Weather or not

June 8, 2009


Weather, by nature, changes. It is constantly changing. Even in areas where the weather seems stable and constant, it’s not – it’s simply in a range that is more comfortable, staying clear of the extremes that we can’t help but notice.

Weather, by nature, is also unpredictable – especially in a city like Sioux Falls, where we experience nose-hair freezing lows and egg-boiling highs. It’s not uncommon to see snow in early May, or to be hit with a sudden heat wave in November.

Which brings me to wonder how, after a week of beautiful days, the collective mind of Sioux Falls can explode over the idea of rain.

It’s enough to send Kerrie into a frantic search for earmuffs. She hears it doubly – as the average age of a workplace grows, I suspect the percentage of weather-based conversation grows proportionately.

It works like this. When there’s space to fill, you talk about the weather. And when the weather is anything less than perfect – which is always, despite everyone’s understanding that weather is fluid and constantly changing – you complain about the weather.

Today, even though the rain has gone, people still complain.

From my window, I can tell it’s not a bright sunny day. I know it’s not 80 degrees.

But it’s not raining anymore. It’s actually kind of a nice day.

We don’t live in Siberia, or the deserts of Africa. Hell, we don’t even live in St. Cloud, where winter lasts 8 months. We get the best of both worlds, with the understanding that we also get the worst of both.

So can we stop complaining about the weather?

Please?

Tags: Annoyances, Sioux Falls |

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Four slashed tires and 24 hours of doubt

December 23, 2008


I awoke this morning to four flat tires.

Four slashed tires.

Four cut tires, with no motive, no reason. No malice intended, no perceived slights. Nothing to suggest that it was deserved.

Just four meaningless tires, rendered useless.

It bothers me. A lot.

It isn’t the damage that throws my mind in circles – we have insurance, and they’re just tires. It’s the action – the willful destruction. Both of the tires and of my time.

Was it something we did?

I spend a lot of time taking stock of how others perceive me, constantly readjusting my speech and actions in order to keep clear of my natural ability to be overbearing and pompous. At times, I find myself lapsing into an elitist, sarcastic monster, my ego rising above accepted norms and spilling around me, splashing vitriol onto those close to me, a weak side developed through years of defending my geekitude and fighting for acceptance.

It’s this monster that gets the best of me, that can make me an unsavory person to be around. It’s the Corey that grouses about perceived slights, that fights for completism, for an expert status that says “I’m the best.” It’s pure ego, and I often hate it.

So when seemingly random attacks – like the slashing of our tires – occur, they send my mind into overdrive. I think back at who I could have pissed off, apologizing to myself and to my past. When I can’t think of anything, everything goes haywire. Who am I forgetting? Why did this happen?

I search for meaning in actions that have no meaning.

And with all of this in mind, it makes me even more perplexed to the idea that it was done by random – that the destruction of personal property and the stealing of precious time and, in some cases, personal dignity is justified by a wonton recklessness – that smashing that pumpkin, that kicking over that plant, that causing any kind of grief is really worth the heavy conscience or the danger of being caught.

It’s that – the thrill of destruction and pain – that I’ll never get.

I’ve been asked, jokingly, whether I had any enemies who could have done this.

What makes me more frustrated is that, in the case of enemies, I’d be accepting it. I’d be angry. But I wouldn’t be hurt. I’d know that I probably deserved it – could pin point a culprit and assign blame.

But this is frustrating. It’s random. It’s not meant as a question of my character, or of my hidden demons. It’s thoughtless and meaningless. And that’s what gnaws at me.

That it could have been anyone, and instead it was us.

Tags: Annoyances, On..., Sioux Falls, Vilhauer |

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Less is more

October 27, 2008


The CBS studio crew during football games consists of five people. Three former players, a former coach and a sports broadcast veteran.

The FOX crew is even larger. If you count the robot, it’s close to breaking double digits.

Post-debate coverage on the major 24-hour news channels turned into a rotation of several experts, pundits and other personalities. In one surreal television moment, Anderson Cooper sat in between a dozen people, squashed together behind two too-small news desks, shooting off questions like a semi-automatic firearm, fighting for space and for clarity.

Walter Cronkite would report on his own. By himself. No experts, or former employees, or anyone that would distract from the one important thing: the news. You listened to him as an expert. As a trusted voice. As a thick syrup of news, coating and lasting, irreplaceable, a true benefit to the station.

The more people you fit on a stage, the more watered down their message will become. They will receive fewer opportunities to talk, which makes them less and less important as individuals in the larger picture. And if they’re less important, then what’s stopping us from simply tuning them out?

My suggestion to television news and sports programs. Experts are good. But keep them at a minimum, please. Because when everyone starts sounding the same, it doesn’t really matter if your announcer is a former football player, or if your pundit is the premier historian in regards to presidential politics. They’re just another head on a 10-headed media monster.

And cutting one off doesn’t seem to matter.

Tags: Annoyances, Football, Politics, Television |

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Missing change

October 10, 2008


Missing.

One Obama sign.

Lost since between 2-5pm, October 10th, 2008.

If found, please return.

Seriously. This afternoon, after a nice family trip to the Apple Orchard, we returned home to find our Obama sign missing. The space between the Bill Thompson sign and the Susy Blake sign, where our Obama sign once stood, is now empty.

At first I was upset. This was the second time an Obama sign had been taken (the first time we brushed off since, after all, we had two of them in our yard). I was ready to yell at them kids to get off’n our yard!

Then I looked down the block. I turned and looked down another. Kerrie hopped on her bike and took a swing around the neighborhood.

They are all gone.

All of the Obama signs in our little area west of McKennan park. Gone.

All (two) of the McCain stands still remain, as do all of the state house and senate candidates. But the Obama signs, of which there were several, are all gone.

Is this just a bunch of kids walking home from school at Patrick Henry Middle School thinking they’re putting us on?

Or is this a really desperate move by some McCain backer?

Who knows. All I know is that my Obama sign is gone.

And surprisingly, I don’t think it’s going to change much.

Tags: Annoyances, Politics, Sioux Falls |

4 Comments

Life Insurance Awareness Month

March 28, 2008


Life Insurance Awareness MonthThis is about six months early (or late), but did you know that September is Life Insurance Awareness Month?

With so many Awareness Months claiming their cause, This shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s just kind of, I don’t know, disingenuous, like we’re promoting FLEX Spending Awareness Month or Flight Insurance Awareness Month.

My favorite, though, might be that the 2007 spokesperson for Life Insurance Awareness Month was Molly Shannon. Molly Shannon? What, Chris Kattan wasn’t available? Kevin McDonald was busy?

Listen. I understand the need for life insurance. I get how important it is. But a Life Insurance Awareness Month? It kind of doesn’t have the same ring as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Excuse me for thinking this, but it smacks of opportunism and commercial pandering.

The big question: I wonder what the cause ribbon looks like. And do they make lapel pins?

Tags: Annoyances |

8 Comments

Writing a blog

March 10, 2008


Hold on for a few seconds. I’m going to get curmudgeony.

You don’t write a blog. You don’t post a blog. You don’t tell people about the blog you just wrote, about how you’ll talk about it on a forthcoming blog.

Blog is short for weblog, the entire entity that contains your writing. The Web site itself. The series of writings arranged in a descending chronological order. That’s a blog. Not the individual piece.

You write posts. Or articles. Or synopses. Stories. Reviews. But not blogs.

You write ON a blog. You write FOR a blog. But you don’t write a blog. That is, unless you’re talking in the technical sense; writing the code that will form a blog could be considered “writing a blog.” It’s like writing an article for a publication and saying “I just wrote a magazine,” or “You can read about in my latest magazine.”

That’s all. Semantics, I know. But it’s just something I’m tired of reading.

Tags: Annoyances, Blogging, Words |

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Shack-ing up with the past

February 28, 2008


The power of an old message can be rather surprising.

I’ve seen a sudden spike in interest for my mini three-part rant on Radio Shack, a nearly two-year-old sore spot that has since dissipated into consumer lore like an Alka Seltzer. The main issue: a local Radio Shack store sold us a Sirius satellite radio receiver under erroneous pretenses and, when pressed, made little effort to help us.

I was pretty angry - and totally duped - about the situation, and after three months I finally just wrote a letter to the district manager.

I didn’t expect much. But I was a dissatisfied customer making his voice heard. I am a multi-year veteran of retail and know that, as an employee, your ultimate job is to make your customer happy. You may not like it. You may not do it. And your bosses might not even care. But it’s your job, or at least it should be.

Though it may be a long lost chivalric deed nowadays, I still feel that a retail establishment has a duty to its customers, if only because those customers ultimately keep a store in business.

Anyway, I received a response (after finding my own solution) and found it lacking. A few hours later, I got a call from the district manager with a personal apology - an apology that I was both surprised and pleased to receive. It was the way customer service should be - filled with actual concern and not just simple avoidance. I held a grudge for about six months, then (naturally) gave in and started shopping at Radio Shack again.

I’m not old fashioned, I hope. I think a company best maintains its brand by promoting positive customer experiences. I didn’t ask for anything more than respect, and I didn’t offer anything but my disappointment. I posted the letter and responses to let others know what I had gone through, to see if I was the only one, to see if I could rouse up some solidarity.

My posts returned several types of comments.
1. Other customers who were equally upset.
2. Employees of Radio Shack who corroborated my issues.
3. Employees of Radio Shack who tried to justify the issue by saying, “What do you expect? We’re here to sell things.”

A great number of responses were either of a “Radio Shack Iz Dum!” or, even worse, “Yer Dum!” nature. I fought for my position when needed and still feel I was justified. I passed off moronic and insulting comments as immaturity. I was at ease with my thoughts, and as nearly two years passed, and I figured the ordeal was in the past.

It wasn’t. Thanks Google.

Go ahead. Search “Radio Shack Sucks.” See what you get. There’s a good chance it looks like this:

Google Search #1!!!

Yup. That’s me. #1. The old URL, too - cdub.driscocity.com, not blackmarks.net. You get the same post and the same comments either way. Amazingly, the comments have gotten more pro-Radio Shack. And the reasoning goes back to #3 above: What do you expect? We’re here to sell things!

Please. Most of us want to be treated with respect when we enter a store. Unfortunately, that respect can be difficult to find. There’s a large number of retail employees who might not care about the customers they serve - and who can blame them? It’s hard to care when you’re being paid peanuts, or when you’re pressured to make sales above and beyond the capacity of the community.

But does that make it okay? Do the ends justify the means? Are we really supposed to simply shrug our shoulders and accept the fact that, sometimes, at some stores, we’re going to be lied to in order to appease some corporate sales level?

Whatever. Unless I lock the comments, I’m sure I’ll continue to get comments from both sides. I’m at peace with the situation, and most of the comments I continue to get are rather funny. In fact, I’ve helped those coming to the page by added links to the other posts - now readers won’t assume the letter was the last word. Now readers can follow the situation to its thrilling conclusion.

And I can sit back and revel in the fact that I’m #1 in terms of such a seemingly common theme - corporation malaise; the hatred for the big - a search term that could rank in the top ten of “INSERT STORE” Sucks, somewhere after Best Buy Sucks and WalMart Sucks.

I have to be careful though. In the grand scheme of things, I’d hate for this mini-rant to be my legacy.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances, Blogging, Meta |

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