Observations In Life

I like to wear jeans. They are comfortable, casual and fit in just about anywhere. One thing that is annoying though is the pockets. It’s hard put put stuff in them and once in hard to get them out.

Recently I was trying to get my keys out of my jean pockets, a frustrating task and after finally succeeding I was met with laughter and looks of surprise. Why did I have all of those keys?! Well obviously they were for all of my stuff, but the sad reality is because people can’t be trusted. Yes on the whole society through the social contract has to trust its members, but like everything one bad apple always spoils the bunch.

Over time we have learned to secure our valuables through the use of locks and keys, making them better, stronger and more secure with technology. I can’t wait until my keys are easy to get out of my jeans.

Fine dining is a truly unique experience. For the majority of people it is an unusual treat, one that often accentuates a special occasion such as a birthday, anniversary, achievement or a first date even. The song and dance are well rehearsed by the staff that tend to your every need. The menu selections are often exquisite food items that are rare and some are even hard to pronounce made with ingredients no likely to be found in your local grocery store. You eat at this restaurant because of its reputation for excellence, perhaps its ambiance and your confidence that it will live up to its expectation.

I’m no cook. My culinary schools might equal those of a college student at best. Sure I can throw some chicken on a grill or cook a steak just the way I like it. Sauté some spinach? I probably can do it without burning it too much. What I do know is that there are those recipes that I’ve come to perfect after years of practice. They are the old standbys for occasions where I can’t fail. The precise amount of each ingredient has been memorized. There is no guess work.

Much is the same when eating out at a fine restaurant. The Chef, after years of education, trial and error and imagination has concocted a superb meal for your consumption and delight. When it arrives the anticipation as you prepare for your first bite is at its peak. You wait for everyone to be served out of politeness and good manners…unfortunately this is often when that terrible question is asked that changes the tune of the finely orchestra. This is the question that makes you wonder why you came here, the question that makes you wonder if you are missing something.

The waiter or waitress will often ask, “Would you like some fresh ground pepper with your meal?”.

This is when the music stops like a DJ scratching a record on a turn table and the speakers go dead. Why on Earth would I want pepper to be added to my meal? and why has it be introduced as part of protocol at these fine establishments? Is the Chef, management or the wait staff with no culinary skills whatsoever trying to tell me something is lacking from my meal? Are they so bold that they must insinuate that the flavors and spices I am about to enjoy are not quite enough? or worse yet are they telling me that I should add additional spices to mask the flavor of whatever I am about to eat?

This aspect of fine dining is something I fail to understand. When everything is so perfectly crafted, why must I be made to wonder about what I am missing or what I should be afraid of at this critical and high point of anticipation? Are my confidences misplaced?

I was at my parents’ house yesterday visiting them and my sister for the day for a change of pace. In the refrigerator they had milk from Hood in a white “light block” container. I have seen it before but never really thought about it. I might have even purchased it in the past but that isn’t the point.

Why the light block container? The milk leaves the bottling facility which is dark, is put into refrigerated trucks which are dark, it is loaded into the supermarket cooler which is away from the sun, and then is placed into your refridgerator which is dark when you close the door. What light is the container really blocking?

Marketing people think of all sorts of gimmicks to sell products and we are willing to pay for them. It’s interesting. Do other countries have similar “technology”?

Why do we let people like Al Sharpton dictate how we are supposed to feel and what needs to be done about it? I was never a big Imus fan. I think he’s very opinionated and usually I didn’t agree with his opinions. What did I do about it? I didn’t listen to his show. What a concept! If you find something on the radio that’s objectionable, then change the channel. Do the same with television or any other form of entertainment. If you don’t like rap music, then don’t listen to it and don’t buy it. That’s how you show your support or lack thereof. We have freedom of speech without actually having the freedom to speak.

Did anyone question Mr. Sharpton about his ethics before heeding his suggestion calling for Imus’ head on the chopping block? I don’t think so. If they did they would have realized what a headline grabbing, bandwagon jumping, loud mouth idealist he is. Remember the Tawana Brawley case? He was quick to jump to her rescue when she accused white men of raping her. But, he never apologized or made any restitution when the truth came out and it was learned she was lying. He was a major contributor in destroying the lives of innocent men and never answered to anyone about it. Yet, when he decides to rant and drag someone else through the mud, we just let him. What, exactly kind of Reverend is he? And what kind of Reverend doesn’t include forgiveness in his repertoire?

I’m ashamed I didn’t do more than I did. Maybe it’s time more people stand up against hypocrisy before all of our rights are gone.

So I went for this interview to be a team/personal assistant at a media company last week, and I was wondering how things turned out. I sent an email to ask, and the hiring manager I interviewed with called me late yesterday afternoon. She was really complimentary and said that she was impressed with my skills and my interview, and I definitely would have been shortlisted, if not for one thing: a lady whom she’d worked with (obviously well) 15 years ago has applied for the job (and was obviously getting it).

Yes, I was slightly angry, but I was polite and thanked her for taking the time to call me and let me know, and told her that of course she could keep my details on file.

A few things have struck me:

1) she didn’t have to tell me that she was impressed with me.
2) she didn’t have to tell me the truth, that she was going to hire someone she’d already worked with.
3) if I were working in media, I wouldn’t want to be a personal assistant 15 years from now.

Just going to prove, yet again, that there is no such things as ‘professionalism,’ or ‘the typical interview/interview process.’ Worst of all, there’s probably no ‘equal opportunity.’

Nepotism is great, when it works in your favour. Otherwise it’s a bit of a bitch.

What is it about the supermarket parking lot that brings out the true nature in people? What am I talking about you ask?

Did you ever notice that in the supermarket parking lot, the rules of decency no longer apply? Examples of annoying behavior but are not limited to the following:

Although there are places that are clearly marked for returning your cart, people tend to leave them in the most convenient place for them…never mind that the stupid cart is rolling down the hill toward an oncoming car or person.

Crosswalks no longer apply to pedestrians or to drivers. Pathways although defined are avoided by shoppers seeking the most direct route to the door. Drivers seem to be blind to the brightly covered walkway insisting on the right of way.

The rules of being civil, allowing others to merge into traffic, pass and generally being nice also don’t apply, not to mention that the parking spaces are not necessary for the supermarket “VIPs”. They park in the fire lanes, to avoid having to walk to and from the parking lot. They get in your way as you try to leave the store and require you circumnavigate around them to get to your destination.

I believe in the rules of Karma and take comfort in knowing that for the incosiderates, their just desserts will be served.

How many times have I called a business number and heard “Please Listen Carefully As Our Menu Options Have Changed”? It really drives me up the wall. It seems that more and more companies are changing their menu options, but why? and have the options really changed or are they just saying that so people will listen and stop pressing the wrong buttons? Whatever the case it’s annoying and takes up more of my valuable time which I would rather not spend on the phone with customer service, that is if I ever do get to speak with a live person.

From now on when I hear the automated voice utter these annoying words I am pressing “0″ for operator assistance. After all Mr. Big Corporation, that’s what I wanted in the first place when I left your web site and called a phone number!

Warning: Long Post!

I have heard that it is incredibly difficult to get a bank account in the UK if you are new to the country. I guess this is due to issues of identification and credit history. I personally never had this problem: I was here on a student visa and showed my passport with said visa to obtain a bank account. Granted, this was on the campus of the university I attended, but they had virtually no questions at all. I had what is called a Basic Bank Account, with cheques, and a debit card (the type of which virtually nobody takes!). I did this almost as an afterthought, and boy am I glad that I did, because of what happened later:

By the time I came back again as a student about a year later, my bank had introduced a service for international students. They were only too happy to let me ‘upgrade’ to this service. This involved getting the next step up on the debit card, and keeping the cheques. Ostensibly this was introduced as a great scheme to ‘hook’ the international students who end up staying in this country. But when I came back here to settle permanently, I discovered that I could not just ‘upgrade’ my account, I had to close that account, with no guarantee that my (nonexistent in this country) credit rating would get me approved to have a new account, with the same bank. So on I go with an ‘International Student Service’ account, which seems to work OK, but wasn’t the point supposed to be that I eventually could upgrade the account??

This ties into another issue. One can only get paid for work via cash or direct deposit to a bank account (called BACS) in this country. Cash-in-hand work is considered extremely questionable, because it is associated with not having the right to work or live here (illegal immigrants). So who knows what kind of trouble I’d have gone through to get a bank account, and/or payment for my job, if I hadn’t opened that account whilst a lowly undergrad? Oh, and if you’re wondering, yes, I have the legal right to live and work here.

A couple of other things I’ve noticed that are pretty different here, regarding cheques:

1) you don’t get cancelled cheques back. You also don’t get the ’scan page’ of the cancelled cheques, like a lot of US banks do nowadays. Now, if you are used to getting these your whole life, to prove that someone has taken your money, or as a receipt, that’s a bit irritating.

2) Bank A will not cash cheque written by a person with Bank B. I think perhaps because there are so many independent local banks in the USA, banks seem only too happy to cash checks (yes, note the spelling) from other banks. Here, of course, banks are mostly limited to the ‘Big 4′ (or ‘5′), and their rationale seems to be that Bank A won’t get any revenue from cashing Bank B’s cheque.

3) A photo ID is not good enough to write a cheque to a business here. One has to have a Cheque Guarantee Card (which I do not have with the aforementioned ‘international student account’), and write the number of the card somewhere on the back of the cheque, to write a cheque to a business. I can write cheques for personal transactions, between people, all I want, but not to a business.

I could start on the whole bank charging issue, but as I haven’t encountered this problem personally, I shan’t. Currently it is a hot-button issue in the UK, with many disgruntled customers threatening to sue the banks for unfair charging.

Language is interesting to me. It’s winter time and hearing someone cough up a lung is not an unusual occurance. The interesting thing about being sick is that people often use very descriptive expressions to describe their current state of sickness.

One expression that I have never understood is “I feel like death”. It just doesn’t make sense and for that matter kind of annoys me. First of all no one has experienced death, so they have no reference point for the description and I certainly can’t relate because I’ve never died before. Secondly does death feel like anything? I mean, if you’re dead that’s it right?

I had dinner on Friday at the Cheesecake Factory. While the company and conversation where good (mom, sister and my friend Bev), I was disappointed with the food. I ordered the Spicy Cashew Chicken as I have a penchant for spicy food. It must be the Latin blood.

SPICY CASHEW CHICKEN
A Very Spicy Mandarin-Style Dish
with Green Onions and Roasted Cashews. Served over Rice

Friday was a busy day work-wise and I wanted to get a large meal. I asked the waitress how big the portion was and she assured me that it indeed was large but I should know that the dish it’s self isn’t that spicy. Hmmm, the description on the menu said otherwise. I decided to take a chance and go for it. Needless to say she was right.

This happens all the time! A menu says spicy, but really it should say tangy at best. Where did all the spicy food go? Should I blame the woman who sued McDonald’s and won because he coffee was too hot? Did someone get heartburn from spicy food and sue a restaurant?

I guess I’ll have to resolve to what others before me have had to do. When I am up for a spicy meal I’m not leaving home without hot sauce packets or a bottle of something spicy.