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Rob's Head
May 17, 2005 If you had to choose between buying a new bedroom set and a new HD TV, which would you choose? The TV, of course, because you realize that's the only sensible way to go. Besides having a nice, comfortable bed, what does the rest of your bedroom set really matter? Who really cares what your bedroom set looks like anyway? The bedroom is the room of your house that visitors are the least likely to visit. And how much time do you really spend in your bedroom? Well, a lot, sure, but you're asleep for most of it. Functionally, a nice, new TV is a lot more important than a nice, new dresser. An old dresser still holds clothes just as good as a new dresser. If it's a nice dresser, that's great, but that's incidental. A dresser's prime function is not to be looked at, it's to store things. A television, on the other hand, exists only to be looked at. I think very few people would argue that it's more fun to look at a nice dresser than a nice TV. And even if the dresser is really, really nice, that's all there is to it. And HDTV can display a wide range of possibilities: sports, movies, TV shows. A dresser? Open drawers and closed drawers, that's it. My case is irrefutable. Should money come my way, perhaps from such a source as a wedding gift, speaking hypothetically, I'm just going to have to make sure that it's the TV that gets bought, despite what any other irrational members of my household might argue. May 4, 2005 My brother works as an assistant manager at a large national retail chain. Most of the stories he tells me make me thank God I haven't worked retail since I graduated from college. Being an assistant manager isn't exactly glamorous, and on top of that, he has to deal with ridiculous crap from the people in the home offices. You'd think that the executives who work there would have the basic level of intelligence and common sense that most people need to survive daily, but the things my brother tells me are the types of things that make you realize that they guy who writes Dilbert doesn't have to make anything up. I was on the phone with him last night and he told me about his latest problem with the home office. The chain he works for employs a secret shopper service. This is a company that sends its agents into stores anonymously and rates the service they receive. They rate the store on a scale of zero to 100, based on criteria set the chain. My brother's store got hit recently, and they scored a five. When the home office found out about this, they freaked out, and now they're threatening his manager's job unless he "turns things around." My brother actually had to tell all of his cashiers that if they didn't do A, B and C with every customer, he'd have to fire them. So, now the place is all tense because of this secret shopper's shitty review. This isn't really my problem, but I feel bad for my brother, and even more than that, I'm a little irritated by the methodology at work here. First of all, how does anyone take that rating seriously? I mean, a five? Could the service really have been that shitty. Apparently, the only reason they got five points at all was because they had their nametags on. But they didn't do any of the other things on the list, which include greeting customers at the door and asking them if they need any extra assistance when they get to the checkout counter. I don't understand why a greeter is necessary. Isn't welcome implied simply by the open door and the fact that this is a store? And why are they obliged to render extra assistance once the customer is done shopping? I can see it if a person is handicapped or something, but aren't the rest of us expected to get around and manage things on our own? I get that these stores have to kiss customer ass to compete with the other major chains, but do people really want this? When I go to the store, I just don't expect to get followed around like I'm a fifteen year old black kid. Leave me the fuck alone. So, they got their five for the nametags, and that's it. The shopper did include a comment that said that they didn't make him feel appreciated as a customer. That's kind of nebulous. I don't think this rating really adequately describes the shopper's experience. My brother pointed out, "We could've spit in his face and gotten no worse than a five." I've been to his store, it's all right. It's clean, you can conduct your transactions without any major impediment.s I have a hard time believing this shopper actually had as an abjectly miserable time as the "five" would imply. I would think that that rating would raise some questions in the home office about the validity of these ratings, but apparently not, because now my brother has to spend at least two hours a day at the front of the store greeting people. The other thing I want to know is who are these secret shoppers? It doesn't sound like a fun job, and I doubt it's very high paying, so I'm guessing these are real special people. I couldn't even venture a guess as to what training and oversight they have, but I hope someone's watching the watchers here. One pissy and bitter dickface in this job has the ability to really fuck with people's livelihoods. And I've seen enough of how people get absorbed into their jobs to know how people elevate the importance of whatever small corner of the world they have control over. If you have a guy doing nothing all day long but evaluating service, and if this guy doesn't have much else in his life anyway, it's not going be long until he starts seeing stupid crap that normal people don't give a shit about as major slights. On top of all that, the store only gets evaluated six times a year. That's way too small a sample size, even for random testing. Basically, this is all bullshit. It's one thing if you want to use this data for constructive purposes, maybe to fine tune your customer service, but it's another thing entirely to use information like that to threaten people's jobs. How far removed from the real world do you need to be to not realize the inherent flaws in this system? I don't work in retail, I don't have anything to do with it beyond actually being a customer, but it only took me ten seconds to figure out how many problems there are with this secret shopper system. There's not much I can do about it, but I can fight this battle in my own way. Next time I walk into a store and someone greets me, I'm going to punch him in the face. Sure, that hurts people like my brother in the short term, but he grew up with me so he understands that I'm only punching out of love. May 2, 2005 I hate months with 30 days. When they're over, the date on my watch is always one day off, and then I have to fix it. Why does life have to be so hard? Speaking of hard, I have a hard month coming up. And not just because I'll be watching a lot of porn. I'm getting married in less than four weeks. As if this elaborate party for 120 people wasn't enough work, between now and then I have a final presentation for a class, my father's 50th birthday, Mother's day, my fiancee's brother's graduation, and my departmental commencement ceremony that I have to plan and work. I don't want to sound whiny, but this is the hardest thing that anyone has ever had to do ever. I don't have time to take a shit, never mind play all the video games I have stored up. I just finally beat the Suffering, but I still have a long way to go. And then I'll have to go through the Suffering again someday and beat it as evil Torque. I still have three more X-Box games to get through before Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes out, who knows if I'll get to that. And I haven't even hooked up my Game Cube since I got Metroid Prime: Echoes for Christmas. And then there are the movies. I still haven't seen Sin City, I haven't even made plans to see Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Kingdom of Heaven (which I want to see even though it will probably be Troy-level shitty because I'm a Crusades mark) comes out this weekend, and Star Wars will be out in a week and a half. How about books? How am I doing there? Slow going. I'm trying to get through biographies of all the 20th century presidents by the end of the year, but I specifically wanted to get to FDR by the end of May so I can take a big thick volume about him on my honeymoon. Well, that may just be doable. I just got through Warren G Harding, which leaves me Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover before Roosevelt. That's not too bad, and I'd be able to do it easily if it weren't for the three library books I have out that I want to finish before they're due. I really try to do too much. On top of all that, it's baseball season, so that's three hours a night killed. At least my fiancee counts wedding planning time as quality time spent with her. If I had to do all that stuff I just described and pay attention to her, I'd have to kill myself. April 29, 2005 Wow, John's stepped things up on his page. I guess I better get my ass into gear. I stopped in to the Food Court at UMass Boston yesterday to grab a water. See, I had only the best of intentions. But then I saw something I've never seen before. A brownie covered in chocolate frosting with white chocolate chips in the frosting. Now, I know I'm supposed to be watching what I eat in anticipation of my honeymoon to Mexico in June, but shit, there was just no chance I was going to pass that up. Shit like that is made for me. It's like they knew I was coming. John was telling me last weekend that he described me to someone as being a guy "who will order the biggest, stupidest dessert on the menu and only ask for one spoon." I'd be hard pressed to deny that. That reminded me of the time Jeff scoffed at a girl at work who told him she and her roomate ate an entire box of Edelman's cookies over a weekend. He told her that he knows a guy who will eat an entire box in one sitting, after he's already eaten a plate of buffalo wings and fries. That's right, my gluttony is slowly becoming legendary. It's amazing that I'm not a gigantic fatass. I can only attribute that to good genes, a moderately active lifestyle, and an otherwise healthy diet, because I certainly can't chalk it up to moderation. I don't eat just one cookie, that's no fun. I'm about a ten cookie minimum guy. What fun is eating sweets if you can't gorge yourself? Besides, I eat very little during the day and drink nothing but water, so I figure I can afford it. And I'm getting married in a month, so what does it really matter what I look like anymore anyway?
April 19, 2005 I'm back from New Orleans. What a disgusting shithole of a city. I had low expectations, and New Orleans fell short of even those. We took the bus from the airport into the French Quarter and we passed more bail bondsmen and check cashing places than I've ever seen in my life. It's not exactly the most economially vibrant area. However, the bus was only $1.60 and a taxi from the airport was $28, so I didn't mind taking in a little local color. The French Quarter was decent, if you don't mind the constant stench of piss, trash, and vomit. I actually found Bourbon Street a lot more tolerable at night. Even if I'm not a party guy, it's definitely interesting to watch people throw beads at skanky 40 year-olds showing their wrinkly boobs. But in the morning, when they're hosing the detrius of the night before off the sidewalks, it's just revolting. The food was pretty good, with two exceptions. One was the "po-boy." Everywhere you go, there are signs for "po-boys." I figured it was some interesting local food. Well, it turns out it's a sandwich. I ordered a roast beef po-boy, and I got roast beef on a sub roll. I just don't understand why they make such a big deal about something you can get at D'Angelos. The other thing was the baignet. Everyone told us that we have to try the baignet. "Baignet" apparently is French for "fried dough." Seriously, I wanted to go get some tickets and ride the Tilt-a-Whirl after eating my baignet. I'm glad I went, it's always fun to see a new city, but I'm more glad to be home. April 14, 2005 I'm heading off to New Orleans tomorrow morning. Bright and early too. Our flight leaves at 6:00am, and of course, it's suggested that you arrive two hours before your flight. I suggest they kiss my ass, because there's no way I'm getting up at three in the morning to be there by four. I think one hour in advance will do just fine. I'm not really looking forward to this trip. It is cool to see a city you've never seen before, but New Orleans isn't exactly my kind of city. It would be harder to find a city less suited to my temperment. I'm not a drinker, I don't like bars, and I'm afraid of zombies. But I guess I'll check out the French Quarter and whatever else there is that's cool in New Orleans. It's supposed to be in the mid to high 70's over the weekend, which is nice, though it's also supposed to be 70 here on Sunday, and I'd be able to watch the ballgame. Oh well, I guess I'm inconveniencing plenty of people with my wedding, what goes around comes around. April 11, 2005 So, I saw Fever Pitch Saturday. Eh, it was all right. The theater was packed with ten year old kids. I wanted to walk up to each one of them and tell them that this movie isn't going to be what they think it's going to be. It's not Angels in the Outfield, Rookie of the Year, or Little Big League. It's just a romantic comedy with baseball as the backdrop. As such, it was all right. Not my kind of movie, really, but decent enough for what it was. Jimmy Fallon, of course, sucked. He's not funny, not in any way. Some of his jokes in the movie might have been funny, but his delivery absolutely killed them. I know girls think he's cute, but girls think the UPS guy is cute too. Why doesn't the UPS guy get to star in movies? He can't be less funny than Jimmy Fallon. And why doesn't Jimmy Fallon have to wear a shit colored uniform and haul boxes? I don't get the world sometimes. What I hated most about the movie was all the cringe-inducing Boston talk. "The Sawks will break your haaaaht." Ugh. I was sick of hearing that before the World Series, and it sounds even more retahded now. I was really hoping to never hear about it again. If the rest of the country are sick of arrogant and self-absorbed Red Sox fans, that's fine. I've been sick of fatalistic and self-pitying Red Sox fans for years, I find the change of pace refreshing. The point of the movie is that Drew Barrymore is frustrated with Jimmy Fallon for letting the Red Sox run his life and interfere with their relationship. My fiancee kept on turning to me and saying, "That's just like you." What? I missed a game just to come to the movie. And who used to attend every Bruins home game back when the NHL existed? I am so not that bad. Besides, my obsession with pornography makes my Red Sox fandom look like a casual hobby in comparison. All in all though, it wasn't a terrible movie. Worth renting. April 8, 2005 It looks like one way or another I'll be forced to watch Fever Pitch. For some reason, my fiancee thinks Jimmy Fallon is cute. I don't get it, but whatever. I've never been amused or entertained by anything Jimmy Fallon's done, so I'm not particularly looking forward to seeing Fever Pitch. I also get annoyed by the popular image of Red Sox fans being a bunch of self-centered, provincial retards, though I suppose that's actually pretty much true. At least the Red Sox won the World Series so this isn't going to be another movie about "impossible dreams" and shit like that. Although, I might be curious enough about the original ending to rent it when it comes out on DVD if they stick it on there as an extra. Speaking of the Red Sox and the media, Dan Shaughnessy is signing copies of his book at the Kenmore Barnes & Noble before Opening Day. I can't imagine who would want his autograph for any reason, but I guess the same kind of people who buy his book would think that having him sign it would be cool. The funniest thing about his latest book is that as soon as the Amazon listing for it went up, before the book was even released, it was filled with nasty reviews. I guess Shaughnessy does his job, he gets people riled up.
April 5, 2005 There's some kind of stomach bug going around, well, my apartment at least, and I have it bad. I actually called in sick this morning, not necessarily because I felt I couldn't function all day, but because the idea of being on the T and away from a bathroom for a solid hour this morning made me a little nervous. But I have fifteen appointments this afternoon, and I just couldn't disappoint all those kids, so I sucked it up, gathered my quarters and drove in to park at a meter so I could make those afternoon appointments. I want to note two things about this situation: 1. I am a fucking hero. I don't want to hear anything about firefighters, policemen, or our troops in Iraq. I'm the real hero. In fact, with the Pope out of the way, I'm probably the most selfless, sacrificing person alive today. 2. Anyone who doesn't show up for an appointment today is on my shit list. And with my stomach the way it is right now, I could quite literally go take a shit on anyone at will. But seriously, I could be home in bed watching the Red Sox/Yankees game right now, so I'm going to be fucking pissed if any of the kids blow off their appointments today. In any event, I'm going to blow out of here faster than the diarrhea is blowing out of my ass as soon as my last appointment is over today.
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