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plonqThe title is true, but apropos of nothing.
I read a tale of pettiness on the Internet today, and it reminded me of a story from my past.
The story was from a guy who was out with a group of his friends for dinner. One of his friends had only eaten half of his food, and when the waiter came around to drop off the bill, his friend declined the offer to have it packaged up. The protagonist asked his friend if he could package it up and take it home for his dog, and the friend agree. When they were paying the bill, the friend told the narrator that he would have to pay for half of the meal since he was taking half of it home. When the protagonist baulked, his friend gave the food back to the waiter and instructed them to throw it in the garbage.
The other friends present all agreed that this was a reasonable action. The general consensus in the comments section was that this person needed to find better friends.
This reminded me of an incident at my first job. I was working in the warehouse/stock/receiving part of the company at the time, and part of my duties were arranging for runs to the city dump when our loading bay got too full. We were especially busy at the time, so my older brother was getting in some part-time work helping out on the trucks. When they showed up at the bay to begin loading up the truck with garbage, he discovered that some of the "garbage" was a tall stack of re-covered foam mattresses that just weren't selling. The general manager had instructed us to "Take those fucking things to the dump. They're just taking up space."
My brother stopped us from loading them into the truck, saying he had a friend who would haul them away for free (versus paying employees and dump fees). He explained that his friend was a musician who would probably be thrilled to use them as dampers on the walls of his practise room. His friend showed up, and while we loaded up the truck with the other garbage, his friend started tossing the dusty old mattresses into his truck.
The GM (who was also the owner's son - it was that kind of business) came back to check on us while this was going on, and as soon as he arrived, he immediately demanded to know what we were doing with the mattresses. We explained that when my brother's friend learned that we were throwing a stack of old mattresses in the garbage, he offered to haul them away for free since he could re-purpose them for sound baffling. It was win-win since both sides in the transaction were saving money.
The GM would not hear of it. "That's not your property - this is theft. You can't just take those without paying."
We pointed out that he had literally thrown them in the trash as unwanted detritus, and that my brother's friend was scavenging them from the dumpster.
The GM was adamant. Until they left the property, taking them without paying was theft - though he'd be willing to cut the friend a slight deal on the cost since they were scuffed and dirty from being thrown in the trash.
My brother's friend promptly started throwing the mattresses of the back of his truck again, told the GM what he thought of the terms, and where he could stick his old, crappy mattresses.
The guys finished loading up the box truck with the mattresses and the rest of the garbage, pointedly letting the GM that they'd let him know how much it cost us to dispose of the mattresses when they took them to the landfill.
On an unrelated note, the GM eventually drove his dad's business into bankruptcy with his smart decision-making. I stuck around through the liquidation process, and then got laid off at the end when they re-branded as a much smaller company. It's still around, but one of the former truck-drivers owns the place now.
I still remember the slightly demeaning "we're doing you a favour" speech they gave me when they let me go.
In the end, they were right. They did me a huge favour.
They were still idiots, though.
We had a fairly modest Christmas this year, giving each other one small, and one mid-sized gift. The mid-sized one thatatara gave me was a light cube.
I did not take it out of its case for this shot because it took some work to get it back in there after I pulled it out yesterday. I didn't notice that it was under tension when I unpacked it yesterday, and it sprung open on me.
After fighting with it for a bit, we finally resorted to YouTube, and found a helpful tutorial on how to fold it back up. The guy in the video prefaced it with, "You are probably watching this video because you pulled this out of the package and it sprung open before you had a chance to see how it had been folded up..." Even with the visual guidance, it still required a strange, counter-intuitive twist and fold at the very end that I achieved as much through luck as by design.
I may have to build an appropriate table for it in the basement at some point, since it takes up a decent amount of space when it's all spread out. Also, it can be folded flat for storage without having to cram it back into its original package, so I may do that between uses unless I need to take it on the road with me.
I read a tale of pettiness on the Internet today, and it reminded me of a story from my past.
The story was from a guy who was out with a group of his friends for dinner. One of his friends had only eaten half of his food, and when the waiter came around to drop off the bill, his friend declined the offer to have it packaged up. The protagonist asked his friend if he could package it up and take it home for his dog, and the friend agree. When they were paying the bill, the friend told the narrator that he would have to pay for half of the meal since he was taking half of it home. When the protagonist baulked, his friend gave the food back to the waiter and instructed them to throw it in the garbage.
The other friends present all agreed that this was a reasonable action. The general consensus in the comments section was that this person needed to find better friends.
This reminded me of an incident at my first job. I was working in the warehouse/stock/receiving part of the company at the time, and part of my duties were arranging for runs to the city dump when our loading bay got too full. We were especially busy at the time, so my older brother was getting in some part-time work helping out on the trucks. When they showed up at the bay to begin loading up the truck with garbage, he discovered that some of the "garbage" was a tall stack of re-covered foam mattresses that just weren't selling. The general manager had instructed us to "Take those fucking things to the dump. They're just taking up space."
My brother stopped us from loading them into the truck, saying he had a friend who would haul them away for free (versus paying employees and dump fees). He explained that his friend was a musician who would probably be thrilled to use them as dampers on the walls of his practise room. His friend showed up, and while we loaded up the truck with the other garbage, his friend started tossing the dusty old mattresses into his truck.
The GM (who was also the owner's son - it was that kind of business) came back to check on us while this was going on, and as soon as he arrived, he immediately demanded to know what we were doing with the mattresses. We explained that when my brother's friend learned that we were throwing a stack of old mattresses in the garbage, he offered to haul them away for free since he could re-purpose them for sound baffling. It was win-win since both sides in the transaction were saving money.
The GM would not hear of it. "That's not your property - this is theft. You can't just take those without paying."
We pointed out that he had literally thrown them in the trash as unwanted detritus, and that my brother's friend was scavenging them from the dumpster.
The GM was adamant. Until they left the property, taking them without paying was theft - though he'd be willing to cut the friend a slight deal on the cost since they were scuffed and dirty from being thrown in the trash.
My brother's friend promptly started throwing the mattresses of the back of his truck again, told the GM what he thought of the terms, and where he could stick his old, crappy mattresses.
The guys finished loading up the box truck with the mattresses and the rest of the garbage, pointedly letting the GM that they'd let him know how much it cost us to dispose of the mattresses when they took them to the landfill.
On an unrelated note, the GM eventually drove his dad's business into bankruptcy with his smart decision-making. I stuck around through the liquidation process, and then got laid off at the end when they re-branded as a much smaller company. It's still around, but one of the former truck-drivers owns the place now.
I still remember the slightly demeaning "we're doing you a favour" speech they gave me when they let me go.
In the end, they were right. They did me a huge favour.
They were still idiots, though.
We had a fairly modest Christmas this year, giving each other one small, and one mid-sized gift. The mid-sized one that
atara gave me was a light cube.I did not take it out of its case for this shot because it took some work to get it back in there after I pulled it out yesterday. I didn't notice that it was under tension when I unpacked it yesterday, and it sprung open on me.
After fighting with it for a bit, we finally resorted to YouTube, and found a helpful tutorial on how to fold it back up. The guy in the video prefaced it with, "You are probably watching this video because you pulled this out of the package and it sprung open before you had a chance to see how it had been folded up..." Even with the visual guidance, it still required a strange, counter-intuitive twist and fold at the very end that I achieved as much through luck as by design.
I may have to build an appropriate table for it in the basement at some point, since it takes up a decent amount of space when it's all spread out. Also, it can be folded flat for storage without having to cram it back into its original package, so I may do that between uses unless I need to take it on the road with me.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 09:54 pm (UTC)Also, my green washing employer has frequently frowned on employees (myself) from dumptster diving on the premises.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-27 10:46 pm (UTC)I trusted the union far more than I trusted the company, and even though I never had to go back to the ranks, I considered the dues to be partial payback for a couple of times they went to bat for me early in my career.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-28 11:00 pm (UTC)I like your new icon, it's the Nightmare at Christmas. 8^D
no subject
Date: 2021-01-06 06:40 pm (UTC)I have added some of them back in Dreamwidth, but I pared things down to the ones that I use most often.