Money Matters.

Sometimes it feels like all I do is make money and spend it.  Not exactly making my mark on the world, or saving it.  But spending your money can be one of the most socially conscious and political acts you perform.  A bit sad, perhaps, but not if you really think about it.  As an individual, your ability to improve the world you live in can seem laughably limited.  Voting is a case in point that everyone will understand.  And most of us are too busy or lazy to engage in any extra-curricular altruistic or charitable activities.  But what we all do, all the time, is spend money on ourselves and our loved ones.  And unlike voting, what we spend our money on is not inconsequential.  (Calm down, I vote - thereby apparently earning my right to complain about the state of the nation.  Every election, I throw away both my votes on the Green Party; only to watch them get passed over yet again like a homely wallflower.)

In a democratic capitalist society, most significant change or progress is actually brought about by businesses seeing a demand in the market place or a threat to their all-important brand.  No point in decrying that or getting all cynical about it - better to think of it as an opportunity for you to have a say.  Obviously it costs more money to make a more responsible product & in order to make a profit, that extra cost gets passed on to the consumer.  So in order to be a responsible consumer, you will have to fork out more cash.  But the good news is that the more people that choose to pay for products and services that more reflect their values, the more likely that the demand will be noted and rewarded with competition.  And hopefully as a consequence of that, the businesses themselves will have their production needs better met as there will be more of a demand.  Of course, there is always the issue of legitimacy and less than ethical businesses jumping on the bandwagon but those can be dealt with through the usual avenues that questionable business practices are investigated. If you are concerned, then do some research.

It's so much easier now to find free-range chicken, eggs, bacon and pork.  Easier to find environmentally-friendlier cleaning products.  Easier to find organic, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free foods.  (Ugh, just threw up in my mouth a little.)  Easier to find Fair Trade products.  (What's not easier to find are clothes made in NZ but I am working on that.)  But that didn't just happen because businesses decided to do the right thing, screw profit.  Not to say that their motives are all questionable; just that the market has to be there for it to be worth it, for them to succeed.  With big businesses, there has to be enough of a pay-off, kudos-wise.  It happened because consumers decided that some things were more important than getting bargain bin prices.  More important than living in the Now with easily disposable products and toxic by-products.  So decide what you think is more important and make yourselves "heard".  Put your money where your mouth is.    

PC or not PC?

As soon as I even see the letters P and C together in a non-computing context, I completely lose interest in whatever I am reading.  (Yeah OK, in a computing context too.)  This goes double if they are preceded by "un-" or "anti-".   I say, the sooner we do away with these terms, the better.  Let's say what we really think and be prepared to suffer the consequences.  Let's stop hiding behind ridiculous terminology.  If you don't really care about something enough to actually do something about it, don't pay it lip service.  If you're going to be a cunt, then be one and don't try and flip it by accusing others of being too sensitive or not having a sense of humor.  I don't agree that everything we say outside the privacy of our homes should be sterilised so as to stay in line with what has been deemed appropriate.  But I also disagree with those who shoot their mouths off and then don't stand behind their own words.  When I lived in London, people (strangely enough, white male people) would constantly make the most ignorant, bigoted remarks/jokes then would tell me that they were just winding me up?!  I would then make it clear that I was now wound the fuck up and they should be prepared to deal with that.

Quite clearly I don't exactly have the most PG sensibility.  My language and sense of humor is not always for the faint of heart.  Sometimes I am just straight-up bitchy and shallow.  But I am always ready to back myself up or to apologise for being a dick.  I do try and gauge my audience and adjust my content so as to not offend the people I am directing my hilarious comments to, as well as those in my immediate vicinity.  Apparently that is what's known as being politically correct.  And I thought it was just not being a jerk.  What the hell is wrong with thinking before you speak?  Or just taking a look around?  I don't think that's being hypocritical.  You wouldn't tell your grandmother a dirty joke or your boss a drug-fueled exploit. (Actually get a few drinks in me and I lose all ability to be situation-specific content-appropriate.) It's just unspeakably arrogant to decide, without really thinking about it, that everyone within earshot should not be so sensitive.  I am constantly having conversations inflicted on me (usually at one of my temp jobs) that I am offended or irritated by but can't really respond to because they are not actually talking to me.  Doesn't always stop me but would my silence be considered acquiescence?
 
I have had an issue with political correctness for as long as I have been aware of the term.  It has always seemed to me that the wrong people get upset about it.  Because it is just a trick.  It's just lip service.  It's just using words to rename things, people and concepts without really challenging the establishment or making any real changes to the power structure.  It is alarmingly easy to appease those much lower in the totem pole by just giving their jobs more official-sounding names or magnanimously "outlawing" certain hurtful taunts.  A rose by any other name should still stand up for their rights.  Don't fall for that shit.  Just because they are no longer saying it, doesn't mean they're not thinking it.  I would rather know who stands against me.  I respect honesty above all else.

Of course, the worst thing about PC has been the backlash against PC.  Nothing annoys me more because somehow people have been given (or rather given themselves) permission to be more thoughtless, insensitive and obnoxious than ever.  Perhaps not ever but more racist, sexist and homophobic than has been deemed seemly in quite some time.  And while it may seem that this is the honesty I ask for, it is not.  Because it is underhanded, trying to deny the right to respond. A sphincter says what?    

Buy now. Pay later.

Other than learning how to deal with social adversity and being different, it's hard to recall what the point of high school was.  Obviously there must be a great deal of knowledge that I have retained and allegedly it was there that I learned how to acquire information and how to think for myself.  As the years have progressed though I have to say that I think that the main reason to finish secondary and tertiary education is that people discriminate against you if you don't.  Predominantly I consider high school to be a place where young adults are subjected to last-ditch attempts at brainwashing, socialisation, labelling and peer pressure.  By and large, I think that actual education and free-thinking are pretty low on the priorities of many of these great institutions, deferring to discipline and conformity.  I think that for most young adults, high school is mostly a holding pen that we are obligated to be babysat in until we are slightly less repellent to our elders & that the quality of education at most high schools is not simply not high enough to make willing scholars out of any but the most predestined.

It seems to me that if we all have to be in high school then there should be a stronger emphasis on learning life skills that will help you from making some pretty big mistakes;  information we could all actually benefit from and that would actually relate to our lives.  One of the biggest misnomers is that common sense is actually common.  Of course, it is common for parents to complain that life skills, sex education, etc are their domain and that schools should just stick to the 3Rs.  But if they were indeed doing their jobs properly then they wouldn't be so concerned that these kind of classes will rush their kids into having sex or other experiences they are not yet ready for.  Or that putting an emphasis on something other than higher education will lead their kids to abandon it altogether.  If high schools have classes that teach you how to cook and sew, then why can't they teach you other basics such as how to budget and avoid/manage debt.  (Of course, they may well do now - I wouldn't have a clue.)  I just wish I had learned a lot earlier certain lessons about money and those determined to separate you from your hard-earned cash, about their tricks and strategies.  No-one ever taught me about debt.  All I really knew is that there were two types of people in the world - people who saved their pennies and people like me.  And as long as I paid rent and as long as I had a job, I never really saw the harm in my lack of impulse control and forethought.  That was before I discovered the world of credit.

It took me ages to realise what a hole I had dug for myself.  And even longer to realise that my previous choices mean that I have far fewer now.  Debt means that people stay in undesirable situations, jobs, relationships because they can't afford to leave.  Debt means that people have to put off things they long to do.  Debt means having to spend money on... debt.  Having money saves you money.  Once you're in a significant amount of debt, the future looks grim or at least pretty joyless.  It feels like two steps forward, one step back.  Interest rates on credit cards and hire purchase loans are so high that it can be hard to do more than just tread water.  I pay a lot of money every payday to my credit cards and yet the day when I can pay them all off is so far in the future that I can't bear to think about it.

But I have no-one to blame but myself, though I certainly had a lot of help from banks and other businesses.  I am naturally impulsive and I have somewhat of an addictive personality.  Ten years in hospitality means that I have discerning tastes way beyond my means.  Also I would often spend money generously just to counter the stinginess I often saw in customers.  I was trying to live a life that I felt befitted me.  I definitely made this bed.  (And I enjoyed doing it.)  And my life now isn't so bad!  It is comfortable and it has a lot of love in it.  I have a lot to be grateful for.  I just wish I could have avoided this whole mess.  It comes pretty close to an actual regret.  Especially since it was so avoidable.  If only I had been warned.    

Me, Myself & I.

Towards the end of my hospitality career, I became aware of how much NZers appear to enjoy complaining.  I was serving some of the best food and wine in NZ and increasingly had to resist the urge to make my customers wear it.  Taxes, rates, immigrants, Maoris, Asians, all undesirable and apparently suitable dinner table conversation.  And in public at that.  In the end, I couldn't take it.  And I quit.

I grew up all around the world and most NZers have it pretty sweet as far as I am concerned.  Life has its ups and downs wherever you live but just living in this country protects most of us from many hardships that we can't really imagine enduring.  But we are so fucking ungrateful and we are always complaining.  We have become all about what the world owes us and who is trying to take it all away from us.  Our self-entitlement, our right to be happy has become of paramount importance and our gauging, of just how happy we are, constant.  Like weighing ourselves daily or watching the proverbial kettle boil.

The pursuit of happiness is certainly nothing new but the emphasis on it above all other things certainly is.  In the past, the emphasis was less on happiness and its definitions as it was on satisfaction and its relationship with how one handled one's responsibilities.  Women and men both had their roles and were both burdened and freed by them.  There wasn't a lot of wriggle room but there also wasn't a lot of uncertainty.  Your life was pretty much mapped out for you by the circumstances of your gender, race and class.  Our expectations of life were much lower then as were the expectations life had of us.  Our prescribed circumstances are no longer as restrictive as they were before; the boundaries slowly corroding away, putting the reins of our existence more in our hands than those of society.  The Man is still in charge, make no mistake, but he's no longer micro-managing as much.  More and more, we have choices.  We can opt in and opt out of more than ever before.  We witnessed the obligations that bound previous generations and we have no wish to be similarly trapped.

Quitting is more than just acceptable now; like debt, it is simply a part of modern life.  Quitting is a natural part of the process of finding ourselves.  And now that we can do it by remote control, it's not only easier but it's positively addictive.  We can commit to more things now because we know we are really only committing on a trial basis.  And the relief of texting or emailing that apology or excuse is made even more glorious by the simple fact that we don't have to disappoint in person.  It's practically worth starting something just to experience the delirious joy of getting out of it.

And it really seems so harmless, except the damage is three-fold: the ripples of disappointment that emanate from all our actions (or rather inaction); the corrosion of our ability to see anything thru; and the focus being on what we are running from rather than where we are headed.  I can't help but feel that this plays a large part in the delayed adolescence so many of us experience.  Our increasingly insular existence (strangely coinciding with, and for some of us perhaps enabled by, being more connected than ever before thru social networking technology) makes us so much more focused on our needs than we would have previously been allowed to.  Our conviction that we have the absolute right to be happy often appears to overrule the validity of other emotions that result from our actions.  Guilt and shame are like the modern day appendix or wisdom tooth.  They are what we experience as a result of our inadequacies but we no longer have any real use for them.  We know that it's not healthy to beat ourselves up too much over things we cannot undo so we encourage ourselves and others to all but skip that stage altogether.

Our selfishness is constantly validated by the media and advertising (who can really tell the difference anymore?) bombarding us with messages that we are worth it, that we should indulge ourselves, that we should stop living for other people, and that if we don't love ourselves...  But here's the rub: the unending focus on ourselves and how happy we are and what makes us happy is making us miserable.  Happiness is something you can only really experience if you are truly in the moment; the second you hold it up to the microscope for closer inspection, you taint it.  And if you aren't happy, is the hashing and rehashing of why you're not happy really that helpful?  Is that why many people spend years in therapy with little success?  Venting is finding relief through expression and often from validation.  There is a massive difference between venting and whinging.  Whinging is circular and feeds back into itself.  It's counter-productive.

So get out of your own head.  Get the hell out of your own way.  Focus on the things that make you happy, not the state itself.  Focus on the people that make you happy.  Focus on making other people happy.  Better yet, people you don't even know.  Fuck altruism - nothing makes you feel better faster than stoking someone else out.  Stop being a self-centered, self-indulgent, narcissistic malcontent and everyone wins!          
    

All in favour...

I have been temping for over 2 years now so I've been immersed in a number of different workplaces.  And what I have really come to notice is how much peer pressure plays a part in everyday adult life.  How fitting in is just as important as it was in high school.  How difficult it seems for a lot of people to just let people be.  As far as I am concerned, all my workmates and workplace have the right to expect of me is that I am a hard worker, team player, polite and pleasant.  I also happen to be very obliging, friendly and have an excellent sense of humor.  But as it turns out that is often not enough.  There are numerous morning teas that I am expected to contribute towards (financially, because I sure as fuck am not about to start baking).  I even had to take a half-day off to avoid the baby shower that all the women in the office were invited to but unfairly none of the men.  Every year, there is St Patrick's Day regardless of how many people actually are Irish or are of Irish descent.  (Of course, there are no celebrations of special calendar dates in any other cultures.)  There is general enforced socialising and hilarity in the guise of staff drinks and team building, often not even paid for by work.

What's the big deal, some of you may ask.  Granted, for a lot of people this not only sounds fine but desirable.  And if you are a social person who enjoys socialising with the people you work with, then I can understand that.  And the argument could be made that if you don't fit in then maybe you should find somewhere that you do.  Except if you love/like/don't mind your job, why should you have to, just so people can stop bugging you?

I'm perhaps (definitely) more sensitive to railroading than most.  I have great difficulty just rolling over, even when no-one else knows there is an issue for me to lose face over.  And almost no issue is too small if someone is trying to force my hand.  It's something that seems to be in the very fibre of my being & it is actually a huge nuisance.  I do really like being me but sometimes wistfully long to somehow just be less discerning, less complicated.  My other major obstacle is that I am allergic to small talk.  And I hate conversations about the weather, cooking and rugby rivalry.  Without headphones, I would have gone postal years ago.

Variety is not only the spice of life but actually a major asset in the workplace if it is allowed to be.  People have different strengths and weaknesses and any good manager knows to not treat everyone the same.  How social someone is is not a workplace issue unless it affects how you work with them.  And if someone is not inclined a certain way then backing them in a corner is hardly going to have the desired outcome.  Unless what is actually wanted is conformity not cohesion or harmony.  Not everyone wants to have a drink at the end of the week, at least not with co-workers.  Not everyone wants to play stupid games at monthly meetings.  Not everyone wants to pose for crazy photos at team building.  And there is no positive correlation between people who want to do those things and a strong work ethic.  I myself am quite suspicious of people who seem to delight in any activity at work that isn't actually work.  I have a couple of suspicions actually & one of them is that these people need to get out more.  Or at least, get out of my face.

We will have all learned from school the relationship between peer pressure and bullying.  But what I have learned since then is the relationship between peer pressure and majority rules AKA democracy.  I've also learned the relationship between democracy and apathy.  But the revelation all my own that came to me recently was that workplace conformity could be a major contributor to our general apathy as adults.  Those of us in full-time employment spend more time at work than any one place, at least conscious.  And I would posit that a large number of us assent thru silence quite a lot of the time.  Letting that comment slide.  Putting our headphones on.  Smiling thru our teeth.  Picking our battles.  Letting the so-called majority decide what we think is acceptable, funny, fun.  Longing to get back to our "real" lives.

But that's just it.  Can you just switch on being an individual responsible for your own decisions, your own happiness, the world you live in, when you walk out that door at the end of the day?  Is that when you suddenly find your voice?
        

Who goes there?

Almost nothing in this world winds me up more than the vicious cowards that abound anonymously in the netherworld of Internet comments.  And they lurk in the most unlikely places unless you understand their true nature.  There are some articles, blogs, forums, etc that you would anticipate dissenting points of view.  But the thing that really makes me wild is when people seem to go out of their way to ambush you with their nastiness.  (They hit the jackpot when someone, that meant a lot to a lot of people, dies.)  It's amazing how effective these comments can be; how quickly they sting, how long the irritation lingers.  Even when I berate myself for letting them get to me (reminding myself the comment is ignorant, petty, malicious, misspelt or all of the above) I still seethe and sometimes genuinely despair.  Speaking for myself, the anonymity that gives the power to say such things is also the thing that enrages me so.  If anyone's dumb or naive enough to actually to say it to my face - or more often than not, in my general vicinity - it's on like Kong.   For awhile I tried to combat the faceless masses, responding to them under my full name.  Showing them the courage they did not possess as well as the logic, articulateness and the wittiness they invariably also lacked.  But now I just avoid sites that make it hard for you to avoid the comment section.  I was never dignifying them with a response but I was letting them know they had been heard.  And that they had bugged me.

To be fair, most of us may have been guilty of posting an anonymous comment that was critical and verged on being scathing or a personal attack.  It's easy to go there, to sink to that level, to give that knife a twist, to teach someone a lesson.  It may not have been what you started typing but then something took over you.  Either a deliciousness wickedness or extreme irritation.  Might have been a tit-for-tat situation.  And you said something that you might not have said, had you not been obscured in the shadows.  There's an accompanying thrill, akin to saying a profanity or racial slur for the first time.  And you might have just aimlessly wandered on that web page, mostly likely bored, browsing the internet like a women's weekly.  We've all read articles about people or viewpoints we don't respect.  And we clicked on that link despite knowing it would annoy us, or maybe because we knew it would.  Then the sheer idiocy/triviality of the article content or ensuing comments might easily drive one to express our superiority.  I understand how it can happen.  But might I suggest, you desist?  I imagine that it's just a slippery slope from genuinely expressing anonymous emotions and enjoying the power of knowing that you have bummed someone out to bumming people out just for kicks.   If the Internet has shown us anything, there is nothing more viral than vitriol.

There is something on the Internet for everyone.  (Unfortunately.)  Each to their own has to be the general rule.  But if you must say something, I suggest YOU say it.  It's funny how the burning desire to say something is often doused by signing your name to it.          

You right there?

I worked in hospitality for about 10 years.  While I never really chose it as a career path, I was also never using it to finance my other burgeoning career as an up-and-coming whatever.  Maybe because I wasn't just biding my time, I took being hospitable seriously.  And I enjoyed it.  I never considered it degrading or beneath me.  There were moments where I felt uncomfortable in front of an old acquaintance/adversary but I reminded myself that if I wanted their job, I would have it.  There were moments where I was more Miss Spoken than Little Miss Sunshine but I always regretted it and, more often than not, had made amends by the time the customer had left.  I enjoyed serving people, making them laugh, making them feel valued.  I enjoyed winning them over and sometimes I just loved not letting an obnoxious customer get to me.

So where's the love?  Why am I shat on by hospo, shop assistants, bus drivers, flight attendants, medical professionals, WCC staff, you name it?  I was good (often great) at customer service and as a consequence I am a good customer.  I am polite, friendly, appreciative, understanding and accommodating.  I am as clear as possible in my communications.  I always try to organise my fellow diners quickly so the waiter can take their order.  I often let my fellow customers be dealt with first.  And I am forever finding myself wanting to just stop and say, "I'm sorry.  Have I done something to offend you?"

If you don't enjoy customer service then don't fucking serve customers.  I know how tiring and frustrating it can be but don't take it out on me.  And if you are taking money from me, you are not too cool to serve me. Everyone has their off days but when your job sucks, you have three options - suck it up, quit or try to improve the situation.  And the rule with off days in customer service is 'fake it till you make it'.  It doesn't usually take long.  But unless you really are a nasty piece of work, being snotty to customers is unlikely to improve your mood.  Being nice to other people makes you feel good and makes them feel good and might make them nice to others.  Isn't the world a miserable enough place as it is without you deliberately bumming people out (and paying customers at that)?!

I did my time, man.  I enjoyed it.  And now I'd like just a little respect in return.