Arguerants #20: Bitching is the New Black

There is one thing that has really caught my attention lately and that is the general lack of manners and respect people show one another.  I have noticed that a lot of people in my town really like to bitch and complain about their lives and their jobs.  I realize there are few people that genuinely love what they do, but if one more cashier tells me that she is tired from working another double I think I might scream.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind small talk:  tell me about the weather, your son’s baseball game or maybe even if you have tried some of the products I am buying, but please—please—don’t tell me how shitty your life is!  It’s kind of insulting to hear people complain about work when I know so many people that would be happy just to have a job, let alone one where they had to work a lot of hours.

Some people act as if working is a huge inconvenience to them and just being there is a test of their patience.  I’m not being ignorant to how hard some people have it, but I think it’s rude that you decide to share with me personal information when we are not close friends and we are in a place of business.  I find it very unprofessional as well when people try to gain my emotional support when I just want to buy a damn sandwich.  Call me old school but I’m the type of person who is selective about whom I go airing my dirty laundry to and honestly there is a very logical reason for this type of discretion.

I have been to quite a few stores whereby the cashier or clerk has failed to make eye contact with me or in some more extreme cases even say a word to me.  To me, it just makes one’s day so much harder when you go out of your way to be rude to someone.  Trust me; I’ve walked that road before as I was a server for years and during a time when my patience and temperament were anything but admirable.  I have also had employees in certain stores bad mouth other customers in front of me and in the back of my mind I am thinking:  you don’t even know if I know that person and here you are talking some serious crap about them.

I was at the library today using the internet and an old woman gets on the computer next to me and within a few minutes she barked out loud, “I remember a time when libraries use to be quiet!”  The irony of this situation is simply delicious as she is complaining about the noise yet she is the one speaking out loud.  I told her simply, “things have changed…” 

To this she replied darkly, “not for the better though” and if the elders of my generation lack any patience or tact than that certainly makes me scared for what the younger generations  are going to be like and what do we have in store as a society in general?

I can’t sit here and act like I haven’t had my times whereby my fuse was shorter than it should be, but I generally try to be understanding of others and I realize that not everything happens right when we want it.  The old woman who complained about the noise in the library went on to talk about how slow her computer was and instead of seeking help to find out the source of the slow connection, she chose to remark over and over again how long it was taking.  Inside my head logic was telling me, hey lady, if you stopped the bitching and sought an answer to your question, perhaps your day would go a little better instead of you harping that the free internet you get to use is not quite up to par with your liking.  If that is the worse problem someone encounters in a day, I’d say your day is going pretty freaking well. 

I see people being cut off in traffic by other people who flip them off and others laying on the horn the second the light turns green, which doesn’t even give the guy at the front of the line a chance to hit the gas.  A lot of our technology might be fast, but people these days still have no major upgrades in how fast they can accomplish their normal everyday tasks.  It is like so many of us are just in our own world and completely blind to everyone else that inhabits the same planet.  This doesn’t mean there isn’t the occasional samaritan who lets the person go who’s been waiting to turn for ten minutes onto the street and the woman with a 100 grocery items letting the guy with one go ahead of her. 

Now I don’t think you can out hate a hater and when I encounter people that generally see the world as full of conflict, I try to adopt an attitude of carefree acceptance.  Sure it sucks when a line takes forever but what usually sucks more is hearing the many sighs of people frustrated or constant repetitive remarks declaring how a person’s time is being wasted and that they won’t be shopping at that same store again.  Sometimes I believe people like to bitch because they feel it’s somehow this common link between different people ala the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Mistakes happen, people are not perfect, and it’s only a matter of time before we are all a victim of circumstance, so why as individuals do we feel the need to create an atmosphere of negativity and unhappiness? 

If it angers you to have to wait for a seat at a restaurant, remind yourself of the fact that you get to eat there and that if it is busy, it’s probably because it’s popular and a bunch of other people had the same idea as you.  Negativity can grow exponentially and when we give into it, we strengthen the beast.  This is not to say that there aren’t genuine reasons for complaining about something and if someone is doing something wrong, there is certainly nothing wrong with letting someone know.  I guess the lesson here is to exercise some discretion when it comes to what battles we choose to fight mentally and we must also weigh the effectiveness of our complaints and who we choose to voice them to, as bitching to the guy behind you that the line is slow is not likely to help your situation.  The simple fact is that the world just can’t run correctly for everyone at the same time and the sooner we realize this, the sooner the wait will be over for whatever it is that is causing us to be impatient.  Also, we must see that the things we criticize others for have been things we’ve been criticized for in the past ourselves.

You can lead by example in this world and handle yourself with grace or you can choose to be bothered by everything and look at every moment in your life as a soap box speech for self pity.  No one is really any better than anyone else and the cashier at McDonalds deserves your respect just as much as the president of your local bank.    We all play our part and how smooth this machine of society runs with all the different cogs it has contained within.  So in closing, if you only have a few minutes to share something with someone, make it something worthwhile or meaningful, not some spiel that you are exhausted from having to work or that you are tired of dealing with stupid customers.  I don’t want to hear about your problems and let your issues be like that of a blog:  if people want to know about them, they’ll investigate further, otherwise, they are free to click around as they like!  

ArgueRants #19: Living Well with Less Money

I’m no financial guru as my bank account could well tell you, but because of such I’ve had to adopt some lifestyle changes that have helped me manage to live on what income I can attain.  I figured if I can help myself save money than I can probably help someone else out as well.  So without further delay, here is some advice that I have for any person looking to save some money as well as produce it.  When I decided it was time to really start saving my nickels and dimes I found I had to really step back and look at where I was spending money.  When your funds are limited, you are forced to let certain “luxuries” go but you still want to find a way to still maintain your formal lifestyle without retaining your former penchant for getting into debt. 

The first bill I decided to do away with was cable and though initially when I went to do this they gave me the options of just having bare bones cable for a reduced price, but I said no and just had it removed completely and haven’t looked back since.  Now I simply read more, play more games, or just find something productive to do.  I do have to admit that if I did not have high speed internet access though this move would have been very painful, but the internet is a great source of entertainment as well as revenue so it was paramount that I kept it.  Most people that own cable will tell you there is rarely much on and most of the channels available are veritable trash.  You can also factor in the fact that most TV stations have their own websites and offer free viewings of their premium shows online, so you have to ask yourself:  is watching your favorite show on your couch instead of your computer really worth a $150 a month? 

As a younger man, the idea of thrift stores were insulting and automatically conjured up images of being down on my luck financially and having no other clothing options but that which people have donated.  The reality of it though is that you can find some really good clothes at thrift stores and walk out with multiple outfits for the cost that you would pay for a single piece of clothing.  My girlfriend showed me just how great a source this can be for the fashionable yet monetarily down trodden shopper.  I’m not saying that every thrift store is going to have great clothes and keep in mind you will have to look through a lot of stuff to find what you are looking for, but generally speaking, with people having all kinds of different body types and sizes, the perfect fit is not always easy to find no matter where you shop.  This can also double as a source of income as some of these stores buy clothes that you may not just fit any more or in my case, something you got for Christmas that is…nice, but let’s just say it doesn’t quite fit you!

If you take note of the seasons, you will realize that after every major holiday there will be loads of stuff to buy at majorly discounted prices.  You can either stock up for next year’s holiday or just eat Christmas themed candies throughout  the summer if need be, whatever works for you but when you understand that stores have to clear their inventory space to make way for new stuff, you can jump on those discounts and walk away with twice the goods.  Got a sweet tooth?  Buy your candy after Halloween.  Want a nice jacket?  Wait until winter is over and then check the clearance sales.  Need some nice swimwear?  Hit the surf shops in the winter and note how the bathing suit that was $60 before is now only $20.  Also, sign up to most major stores for offers on clearance sales and going out of business sales, which can be a gold mine for great savings. 

Another gold mine out there is the internet and if you know how to network and can utilize your free time effectively than you can earn yourself some extra cash with little physical effort.  Advertising and blogging go hand in hand as companies will pay you when someone clicks on their ads after reading your own material.  There are many free blogging sites that have easy to set up ads that can generate you a decent income if you can manage to get regular visitors to your site.  Often times the ads that appear on your pages have something to do with what you are writing about and thus can be helpful to the people viewing them.  There are also paid surveys you can take online and Craig’s list and Ebay are always around if you need to sell any peculiar items.

Junk itself is another source of income as there are many recycling places that will pay you for scrap metal and wire.  There are also companies that will buy your old electronics so you don’t have to throw them away which would only produce more waste and earn you zero dollars.  You may have to gather a decent amount of some of these items to get any real pay out but in the end I think most of us have an ample amount of time to burn and few people would argue over extra money in their pocket.  If you need a temporary loan, there is always the pawn shop, not to mention you can find your own deals there on something which might normally be far too much new. 

It really pays to shop around and the price of something can vary in dollars between places less than a mile apart.  Case in point:  I have a major sweet tooth and tend to hit the convenience store a lot for candy, but if I go to Wal-mart I could spend about half as much and get twice the candy, though sometimes it’s this very reason that I do spend more on it as it’s a type of monetary control over a biological urge.  If I do buy fast food I really try to stick to the dollar menu and for normal food I indulge in a lot in pasta and lean proteins as they are easy to cook, cheap,  and filling.  Keep in mind every Sunday paper has a bulk of coupons to save you money and every grocery store has it’s fair share of buy one get one free sales that combined with some freezer bags can have your plate filled for weeks to come. 

I realize that a lot of these ideas are nothing new, but what I think is important here is the mindset behind saving money.  We pay a lot for convenience and the people that sell to us are very much aware of our tendencies, both negative and positive.  I also have to say that just because something is considered name brand and sometimes expensive, doesn’t mean that you are simply paying for the name.  There are some pricey shoes out there that seem high in comparison to the cheap ones you can find, but what good is a cheap pair of shoes if you have to buy new ones every 3 months instead of every two years?  Recognizing what items are worth investing in and which items don’t require a name brand all plays into the frugal budget.  We all need to realize that spending money is a responsibility and many people have gotten into a lot of trouble biting off more than they can chew.  Only you can decide what something is truly worth and only you can really decide how much you spend and save…       

Arguerants #18: Texting

Do you remember the days when you would call someone, leave a message on their answering machine and then wait an undisclosed amount of time for a call back?  Believe it or not there was a day when people didn’t always have their phone on them and sometimes I think back on those days with nostalgic longing.  Around the time that cell phones started gaining headway, instant messaging was also getting bigger and it was only a matter of time before the two merged into one via texting.  The written word is certainly far from its end, though the paper medium itself is slowly being phased out.  

We are social creatures and with the advancement of technology also comes the advancement in how we talk to one another.  With satellites beaming our conversations back and forth to one another, we are becoming increasingly linked in an almost hive mind-esque fashion.  How will instant communication change us as a whole though and is instant always better?

As with any issue, it seems that the benefits of cell phones and texting rely heavily on the user.  People in today’s world are privy to a host of new technologies that can meet all kinds of individual needs and for some texting is a great way to communicate because it’s fast, to the point, and non-invasive.  Many people prefer to text bad news or to ask uncomfortable questions because doing it face to face is just too awkward.  There is also the group of people who just don’t like to talk that much on the phone, so it’s certainly a convenience if someone needs to get a message across to type it out then send it off.  With a new advancement in technology there comes a loss and though the words we send can go to the recipient with one meaning, they can be received and interpreted completely different. 

My step father use to always say to me, “it’s not what you say but how you say it” and it really is true.  A word’s true interpretation is not the word’s definition itself but in and of the context and tone in which it was delivered.  The word asshole can be said with affection and it can be spoken with hate.  Now if you call someone an asshole during a playful conversation, the tone is evident and so is the look upon your face when you say it, which tells the listener that you mean the term in jest.  If you type a similar sentiment in a text and send it, the person may not necessarily take it as such and these misinterpretations can be commonplace in the texting realm.  Let’s face it: every day conversation between peers and loved ones is anything but elegant and complete as we speak in fragments, tell inside jokes, put inflections on certain words and juxtapose emotions and meaning. 

I realize that I am using the term instant to describe texting but as we have all found out at one time or another, sometimes when we send something, it doesn’t mean it has actually gone through to the other person right away.  I have sent my girlfriend many texts only to find hours later that she has not received any of them, which has caused arguments because I’m wondering why she isn’t answering me when she hasn't in fact received a question or comment to answer.  So because the technology offers us something, we can often take it literally and because of such some unspoken laws about inter-texting dynamics have come about.  It is easier for people to understand someone doesn't have the time to call you back, but with a text (though it is informal) a fast reply is far more expected as it takes so little time to answer and doesn’t require an individual’s full attention.

Our way of life may perhaps be making us more impatient people as it seems a lot of the technologies in play serve to speed up life or certain aspects of it.  Why bake all day when you can go through the drive thru?  Why wait in line for a bank teller when you can hit the ATM?  Why look through a pile of books when you can Google search the info you want?  If there is something that you don’t like to do, chances are someone out there is looking for a way to make it easier for you to fill their own pockets.  Why reach out and touch someone when you can send them a short message instantly?  The very lines and thoughts that bind us together are becoming digitized and how soon will it be that the bulk of what we say to one another is just raw digital data being sent back and forth? 

Being an avid texter and a writer, I love the advantage of being able to think out what I say before I actually say it, which doesn’t seem to happen a lot in a normal conversation.  I do find it interesting how we are so liable to being misunderstood and how sometimes a simple phrase spoken seems somehow hard to understand when it is written out.  I am seeing video chatting more and more and I know that will certainly trump texting in the far off future, but I think for now people enjoy the comfort we have from behind a tiny screen.  Each of us is peering through our little portals of communication keeping an eye on our kingdoms and our ears ever ready to detect the tell tale sign of a text tone.  On an end note:  if you hate texting, prepare to be increasingly annoyed as people get better phones and discover the advantages of it, though keep in mind something else will take its place slowly and there will be new elements to adapt to once again.