Information Exclamation Observation

The Internet is a strange place (as if we needed any reminders). Not because of the fact that anonymity combined with an audience turns people into hateful twits, or the eerie speed and ease with which you can find pretty much any variety of pornography, but run-of-the-mill social networking. It strikes me as strange because there’s just so much you can find out about people you thought you knew well.

What I find of particular interest is information about my friends’ religious orientation. I’ll get back in touch with someone I knew in high school and often find that their profile page is so Jesus-laden that I’m surprised that he/she hasn’t already killed him/herself in an attempt to get closer to their lord. Then I start to wonder if these friends of mine were very religious when I met them, and if so, how could I have missed it? I know people who will shove their religion down your throat any opportunity, and I also know people who are kind enough to keep it to themselves, so they could very well have been part of the latter group. Has anyone else experienced this sort of surprising discovery about the nature of their friends in their adventures through social networking?

Bachelor of Arts in Mediocrity

In life I’ve been fortunate enough to be generally well-liked. There have been exceptions, of course, like mean little turds I had to endure in elementary school, and the occasional grown-up turd in my adult life, but such people have come up only on occasion. I worked hard and did well in school, becoming a favorite of some teachers and professors (or so it seemed). I even received the Unsung Hero award and a $500 scholarship at my high school just for being someone others could look up to (the words of one of the teachers who came up with the award, not mine).

I was able to continue stirring up this sort of positive sentiment in people even in college, but I have not met with much success in trying to do so in the working world. At every job I’ve ever had, I’ve gotten along well with my co-workers, and customers seem to at least not hate my guts, but my job performance seems only mediocre. I put much of the same effort into my job as I did my school work, but I’ve been getting unremarkable results.

Why is school so different from work, at least in my case? I’m sure this is one of the reasons people become professional students. School proved to be a good environment for me, I think because if I stuck with a particular group of students long enough, like when taking a foreign language class, a comfortable, stable atmosphere developed that never develops in a workplace where new people traipse in and out on a daily basis. This is probably why I took almost nine years worth of foreign language classes during my school career.

Endless Bummer

It sucks trying to get any sleep during the summer. Even if you’re about to fall over dead from fatigue, it’s still often difficult to get the rest you need to function like a normal human being for the coming day. I know most people share this affliction with me, but there is another that may have targeted fewer people, including myself: ownership of a mind in a state of vicious unrest. I find myself often bombarded by thoughts and ideas, but the bombardment has seemed particularly acute in the past week or so. It seems to be worst just before and after sleeping, as those are the times when I’m the least preoccupied with tasks and responsibilities. Some thoughts will recur throughout the day, reminding me from time to time of how crazy I am, and others will stick and ride in grooves deeper than ocean trenches, pounding my brain with the persistence with which the earth rotates. Am I alone in this situation, or are there others to whom this is happening?

On customer service (and humanity)

At work today, I was stuck [read: trapped] on the phone with a customer who knew the exact thing she wanted, but neither knew what it was called nor knew how to describe it using terms that could point me in the right direction. It became apparent early in the conversation that this customer knew more about the products than I did, as she was louder and more insistent than I was. It took a 20-minute session of explanation and re-explanation to assure her that I knew (kind of) what I was talking about, and then she asked for my name and schedule so she could come in and continue our delightful conversation in person. Grand.

During the phone call, I drifted between varying levels of concern and consciousness, ranging from mild interest to near-comatose, and at one point I settled into a rather dangerous line of thought: Why is it so rare to encounter a polite, empathetic customer? Such a thought is not dangerous in and of itself, but when it pops into your head at a moment of lowered inhibitions, such as when you’re about to smack a customer because they won’t listen to a damned word you’re saying, you could utter something you would regret. Well, I’m sure plenty of you out there wouldn’t regret speaking your mind, but I bet that you would rue the decision afterward when considering your new employment status.

Anyway, I digress. Why are polite, empathetic customers so hard to find? I guess that question begs a bigger, broader question: Why are polite, empathetic humans so hard to find? It’s not difficult to be nice, to be friendly, or to have manners, but I encounter incapable individuals on a near-daily basis. Everyone needs some reassurance from time to time that if life is getting you down, it’s just a matter of time before things turn around, but why is it that all too often such empathy is nowhere to be found? If you find yourself asking these same questions, make an effort to effect the change you wish to see. Smile at somebody, throw out a “thank you” or two, and remember that we’re all in the same boat together.

Application Trepidation

Neither the job where I smell people all day nor the one where I run my ass off all day represents my desired career path, so I am doomed to continue doing that which I despise: applying for jobs. There’s nothing like fretting over the use of each word in a resume or cover letter to make you feel so insignificant and bent to the will of a potential employer. Running over the same list of the same information over and over again on countless applications has served as a fine alternative to ipecac.

What is it about applying for jobs that is so depressing? Is it the constant, pressing fear of rejection? Is it having to bottle yourself into a single-page resume, knowing in all likelihood it will be tossed without ceremony into the same receptacle as snot-filled tissues and empty bags of Cheetos? Is it the feeling of inadequacy? Yes. It’s all of them and probably more.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. No, not the light that you head toward when you die, but, you know, hope. It’s an awful, dehumanizing process, but I know it’s going to get me closer to where I want to be in life. Then I can ditch the smelly customers and move on to a job where I’ll only have to deal with smelly co-workers.

On writing (and getting the hell on the stick)

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old. I remember writing my first story at that age, penned with care on ten sheets of tiny notebook paper. I had done creative writing before for school assignments, but this was the first time I had ever written anything for myself. When I was 12, I started the horrid first draft of the novel that I’ve been working on at least once a week for the past year. I’m 24 now, so I suppose you could say that I’m well-invested in this story, you know, having spent half my life toying with the concept and all.

I did a lot of growth as a writer from then until now, generating a style, finding genres that suited me, and sharpening my command of the English language, but there was one thing that that I barely did at all: write. I wrote a page or two of junk every few months, and stared at discouraging blank pages a little more often. I was never going to get anywhere at that pace, I was never going to reap any sort of reward for my work, and I was guaranteed never to get even a whiff of what I could have accomplished. I created maps of new worlds, a new language, and a history of a people who existed only in my mind, but it didn’t matter because I hadn’t told any sort of story.

My writing ability would not have allowed me to produce a novel of even mediocre quality when I first had the idea, but now I have no excuse. I knew it needed to be done, so I made the commitment to write, and with a lot of encouragement from my diligent writing companions whom I met in the pursuit of my dream, I now have something to show for my efforts: a concrete body of good-quality work. I can read through the 40-or-so pages of writing I’ve done over the past year and see that I’m getting somewhere.

If you want to create that piece of art that’s been gnawing at the inside of your head, don’t put it off another day. It’s so easy to get mired in the swamp of creative procrastination (also known as research, creating the background, and someday) that you may miss the perhaps years-long opportunity to start and never even notice. Make like a Nike shoe and just do it.

The Nose Knows or The Smell of Clientele

Let’s take a moment to discuss how people smell. Some people smell good, and some people smell bad. According to a study I just made up, a staggering 93.7 percent of the customers at my main job fall into the latter of the aforementioned categories. I’m getting dehydrated because breathing through my mouth all day is drying me out.

Dealing with stinky customers has made me feel better about myself, however. I’m beginning to believe that I’m of some exceptional ability, because buying and applying deodorant, something which must prove to be a monumental task for most of the store’s clientele, is something I can do with ease.

I would be remiss if I limited this discussion to the variety of odor that can be dealt with using deodorant, which is only a part of the fetid rainbow that is the spectrum of human stench. Let’s break this stink down into a few categories:

Breath: I don’t know if it’s something you ate (week-old roadside coyote and road apples, I’m guessing), or if it’s the smell of your mouth trying to escape one dying cell at a time, but the right kind of bad breath can flatten the very person who has been paid to stand in front of you and make sure you get what you need (besides a healthy dose of mouthwash). I know your diet and hygiene are none of my business, but I’d appreciate it if you brushed your teeth one of these years.

Feet: If I can smell your feet at you’re walking around, your stink has reached my nose. I’m about 5’ 10”, making my nose a little over five feet above the ground. This indicates that the area of effect of your foulness has at least a five-foot radius, which is about four feet and eleven inches greater than the area generally accepted by society. Changing every 3,000 miles applies to engine oil; not socks.

Body: This is the most common, and in my opinion, worst, affliction among the customers with whom I work. Perhaps the worst aspect of body odor is that breathing through the mouth doesn’t always do the trick. Sometimes I can taste how bad you smell, and that’s just the highlight of my day. Some may be worried about the potential negative health effects of deodorants containing aluminum, but these are eclipsed by the negative health effects of my hands choking the life out of these people.

Good hygiene is a wonderful thing.