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T minus five months

Leftovers & links

♦ My department at work is being outsourced, and I’ll be unemployed on 1/1/2022, five months from today. In addition to my serious worries about finding a job, I’m also amused/intrigued about the upcoming transition.

See, the work we do isn't going to disappear. Someone's still gotta do it. It won't be me, or anyone who works for the company, but whoever it is, those people will need to be trained, right?

It's always taken six months to train a new hire on all the things we do, and even then they’ll still have questions. Six months. We’re at T minus five months, from the day when people who don't work here will do it all.

If they ask me to train my replacement, sure, I'll do it. Dignity is a quaint, outdated concept. But somebody will have to ask me, and nobody has. Nobody’s said anything about getting our procedures written down, or training our replacements, or how the work will get done in 2022. 

If nothing else, this might be entertaining.

♦ There’s a new man working at the place where I still work. I assume he’s a man, because his name is David, but I work from home, and haven’t met him. We've talked by Skype, though, and he has a noticeably high voice, so maybe it's complicated.

Of course, I’m going to treat him the same as I treat everyone at work, which is generally cold — work-related conversations only, plus occasional and always G-rated jokes. Never ask or answer a personal question. I’ll of course call him her or them if that’s what’s preferred, and I’m only typing this paragraph for a chance to say that I couldn’t care less.

And I don't understand anyone who'd give a damn, except maybe David.

♦ It's an insurance company, so I see customers' names all the time, and when they’re worth a giggle, I giggle, because I’m twelve. A few days ago, on two consecutive documents, the last names were Dickman, and Nutzman.

Are you twelve, too?

♦ Every catastrophe needs a feel-good story. This one involves a baseball player, vacationing next door to that condo that collapsed in Florida.

♦ Yesterday at the Post Office, a sign taught me that pies is the Spanish word for feet. As in, please allow 6 pies of social distancing between you and the next customer.

Six pies between two people? That’s three pies each, and that’s a nice lunch.

♦ The judge said, “You have two choices, I can’t do anything for you, you can either pay the ticket or request a court hearing.” I said, “I’m going back to New York next week and can’t wait months for a hearing, but I do have another choice.”  He played straight man and said “What’s that?” I replied, “I could just walk out of here and ignore the whole thing.” He looked at his computer screen which had my whole history of un-paid parking tickets dating back to 1984 (the city wants more than a thousand dollars from me) and said in a judicially derisive voice, “I see you won’t have any problem doing that.”

—from Caged in the circus of civilization, by Dennis Nyback 

♦  “Ice was harvested from ponds and lakes, and most prized was hard, clear crystal ice, typically consumed at the table; while more porous, white-colored ice was mostly used by industry. It needed to be at least 18 inches thick to be harvested and the size of blocks varied according to the destination, the largest being for the furthest locations, the smallest destined for domestic distribution. The blocks were stored in ice houses before being sent by ship, train or barge to cities around the world.”

—from Ode to the ice man, by MessyNessyChic

♦ "Rather than build apartments, developers will build 15-story parking structures. Each parking spot will come with power so you can live in your shitty electric van or a Conex box tiny house."

"This will become the new, modern variation of trailer parks. The parking spots will still cost 2/3rds of your income. If your van doesn't have a toilet and shower, there's a public toilet and shower on level 1 that costs $10 per 15 minutes. Everyone who lives in these places will work 6 gig economy jobs and have a master's degree."

—from r/AskReddit, by CurlSagan

I understand CurlSagan's point, of course, painting all this as dystopian and awful, and if it ever came to pass it probably would be. That said, if showers were included, and electricity, and a padlockable locker at my parking spot so I could shelve my underwear and canned food ... I would already be signed up and moved in.

♦ Why do recipe writers lie and lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?

♦ A conservative talk-show host who said 'you're probably safer not getting' the vaccine is now seriously ill with COVID-19, and his family is asking people to 'PLEASE GO GET VACCINATED!'

Abandoned America

♦ Who doesn’t like Columbo

Tearable puns.

Free graph paper

A cannonball to the belly

Awesome people hanging out together.

♦  Mystery links  — like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going: 

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Hat tip: BoingBoing, One of the Butt Sisters, and Ran Prieur.

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8/1/2021

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1 comment:

  1. ♦ Why do recipe writers lie and lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?

    Man, this is the truest thing I've read all day.

    ReplyDelete

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