(no subject)
Recently at work I've been reading All Quiet on the Western Front while I listen to phones ring and harras housewives about their PBS memberships. I've read this book a few times, as I've always dug the vicarious military experience and the particular mix of brutal ugliness and polite class you found around 1915. It's like training the twich muscles of the brain; going from shattered limbs and rapidly evaporated viscera to "Hello please and thank you Ms. Morganson" in the Professional Voice in the matter of a moment takes a certain type of dual-processing I'm not sure I was capable of before.
And don't think I'm not tempted to start reading some of the bloodier passages to Nasty Granny #15.
Before I go too far, I think I should do the right thing and suggest a few tips regarding charities, phone calls and the like.
1) If and when you give to charity, give them a fake phone number. Seriously. They will call you forever and they are not limited by the National Do-Not Call Registry. We regularly call people for alumni associations who graduated in 1950.
2) Do not try to put charity callers off with "I'm just stepping out the door" or "This isn't a good time..". This means we will call you back the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Until you damn well talk to us, and of course you're snippy so the whole thing ends in tears.
3) Don't hang up before a teleservices person identifies themselves. Yes, you can tell when a Professional Caller calls, as they use Professional Phone Tone. However, if you just hang up, you get called back that day. If you hang up after they identify themselves, you get at least a few weeks' peace.
4) Seriously just butt in and say "Thank you but I don't like to do business by phone, please take me off your phone and mailing list" and then hang up.
If you ask to be taken off their list and then recieve anything, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to storm their office and run them through like a Roman noble in the slave quarters. Not only will you not be arrested, but nobody will even say anything. Go to town.
In any case, recently I've been finding World War 1 to be a great source of hope. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there was much of anything redeeming in the wholesale slaughter of people or bombing of historical landmarks. But in all honesty, when I imagine hell, it's a lot like the description Mr. Remarque provides of trench warfare, only with slightly more fire. Trench warfare represents the utmost limit of my ability to comprehend shittiness. And there in Europe where you had the entire countryside converted into a garden of innards and shrapnel and poison gas, where whole generations of men marched directly into death for all sorts of poor reasons, things are More or Less Okay.
Any race who can transform their country into Mordor twice in a century and then back and still get on with the business of living (mostly) with civility is some kind of badass. It makes me think of humanity as the fuckup teenager with the heart of gold, basically impervious and incorrigable and charming.
And don't think I'm not tempted to start reading some of the bloodier passages to Nasty Granny #15.
Before I go too far, I think I should do the right thing and suggest a few tips regarding charities, phone calls and the like.
1) If and when you give to charity, give them a fake phone number. Seriously. They will call you forever and they are not limited by the National Do-Not Call Registry. We regularly call people for alumni associations who graduated in 1950.
2) Do not try to put charity callers off with "I'm just stepping out the door" or "This isn't a good time..". This means we will call you back the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Until you damn well talk to us, and of course you're snippy so the whole thing ends in tears.
3) Don't hang up before a teleservices person identifies themselves. Yes, you can tell when a Professional Caller calls, as they use Professional Phone Tone. However, if you just hang up, you get called back that day. If you hang up after they identify themselves, you get at least a few weeks' peace.
4) Seriously just butt in and say "Thank you but I don't like to do business by phone, please take me off your phone and mailing list" and then hang up.
If you ask to be taken off their list and then recieve anything, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to storm their office and run them through like a Roman noble in the slave quarters. Not only will you not be arrested, but nobody will even say anything. Go to town.
In any case, recently I've been finding World War 1 to be a great source of hope. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there was much of anything redeeming in the wholesale slaughter of people or bombing of historical landmarks. But in all honesty, when I imagine hell, it's a lot like the description Mr. Remarque provides of trench warfare, only with slightly more fire. Trench warfare represents the utmost limit of my ability to comprehend shittiness. And there in Europe where you had the entire countryside converted into a garden of innards and shrapnel and poison gas, where whole generations of men marched directly into death for all sorts of poor reasons, things are More or Less Okay.
Any race who can transform their country into Mordor twice in a century and then back and still get on with the business of living (mostly) with civility is some kind of badass. It makes me think of humanity as the fuckup teenager with the heart of gold, basically impervious and incorrigable and charming.