I was recently treated to an opinion on how “all Washington drivers are bad.”
Eh? All? sez I.
Yeah. All of ‘em, she clarified, failing to register the fact that I am a Washington driver.
Sometimes I wonder why I don’t have as many friends as other people. It’s probably because I quit listening to people like this.
Background: I contacted Taco Bell, like, two months ago, and asked them to consider lowering the amount of salt in their products. I mean, I look forward to heart failure as much as the next American, but I do hate being thirsty for five hours after a single bean burrito. Well, apparently they don’t like “unsolicited ideas,” “suggestions,” or “idea submissions.” Like, y’know, feedback. On their product. Which is really salty food. Nor do they like to take the time to customize their templates.
This is the response I got, word for word:
Dear Chelsey
Dear Sam Sample,
On behalf of Taco Bell Corp. (¿Taco Bell¿), I want to thank you for taking the time to contact our Company. Because your communication contained within it a suggestion for either a product or advertising idea, we felt that is important that we clarify Taco Bell’s policy regarding accepting unsolicited ideas. As experience has proven that the practice of considering unsolicited ideas can give rise to misunderstandings as to the origin and ownership of such ideas, Taco Bell has adopted a general policy of not accepting unsolicited ideas and suggestions. Although we regularly receive many unsolicited ideas concerning our products, advertising and a wide range of other subjects, experience has shown that most of the unsolicited ideas we receive have already been considered or used by Taco Bell or its competitors. While we thank you for taking the time and effort to submit an idea or suggestion, in keeping with our Company’s policy of not accepting such ideas, we will be unable to pursue your idea submission.
Sincerely,
Guest Service RepresentativeSincerely
Raye S Taco Bell Customer Support
Mr. S. Taco Bell Customer Support, can I just say that you should win an award for shoddiest customer service? And by “shoddy” of course I mean nonexistent. Also you missed a couple important commas. Idiot.
As you finish your dissertation (insert exclamation points here), I’ll cheer you on with a cheer I learned from Cronie, the old woman who lived with my family as I was growing up:
Rah rah ree
Kick ’em in the knee
Rah rah rass
Kick ’em in the other knee
You’ll be brilliant.
I hereby reserve the right to stick my head in the sand and cry “La la la la!” every time I hear something I don’t agree with. At least for the next five weeks, because apparently SOMEONE’S blood pressure is a little too high and that’s a bad thing, yessirree.
So I have an excuse for my ignorance; what’s the rest of the country’s?
Oh, and if anyone tells me to stop watching football in order to lower said blood pressure, I will commence head-in-sand activities. Broncos are on a bye this week anyway, so…la la la….
I’d be done with these papers if it weren’t for constantly needing to get up and (1) pee and (2) BANG MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL, OH MY GOD.
Seriously: how can you be so articulate about what we talk about in class and then NOT APPLY IT TO YOUR PAPER?
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I have just given a paper 27%, an all-time low not counting plagiarism. The paper before that got a 90%. WTF, people.
Thinking of ordering matching t-shirts for the husband and I to wear during labor. Mine would say “misery,” and his would say “company.”
Have been grading papers all day — only four left, so I was browsing the Interwebs for Shit the Baby or I Might Need, and I found this:
Holy hellballs, people. Knowing what these were for would have kept my virginity intact a good ten, fifteen years more.
I seriously don’t understand how we can go over summary, quotation, and paraphrase for HOURS and students still don’t use quotation marks for words taken from another source “because it’s paraphrase.”
NO IT’S NOT. The SOURCE may have paraphrased, but YOU did NOT.
*tearing out my hair*
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Update: Have fixed typo in title. Now am considering live-blogging Meltdown to Baldness 2010. Ugh.
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Those faint screams are the sounds of me checking my students’ sourcework.
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I must speak a different language when I teach. It’s the only explanation for a couple of these research papers.
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It’s really only three out of twelve papers (and two of those weren’t my students in ENGL 101) that are so awful, but they’re THAT AWFUL. (And this is one benefit of teaching at the pen: my students will never know I liveblogged my hairloss.)
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I think the key here is to not read all the good papers first. Stupid, stupid planning.
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Remember copyediting? That was a nice, stress-free career with regular hours….
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The delusions are getting stronger.
Lately, a few things about being publicly pregnant have been grating on me nerve. Yeah, that’s singular. And, apparently, Irish. And because I worry less than I probably should about other people’s feelings, I’m saying what I think about those things.
1. If you use the words “preggo,” “preggers,” or “womb,” I will glare.
2. If you tell me, “Everyone’s hoping it’s a boy,” I will respond, unoriginally but cuttingly, “We just hope it’s healthy.” Then you will say, “Well, of course,” and feel foolish.
3. If you criticize or question my dietary choices, I will probably cry. I’m pretty sure I can tear up on cue these days. And if you’re lucky, I won’t also vomit on you, which I can also just about do on cue.
4. If you comment on my “baby bump” (another term closely related to No. 1), I will mince no words in pointing out I’m a lot fatter right now than I am pregnant (see also No. 3); it’s just that I can’t suck it in any longer.
5. If you ask if it was on purpose, I understand your curiosity and I will try to be polite through my gritted teeth instead of screaming FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES, but that’s still a rude question.
6. If you ask me if we “tried anything” to have a child of a certain gender, I may be tempted to answer with graphic detail. G-R-A-P-H-I-C. Maybe even demonstrate. (Seriously. I can’t believe I’ve been asked this.)
7. If you so much as touch my belly, so help me god you’ll lose that hand.
Other items for the shit list:
8. Polka dots — seriously, why? On clothes, decorations, baby gear, etc. Is it the roundness that people associate in some Freudian manner with the pregnant belly? LIKE I WANT TO LOOK ANY ROUNDER.
9. Winnie the Pooh. The strength of my irrational distaste for that animated series is beyond words.
10. Baby-talk. Gag me.
I’ve eaten plenty of my own words lately (cf. “I’m never having kids!”), and I’m sure I’ll have a few more portions to consume before all this is up, but getting this off my chest feels better.
Whenever I talk to my students about college, I say “when you get out of here and go to a four-year college.” Not if. To me, it’s important that they see this associate of arts program as a step towards something bigger and better. There’s at least one ex-Pen student who is a department chair at University of Chicago. Even if he’s an exception, he can be an inspiration.
Yet…last night I was talking to one of my students about what he’ll do when he gets out. He wants to go on for his bachelor’s degree, and he’ll have an HVAC certificate as well, so he’s hoping to work his way through college.
But, he said, I’m competing against people who haven’t been in jail. You’ve got me and a guy without a record, who are you going to hire?
Who, indeed. It’s such a struggle just to avoid getting into a defeatist mentality about life after prison, life as an ex-con. But my students know this, because I tell them all the time: even if life after prison is tough, education is one of (or, as I believe) the only proven ways to reduce recidivism. Line cooking out there, or struggling to start your own business, beats the hell out of coming back here, doesn’t it?
From what I’ve seen and heard, there are some tremendously good guys in my class. I know they could be playing me, so I keep my distance, but these are guys who were doing okay in life until they got sidetracked by drugs and/or drinking, guys who say that they weren’t criminals before they came to prison, but prison made them into the criminals that they now see themselves as. And Internets, I know there has to be a price for crime, but I can’t help but think here in America we’re doing it wrong when we lock them up without treatment. Because when they get out, and they’ve got a record in addition to an untreated disease or addiction, what kind of success can we really expect? I don’t know if that’s something education can fix.
That as a political group who believes in individual responsibility, right-wingers blame the government for an awful lot of stuff (not that they’re necessarily wrong; it’s just hypocritical), and I am cynically amused. For example: This week, Someone messed up something important at a government institution. As I understand it, it was very much Someone’s fault — no one/nothing else’s. Yet because it was a gov’t institution, my very right-wing friend blames the government. And somehow dragged the census into it. (Um, okay?) So I guess this righ-winger wants both personal responsibility and a convenient punching bag.
…Ugh. That’s it. I am starting my own country and it will be totally anarchist and I will be the only person there, so I will have total freedom. Total freedom and total control. I’ll have it both ways, too.
Today I was unlocking my bike from the rack outside the Patisserie and overheard two people chatting about the musical scene in Walla Walla. Or what they thought was the scene in WW. One — whom we’ll call PA for ‘pretentious arsehole’ — asked the other if Other was doing any music these days. He replied in the negative, and PA said, “Yeah, people around here just don’t appreciate good music.”
I turned and looked in a very Miss-Manners-ish way, not quite believing my ears. Have you heard our symphony? Have you been to the chamber music series? Hell, even the senior recitals around here are pretty good. And jazz at Merchants and Backstage has been good, and I’ve even heard a good fiddler in downtown playing for tips. Hence my look.
He continued: “And I think it’s a disservice to music to play what people want to hear instead of what is good.” Other said something I couldn’t understand; PA said, “All anyone wants around here is butt rock.”
This time when I turned and glared, I made sure he saw me. He had the grace to look uncomfortable and lower his voice. Arse.
I would bet good money that both these guys are Seattle-area transplants, not native or recent Walla Wallans. Sure, we leave potholes in our streets and have a century-old sewer and water system that no one wants to pay to upgrade, but dammit if we don’t like all kinds of music in Walla Walla. And gentlemen, it doesn’t take balls to come into a community and [wrongly] criticize it; it takes ignorance. Fuckers.