I’m glad that Jimbo’s girlfriend is not the heiress to the throne of some foreign country. If she was and someone from one of the tabloid newspapers saw us together, the press would have a field day reminding everyone that Jimbo is not a really attractive man. As a matter of fact, they would make constant humor about how grotesquely ugly I was.
The particular notion that has me thanking my lucky stars this evening is the press coverage of the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Now I will be the first to concede that Ms. Bowles is not blessed with super-model looks, nor is her fiancé likely to grace the cover of GQ anytime soon. I would say they are an average-looking couple and there is nothing wrong with that. I would also strongly argue that neither of them are ghoulish in appearance, but if you read about them-- especially Ms. Bowles-- you might conclude that a lengthy observation of them would induce projectile vomiting. We are a society that tends toward hyperbole, especially those in the tabloid newspapers and on tabloid television. Am I wrong or are the racks ahead of the supermarket checkout lanes and the televised airways way too full of the tabloid crap? It’s like our lives are so meaningless that the only way we can be fulfilled is to have minute-to-minute updates on the doings of Brad and Jennifer, or reading about a space alien mother who repeatedly ejaculates tiny Elvis clones.
I think we need to get over the fact that Prince Charles and Ms. Bowles are not the world’s homeliest couple and that Jen and Brad can live their lives in peace and the invasion of Elvis clones is not coming. Why do we set the standards for our celebrities so high and our politicians so low?
All I can hope for tonight is that the tabloids don’t start following my girlfriend around and Entertainment Tonight doesn’t interrupt their coverage of Brad and Jen to question Jimbo’s girlfriend’s taste in men. Or wondering aloud if she may be dating a James Lipton look-alike. Or the headline blazes from the National Enquirer:
Jimbo’s girlfriend dates ghoul from another world
And they have pictures to prove it. It is likely, however, we will sneak under the radar of the pulp media and my fears about ridicule by the tabloids will be unrealized.
Sometimes in Jimbo’s world dreams do come true.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Monday, February 21, 2005
doctor gonzo
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
No, that’s not Jimbo talking. It’s the first line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first time I saw the movie made from the book, I went back and read the first chapter because I thought whoever had made the movie had made it seem like a totally drug-induced fantasy. I thought the movie maker had turned it into a satire, but a re-reading of the book confirmed the movie followed the book verbatim. Jimbo was never a doper nor a drinker nor was he a member of the counter-culture, but he was a big fan of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson committed suicide yesterday. We’ll miss him.
What I liked most about Thompson was his “gonzo journalism,” where he inserted himself in the center of the story. When you read his articles and books they were always written from his own twisted point of view. You might conclude that Thompson and Jimbo were as different as night and day, but basically he was blogging fifty years before blogging was even thought of.
I remember when I heard him speak a number of years ago at a major Midwestern University, I was looking forward to his lecture. Instead, he came out on stage and someone in the audience lowered a can of beer on a string from the balcony above him and he said “thank you.” Then he said, “I want the biggest, meanest, ugliest son of a bitch in here to ask me a question.” Someone did. The entire evening people in the audience of a thousand or so shouted out questions. I wasn’t the biggest or meanest, but eventually I shouted to him, “Will you ever run for public office again?”
He said, no, that one met too many dirty people in politics. It was a weird coincidence that I wrote about that night and last week I came across what I had written. That night had sort of faded in my memory, but I have thought about it a couple of times, now, in the last few days. Now, I guess I’ll think about it again.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005.
No, that’s not Jimbo talking. It’s the first line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first time I saw the movie made from the book, I went back and read the first chapter because I thought whoever had made the movie had made it seem like a totally drug-induced fantasy. I thought the movie maker had turned it into a satire, but a re-reading of the book confirmed the movie followed the book verbatim. Jimbo was never a doper nor a drinker nor was he a member of the counter-culture, but he was a big fan of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson committed suicide yesterday. We’ll miss him.
What I liked most about Thompson was his “gonzo journalism,” where he inserted himself in the center of the story. When you read his articles and books they were always written from his own twisted point of view. You might conclude that Thompson and Jimbo were as different as night and day, but basically he was blogging fifty years before blogging was even thought of.
I remember when I heard him speak a number of years ago at a major Midwestern University, I was looking forward to his lecture. Instead, he came out on stage and someone in the audience lowered a can of beer on a string from the balcony above him and he said “thank you.” Then he said, “I want the biggest, meanest, ugliest son of a bitch in here to ask me a question.” Someone did. The entire evening people in the audience of a thousand or so shouted out questions. I wasn’t the biggest or meanest, but eventually I shouted to him, “Will you ever run for public office again?”
He said, no, that one met too many dirty people in politics. It was a weird coincidence that I wrote about that night and last week I came across what I had written. That night had sort of faded in my memory, but I have thought about it a couple of times, now, in the last few days. Now, I guess I’ll think about it again.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
too much monkey business, or a tall, cold, refreshing bottle of urine with my lunch, please
In the news today is a story about two female caretakers for a gorilla famous for his hand signals, who are suing the foundation that houses the gorilla for sex and employment discrimination. The women allege that the Gorilla Foundation wrongfully terminated them after they reported health and safety violations, and that they were victims of sexual discrimination. They claim they were asked to expose their breasts to Koko, the gorilla.
A number of things around this story are causing me confusion. Most notably, there is an ad for Verizon right next to the story on Yahoo! depicting a gorilla. What’s the deal with that?
The two women reported violations to OSHA and were fired after OSHA found violations. The story goes on to tell that that the two claimed the Gorilla Foundation stored bottles of gorilla urine in the refrigerator where employees kept their lunches. It also says that Koko is a female gorilla.
Now it is a known fact that gorillas love boobies, or at least that is what I’ve been told, so you wouldn’t blame the simian for wanting to see some, if it were a male. I think it is just plain wrong that a female gorilla would drool over hooters. This is one smart ape, however, so maybe her interest is purely for scientific reasons, but even so, you’d think that they could buy her some magazines depicting women with extremely impressive racks, for her “research” purposes.
Speaking of jugs, what about those containers of gorilla urine stored in the employee refrigerator. I know that gorilla urine is best served at a refreshing forty-five degrees, but not at lunch, and not on this planet.
I know many of you are thinking right now, “Jimbo, what kinds of psychoses wrack your brain that cause you to make up wild stories like these?”
My answer to you is that this is a true story. With real life being this crazy, I could never in a million years invent something crazier. Nor would I want to. I’d like to see reality television come up with something that would top this.
Until then, we’ll rely on the truth.
In Jimbo’s world truth is stranger than fiction.
A number of things around this story are causing me confusion. Most notably, there is an ad for Verizon right next to the story on Yahoo! depicting a gorilla. What’s the deal with that?
The two women reported violations to OSHA and were fired after OSHA found violations. The story goes on to tell that that the two claimed the Gorilla Foundation stored bottles of gorilla urine in the refrigerator where employees kept their lunches. It also says that Koko is a female gorilla.
Now it is a known fact that gorillas love boobies, or at least that is what I’ve been told, so you wouldn’t blame the simian for wanting to see some, if it were a male. I think it is just plain wrong that a female gorilla would drool over hooters. This is one smart ape, however, so maybe her interest is purely for scientific reasons, but even so, you’d think that they could buy her some magazines depicting women with extremely impressive racks, for her “research” purposes.
Speaking of jugs, what about those containers of gorilla urine stored in the employee refrigerator. I know that gorilla urine is best served at a refreshing forty-five degrees, but not at lunch, and not on this planet.
I know many of you are thinking right now, “Jimbo, what kinds of psychoses wrack your brain that cause you to make up wild stories like these?”
My answer to you is that this is a true story. With real life being this crazy, I could never in a million years invent something crazier. Nor would I want to. I’d like to see reality television come up with something that would top this.
Until then, we’ll rely on the truth.
In Jimbo’s world truth is stranger than fiction.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
an anniversary and an event
Today is my sister's and brother-in-law's anniversary. I had long hair and muttonchop sideburns when they got married. Happy anniversary.
It was also an eventful day in another regard. Hell froze over.
I had a job interview on Monday and met with five people, including the top man at the facility. It took about two and a half hours and I thought I did well. Today they called me and offered me a temporary job, to see how I liked them and to see how they liked me. I said okay. I will be working for them for the next four to six weeks, and perhaps longer (no less, I hope).
I can tell that this is not going to be a forty hour a week job, but as a temp, I will experience something I haven't in twenty years-- time and a half for overtime.
This blog and the people who read it are important to me and I will continue to write for you. Being honest, however, I am sure I won't be posting quite as often, so if I miss a day or two now and then, please keep checking back. Please put me in your favorites or something so you can click in to see what I'm up to.
As Jimbo tells his girlfriend frequently, and it applies to you, too, thank you for being there for me.
Because in Jimbo's world and everywhere else, we get by with a little help from our friends.
It was also an eventful day in another regard. Hell froze over.
I had a job interview on Monday and met with five people, including the top man at the facility. It took about two and a half hours and I thought I did well. Today they called me and offered me a temporary job, to see how I liked them and to see how they liked me. I said okay. I will be working for them for the next four to six weeks, and perhaps longer (no less, I hope).
I can tell that this is not going to be a forty hour a week job, but as a temp, I will experience something I haven't in twenty years-- time and a half for overtime.
This blog and the people who read it are important to me and I will continue to write for you. Being honest, however, I am sure I won't be posting quite as often, so if I miss a day or two now and then, please keep checking back. Please put me in your favorites or something so you can click in to see what I'm up to.
As Jimbo tells his girlfriend frequently, and it applies to you, too, thank you for being there for me.
Because in Jimbo's world and everywhere else, we get by with a little help from our friends.
don't bogart that game
Games are in the news this morning. The paintings of dogs playing poker sold at auction yesterday for more than half a million dollars. The picture I saw this morning shows a St. Bernard in a draw poker game with a hand full of rags and apparently no paint at all pushing it in and stealing the pot. It’s a nice picture, but it seems pricey. It’d look good on the wall of my office, but Jimbo doesn’t play five-card draw-- just no limit hold ‘em. Plus that, Jimbo doesn’t have the free cash flow right now to spend more than half a million on a picture, as the private bidder from New York must have had.
The other game I read about in the news is one that was discarded from the New York toy fair. It is a board game (marketed by a company called Bored Games) like monopoly, in which the players try successfully to run a marijuana growing operation. The story says the guy who conceived the game did so while serving time in jail. It doesn’t say why he was in jail; we just have to leave that to our imaginations. It does say, however, that the inventor wanted to demonstrate the pitfalls of the business. This, I infer, gives the game redeeming social value. The spokesman for Bored Games says that they consider the game to be like an education and that it will show you that running a dope farm will be hard.
By the way, the name of the company is a great play on words, but don’t you imagine the name would create marketing challenges?
I’m also wondering whether selling such a game would limit your market to dopers and “hip” teenagers. I can’t see many parents buying the game for their children. Let’s buy little Johnny that game for his birthday. It’ll teach him not to grow the ganja when he grows up.
And what is next? Will someone come up with a new version of the monopoly game in which, instead of building houses and hotels, the players find more lucrative illegal activities with which to build wealth? Will players find it is more profitable to run a crack house out of a tenement down on Baltic Avenue? Or will they make book out of a storefront on St. James Place? Will someone sell “protection” to the upper middle class merchants along Connecticut Avenue? Will someone run a high priced call girl operation out of a penthouse somewhere along Park Place? Or, will someone realize the ultimate, sure-fire method of milking the cash cow and become a public official and make “free parking” a thing of the past?
Either way, we are not going to learn morality from board games. Board games should have fun objectives, like monopoly, where the object is to bankrupt your opponents and take all their money. Or chess, where the object is to wage war and capture or kill your opponent. Okay, I guess I have talked myself into a corner, again. But somehow, I’m thinking that a game based on growing dope is not going to catch on with the kiddies. Although I have been wrong before…
In Jimbo’s world we say what we mean, even when it doesn’t mean anything.
The other game I read about in the news is one that was discarded from the New York toy fair. It is a board game (marketed by a company called Bored Games) like monopoly, in which the players try successfully to run a marijuana growing operation. The story says the guy who conceived the game did so while serving time in jail. It doesn’t say why he was in jail; we just have to leave that to our imaginations. It does say, however, that the inventor wanted to demonstrate the pitfalls of the business. This, I infer, gives the game redeeming social value. The spokesman for Bored Games says that they consider the game to be like an education and that it will show you that running a dope farm will be hard.
By the way, the name of the company is a great play on words, but don’t you imagine the name would create marketing challenges?
I’m also wondering whether selling such a game would limit your market to dopers and “hip” teenagers. I can’t see many parents buying the game for their children. Let’s buy little Johnny that game for his birthday. It’ll teach him not to grow the ganja when he grows up.
And what is next? Will someone come up with a new version of the monopoly game in which, instead of building houses and hotels, the players find more lucrative illegal activities with which to build wealth? Will players find it is more profitable to run a crack house out of a tenement down on Baltic Avenue? Or will they make book out of a storefront on St. James Place? Will someone sell “protection” to the upper middle class merchants along Connecticut Avenue? Will someone run a high priced call girl operation out of a penthouse somewhere along Park Place? Or, will someone realize the ultimate, sure-fire method of milking the cash cow and become a public official and make “free parking” a thing of the past?
Either way, we are not going to learn morality from board games. Board games should have fun objectives, like monopoly, where the object is to bankrupt your opponents and take all their money. Or chess, where the object is to wage war and capture or kill your opponent. Okay, I guess I have talked myself into a corner, again. But somehow, I’m thinking that a game based on growing dope is not going to catch on with the kiddies. Although I have been wrong before…
In Jimbo’s world we say what we mean, even when it doesn’t mean anything.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
i'm glad he didn't step in it
I read this morning a story from China in which a farmer there had seen poop from a giant panda and that is good news. The story went on to say that the farmer saw an animal that looked very much like a giant panda while collecting bamboo leaves, and then later on he saw what he believed to be panda poop.
I remember one time when I was cutting my grass, I saw an animal that looked very much like a dog and then later I saw what I believed to be dog poop in the path of my lawn mower. I will admit that I went ahead and ran over it (the poop; not the dog), but made sure I sidestepped the ground-up defecation the next couple of trips around the yard.
Some more environmentally conscious readers may ask, “Jimbo, how did you know it wasn’t panda poop? You may have destroyed valuable evidence of panda migration onto the rural Midwestern lawn you were cutting?”
A tough question, but justified, so let me address it.
Once, I was taking a walk near a farm where cattle were grazing in the pasture. I noticed a steaming brown gelatinous pile on the ground and I concluded (without formal training) that it was bovine defecation. When I was a child, my family went to a parade and there were people dressed as cowboys and cowgirls on horses. After the parade we walked across the street and I saw a brown pile of something in front of me. Even without extensive equine exposure, I was able to ascertain it was horseshit. In both instances, I walked around, rather than through, these malodorous leavings.
At various times in my life, my family has had pet dogs and it has been necessary at times to move their droppings to areas less traveled in order to avoid family, friends and strangers from striding through them. Through these exercises I have learned to identify canine feces, so on that warm summer afternoon as I negotiated my lawn mower over the yard in a pattern of rectangles of decreasing size, I could be confident in my positive identification of the dog dung.
I would like to believe that had I been in the situation of the Chinese farmer and I had seen the animal he saw, I would have concluded the som’ bitch was a panda. Shortly after, seeing the droppings, I would like to think that I would have concluded they were panda droppings. However, this is not a common animal, so I can understand why the farmer called in the feds. The wildlife management experts he told about it came in and made a positive ID. I'd prefer not to be familiar with their testing methods.
Somehow, however, I can’t help but be reminded of the old Cheech and Chong routine where they come across some dung on the sidewalk and they examine it. They smell it, feel it, taste it and finally conclude, “I’m glad we didn’t step in it.”
Because in Jimbo’s world we like to watch where we step.
I remember one time when I was cutting my grass, I saw an animal that looked very much like a dog and then later I saw what I believed to be dog poop in the path of my lawn mower. I will admit that I went ahead and ran over it (the poop; not the dog), but made sure I sidestepped the ground-up defecation the next couple of trips around the yard.
Some more environmentally conscious readers may ask, “Jimbo, how did you know it wasn’t panda poop? You may have destroyed valuable evidence of panda migration onto the rural Midwestern lawn you were cutting?”
A tough question, but justified, so let me address it.
Once, I was taking a walk near a farm where cattle were grazing in the pasture. I noticed a steaming brown gelatinous pile on the ground and I concluded (without formal training) that it was bovine defecation. When I was a child, my family went to a parade and there were people dressed as cowboys and cowgirls on horses. After the parade we walked across the street and I saw a brown pile of something in front of me. Even without extensive equine exposure, I was able to ascertain it was horseshit. In both instances, I walked around, rather than through, these malodorous leavings.
At various times in my life, my family has had pet dogs and it has been necessary at times to move their droppings to areas less traveled in order to avoid family, friends and strangers from striding through them. Through these exercises I have learned to identify canine feces, so on that warm summer afternoon as I negotiated my lawn mower over the yard in a pattern of rectangles of decreasing size, I could be confident in my positive identification of the dog dung.
I would like to believe that had I been in the situation of the Chinese farmer and I had seen the animal he saw, I would have concluded the som’ bitch was a panda. Shortly after, seeing the droppings, I would like to think that I would have concluded they were panda droppings. However, this is not a common animal, so I can understand why the farmer called in the feds. The wildlife management experts he told about it came in and made a positive ID. I'd prefer not to be familiar with their testing methods.
Somehow, however, I can’t help but be reminded of the old Cheech and Chong routine where they come across some dung on the sidewalk and they examine it. They smell it, feel it, taste it and finally conclude, “I’m glad we didn’t step in it.”
Because in Jimbo’s world we like to watch where we step.
a bug's life
Do you know what is the last thing that goes through an insect’s mind when he hits the windshield of a car going seventy miles per hour?
His ass.
At least, that is what someone told us once in Jimbo's world.
His ass.
At least, that is what someone told us once in Jimbo's world.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
work days
I’m pretty impressed with how far computer technology has come. I remember one morning just before Thanksgiving I got out of bed, booted up my computer and glanced at the news stories on line. One particular one caught my eye and I wrote a blog about it, while sitting my office, which was the third bedroom of my house, in a rural town, miles from nowhere. Within two hours, a gentleman from Great Britain commented to me that a couple of lines from my blog had been quoted in an on-line British publication, a fourth of the distance around the world from where I was. I think the most amazing thing is how fast we got here, while I‘m sure you are thinking, “Jimbo, how many times are you going to tell us that story? Your fifteen minutes are over. Get over it.”
I say, it’s my blogsite. I’ll tell it as many times as I wish, but I digress.
It wasn’t that many years ago that the company I worked for had only five personal computers in the entire organization, and my department didn’t have access to any of them. We all had CRTs on our desks, but the DOS based system we had only allowed us to look at screens of records and the system was not interactive. The records we could access were from the end of the previous day and anything that happened in the last twelve hours was not yet available. The company had a mainframe computer and it generated tons of computer reports. We would do our work off of 11 1/2” X 14 7/8” green bar and gray bar fanfold reports. Then we would take action depending on what we interpreted on the reports and secretaries would type letters and faxes for us and manually type orders to our supply chain.
I accepted a position in another area of the company-- what is generally referred to as a “sideways move”-- meaning that I got no extra money or prestige for changing positions and I kept all of the duties I had before and took on more work. But I had access to a personal computer. I wanted to be able to spend all day at the computer to get myself more computer literate. Since there were only five computers in the company, it was necessary for me to share the computer with several other people, but I quickly dominated it and the others that used it would come to me occasionally to use it for ten or fifteen minutes. The computer had no modem, so I had no internet access, but I had the ability to compose and send faxes on our network, so I had some communication ability.
I had a small office and the computer sat just outside my office, in a large community work area, on an L-shaped desk. Frequently at lunch, the people that worked in the community area would come over and play solitaire on the computer. Once, I deleted the games and got everyone mad at me and someone had them re-installed. I told everyone that we had more important things to do than play games at work, so every time someone used the computer, they initiated a game of solitaire and left it on the screen, making it appear as if it were mine, since, by then, the PC had been designated as Jimbo‘s computer. Prior to accepting the position that allowed me computer access, I used to work with a group of serious professionals and I was considered to be the office wit. Sometimes, during meetings, one of my co-workers would ask me to do my imitation of the wicked witch of the west. I would , of course, comply.
“I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too. He, he, he, he, he.”
When I moved to where the computer was, my co-workers were a wild bunch and I was considered to be too businesslike.
They were all young; all had tattoos, they drank late into the night and smoked cigars and they spoke with language that I hadn‘t heard around the office much-- only out in the manufacturing plant. They would come in on Monday mornings and brag of their sexual exploits over the weekend and hint that poor Jimbo might not be a stallion, sexually. Now, I know your first thought is, “Something is wrong, here. The Jimbo we all know and love would come over the desk like a Tasmanian devil at the mere suggestion that he would take a back seat to anyone. He would bust open a can of whup-ass like Popeye breaking out a can of spinach. And when the smoke had cleared he would be doing a ceremonial dance of victory over the defeated rabble of these young toughs.”
Well, the problem was that I was the only man in the office. The second part of the problem was that any of these young women probably could whip my ass. You remember that Joey Buttafuco thing on Celebrity boxing. Sure, he won, but no man is ever really going to win when he enters the ring with a woman. As a middle manager, the option of suggesting a demonstration of my prowess would not have been acceptable, so, I just had to sit and take the abuse. The up side, however was that it was a good way of keeping a running conversation with young chicks who talked dirty.
In the late 1990s, when the internet was coming of age, I volunteered to research a web-based supply chain management system for the company for whom I worked. By that time we had a DSL connection and we all had internet access. You are probably thinking, “Jimbo, you dummy. Didn’t it occur to you that by streamlining your supply chain using internet technology, you were in danger of eliminating your job and those of your co-workers?”
The answer was that many of us were working long hours anyway, so I figured that by making the process more automated that we would free up time so we could see first-hand was sunlight was really like. These were modern times and we were not living in conditions like the ones Upton Sinclair described in his book The Jungle.
Okay, you’re right. I was a dummy.
The bottom line was, however, that the internet was not yet ready for the company I was working for and the company I was working for was not yet ready to take advantage of internet technology. So the conclusion I reached was: not now; maybe later.
Fast forward to the last position I held, and we did almost everything on the computer. We communicated primarily by e-mail and most of our clerical work was done on the keyboard and input into the manufacturing software system. Every time I apply for a job, the technical requirements are strenuous and I think it will continue to be even more so in the future. The computer has made our lives better in that we can do things quicker and better and it has made our lives more complicated in that we are expected to do more, do it better and do it faster. It isn’t the simple life anymore. And, I predict, it will get less simple. A frightening view of things to come.
In Jimbo’s world, however, we take what comes and we try to roll with the punches.
I say, it’s my blogsite. I’ll tell it as many times as I wish, but I digress.
It wasn’t that many years ago that the company I worked for had only five personal computers in the entire organization, and my department didn’t have access to any of them. We all had CRTs on our desks, but the DOS based system we had only allowed us to look at screens of records and the system was not interactive. The records we could access were from the end of the previous day and anything that happened in the last twelve hours was not yet available. The company had a mainframe computer and it generated tons of computer reports. We would do our work off of 11 1/2” X 14 7/8” green bar and gray bar fanfold reports. Then we would take action depending on what we interpreted on the reports and secretaries would type letters and faxes for us and manually type orders to our supply chain.
I accepted a position in another area of the company-- what is generally referred to as a “sideways move”-- meaning that I got no extra money or prestige for changing positions and I kept all of the duties I had before and took on more work. But I had access to a personal computer. I wanted to be able to spend all day at the computer to get myself more computer literate. Since there were only five computers in the company, it was necessary for me to share the computer with several other people, but I quickly dominated it and the others that used it would come to me occasionally to use it for ten or fifteen minutes. The computer had no modem, so I had no internet access, but I had the ability to compose and send faxes on our network, so I had some communication ability.
I had a small office and the computer sat just outside my office, in a large community work area, on an L-shaped desk. Frequently at lunch, the people that worked in the community area would come over and play solitaire on the computer. Once, I deleted the games and got everyone mad at me and someone had them re-installed. I told everyone that we had more important things to do than play games at work, so every time someone used the computer, they initiated a game of solitaire and left it on the screen, making it appear as if it were mine, since, by then, the PC had been designated as Jimbo‘s computer. Prior to accepting the position that allowed me computer access, I used to work with a group of serious professionals and I was considered to be the office wit. Sometimes, during meetings, one of my co-workers would ask me to do my imitation of the wicked witch of the west. I would , of course, comply.
“I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too. He, he, he, he, he.”
When I moved to where the computer was, my co-workers were a wild bunch and I was considered to be too businesslike.
They were all young; all had tattoos, they drank late into the night and smoked cigars and they spoke with language that I hadn‘t heard around the office much-- only out in the manufacturing plant. They would come in on Monday mornings and brag of their sexual exploits over the weekend and hint that poor Jimbo might not be a stallion, sexually. Now, I know your first thought is, “Something is wrong, here. The Jimbo we all know and love would come over the desk like a Tasmanian devil at the mere suggestion that he would take a back seat to anyone. He would bust open a can of whup-ass like Popeye breaking out a can of spinach. And when the smoke had cleared he would be doing a ceremonial dance of victory over the defeated rabble of these young toughs.”
Well, the problem was that I was the only man in the office. The second part of the problem was that any of these young women probably could whip my ass. You remember that Joey Buttafuco thing on Celebrity boxing. Sure, he won, but no man is ever really going to win when he enters the ring with a woman. As a middle manager, the option of suggesting a demonstration of my prowess would not have been acceptable, so, I just had to sit and take the abuse. The up side, however was that it was a good way of keeping a running conversation with young chicks who talked dirty.
In the late 1990s, when the internet was coming of age, I volunteered to research a web-based supply chain management system for the company for whom I worked. By that time we had a DSL connection and we all had internet access. You are probably thinking, “Jimbo, you dummy. Didn’t it occur to you that by streamlining your supply chain using internet technology, you were in danger of eliminating your job and those of your co-workers?”
The answer was that many of us were working long hours anyway, so I figured that by making the process more automated that we would free up time so we could see first-hand was sunlight was really like. These were modern times and we were not living in conditions like the ones Upton Sinclair described in his book The Jungle.
Okay, you’re right. I was a dummy.
The bottom line was, however, that the internet was not yet ready for the company I was working for and the company I was working for was not yet ready to take advantage of internet technology. So the conclusion I reached was: not now; maybe later.
Fast forward to the last position I held, and we did almost everything on the computer. We communicated primarily by e-mail and most of our clerical work was done on the keyboard and input into the manufacturing software system. Every time I apply for a job, the technical requirements are strenuous and I think it will continue to be even more so in the future. The computer has made our lives better in that we can do things quicker and better and it has made our lives more complicated in that we are expected to do more, do it better and do it faster. It isn’t the simple life anymore. And, I predict, it will get less simple. A frightening view of things to come.
In Jimbo’s world, however, we take what comes and we try to roll with the punches.
Monday, February 14, 2005
journey into k-mart
In 2000 I changed jobs and it necessitated a lifestyle change. Well, not all that much of a lifestyle change, but a change in habits. Every Sunday morning in the newspaper there was an advertisement for K-Mart and every week there would be specials on items I used on a regular basis. There was sale pricing on things like deodorant, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, bars of soap, and Pepsi and Coke. Most of all there were occasional sales on coffee-- Folgers gourmet supreme, Jimbo’s favorite blend-- and a frugal shopper could shave a couple of dollars a week off his purchases, if one shopped wisely.
Prior to 2000, I worked in an affluent suburb and there was a K-Mart close to work and directly on the way home. After 2000, I worked in an older, industrial area of town, far from affluence and closer to the mean streets. There was another K-Mart close to work and almost directly on the way home, but it bordered an area where real estate agents fear to tread. As far as I was concerned, both stores were laid out similarly, the prices were the same and the selection was just as good. From the checkout lanes back, there was no discernable difference. The stores resided in different socio-economic strata, and were separate, but equal.
The notable difference, however, was from the checkout lanes forward.
In the southern suburb, when one reached the checkout lanes to finalize one’s purchases, there were rarely more than one or two people ahead of you in line. Usually there was no one and you could check out and breeze right through. If a line began to form, the manager would dispatch another clerk to open another lane and they would bust their ass to get there. Okay, I guess I never actually saw any asses broken, but they got there in a hurry. Frequently, there were more lanes open than there were people having their purchases rung up. When you reached the checkout area, often a clerk would invite you into an empty checkout lane, so there was no waiting.
On the edge of the industrial area, one could always plan to stand on line for at least a few minutes, but usually longer as it always seemed as if there were only one or two checkout lanes open any time one went there. Most of the time the lines stretched back into the store and waits of ten minutes or more were common. I remember I always felt uncomfortable waiting in these lines for long periods of time and I remember many times black, Hispanic and Asian people in line with me mumbled the same complaints I was thinking.
I’m sure many of you are now saying, “Oh, now the truth comes out. Jimbo, for all his progressive ideas is, in fact, uncomfortable around blacks and minorities. What’s the matter, Jimbo, are you only comfortable being in contact with minorities when you are on your horse and wearing that pointy white hood and carrying a torch and burning those crosses in their yards?”
No! No! It’s not that. I just hate wasting time in line, and I don’t think merchants should force anyone to do it. After all, we are the buyers and they are the sellers and the guy who puts up the bucks is the guy that calls the shots. So why is it okay to make customers stand in line in the city and not expose them to that inconvenience in the suburbs? Is it an economic issue? Does the merchant know that suburban customers won’t put up with long lines and they will go somewhere else? Or it is a social issue? Does the merchant think that the urban people will just have to put up with his crap because there is nowhere else to go, except the long drive to the suburbs, where everyone is treated as they should be?
I’ll grant you, my conclusion is derived from some pretty slim data-- just a visual comparison of two stores during visits of duration of only fifteen minutes to half an hour. It strikes me, though, as if something is wrong. If not with my conclusion, then with the merchant or with our society. Maybe we just have a situation where a store manager is trying to cut some labor costs. If so, he will be cutting his own throat, if capitalism works as it should. Or maybe we have a society that is in need of some repair. If so, we need to fix it. And not just so Jimbo won’t have to stand in line.
In Jimbo’s world if we see something is wrong, we try to make it right. Or, at least we tell everyone about it.
Prior to 2000, I worked in an affluent suburb and there was a K-Mart close to work and directly on the way home. After 2000, I worked in an older, industrial area of town, far from affluence and closer to the mean streets. There was another K-Mart close to work and almost directly on the way home, but it bordered an area where real estate agents fear to tread. As far as I was concerned, both stores were laid out similarly, the prices were the same and the selection was just as good. From the checkout lanes back, there was no discernable difference. The stores resided in different socio-economic strata, and were separate, but equal.
The notable difference, however, was from the checkout lanes forward.
In the southern suburb, when one reached the checkout lanes to finalize one’s purchases, there were rarely more than one or two people ahead of you in line. Usually there was no one and you could check out and breeze right through. If a line began to form, the manager would dispatch another clerk to open another lane and they would bust their ass to get there. Okay, I guess I never actually saw any asses broken, but they got there in a hurry. Frequently, there were more lanes open than there were people having their purchases rung up. When you reached the checkout area, often a clerk would invite you into an empty checkout lane, so there was no waiting.
On the edge of the industrial area, one could always plan to stand on line for at least a few minutes, but usually longer as it always seemed as if there were only one or two checkout lanes open any time one went there. Most of the time the lines stretched back into the store and waits of ten minutes or more were common. I remember I always felt uncomfortable waiting in these lines for long periods of time and I remember many times black, Hispanic and Asian people in line with me mumbled the same complaints I was thinking.
I’m sure many of you are now saying, “Oh, now the truth comes out. Jimbo, for all his progressive ideas is, in fact, uncomfortable around blacks and minorities. What’s the matter, Jimbo, are you only comfortable being in contact with minorities when you are on your horse and wearing that pointy white hood and carrying a torch and burning those crosses in their yards?”
No! No! It’s not that. I just hate wasting time in line, and I don’t think merchants should force anyone to do it. After all, we are the buyers and they are the sellers and the guy who puts up the bucks is the guy that calls the shots. So why is it okay to make customers stand in line in the city and not expose them to that inconvenience in the suburbs? Is it an economic issue? Does the merchant know that suburban customers won’t put up with long lines and they will go somewhere else? Or it is a social issue? Does the merchant think that the urban people will just have to put up with his crap because there is nowhere else to go, except the long drive to the suburbs, where everyone is treated as they should be?
I’ll grant you, my conclusion is derived from some pretty slim data-- just a visual comparison of two stores during visits of duration of only fifteen minutes to half an hour. It strikes me, though, as if something is wrong. If not with my conclusion, then with the merchant or with our society. Maybe we just have a situation where a store manager is trying to cut some labor costs. If so, he will be cutting his own throat, if capitalism works as it should. Or maybe we have a society that is in need of some repair. If so, we need to fix it. And not just so Jimbo won’t have to stand in line.
In Jimbo’s world if we see something is wrong, we try to make it right. Or, at least we tell everyone about it.
return of the prodigal
There is good news on the web this morning from Sri Lanka regarding the tsunami that hit the day after Christmas. DNA testing has confirmed the parents of the infant that miraculously survived the tsunami and is known as “baby 81.” After more than six weeks, he will be reunited with his parents. The parents, naturally, are pretty happy about this. The baby’s actual name is Abilass Jeyarajah and he is a few days short of being four months old.
He has been known as “baby 81” because he was the 81st person admitted that day to the local hospital. Now that his parents have been identified he has a name, but I’m sure we’ll read about him for the next twenty years and the media will keep us informed of his progress and I’m also sure it will not be the last time he is referred to, in subtext, as “baby 81.”
The story says a lot about parents’ love for their children, but it also says a lot about the advantages of monotheism. The child’s parents lost all of their worldly possessions to the tsunami, but in celebration of the child’s return the mother plans to perform the following religious rituals.
She will smash 100 coconuts as an offering to the Hindu god Ganesh, a dude who apparently has an elephant’s head.
She will offer sweet rice to the warrior god Murugan.
She will sacrifice a rooster to the goddess Kali.
These are noble sacrifices I admit, but for someone who has nothing material left, is homeless and is living in a camp for survivors, it is an inefficient expenditure of net worth. If the same thing were to happen here, we would also celebrate our fortune, but we would probably only offer a prayer to the god, er, God, and that would be sufficient.
Perhaps the child’s mother is media savvy and she realizes that with all the media coverage of her child that people all over the world will be touched by the story and will probably donate money to the family. Therefore she can throw away some meager possessions in celebration knowing there will be more coming to fill the void. I’m suggesting, however, that a hundred coconuts and some rice might come in handy right now for people living in an area of the world that is still in need of food and supplies (or so I read).
Anyway, the good news is the child will be reunited with his parents and I guess it is their prerogative to celebrate the in the way they prefer, and we can all celebrate a happy ending.
Because here in Jimbo’s world good news is always welcome.
He has been known as “baby 81” because he was the 81st person admitted that day to the local hospital. Now that his parents have been identified he has a name, but I’m sure we’ll read about him for the next twenty years and the media will keep us informed of his progress and I’m also sure it will not be the last time he is referred to, in subtext, as “baby 81.”
The story says a lot about parents’ love for their children, but it also says a lot about the advantages of monotheism. The child’s parents lost all of their worldly possessions to the tsunami, but in celebration of the child’s return the mother plans to perform the following religious rituals.
She will smash 100 coconuts as an offering to the Hindu god Ganesh, a dude who apparently has an elephant’s head.
She will offer sweet rice to the warrior god Murugan.
She will sacrifice a rooster to the goddess Kali.
These are noble sacrifices I admit, but for someone who has nothing material left, is homeless and is living in a camp for survivors, it is an inefficient expenditure of net worth. If the same thing were to happen here, we would also celebrate our fortune, but we would probably only offer a prayer to the god, er, God, and that would be sufficient.
Perhaps the child’s mother is media savvy and she realizes that with all the media coverage of her child that people all over the world will be touched by the story and will probably donate money to the family. Therefore she can throw away some meager possessions in celebration knowing there will be more coming to fill the void. I’m suggesting, however, that a hundred coconuts and some rice might come in handy right now for people living in an area of the world that is still in need of food and supplies (or so I read).
Anyway, the good news is the child will be reunited with his parents and I guess it is their prerogative to celebrate the in the way they prefer, and we can all celebrate a happy ending.
Because here in Jimbo’s world good news is always welcome.
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