Hello, ever-present internet! I'm not dead, despite my absurd absence this year. Things have just been busy and exhausting and lazy and lots other things that really come down to "Rachel hasn't been blogging, because she does that sometimes." Though since I finally got a new job (and quit my old one), my schedule has been totally different, which is often the result of switching from primarily evening and night work to early morning and mid afternoon work, but I'm still adjusting to it.
Bonus: the worthless scourge that is Daylight Savings (saving no one daylight since 1930) has had no power over me. Taking one puny hour from my life cannot control me when I've been getting up at four in the morning rather than going to bed then!
Anyway, I thought I'd take a few minutes to blather online about a few of the things that have been floating around in my head that make me go, "hey, I should write a post about that," but then, as you may have noticed the past few months, I never do. I also have like three or four snarky list posts floating amongst my mental debris (by which I mean safely saved in note form on my phone, because I can't remember that kind of thing), but they'll wait for a different day.
So at my new job (I now work at a coffee/bagel shop rather than a pizza place), we have these surveys that all the cashiers are supposed to tell the customers about so that they can tell Corporate how satisfied, or dissatisfied, they were with the service, and now as added incentive, everytime someone mentions an employee by name in their surveys, that person gets a sticker on this chart in the back, and as if stickers weren't reward enough, after so many stickers, you get free stuff.
Though, I'm at a distinct disadvantage there, since I don't take orders right now. I just make them and bring them out to people, so even though I now get a name tag (at my old job, we were all faceless drones), I don't really interact with customers enough to be memorable.
My thought today, though, was that there should be customer review surveys for the employees. I had a huge group the other day (from a well- known Christian organization, no less *coughcoughHCJB*), and they were super messy, rearranged all of my tables, and then just left everything there, and it was super annoying and inconvenient, so I was thinking how unfair it is that customers get to treat us in the service industry like crap and then complain about the service, and all we can really do is bitch about how awful they were back in the kitchen.
Seriously, guys, a friendly customer or a good tip can totally make someone's day. I go out of my way to pre-bus tables and leave at least 25% tips whenever I go out to eat.
Anyway, there should be a system where service people get to review their customers, and then the good ones can get discounts or something, and we can unnecessarily inconvenience or charge the people who suck, because there should be consequences for being a dick to people just because they're paid to take your money in exchange for bringing you goods or services.
The fact that you are the customer doesn't make you better, or entitle you to being an inconsiderate cur.
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Sunday, October 6, 2013
On Gifts and Narcissism
Hello, audience. Happy not-quite-Halloween. It's been a little while since I've posted anything...Like since August. I haven't forgotten my blog, though. I'm still here to spew my nonsense into the ether by force. I've just been somewhere between unmotivated and busy. Not that anyone reading my blog is wildly invested in what I do outside of my blog. NO! We are here to be amused, not regaled with accounts of my monotonous daily life!
Any, this is actually a combination post of something I've been considering writing about here for a while and something I've been considering privately due to recent events fringing my social circle.
The second shall be discussed first!
Everyone likes presents, right? Gifties that other people give you that are both free and pleasing. That's why we go so freaking berserk over gift-giving events (Christmas, birthdays, weddings, baby things, and so on). But the other side of gifts is the giving part.
There's two sides: the giving party and the getting party including at least one person each. Unless this is a present to oneself, in which case, the whole discussion here is moot.
(Which is, on a total side note, one of my favorite words to say for irrelevant nothing things. Like jack, squat, and BUMPKIS!)
This is possibly because of my upbringing (and my mother's upbringing), but I have a very turtle-parenting approach to gift-giving.
You all understand this comparison, right? Turtles--sea turtles, I believe--have a hands/flippers-off parenting method: they lay their eggs on a beach, and then take off. "Good luck, fetal turtle spawn! Come find us if you ever hatch!" Once they lay those suckers, their job is done. Off they go to frolic in the ocean and be endangered.
This is how I give presents. I choose something I think the giftee will like/appreciate/use/etc, I give it to them with or without any kind of ceremony or pretty wrapping (usually without either, because I procrastinate). The end. Once I've given something to someone as a gift, it's theirs, no strings attached, no expectations or conditions about what happens after that. They can cut up, regift it, or leave it in their garage for the next fifty years for all of the involvement I expect to have. Yes, I'll be somewhat hurt if they don't like it, but that's not the point of giving a gift.
Recently, someone received a gift from relatives, who promptly sent a note a month later to explain what a selfish douchwaffel she was for not sending an effusive thank you note. Because everyone knows a GIFT is actually an exchange of goods/services for thanks/services.
WTF, bro?
I've actually known a few people who get really butt-hurt about not getting thanked in the form of a card, or who don't get a return present at the next possible opportunity. This irks me because you are as obligated to give people gifts as you are to feed wild animals.
Barring those "gifts" that are actually help when people genuinely and desperately need it, but I would call that help, not gifts.
The point is that they're not necessary. If you don't want to give someone something, don't. It's that easy. The thing about gifts is that they're not supposed to even involve obligation or entitlement. Gifts are not deserved, and they're not relational commerce.
And that was about all I had to say about that. It seems remarkably self-centered to give someone else a present and then have expectations and demands for something you freely gave.
Speaking of self-centered: Narcissism!
As much as my siblings joke about being narcissists when referring to our vanity and general fabulousless and self-assurance, we are aware that there are other people who also important and living their own lives totally separate from us.
We're probably not always aware of this, but I don't think anyone is.
Because I have news for you, people (assuming you've read this whole post, which is not inconsiderable in size)
YOU ARE NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHER PEOPLE. Your time is not worth more; your agenda is not more pressing; your plans are not more important.
Unless you have managed to earn a place at the top of the human pyramid, you're just as worthless as all those people you speed past in traffic and all those people you thrust your money at without even glancing at.
I'm beginning to have this theory that everyone is some level of sociopath. Yes, we sometimes experience empathy for people we already care about, and we can sometimes dissect other people's actions until we can understand and condone them, but we all operate from our own little world of me, me, me, me, me, and me. We are the only person we consider about 90% of the time.
And, honestly, I'm mostly cool with that. I think Ayn Rand had a lot of things right (unpopular and insane as she might be), but as one of the millions of people on this planet regularly treated like crap for a paycheck, and as someone with what looks like Tourette's in heavy traffic (or light traffic. Or any traffic, really. If there are other cars in the street, I hate them with a fiery and very verbal passion), I'm noticing more and more just how much we seriously don't give a crap about people, because it doesn't even occur to us to consider them as fellow human beings. They're props and inconveniences in our story, not people with lives and plans and hopes and motivations and needs all their own. (See Cracked's article on the Monkeysphere)
It's kind of appalling.
That prick that swerved in front of you is just a bloody moron, but if you abruptly swing into another lane, it's because, crap, your turn is coming up, and you didn't realize it. Or when someone zooms past you, weaving lanes and cutting ahead, they're inconsiderate and irresponsible, and that idiot shouldn't even have a license, but when you're late, you can rush through traffic in whatever way gets you there quickest. It's okay to leave your table in a restaurant a mess, but if you have to sit down at a dirty table, someone is rude and disrespectful.
We have these absurd double-standards that dictate that we can do no wrong, and everything that inconveniences us is because everyone else sucks.
There's some fantasy novel I read at some point. It may have been Green Rider, where there's this water bucket hanging from a tree by the road so that travelers can drink, and above it is a sign asking whoever drinks to refill it for the next person, so that no one has to come to it without being able to get a drink. So don't be a douchebag. People come before and after you, and they matter just as much to themselves as you do to you. It's the frickin' "golden rule" that everyone leans as a wee, little child. Just apply it, and everyone will hate each other less.
Also, here's an article with some nice suggestions to do just that.
Any, this is actually a combination post of something I've been considering writing about here for a while and something I've been considering privately due to recent events fringing my social circle.
The second shall be discussed first!
Everyone likes presents, right? Gifties that other people give you that are both free and pleasing. That's why we go so freaking berserk over gift-giving events (Christmas, birthdays, weddings, baby things, and so on). But the other side of gifts is the giving part.
If only these weren't both right hands...
This is possibly because of my upbringing (and my mother's upbringing), but I have a very turtle-parenting approach to gift-giving.
You all understand this comparison, right? Turtles--sea turtles, I believe--have a hands/flippers-off parenting method: they lay their eggs on a beach, and then take off. "Good luck, fetal turtle spawn! Come find us if you ever hatch!" Once they lay those suckers, their job is done. Off they go to frolic in the ocean and be endangered.
This is how I give presents. I choose something I think the giftee will like/appreciate/use/etc, I give it to them with or without any kind of ceremony or pretty wrapping (usually without either, because I procrastinate). The end. Once I've given something to someone as a gift, it's theirs, no strings attached, no expectations or conditions about what happens after that. They can cut up, regift it, or leave it in their garage for the next fifty years for all of the involvement I expect to have. Yes, I'll be somewhat hurt if they don't like it, but that's not the point of giving a gift.
Recently, someone received a gift from relatives, who promptly sent a note a month later to explain what a selfish douchwaffel she was for not sending an effusive thank you note. Because everyone knows a GIFT is actually an exchange of goods/services for thanks/services.
WTF, bro?
I've actually known a few people who get really butt-hurt about not getting thanked in the form of a card, or who don't get a return present at the next possible opportunity. This irks me because you are as obligated to give people gifts as you are to feed wild animals.
Barring those "gifts" that are actually help when people genuinely and desperately need it, but I would call that help, not gifts.
The point is that they're not necessary. If you don't want to give someone something, don't. It's that easy. The thing about gifts is that they're not supposed to even involve obligation or entitlement. Gifts are not deserved, and they're not relational commerce.
And that was about all I had to say about that. It seems remarkably self-centered to give someone else a present and then have expectations and demands for something you freely gave.
Speaking of self-centered: Narcissism!
As much as my siblings joke about being narcissists when referring to our vanity and general fabulousless and self-assurance, we are aware that there are other people who also important and living their own lives totally separate from us.
We're probably not always aware of this, but I don't think anyone is.
Because I have news for you, people (assuming you've read this whole post, which is not inconsiderable in size)
YOU ARE NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHER PEOPLE. Your time is not worth more; your agenda is not more pressing; your plans are not more important.
Unless you have managed to earn a place at the top of the human pyramid, you're just as worthless as all those people you speed past in traffic and all those people you thrust your money at without even glancing at.
I'm beginning to have this theory that everyone is some level of sociopath. Yes, we sometimes experience empathy for people we already care about, and we can sometimes dissect other people's actions until we can understand and condone them, but we all operate from our own little world of me, me, me, me, me, and me. We are the only person we consider about 90% of the time.
And, honestly, I'm mostly cool with that. I think Ayn Rand had a lot of things right (unpopular and insane as she might be), but as one of the millions of people on this planet regularly treated like crap for a paycheck, and as someone with what looks like Tourette's in heavy traffic (or light traffic. Or any traffic, really. If there are other cars in the street, I hate them with a fiery and very verbal passion), I'm noticing more and more just how much we seriously don't give a crap about people, because it doesn't even occur to us to consider them as fellow human beings. They're props and inconveniences in our story, not people with lives and plans and hopes and motivations and needs all their own. (See Cracked's article on the Monkeysphere)
It's kind of appalling.
That prick that swerved in front of you is just a bloody moron, but if you abruptly swing into another lane, it's because, crap, your turn is coming up, and you didn't realize it. Or when someone zooms past you, weaving lanes and cutting ahead, they're inconsiderate and irresponsible, and that idiot shouldn't even have a license, but when you're late, you can rush through traffic in whatever way gets you there quickest. It's okay to leave your table in a restaurant a mess, but if you have to sit down at a dirty table, someone is rude and disrespectful.
We have these absurd double-standards that dictate that we can do no wrong, and everything that inconveniences us is because everyone else sucks.
There's some fantasy novel I read at some point. It may have been Green Rider, where there's this water bucket hanging from a tree by the road so that travelers can drink, and above it is a sign asking whoever drinks to refill it for the next person, so that no one has to come to it without being able to get a drink. So don't be a douchebag. People come before and after you, and they matter just as much to themselves as you do to you. It's the frickin' "golden rule" that everyone leans as a wee, little child. Just apply it, and everyone will hate each other less.
Also, here's an article with some nice suggestions to do just that.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Let Yourself Be Huge
Happy May, everyone. I thought about slinking back into view and apologizing halfheartedly for disappearing, but I apologize for NOTHING!
Half-ass hooray!
Also, April was kind of a stupid month., so I decided it didn't deserve to exist here.
This last week (by which I mean last monday), I climbed the incline with Rosalinde. Also known as The Hell of a Trillian Steps. Basically, I walked up a mountain in eighty degree (Fahrenheit, of course) weather, because for some mysterious reason, we thought this would be a fun way to use my day off. This, for those of you who don't know, is a three mile staircase going straight up into the Rockies. It's one of the ways crazy mountain people like to walk up a 14,000 ft mountain.
Every hundred steps or so (I wasn't counting, because that would be too depressing), we would stop and rest. We'd look down at the steps we'd just come up and the world spreading out down below us. And the thing about seeing that is that you have too be far enough above it, and because I can't just sit on a mountain side and go, "ooh look, I can see Kansas from here," it got me thinking about a lot of things, primarily how huge and how small we are.
Have you ever studied what perspective means in two-dimensional art? I was taught the basics of it in middle school, and I've learned progressively more as I have grown in my art. Basically, what it comes down to is creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Objects that are closer appear larger, and objects that are farther away appear smaller, and things that are really far away, like the horizon line, begin to get blurry. That's called atmospheric perspective.
I started applying this art definition or perspective to life, thinking back over the past, and how events that are close to you can seem earth-shattering, and those that you've moved long past have receded and blurred, becoming less important. Mountains and mole-hills. If things are really big enough, you can see them from miles away, and they'll affect your mental landscape from almost any distance.
I think it can be dangerous to equate proximity and importance. But that's not actually what I meant to talk about in this post, as you may have gathered, its title still being utterly unrelated.
A little more than halfway up, we stopped for a real rest. Not sitting down for two minutes and drinking some water, but a real rest. We found this shady spot off the staircase and laid on the ground for maybe half an hour, watching the sky and talking.
A lot of what we do revolves around talking, even climbing a mountain.
The clouds were practically right on top of us, and we could see the color spectrum flowing over them as they passed near the sun. Thousands of gallons of water floating above us, and reflecting the light spectrum. I spent most of that day in a state of awe and gratitude for the world we live in.
While we were there, this big rock caught my eye. It was a few feet to my right, and I could see lichen growing and ants crawling over it, and it struck me:
Those ants have no idea they're living on a mountain. But how different are we, really? Living in our little piece of here and now, and never suspecting the sheer hugeness of the world. http://xkcd.com/1110/
I think people are afraid of their potential. I'm not really sure why, but for some reason, almost no one seems to genuinely want to attain excellence and hugeness. We become content with being small and insignificant in basically every way, and never reach for anything greater.
This probably sounds contradictory to all my talk of small importances; things don't have to be apocalyptic to matter. That's still true, but I think sometimes it becomes an excuse. Defending one's smallness and weakness and complacency by saying that there are lots of ways to matter. I know that sometimes happens for me when I consider not trying to do the things that I desperately want to do with my life. "Well, there are lots of ways to be happy. Maybe that's not the one I need to be pursuing."
And then I have days like that, where I slap that thought in the face, because it's utter crap.
Let yourself be huge, damn it. The world is huge and awesome and crazy, and it's just waiting to be discovered still. It will always be worth discovering, even with every scrap of the universe measured and documented and claimed. There is always more to do and see and say and learn and be. So why not? I want to do everything and go everywhere and learn as much as there is to learn. Why would I settle for this indefinitely?
I think that's probably the best way to stave off lack of motivation and frustration. If you want more, it's your responsibility to get it.
I know, probably a little heavy for me, but this is what's been in my head of late.
Half-ass hooray!
Also, April was kind of a stupid month., so I decided it didn't deserve to exist here.
This last week (by which I mean last monday), I climbed the incline with Rosalinde. Also known as The Hell of a Trillian Steps. Basically, I walked up a mountain in eighty degree (Fahrenheit, of course) weather, because for some mysterious reason, we thought this would be a fun way to use my day off. This, for those of you who don't know, is a three mile staircase going straight up into the Rockies. It's one of the ways crazy mountain people like to walk up a 14,000 ft mountain.
I think this is right after the false summit.
Every hundred steps or so (I wasn't counting, because that would be too depressing), we would stop and rest. We'd look down at the steps we'd just come up and the world spreading out down below us. And the thing about seeing that is that you have too be far enough above it, and because I can't just sit on a mountain side and go, "ooh look, I can see Kansas from here," it got me thinking about a lot of things, primarily how huge and how small we are.
Have you ever studied what perspective means in two-dimensional art? I was taught the basics of it in middle school, and I've learned progressively more as I have grown in my art. Basically, what it comes down to is creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Objects that are closer appear larger, and objects that are farther away appear smaller, and things that are really far away, like the horizon line, begin to get blurry. That's called atmospheric perspective.
I started applying this art definition or perspective to life, thinking back over the past, and how events that are close to you can seem earth-shattering, and those that you've moved long past have receded and blurred, becoming less important. Mountains and mole-hills. If things are really big enough, you can see them from miles away, and they'll affect your mental landscape from almost any distance.
I think it can be dangerous to equate proximity and importance. But that's not actually what I meant to talk about in this post, as you may have gathered, its title still being utterly unrelated.
A little more than halfway up, we stopped for a real rest. Not sitting down for two minutes and drinking some water, but a real rest. We found this shady spot off the staircase and laid on the ground for maybe half an hour, watching the sky and talking.
A lot of what we do revolves around talking, even climbing a mountain.
The clouds were practically right on top of us, and we could see the color spectrum flowing over them as they passed near the sun. Thousands of gallons of water floating above us, and reflecting the light spectrum. I spent most of that day in a state of awe and gratitude for the world we live in.
While we were there, this big rock caught my eye. It was a few feet to my right, and I could see lichen growing and ants crawling over it, and it struck me:
Those ants have no idea they're living on a mountain. But how different are we, really? Living in our little piece of here and now, and never suspecting the sheer hugeness of the world. http://xkcd.com/1110/
I think people are afraid of their potential. I'm not really sure why, but for some reason, almost no one seems to genuinely want to attain excellence and hugeness. We become content with being small and insignificant in basically every way, and never reach for anything greater.
This probably sounds contradictory to all my talk of small importances; things don't have to be apocalyptic to matter. That's still true, but I think sometimes it becomes an excuse. Defending one's smallness and weakness and complacency by saying that there are lots of ways to matter. I know that sometimes happens for me when I consider not trying to do the things that I desperately want to do with my life. "Well, there are lots of ways to be happy. Maybe that's not the one I need to be pursuing."
And then I have days like that, where I slap that thought in the face, because it's utter crap.
Let yourself be huge, damn it. The world is huge and awesome and crazy, and it's just waiting to be discovered still. It will always be worth discovering, even with every scrap of the universe measured and documented and claimed. There is always more to do and see and say and learn and be. So why not? I want to do everything and go everywhere and learn as much as there is to learn. Why would I settle for this indefinitely?
I think that's probably the best way to stave off lack of motivation and frustration. If you want more, it's your responsibility to get it.
I know, probably a little heavy for me, but this is what's been in my head of late.
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