The Service Economy is an Asshole

I don't like TV that makes me think too hard about something non-comedic. As a child I spent a lot of time watching "Unsolved Mysteries" and varying sci-fi related television. I think in my adolescence I decided that entertainment should be synonymous with "hilarity" and nothing else would be a substitute. Thusly, in my present life-stage (which has developed a great love for irreverence) I spend a lot of time watching Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Adult Swim has a fabulous little dob'o'television called Metalocalypse about a death metal band called Dethklok that so popular that they are monitored by the government because an entire economy revolves around them. In a recent episode, Metalocalypse frontman Nathan Explosion gave a press junket in which he exclaimed, "the recession is an asshole."

Dethklok proceeded to spend their billions of dollars on bullshit like a floating house, new airplanes, and the most expensive cocert venue in the world. All because they were absentmindedly determined to pull the world out of the recession. At the end of the episode they were broke and were unable to function in a life without a bottomless bank account - but that's the humorous twist. The point is that even a stupid cartoon meant for office workers who come home and burn down a whole weed forest at night knows how to pull a country out of a recession - you make stuff.

Out economy has been forged into one focused on service and money make from efficiencies derived from industry "protocol" over the last twenty years. As soon as digital communication was simple enough to keep track of billions of dollars of goods shipping around the world at any given time, and without a tax code to prevent it, we were free to outsource whatever we saw fit. The economy of the United States subsequently became one of service: servicing those who outsourced, servicing those who shuttled outsource goods around, and servicing those who worked in the service economy. We no longer needed, and still don't need, to build anything on our own soil.

Things that could not be outsourced were streamlined or made autrociously cheap; mainly housing and American cars. Health care is the only industry in our country that remains bloated and actually making money - ironically the one industry which I'd argue should not be making any money as it as a humanitarian effort. But I digress...

So there's one reason that we don't manufacture here anymore; outsourcing is easier and cheaper. The detriment of that is of course a loss of jobs. This has been a problem for years. Additionally, and possibly more importantly, it has lessened the general cost of goods and thusly made the more disposable. Fifty years ago I'm fairly certain that, "oh it's broken, I'll just get a new one" wasn't a terribly common household phrase. We don't repair things and keep them anymore. They are cheap and easily replacable. This means that China and Taiwan get to sell more goods to us and we don't have to worry about how cheaply they're made. Even worse, we don't have to worry about how they're made.

We've forgotten how to repair things, we've forgotten how to manufacture, our plants with which we do manufacture are in disrepair or gone, we've forgotten why engineering is important and why it should be a nationalistic endeavor. Innovation and improvement of proceesses and products are only important when your engineers are making these things.

I feel a bit bad, saying all this about how engineers are so important and manufacturing is so great, without being able to say that I've contributed something myself. I can't say that, I haven't, I haven't had a damned idea for an invention of anything like that in my life. My function is to sit here, mull over issues, and type them out. And sometimes get a spreadsheet or two going. I am a perfect example of a service worker. I couldn't produce a good if my life fucking depended on it.

If the world's most popular band asked our country to make them a floating house, new airplane powered by lasers, and bionic dogs or something...would we even be able to? I'd hope so, if national demand calls, supply better come following shortly behind.

Will the Clusterfuck of Health Care Reform be the Genesis of a Three Party System?

I really wish I was a lot happier about today. When this whole possiblity of universal health care began discussion in the middle of 2009, I was wrought with smiles and sparkles. The sun shone lovingly upon congress and liberals like I existed in a haze of "what could be" - which was a world in which health insurance companies did not profit to the extent they presently do on what should be a humanitarian effort. But now, at the much anticipated Christmas health care reform deadline, all I can do is think about how huge those Democrat's anuses must be from taking it hard and fast in the legislative prison shower.

They made compromises which destroyed the whole purpose of any health care reform at all: to equalize over all costs for all citizens.

Making compromises with republicans, such as losing the Medicare buy in and the public option, was fucking fruitless. Not one of them were going to vote for it anyway by virtue of the name "health care reform". Democrats held the power, still hold the power, but took the easy road by compromising - and I can't even begin to explain why this might have been "easy" except for that maybe it stopped the whole Senate Clerk reading bullshit for hours on end thing.

It is economic and coroprate logic that for-profit companies will take whatever route they can to justify increasing costs. This will happen again.

The new health care bill does not do two things, that it could have done to prevent this:

1. Eliminate the for-profit status of all private health insurance firms
2. Create a public option (or Medicare buy in)

One of the two would have been just dandy. In the former, health insurance firms wouldn't have had to fire any employees. The gluttons at the top simply would have to cut their salaries - a function that Obama's lovely and forthright pay czar could have done.

Becuase private health insurance companies are still for profit entities, they are shtting themselves with glee over the prospect that they now have 30 million new customers. Who wouldn't be? There is no reprecussion for this other than um...

Oh they HAVE to take those 30 million higher risk customers.

But...nobody told they they coudn't amortize that risk over ALL of us. Nobody told them they couldn't hoard additional profit from this amortized risk and subsequently higher premiums.

No, the god damned senate could have told them that. With the iron fist the Democrats possessed, this was a reality that will never be again.

You fucked up guys. I hope that the revolution of a three party system starts now.

Calling Out Dr. Laura's Bible Thumping

I rarely post the work of others, because I feel a bit plagiaristy about it. However, I find this far too amazing a gem to keep to myself.

Many of you are probably familiar with Dr. Laura and her rather strict theories on life, love, family and more. These strict theories are typically theologically driven: she is an Orthodox Jew. As an atheist, I find many of these rules and regulations that are dictated by the extremely profitable reifications that are the bible and Torah to be contradictory and illogical. Of course I know that I'm not the only one, but I'm not clever enough to email Dr. Laura with a list of questions asking for clarification on the most illogical, segregationist, bigoted, and offensive segments of the Old Testament.

Click here to view the whole email is all its awesome glory.

In case you don't have time to view it. Here are a few select questions posed to Dr. Laura:

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

Thank you to the Magic City Morning Star for making this an article and posting it. It's much needed, extremely important news...identifying the insanity of belief in the all-manipulated, Guttenberg pressed, guide to live in the year 1 AD.

I'd also like to hear Dr. Laura speak to the value of the Dark Ages.

Office Games

I like my job. I like what I do, as a skill and general effort. However, like any job, it can get mundane as one gets better at it. I can do my job efficiently and proactively with a bitchin' hangover or with the flu. So I'd give myself a solid pat on the back and vehemently state that I've become quite good at it.

Though, there's down time to. An efficient worker must break up the day with varying events of a somewhat excitable nature. This is why some studies state that smokers are more efficient. This is because they take breaks, those cancer-prone geniuses.

Work is fun if you make it fun. That does involve the hazard of mockery of others. Fortunately, my office complex provides plenty of opportunities for this.

My boss and I have developed several games that pretty much just involve predicting a specific individuals behavior based on 1) gender 2) clothing and 3) other behaviors (smoking, walking oddly, talking loudly, things of that nature).

Game #1: Open Sesame
There is a restaurant that is loosely classified as a "grill" in the first floor of the building adjacent to ours. It serves food that might make Denny's slightly envious. The levels of MSG are likely quite high and for some reason a half of a turkey sandwich makes 15 minutes to make. There is a door that is constantly left open by weary office-worker patrons, allowing the breeze to blow napkins about and my skirt up over my ass.

We've noticed that the culprits of leaving open the door typically have common features. The object of "open sesame" is to properly bet on and classify who is going to leave the door open and who is actually going to close it behind them. I'm currently at 12 of 20. I think I hold a strong chance of picking up my ratio in first quarter 2009.

Game #2: Re-Name the Adult Human
Many people are not properly named. Their parents may have had horrible foresight, or were unfortunately not aware of what pop culture references and characters may change the inference of their child's name. Damn them for not being able to tell the future. So these children, that are now adults, need the help of my boss and I to properly rename them. While this game has no way of "winning" or "losing" per se, it's an excellent time. Just wait to bring up a name like "Perry" which has no connotation other than "Luke Perry". Watch the laughs fly.

Game #3: Bait the Sharks
Being the marketing department affords the luxury of receiving gifts of food and goodies during the holidays and on birthdays. Office workers tend to love food, because, as previously mentioned, it breaks up the monotony of a skill that has been very well learned.

So why keep these lovely yummies all to ourselves? We share. We feed the sharks in the central office kitchen. Anything placed on the office kitchen is automatically up for the munching. The object of game is to properly estimate the amount of time it will take for the sharks to consume the bait.

This of course depends on a variety of factors: type of snack, amount of snack, number of people in the office at the current time.

Here is a typical breakdown of time until complete consumption:

Cake - 40 minutes
Cookies - 20 minutes
Fruit - 6 hours
Vegetables - 8 hours
Sandwiches - 30 minutes
Salad - 3 hours

I am very surprised at the amount of time cake takes until complete consumption. Oh well, perhaps I've overestimated gluttony.

I encourage you to implement these games in you own work setting. Report back with your fun Office Games stories.

The Holiday Spirit Broke my Immune System

I haven't been able to write a blog since November 30th. This saddens me greatly. Here I sit, crying big salty tears into my cup'o'water with emergen-c in it. Then I will some left overs from a party I attended last week and ten consider digging into a half consumed bottle of wine that was a gift from a vendor. I haven't been able to write a blog because the holiday rampage of scheduling conflicts and social obligations have broken my brain.

It was only one year ago when the holidays were fun. They were fun because I didn't have a damn thing to do. I craved social events leading to drinking and forced socialization because then I didn't have to make people hang out with me: they were begging me to hang out with them. Evite invitations flooded my email box, my phone blowing up daily with reminders and invitations, oooh joy! Such popularity! My presence was a commodity. I was a number to take up space and to consume goodies and perhaps bring a gift. Even if that were the lowly case, I loved it. I loved that my presence was wanted, because it wasn't wanted anywhere else.

This year, my life changed greatly. I like being at home now. Because I have a semi-family. He makes our place feel like a home. He makes this place feel warm and loving and entertaining all at the same time. So I don't much care to be driving my drunk ass all over town to varying events at which I am only there to consume drink and food.

Alas, I wasn't about to give up on my social obligations this year. I love my friends. Even if I feel overwhelmed and pompous by way of these myriad attendance requests.

Thanksgiving rolls in and then it starts. Then it's my birthday in the first week of December. Then the company parties begin. Then the Christmas and Chanukkah parties grow at a rapid rate. That doesn't count the normal drinking and carousing, no siree. And all while this goes on, I am working, planning the allocation of my company's marketing dollars for 2010. Also, I must remember, the last week of December is completely shot, as I will be visiting my family.

Do you think I'm an egomaniac yet? Ungrateful for having people around me that probably care about me?

Most don't. It's a numbers game. Especially the company parties. In that case, I view consuming their food and drink as an act of communism that I must perform.

I brought porn to a white elephant party. That was fun.

But the downside of that is that I'm just really tired and now I've gotten really sick.

I'm glad I'm really sick. It means that I don't have to pick up the phone now. I can set it to vibrate, I can ignore it, and in my sick voice call back the message sender later on and say, "oh, sorry, I was taking a nap...I'm quite under the weather."

Also, I got to write a blog. Even if it was a series of complaints that may seem completely unwarranted. In January, when the phone stops ringing and I can stop worrying about pissing people off because I have to reschedule or can't attend their affair, I'll relish this time. For now, I'm going to relish being sick, because it allowed for the peace and quiet between my brain 'n' me.

Ahh...sweet release.