I realize this is a passive-aggressive approach to dealing with the cat lady downstrairs, but it really isn’t worth antagonizing an 81 year old cat lady.  They just have way more time on their hands than me and any offensive stance I take against her might result in her debatably untimely demise.  I tend to tread lightly around these types.  

My latest run-in with said cat lady was the result of the Chinese-food delivery guy ringing the wrong bell and her going ape-shit.  You know, end-of-the-world-type atrocity.  

1. Cat Lady mentioned that if we had a New Year’s Eve party as loud as the Holiday Party thrown here a few weeks ago, she’d call the cops.  I don’t suppose the cops will be busy that night, they’ll probably be able to respond right away.  Seriously.  
2. When I explained to her that it wasn’t my Holiday Party, Cat Lady said I was “defensive” and “apologetic” without “answering the question straight.”  I explained that it is a natural reaction to her raising her voice and being “accusatory” and referring to everybody in the apartment as “you”.
3. Cat Lady told me that most Chinese food around here is “vile”, but told me that Chinese food is her favorite and that her favorite restaurant is Chino’s [Yelp].  I don’t know if it is a function of her being white, a woman or old (possibly the cross-section), but I wonder if she realized that I am clearly of East Asian descent, might in fact be Chinese, and honestly not care what an 81 year-old shut-in cat-lady likes to eat.  I would have predicted Meow Mix.  I was wrong.  Go figure.
4. Cat Lady, I realize you lived through the woman’s liberation/equality movement, but you’re 81.  Wear a bra or a series of sweatshirts or tarps, please.      

NOTE: I am not sure if she has actually has a cat.  She just seems like the type that would be easily abandoned/ignored by human relatives.

NOTE (Part 2): Of the 16 reviews for Chino’s, 8 came from verifiably non-Asian females, which is actually par.  I don’t understand why most of the Yelp population seems to be young Asian females.  

NOTE (Part 3): If you look like you should be working the slow nights at Lucky Cheng’s [Yelp], why Joolie T. [Yelp], would you post 104 photos of yourself or link your MySpace page [indicating that you are from Staten Island]?  Don’t you want anybody to like you?  

NOTE (Part 4): When Lucky Cheng’s says that it is “Asian Fusion”, they mean, “Asians that are a fusion of boys and girls”.  It is a drag bar.  

NOTE (Part 5): I have actually given the action figure as a gift before.

Tags: worst

While I normally groan when recruiters call me at work (and wonder why I’m whispering) and roll my eyes when they ask me to go in for a consultation, my attitude has changed lately.  With the cat thoroughly out of the bag that I’ll be leaving my current position in the near future and with the typically slow holiday season, dealing with recruiters has been quite entertaining.  These calls and consultations represent a nice break in my day and presents an opportunity for UNINTENTIONAL COMEDY.  

The most impressive one to date was the one I met with today.  He called and left multiple messages on my voicemail last week despite my not picking up the phone once.  Each call had slightly greater urgency.  Initially, I thought, “God, this fuck is annoying.”  By the third call, I realized “This guy is hilarious.  Something ill-advised will occur as a result.”  

Today, I returned his call and agreed to go to his office in Midtown to meet him.  While I used the lobby kiosk to fill in my information, I was able to peer into the office.  The office was unlike anything I’d ever seen.  In one large room, there seemed to be two teams of mostly 20-somethings sitting in close proximity, hounding candidates on the phone.  There was constant coworker chatter, constant calling and a degree of bullying.  Like any entry-level sales jobs, the only adults were the supervisors and the rest were essentially children.

I finally got in front of my contact, who proceeded to ramble at high speed (me: how does he breath?) about how their process is different (me: but still sleazy) and jotted down a bunch of things on my resume that I don’t think he even understood.  He had the gall to tell me that the way he speaks, people think he can code in any language (me: not what I was thinking), but that he “can’t code a lick” (me: he is lucky if he can name the platform that powers his favorite porn site).  At the end he introduced me to two members of his team (me: whoever was not on the phone at the time).  I wonder if he really thinks that they work as a team, when I am pretty sure there are other motives, such as… I don’t know, lead retention in the incidental case that a salesperson (eg. him) turns over?  

The best part is of course, at the end of the day when I took his card out of my pocket and looked him up on Facebook.

THIS guy is going to be my “Placement Counselor”?  I am not sure how many things an ‘07 graduate could counsel me on if the best placement he was able to get himself was in a bullpen of similarly immature sales grunts.

Tags: worst

Couldn’t help but identify things on the Internet that actually make it a worse place:

 

Awful Job Postings

In a down economy and with people desperate for work, it seems like the the job ads just become worse and worse.  Important questions to ponder:

1. Is there such a thing as an Entry Level Ninja?  I was always under the impression that to achieve Ninja status, you have to train.  
2. Is there a way to promote from outside?  I think the very nature of the word promote requires that someone is in the organization.  

Separate observation: does anyone find it peculiar that there are a ton of jobs for real estate agents when real estate purchasing has slowed so much?  

 

People that use uncommon words incorrectly

“I do not think it means what you think it means.”

–Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

A lot of people learn new words by context.  This fellow makes the world a worse place by providing incorrect word usage and misguiding the few people on MySpace that actually attempt to learn new words.  It just goes to prove that:

“If you’re on MySpace now, you’re a (expletive) cretin. And you’re not only a (expletive) cretin, but you’re poor.  Nobody who has beyond an eighth grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people.”

–Michael Wolff, author of The Man Who Owns The News (Rupert Murdoch biography)

The most terribly ironic part of this is that gentleman seems to have a JD from Ohio State.  As if my respect for the academic institution that is THE Ohio State University weren’t already so high.

Reference:

• definition of the word surmise [source: Google]
• Murdoch biographer: MySpace is for ‘(expletive) cretins’ [source: CNet, 2008-12-02; relation: MySpace]
• SI Teens Brag About Going Airborne at 100 in Nasty Accident [source: Gothamist, 2008-12-07; relation: MySpace]
• Katzenmoyer, Reluctant Phenom, Finds What It’s Like to Be Normal [source: NYTimes, 2008-09-12; relation: Ohio State]

Tags: worst

Because I so frequently reference stories from NPR and the New York Times, I have a tendency to come across as a liberal media suckup.  I’m getting to the point where if I’m not careful, I’m going to sound like Homer Simpson reviewing food [Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?].  In order to keep it real, I just gotta hate on a few things.  I will now channel the spirit of Slappy Squirrel:

• NPR | Youth Radio
  • I am too old to relate to you.
  • I am too young to forget that people your age aren’t that innocent.  
  • I don’t care What’s the New What.  
  • Your voices piss me off.  
• Urban Seoul [NYT Magazine; 2008-06-08]
  • Wow, nice title.  I am sure that the Seoul/Soul pun doesn’t get used a thousand times each day.  Next thing you know, Snoop Dogg and Bobby Lee will do a film project called Seoul Plane [or if Bobby Lee is busy, they'll use Jet Li or Jackie Chan.  It is a short list, seriously.]
  • The story is about a [presumably] white guy from Princeton that goes to Korea, dates a Korean girl and is surprised when said Korean girl gets accosted by an older Korean guy that doesn’t believe in miscegination.  There are assholes everywhere.  Duh.
  • Who the hell uses the phrase “break his face“?  I mean other than the illustrious Lovefoxxx (CSS of iPod Touch/Music is My Hot Hot Sex fame) in This Month, Day 10.  
  • What calibre writer would ever allow there to be a single sentence that reads: “Our chopsticks will be flying.”?  
  • Just a shit article.  
• A Taste Of Beef In South Korea [NPR; 2008-10-19] 
  • Rebecca Martinez, Your Korean-American friend Jean has the world’s worst voice.  
  • This story goes nowhere - I thought that watching food shows on TV was useless, but hearing about is on the radio is even more useless.  
  • I want 3:05m of my life back.  

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Tags: worst