Trashed!

As someone who works in retail I’ve encountered plenty of trash. It’s a pet peeve of mine that people litter and leave trash everywhere, particularly since you can usually find a garbage can somewhere. We only have one planet. Something completely lost on some folks who need a reminder. I guess they figure they’ll be dead before the climate change bill comes due. Wishful thinking on their part.

I recall someone writing a letter to the Gazette editorial page saying Cedar Rapids has a lot of trash. They are not wrong as people litter everywhere as if they are savages. Even savages could manage to find a trash receptacle to dispose of their waste in. Litters are wankers who should be forced to clean up trash on the highway. Perhaps it would teach them a valuable lesson.

On the other hand I guess they offer one of my coworkers job security as he ends up having to sweep the parking lot while doing other janitorial work. Still I imagine he would prefer that our customers not turn the outside into one big trash can. Even more frustrating is that there are multiple garbage cans outside, including one that is literally right by the front door. People never learn.

Horrorfest 2020 Presents: Intruder (1989, Scott Spiegel)

Perhaps I have worked in retail far too long so I liked Intruder more than most probably do. Also it helps that this is a fairly well made slasher film that tries to rise above the fairly low standards of the genre. Although I wonder if that was due to it being made at the end of the decade, when the slasher genre had begun to fade in popularity. Regardless this film has a likable bunch of characters and is well paced.

Oh and the kills are pretty wicked, although that is helped by the grocery store setting. The list of possible suspects is limited so I kind of guessed who the killer was, which is ok and did not ruin my enjoyment of the film. Intruder has a couple good comedy moments that I can’t elaborate on further due to them being spoilers, yet I will say that if you work in retail you can appreciate them like I did. Hurray for that random Bruce Campbell cameo, I guess.

Communication Breakdown

I love that song. Great album. Today after driving my roommate to work I heard a DJ on a local radio station talking about millennials. Apparently work places are having their older workers do bullshit sounding work exercises to better connect with younger workers. As a 30 year old retail employee who deals often with people almost half his age or young college kids, I think that’s a stupid idea. Look whatever happened to just talking to people, getting to know them better? I could blame the Internet and smartphones for this lack of connection, yet I just come off as a grumpy old man.

No its simple: find something people can relate to, or just listen to people when they talk to you. I’m an anti social asshole and even I understand that talking and listening to people isn’t difficult. Maybe its because I do it on a regular basis, which means that retail is mostly good for forcing people to act like human beings. Well at least half of the time. Some of the time? Okay a forth of the time.