Midwit Employee Of The Month: Why We're Doomed

My patience for such rank stupidity as the following tale has definitely come to a middle.

Me last night: "Item not recognized." High-70s IQ sales help comes over because Pavlovian conditioned reflex to flashing red light. Tries both magic tricks she knows. Item still not recognized. Like the computer told her the first three times.

"I can't sell this. I don't know what the price is."

"Ma'am, I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet that your $19.98 Clearance sticker on an 8-year-old banged up book that went for $24.99 brand new in 2014 is probably a major clue there."

"But it's not coming up in the system. So I have no way to sell this to you. Is there another one?"

"No, it's the only copy you have of a How To book from 8 years ago. I have the money for it. It's the only one you have. I'd like to buy it now. How hard is that?"

"But I have no idea how much to sell it for. Anyone could have put that sticker there. And it's not coming up in the system."

Word to Corporate HQ's Mother: When you hire someone with an IQ in the 80s (which seems to be a lot - like 90-ish percent - of your employees) couldn't you help a brother out by putting them in orange jumpsuits, and a hockey helmet with a flashing red light on top to clue the rest of us in on what's about to happen? I'm BEGGING you...

Smoke streaming from both ears, Midwit then puts it over on her counter, like I'm a five year old in a timeout and can't see it there any more.

I had no idea people coming into the store and dropping off strange books with the company's clearance stickers was such a huuuuge problem at their stores until just this moment, but at least I've finally solved the lifelong mystery of what ever became of the kids from kindergarten who ran with scissors and ate the craft paste who didn't end up in Congress. With a little luck, Midwit here could become a congressweasel from NYFC if she's not careful.

Thusly hijacked by stupidity, I complete my remaining purchase and tote my trove to the car. Then come back in to look for someone who can either take their socks off and do the math, or with a higher IQ than Midwit. I'll take either one. Worst case, I'll see if I can't find the same book on Amazon, and cut them out of the sale entirely, and let them eat shit on the deal. (Note to anyone who cares: the 'Zon in fact has it, in stock, and for another $10 less than Wallytardia. But I'd have to wait until next Wednesday for it, plus S and H. So that's a wash.)

But Midwit has already rotated to some other low-IQ task. The new flunkie now on duty is pre-occupied. So I walk by , lift the book, and carry it back to where I found it, only I stash it instead behind the coloring books (which, to be fair, is probably the only area of the store she's got committed to memory), at 10 minutes to closing.

Went back this morning just after they opened, with a whole new crew on duty, found another newer clearance item with the same price, took both items to the registers, scanned the new one, paid the bill, left the other item, and bagged the book I wanted in the first place the night before.

Wally World has now, despite the best efforts of their chattering hired monkeys, successfully sold the ancient item they couldn't unload for 8 years at the exact price to which they marked it down, and I have the exact item I was prepared to pay for the night before, banged up and cover-worn, but still worth the price to me at a 20% discount.

And nobody there among the high-functioning retards has to flap their feathers and burn out their brain transmissions by grinding gears in their tiny brains to figure out how to sell a book to a guy standing there with cash in his hand to buy it, because the all-powerful CPU has forgotten what it is nearly a decade later, and they haven't been clued in to the use of a signal flare, and calling the undoubtedly 80-IQ assistant manager over to help them.

Most stores have managers on duty to make exactly such high-level corporate financial decisions, but what the hell do I know, since I've only been buying stuff at stores since eleven or twelve presidents ago, and I seem to recall the clerks back then used this arcane art known as looking at the goddamned price sticker, typing that into the cash register, ringing it up, and taking your money, pretty much the same way that's been done for over 143 years, ever since James Ritty invented the sonofabitch in 1879, and nobody had a stroke over that, including an entire century of history when no computer had anyfuckingthing to do with the entire retail process whatsoever, and even the most simple-minded idiots could accomplish the task of ringing up a sale without taking off their shoes or spraining a synapse. I could be mistaken, but that's my best recollection of how it's worked, oh, since EVER.

If the corporate twatwaffles who run that ship of fools has a problem with that, they probably shouldn't have forced me to be their employee to ring up my own shit, because they're too stupid and cheap to hire a couple of more minimum wage checkout clerks every day and shift.

Monkeyfucking assholes hiring monkeyfucking assholes is no way to run a business, even if they're getting good-guy points for hiring the high-functioning retarded kids and rehabbing the brain-fried stoners from the '70s and '80s, or something, and paying them 16 bucks an hour.

One has to but wonder what sort of productive work such an employee can actually accomplish, and dollars to donuts the only reason the pallets of goods dropped around the store just prior to closing get broken down each morning before they open is that they must hide food pellets among the goods to keep employee interest in clearing those boxes up to par.

Half of me expected her to turn to the side and reveal that sentient apes in the back office had done brain surgery on her or something.

WallyWorld had a minor kerfluffle a few years back when they pulled a certain mug. I don't think they actually pulled it. It's just a hunch, but I think they just saved them to give out internally to store employees across the chain for this sort of accomplishment.

The exercise was worth it to me for the sheer satisfaction of working out a way to thwart the Minions of Stupidity, but I'll bet a paycheck that somewhere in the annals of miscellaneous tales during the decline of Rome from imperial HQ to cow pasture, that somewhere there's an account of some middle class Roman frustrated because the inbred clerks at the marketplace couldn't make change for a sesterce without taking their sandals off, couldn't read cursive script, couldn't tell time from an hourglass or sundial, and had to look up what a "dozen" was at the public library. 

Get off my lawn, you damned punk kids!

(Hand to God: Half of me wants to buy another copy of it from Amazon, go back there, bring it into the store, put three different price stickers from the Clearance aisle on it, including at least one far above the retail price on the cover, and smear some glass etching compound on the scanner on my way out for good measure. I do have a birthday coming up...)

The Days Are Just Packed

They really are.
BTW, If you never saw this strip firsthand, catch up on it. Totally worth it.

When my knees hurt like this, it's because I've been running around too much.

Spring cleaning, just in time for summer, but COVID-delayed, and long overdue.
But opening boxes and bags that have sat unattended is like Christmas everyday.

For the "Just The Flu, Bro" lunatards, COVID is exploding again, both where I am, and in any 10-15 states where up to 1/3rd of all y'all are. Not everywhere, thank a merciful deity, but it didn't go anywhere while you were sheltering at home, because the Gilligan Effect.

Firsthand anecdotal reports have it rampant in L.A., and they're looking good for being the next NYFC by end of next month. It's up 300% in SoCal in general, and I spent the weekend in a hospital that was closed to all ambulances, and full to the gills, with both COVID problems, and non-COVID problems. And burnout is becoming a thing too.
Exactly like we warned you would happen if this thing started to spread, waaaaay back in February.

"You can ignore Reality; but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring Reality."

That stinging sensation for some folks just now is the bear trap jaws of Reality closing on their tender bits.

Multiple projects in various stages of completion. Sleep is good, but more of it would be better.

You're watching the Cold Civil War heat up, as intended.

As the election approaches, it'll get worse.
If OrangeMan wins, it'll get worse.
If OrangeMan loses, it'll get worse.

Nota bene the lack of other options there, according to our Magic Eight Ball.
Plan and prepare accordingly, and hope for better times eventually, but for some reason, the phrase which keeps coming up in most contexts is "Rivers Of Blood". The open question is whether we're talking on a timeline of fruit flies, or geologic strata formation.

But that which cannot continue, economically, politically, socially, or any other which way, won't.

"How did you go broke?
Gradually. And then all at once."

If you would not be a puff of smoke at the bottom of a canyon in the Painted Desert, do your best not to follow Wile E. off the cliff to the point that gravity is about to kick in wickedly.

Safety. Shelter. Water. Food. Medical. Energy. Allies.
This is the Do Re Mi of those who intend to see the other side of where things are headed.

Like my recent transportation purchase, for those of appropriate disposable means, there are and will continue to be deals to be struck, and bargains to be hoovered up in the current crisis. E.g., both car dealers, and car renters have a burgeoning glut of vehicles.
Some people already have, are, or will soon be, sold or selling all sorts of interesting things.
Some run on gas. Some on gunpowder. And so on.
If you can, help friends, allies, and potential ones.
But don't hesitate to take advantage of strangers' misfortune. People selling things below market, at a loss, are nature's way of telling you what your own cash reserves can be used for.

OTOH, the skills to keep old, tired things working are going to be in higher demand.
Anyone who can help folks "Use it up; wear it out. Make it do, or do without." are going to be both in demand, and in a great position to barter and horse-trade for things they lack, which, if done right, also doesn't generate additional tax liability, nor in many cases, paperwork reviewed by BATFE or any other of TPTB. If someone wants to trade plumbing work or a fixed transmission for half a hog or their 4th G17, that would seem to me to be between you and them, when all is said and done. Just don't  swap for their sawed off shotgun, and find yourself in Ruby Ridge II. Remember, times are tough for federal stool-pigeons too, just now. Don't be That Guy. But if you can do something that gets you a full freezer, woodbox, or ammo crate, and leaves your fellow man better off as well, while starving Leviathan a little more, ROWYBS. Let Nancy Alzheimer's buy her own damned ice cream.

For those pathetic Never Trumpers salivating at the prospect of his most recent rally flopping in attendance, they jumped too soon. The overnight Nielsens put the television audience, who opted to watch from their Barca-loungers, and miss the COVID and the BLM/Antifatard riot potentials, while hanging on every word at the rally mere steps from their own bathrooms, literally buried every other TV event for the week, at last report. Remember, the list of people who've run aground on the rocks of "This will finally be the End of Trump" looks like the Manhattan phone book. Literally. People working or hoping for his departure or demise this side of January 2025 are apt to be sorely disappointed.

Beyond that notation, politics neither feeds me, nor fills my wallet, nor likely you either, so while Situational Awareness is always a thing, focus on the things that do and will feed you, pay you, or break your leg and pick your pocket.

You'll be better prepared in general, and loads happier. Both of which pisses off the commie hordes mightily. There will always be butthurt in the world. Resolve to be an asymptomatic carrier who gives it to deserving others, rather than a victim, or volunteer, of such result.

Pardon me now, for I have a date with some ibuprofen, and tub of hot water.

That Was...Bracing

You shall be forgiven if you mistakenly thought the picture above was a still of the casualties in Atlanta in Gone With The Wind.

It was, in reality, the waiting room of Teeny Weenie ER at Shoestring General Hospital this weekend. No, really.

My personal tally: 4 strokes, 2 heart attacks, three major fractures, five automobile collision victims, a baker's dozen of abdominal pains, and about half that again of people - almost all in their 90s - suffering from Failure To Fly, leading inevitably to the dreaded FDGB: Fall Down, Go BOOM! And by some small miracle, only one(!) patient who was certifiably bat-crap crazy. My co-workers all leaned into that last pitch instead. Better them than me.

(BTW: I can reliably report that people having actual strokes and heart attacks will drive themselves to the hospital about 1 time out of 3, rather than calling the paramedics to bring the ER to their living room for a pick-up, so think about that when you decide to cut off the geezer in front of you driving a little distracted.)

There are days I should get paid for patients by the pound, and this was a triple dose of that.

If we want to switch to pay based on how sick they were, I managed to fill up all the hospital's available ICU beds two nights out of three. They're not talking my calls any more this week. I have heard mumblings that my new nickname thereabouts is "Trainwreck", in honor of the patient type with which I've been gifting them.

Despite all that, everyone who came in with a pulse (all of them, hallelujah!) left with one, and they all left in better condition than they entered. That their efforts to shuffle off their mortal coils failed was not due to any lack of trying on their parts. It also didn't hurt that everyone at Teeny Weeny ER is a team player (and there's no "F**k You" in "Team", boys and girls), without which things wouldn't have gone so well for all concerned, and also one of the reasons I like to play at this particular body shop.

Best of all, there is no "X" in the box tonight on my line of the shift schedule. For one night in a row!
As noted in my last post, my employer and my bank will both love me, but only the prospect of pizza, two or three unseen movies to watch, and no one's life to save tonight is currently making life worth living.

Then we'll have a look around and see what dipwitted f**kery our would-be overlords and random strangers have got up to in the intervening 96 hours.

Based on my own biased sample of the world since Friday afternoon, high IQs have not broken out anywhere on the planet, so the pickings should be good in due course, and serve as proof that compared to things that really matter, like sending average people home to their family rather than wrapping them in their final plastic baggie and toe tag, there's little whatsoever that Government Idiots Inc. (but I repeat myself) do that isn't anything beyond comedy relief and an object of ridicule. 

If I could but trade the Stygian Ferry 1:1, and save my patient's lives, in return for sacrificing the minions of governance and self-proclaimed cultural icons, I'd happily walk the streets of D.C., NYFC, and Hollywood, with a pillow in hand, looking for deserving fucktards to smother in trade for the gaggle of grandmothers, uncles, sons and daughters I saw in the last 4 days' time, and what's more, the republic would be improved for every trade I made with the Grim Reaper.

If only...

And sadly, I failed to score the winning billion $$ lottery ticket, so I have to keep doing this for a couple of decades more.  I kicked a coupla bucks into the community pool, so we were hoping to hit it, just to be able to text Big Boss that 57 of us were all quitting when we collectively hit the jackpot. It would have been worth it to see the looks on the faces. Perhaps another time. And Fat Cat will not be dining on crab and steak, but she's announcing that I didn't have permission to ignore her all weekend. The little furry terrorist probably found something to puke on out of spite, because that's how cats roll.

Meanwhile, there's pizza to order, discs to insert in the player, and a number of web pages and such to browse. Like a good campfire, sarcasm and mockery must be banked and fed regularly to keep them hot and useful.

I hope you all had a weekend that didn't include any time in the ER, unless you were getting paid for it.

Yakkity Yak, Ain't Got Jack

1) Flu shots work. Against flu.
They do jack and squat against a cold.
Oh, and all the little piggies out there who don't wash their grubby little hands and stay home when they're sick should die, slowly, from dick cancer.
After being skinned alive, and then slowly lowered into a vat of rubbing alcohol.
Just saying.
I never get sick at work. It's always from the hoi polloi everywhere else, and while I wash my own hands, I can't wash the prepared food I buy. (Soggy freshly-scrubbed burgers and fries kind of lose the gastronomic appeal of the warm, dry variety.) Douchepigs.

2) Number of things going on in the big wide world I can find that even interest me at the moment is hovering right at 0. Some of this is due to the still-hanging-on coughing fits from a cold that won't die. Most of it is due to the Usual Idiots simply being the Usual Idiots.

I'd love to have something here but this. Unfortunately, there's just nothing I can find the motivation to scribble about. Maybe I'll go see a movie.

Odds, Ends, Random Bits

This has nothing to do with the post; I'm just trying out décor ideas.

Government remains the one branch of the entertainment industry everyone can enjoy, but lately the show has become rather one-sided.

Item:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries.

Item:

 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump gave embattled GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore a vigorous formal endorsement Monday

 Item:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican National Committee is once again supporting embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore after President Donald Trump formally endorsed him Monday.

Item:

WASHIGTON (NBC)---approximately 15 percent of federal judgments are vacant.

This is unprecedented and provides Trump with an extraordinary opportunity to reshape the entire judicial branch of government.

And let’s remember why the makeup of the federal judiciary is so important. Federal judges are appointed for life and hear a myriad of cases dealing with federal statutes and the Constitution.

I must admit, I've always enjoyed watching Democrats go down to defeat, but the thwarting of those Democrats in office within the Republican Party has been the sweetest victory in all of this.

And after Britistan harpy PM Mays' snotty whinging, Trump's state visit to the last remaining shadow of the former empire has been postponed by American diplomats indefinitely, possibly for as long as she, worse from the Labour party, or any other pro-jihad apologist, holds the semblance of power in that branch of the caliphate. Boo frickin' hoo, losers.

Meanwhile the Senate, in a last-gasp left-handed recognition that a number of them are up for re-election next year, managed to find a way to make ObozoCare optional (which still has to get past the House, and come out of conference intact), which would gut the original thieving wealth redistribution scheme, and make government pocket-picking optional for the vast majority of people who want nothing to do with it, and never did.

This while the Left, from the Senate to Hollyweird, is happily forming ad hoc circular firing squads on their dearest and most esteemed progtards for any whiff (and usually an entire festering sewage pile) of scandal about their footie-pajama beta-boys' serial rapes, molestations, and sexual battery of the simple-minded lunatic feminazis who finally break the shackles of Stockholm Syndrome to note that all their own heroes are waging a War on Women, and have been since the 1950s. Just like everyone from Phyllis Schafly to Anne Coulter have told you they were, from then until five minutes ago. (Yet again, ladies, if you can get past your own foolish pride, there are Real Men on the Right, in hordes, which is generally the only place you'll ever find any. But be advised, they won't put up with your silly bull$#!^, so you'd better get your heads straight beforehand.)

Antifa, which was supposedly going to launch the Zombpocalypse a month ago, is now found primarily on milk cartons from coast to coast, looking for all the world like the Wicked Witch after getting a bucket bath from  Dorothy, and virtue-signaling is now the next best thing to yelling "Pull!" on a skeet range.

Which may get even easier to do in reality, if national reciprocity hits CCWs from coast to coast.

So while there's still dismaying amounts of muck in the swamp, both nationally and locally, still needing some comprehensive drainage applied, the water level, like the shrieks from the offended, are receding, and there don't seem to be enough liberal tears left to refill the quagmire anytime soon. They've been too busy cock-a-doodling about managing to stave off right-wing challengers in the outskirts of DC, and NYFC, with a (D) population that numbers around 80% of all residents. Well-played, progtards. Next, you can tackle shaped blocks.

Color me happier, while I attend to more pressing matters, like watching movies, stockpiling PMs like gold, silver, and lead, and sandbagging a tidy pallet of staples and canned goods for the day, now hopefully more distant, when the pendulum begins to swing back again.

And I'm getting much closer to moving the blueprints for Camp Snoopy from the planning stage to the active file, yearning for the day when living here in Castle Anthrax is but a distant memory, and the only thing I hear in the morning is songbirds, roosters, and gunfire from the backyard range.

It'll be a longer drive to Disneyland, but I'll get over it.

Gone Out To Play

I'm taking the day off.
Here's something to entertain you while I'm out and about.

( h/t to Eatgrueldog for most of the pics; most of the captions are mine.)

 

 

This guy is now:
a) a congressman
b) an FBI agent
c) a reporter at CNN
d) A Microsoft Windows upgrade programmer
e) yes to all of the above

Eatgrueldog posts some great funny pics. You should visit there.
I look forward to ripping off the pics and adding my own spin in the future.
Have a happy day.

Normalcy. No Bias.

This is what normalcy looks like.
I mind my own business. I go to work. I get paid. I buy the things I need or want.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Since it's going to be several months until the asinine ammo registry starts here (June or July, at last rumor) in Occupied America, that's a substantial item, and will remain so. So is lengthening my stores for protracted problems.

I'm not short of either one, and I'm purchasing as I see fit, to see that I never am, either.

I'm not worried about the last gasps from a failed regime, and the initial moves of the incoming one have me looking forward to the caterwauling from the Looney Left that will ensue by about 1PM EST on the 20th of this month.

Probably adding some capacity to my truck, in the form of storage boxes and an aux fuel tank, and doing the annual maintenance.

Homewards, solar panels and a back-up gen. are liable to happen sooner than later.
Beyond that, just maintaining the lists, checking it twice, and whittling down the piles of books to read, and movies to see, interspersed with classes, hobbies, and such.

One of my favorite quotes is Heinlein:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Placed on a bucket list of what I've done:

change a diaper
plan an invasion
butcher a hog
conn a ship
design a building
write a sonnet
balance accounts
build a wall
set a bone
comfort the dying
take orders
give orders
cooperate
act alone
solve equations
analyze a new problem
pitch manure
program a computer
cook a tasty meal
fight efficiently
die gallantly

it's getting pretty sparse.
And I know how to do the others, just haven't had the urgent need. Yet.

Tempus fugit.