Feeling peckish

[gryeyes]

I'm not in a good mood today. I'm not grumpy, okay I am. But I'm not nasty with anyone. I sure want to say snide and nasty things, though. Today, anyway.

Illiteracy annoys me. Misuse of apostrophes annoy me. Whining and pleading annoys me. Confusing "their" with "they're" and "there" annoys me greatly.

People asking me to do things (at work) because #1 - they're lazy, and/or #2 - they know I can do it more quickly just frost me no end. Today, especially.

A long time friend and co-worker is retiring today. I'm going to miss her, and her expertise. And I'm jealous. No, not jealous, envious. I won't be able to retire for another 10 years.

I like my job, just not today. As I drove to work this morning, I noticed people in other cars were ugly. Or not attentive to driving, which is what they SHOULD be focused upon whilst driving a motor vehicle.

I want to go home and watch my chickens, do a little yard work with my feathered "helpers."

Am I the only one in "a mood" like this today?

 

[4 luv of eggs]

Watch what you say. I started a thread this past weekend with the same pet peeve. The inability for people to construct a sentence or spell correctly has bothered me for years.
Well anyway, my thread was pulled by the moderator. I guess it was too politically incorrect.

I go through my crappy moods too. I hate them but sometimes you just need to nurture them a little and just be mean for awhile.

Thankfully, I have been able to stop working and I don't miss it one bit. I despised seeing people get ahead by kissing up to the boss while a good solid work ethic gets you nowhere. Money is tight but I think that's everywhere.

Hang in there. Tomorrow is Friday and the weekend will be upon us. Rest assured that you are not alone and there are plenty here to commiserate with.

 

[seismic wonder2]

Read this, It won't help the way you feel about other people, but it may make you feel better about being in a "crappy" mood....

1899

A Message to Garcia

By Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

What to do!

Some one said to the President, "There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- "Carry a message to Garcia!"

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.

Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio".

Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

"You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.

"Yes, what about him?"

"Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for."

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.

It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

THE END-

 

[Wynette]

If you see a thread where peeps are using improper grammar, and it bugs you...walk away (don't participate). It's an easy fix for allowing yourself to get annoyed! Life's too short to let these types of things get under your skin.

 

[Laurajean]

I have a night schedule and was due to have a shed delivered and installed today between "6 & 10am". Gotta love those windows. Well, I'm not usually up in the morning at all, and it was torture for me to try to tear myself out of bed only a couple hours after getting into bed, just to be ready for the shed guys. I kept dozing off and having nightmares that I had overslept and missed the shed guys, so I would jerk myself awake again. Well, 6 came and left, 7....8.....9.....10.... At 10:45 I was pretty p'd off and called the company about where they were, and she said in the most annoying, sickening sweet fakey fake voice "Oh, I'm SOOO sorry, we don't have you due for delivery until FRIDAY morning, between 6 & 10.

I've had this on my calendar for almost four weeks, I know exactly when it was due to be delivered and it was TODAY!

So now that means, not only did I totally mess up my sleep pattern waiting for the shed that never came, but now I get to wake up tomorrow at 6am and do it all again!

And now I have to run a bunch of stupid errands that I don't feel like doing and I'm on no sleep.

So I'm with you, gryeyes, I'm not a happy camper today, at all.

 

[mylittlezoo]

I have those days too. I'd never admit it to DH, but it usually coincides with.... y'know. Certain times of the month. I cure it with having a 'me' hour or so. Wine, chocolate, cool room, good book. Some days are just crappy. Indulge yourself.

Oh, and bad grammar / spelling / etc ticks me RIGHT off too. I mean, didn't these people go to school??

 

[turney31]

seismic- how profound- Thank you.

micah

 

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

I have plenty of those days! Without going into detail, today happens to be one of them. Heck, this whole week has me in a rotten mood. Some of the things that help me to push through are music, my wonderful companion animals, reading outdoors, and going for a drive or a walk by myself.

 

[PineappleMama]

Quote:
I'll add...

Too, To, and Two
Doe, Dough, Do (Re-Mi)
Night, Knight
Its, It's
Who's, Whose

... not really any wonder English is such an annoying language to learn.

 

[sonjab314]

It's days like this that make you appreciate the good ones