Much work to be done

Gaze at this stump while I finish my graphic novel Hip Deep, Mountain High and I fix one of our down spout drainage problems. Trenchant political analysis and snarky pop culture posts will be back soon, I promise. In the mean time, I've got work to do.

Adventures in home ownership

First it was the replacing the stove. Then, after we escaped the tornadoes that hit our region, the next week a storm blew part of the huge maple tree on our neighbors lot on to part of our deck. After making arrangements to get that cleaned up, and I must add here that after having had a run in with the neighbor in question in the past, he could not have been nicer over all the tree clean up business, after mowing the lawn last Friday, I came in to find that one of the two water heaters that were here when we bought our current house had sprung a leak.

I called our plumber, and if you live near me and need a plumber I highly recommend the guy we use, and he came right out and fixed things. He could not however fix the water damaged carpeting that was in the basement.

We'd been threatening to rip that ugly ass carpet up from day one but we never could get motivated to do it. But having huge parts of it soaked with water did the trick. No amount of blotting would have saved that carpet and had we left it, it would have become a breeding ground for toxic mold. So Sunday morning we ripped it up.

We pulled it up and cut it into sections we could easily carry up the stairs and which would fit into the Sparky mobile. We pulled up the padding and we took out the strips of tack filled wood that they used to keep the edges down. This is the mound of carpet that is destined for our county dump:
And here's the basement floor without the carpet on it:
Giddy with joy after having gotten the carpet in the basement up and out, we decided to take the carpet on the steps up, it was the same awful pink/dusty rose color. We decided that if we didn't it would haunt us for the rest of our days. So up and out it went. Removing all the staples, carpet tacks, and tacking strips off the steps and the landing was a huge pain in the ass, actually it was a pain in my arm, knees, and back. It took us three days to get all of them out.

Next step is to scrape the basement floor, use a high powered concrete cleaner on it, paint it, and seal it. Hopefully, the fumes from the cleaner, the paint, and the sealer won't get us and neither will the labor involved.

During the dealing with all that the tree guys came Monday, after I had to call them and remind them that they agreed to come out that day, to cut the storm damaged tree off of our and our neighbor's property. They got to our place around 2PM and got to work. By 5:30 they had broken part of the wooden fence and snapped our cable, which put us out of watching any cable TV, using the phone, and kept us offline. Thankfully the tree is gone and Charter cable sent out a huffy little dude who got my cable hooked back up and all is well on that front, for the time being.

So dealing with all that shit has put me behind in my blogging, my Facebooking, and in finishing my current graphic novel. Once we get the floor done downstairs, maybe I can get back to some semblance of normal and I can finish Hip Deep, Mountain High by the middle of June.

On a happier note, I did manage to find time to make a batch of strawberry jam from locally grown strawberries.

Attention local to me peeps!

We're going to be holding a pro teacher/pro union/pro working people demonstration this Saturday from noon to 2:00 PM. It will be held on the public sidewalk in front of First Tennessee bank at 1919 North Roan Street. Please bring pro teacher, pro union, pro labor, pro working people signs and let's show our friends and neighbors in east Tennessee that we support public employees and working people.

A word of warning though, do not park in the First Tennessee parking lot or they might call the cops to have you towed. Also do not walk or set anything on First Tennessee property or they will call the cops. Park in the huge parking lot next to First Tennessee and please confine the demonstration to the public sidewalk. We want a big turnout for this non violent protest that is in support of working people.

Bring your friends, neighbors, and family, let's show the world not all of us in east Tennessee are right wing teabaggers!

These jobs aren't coming back

And now, here's a message from the Personnel Department at HQ

"We don't care how hot or humid it is, get your asses back to work or you're fired. And stop stealing all the toilet paper and instant coffee packets god damn it. We're not kidding."

And now here's some pictures of white people pointing at things

Two conversations I wish I had had

Back before my heart attack five years ago I went to the gym three or fours days a week, I had started going to the gym the year I had my heart attack in order to stave off having a heart attack but it didn't work. Anyway, one evening after working out I was sitting in the steam room working up a good sweat
when a goofy looking gangly doofus walked in and sat across from me. I could tell right away he was one of those guys who wanted to talk so I did my best to avoid eye contact with him and that brought me about two minutes of peace. He finally couldn't take it anymore and be blurted out, "I'm in investments." I said nothing and closed my eyes hoping he'd get the hint that I didn't want to talk to him. But he took my silence as permission to keep talking. He said, "Yeah, investments. I give Christians investment advice. That's my job." I was determined not to take his bait so I remained silent with my eyes closed and my laid back against the wall. "Yep," he continued, "I advise Christians where to invest their money." I may have farted at that point to try to shut him up or run him out but the smug little peckerwood continued, oblivious to my attempts to ignore him, "Now you may not think Christians need investment advice but boy, they sure as heck do!"

It was at that point that I should have said, "Yeah, they need to be told not to invest in companies that pollute willfully and those that try to downplay climate change. They need to avoid companies that make weapons, bullets, and other murderous devices. They need to be told to invest in companies that treat and pay women the same as they treat and pay men. And they need to be told to invest in companies that are committed to social, economic, and sexual justice and equality."

However, what I actually said was, "Can you not see I'm ignoring you? Now, please leave me the hell alone or I'll go to the front desk and lodge a complaint against you." That shut him up long enough for me to finish my steaming.


Back when I sold for Myers Tire Supply I used to work with manufacturers reps from time to time and one day I was working with a rep from a company that made a line of tire changers and wheel balancers that we carried. He was a stereotypical testosterone driven salesman, which meant he was homophobic, racist, and misogynist. In between sales calls that morning he started bitching about a pair of shoes his wife had bought for him. They looked like this:
He kept saying he thought they were 'gay.' He said, "I don't know why my wife bought me gay shoes."

At that point what I should have said was, "I do. It's because she wants you to turn gay. She knows that all gay men are oversexed and wildly insatiable and they live to pounce on and have gay sex with straight men so they can turn them gay. It's a fact. They love sex so much that they have it all the time and they quickly run out of other gay gays to have sex with so they then start searching out straight guys who dress gay, like you. She thinks that if some gay guy sees you in those shoes he'll have no choice but to make you have gay sex with him. I'm pretty sure all women who have been married as long as you and her have want the same thing."

But what I said was, "Holy fuck man, you're an idiot. Now shut your yap and let's go sell some equipment so I can get rid of you."

Dr. Monkey, the early years

You know times are tough when...

...Jesus Christ has to get a job after he comes back to earth. At least he's co-owner though, yep he's got that going for him.

True Employment Tales

In the early and mid '90's I lived in Knoxville, TN and one of the jobs I had there was working for the alternative weekly newspaper there. I was the assistant to the woman who was in charge of the classified ads department. She and I got along about as well as the Serbs and Croats were getting along during that time. I think she thought I was gunning for her job and so she tried to keep me at busy doing crap stuff for her but part of my job was also to sell ads. She gave me a file full of "leads" for ads but the leads were crap. The leads were all phone numbers to companies that wanted to advertise their phone sex lines but the publisher of our paper didn't want to take those type of ads because he thought they made his paper look sleazy.

Not one to turn down a challenge I began calling some of these phone sex companies and I pitched them on our paper. Invariably I'd get some person at the companies excited about advertising with us but then I'd lose them when I told them the list of words that they could not use in their ads in our paper. The list included the following words: hot, wet, wild, woman, sexy, and horny. Most would hang up on me after they found out they could not use any of those "overly descriptive" words in their ads. One guy at one of the phone sex companies told me to give him an example of what he could say in place of "Hot Wild Wet Women Want to Get You Off!" I calmly told him we could run, "Excited Moist Feral Females Would Like to Talk to You Now!" He said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

One day I finally struck pay dirt. The company in question was an advertising agency in Boston that bought ads for a bunch of different phone sex companies. My contact was a jaded sounding woman who I'd say was in her early 30's, she was nice and quite understanding of my predicament and when she found out some of her clients would have a virtual monopoly in our paper if we could come up with acceptable wording she jumped at my offer. We talked back and forth and we finally came up with a winner, it read "Super Models Want to Chat With You NOW!" We also ran "Pretty girls are waiting for your call!" She must have been pretty pleased with the results because after the ads ran for a couple of weeks she called me one day and said she wanted to run those ads in our paper indefinitely. When her company sent us a check for 6 months worth of ads I made a copy of it and I put in on my boss's desk along with a note that read, "Thanks for the great phone sex company leads! They really pay off if you're smart enough to stick with them!"

True Employment Tales

I finally saw this movie the other night:
Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm a bit behind the curve on things.

I liked this movie for a couple of reasons.

First, I liked it because the suspense built slowly and they scared you, or in this case me, without resorting to showing any actual violence. It was kind of like a Pinter play in that regard, the menace and violence were heightened by only alluding to them and the threat of violence was more scary than the act itself.

Secondly, I liked it because the gal in it was a cutie, yeah, I know, I'm shallow. I could watch her in anything because she had that girl next store freshness and cuteness to her and she had a nice butt to boot.

And finally I liked it because the filmmakers broke the mold when they did their marketing campaign. They built such a buzz around this film back when it came out that by the time it came out everyone was talking about it. Which brings me to the True Employment Tale portion of this post.

When the video of this movie hit the stores people were renting it and buying it in droves. I was still working for Myers Tire Supply back then and as you can imagine a lot of people who worked for the places I sold to were the ideal target customer for this film. Guys in the tire and retread shops were going on about it almost everywhere I went in the week or so after it's release on video and the gals who worked the desks in the offices that issued me purchase order numbers also were chattering about it.

One of my main customers back in those days was a retread shop in Hariman, TN called Tim's Tire. Tim's was one of the few independant truck tire retread shops in the USA and to look at the place you'd think it was the biggest dump you ever saw. But you'd be wrong. Tim and his family, which consisted of him, his brothers, and all their familes, made millions off that truck tire retread shop. But the thing about them was they enjoyed working so every day they'd go in and work in one of the dirtiest, noisest, most labor intensive industries there is today. The other thing about Tim and his family was they were all nice people but they were all devoted evangelical Christians. So it surprised me one day when the young gal in the office asked me if I had seen The Blair Witch Project yet. Being nice, yeah I know, it was a stretch for me to be nice to one of those fundies but back then Tim's was my biggest customer so I had to be nice to everyone in there, I said I had not seen it but that I had heard alot about it and I asked her if she liked it. The gal, who was every bit of 18 years old, nodded yes and she breathlessly told me that every bit of the movie was true and the people who died in it got what they had coming to them because they messed around with witchcraft. I rolled my eyes and I told her that it was just a movie and that no one really died. Well, the young thing did not take lightly to me contradicting her and she insisted it was true and they people really died. I gave her a patronizing smile and I told her that she was mistaken. She gave me the evil eye and she snatched my invoice out of my hand and then she swiveled her seat away from me and back to her computer screen. For the next two years after that she never smiled at me or said a word to me when she saw me there.

In another tire shop in Kingsport, TN a guy who I spoke to every week and who did most of the ordering for his store told me he had just seen Blair Witch and that it was so cool and that it was so sad that those poor kids had to die like that and how wild it was that it was all caught on video. Despite the reception I got from the last person I corrected I had to tell him the truth as well. He scolded me and said that indeed those kids died and that it was all true.

The next week I went in that Kingsport shop and my guy walked up with a sheepish grin. He said, "You were right man, that movie wasn't real after all. I seen that girl on Conan O'Brien the other night." He and I got along great after that and he always tried to give me the biggest order he possibly could.

Ah the power of movies, it affects us all differently.

True employment tales

When I worked for White's Truck Tires I had to buy tires from wholesalers from time to time. One of our wholesalers employed a guy they nicknamed "Crowbar." One day I asked why they called him that. "Is it because he's tough like a crowbar?," I asked innocently. The guy I was talking to shook his head no, "We call him Crowbar because on his first day here someone asked him how they separated the men from the boys where he came from and he said, 'With a crowbar.'" From then on I preferred using them over any of our other wholesalers.

True Employment Tales

Back when I worked for Myers Tire Supply, and the name is actually a misnomer because Myers does not sell tires, they sell tools, supplies, and equipment for tire and under car service, I had a truck (and by truck I mean 18 wheelers not pickups) repair shop that was a long time customer. The people who ran this shop were complete and total assholes. They took forever to pay their invoices, they gave me a hard time every time I stepped into their shop, and they loved to make me wait forever before they would commit to an order. I was probably the last sales rep in that business who would put up with their shit so they felt like they could dump all over me and waste my time.


One day they told me they had found a lease company that would back them in a big purchase of a truck tire changer, a passenger and light truck tire changer, a truck tire balancer, and a passenger and light truck wheel balancer. I was kind of shocked because they had such poor credit but when I found out the lease company was for real I quickly found all the equipment they wanted and I made them an offer. They accepted and we made the deal.


It turned out I had sold them the wrong type of truck tire changer. The one I sold them looked like this:


The problem was this changer took three phase electric power and they had single phase power at their shop. They refused to buy a phase converter which we offered to sell the at our cost and they insisted we get them a different changer.


We agreed to pick up the wrong changer and to send them one that kind of looked like this one instead (and no, you smart asses, the guy did not come with the machine):


The original truck tire changer that they had agreed to buy was $12,000 plus. The one they ended up buying I sold to them for $9000. At first they were over joyed I was saving them $3000 off the original price, but when they found out my cost was about $5000 on the second changer they got steamed. I figured that $4000 profit on the second tire changer was about equal to the shit they gave me for three years. They bitched and moaned about paying so much for the second changer but since they signed the lease there was nothing they could do about it.

********

Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm a bad monkey. And you know what? My badness caught up to me because a few months after that deal I flipped my almost brand new Toyota truck over three times in the middle of a rain storm and my brand new to me truck was totalled. Thank goodness I suffered only a scratch near my left eye, my seat belt saved my life.

On the job with Bubs

Bubs always gets his bearded man.

Mr. Tanaka would like another word with you

Umm, this is very hard for me to say but it turns out I was a bit hasty in firing you. I just found out it was you who bought the office Crunky bars every Friday. Please accept my apologies and please return to your duties here tomorrow. That is all, oh wait, on your way out could you send in Bob from accounting? Thanks.

Mr. Tanaka has something he'd like to tell you

Hello. Please have a seat. I called you in here to tell you that while we like you as a person, we no longer need you as an employee. You have brought shame upon our fine company with your behavior. You have spent far too much time reading blogs and making jokes. Propriety prevents me from talking at length about your flatulence but know this, I urge you to use part of your severance package to stock up on some Beano. Stop crying, you knew this was coming. Please pack up your personal belongings in a box and then get out as soon as possible. To show you we are not heartless we would like to offer you one of the following parting gifts.


Good luck in whatever future endeavor you attempt and seriously, do something about the constant farting.

True employment tales!

Way back when I lived in Roanoke, VA in the late 80's I worked for a bit for Revco Drugs, which later became CVS Drugs here in the Tri Cities area. It was the Saturday before Easter and I was working until closing that day. We had long since sold out of stuff to make Easter baskets with unless you wanted to fill a basket with newspaper, cold medicine, Boone's Farm wine, and E-Lax, which now that I think about it doesn't sound too bad. Anyway, at about 6 PM a woman came running in the store and asked me if we had any Easter grass left. I looked her straight in the eye and I said, "No ma'am, we've smoked it all." She nodded and then she turned and left. I laughed like a madman after she walked out.

Worst Jobs for the 21st Century

I saw an article linked on Huffington Post that said "Worst Jobs for the 21st Century." I clicked on it and it took me to a Forbes article. Since I trust Forbes about a much as I trust that lying blood thirsty greedy pig in the White House I clicked my back button without reading the article. Then I got to thinking about what would be the worst jobs of the 21st century. So I came up with the following list:

1) Bush family gynecologist and douche mixer.
2) Crack vial cleaner.
3) Road kill taste tester.
4) Urine injector.
5) Being Michelle Malkin.
6) Typewriter repair person.
7) Horse fister.
8) Telephone sanitizer.
9) Personal lubricant dispenser on The View.
10) Hobo licker.
11) Wife of Fred Thompson.
12) Bologna knitter.
13) Egret wrangler.
14) Republican bathroom attendant (men's room only).
15) Sexually repressed southern Baptist minister (Alabama and Tennessee only).
16) Brick farter.
17) FOX News host.
18) NY Yankees manager.
19) Phonograph needle sharpener.
20) Spice Girl de-louser.

Two for Tuesday

Here's two business ventures you may want to try from a Popular Mechanics from 1964.

You'll be rich in no time!

True employment tales

Way back in the early 90's when I worked for the alternative weekly newspaper in Knoxville, TN, I sold ads and was the assistant to the psycho bitch who was in charge of the classified ad department, I was given a folder by my boss. I was still new so I had no idea what the folder was, it turned out it was full of leads on businesses that she had pissed off or who had said they'd rather roll around naked in ground glass than ever advertise with us. Ms. Psycho told me to go see as many of those businesses in that file as I could and to try to sell them some advertising.

So off I went. Most of the businesses turned me down and told me to get the hell out but I struck gold at one business that day. It was a consignment shop run by a good looking brunette woman. I gave her my spiel and she listened patiently. I finally showed her ad sizes and prices and she said, "You got lucky today bud."

I said, "Oh yeah? How so?"

She gave me a knowing smile and said, "I got me a little last night and I'm still in a good mood. I'll take the 1/8 page ad and I want ya'll to run it for two months." When she broke out in an ear to ear grin, I did as well. I then asked her to go ahead and pay us for the ad. She hummed to herself as she wrote out the check.

I knew my psycho boss was expecting me to fail miserably, I could tell by the smirk she had on her face when I got back to the office. She said sarcastically, "How'd you do? You've come back empty handed I bet."

"Not so much," I said with more than a little swagger in my voice. "I sold ABC Consignment an 1/8th page ad that's going to run for two months straight."

Psycho said, "She stiffed us last time, you'll have to pay back that commission when she stiff us again."

I pulled the check the store owner had given me out of my pocket and I tossed it on Psycho's desk. "No worries, I made sure she paid us in advance."

Not too long after that Ms. Psycho got her van impounded for not paying her many parking tickets. I laughed like crazy as they towed her van off. I quit that job a month and a half after that.