When I was at UPS tonight I was thinking about how responsibility works. One thing that I've (re)learned about responsibility recently is that the person responsible for one thing may not be solely or entirely at fault for the thing in question. Furthermore, the person responsible may or may not bear any consequences for the responsibility.
At UPS loaders are responsible for misloads. This means that we need to check every package and make sure that it belongs in the feeder, package car, smalls bag, etc that we are loading. However, if we do misload a package it is almost never solely our fault. For a package to be misloaded it must first be handled by a sorter and then a pick-off. If one or both of those people mess up their job then you can end up with a misload. UPS simply puts the responsibility on laoders, because we are the last line of defense.
At first I was thinking that this was unfair, but after some thought I realized that it makes the most sense. This same sort of thing happens in all areas of life, but I've seen it before in sports like soccer and basketball. In either of these sports a player can quickly save the ball from going out of bounds while the player goes out of bounds. However, there may not be an open teammate to give the ball to, so you might knock the ball into an opposing player causing the ball to go directly out of bounds right after hitting that player. Then you get possession, and you get to inbound the ball. Here again you have a responsible party (that everyone accepts) who is not the sole cause of the out-of-bounds.
I think that all of this is really interesting, because there are actually many times in life where there is more than one person involved in an event. In this event there can be causers, consequence bearers, and responsible parties. In many situations they are all the same person.
(At UPS there are many parties involved. There are package sorters, pick-offs, loaders, supervisors at all different levels, the company as a whole, and the customer. Loaders and supervisors bear the responsibility -- even when they have little control of the issue. Sorters and pick-offs cause the misloads. The loader can do something about them. The customer, the loader, the supervisor, and the company bear the consequences -- late packages, disciplinary action, and incurring more shipping costs respectively.)
Determining who bears responsibility for things is pretty important, because it effects how people act. In my UPS example, the sorters don't have any responsibility or incentive for sorting things correctly. There is no way to tell who (of roughly a few dozen people) missorted a package. So, I imagine that they are more easy-going about their jobs. Loaders, on the other hand, are responsible so they check every package and make sure that it belongs where it is before they laod it.
I know a handful of people who often use the phrase, "...you should have done..." I've never really been a big fan of this phrase, but I've never articulated why I dislike it so much. For most people I talk to it seems to be a semantics issue or something similarly unimportant. I think it is more important than that, and I have a preferred substitute phrase that I think works better.
"...next time you can..."
The reason I dislike the first phrase is that it is backwards-looking. I hear that phrase and I hear someone projecting negativity or regret and along with that often comes a strong desire to change the past. That's not really possible or contructive.
When I discuss this with someone who uses this phrase often I wil quickly learn that they don't really intend to be so negative. Ceratainly sometimes they do, but generally it is just a way of saying something. So, after hearing what they'd like to communicate I offer up a more positive and constructive way of saying what's on their mind. Instead of, "David, you should have taken a right, and we would have gotten there sooner." the same thought can just as easily be, "David, next time you can take a right, and it will save more time."
Perhaps this is all just in my head. I don't know. This is one reason I am blogging about it. (The other reason being that I just like to write) I'd like to know if other people can see the difference between these two approaches. I strongly feel that the first approach is negative, backward-looking, and filled with projected regret; whereas the second approach is positive, forward-looking, and filled with a hope for improvement in the future.
I heard it over and over again before I got married. In movies and on TV; from parents, friends, and friend's parents; even strangers would tell me that once you got married you'd notice quirky little things about your spouse. Well, I noticed one thing within a few weeks of marrying Joy -- toilet paper rolls.
At first, I thought that she just forgot to remove the old toilet paper and put on a new one. After a while I felt like maybe this was 'my job.' I thought about how with my parents it was always my dad's job to put the food away after a meal. My mom would almost always cook, and my dad would put lids, plastic wrap, etc on the different serving pieces and then find a place for them in the refridgerator. (There are more funny things about this story -- like my dad still not knowing where anything is in the refridgerator despite the fact that all leftovers in there had been put there by him.) Maybe changing the old toilet paper roll out for a new one was, in Joy's mind, a guy job.
This weekend I am up in Gainesville again spending time with Joy as she moves in for one last semester at UF. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived at her apartment was... not one, but TWO used toilet paper rolls!! One was on the TP roll holder and the other was above it on the bathroom countertop! That's where she puts them when she needs to get another one.
Wow, I was impressed. This has gone too far. It's not that hard to just take the old tube thingie off the holder and put a new roll of TP in its place. Going through a whole roll without doing this is just... something else, man.
So, I talked to Joy about this. At first she wasn't sure what I was talking about. Then a day or so later she comes to me and tells me that I am right. She doesn't change the TP roll all the time.
She hoped that I didn't mind changing it.
I don't really... it's just another one of those funny and cute things that I may come to hate in a decade or so.
Joy, Jessica, and I went to see Jennifer (the hamster lady) this evening and we picked out four new dwarf hamsters. We haven't named them yet or anything, and we've still got them in a temporary living situation for now, but I'll update this post with more information when it comes.
Love, caring, and self-control seem to be so interrelated that they are often confused for each other or rendered indistinguishable from one another.
In one sense, if you are lacking in self-control you can be considered completely uncaring, careless, and be quickly accused of "not caring." (That's a bad thing) Also, by lacking self-control you can easily fall into behaviors or perhaps, if your lucky, discrete actions which would often be deemed unloving, disloyal/unfaithful, or even mean and hateful.
In another sense, if you have a great amount of self-control AND you desired to show love and care for those around you... you could easily accomplish the feat without having any feelings of special regard for those people. You could just be 'going through the motions,' because you wanted to for any reason other than actual regard for people.
Strangely no one I know falls into either of these extremes. No one I know has perfect self-control nor is completely lacking in self-control. Likewise, none of these people have a perfectly "high" regard for the people around them nor do they have absolutely no regard for their neighbors. So, what are we to do?
I guess we just stumble through life. Sometimes we have a certain higher regard for people, but have moments in which our self-control fails. In these instances apologies are usually given, and life moves on just as it had before.
Moving from the abstract to the more concrete... I have a confession to make. I have a fairly high regard for my wife. In fact, I often go so far as saying that I love her. However, I have not yet fully developed self-control. So, basically today when I...
Crap! It's time to go work.
I'll have finish this later.
Joy has two more classes to take before she can graduate from UF this summer. So, she is taking Organic Chemistry II and Speech during Summer B, which starts Monday. She just left for Gainesville a few minutes ago, and I'll be driving up directly from work at UPS.
That should be fun... 2 hours of driving while sweaty and gross. I figured that it would be better to just get there at midnight than to come back to the apartment, change, pack, and probably not getting to Gainesville until 2AM or something like that.
So, Joy and I will be in Gainesville this weekend. Joy will probably be studying, unpacking, and generally preparing herself for the coming semester. She's pretty stressed out about Organic II, so I've gotta do all I can to help her AND stay out of the way... at the same time. Wish us both luck!
Last night I got my e-mail from Google saying that my site was approved for their AdSense program. So, this morning I set about getting the rest of the stuff set up for it and making a place for them on my main page.
I thought that this would be an interesting way to make a little extra money, but so far I have no idea of how much money this will make. Most people I talk to are thinking that I will just make a few cents each month. This means that I won't make anything at all, because you need to accumulate $100 before they even cut you a check. (I set my account up for direct deposit though... I shouldn't make myself another reason to do work.)
The way this thing works is that I get paid some negligible amount for every 1,000 visits I get. I also get paid a different negligible amount for every time someone clicks on an ad. In theory, I would have lots of visitors to my site and a good percentage of those people would click on the ads to the right. Then I'd get some money deposited into my account every month. In actuality, I probably won't see any money before the end of the decade -- unless my site suddenly becomes very popular.
This is exactly why I set this up. In the unlikely event that my site does start to generate undue amounts of traffic, I will need to start paying for Internet hosting. This will make this site cost more than the yearly domain name registration. With Google's ads in place I will be able to offset the need for more server capacity with the ability to generate the money to pay for it.
(OK, the truth is that I just wish I could get paid for doing all the things that I already do. You're probably the same way, so don't pass any hypocritical judgments my way.)
You may have noticed that these ads blend in well with my site. That makes me pretty happy. At first I was concerned that they would stand out too much. I was thinking that there would be a large white rectangle with black text. That wouldn't look all that great with the grey-black/grey/purple thing that I have going on here. So far people seem to think that the ads are fairly "unobtrusive" and "barely noticeable." I like the sound of that.
The next thing that I can add to the site is a Google search bar. This too can make me negligible amounts of money. It would work only if my visitors decided to search for something using google without first leaving my site. THEN they would have to click on an ad -- I think. Maybe I'd get the impression rate for any search done. I don't know. Help please?
Today I am the househusband. That's not really a word, people! So don't get any ideas. Actually, let's just call it house-spouse for the politically sensitive.
How did I get myself in this situation?
Well, for the first three to four weeks of our marriage Joy was here unpacking, "organizing," writing Thank You notes to our generous wedding guests, and basically playing mom. That probably got old, plus we needed to make some extra money until she graduates and gets a full-time job. So Joy got a job for two weeks as a receptionist with Vector Marketing. She gets paid $7.50/hour plus a bonus per appointment she schedules in which the person actually shows up to the information meeting.
Fast forward to this week. I've got just five more days with my wife before she goes back to finish up her degree at UF. I'm home alone until I go to work, and then she comes home to guard the apartment until I get back from my work. Unfortunately, last week was a busy and hectic week. In addition to that we went home for Father's Day, so the apartment is a disaster.
So, today I played house-husband. Wow, I got a lot done too! Let's see… I did the dishes. I cleaned the kitchen. I swept and moped the kitchen. I cleaned our room. I did four or five loads of laundry. I took out the trash. I made the bed. I put up the iron and ironing board. I cleaned our living room. I gathered up all of Joy's shoes and put them in her shoe organizer thing. I vacuumed the place. I folded up blackets and other "temporary furniture" and put them all away. I made a shopping list, and I just might go get the stuff on the list too (though, Joy likes shopping… so maybe I'll leave it here for her under a plate of cookies.) Oh, yeah! That reminds me... I was thinking when I was doing all this that if you are going to do something you might as well go all the way. So, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for the wife. Yes, yes… I am a good house-spouse.
So, being a house-spouse is hard work. I mean… I had to wake up early today and "cuddle" with the wife. Have "a family breakfast." Help the wife get ready for work. (That is fun!) (CENSORED) Then I had to study while I did all this house work. After I am done with all of this stuff I have to go and work at UPS, which is exhausting. AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF... I am going to come home and Joy is going to be so ecstatic about all this stuff I've done that I'll have to put out. Whew! It's hard being a house-spouse. I just hope that I don't have to be on top, else I'll need caffeine or something tonight.
The new site now has a name, a domain name, a server, and three administrators who are working diligently (OK, two of them are... I just say unproductive things and try to distract them from their goals) on bringing this site into fruition.
The new site's name is Think Out Loud. It's domain is http://www.thinkoutloud.org. Nate, Conor, and I are the site administrators.
This means that I have a new e-mail address. It's just my first name at the site .org.
The new site's name is Think Out Loud. It's domain is http://www.thinkoutloud.org. Nate, Conor, and I are the site administrators.
This means that I have a new e-mail address. It's just my first name at the site .org.
Hopefully, we'll start to get some traffic to our site, but please don't go checking it now. There's nothing there yet. After we start getting things plugged in I'll write another post -- I'm sure.
Some of you may recall that I worked at Panera Bread Company before I started working with UPS. Back then I was making $6.50/hour working fewer than 20 hours a week (I really want a job with a consistant schedule that gives me roughly 15-25 hours per week.) Now that I am working at UPS I am making $9.00/hour because I recently received my first raise (+$0.50)
So, I was wondering... which is better? Obviously, UPS seems much better because I am making more money in total; my schedule is much more consistant; and the pay rate is higher. However, I have to drive a lot farther to the UPS HUB, and that takes up a lot of my time each week. So, I did a few calculations.
Here's a list of the variables that I used to calculate my "effective" pay rate at UPS. I should also calculate my "effective" pay rate at Panera, but I figure that if this is still above $6.50/hour then I won't need to, because I'll already know UPS is a better deal for me.
UPS Pay Rate = 9.00
Average Pay Rate after Taxes are deducted = 8.20
Days worked as of last pay stub = 66
Hours worked as of last pay stub = 278.42
Average hours worked per day = 4.2184
Times are in minutes
Time spent driving to and from work = 35*2
Time spent walking to and from work = 5*2
Time spent getting ready for work = 20-30
Time spent getting out of work gear and into non-working conditions = 20
Sum of the average times spent on daily work related activities = 6.60 Hours
(4.22*8.20)/6.60 = 5.24
Right now I am in the process of memorizing all the ZIP codes in Florida and beyond so I can become a package sorter. When I take this test I will get a +$1.00/hour raise, which will put me at $10/hour or $9.00/hour after the deductions. So, at that point this will look more like...
(4.22*9.00)/ = 5.75
Though I need to keep in mind that I will get a few fewer minutes than I have gotten as a loader.
There are plans in the works for a new site of sort to host some of my writing. Nate has been in daily contact with me discussing this new site, which he envisions as something of a collaborative blog. I'll quickly try to describe my take on what this new site is going to be like and then give my thoughts and feelings on the site. Nate will probably be by sometime in the few days to comment with his vision of what this will be. We're getting close to a name too, so maybe that will be added in the comments or in a future entry.
So, Nate seems to be pretty excited about this new site. I am not even going to call it a blog yet, because I have no idea what this is going to end up being. I know that what Nate probably really wants is a collaborative blog similar to what wantingseed.com was when it started.
Wantingseed.com is effectually no longer a collaborative blog. It started out with two regular writers and a fairly infrequent guest writer that drew in big numbers in terms of site visits and visitor comments. The guest writer stopped contributing somewhere along the line, and then one of the members moved to China, had a lower contribution rate, and eventually stopped writing altogether. Wantingseed.com continues today with just one writer, but his writing has dropped off from five to seven times a month to now just one to three times a month.
So, now that Nate is coming to me quite excited about his new idea I sit back with some reservations. I know that I am fairly busy these days with the new marriage, UPS, and trying to start a sales organization for Avanti Media Inc. I hadn't quite come out and said it, but I was waiting for Nate to make most of the first moves. Here's why…
1. Nate knows how just as well as I do.
2. Nate has access to a small handful of people that can help him if he wants to do things that are beyond him. He also has the time to do this. I have neither of these two things.
3. Nate is wanting this to be a collaboration between his roommate, Nate and me. So, it just makes sense that he'd get the site rolling because he's the middleman and the idea man.
4. Nate doesn't seem to be the most regular and consistent writer.
More on the fourth point… Looking at his blog you'll see that there are several months that are completely skipped. Also, there are many months that have anywhere from one to three posts in them. To me, this means that a blog isn't really healthy, which is probably just an unrealistic standard. I like regularity. If you only blog once a week or twice a month at least try to do it around the same time of the week or month.
The more I think about this irregular writing the less of an issue it seems to be. Nate doesn't write all that often, but I ran the numbers and he has written an entry once every 3.77 days, which is an average of twice a week. He does go on writing binges, but so do I. Hopefully, having three or more writers on one site will offset the irregular writing of any one writer and keep the whole going.
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Now that I've exhausted your attention by writing about my reservations, let me get on to what makes me interested in this blog.
First, I am interested in the idea of a collaborative blog too. I wanted to be a part of wantingseed.com, but it just never happened. I wanted to have a blog for Joy and I, but I just don't see Joy being all that into it. Also, what would we write about? Perhaps it would just be a chronological list of family news items.
Secondly, though I don't want to be the one who pushes this into being, I do want to make it grow once it gets off of the ground. I have recently read the Apache Software Foundation's organizational literature @ http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.htm and it was inspiring. I think that a blog could easily grow in a similar fashion. Nate, Conor, and I would start this site up. If other people found our efforts interesting and worthwhile they'd probably want to participate first by reading, then by commenting, then maybe by writing a single "guest piece." After writing a few guest pieces we might try them out as a writer for a month, and then finally add them on as a fully-fledged writer. If, after time goes by, Nate wants to move on to something else he would give the site administration over to one of these writers who is interested. By doing all of this we could start something that has the ability to outlast our interest in it.
Finally, I like the idea of having the opportunity to write somewhere other than in my blog. It is really cool that this site has a pre-defined subject in mind. Now, whenever I want to write about issues concerning religion, ethics, morality, society, practice, etc I can leave my blog and write elsewhere. (Though, I will probably want to link the two. So when I write an entry at this new site it will show up as an entry in my blog… for my reference if nothing else.)
I guess that wraps this up. I am staying tuned in to Nate to see when this thing launches. When it does, and I write my first contribution I'll definitely put up announce it here and put up a link to it somewhere on my main page.
Joy and I went out on the town this weekend with another couple... to Mako's - Orlando. We were invited by Karl (a friend of mine from Middle and High School) and Annie, his current girlfriend.
Now, when we were invited to go do this we were told that we'd be going downtown to a club to go dancing. Yea! We've been talking about going out together to go dancing again some Saturday night for the last two weeks. This seemed like a perfect opportunity.
We were duped.
This club wasn't really a dancing club. Well, there was dancing going on, and even a few of the patrons were dancing, but they were up on a stage dancing. They were exclusively women who were removing their outwear, underwear, whatever... just not quite getting naked in any way.
There were also the Mako's B*tches and there was a Mako's swing B*tch and bartendresses... all dancing and gyrating and whatnot. This place was tiny and packed. There weren't even 100 people in the club, but it was very difficult to move around. In fact, impossible without rubbing up against some damp and not-very-dressed staff member or club patron. Joy and I were well dressed and thinking that we were going to dance, but this is a place for getting drunk, looking at women who are a mid-step between WingHouse/Hooters and actual strippers, becoming one of those women yourself for a night, and/or watching all this happen.
Oh, there were also body shots of all kinds happening... navel shots on the bar... cleavage shots (is that what those are called?) out on the floor and probably other body shots, but Joy had me avert my eyes from some of the sights. Some of the Mako's girls were up on the bar dancing around, but this wasn't really dancing. It was actually more of just standing there, knees bent, thighs flexed, butt dropped down, back facing the crowd, and hips moving side to side.
While we were in the club we got down in the center stage area and danced for a little while, but people were making comments about us, and eventually Joy wanted to leave. I suppose different people have different thoughts on what is acceptable. We obviously didn't think that what was happening at the club was cool, and some people were pretty shocked with how intimately we were dancing -- it was like we "needed to get a room." ("Hello!?! We're married! We've got a room." Joy would say.) After one dance Joy said she was ready to go whenever I was, so I told her I wanted to at least see the rest of the club. So, we went upstairs so I could be sure that I wasn't missing out on the actual dancing area or "the point of the club."
We saw a whole lot more on our way out than we had seen on our way in. The funny thing is that it was really hard to move around because of all the bodies. I was wanting to get through and I was leading the way, but Joy would keep shoving me to move because it wasn't fast enough for her taste. She was obviously uncomfortable with me seeing so much of all these girls, but she was litterally pushing me into them at the same time.
Well, we made it out of the club and decided to walk down the street a little ways. I had to use the restroom, but there really weren't any to be found, so we walked up into this courtyard area of the SunTrust Center downtown. Joy stood next to me so this cop couldn't see me relieving myself on one of the bushes. After that we sat at a table and talked for a while and enjoyed the cool breeze and looked at the beautiful buildings and all their extravagance.
The next day I decided to look up the club's name on google to see if I could have had any forewarning for Joy about the place through the Internet. Sure enough, I found their site -- http://www.anythinggoesatmakos.com/home.html and some other sites that discussed and described the club.
So Joy and I decided that it was an interesting experience. We definately learned to ask about the club in more detail AND GET THE CLUB NAME before we go so we can look it all up online and make sure it's where we actually want to go.
Joy is here now contributing to this entry, and she wants me to include some things that she is concerned I might forget.
1. Karl had been to Mako's before, but did not enjoy his experience.
2. In fact, Karl feels so uncomfortable in the club that he claims to need to preparty to drunkenness just to prepare himself.
3. Joy really really enjoyed getting to meet Annie and watch Annie and Karl together. "They're so great!" she says over and over again.
4. Joy says that she felt quite violated in this club, but she was glad that we went and had a new experience, and even more glad that we promptly left.
5. This is already mentioned above, but before I decided to make this Joy section Joy asked me to write about the girls dancing up on the bar. So that sentence was Joy-inspired.
I use Blockbuster.com's DVD-by-mail service, which gives me two free game or movie rentals at any Blockbuster location every month. This time around I rented FF:CC. I've played this before with Wei at one point and Jordan at another. This time I got to play with Joy.
Joy isn't really into video games, TV or movies all that much, but she's a sport and she likes to hang out with me so she gives most of the games that I get at least one try -- even Halo 2! So, she tried out FF:CC.
At first she decided that it was "somewhat enjoyable," which doesn't sound that great to most people, but it is actually a compliment from Joy. Then we played another stage and another and another. Each time I'd make sure that we'd only play one stage at a time, because I definately don't want to be fighting against the malaise of playing a game too much along with her discomfort with gaming in general.
Now, we're on year two in the game, which is the farthest I've been in the game. She likes playing. She even let me buy a new memory card so we can save our progress.
Joy likes having to work together to get through a level. I can never run off with out her because there is a little circle around this chalice that one of us has to carry. I bet she wishes there was something like this in real life too. She also enjoys it a lot when I carry the chalice around. She can run hither and tither because the chalice bearer is so much slower than normal, but ultimately I am in charge of where we are going, because she can't leave the chalice. The more I think about it the more I realize that Joy probably finds the chalice carrying element of the game to be one of the better parts of the game. It must hit her at some deeper level -- we're stuck together!
She also likes the Gameboy SP. I use my brother's old-school GameBoy Advance, but she's got the back-lighting, and she likes that she's the only one who knows where the enemies are. That's fun for her, because it plays to her worrying side and her affection for announcing potential trials before they arrive. I'm the guy with the map, so I have a neat ability, but that is the ability she'd want me to have. I'm always the one who knows where we're going... she just knows where my directions are going to have problems. That's just fun Fun FUN for her.
Finally, there is the fighting and the boss. When we fight the normal bad guys, I throw down the chalice, engage the baddie, and tell Joy to stay back and cast spells (if she has any yet.) I do the fighting, dodging, and healing if necessary. Joy casts spells, but she never does healing... EVER. I'm the healing guy in our relationship and that sorta spilled over into the game. Now, when it comes to the final boss guy... I stand back and heal Joy when she needs it or do distance attacks with spells/focus attacks depending on which is more effective. Joy dances around the boss, takes hits, deals damage, and generally just slams down with the boss -- sometimes calling out with nervous delight if her life gets low and I haven't healed her yet. This is always funny to me, because I can just bring her back with a Life spell, but still... it's the principle of the thing.
So, yeah... I've found another game that Joy actually likes. Go me. I think that makes four -- maybe five -- games that Joy likes. She's really looking forward to playing with Jordan (and Jaime?) or Wei in the future too, so that means that this could be future fun for us for some time.
I made a little change to my site's main page. You probably already noticed it by now. I am wondering what people think of this ad campaign, the ONE project/organization, and the celebrity endorsements and endorsers involved.
Here's what I think...
So far I am curious. I've read their site, and it seems like they just want you to sign something petition-like and sign up for something from which you can unsubscribe. They also accept donations, but they want you to get the word out, so your donation earns you a ONE wrist band for every dollar you donate... or something like that.
The wristbands are cool! I'm into white right now, and it is so simple. It just says ONE. Hmmmm... it's almost bridal. No wonder I'm so into it right now. It would really be cool if when the band got dirtier its message would change to TWO... like these toys that change colors in hot or cold water. Do you know what I'm talking about?
I have pessimistic views about poverty. I don't think it is something that we can end. I do think that we each need to "fight poverty" through charitable efforts, but I don't think it will end, and I definately don't expect to see the end of poverty in my lifetime. Of course, this is merely fighting "extreme poverty" and worldwide AIDS.
I also think it is neat that wealthy celebrities are so into this. They've got lots of money! Of course, I don't really believe that giving people money solves the poverty issue. You can't eat, wear, or live in money after all. (OK, you can eat it, but that would rip you apart if you were already starving.) I think that poverty issues have to do with money only in part. I think that there are also issues such as creating a livilihood, the logistics of delivering food and medicine from production points to the more remote areas of the world. (This is where ONE's partner, UPS, would come in quite handy since it is in the logistics services and parcel delivery business.)
Blah Blah Blah... see how I search for something meaningful to say about all of this? I don't have much of an opinion about this whole thing, but I am very curious about what other people think of this effort. Let me know, please!
PS -- I'm thinking of buying some of these wrist thingies. Let me know if you want one, because I'll have several to give away if I do buy some, because well... they come in batches of ten or more.
Today on break at UPS...
Nate (supervisor): Well guys, it looks like we'll be getting that new load on Monday, which means we'll probably be getting another new hire this Friday.
John: Great. Well, let's all hope he's not black!
{Everyone stares/glares at John}
John: What!?! ...
John (continued): ...Since I've been here we've had all our black new hires either suck, quit, or move to the unload.
{Everyone laughs}
Me: John, you've been watching too much Dave Chapelle.
Nick (supervisor): (finishes laughing/gets really serious) John, I don't care that you're black. Don't ever let me hear you say shit like that on my PD again.
John: Did you guys know that tomorrow is my birthday?
This is a fun story in my opinion. I'm not really into race jokes, and I have actually never seen the Dave Chapelle show (I read about it Newsweek.) But this story is really funny because UPS:Orlando has a high minority ratio, but in our little eight-man PD is unique in that it has only one black man, John. The rest of us are gringos y latinos.