Dealt Ambiguity

[dealtambiguity]

Dear Retail...

Dear Retail,

Perhaps this isn’t the best time, but thinking about your nature, there really isn’t a best time to let you know that it’s over. I’m through.

Before you go into one of your indignant huffs, please consider...Consider that I’ve spent more than half my life trying to please you. Looking back, I feel like I got buttonholed into my relationship with you. One retail job on my resume means two retail jobs, THREE retail jobs later because the only thing I even have on that goddamned resume is retail which only qualifies me for...You guessed it: You. Retail.

Not that it hasn’t been a good run. We’ve had our good times and our bad. And you’ve always paid me. Not much, I’ll admit, but at least enough to keep me from updating my address to: “Under the Overpass.” But, again, consider. Consider your capricious nature. Consider your command of my time, always underlining and justifying it the “needs of the business.” Consider that I haven’t sat down and watched the Super Bowl in fourteen years. Consider that I fell off The Simpsons bandwagon at season 8. You have rendered the inherent joys of “Thank God It’s Friday,” and weekends meaningless. Days are just days. Shitty days. Some shittier than others. Consider that you, like King David of old, have sent me, like Uriah the Hittite to die on the front lines so that you can dip dick in the Bathsheba vagina of massive profit margins. Not gonna lie, that hurt. A lot. Absorbing all that displeasure, frustration, rage even? All of it intended for you, but left to us down here at the vanguard of the assault, “representing the brand.”

Heh. The Brand.

Was there ever a duller sword to fall upon?

I’m realizing now what a fool I’ve been getting involved with you. Looking at you from without now, I get a better sense of who you are. What you are. You’re a predator driving a windowless van painted the sickly green color of money. You are a childish game that many will play and some will never, sadly, put down. You are a bastard, and a thief of time.

How many events, how many adventures have I missed out on because I was tethered to you by a rope made of my own fears and insecurities? How many times did I wonder, in deepest trepidation, if I might lose my health benefits, my pitiful livelihood because of some arbitrary decisions made behind my back, based entirely on perceived missteps, bereft of context? How many times did you, and not some other coupling in your boundless harem, your infinite noyau even remember my birthday?

I couldn’t count it on one hand because there is nothing to count.

We’ve had our times, Retail, and for my part, I had some fun, or at least pretended to, but it’s over. Finished. Through.

There is no object jagged, nor indeed large enough for me to suggest performing an act of autocopulation with. Hell has no circle deep enough to which I might direct you. It is hard, from my perspective, to really even say to someone or something that tricked me into letting them or that steal half my life away. Just snatched it away, transaction by transaction, probe by probe, weekend by weekend. What do I even say now?

The answer, as I’m sure you guessed—you’re almost godlike in your seemly omniscience, though conversely imbecilic in your lack of self awareness—is nothing. I’ve said what I came here to say.

Goodbye.

Sincerely No Longer Yours,

We

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No Such Thing As Middle Class

There isn’t. History doesn’t support it even as an idea, let alone as a desirable economic destination. Middle class is exactly that: Middle. Meaning it ain’t quite poor, but it ain’t fucking filthy either. Politicians don’t create tax breaks to help the middle class, they create tax loopholes that give the poor the occasional two $20 bills to rub together, but most of all, they save that big sloppy money blow job for themselves.

So if you’re in college, start asking yourself why. If you’re not in it to be rich, then get the fuck out, because there are easier less frustrating ways of being poor. And please know that I’m speaking specifically to my fellow Americans here. We’ve had chance after fucking chance to save the world and we’ve blown it on a cracker box full of politicians who have more in common with the commercial tenets of reality television than they do with any kind of socio-economic change.

In summation, we’re on a two lane country road. You’re driving toward Rich, or you’re driving toward poor. If you’re taking your half in the middle, you’re gonna get pulled over and eventually shot for resisting arrest.

Am I perhaps the slightest bit cynical? You bet your fucking ass I am. Am I uninformed? Probably. But you knwow what else I am? I’m on the low end of middle class, about to take another rich guy tax break sandpaper dildo up my so called “white privilege” asshole. Yes, I had the privilege of attending higher education. I had the privilege of taking out student loans because my ancestors didn’t register on the Daws Rolls. I’ve had the privilege of not being able to afford healthcare for half a fucking decade. Now I’m getting the privilege of not getting to declare my student loan interest on my taxes so some asshole whose biggest struggle in life is which fucking yacht club to join can write off his private jet.

It’d be hard to argue that anyone ever signed up to fight and die for a country as fucked up as ours. Freedom? Freedom to what? Read back a couple of paragraphs: You’re free to be rich, you’re free to be poor. But middle class doesn’t exist. Anyone who thinks so is bullshitting themselves because they’ve been in a transitory state long enough to posit permanence. Your dream is ending. Time to wake the fuck up.

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I Don’t Like The Drugs...

But the drugs like me? Naw, that ain’t right at all. I have a mutual, loving, respectful (okay, respectful is a stretch) relationship with drugs. I. Love. Them. You heard me.

Why? Well, for someone who grew up nursing an ever growing list of personal insecurities, drugs, and sometimes alcohol act like a dietary supplement to give me the beach ego of my dreams! There’s nothing quite like quashing that ominous sense of self hatred with a substance—preferably substances, plural—designed to numb both mind and body. The Bible is right to call it sorcery; it’s pure magic.

Am I being facetious, you may ask? Only insomuch as the drugs allow me to be. There is always that codependent fear that one day they’ll leave me, or stop working on me the way they used to. I’m not a jealous lover by any means, and would likely do more harm to myself than to the drugs in an endgame scenario like that.

I can’t condone or recommend that anyone follow me down this rabbit hole, but drugs have gone a long way toward easing the deep anxieties that come with the territory of a high pressure/low return job like I’ve got. I dose up, and I’m good to go.

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Shock Value

I’m in an inflammatory mood today. I’ve had my coffee and I’m feeling like saying something I might later have cause to regret.

I’ve been spending a good amount of time on Twitter lately, mostly engaging in my own form of thoughtless voyeurism, but also participating with the occasional series of jabs at my fruity corporate overlord. My Twitter feed is very much an echo chamber of leftist columnists and Twit-Moguls reiterating the latest hype and bullshit trickling out of the diseased diaper that is Washington DC. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My Facebook—which I hardly visit at all anymore—is rife with the other side of our current political dichotomy, where the lunatic Right defends Trump like he’s the Old Testament incarnate.

Anonymity makes me bold. I know and am close with plenty who’d be shocked by my rhetoric. I don’t care. If you’re not capable of questioning your own beliefs and still retain your grasp on them then I’d argue you’re not strong enough to hold such beliefs in the first place. Really, I didn’t come here to talk about beliefs. I came to inflame. So here goes:

There are no adults, only children. When you start to realize that you’re smarter, more informed than the ones you’ve looked up to, or told you should look up to and respect, that’s when you start to realize that this American political landscape is just a piss crusty sandbox full of shit fisted infants wailing away on each other. Trump is a tool, both literally and figuratively; he’s a bad news Russian sex toy, and an indictment against our collective sanity. Every President has been the most dangerous person alive for their time in office if only because we’ve fooled ourselves both about the limits and limitlessness of their power. Trump is just the most openly dangerous to date. He’s the kind of guy who buys the office, not the kind who inhabits it. All this talk of impeachment, indictment, all of it, we’ve had a year to shit, now it’s time to get off the pot. But who is waiting in the hallway after we get up and try (and fail) to Febreeze the shit stink out of the air? Who’s next to leave a couple pubes clinging to the yellowed rim of history? Hillary?

It’d be nice to have a solution to present here. An idea I could state that would make a whole lot of sense to just enough people that nothing ever comes of it. I don’t have a solution. What I have is a mindset forged if examined beliefs and patriotic fatigue. I don’t believe in the inherent virtue of mankind because I’ve seen nothing that makes me believe it even exists. What I believe in is the hollowness behind every appearance. I believe that we believe we have some sense of good that will out, but based on the ones we put in charge, what really comes out of it is a huge dereliction of responsibility, even duty for the few to repress self interest for the benefit of the many. But that’s someone who else’s job. We vote so we don’t have to worry about shit like that. Those problems are bigger than us anyway, right? I gave at the office. Sorry, I don’t carry cash.

I stated in a recent post that I’m excited about the chaos unfolding, and I am. I am as derilict as anyone. Probably moreso, as my privilege has afforded me a level of comfortable numbness, a beautiful blindness. I’d like to think I’m ready for the coming tornado to rip it from my fingers like a fistful of grass. But, like every other impending catastrophe, nothing ever seems to go as horribly as the statisticians would have you believe. We’ve been playing chicken with ourselves for centuries. And when the only other player is yourself—and as Americans, I believe we are playing with ourselves—the first one to back down is always going to be you.

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Bitter, Baby

I’m one bitter motherfucker. I mean, loose leaf hate tea steeped in bile bitter. On a daily basis, I watch myself and my team enrich and preserve a culture of entitlement, one whose character is about as deep as the 3D Touch on their iPhone X displays. Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that we deserve all this cool stuff, that our access to it is as inalienable, sacrosanct and federally protected as our own constitutional rights as Americans. Short answer: We don’t; it isn’t.

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Bitter Ends

He other day I tipped a little more of my political hand than I’m normally comfortable doing. I was self deprecating in the offing, but all the same, it was, to my mind, perhaps a little inflammatory. I’m not apologizing, just noting it.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this “centipede,” as John McCain described it, is not dropping shoes fast enough for yours truly. I’m checking Twitter constantly to see if any new seeds of discord have been sown. I’ve been waiting for shit to hit the fan at the cataclysmic level for years now. I waited for it with Clinton, Bush, Obama, and finally Trump, who seemed a prize pony for the kind of chaos I’ve craved. He hasn’t really disappointed, but he hasn’t really delivered, either. More, I’m disappointed in how long we’ve let this shit show unfold before grabbing the hook and dragging the players back into the wings. I’m not holding out for world peace—never was—but at the same time, I’m prepared to watch things get a lot worse. I’ve made my peace with the idea that certain things will not occur in my lifetime, but there’s still a lot I’d like to see. An impeachment is one of them. Zombie apocalypse is perhaps another.

Anyway, back to things. Back to ends. Bitter and otherwise.

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Just wanted to say thank you. I’m AHA and I’ve been reading your twitter for the last two days it has gotten be through the most difficult shifts of my life I’ve never laughed so hard. And I’m quitting Apple this week. The place is just impossible to bear right now

Wow, thank you! That is very kind of you to say. I’m sorry for the late reply, but very glad I could help. I think humor is easily our most powerful weapon against the type of despair Apple wields over us. I’m glad you found a way out. I hope it’s everything you need it to be. More, I hope it’s everything you want it to be.

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Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn

And I’d like to say I’m one of them. Of course, I’d probably change tunes the instant my own comforts and predilections are challenged or compromised, but from a purely academic perspective, to my mind, there is no higher entertainment than watching a system literally eat itself using its own precepts as knife and fork to ease the job.

What do I mean? Well, Arrestivus, as some took to calling it, or Mueller Monday, hit like a ton of much needed bricks yesterday. I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I don’t think I’m much of anything, though if I had to side, as a consenting adult, I think the nature of the Libertarian party best embodies my political sensibilities, though I often think as much of their candidates as I do of those from the larger ruling parties. I went to bed Sunday night, as excited and trepidacious as a kid on Christmas Eve, hoping to wake up in the morning to some lovely chaos to unwrap; a stocking full of discord.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, nor am I a proponent of Hillary Clinton. Or even Gary Johnson (who?), for that matter. I am, however, a fan of poetic justice. I am a sucker for irony. I am a closet, armchair anarchist who would gleefully watch the end of the world on television until the power went out. And then I’d watch through my window.

I love watching the Republican Party deal with the Frankenstein’s monster they’ve created. I love watching policy double back like a cornered viper and strike the ass of the ones who hatched it. I love watching Left battle Right. Conflict is such an essential part of the human experience. How do we define the good we seek without some standard of evil to pit it against? Just as death gives meaning to life, peace has no intrinsic value, no glue to hold it fast without the concept of war.

Admittedly, I am both twat and hipocrite, assuming those states are somewhat mutually exclusive. I do not enjoy watching the unnecessary suffering of others. I do not revel in the arbitrary assignation of rights to one type or color of person over another. I don’t believe in humanity so much as I believe in the human. I believe in rights over merely being right. Men and women come to places of great power by convincing the great and small amongst us that they are right. They are the correct and circumspect elect, who will forge the path to our next Golden Age. If history has taught us anything, it is that governments, powers, even whole races of people rise for a breath and then sink back beneath the waves perchance to rise again, but all the more likely to drown. As a twat and a hipocrite of fortune, I’m able to afford the belief that there is corruption seeded in the hearts of all men and women, and that the desires of the individual, when given enough free space, will override the concerns of the many. Altruism plays great for the cameras, but gets swallowed the second the red light stops blinking.

I came here to say a couple of things, and have probably done more to betray myself for the cowardly relativistic twat waffle that I am, but the climate of chaos seizing the United States has me, for lack of a better term, very aroused. I don’t say this to offend anyone, but it’s your right to be offended, so go right ahead. While I still reserve the right to be offensive, I’ll probably continue doing just that.

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Meet Me At The Town Square!

Or don’t. In fact, cut the “or” right off that thing, because there is no “town square.” As thought provoking and mentally masturbatory as it is to think of Apple Retail stores as the intellectual it place of tomorrow come today, it is just that: A provoked thought; a corporate masturbation fantasy.

For more than a decade now, we’ve been trying to train our customers that the Apple Store is the best place to buy Apple products. And in our defense, it is. Consider buying an iPhone from someone who likely owns one and has been trained to use one over some teenager who gets a bigger take off of selling you the Android of the week. But we’ve also been using the last decade and a half to train customers that this is the place they can go to get free help, sometimes even a free replacement phone, anytime their unit does something unexpected. As much as we’ve done to instill value in the store itself, we’ve used that forum to undermine the value of the product sold here.

Then along comes this notion of our stores as the intersection of Technology and the Liberal Arts. Maybe that’s true, but last I checked, liberal arts was a major for people who didn’t or don’t know what the fuck to do a with their lives, second cousin to “communications” and the “humanities.”

Because ultimately, we are a Store. We’ve always been a Store, and as long as people continue to refuse to buy everything online, there’s a good shot we’ll remain a Store. As much as we try to tell ourselves, or at least those beneath us that we are somehow above the other retail establishments that surround us, we still have a bottom line in mind. We still have metrics to meet in our less high minded goal of topping last year’s sales numbers.

For those in the know, Today At Apple has been a categoric failure on all fronts. Average attendance can be counted on one T-Rex claw. People do not want to come here to spend hours inching toward an eventual hip replacement on our uncomfortable stools, they want what anyone wants from a store: To get in, get what they want or need, and get the fuck out. End of story. I’m no different. I don’t want to spend a minute longer here than it takes to earn my daily bread, then I’m getting the fuck out. I’d argue most of my coworkers feel the same way. Meet me at the town square, indeed.

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Fearless Feedback

When I first began working for Apple a decade ago, we worked in a culture of Fearless Feedback. In fact, there is little else I remember from my original core training apart from this concept. It helped me out tremendously in both my personal and professional life, as I learned to first seek permission to give feedback and then deliver that feedback, good or bad.

A lot changes in a decade, and while Apple—specifically, Apple Retail—would like to fool itself that we are still a culture that thrives on feedback, we have perverted the nature of the term, and spoiled the output of what otherwise might be good and actionable information.

More often then not, when I’m being given feedback, it has to do with something I have very little if any control over. It still comes on the same way: “Can I offer you some feedback?”

And what am I going to say, no? It’s leadership asking the question. Refusing feedback now will go into the narrative of deeds, good and bad, against which I’ll be weighed a year from now when I go through the Egyptian afterlife-esque process that is an Apple Retail performance review. Anubis forbid I should be denied another less than 3% raise!

No, there is no saying “no” to offered feedback. But I think that feedback would be more actionable if I was told to focus on my ability to kiss ass, do other people’s jobs for them, and generally be able to teleport at the unspoken whims of others. To get EEs, I’m going to need to master my sixth sense and annex over into a seventh sense, altogether.

At some point, we got too big for our breeches. A decade ago, we operated comfortably with less than 10% of our current Family Room and Forum staff. Since then, the proliferation of iPhone owners, satisfied and otherwise ensure that our processes will continue to grow ever more unwieldy, ever more unscalable to the ever increasing demand for our services. How long can Apple continue to offer—for free!—a dedicated technician either in person or over the phone, to the zombie apocalypse of disenfranchised customers who are having problems with this or that. Even if we could strip the educational opportunities out of it, we live in a consumerist culture that does just that: Consumes. The only people I know who put any real sense of value on their Apple products are people who work for Apple. (Incidentally, they’re also the people I see struggling most to afford those products.) That is a whole other blog post in itself, but a customer who does not value his or her product enough to not smash the glass or drop it in the toilet is not going to put much value on the service they receive to get it fixed or replaced. They already ignore the dozens of people flooding the grove as though they’re the first person in history to crack a screen, and anyway are much more important than these pieces of human furniture that arrived ahead of them.

I was talking about feedback. Fearless feedback. And I think I’ve given it. Apple Retail is no longer a fit tool for the task it has taken on. Pretending to be, and adhering to old systems both of communication and—I hate myself for using this word, but—facilitation (shudder) is only going to result in employees that are just as disenfranchised as the thousands of confused and angry customers we see everyday, as both are set free in a system of which they have no understanding.

So, what’s the fix? Perhaps the Genius Grove should have its own store. Maybe we could help bail out the struggling United States Postal Service and resort to exclusive over the phone and through the mail technical support and repair. And maybe we could flex our understanding and examine the circumstances surrounding the infractions that turn into needless and often frustrating feedback sessions. If Apple is secretly trying to up the attrition rate of veteran employees in favor of sparkle eyed noobs who will chain themselves to our stainless steel slave ships for less, then maybe they should just hold the course. I don’t know. I just work there.

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The Dark Side of Need

All in all, I wouldn’t say I have a bad job. There are certainly worse jobs out there, and I know this because I’ve worked a few of them. There are worse places, worse employers, all of it. The benefits, for what they are, are pretty solid. I have insurance. I have stock options. I have paid sick days.

So why do I hate my job so fucking much?

Well, perhaps it’s because I need it. If I didn’t have my job, my family and our myriad health conditions would go untreated. For myself, that would me a faster spin in the downward spiral toward burnout and eventually death. So there’s that. There’s also the fact that I wouldn’t be able to find a job willing to pay me my same wage, at least at entry level. And there’s also the fact that I’m middle aged and still working essentially the same job I had back in my late teens, early 20s. Insomuch as things could be far worse, that inner younger version of myself that once dreamed of making films, writing groundbreaking new novels, diving headlong into greatness, is screaming that things aren’t as good as I once imagined they could be.

Like so many, I am trying to shoulder my way out of the overcrowded sick room that is American retail. I’d love to not have my life dominated by things like mortgages and student loan payments, by the ever changing whims and fancies of the multi billion dollar company that helps keep me one nostril above the ocean of potential bankruptcy that surrounds me on all sides. But the older I get, the less energy I feel for escape. Sometimes escape is just a few hours respite, crashed on the couch with some binge worthy show I missed in its original network run. I see ambition all around me and I cringe. Was I once like that? Why did I stop? Back when ignorance was the loft beneath my stupid wings.

I want out, guys. I want out bad.

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My Dark Rainbow

Guys, I know this is probably just a load of semantic nonsense, but at the risk that someone out there will agree with me, I’m going to put out this platter of carrots and ranch dressing for thought:

Lately, I’ve been getting caught up on all of the little abstractions that come with being an Apple Retail employee, or even just a retail employee in most capacities. I’m sure places like Macy’s or whatever will have their equivalent of getting a customer to pay with ApplePay, and the inane chatter and cheering that spoils the airwaves immediately after such a transaction, the exchanges or high fives and knuckles with perhaps a “you da man” to put an asinine cherry on this sundae of meanginglessness.

I mean, we congratulate people when they buy something. I guess, relative to the nature of that possession, whether it is their first iPhone or Mac or whatever, or whether it is just another link in the chain of succession that has brought them in, at the core of it, we are congratulating people for handing over sizable sums of money, which is in itself a symbol or abstract in exchange for device that will help them manage all of the likes, thumbs up, swipes left, swipes right and every other conceivable abstraction.

This is the point where I find myself looking at my reflection in the deep end, the mirror me saying to come on in, the water’s fine.

Money is perhaps our greatest abstract. Used to be, we carried actual gold, but as things moved on, we graduated to paper certificates, themselves symbolic of all that heavy gold that we entrusted to one bank or reserve or another. Anymore, we’ve further abstracted that system to mere pixels that form the symbols we see on screen to know how much or how little material abstraction can be obtained for our abstracted pound of flesh.

What is actually real, anymore? What is it, and what is the standard by which we define it? We’ve graduated beyond the boiling point to a culture and society of pure steam, and we are all of us clawing at phantoms. If there was any hope of absolution at the end of this, my dark rainbow, I’m afraid I’ve none to offer, only more questions. Only more questions.

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Thoughts on the iPhone X

Apple announced two phones on Tuesday, effectively squeezing a year's worth of relevance into ten or fifteen minutes. First, we were introduced to iPhone 8, with its A11 processor and whatever all else makes it the best phone we've ever done. And then we were introduced to iPhone X, unequivocally the best phone we've ever done. And whether audiences knew it or not, we were immediately thrust into the battle that most of us face this time of year when whatever phone we're currently holding gets relegated to the shadows of the new glass and metal graven image Apple has forged for our immediate worship.

As an Apple employee, the pinch is felt four fold. Not only does my current phone seem like worthless shit, I'm going to be on hand--unless something happens--for two phone launches in under two months time. That means I'm not only going to be surrounded by the excitement, day in and day out, but also participating in it. Albeit, in a very non participatory way.

Say what you will about our benefits, about our stock options and RSUs. About our hourly wage. I, and I assume many or most of you who claim Apple Retail as your primary source of income, often struggle to make ends meet. This without the constant temptation to cash out all that stock so a mortgage payment can be made without having to live on Top Ramen for a fortnight at a time. If you have a spouse and children, it only gets worse. These new iPhones, for many of us, will mean masking sadness, even jealousy behind our award winning grins as we unite the uninitiated with a product we will later be on hand to help them understand.

Myself, I won't be able to afford an 8 this year. Even with "easy monthly payments" and what not, there are just too many important survival things I mat address before considering how new a device I want to be seen with. (And isn't that a huge part of it? Not what the phone can do for us in and of itself, but what it will mean to those around us who covet such things?) The iPhone X, by contrast, offers an even more desirable much less attainable goal. But I'll be there, watching my company sell someone a product by the hundreds that I, as an employee of that company, cannot responsibly afford. That's the key word here: Responsibly.

I could go preorder and 8 right now. Could wait it out until October 27th and preorder the X. There's nothing stopping me apart from the sense of responsibility I feel and hold toward and for my family. I'm going to try and save some money to get one, because yes, like many of you, I'd love to have one. But ultimately an iPhone, any iPhone, is a luxury item, and not the entitlement that Apple infers with our advertising.

What with all the company offers us, in terms of benefits, I do think it would be nice if there was an added concession for the very Face of Apple to be able to better afford our products on a more consistent basis. I appreciate the discounts we get, but EPP+ refreshes only often enough that my computer, iPad, whatever is on the cusp of vintage when my next such opportunity arises.

Am I asking for privelege? Yes I am. I'm asking for the privelege to better represent the company I work for by being able to reasonably afford new products on a more regular cycle.

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I Hate The Mall (I Hate Them All)

I've been using my Twitter account recently to berate malls and the people who regularly shop at them, and it occurred to me that this hatred might be construed by some as smug, or entitled. And in that I live under such circumstances that a collection of commercial enterprises forms the greatest threat to my day to day happiness and sense of well being, I suppose it is an entitled stance to take. I mean, I could live in a country with no potable water. I don't though. And is largely because there are countries out there whose constituents have to wonder where their next meal will come from, if at all. For the mall goer, that meal could come from a small variety of options; PF Chang's, Cheesecake Factory, Macaroni Grill, just to name a few. The telling aspect here is that really no matter where you are in America, it's very likely you know these places because you have the same options at your mall. It's homogenized. It's comfortable. And by virtue of being both of those things, it's boring as fuck. Worse still is the sheer number of people who mindlessly gravitate toward these places, like bees attracted to the color red. It's inexplicable. Consider that everything you might come to the mall to obtain, whether it's a burger and a beer or a new outfit to help you feel at least like a different asshole than the one you arrived as can be got online, usually cheaper and without waiting in lines, or standing around by the Fidget kiosk waiting for your buzzer to go off. Maybe not the beer. But I'd argue you could get a six pack of something good for about the same price as two pints of Bud Light from whatever place you've decided to elbow up and shell out for dinner or lunch or whatever. "But it's all about the ambience!" Really? Is it? By ambience do you mean noshing down a lukewarm hamburger with stained glass cheese in a room that sounds and smells like the inside of a dishwasher? Or is it that the waitress has bigger tits than you'd get at home? Ambience. The mall is a hive. There's not a one made that has parking designed for and by intelligent people. The average IQ of the American shopper drops an average of ten points upon entering a multi story parking structure. Twenty points if that structure includes parking spots on the up ramps. I could go on and on. I might, but not right now. I just wanted to quantify/qualify my disgust in a venue that allows more than 140 characters. Thanks for hearing me out. If I've kept you from going to the mall today, good. Keep it that way. Because you're better than that.

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There Is Something Wrong

There is something wrong when you live in a world where your paycheck arrives before the sun rises and is reduced to pennies before the sun sets on that same day. There is something wrong when you arrive to work, day after day, to peddle product, the cheapest of which you are only allowed to afford once every three years. There is something wrong when you live in a world that encourages you to feel rather than think. There is something wrong when your dreams are treated like escaped prisoners without; shot down before they can even touch the fences they were never destined to scale. There is something wrong when a clown can achieve the highest office among civilized men and brandish your freedoms and your personal safety like a balloon animal in a room full of porcupines. There is something wrong when you can't afford a birthday party or present for your child, and yet he or she smiles and looks on at you like you're a god because they haven't had enough birthdays to know what want is. There is something wrong when optimism becomes more survival mechanism than personal virtue, when disappointment becomes the only expectable outcome. There is something wrong.

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An Open Letter To AppleID (As An Entity)

Dear AppleID, There's really no other way to say this, but we, the world (and in particular the American or American-ized part of this world) just aren't ready for you. It's nothing personal. Consider, that any individual or group would willingly elect a pair of clown shoes like Donald Trump to the office of President of the United States does not take any form of security very seriously. Thus your password, which grows more complicated as you expand your reach, is far too mentally cumbersome for the lowest common denominator of first world society to remember. Add to that your recent foray into Two Factor Authentication and it's just a mess, just a goddamn mess. Helping an endless stream of customers who have forgotten your password feels like building sand castles in high tide. Some will even forget your password mere seconds after having reset it, which, as you know, involves typing the new password not once but twice. You know, I get that your intentions are good, that you're there to help link people to their "important" content, but--and this is the reason for the quotation marks--that content really couldn't be that important. We like to throw things on our phone and assume it's all going to be there when we look again. We don't understand the nature of having a second copy of everything as a backup, let alone the nature of the first copy. We don't understand high fallutin words like "abstract," or "redundancy," though we often exhibit both. Exhibit. There's another one that hops in the 747 of concepts that is constantly flying over our heads. So again, there's nothing personal about it, but if you could just make yourself scarce, or adapt yourself to no longer needing a password, making all of our private information a public feeding trough for malicious third parties, well, that'd really be super. Eight digits is hard enough, but couple that with the capital letter and number, and well, it's just too much. Too damn much. Your intentions were good, but as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's a frontage road though. As it happens, the five lane freeway to hell is paved with ignorance. I hope that we might find a way to work together in the future, but as of now, I don't really see that as a reality. Yours Sincerely, The Average 21st Century Consumer PS: If you could pass the message along to Four and Six Digit Passcodes, they're on the chopping block too. Sorry for any inconvenience!

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Enriching Lives

Anyone still trying to instill some purpose in their day to day activity at Apple Retail with this little chestnut? Enriching lives? What might that entail? Consider: Apple Retail is a store. A store that sells expensive, high end electronic goods to middle and upper class society. It stands to argue that anyone who comes in to buy an iPhone, whether it's their first or their fifteenth, whether they're buying it outright or financing, lead pretty en-rich-ed lives already. It's not like we're Habitat for Fucking Humanity assembling grass huts, or Sally Goddamn Struthers trying to weasel sixty cents a day out of daytime television watchers to feed a bunch of fly covered African kids their daily dollop of flour and water. This is not to make light of those situations, but to point out the inherent flaw of trying to sell luxury devices and have it come off as some kind of humanitarian effort. It isn't. Insomuch as an Apple product or an app can enrich a life, it ultimately comes down to a cost. That cost is absolutely monetary, and arguably spiritual, as any given day in the Product Zone or Family Room (or Avenue; do they have those in the ghetto?) becomes a garage sale of the soul. Personally, I don't have too much of a problem with a company trying to sell luxury devices, so long as their supply chain is environmentally conscious and responsible. But this idea that selling luxury devices is enriching lives is a crude and clumsy rationalization that sours my stomach every time I hear it uttered in a download. Sent From My iPhone