I used to be able to withstand all sorts of BS thrown at me from all sorts of directions. Today, I just can't do that anymore. The world is going to heck in a handbasket........at high speed. I'm sick of it.
We no longer have any privacy of any kind. It seems everyone MUST have your SSN or they refuse to do business with you. Pay with plastic or else. Show seventeen forms of ID just to cast your vote while in a voting center where every one in the building has known you as far back as they can remember. Listen to the "press one for English" instructions to do something that would only require about 10 seconds total if you could actually speak with a living person. No, sir, you can't pick up your wife's prescription because we don't have you listed on her HIPA (or whatever it is) list. You must upgrade to XYZ because we have discontinued TUV, for your convenience (WHAT????????) Here's your new address, your old one was too short and simple so we had to change it in order to confuse more people as to where you actually live. Thank you for choosing to use ABC Cellular Service (there was no choice and your friggin' telephone is only good for being a paperweight unless you are in downtown NYC." The brilliant news people on the East Coast declare winners hours before the polls close in the far west reaches of the country. Because some loonytune attacked someone somewhere 2000 miles away, you must now be treated automatically as if you are that loonytune's comrade. No more doing much of anything because in doing whatever it is you might possibly slightly injure the feelings of some other person in the world. If you invite the current President over to your house for supper, do not mention to anyone that you are planning to serve fried chicken. If you are attempting to run for Mayor of New York City and your female opponent and you both start to respond to a comment at the same time, do not pause, defer and say "Ladies first." because she will respond with "Who are you calling a lady?" Never, ever comment to anyone that the family structure, orientation, belief system, nationality, etc. shown in virtually every television show bears zero resemblence to you or anyone you know. Do not wear your cap backwards because someone will think you are the oldest, whitest, geekiest member of some dreaded gang. When a graduate of a university that is the primary rival of your university asks you "Would you like fries with that?" simply say yes or no, do not comment as to their educational background.
:good:
Somewhat less tolerant than you are.
B-)
The leaders the people have chosen, allowed them to make back room deals and allowing lobbying for special interest groups will result in the same things such tolerance has resulted in down through the ages. History is well documented, we can choose to learn from it or choose to ignore the lessons it should have taught.
juh
You're not one of those guys who stands on his front porch with a hose; spraying kids that walk by; yelling "STAY OFF MY LAWN", are you?
😉
Hmmmmm.... feeling better now?
What you mention, I can live with, without it affecting me.:bored: I don't have to agree with it,:-@ but I can live with it without it causing personal grief anguish or added stress.:-/ If I couldn't,:woot: o.O I'd move to some small podunk community with a population base of less than 100. Probably Canada or an island somewhere, and maybe somewhere in idaho, montana, or wyoming.
[sarcasm]"I'm very tolerant considering that there appears to be more idiots to deal with these days"[/sarcasm]
Goodness ... some people seem to have taken an overdose of grumpy pills today!
Don't be a Rageaholic
[sarcasm]Doggone it, some people probably like you.[/sarcasm]
PS. You're not nearly tolerant enough.
Grumpy? You ain't seen grumpy, yet.
It may have started with credit cards where they thought you should pay for the privilege of giving them all your money every month. Haven't had one in over 20 years.
About 18 years ago I purchased a house and needed a telphone installed there. This was with a telephone company with whom I had previously had service. About the second question I was asked was if I was married. It took about 10 minutes of me yelling at them to get across the idea that it did not matter if I was married or not when it came to my ability to pay a monthly phone bill of about $15. Heck, all sorts of married guys can't seem to remember that they are married when they are bar hopping and seeing beauty through beer goggles. They finally relented and approved the phone installation.
A startup satellite dish/televison provider created the first local opportunity for something other than what you could get with the standard aerial on your roof. They would not hook you up unless you gave them permission to make the monthly charge directly to your credit card. I explained that I did not have a credit card and was not going to get one just so they could make their charges to it. Told them to either take a year's worth of cash in advance or not have me as a customer. They didn't bend and neither did I. Never missed what I didn't have and saved about $30 per month in the process.
Don't even get me started on pre-pay demands at gasoline stations that I do not go to. They can get their pre-pay from the living zombies that inhabit this planet today. Not me. Virtually every time I stop to buy gas I also buy items from inside the store. They make far more profit on those items than they do on my gas. I will enter their store one time per trip. I refuse to go in to hand them a fifty dollar bill, go out to pump whatever is actually needed, then return to complete that transaction before being allowed to shop for the other items. I'll let the mindless zombies provide them that entertainment.
You pull into Burger King and order the #4, whatever that is. It says on the sign that the #4 is $4.95 for the sandwich only or $7.20 for the combo. Then the minimum wage twit on the other end of the wireless asks, "Small, medium or large?" I point out that I want precisely what the sign says I am to get for my $7.20. The twit isn't sure whether that is the small, medium or large without ringing it up. That's when I tell them to ring it up and cancel it until they get the combo that costs $7.20.
You are in the checkout line and the total bill comes to $12.05. You hand the clerk a 10 dollar bill and a five dollar bill and a nickel. He tries to give you two dollars plus 95 cents in change and can't figure out what to do with the nickel.
The insurance company that insures one house I own sends me the annual renewal notice. In the small print it indicates they are waiving coverage for any damage related to an inadequate roof as they say I have not had the house re-roofed. How would they know? The agent has never seen the house let alone went out there in recent months to look at the roof. They merely made an assumption and hoped I wouldn't catch it in the fine print. So, I call the agent and inform her that the house was, in fact, re-roofed last summer. She says to send her a copy of the paid invoice and she would get things fixed. I do this. She calls a couple of days ago and says her underwriter doesn't want to do anything because the amount of labor on the bill is far too much for simply re-roofing the house. I have to explain, with her looking at the invoice, that the invoice is not just for the roof work and supplies. It also covers some flooring supplies and labor related to that as well. The invoice is what it is, but, it does show that I purchased roofing materials and paid for labor involved with that. She said she would try again to get the underwriter person somewhere to understand that the roofing was part of a significant improvement to the house and that the invoice is adequate proof.
Yesterday, I took Mrs. Cow to the movies. The charge including a couple of drinks comes to something like $27. The minimum wage twit takes my 20 dollar bill and 10 dollar bill, hands me a couple of tickets, gets the drinks and then wonders why I have my hand stuck out next to the cash register. Perhaps he thought he deserved a three dollar tip for taking my money.
Mrs. Cow stopped at a Sonic Drive-In across the state today and ordered two soft drinks. One regular, one diet. They are parked where they can see inside the work area. They note two drinks that appear to be theirs being placed up on the counter. Nearly 10 minutes later their minimum wage twit grabs the drinks and brings them out as if it only took 30 seconds. They get down the road a couple of miles to discover that both drinks are regular, no diet. I heard the roar of disapproval all the way across the state.
Intolerant
II JUST CAN'T STAND INTOLERANT PEOPLE
GEEZER
Grumpy? You ain't seen grumpy, yet.
The real issues are 1) whether people are willing to pay $10 instead of $7.20 for that meal in order to let the restaurant pay its cook, order taker, order filler, etc. enough to hire more intelligent and motivated people. In general, the US population is NOT willing. They will go to the place with the $7.20 meal and complain.
and 2) are the more intelligent and motivated people around to be hired?
I'm no more or less tolerant than I've ever been. The problem is that someone, somewhere keeps redefining tolerance.
When I was in grade school, girls played with dolls and were not made to feel ashamed and inferior for doing so, every boy over the age of 7 carried a pocket knife because Dad & Granddad said they were a handy tool to keep at hand. Kids were taught to respect their elders, certain behaviors were illegal because they were deemed to be harmful to individuals and to society.
When I was in HS, someone, somewhere declared that we must be tolerant of those who engage in certain behaviors which were generally believed to be harmful, not ostracizing them, but allowing them to exist and engage in those behaviors as long as their exercise of those behaviors don't affect you.
When I was in college, someone, somewhere declared that tolerance included allowing persons engaging in those behaviors to do so publicly without making them feel in any way uncomfortable about doing so.
Later, someone, somewhere declared that making persons engaging in those behaviors feel uncomfortable by words, deeds, or projected attitude was intolerant, and that in order to be tolerant, you cannot express disagreement or disapproval of those behaviors in any perceptable way.
Still later, someone, somewhere declared that manifesting intolerance in your job, or allowing the perception that you are intolerant or that you allow intolerance to exist at your place of work is grounds for dismissal, civil litigation, and justifies public defamation of your character.
Around that time, someone, somewhere declared that in order to be tolerant, you must embrace the diversity of people engaging in all sorts of previously unacceptable behaviors, and that you must join in celebrating their right to do so.
Once a sufficient portion of the population was cowed into being tolerant (or at least not doing anything that might tag one as being intolerant), someone, somewhere declared that when one announces that they engage one some behavior or other that was unacceptable or illegal only a generation or two ago, and that now is allowed, protected, or sometimes encouraged by law, that person is to be considered courageous. (I smoked marijuana as a teenager. Hey! I'm a hero!" I wonder if the gals on The View will give me accolades tomorrow)
Now we're to the point that the open minded won't tolerate me speaking my mind if I don't agree with what someone, somewhere has declared to be tolerant. If I engage in pasttimes that the open minded don't approve of, I'm looked upon as a criminal just waiting for a heinous crime to commit. If I include my kids in my pasttime and they talk about it at school, the zero-tolerance of the open minded dictates that they be suspended and sent to counselling to overcome their violent tendencies.
I've become less tolerant not by my attitudes changing to become less accepting, but by the changing definition of the concept of tolerance. By the traditional definition, I am tolerant of quite a bit. But although I may acknowledge another's right to engage in behaviors I don't care for, I don't embrace every fad and every rebellious behavior that someone might want to engage in. So by that altered definition, I'm not very tolerant.
As to intrusions into my life by the excessive use of personal info just to conduct basic business, unnecessary hoops to jump through just to get simple answers, etc. (I hate phone menus. There is a special place in the underworld prepared for the person who came up with that idea), I've never had much tolerance for. I've often declined to do business with one company and went elsewhere and paid significantly more just because the second company made it easy to do business with them while the first placed levels of red tape in the way of making a simple transaction.
How Old are You?
How old are you? Your tolerance has decreased with age.
How entertaining M/M Cow must be for those minimum wage twits. I bet your holy red faces and bulging veins are the highlight of their day. 😉
"The highest result of education is tolerance."
Helen Keller
"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher"
Dalai Lama
Evan...
Perhaps you would be interested in the book Faster by James Gleick. Among other things, the author describes the genesis of the automated phone tree.
Mr. Cow
I find I agree materially with pretty much everything except the part about wearing your cap backwards. I don't have much tolerance for that.
It won't be long before owning an IPHONE will be a job requirement. Sometimes I'm glad I'm getting old when i see the way things are headed.
Mr. Cow
If we were really concerned about sun protection, baseball caps (or seed corn company caps) would be the Sherlock Holmes style for shade front and back.
Or wear a full-brim hat.
What the question should be is why are so many people tolerant of irrational business practices, and/or ignorant, selfish, dishonest, and incompetent people?
We should expect nothing less than maximum effort and excellence, not only from ourselves, but from those we do business with.
