This passed Sunday, I took Lisa for her first motorcycle ride. It was my first ride with a passenger as well. We both came back in one piece with nary an incident and she enjoyed it. Now that we know she is not terrified from the ordeal and wishes to continue, we can invest in some better riding gear for her. I'm looking forward to it. I think it will give me more chances to ride if she can come with. "Hey Sweetie, want to ride down to your mom and dad's and run across Pine Mountain?" "SURE! Let me get my helmet!"

See how my logic works?

I was inspired to blog about this due to a recent post from a friend.

I was in the grocery store with my fiance this past weekend. We had a cart full of groceries and proceeded to the checkout lane. There was nobody in front of us so I pulled my cart up and began putting my items on the belt. I got about half way down the length of the belt when another customer comes up behind me, with his baggy pants, hat turned to the side and oversized t-shirt. He has four, maybe five items. As I am still putting items on the belt, he places his stuff on the belt at the far end. I look down and it is OBVIOUS that I have WAY more stuff in the cart yet to unload than will fit on a totally empty belt, let alone the half that was left of it before he put his shit on it.

It occurs to me that everytime I've ever come up behind someone in the checkout line, I wait until they have emptied their cart before I start to put my stuff on the belt. Maybe I'm just stupid in the regard.

So... I take one of those divider sticks and put it in front of his stuff and continue to offload my cart. Well, naturally, I fill all the belt up to the point where his stuff is. Now the belt starts to move forward as the cashier starts to scan my items. Naturally, his stuff moves forward along with mine, only I have half a cart load of crap yet to put on the belt. Does he not get it? Where the F*CK am I supposed to put my stuff? Hand it to the freakin' cashier one item at a time? I have 40 cans of cat food you oblivious buffoon!

So I grab the stick and push his stuff back to make room to put more of mine. I look back and admire how he is consumed by the headlines of the National Enquirer. I doubt he can read. He must never have finished school - or even attended because I am pretty sure that in school, when you go through the cafeteria, you are taught early one that there has to be a place to put your tray down while you are moving through the line. If the child behind you does not allow enough room between his tray and yours, there will be no place to put yours and you'll have to stand there like a dipshit, holding your tray... SOUND FAMILIAR? Yeah, this grocery line is pretty similar in concept!

I have to move his stuff back about 6 times before I've unloaded my cart. I catch the eye of the cashier (who obviously picked up that lesson when she was 5 or 6 years old) who just sighs and raises her eyebrows. I'm glad she's sympathetic, though I can remember the day when a cashier would have said, "Excuse me... Sir? You'll have to hold your items until this customer is finished with the belt. Thank you." Of course, in that day, she wouldn't have had to say anything because people had common sense. And if you weren't born with it, you learned it quick. And if you couldn't learn it, they kept you in a special school and you rode the short bus and somebody ELSE went to the grocery store FOR YOU!

Between assholes in the movie theaters, assholes on the road, assholes at the grocery store and those assholes who make NO attempt whatsoever to even pick up their pace when crossing the street in front of you, even though its not a crosswalk (not to mention the fact that you were courteous enough to stop in the first place... courtesy is a TWO WAY street people), I'm beginning to wonder about people.

Its bad enough that we have to have Forrest Whitaker doing a public service announcement before each movie, reminding people to silence their cellphones... do we need him to do another one to remind parents that their children might be kicking somebodies seat and they should be supervised? Well... actually I guess not. The target audience for these announcements aren't there to see them. They're the scumbags that stroll in 15 minutes into the movie (not the previews - the MOVIE!) with six kids in tow and a whole unemployment check's worth of candy and nachos.

We have a new building at work. Our department (an MIS/IT support department for a local school system) had previously been split over two buildings side by side - one of which had at one time been the "colored" middle school during segregation. They were pretty pathetic facilities. Old run down buildings with really sorry bathrooms, break rooms... anyway, they sucked.

So they built a new building for us. I could down a very long list detailing the bad decisions and money wasted on the whole project but I won't bore you... Typical non-accountable bureaucracy type stuff.

However, they formed a "decor" committee to ensure a proper workplace environment. Our building basically consists of a huge rectangular hallway. Along the outside of the hallway are offices. Inside the hallway is a large cubicle farm (where I reside; I'd had an office in the old building) where the tech support people live. In my old office, I had 4 star wars posters (framed) on the walls, with 7 lava lamps on my desk and beads in front of the door, bookshelves with various toys and such, a fishtank in the corner and all sorts of stuff on my desk. Pretty sweet as far as office environments went. Nobody EVER said a word about it. In fact, people would stop by just to marvel at how cool my office was.

Well, apparently rather than asking me to tone it down in the new building... they formed this committee and released a rather nebulous, arbitrary and subjective memo explaining the new standard of office decor. All pictures on desk must be framed, frames must be in a similar style, art on the wall can be no larger than 18x24 inches (so much for my posters)... blah blah blah... no extraneous items on the desk such as empty drink cans...

So this is what we have to worry about? Nobody worried about how to get our mail delivered to the building or how pickup of UPS/FEDEX/DHL/USPS is going to work. Nobody arranged for vending machines or water cooler service. Nobody has addressed the parking situation. Nobody got a committee together to decide XY or Z about the building when it was being built so it would better suit our needs (not "wants" - NEEDS!) and would be much cheaper AND esthetically pleasing...

I AM grateful to have a job. I am grateful that my job allows me to take certain liberties regarding my education. I am grateful to have a 2 minute commute (it went up from 45 seconds when we moved into the new bldg). I am just disappointed when it seems like if given a decision to make regarding something that would have no operation impact but would be a bonus for morale, all things being equal, they'll go the other way. You hate to feel harassed over petty stuff. Thats always been par for the course around here to a certain extent... but it seems the mickey mouse bullshit is reaching critical mass.