The Annoyance Never Stops!

[Good Intentions]

 

Jess, good luck at your conference!

GI, what sort of a person does it make you when you define someone by what they do to pay the bills? I am not my job.

Firstly, your rethorical question doesn't hit the target because I did not go any way to defining someone by what job they do. If you did sales without dehumanising your clients in the way I described (I guess it's conceivably possible) then you wouldn't be a bad person: what the job is you're doing isn't where the action is. It's all about the type of relationships you have with your fellow human beings. It just turns out that doing a job in sales in our contemporary climate encourages if not necessitates acting like a moral leper, which is why you shouldn't do it.

We can agree that there are some jobs that simply necessitate being a bad person to perform them? Being a hitman, for instance. Choose another example if you like. Having established that there are jobs that necessitate immorality to perform them, it becomes a matter of degree: how bad do you have to be to do that job? For instance, as a cashier I'm supposed to upsell. I fucking hate it. It's dehumanising my customers as much as is possible from my pathetically powerless position as the till-monkey (the only thing that is worse is short-changing someone, which I absolutely refuse to do and which even our increasinly autistic culture recognises as an ill, so I don't get in trouble for my heroic moral stand). I avoid doing so upselling as far as I can bear. The degree to which I am encouraged to dehumanise my customers is more or less the degree to which my job is immoral - the degree to which I play a long is how bad a person it makes me.

I made an argument for why a job in sales makes you act in a systematically immoral way. If you think this judgement doesn't carry any weight, then you misunderstand what is meant by moral (in short, all those who said words to the effect of 'violating some Kantian imperative that 99.9% of us violate every day': fucking weaksauce). If you want an indication of where ethics can become political, consider what a job (or rather, occupation) would be that would not be immoral in this way. I say that the increasing rethoric about work-life seperation and all that nonsense is mostly caused by the growing unease a lot of people feel by being pushed into doing dodgier and dodgier things in order to pay the bills.

[hannah]

Hang in there, Whit. Winter break fast approaches, maybe?

(This because I mean it, and because my easy joke was callous.)

[YojimboMonkey]

Hey hannah you sounded really pissed off back there, what's up?

(You see, I've been taken in by her plagiarism, thus further enraging whit)

[auto-da-fey]

(in short, all those who said words to the effect of 'violating some Kantian imperative that 99.9% of us violate every day': fucking weaksauce).

Wait, did more people say that? Are OTHER people plagiarizing me now???

Also GI hitmen kinda rock sometimes. I can't take the bait to argue morals, alas, I'm just in a venting mood. But at a glance this matter of degrees that distinguishes till-monkeyism (something I did for numerous years, including a painful yearlong fast food stint) from car sales strikes me as even weaker sauce. Just sayin'.

[hannah]

Hey hannah you sounded really pissed off back there, what's up?

Thanks for asking, Jim! See, like what happened a lot with Ronald Andrea Dworkin, my criticisms of common heterosexual sexual expression, pornography, prostitution, and sexual sadism are frequently claimed to disregard women's own agency in sex or to deny women's sexual choices. Sure, Dworkin could counter that her critics often misrepresented her views,[93] and that under the heading of "choice" and "sex-positivity" her feminist critics were failing to question the often violent political structures that confined women's choices and shaped the meaning of sex acts, but I am not so lucky.

[girl]

I love you guys!

[Good Intentions]

But at a glance this matter of degrees that distinguishes till-monkeyism (something I did for numerous years, including a painful yearlong fast food stint) from car sales strikes me as even weaker sauce. Just sayin'.

Try that line again when I come on here and bitch about people being too fucking self-absorbed to buy a second can of Red Bull (something I might happen to get an incentive for).

If you don't see the differences in degree, then I think you're being obtuse.

[milesofsparks]

I would like to interrupt to say that I am annoyed that my stupid rapidographs are all dried up and I don't know where the cleaning kit is.  also that my hand drawing skillz are mad rusty.  meh.

{carry on with the morality debates.}

[jess]

Jess, good luck at your conference!

(Btw, if anyone has any suggestions for things to do in Philly, I welcome them, though I probably won't have a ton of free time.)

Bassett's ice cream in the Terminal Market!

Thanks! Poster has been picked up, laundry done, am still tired but packing slowly and a bit less stressed. It looks like tomorrow will actually be low key, so maybe I will have time to nap/relax/go on quests for ice cream.

[Good Intentions]

It is true that the classic example of how the existence of a type of job might indicate a moral lapse somewhere is  the profession of being a cashier. If the owner of the shop ran the till, not a problem, because running the till is part of running the store, and contributes to the general welfare of the shopowner and the shopowner can cater to the general welfare of his customers, to whom he stands in a human relationship (and it is possible, conceivably and actually, for a shopowner to be a boon to a community - think of the type of bar everybody wants as a local, or a record store that offers its customers, many of them friends of the management, access to good music). Luckily for my moral standing, the blame is normally not to be placed at the feet of the cashier, because the cashier is the one worst off in the dehumanising relationship (both between him and the customer and him and his management). Heaven knows that enough of my customers think that God placed me on earth for no other reason than to bring about whatever gratuitous whim they might have.

[auto-da-fey]

If you don't see the differences in degree, then I think you're being obtuse.

I mean yeah, but I thought the key criterion was treating people as ends in themselves. My memory of working first in fast food and then later at a gas station/convenience store was that I treated most customers as the enemy, because working in a service or retail job, it's nearly impossible not to come to perceive them that way. No, you can't buy cigarettes without ID. No, I can't cash your check. Yes, my nametag says "Whitney," just like Whitney Houston. Fuck you.

I dunno, I realize that wasn't a very substantive response, and I'm sorry. Really I'm just back here to bitch more because I thought things couldn't get worse, but they did. Lesson #2 of the night for plagiarists: when you DO crib entire paragraphs off the internet, it's best to make sure the font matches the font you're using in the paper, and that your cut-and-paste doesn't carry a darker background with it. Oh god. Oh god.

Oh god.

[auto-da-fey]

Oh and jess, rock that shit!

[Good Intentions]

Really I'm just back here to bitch more because I thought things couldn't get worse, but they did. Lesson #2 of the night for plagiarists: when you DO crib entire paragraphs off the internet, it's best to make sure the font matches the font you're using in the paper, and that your cut-and-paste doesn't carry a darker background with it. Oh god. Oh god.

Oh god.

[Andrew_TSKS]

hah, whit, i have a whole story about plagiarism. there is this middle-aged woman that's a customer at my store and is constantly talking about her own writing efforts, and name-dropping people, and also shoehorning any possible reference to her own work into any conversation at all, and she's super-annoying, and from what i've read in the past, an excruciatingly awful writer. well, she recently published a book on a small press called "haunted richmond", about local ghost legends and etc. it had been selling really well at our store (it's the first time she's published something we could even carry--all her previous shit was either bullshit chapbooks or stories in collections of erotica), which i figured must be because of the subject matter, which is pretty appealing to a broad cross-section of people even if the book isn't well written. then i picked it up and found the writing to be... not spectacular, but certainly serviceable. it was a real surprise compared to the woman's usual writing quality. but then another customer came into the store one day and picked it up, and realized that the chapter dealing with scotchtown was cribbed directly from something she herself had written for scotchtown's website (she works for the virginia preservation society--the page i linked above is the article from which the woman cribbed). this other customer had me go to the scotchtown website and she read out loud from the woman's book while i read along on the site. aside from the occasional dropped phrase, it was word for word, for pages. i couldn't believe it. well, and then i thought about it, and i totally could.

so yeah, whatever you've encountered, trust me, it could be a lot worse.

[auto-da-fey]

well, that definitely surpasses the scale and magnitude of my plagiarists; I'm not sure, though, that it's "worse," at least in terms of sheer blatancy and stupidity.

but what came of all that? did the real author file any sort of grievance?

[jebreject]

Oh, I know what they're saying.  I'm saying they're wrong.  An addition to the annoying thread that says "man, I sure hate having to look at people's credit all day.  People who can't afford to feed their kids are trying to buy $30,000 cars." turns into "PEOPLE WITH BAD CREDIT OR NO MONEY ARE ALL BLACK AND THEREFORE YOU ARE RACIST FOR SPEAKING ILL OF THEM.  ALSO KANT PROLETARIAT KANT KANT BOURGEOUSIE QUIT YOUR JOB!"

1. When did Freddy forget how to read?
2. When did he become such a troll?

[jebreject]

(Btw, if anyone has any suggestions for things to do in Philly, I welcome them, though I probably won't have a ton of free time.)

Philly Record Exchange, f'reals, where you can badger Tom Siltbreeze and check for me to see if they still have that Dear Astronaut CD I sold them. There's a real awesome market I forget the name of where we bought all kinds of awesome things to make breakfast with. Also there was this gay bar we went to and danced at and all the beer was half off. Sorry this is not helpful at all. All I can really say is no matter how good of an idea it seems, do NOT buy a vegetarian cheesesteak. Your stomach will never forgive you.

On the topic of Philadelphia, MAN, that place had more cops per capita than anywhere else I'd ever been (though I've never been to a FOP convention). We drank in some park and I was actually kinda afraid we were gonna get busted for doing so. That's another thing about Philadelphia: the liquor is expensive and hard to come by. Beware!

[dieblucasdie]

Yes, it was a moral dismissal of sales, and nothing else. You shouldn't work in sales. It makes you a bad person.

This is true.

I mean, I don't hate any of y'all and I realize people gotta do what they gotta do to pay the bills sometimes, but sales will make you hate yourself if you're a good person, and hate humanity if you're not.

[maggiego]

I am back. Sorry fer being oversensitive. 

[dieblucasdie]

ha you were probably the person being the least oversensitive over the last 4 pages of trainwreck.

[jebreject]

WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE

oh yeah 'cause i'm having a fucking mental breakdown

[dieblucasdie]

queer for that

[hannah]

yeah, same on all counts. take care, you two, and get some sleep. me, i'm just hoping i fall asleep somewhere between now and when i'm supposed to wake up.

[morgan]

to all of you.  Sorry you're having such a tough time, guys.

[Greg Nog]

ha you were probably the person being the least oversensitive over the last 4 pages of trainwreck.

Hey, fuck you, I stayed out of it completely, despite reading several things that made me spit curses at the computer screen.

(Btw, if anyone has any suggestions for things to do in Philly, I welcome them, though I probably won't have a ton of free time.)

This thread has several suggestions, but the most important thing is my advice to go to Koch's if you want the most gigantic deli sandwiches ever.