. And my job takes actual skill.
Fire all their asses. I’m fine with it.
I will only respond by saying that you shouldn’t be so quick to declare entire segments of the population dead weight that should be unemployed.
If you think your job is so indispensable, think again. Any of us could find our industries eliminated.
Don’t wish on others what you wouldn’t want to happen to yourself.
David,
There were at one time (circa 1950) something like *half a million* elevator operators employed in the U.S. Would it had been better if we had outlawed (or never invented) automatic elevators, so that these people could have kept their jobs?
David, do you always debate like that? I said that the toll-takers in NJ are overpaid and can (and should) be replaced with automatic toll collection. I did not declare an “entire segment of the population dead weight”.
I told you that they make up to $70,000 per year with overtime, for the insipid act of sitting in a toll booth and making change. That is not a job that should be paying $70k. (And by the way, those figures from from 2003. I shudder to think what they are today.)
All you’ve done is accuse me of hating people who aren’t as skilled as some (like me).
That’s bullshit logic, and it’s insulting.
When you can debate the issues instead of putting up strawmen and putting words in my mouth and accusing me of things I’ve never said, I’ll be back. But I’m pretty much done here.
“There are nights where I wake up drenched in sweat every hour.”
Beware; once Tig figures out he can wake you by simply sneaking under the covers and warming your back, you’re sleep regime is doomed. They are that sneaky.
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As to EZPass, that is a win-win for the State. They get to lay off workers, AND raise the toll without anyone noticing. Remember the discount that NJ offered for EZP when it first came out? Once they got the customer hooked, it was quietly repealed. Over billings are surprisingly common. Always check the statement.
Last year I was driving across NY, and the Thruway was closed due to snow. At the toll booth, the folks who drove to the window to pay were waved thru without fee because the road was closed and we were inconvenienced. The folks taking the EZP lane got billed.