Information R/evolution

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Got to hand it to them

Recently, I've been spotting lots of stores holding down their banners with weighted plastic gloves filled with water. Just like this one.

Orange Juice Incident

I don't know about others, but I think this to be an incident ...

Just keep in mind that, as my boss says: 'We are all allowed, to a certain extent, our eccentricities'. He also says: 'There are just some things grown men are not supposed to do'.

At any rate, as the awful truth goes, we had a meeting with all us workers sitting around one big table and three bosses, let's call them Heads of Departments, sitting around the table with us. Just a general meeting about things that are supposed to be happening, that often never happen, and things we all need to be aware of over the coming months.

One of the office assistants brings in a couple of bottles of orange juice, the 1.5 liter kind, and some paper cups. Both bottles are opened and far more orange juice is poured out and passed around then was required. So, needless to say, everyone got a cup or two.

As soon as the meeting was over, most people left the room and went about their business.

I presumed that the orange juice would then go back for the office assistants to enjoy, or perhaps go to one of the Heads. However, before this could happen one of the other workers starts rounding up all the poured out cups of orange juice. After all the cups were collected, he starts pouring all the orange juice back into one of the bottles. He ends up getting a full bottle of orange juice out of it.

The worker then starts to walk off with the bottle when one of the senior Heads asks him "You going to be taking that home, are you?". He just laughs, and smiles, and says: "You betcha!"

Later on in the day, I am shown the full bottle of orange juice. I make my comments on it, about it probably should be going to the office assistants or to one of the Heads. A look of disgust and disdain came over the other guys face, and he blew off those comments.

The guy then asks me how much it would cost to buy such a bottle at the local supermarket. I tell him it'd be about $2. This pleases him no end, since that is the cost of the bus fare he had to pay to come and go from work that day. (So, after the post below, guess he is paying for the bus ride now). He also added that his wife would be taken by the concept, of the 'orange juice incident' equating to a free bus ride. I suppose she would since the only phrase I heard out of her mouth for the first several months was "It's just so expensive! Everything, is just so expensive."

Are buses that difficult?

The other day a fellow worker tells me he has figured out the bus system.

Not that hard really, you get on give the driver some money or you use a travel card or link the travel card to your credit card (if you can get one). He was told the number of the bus to catch, and I am sure that he would have been told the cost. In fact, I am positive that he would have demanded to know the cost. This would be due to his preoccupation with the price of things and everything, for his wife, just being 'so expensive'. He also knew where and when to get off since he can easily see the dirty big buildings that are his workplace and home. So, I initially wasn't sure what the "I've figured out the bus system" comment actually meant.

Turns out that after nearly three months the fellow had been riding the bus for free every time he came and went from work to his apartment. Pretty silly since the neighborhood is a fish bowl, and everyone would see him get on and off the bus and know who he is and where he lived. I am sure he has been fuel for much gossip of late as a result.

Turns out, and I don't know if I can really believe it but ... He tells me that he didn't know how to pay the bus driver or how much to pay. In fact, thinking about it now, I don't believe it. So, each time he got on the bus he just sat down somewhere, and then got off at his stop.

He compared bus riding here to the place where he had just come from, but I am pretty sure you need to pay for bus rides there as well. Thrown into the conversation was the notion that his wife was promoting the idea of riding the bus for free, since she is so money conscious, and "everything is just so expensive!"

A couple of months into doing this he tells me that he offered the bus driver the equivalent of a $10 note (the fare is about a $1), but the driver shook his head and waved the note away. So, of course, my fellow worker just goes and sits down and takes another free bus ride. In my opinion the bus driver should have taken the money, as it would have helped pay for at least some of the previous free trips.

After three months odd, and I think now, he is paying the $1 fare when he travels by bus to work and home.

I really commend the patience of the bus driver and the other commuters, who would have seen him doing this each trip. I doubt the people in the place he just came from would be as patient or tolerant. From the stories he has told me about that place, and from what I have heard from others, I think they would have searched his pockets for cash and stopped him from disembarking until he paid for the ride.

There really is a big difference between being thrifty, being frugal, or just being inconsiderate.

Don't do it ...

At a job I worked at a while ago a fellow worker appeared at work. He stormed off the elevator, ranted and raved for a few minutes, then touched his face. Upon touching his face he found that he had forgotten to shave. I pointed out that when we moved from one floor of the building to another floor there were some used disposables on the floor.

He and I laughed at that.

However, he then proceeded to hunt one of them down. It seems he had gathered them up, and stored them somewhere secretive. After succeeding at his quest he proudly held his prize high for all to see.

The disposable razor looked rusted, old, and very much preloved.

I suggested that he go to the supermarket, just a short stroll from the office building, and buy a razor if shaving was really all that important. This sage advice fell on deaf ears. He then decided to go into the washroom, and shave with the used, rusty, preloved disposable. He ended up cutting himself with it, and laughing about being HIV positive. At that precise moment there was a knock on the door ...

Yet for all the effort, in my opinion, still didn't look like he had shaved!!!