I've been reading books during my lunch breaks at work and today they decided to ban "reading material" as it "takes me too long to eat". I've been reading reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. I prefer to read it in small bursts, it's a ton of material which leads me thought provoking ideas while I a delivery drive. I couldn't ever understand it reading it all in a week. Every few pages gives me enough to think about.
I explained to them that cellphones and social media and the like also contain letters and that this constitutes "reading material". The owners response was "I don't want to ban cellphones" and the General Manager added "it is against corporate rules". As in, cellphones are also banned. So to them cellphones are OK but a book is not.
I attempted to explain I'm missing the fillings out of some of my teeth due to root canals and me not having the money to replace them. I have to chew with my front teeth (mostly) and I can use my normal masticating teeth very carefully and deliberately. It takes me a lot longer (relatively) to chew food than most people. They decided that the "book" was why I was so slow. I've complained about toothaches before and for a good portion of my earlier work career, I could hardly eat at work at all.
So as my little fuck you to them, I'll be reading my books in ebook format.
I'm literally the only individual this applies too, and I just wanted to share my sticking it to the man.
I found it quite telling that phone games, social media, texting and the like are all "Ok". But when I try and better myself and "read a book" I'm singled out for it. Tells a lot about American culture nowadays.
/rant
Saturday, September 3, 2016
"The owner at my workplace banned books during my lunch "break""
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17 comments:
I don't understand. Who cares how long it takes to eat, read or sleep during your break? The break is a set length of time, I assume, so why would anyone care how fast you do what you do during it?
I take it that the employee may have been extending his break... somethings are left when people tell a story.
I hate breaks during work. We will be in the middle of solving some problem, up to our elbows in dirt, tools on the problem, right on the verge of getting it, and HOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK! Break time! Everybody drops everything and has to take their 15 minutes right now. Sometimes we keep working to finish and take it later, but there is a lunch truck there only at that time, so dammit, go ahead. This, like most labor rules, should be more flexible. You have to have breaks roughly every two hours, but I think most people, including myself, would rather work straight through and leave an hour early. That option is illegal. I would also rather work three 13 hour days and have 4 off. I prefer to work hard and play long.
I'm currently removing the carpet and installing wooden floors in a house in Las Vegas - entirely by myself. 100+ degrees, 10 hour days. It's saving me about $1000/ day. That's a good day's pay.
Wow, can't you work out a time payment plan with your dentist to get those root canals taken care of?
Country music is getting me through.
"Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter
That looks like Elvis
I soaked the label off a Flintstone Jelly Bean jar
I cleared us off a place on that
One little table that you left us
And pulled me up a big ole piece of floor.
I pulled the head off Elvis
Filled Fred up to his pelvis
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you.
'Round about ten we all got to talking
'Bout Graceland, Bedrock and such
The conversation finally turned to women
But they said they didn't get around too much
Elvis said, "Find 'em young."
And Fred said, "Old Fashioned girls are fun."
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you.
Later on it finally hit me
That you wouldn't be 'a comin' home no more
'Cause this time I know you won't forgive me
Like all of them other times before
Then I broke Elvis's nose
Pouring the last drop from his toes
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you.
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you.
Maybe his books were porn. You can't just stop in the middle.
Why are you doing it yourself bags?
Don't you know any Mexicans?
So long as you take the allotted break, who cares. But bagoh20 makes a good point, although who wants to watch that in the lunch room.
Enough to get you off mayo as a condiment permanently.
Was he reading this classic?
"Well, where is this right mind on that afternoon I came home from school to find my mother out of the house, and our refrigerator stocked with a big purplish piece of raw liver? I believe that I have already confessed to the piece of liver that I bought in a butcher shop and banged behind a billboard on the way to a bar mitzvah lesson. Well, I wish to make a clean breast of it, Your Holiness. That—she—it—wasn't my first piece. My first piece I had in the privacy of my own home, rolled around my cock in the bathroom at three-thirty-and then had again on the end of a fork, at five thirty, along with the other members of that poor innocent family of mine.
"So. Now you know the worst thing I have ever done. I fucked my own family's dinner."
Eeeewwwwww!
"Why are you doing it yourself bags?
Don't you know any Mexicans?"
I wanted to hire an American that would work hard for a few days for a reasonable chunk of cash, no skills required. I asked everyone I know here for a week in advance - a sizable circle of friends - mostly military or ex. Nobody knew anyone who wanted to do that, despite knowing lots of healthy young Americans without jobs. Zero takers. I did end up hiring a couple guys from a Home Depot with a truck to carry out all the carpet and haul it to the dump. Paid $25/hr, because we agreed on a price and they kicked ass doing the job in half the time I expected. No stopping, no talking, no instructions required.
Regardless of who I wanted to hire, there were only Mexicans willing to work. I have never seen what looks like a white guy out looking for work there, and whether hiring Americans or Mexicans, the act of paying young men of any type to work a few hours like that is illegal. Our system is fucked. The unemployment office should be where we go to get workers, and it should be that easy.
What is wrong with our young people? Have they no pride in working, no drive, no self-respect.
Same with hiring a cab. Why is every cabbie an immigrant? I use Uber a lot in L.A., and while a few are White, the vast majority are not. They are young, or older, and all motivated, but few are white. I know we are not all rich, so where are the hungry young white guys?
Oh, and one of the Mexicans that hauled out that stuff was at least 65. Can you imagine a 65 year old American guy working like that. I can - Me, but I do it because I'm cheap, and not entitled or lazy, and I don't even need money.
bagoh20: I like your idea of going to the unemployment office to go hire casual labor.
In defense of Americans, some of the hardest workers I have ever worked with are Americans. I've worked a lot of blue collar days with all kinds of people, and most Americans I've worked with are as hard working as any, and usually harder. Right now my hardest working employee out of 90 people is a young guy from Kansas who is relatively uneducated, irrepressible, hungry to learn everything, conscientious, respectful, and cheerful. A true role model for others. He just started a couple months ago and has already been promoted and received two raises. He started with no experience or skills. It's just so hard to find such people today. I know that was not the case when I was young. America's couches must be over- flowing.
Cripe. I knew that was Philip Roth.
Roth atoned for Portnoy's Complaint with American Pastoral.
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