I was watching a video of people "exposing" oilfield pollution. The people making the videos have absolutely no idea what they are looking at or talking about. It's just amazing how ignorant they are. "Oh there's brown stuff on the tank must be the tank runs over all the time." No jackass, that's what happens when you run a tape down into the tank to gauge it and bring it back out. It drips a little. Did you notice the dike around the tank battery? Did you see that it's bone dry? Do you know that under that dirt is a thick waterproof liner? Do you actually know anything? Have you ever seen a tank battery run over? It makes one HELL of a mess. The whole tank is stained with crude oil not just one or two small lines of oil that dripped off a tape gauge. Also there tends to be stained dirt and pools of crude oil all over the place. Oil does not evaporate you see. Moron woman really needs to learn something about what she's talking about before she posts videos to You Tube expecting to be taken seriously.

Not to mention that she was trespassing, not wearing any personal protective equipment and was anyone in her entourage smoking? She had absolutely no business being there unless she owns the land. Tank Batteries are not playgrounds. She mentions the oil company that she thinks owns the lease, not realizing that a different company has bought the lease and now operates it.

I'm being deliberately vague with company names. I've done work for both companies on that very location she's standing on. The point isn't who owns what the point is this lady, like many people talking about this subject in the news, has no idea what she is looking at.

So today I was told by my boss that I had been doing the billing paperwork wrong.  It was explained to me what he wanted and I said ok that's the way I'll do it.  It occurred to me afterwards that maybe that was what is called an ass-chewing.

I don't think so.  I spent 3 years in the Army.  I am well aware of the parameters of ass chewing.  An ass chewing consists of a large man yelling at the top of his lungs with his face right in front of your face.  Spit flies, F-words are abundant.  You have no escape.  You must listen.  This was not an ass chewing.  This was a simple correction.  I am easy to correct at work because I know who's in charge.  I know that I'm not in charge.  The way it is is the way it is and I'm powerless to change it.  I understand that if I don't like it I can work somewhere else and no hard feelings.

Some people don't understand authority.  The worst kind of person to have a misunderstanding of authority is someone in charge.  They think it's like a pack of dogs where you have to constantly posture and look tough otherwise the other dogs won't respect you.  I find this behavior weak minded and overflowing with insecurity.  If you're the boss you had ought to know that fact pretty well.  Let your every thought be infused with "I'm in charge of this situation."  There is no need to yell when you're in charge.  All you have to do is say, "This is what needs to get done today and this is who's going to do it.  If you have questions just ask."  It's so much easier to work for you if this is how you manage.  Be well organized and execute your plan.  Use your people to get this plan done and work alongside them to accomplish it.  Thank them for their efforts.  Always be polite.

If your employees don't do what you say or give you a bunch of attitude there is no need to get angry.  You don't get angry because you are in charge.  They have no power over you.  They can go work somewhere else.  I don't know why you'd want someone working for you who constantly breaks the rules or treats you with contempt.  This person needs to be fired before he/she hurts themselves or someone else.  People can't give the person in charge attitude unless they allow it.

Please, if you're a manager be honest with your employees.  Always mean what you say and never make promises you can't guarantee.  This advice works outside the work place as well.  Give it a try.

Today I searched google for "What percentage of Americans don't drive?" It was inspired by this article which I got from following Major Nelson on twitter (more on that article later). The third link from the top said "Only 42% of Americans believe Barak Obama is an American Citizen." I know I typed the word American in the search and so google had to bring me every link that mentions American in it but maybe it could try actually answering the damned question. I never did get an answer either.

It makes me feel Microsoft is justified in those Bing commercials. I haven't noticed their search necessarily answering my questions more accurately or should I say understand my questions more accurately, but they make a point. At no point did I mention Obama. At no point did I mention citizen. At no point should either one of these things appear in the page when I search for "What percentage of Americans don't drive?"

If I were in school (shudder) and on the test I saw a question that said, "Jimmy is on a train traveling at 60mph and arrives at his destination in 3 days 41 minutes 30 seconds. How far did he travel assuming the train did not stop or slow down?" I would get the answer wrong if I said "Save money on travel to Cork!" or "Register to win the train that crashed in The Fugitive." I might amuse the teacher but would fail the course.

I would be more interested (as with all surveys) in what demographic of Americans were polled to come up with that 42%. I'm not weighing in on whether our leader is legally allowed to be our leader but I don't believe any poll I read no matter where I read it. Unless you can say you polled 100% of all Americans during that survey in which case I don't remember you calling me.

This is the later part. The article I linked says that 21% of American Adults don't use the internet. It then goes on to say "that's like not using the telephone." As Darth Vader would say "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." Not using the internet is not remotely like not using the phone. The internet is hardly necessary to people who don't care about it. I will never starve or be late for work or run out of gas because I didn't use the internet. I'll never get divorced or miss a house payment because I didn't use the internet. It's not remotely necessary for humans to function. Get over yourself. It's a convenience not a necessity.

I searched for Americans who don't drive because I would find that much more perplexing if you had never driven and had never wanted to drive. I would tell such a person to get out of the city for a few weeks without buying any tickets from anyone at all. Just go. No one knows where you went or how fast you got there unless you told them. You could go right this second with your car, dependent on no one.

I'm not even sure who I was defending here but I hope they feel better.

I did something terrible today. I placed my phone in my pocket. I know right? Who does that these days? If I had known that this horrifying war crime would have resulted in the death of my touch screen phone I probably still would have done it because where the hell else am I supposed to put it? I don't carry a purse because I'm a man.

Oh, "put it in a holster" you say. Sure that works for maybe a week. Then the strap that holds it to my belt breaks and the phone suffers at least a three foot fall. Devastating!

What do you "never lifted an object that weighs more than 10 pounds before" office people do to keep your phone working for the entire two year contract? Oh that's right, you don't actually do work with your body. You type. You think. You bitch about your boss but you don't lift anything except yourself.

So distressing to be forced to buy a Samsung bulletproof Rugby phone in order to keep a phone for more than 6 months. No one makes an internet ready large screened actually durable phone. The only durable phones are ugly and have tiny screens. I guess us working folks are destined to have to use them though.

I have a Rugby phone issued to me by my boss. One time it fell out of it's holster while I was getting out of a truck. I didn't realize it until 30 minutes later after I had moved said truck to do my job. This truck was half loaded with salt water. That's 1500+ gallons of 9-10lb per gallon salt water. I found my phone over by where I had loaded the water. It was in the tire tracks left by the truck. I ran over it with a 25,000 lb vehicle. It still works. This didn't even scratch the screen. If this had been an iphone the damage would have been so great as to break 10 other iphones randomly in other states.

Why can't all phones be like this? Would it be so horribly unprofitable to make a durable product? I can understand that my xbox or tv or computer is not waterproof or impact proof. They don't have to be because they are not portable. If you tell me your device is portable I should be able to put it in my pocket and then go about my rugged, impact ridden, extremely dusty and sweaty day and not have to worry. I shouldn't pull it out of my pocket and find the screen cracked because my car keys were also in my pocket and OH MY GOD I sat down. I sat down. I didn't go bungee jumping or fight a UFC bout or stab myself in the leg with an ice pick right where the phone was. All I did was sit down. The horror.

All this to say you won't be getting a hold of me on my phone for a while because I don't have $300 or more to replace my phone. Maybe Obama can give me a phone or at least promise to. I should be able to send text messages on his promises combined with ATT's 97% of all Americans covered shouldn't I? Makes sense to me.

Finally a new post. Use caution when reading this, there are eff words henceforth.

So, I left this restaurant just a few minutes ago. This place is called The Armadillo Grill. It is affectionately referred to as the Armored Dildo. When you eat here, you will have the best steaks you've had in a long time. The downside of this is that you will be there so long that you may not be able to remember ever not being there. They sat us down, the hostess brought us our drinks and then we waited for 15 minutes for our watress to come take our order. It doesn't take 15 minutes to decide what the fuck you want to eat. Their menu isn't nearly as long as the wait. She finally comes around and gets our order. I already know that it's going to take at least 45 minutes to get the order out to us, so the 15 minute wait to place the order only pissed me off. Then we proceed to wait and drink our drinks. Of course, we're thirsty people, so we finished our drinks. This was a mistake since apparently in bubblehead waitress school they don't teach you to observe empty glasses and refill them. We waited at least 20 minutes for her to refill our drinks, and then she only came over because we flagged her down. Get ready for this one... When she arrived to refill our glasses...

She stuck her finger in my glass to pick it up.

Take a second to mull that one over.

I feel like I'm making too big a deal out of this, but how fucking discourteous do you have to be to pick up a stranger's drinking glass with your index finger the veteran of God knows what inside it? Come on now, would you want my finger inside your glass? Especially if I've been working all day? I'm not at your house eating dinner with your kids. Of course, I don't dare say anything to her about this. I have this concern be it rational or not that they will doctor the food or drink of a "complainer." I will settle for my waited forever for it chinese finger tea because it's bound to be better tasting than the vomit filled bulemia-ized alternative. I don't want Lipton smegma thank you very much. I can only hope that your finger gets about as much action as I do or else I might have trouble sleeping.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I bought a digital camera with the almighty tax return. I bought a 10 gallon aquarium and various accessories with the same tax return. I set it all up and let it run for 3 days, then I added three fish. You can look these up if you're interested; two dwarf gouramis, and one red finned shark. I know I know, fish experts out there are telling me I have no bottom feeders and the shark will outgrow the tank shortly. Stop your whining. If the fish starts to outgrow the tank I'll just put him in the new tank I'm going to buy. How can I afford this you ask?

By quitting Wal-Mart and starting work tomorrow at 7am with a local oil services company. I'll be working at some place called the mud yard, which sounds ominous. I have to go out and buy some jeans to go with my recently acquired steel toed boots, but otherwise I'm ready. I'll be getting my class A CDL out of this too. All for $12/hour. Guess who's not complaining.

In the process of getting my CDL permit I learned from the doctor that I'm morbidly obese and that my blood pressure is 168/108. This is clearly a recipe for death. I've cut the soda completely from my diet over the last two days, so we'll see what that does. I'm also going to have to exercise I know, and I will get to that soon. I look at it like I'm being paid to lose weight and be healthier. Quitting soda is hard though, almost as hard as quitting smoking. The joke of the week has been morbidly obese.


I'll leave you with a sample from the new camera.

It's been yet another day off when I didn't accomplish anything. I was going to listen to music loud like it's supposed to be but my headphones decided to only work in one ear. I guess I shouldn't complain since I've had these since 1997 or so and they just now had their first problem. Not bad for $15.

Oh yeah I did get my taxes done. I am only mildly frustrated with the process. Apparently if you sell stock during the year and you plan to use taxact to file your taxes, then you'd better only sell one time all year long because there is only one box to enter information. I guess if I want to pay more than $9.95 to file my taxes then I can expect flexibility.

I haven't completely made up my mind how to spend the refund. Most of me wants a new computer. I've had this one since 2002 or so. It has a Duron processor in it. I can't even run command and conquer generals on this thing. My original Xbox is more powerful. A new computer with a digital camera. They seem to be all the rage around here. I really don't have anything to take pictures of, but I'll be sure to get something posted up here just to prove it works, if I buy one. The other thing we are in need of is some living room furniture. Right now if you come over to visit me the only place to sit down is in my room. Although the HDTV is in there the seating leaves a lot to be desired. Who wants to sit next to Jason on the bed? Why so glum?

Fat Bottomed Girls is one of the best songs to listen to at this time in the morning.

It's also messy in here. I pick up the clothes, but I don't have a dresser. The solution is these shelves that used to hold my DVD's back in the day. Now they hold clothes, and although they are adequate for the task they don't hide them very well. I also have boxes piled up neatly in the corner because I have no where to unpack them. I guess I could throw some stuff out. Maybe I don't need that CD cover to Stone Temple Pilots when I haven't seen the CD that goes inside it in over 5 years.

It's getting harder to maintain a train of thought here.

I'm sitting here listening to Green Bay sing Long View, and I'm realizing that my life is kind of patterned off this song. I have got to get off my ass and get something done. The difference is that I'm not a chronic masturbating pothead. Thank God for that. I've got the History Channel and video games instead. I also watch Spike.

Today they had world's wildest police videos or something. I've noticed that rednecks always get pulled over drunk with no shirts on. How hard is it to put a shirt on? Is there some kind of redneck code where you aren't a real man if you wear some cotton woven pussy t-shirt? Is going shirtless symbolic of your naked stupidity? Are you saying that I'm just jealous because I'm too fat to not wear a shirt in public? Guess what jackass, most rednecks are too fat to not wear a shirt too. Beer and wife beating don't exactly give you a six pack. (I work strictly from stereotypes, especially with a tv inspired blog).

I guess there are situations where it's permissible to not wear a shirt. If you're working outside like on a construction site where you are doing serious manual labor then I could see why you'd want to. If you're loading or unloading hay, then I can see it too. Showers and swimming are also acceptable. Going to the grocery store? Not acceptable. Church? Not acceptable. Probably not acceptable at a job interview either. I guess that depends on the job. If you're auditioning for Chippendales then you kind of have to take the shirt off.

I'm succeeding in finding things to complain about that don't relate to Wal-Mart. Hell these things don't even relate to me.

We ended up watching 300. You can see this post to find out what I thought of it.

Today I was out mowing the lawn with this reel mower we purchased from Lowes. Apparently to save money they had their sweat shop install plastic gear wheels with metal pins that drive them. Amazingly, the metal pin has worn through the plastic gears. As a result, the blades don't turn when you push the mower. I'm about 3/4 of the way done with the lawn, and now it gets to look like some lazy schmo (how do you spell that?) decided it was too hard to mow this lawn. All 1/2 acre of it. I think it's a half acre anyway, I really don't know. It's like only getting half of your hair cut.

I hope we still have the receipt so we can get it exchanged for a new one. We've only mowed the lawn about 4 times. Am I supposed to magically avoid all sticks in the grass? Is this mower only designed to mow golf courses? It does a marvelous job, when the cheap ass gears haven't worn out. Would it have been so hard to install metal gears?

Today we are going to see a movie. We'll either see 300, Zodiac, or some other movie that was mentioned to me in passing but sounded vaguely intriguing. I'm nervous about going to see a movie anymore due to my recent lack of judgment. My choices lately have included Aeon Flux, Ghost Rider and Casino Royale. Casino Royale and Ghost Rider would be fine as rentals, and I would even buy something like Casino Royale. Aeon Flux needs to be flushed down the toilet in Desperado. That movie was terrible. It was terrible and I saw it in the theater. I saw it in HD 7.1 surround full on suck. I hope the movie we see isn't this bad. I'm leaning towards 300, but I recently learned that Zodiac was directed by David Fincher. I learned this from MySpace of all damned places. Anyway, I've got to go get ready. I'll try to post which movie we saw sometime before the week is out.

The customer is technologically inept. From asking where the internet explorers are to thinking that component video also carries sound, they really excel at ignorance at your local Wal-Mart. For one thing, you shouldn't be asking someone at Wal-Mart any kind of tech questions at all. It happens that at our Wal-Mart we have several people who know technical information. But you as the customer aren't really interested in technical information. You aren't interested in the fact that your new computer doesn't work properly because you screwed something up in the setup process. You think that the CD drive is a cup holder. You think that widescreen movies have had something cropped off of them. This is because you are misinformed. When you are given the correct information and you insist that this new information is wrong, then that makes you a moron. Yes, I said it. If you are corrected on something and you refuse to learn, you are a moron. You're a moron because you choose to be. No one is born a moron. You have made a series of life choices that made you what you are (moron).

The customer is a thief. While you the customer pay the bills by buying stuff, when you order a cup of popcorn chicken and then don't pay for it, leaving it on the shelf somewhere for us to clean up, you are a thief. When you return a bag of frozen rolls because you thought you were buying biscuits, you are a thief. When you return something because you didn't like the flavor, you are a thief. You are not entitled to a pleasant food experience when you are trying something new. And how bad off are you that you can't spare $3 on a fucking bag of rolls? I work at Wal-Mart and make less than the poverty line a year and I can spare $3. And you know what? I own my own home. You have no excuse.

The customer is always a jerk. Don't feed me the bipolar excuse, shut your mouth if you have nothing nice to say. Contrary to your opinion, the person in the blue vest isn't interested in your opinion. Because you are the customer, you don't know what you're talking about. The person who works with this item every day is far above you in knowing its proper use. Treating them like crap doesn't get you anything except a special place in hell. You can avoid Wal-Mart if you wish, but all retail personnel feel like this most of the time when dealing with you.

The customer is always an interruption. Please try to remember this when you ask someone where something is. We will gladly help you find it, but keep the fact that you are an interruption at the forefront of your thinking so as to avoid being a jerk. When you say that you bought it here last week, you are a liar. We haven't carried it in three years. I am certain that you bought it at another Wal-Mart, and we will probably never carry this item again. The home office is adept at making sure we don't have what the customer wants, that way they don't have to pay as big a bonus in April.

If the customer is the boss, the boss needs to get off his ass and do something for himself once in a while. You are quite capable of putting minutes on your own damned prepaid cell phone. Whose phone is it? If it's not mine, then I'm not adding minutes to it. It's one of the easiest things you will ever do. It's the same idea behind buying groceries to refill your fridge when it's empty. You figured that out didn't you? Well, figure this out. The phone, while it is a piece of technology, is not capable of hurting you. It will cause you no pain, it will not simply cease to function because you FOLLOWED WRITTEN DIRECTIONS. If you can't read, public education has been paid by taxes for years, you need to get in there and learn how. A six year old can do it for God's sake, are you saying that a six year old deserves to be in charge of you?

To all the good customers who buy all of your stuff without complaining and hook up your own tv's correctly and replace equipment when it breaks without blaming it on the sales associate I thank you. You are a rare breed. You are very special indeed. Keep up the good work, it is a pleasure working for you. You almost make it possible to deal with the rest of them.

I'm not sure why I'm posting today, except that it's 8am and I am having a medicinal dose of coffee. I woke up this morning with a pounding caffeine headache, and only two cups of coffee will cure it. You can't dilute medicinal coffee with any of that "creamer" or "sweetener" nonsense. It's just not as effective.

Yesterday I played Gears of War in online coop mode for the first time. The first thing I noticed was how embarrassing it is when you die from the same crap over and over. Most of the time your teammate can revive you, but there are times when you can't reach him and if he dies or you die it's back to the last checkpoint. This includes back to the last in game cinema as well. At least I figured out how to skip them. So, last night we beat the game on hardcore. Now I will start it on insane, which may cost me a controller. I was already dying with great efficiency on hardcore, I imagine this will be worse by it's nature. It is much easier to play with another human than with computer teammates, which are morons.

Hang on I have to refill my coffee...

There. I usually drink my coffee with a glass of cold water handy. I use the water to settle the coffee stomach jitters. It works pretty well, considering that I usually drink morning coffee on an empty stomach. So today the endless Sunday debate begins. Do I go to church, or do I go to bed? I probably should go to church, but I'm tired. I'm tired because I had to go pick my Dad up from work at 11pm last night and had to turn around and wake up at 6:30 to take him back in to work. Last Thursday I had to go pick him up at 1:10am and then wake up at 6am so I could go to work, but wait, I had to take him back in to work first. Imagine working a 19 hour day followed by five hours of sleep and a twelve hour day. Now imagine the 19 hour day was worth $251 by itself. Are you torn? I'm torn. That beats the stuffing out of Wal-Mart's pay. I wouldn't want to be a new father with such a schedule though.

I'm not complaining about having to wake up and stay up. I figure that's part of being family. If I can't be there for my family, then I'm not much good. How many times have they had to lose sleep to come pick me up somewhere? I don't know exactly, but I'm sure it's more than once.

Right now I'm home on lunch eating some Blue Bell Century Sundae. Apparently it's the 100th anniversary of Blue Bell, and they have released this limited edition stuff. It's homemade vanilla flavor mixed with chocolate and caramel swirls, and marachino cherries. It's not bad. I've had better flavors before, but this came in a black container with frickin candles on it. That's hardcore packaging there.

I don't normally eat ice cream on lunch except when I don't want to microwave something to eat. How lazy do you have to be to not want to microwave something? I'm not sure but I may have lost a pound last week, so I have to do something about that. I'm tired of sandwiches, there are no chicken tenders in the freezer and I'm not really that hungry anyway. The end result is I eat what's ready to eat, and in this case it's ice cream.

Yesterday I worked 1.52 hours over my regular shift because there were 2 pallets and a retarded amount of backstock that all went out on the shelf. I had to clear it out because there was a 900 something piece truck due that night and no evening associate to work it. Today I have three pallets to work, but they are pulling me to help get rid of the risers in electronics and automotive. Normally I wouldn't object to being removed from my cold ass work area, but today I'm actually enjoying working all this crap out onto the shelf. I don't know why exactly, but I actually want to do a good job this week. My morals must have started taking steroids.

Since I'm looking for work outside of Wal-Mart, I wonder what it takes to be the guy that traces chalk around the bodies at crime scenes. Is there a specific job title for this or do you just lose a bet or draw a short straw? How do you trace a guy that had his head blown off? Do you approximate the head shape, hoping you don't get it wrong? Is there a bonus for getting it right? How do you deal with blood pools? Do they have some kind of blood penetrating chalk? Do you have to bring your own chalk? Maybe it's helpful to have experience making chalk drawings on sidewalks at art shows. I wonder if when you trace a dead guy who is missing an arm, do you draw an arrow from the arm socket to where the arm is and then trace the arm? Does it matter what color chalk you use? Can I bring a set of several colors and draw up a legend so you'll know what color was what body? Is that something I could put in my will, that I would prefer navy blue chalk to be used to trace my body in case of wrongful death requiring police investigation? I guess I could google this, but I'm not sure how to search for it. "Guy who traces bodies" might be a good start, but I don't want to trigger any patriot act software.

A guy told me one time that he convinced a girl at this bar that his military occupational specialty was in flight missile repairman.

Lastly, if the Bears win the superbowl, are they who we thought they were? Can we go ahead and crown their ass?

Watching the history channel, I realize that beef jerky looks totally nasty before it's dried. It is mixed with the sauce in some kind of apocalyptic dryer. It looked like brown mucus coated livers, except thinner, like that membrane shit they find in Alien movies. It wasn't all brown, there was some red in there too, as if they took the cows still alive and shredded them through an exhaust fan.

Let's see, news since my last post...

Dad now drives tankers locally and is home every night. He picks up water from oil fields and takes it to disposal units for $13.62 per hour. Apparently, and this makes sense to me anyway, they push the oil out of wherever it is by injecting the pocket with water. It ends up being salt water by the time it gets back to the surface, and according to the history channel, they distill the water to get salt. I don't know if it's table salt, but apparently it's something they can sell. Oil companies do more than you think they do.

My sister works for the state hospital, with the crazies. She seems to like it, although some days are harder than others. It's like a nursing home for delusional people. She's not allowed to mention names or specific conditions due to doctor patient confidentiality or something similar.

Mom has moved to overnight cashiering, and therefore doesn't have to stock grocery or deal as much with a man named after soup. She's there now. In fact, my whole family is at work except for me. I'm sitting here blogging like some kind of lazy person.

Speaking of me, I'm about to get a CDL permit. I intend to use this permit to get hired as a driver with someone who is willing to train me to drive for them and will let me use their vehicle for the road test. I'm finally acting on my situation. It's been six months in the making, but it's finally happening. I've also been playing Gears of War. I can't seem to beat the last boss, because I didn't bring any bigger guns. I thought I could get away with using a shotgun and the Lancer. Not so, mustafa. I guess I'll start over from the beginning of the chapter. It is the most fun I've had playing games in a long time. I totally suck at multiplayer though. I am much better at Call of Duty 2, which I can't play because the disk is cracked.

In case you think I'm updating without bitching about Wal-Mart, I am.

I have a good story to tell you this time, whoever you are. It's a true story of course, with some input from me being mostly rash statements designed to inflame.

There's this guy at Wal-Mart who works ICS. ICS means inventory control something or other. Basically they are the overnight stockers of the day. I was off when this happened, but his son died a few weeks ago. He was only sixteen. I don't know the circumstances, I just know he was gone for two weeks or something close to that. Obviously he went to the funeral and spent time with relatives, the usual grieving activities I imagine. He applies for bereavement pay, and fully expects to get it. The Home Office decides he doesn't get to have any bereavement pay, no sick pay, no nothing, just absent from work for two weeks. Their reasoning? He was behind on his child support.

Where to start with this one? I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to categorize just how wrong the company is in this instance. Is it their responsibility to make sure their employees are paying child support? Is it any of their business whether he's behind? Is there any reason on our earth why he shouldn't get bereavement pay for attending his SON'S funeral? He was probably behind because he wasn't getting paid shit to be here working for this mentally unstable company. Our store manager is trying to get this fixed, but the company isn't budging. Why? Where do they get off denying him what is rightfully his? At the most 2 weeks pay for his position is around $700 (I only make $500 every two weeks, but he's been here longer). Do you think a company that profited $10.6 billion last year can spare $700? I think they can.

The extent to which this pisses me off is not even scratched here in this blog. If a pregnant woman were to loudly disagree with me it would take every fiber of my being not to resort to violence. I'm talking about assaulting a pregnant lady here if she thinks Wal-Mart is justified in not paying this man. If every store in the country burned down tomorrow, I would laugh my ass off. I'd bring some hot dogs to my store so I could get something out of it. Who in the wild Blue sometimes Gray FUCK do they think they are? I make, after taxes, $13,000/year working for this fucking shitty immoral hateful racist fucked up company. Let's call that profit. $81,538.46 is equivalent to one penny of my income proportionally. That's 116 times the two weeks pay this man should be paid. They must get their whores cheap. They won't relinquish .008% of one cent to relieve this man's financial burden incurred by missing two weeks work. They've just said, "Fuck your son, fuck your family, and fuck you Mr. Associate." If I give this man $20 tomorrow, I will have given proportionally two million times more than Wal-Mart is willing to give, and all because I know it's none of my business whether he's up to date on child support. Always low wages, always.

Today at work they had the Human Resources guy from district level at our store holding meetings where we can bitch freely and he will try to respond to us. His job from what I can see is to relate the company's perspective to the associates with the most positive spin imaginable. Not that Wal-Mart is doing this, but if they were killing babies, he would find a way to make you forget your questions and objections while explaining how this was the only cost effective measure they could take against the babies.

I don't know why I suddenly forget all my questions and my mind becomes a butter knife suitable for only cutting the warmest of spreadable lipids whenever I get in front of the person I want to ask the questions to. This is why I need to write stuff down before hand. I would have done this but my hands were tied. The only cost effective method of writing this stuff down was to play Call of Duty 2 for three hours last night and then go to sleep. It would have been a nice thing to do but if you look at the big picture you are actually being selfish for expecting more from me. Obviously these two short paragraphs have been an effort for me to put you in my position in this meeting. I can say that we are evaluating the possibility of improving the effectiveness of this blog, and we'll definitely have something in place in the near future that will deal with this issue.

If you haven't figured it out yet, most of what I do here is complain about stuff. Sometimes I try to be funny, and sometimes it even works. On that note...

Here is an article about how Wal-Mart is shifting to a more part-time work force. To quote the article:

"Wal-Mart executives say they embraced the new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve customers, the newspaper said. But some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their modest incomes and putting a strain on personal lives, the newspaper reported."

How would you feel if you had worked for Wal-Mart for the last 10 years, making $15/hour, and they suddenly change your position to part time? Also, with pay caps in force, if you are making more than the cap is, you can keep your rate of pay, but if you change positions, you have to accept the pay cap for that position. So, if they change your position to a part time position, you could be looking at a $4/hour paycut. They are honestly hoping that you will quit so they don't have to pay you anymore. To better serve customers they say? Sam Walton said that if you take care of your people, they will take care of the customer. How is this policy taking care of your people? If I just got a paycut because of restructuring, do you think I'm really going to give a shit if you can't find The Gilmore Girls Season 5 on DVD? Do you think I'm going to give you any information on that new laptop or talk to the Blue Bell vendor to see if he has that flavor of ice cream you want? Mull that one over Mr. Wal-Mart Decision Maker. You'll say I'm just not a dedicated associate. You're right, I'm a mercenary. I'm here working for you for money. I'm not working for the thrill of victory, or for the moral satisfaction of helping stupid people use amazingly easy to use products. I'm not here because I love the blue vest or because I want a date with a certain cashier. I'm here for the damned money. I would think this would be obvious. All other considerations are secondary. If I can't pay my bills, then it's awfully hard to keep my chin up and kick major ass at work.

Another Quote:

"Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent, the Times reported.
Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials said part-timers now comprise 25 percent to 30 percent of its workers, up from 20 percent last October, according to the newspaper."

You deny that is your goal? Are you saying that the store managers are lying? If they're such liars, why did you trust their character enough to make them store managers? Obviously the store managers got this information from somewhere. They didn't just make this up. I know this article is from the New York Times which is not the most reliable source these days, but seriously is this not just a line of crap they are feeding us?

Every day in the Wal-Mart daily news, which is a .pdf file of short news stories available to Wal-Mart associates on work computers, there are all these articles about how great Wal-Mart is doing and how they are being so environmentally aware these days. I don't deny this, but why couple this environmental move with a sudden hatred for your workers? I can smell a union coming on and you did it all to yourself there, hero. You feed us these lies and hope it will make us feel better about how much it is starting to suck to work here? Do you think I'm stupid or complacent enough to actually believe you? Do you actually believe the letters you get in your associates speak out section that talk about how great the company is, but they only ever some from District level management, distribution centers, or Home Office Associates? Regular store people don't talk about how great it is to work for Wal-Mart because it fucking isn't great to work for you. Prove me wrong, I really want you to. I will eat a half cup of Hellmans with no chaser if you prove me wrong. I'll eat a raw tomato with no water to wash it down with if you prove me wrong. I really hate tomatoes. Come on, feed me a tomato. I know you can do it, but you won't do it. You don't care enough to make me eat a tomato.

Two days ago we learned that our landlord decided to steal our security deposit from us. She also stole our lawnmower and a few of my power tools along with a worthless treadmill and a broken fan. As a result, we left the remaining mess in the back yard. She should have fun cleaning that up with her "broken foot." I would go into more detail, but it will just piss me off. Just don't rent from Debbie Moore of Bowie, Texas. I wonder if that's lawsuit material.

I was actually kind of happy to hear that she was a thieving whore because I really didn't want to clean up that shit out of the back yard, and I really didn't want to mow the lawn. There's a good side to everything. I was trying to figure out what the right response was to her crap, and I think the unexpected thing would be to clean the rest of the stuff, paint the house, and perhaps build some sort of garage, and also installing an inground pool. I no longer wonder why people leave their houses in shitty shape when they leave as renters. It seems that most landlords are worthless sons of bitches that lie and cheat and steal. I pledge, as a fledgling landlord, not to be this way. I'll even help you clean the house when you are moving out, and give you back your deposit with interest. I will shine like a Jesus among landlords. This is why I need to make more money, so I can buy all the houses from all the assmonger landlords in this town and make it a better place to live.

I am the landlord.

I am posting this from my own house. I own it, it is mine. Well, it's mine for something or other a month. We finally finished painting on Thursday of last week. Moving the stuff here was the easy part. A nice lady from work lent us a trailer to load enormous amounts of crap onto, which cut our trips back and forth by 3/4 easily. It's good to have friends.

I have set up the video game center first, obviously. I haven't even gotten the wires off the floor. This is a clear demonstration of my priorities.

According to the book, Pirates 2, Clerks 2, Broken Bridges (don't know about this one), and Snakes On A Plane all get released the same day in my Wal-Mart. I think it's the first Tuesday in December. It's somewhere around there anyway. We always release on a Tuesday. Right there is at least $60 I have to spend on DVD's, not to mention Cars, which comes out a couple of weeks before. Cars was cool, kids movie or not. Definitely check it out, the animation is excellent. How am I going to get $80 all at once? Are you telling me I have to budget and save something aside? Preposterous!

Some sixteen year old kid decided to steal a knife on Monday. He used a razor to cut the top off of the package, then proceeds to cut the living fuck out of his hand getting it out of the package. He then goes up front and claims he cut it on a shelf, and the store ends up paying for his hospital trip to get his hand stitched up. We didn'tk now he cut it on a piece of thievery until the other day when we found a bloody knife package. I think we should take the stitches back out of his hand. The son of a bitch. Where are his parents? Why wasn't he in school? His parents should beat the living fuck out of him. I know my ass would have gotten spanked at sixteen if I cut school to steal a knife and ended up in the hospital. No, I would have not fought back against my Dad even as a teenager, because he is stronger than me. Also, I wasn't that kind of kid. My parents cared about me. They didn't leave me to be raised by the TV or by my teachers. I can feel some kind of preaching coming on, so I'm cutting this short.