Scary, Pt. 1

The Grand Poobress, leading the store meeting at my retail gig, this morning said: "If you're going to go through the trouble of being here, you might as well take the opportunity to participate." She took issue with the fact that nobody wanted assemble within earshot.

Two thoughts.

First: The meetings are mandated by the company, so "the trouble" can be laid squarely at their feet; nobody wants to get up at 4am so they can present themselves to their colleagues at 6am. I wake up at 5am, but I live four blocks from the store -- hardly the case for most.

Secondly, "participation" in this case amounts to little more than applauding at regular intervals and -- at least theoretically -- listening to what is being said by management. Personally, I can't help but immerse myself in the quality of daydreaming I crafted in my formative years of public education. To my knowledge, nobody of interest speaks unless presented an "award" by management -- something I have blessedly avoided thus far. And, for the record, it depresses the hell out me when interesting people speak, because they are forever thanking all the wonderful people around them. That's roughly my estimation as well: people are the coolest part of every shitty institution devised by people so far. It saddens me when what's cool about people is conflated with what's shitty about institutions.

This note brought to you by 2/3's bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz. Yellow Tail: "Yep, it's cheap."