Black Friday is a LIE

Reading the myriad of new reports about "Black Friday" and the retailers trying to one up each other this year makes me want to smack someone in the head. I feel like I need to get a calendar out and teach retailer CEO's the days of the week again. My 1st grader knows them. So, I would assume that once you get disgustingly rich, and never work on holidays, you must forget the days of the week.


First, IT IS NOT BLACK FRIDAY SALE IF YOU'RE OPEN ON THURSDAY. PERIOD.
Thursday ≠ Friday. Ever.
Example:

"Kmart announced that the stores that long promoted "blue light specials" will be open AT 6AM on Thanksgiving morning until 11 p.m. Friday night.
Sears stores will work a less aggressive schedule, opening from 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night to 10 p.m. Friday."

That means, people do not get to spend time with their families, on a FAMILY holiday. Also, IT IS NOT BLACK FRIDAY SALE IF YOU ARE OPEN ON THURSDAY. I don't understand the confusion here. You can't have a Black Friday sale if the day of the sale is NOT FRIDAY

"Some malls and even Target, Macy’s and JC Penny will open at 8 PM Thanksgiving Day for the beginning of the Black Friday deals."

I love you Target, but come on. I expect better.

Can we have one damn day a year? Retail and customer service doesn't deserve ONE DAY OFF from humanity and its general rudeness??? Really? It can't wait until FRIDAY?

Now, that we have established that 'Black Friday' means nothing since stores are opened for the same sales on days that are NOT Fridays... Why stop at Thursday??? If you really want to win this game, you have to think outside the box.

Let's have Black Friday on the MONDAY of Thanksgiving week. Hell, why bother with just a week early? Let's smash the competitors and start with the first Friday of November and call THAT Friday, Black Friday instead. Retailers are always moaning about the short holiday shopping season. So, why not move "Black Friday" a couple weeks so that people can spend one damn holiday with family. JUST ONE.

Amazon and Wal-Mart are already on that idea of starting holiday sales right after Halloween. Both of them started their sales November 1st.

For the record, I have never shopped on Black Friday. I have worked in retail for it in the past, and people who go out and shop on Black Friday, are INSANE. You know what? I have to deal with insanity, rudeness and mean people every single work day.
I have to work Thanksgiving.
I have to work the day after.
I'll probably have to work Christmas eve, Christmas day and New Years.
I miss every holiday.
It sucks.

It would be nice if we, the holiday deprived, could get ONE DAMN HOLIDAY OFF.

Random Rants

Sports pain...

I will say what we are all thinking after they lost 55-31 today.

Go home steelers, you're DRUNK.

What happens when you overspend on one player and then shop at the dollar store for the rest of the team? Yeah. I know. Right? Or Maybe the Pirates passed on the Loseritis to them.

KEEP ALL THE STEELERS AWAY FROM THE HOCKEY TEAM, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.


Open letters

Dear Coworker,

Stop wearing pajama pants to work. STOP IT. It takes all of ONE WHOLE MINUTE to put on a pair of jeans. And if you are using that one minute to put ON the pajama pants? You really need to evaluate your LIFE. Pajama Pants are not intended to be worn to work. OR EVEN OUTSIDE.
At this point, yoga pants, leggings, and pajama jeans are way more appropriate clothing to wear to work.
Have you ever heard the expression "dress for the job you want, not the job you have?" Is your desired job Homeless Person? I don't expect you to go all out, but you know, executives pass through our building, you could at least LOOK like you work for the damn company.
Seriously.



Dear Cats,

Knock your shit off at 5 am. You can play on the ENTIRE 1st floor. I would prefer to sleep rather than be assaulted by cats chasing each other all over my bedroom at 5 in the morning. And I would love if you played with the 204857594 toys down there instead of knocking all my stuff off my vanity at 6 am.
OK?
ok.


Yeah. I'm living a pipe dream. I know it. Tonight cats are going to pull my hair or sit on my chest and suffocate me, and I'll see pajama pants at work tomorrow, I'm sure.

My favorite line of the week:

"I spend all day at work NOT telling people how I really feel, so it all has to come out some time!"

Drunken road work

I have come to the conclusion that the people who plan and execute our road work around here are either drunk or effing with the rest of us.


Take this article:

Lack of traffic police makes West Carson Street mess much worse

Over an hour to go from the fort pitt bridge to the west end. Ridiculous.

Now, I may be taking a very simplistic view of this but.... They KNEW this was going to an extended road closure, because THEY PLANNED it. Why would they rely solely on off duty cops? And now there is 'he said, she said' going on between the contractor and police resulting in no cops for a week.

Here is a novel idea, adjust the timers on the 5 traffic lights involved, to be LONGER INTERVALS during rush hour. I know its probably not that easy, but it has to cost less than $500,000 we are paying for nobody to be there at all. WTF. It is a 2 year closure, this is a significant amount of time.

The there is 65. And its drunk repaving. I drove through there today. OMFG. 
First, they have several miles closed where there is no work being done AT ALL because they are WAY over on the other side of 65. Like 7 miles away.

The lanes are so narrow that a large greyhound bus had to crawl through at 20 miles an hour or knock over all the construction flags. Which, by the way, were as straight as a drunk guy on an all night bender trying to convince a cop he was sober. 

instead of finishing one section at a time, the are milling different spots and doing first layer paving on others... There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the pattern at all.


My other favorite construction area is in cranberry where they are going to make the bridge on 228 (that crosses over 79) wider, along with the road and new ramps. PennDot is NOT EVEN CLOSE to finishing these ramps, and they already painted new lane markings for the ramps. Ramps that do not exist. The traffic patterns are going to have to change a couple more times for paving and stuff... WHY PAINT NOW?


*sigh*

Time to update the (NOT A BUCKET) list

Shit I wanna do: 2013 Edition

• Go to the Ocean (THIS IS HAPPENING THIS WEEK!!!)
• Go to see Falling Water or Falling Water AFTER DARK TOUR
• Go to Kennywood for phantom fright nights
• Heinz History Center
• The PGH Glass Center
• Go to the Frick Art & Historical Center
• Sandcastle once this summer (been 18 yrs. Ahem)
• Just Ducky Tour (I just want to take mike on it once)

Things I will do again:

• Phipps Conservatory (this is a staple... I love seeing the flowers)
• Splash lagoon/erie  (Julia loves the water park)
• Aviary
• Arts festival (THE FOUNTAIN REOPENS THIS SUMMER)

If anyone has some suggestions, leave it the in the comments. If I haven't done it? I may add it.

Bitch, Please. #RollsEyes

Well... I finally got to catch up on the Applebee story. I do have a few opinions on the matter. (Shocked? Didn't think so.)

I love how the "pastor" is "sorry" for what she wrote, now,  in this Smoking Gun Story. You know what? She is only "sorry" because she got called out. She was so full of herself and how special she thinks SHE is, that she wrote her name AND added the "Pastor" to her little nasty remark.

HEY LITTLE MISS THANG, NORMAL GRATUITY IS 15%. WHAT makes you SOOOOOO special that you don't have to tip at all? If you were unhappy with your service you should have talked to the manager on duty. THAT is why they are there.

Yes. I know the girl that took the picture of the receipt and posted it was fired because it showed the name of the pastor. Yes. I know this was NOT the person who waited on her.

I used to wait on tables. You make a crappy $2.13 an hour. PLUS TIPS. In a lot of places you now have to SHARE tips with the busboys (who make minimum wage if not more.) and bartenders (who get their own damn tips) too. To be clear, 18% gratuity is STANDARD for parties of 8 or more for as long as I can remember, She was in a party of 10. (per the news)

If your waiter or waitress bust their ass for you, you should tip them. It is appalling that people have become so rude and thoughtless. In researching, I found a pic of a $138 restaurant bill that says "single mom, sorry" in the tip line. EFF YOU BITCH. Liar. You have a $138 to eat and drink, then you can tip the poor person who was forced to take care of your greedy ass.

Then there was one where someone left a pre-typed note claiming that they couldn't afford to tip because of a new tax in California. Let us cut to the chase... Who ever that was? TOTAL COMPLETE ASS. The waitstaff has to pay taxes too, you know. They know. They don't care.
Everyone like this, thinks they are special, they are ABOVE the rules.
Everyone like this, thinks that exceptions are meant for them.
Everyone like this is, thinks they are "entitled."


Everyone like this, is full of shit.

Money. Money. Money.

On my break today, I saw this article. It started with a girl who has 7 destination weddings in less than 12 months, 10 vacation days and recently spent over $2000 just to attend ONE of the 7 weddings. 
ONE.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/travel/obligation-travel/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
Now, I may be bitchy about this... This is a blog where I rant...
I love you dear friends. But I'm not spending OVER $2000 to observe any of you get married. I simply don't have that kind of money.
I will be damned if some CNN article is going to make me feel bad because I can't afford to and have to say no.
(As a side note, none of my friends are getting married this yr and all of them are nice enough to not lay a guilt trip on me if I couldn't afford it.)
According to CNN, I "have no excuse" Not to attend events like weddings and such if it is in the US.
Um yeah. I havent gotten to see the ocean.
Because I can't afford it.
I am pretty sure I can't afford a $1000 trip to Miami for a BACHELORETTE PARTY.  Or $4000 for a trip to the Caribbean. (Students using their student loan money apparently)
The moral of this rant is that if your "closest," "best" friends and family can't understand if you can't afford a super expensive Bridal shower, bachelorette party and wedding, then they are materialistic assholes you don't need to have in your life.

Why are they still TRYING?

Today, I saw a headline on CNN Money: "Blackberry's iPhone killer leaks."

And I immediately want to kick someone.

The FIRST mistake in the headline? "Blackberry's." The CORRECT company name is RESEARCH IN MOTION, CNN Money.

The SECOND mistake is "iPhone Killer."

HAVE WE NOT LEARNED, CNN Money? YOU CANT KILL THE IPHONE. ITS A PLAGUE WITH NO CURE.

I wrote about "iPhone Killers 2 other times in this blog.

iPhone killer? Shut up already.

iPhone killer revisted


NOTHING HAS CHANGED. SINCE 2009. Apple screwed up maps SO BAD, they had to publicly apologize. People still bought the phones. People still lie, cheat, steal and scam to get stupid iPhones like they do for NO OTHER DEVICE. #FirstHandKnowledge

Let's look at the (shortest) list for 2012 of phones that should have committed 1st degree murder:

Htc one x .... Fabulous device. Only available on GSM carriers like AT&T on the US side of the ocean

Windows 8 phone.... Just not going to happen. It's a cool OS. There are some great phones, but they just aren't highly sought after.

BB 10 Phones: It's too early to tell how well the market will receive the new phones since they haven't launched yet. 

Galaxy S 3... Probably the only smart phone in 4 years to outsell an iPhone. Samsung worked for apple for a long time and the device they made partnered with the excellent marketing is as close as you will ever get to killing iPhone. Which is still not going to die any time soon. All you have to do is observe the masses who bought iPad minis made with the 3 yr old screen from the original iPad to know I am telling the truth.

So, stop it. Stop trying to declare new phones as "iPhone killers." Stop trying. I mean it. #MomLook 

Always An Adventure.

Well, I was looking back at 2012.

It had its moments, good and bad... I didn't get to check much off the NON bucket list that I have made, but 2013 is a new year. I have plans to find a way to see the ocean. This year.

For those who don't know... I got a promotion at work. Which has returned me to crappy ass hours. Hope its not this crappy too much longer. I don't get to see grown up, non workplace people very often outside of work these days. I am currently very happy. (Even if I gripe about teenagers.)

But nothing says HAPPY NEW YEAR like your rear window exploding at 65 Mph.

Everything is ok with my car... I was all alone on the exit ramp when the window just gave up on life... While I was scared out of my wits when it happened, I can laugh about it now. Also, I'm glad State Farm was so easy to work with, so far. It is all 100% covered and I will have my car back on the 5th.

Nothing like starting the year with a BANG.....