Friday Funnies

Friday Funnies were never so welcome. For those just joining us, I've been posting humor-only on Friday, which not only gives me an excuse to use strips from the past week that didn't fit into that day's narrative, but provides one day a week when I do not have to gaze into the void in horror.

Never so welcome as this particular week, and let's hope we hold onto that record for a bit.

However, just because I'm laughing doesn't mean I'm not horrified, and Harry Bliss not only touches on something infuriating, but brings back the first time I saw one of these damn things, which, happily, contains a comic strip reference.

Granddaughter and I had just been to Hilary Price's Open Studio (each November, not to be missed) and stopped by a chowder place for lunch. We'd been there before, and the portions are a bit small but the chowder is quite good. 

This time, something new had been added, and after we had stood at the counter to give our order, preparing to carry our food back to our table ourselves, and I had provided my debit card, the hipster at the register flipped this screen around.

I said, "What's this?" and he all-but-sneered as he told the old hayseed that it was so I could enter my tip.

Which I did not.

I have seen the things since and I still don't tip counter help, at restaurants, at coffee shops, at the 7-11 or at Walgreen's, either.

Like most people who have worked the trenches, I tip rather well for service, but, goddammitall, I not only don't tip when I'm the one doing all the toting, but I sure as hell don't tip at any place that would pay to install these things so they can justify not paying a decent wage to the skeleton staff that simply rings things up.

If you can't remedy the policy, playing along is collaboration.

Is this political? No.

 

But maybe having Karl Marx do a standup routine explaining it is political, and, if so, I "sort of" apologize just like that guy "sort of" waited on me -- i.e., not at all -- and I recommend we take a break while you enjoy the rest of Karl's comedy stylings over at Existential Comics.

He's right. The proletariat jokes aren't as funny.

 

And speaking of Hilary, Rhymes With Orange scored twice this week and I'll lead with this one because it's also in the Horrible Things Companies Do, along with soliciting tips for people who have performed no service and generally sucking the blood from their workers, which is to pester you for feedback after you've given them money.

And not just then.

Last spring, I was looking for something in the grocery store that wasn't where it logically might be, and I asked a young stock clerk where it was, only wanting a suggestion, not to interrupt him and send him on a mission. But off he went and he had to really search the place before he came back with what I wanted.

When I got home, I went to the store's website to give him some positive feedback, only to discover that I couldn't just say this kid Jordan had been very helpful and is a good employee.

First, I had to provide multi-level evaluations of every freaking department in the store. (I didn't.)

A few weeks ago, I saw that Jordan has been promoted to checkout and told him of my experience, which made him laugh. 

However, three or four years ago, the manager there had told me that, if you do go through all that, and say that while everything is a 10 except only a 9 for the canned goods because there's a brand of beans you wish they carried, corporate would call the manager, scream at him, and possibly fire him for not getting all 10s on a survey.

That manager is no longer at the store. I guess he got a 9, probably for something over which he had no control, such as what brands they stock.

 

And here's the other RWO, and it doesn't set off too much of a rant because I like baby chicks and I also like business incubators.

My favorite business incubator of all time is The Flax Trust, which, at the height of the Troubles, helped young Catholics and Protestants in the ghettoes of Belfast start their own small businesses, as an alternative to sitting around idle in a place with no jobs and getting into the kind of political mischief that made headlines around the world.

I see they've grown a lot since I learned about them in one of the most transformative encounters of my life.

What was to be an interview turned into a full afternoon of sitting around digesting the world's woes, swapping jokes and absorbing wisdom from an extraordinary man.

Which tends to make me think of business incubators with perhaps more sentiment than they deserve, since most are just cubby holes that share a copy machine and a receptionist.

But speaking of incubation, I think the partnership between Hilary Price and Rina Piccolo has found its groove. It takes a while for new strips to find their feet, and a transformation like this can also wobble a bit at first, but lately RWO has been making me laff with consistency.

 

I like Fowl Language, but Brian Gordon often just riffs on minor parenting annoyances. Well, here is a major issue, and good for him.

You want your kids to get along in life, but you really need to help them learn where to draw the line on all that "fitting in" business, because one of the things they're apt to learn later in life is that there were people all that time who dug the way they did things nobody else was doing.

As for those who got along, that often turns out to be all they ever got.

 

Sometimes weird is a cool hand

Comments

[Dave from Philadelphia]

Thank you for sharing your prior blog. It was wonderful and helpful (this week in particular) to read of a man of faith walking the talk and to hearing the talk ...

[Brian Fies]

The last time we bought a car, our salesman told us we'd be getting a survey, and bluntly said that any score less than a "10" for complete, blissful satisfaction would get him in trouble. I replied that since buying a car is fundamentally unpleasant, I probably wouldn't be scoring anything a "10" even if he took us out for dinner afterward. He blanched: "I really need a 10." I said, "I'll tell you what--I'll give you a 10 if you can arrange it so I don't have to talk to the person trying to upsell me extended warranties and clear-coat protection." Then he really went white. "I'll see what I can do." And while he couldn't get us out of it, he rushed us through in record time.

It's a really crummy system, though. Businesses seem to think it promotes customer service, or at least the illusion of it, but all it does is make employees paranoid and prevent customers from giving feedback that might be genuinely helpful.

[Nelson Dewey]

Today's blog is a 10!

No -- wait -- it's a 10 - PLUS!

(Does this help any, Mike?)

[D.D.Degg]

Due to the lack of banana splits and Raquel Welch I can only rate this installment a 9.

[Mary McNeil]

At least the surveys you get fro the fast food places give you a BOGO on sandwiches.

[Mark Jackson]

Creggan is a tiny village a mile east of Crossmaglen, and some of Ellen's Irish ancestors lived there. Three weeks ago Sunday our whole family was in Creggan churchyard (the one immortalized in the poem by Art MacCooey), less for research than for the atmosphere.

Creggan was also the site of several deaths during the Troubles, and during the drive and our subsequent five days in Belfast we spent a lot of time looking at remnants (and current signs) of the conflict.

[Mike Peterson]

Find a copy of the 1995 film "The Run of the Country" for a look at bandit country in those days, Mark. My great-great-aunt was from Drumboat, just across the border from Crossmaglen, and the Cardinal knew the village. I stood on a hill there with my cousin and looked across the border, it was that close -- just the next farm over.

[Mark Jackson]

In eight days we crossed that border eight times and the only indications were miles/kilometers and the absence/presence of Gaelic on the road signs. Just reinforced the understanding that Brexit will either fail spectacularly or come down to another instance of England screwing the Irish.

Our youngest is working on an academic project about displacement of populations in the north during the Troubles. (His collaborator works at Queens University Belfast, and *his* father was burned out of his home in east Belfast for being Catholic.) This has involved interviewing folks in Belfast and south Armagh, some of whom were evidently at the opposite end of the peace-violence axis than the Cardinal.