No. You didn’t SEEN anything.

May 22, 2011 23 Comments

Um, can we talk about something serious for a moment?

There is an epidemic in this country – an epidemic of extremely, extremely ignorant grammar, speaking, and writing skills. I understand colloquialisms. I do! I say ‘em, too. But when you write these things out as your actual manner of speaking, it just puts the nail in my tightass coffin.

I don’t like to preach a lot about grammar here and if I can help it, I won’t write another one of these for a long time, if ever again. But I can’t help it this time. No, it’s not the You’re vs. Your thing; which is appalling, by the way. “Your welcome” always makes me want to say, “But is it my welcome?”

The issue at hand is the misuse of the word “seen.”

Seen is a conjugation of the verb “to see,” which means that if you want to use it, you may do so in the present, past and future perfect voice. Which also means that there is always another verb in between subject and the word “seen.”

Examples:

  • You have seen
  • I had seen
  • We will have seen
  • They had seen

and so forth. There is absolutely NO conjugation that has subject + seen. None. Zip. Really! If you say, “I seen with my own eyes” or ask, “You seen it?” I strongly but gently advise you or your friend who does this to go back to elementary school grammar and brush up on this verb. (I won’t comment on, “You done seen it, too?”) I don’t know why this one thing in particular motivated me to write a post about it. I mean, yes, I can write bitchy rants, and I know that many people frown on those who take time to write stuff like this, but it just cooks my cactus – whatever that means.

It gives us, as Americans who speak English, an even worse reputation than we already have for being (proud) uneducated morons.

I am not without humor – clearly – so I am also posting one of my all-time favorite Friends scenes here with Ross and Rachel having yet another one of their epic fights, in which Ross corrects Rachel’s grammar in the letter she wrote to him. If for some reason you have never seen this, you’re welcome.

Thank you for reading my rant when you could have been doing any number of other things on this lovely Sunday afternoon.

Filed Under: Humor, Rants, Relative to Everyone Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Sorry I’m A Safe Driver, and: I Hate Minivans

April 1, 2011 30 Comments

I have a bone to pick with minivan drivers. What is the deal? You either drive way too fast or way too slow. Can’t you just drive normally? I can’t help but feel like some of the rude driving I’ve seen happen with these vehicles is because there is pent up rage from owning one of these ugly things. I’m in the minority in that I am a woman who has no desire whatsoever to have one. My male counterpart couldn’t want one more, inexplicably.

I can’t even count how many times I’ve been on road trips and the cars that are going 85 and being obnoxious are minivans (usually male drivers). I smiled the other day when I was coming to an intersection and saw that a minivan had been pulled over, presumably for speeding or having just run the light. I couldn’t help but feel vindicated for what had transpired earlier that same day. Shall I relay the story?

So that same morning, as I was sitting in the left turn lane at a busy intersection – and I was the first car in the turn lane, mind you – there was no chance for me to turn left against the regular green light, so I knew I was going to have to sit through another cycle before I got the arrow. Right as the light was about to turn, a minivan drives around me from being in the turn lane and proceeded to go out into the middle of the intersection, turning left against the red light. Thank God s/he had the turn signal on or it would have been REALLY obnoxious.

You can bet your sweet bippy I honked at this foul offender, whilst also spewing some choice epithets after him/her. (I’m assuming it was a man but who’s really to say.) Pretty much, this was my face:

When I told my boyfriend the same story in a really appalled tone, he took the opportunity (after agreeing that it had been a dick move) to say, “But you know, if you’d been pulled out into the intersection, he wouldn’t have done that.”

What ensued after this statement was a huge debate about whether or not it’s illegal and/or courteous to pull out mid-intersection to turn left. This must be a “Champaign thing.” Where I grew up in St. Louis, there are very few lights which do not have green arrows, so we know exactly when we can turn. Having to sit at a busy intersection with no green arrow is not only infuriating, but basically encourages this crappy driver etiquette. And this was a light where we had a green arrow! It only lights every other cycle for some odd reason, though. Being rush hour traffic, I really had no opportunity to turn.

Anyway, although we are both good drivers, the boyfriend and I disagree on several driving habits, this being the main one. Apparently I’m the jerk for not pulling all the way out and waiting for the light to turn, even if it’s when the light has turned red and I just have to get out of the way; whereas I can’t help but feel like an a-hole if I pull that stunt. It happens so often here and yet, I still hate doing it. I feel like I’m basically running a red light when I do this. Kevin insists it is perfectly legal. I have not been swayed. Our debate escalated to the point where, in a very frustrated moment I blurted out, “Sorry I’m a safe driver!”

You just never know who is going to do what when crossing an intersection and I don’t like sitting in the middle of the action when I can sit behind my safe little white line that was designated for this purpose. Am I right or am I right or am I right?

Okay, back to my original diatribe about minivans. I find them ugly, bulbous, and too similar looking. They’re everywhere. Plus, I don’t want to turn into Shitty Minivan Driver. I understand that if one has lots of children, these are probably Dream Modes of Transportation. Since I have zero children, this definitely accounts for the strong bias. I just don’t understand what a minivan has that say, a nice-looking SUV or crossover doesn’t have. I’d really like to know. Being the aesthetic person that I am, it’s more of a looks thing than it is a stereotype thing, but the stereotype does play into my dislike. I also know that there are folks out there who SWEAR by minivans and would never drive anything else. I’d like to hear from you!

For whatever reasons that Kevin adores minivans – all of them practical, I assure you – we have actually gotten into a heated debate about why we may or may not purchase one in our future solidified life together. I am adamantly opposed (has that been made clear?) and he is insistent on changing my mind. He finds them to be the pinnacle purchase in adulthood, I think. Strangely enough, Kevin’s best friend is also the one in his relationship who prefers to have a minivan and his wife is the one that has the same knee-jerk reaction I do: Yick! So they have that to bond over, which is cute and funny.

If anyone out there can shed some light on the intersection debate or tell me all the merits of owning a minivan, I’d love the feedback! I can’t fathom changing my mind about ever wanting to own a minivan but never say never, right? I think Justin Bieber never says never. Or he just says, “Never Say Never.” One of those.

In the meantime, I will bask in the glory of sedan ownership.

Filed Under: Humor, Occurrences, Rants, Relative to C-U, Relative to the Midwest Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Art of Interwebs Conversation

March 15, 2011 12 Comments

I’m all for the internet, in case this has escaped anyone’s attention. I’ve dated from online, I’ve met friends online, I pay bills online, I read online. You get the point. Me and Internet are BFFs.

What I don’t get is how the online users – that is, people just like you and me – can be so clueless about how to conduct a conversation. I’m not talking about the chat room stuff or even really poor use of grammar, sentence structure, and “LOLspeak,” whatever the hell that is. I’m just referring to two people holding a conversation keyboard to keyboard; regular folks who know one another.

Having an online conversation through some kind of instant messenger client is not really all that different from conducting one in person. The only difference is you have to be up front about when you’re not at the keyboard. The same rules apply from a real life conversation where you try not to interrupt and you reply accordingly, and most importantly, you reciprocate and ask questions. I’m going to repeat that: reciprocate and ask questions.

This isn’t a woman thing. This is just “how it is.” In order to keep conversation going, one must have the ability to take what someone has said, make a reference point, and either ask a follow-up question or ask a question that s/he doesn’t know about the other person. Even if it’s as simple as, “How was your weekend?” If you don’t know the answer to the question, it has merit and should be asked. And if you run out of questions, cite anecdotes.

If you ran into a friend in a coffee shop or someplace, you wouldn’t run up to that person and start yammering on about your woes and your life and then not ask that person what’s going on with him or her. It’s rude! (And if you do do this, I would not be your friend.) The exact same thing that is rude in real life is rude on the Internet. Yes, it’s easier to blow someone off when you’re online. But the kind of etiquette I’m talking about here is only relevant to people who converse regularly, in case I’m not making this clear. Hearing from an ex or chatting with someone who only contacted you because s/he’s bored doesn’t count. We know these conversations aren’t going to adhere to any kind of guidelines.

So, if conversation stalls, ask a question. The key here is that each person must actively participate. It cannot be one-sided. Conversation is not meant to be one-sided. I could talk to a wall if I wanted no response.

I have several friends with whom I chat online daily. We have a routine. It’s comfortable. And for all I know, this is a “birds of a feather” situation. Like attracts like. Conversation flows easily with no awkwardness. But there are times when I chat with a person and I am reminded that not everyone is up to speed with Conversation Etiquette 101.

At least from my perspective, silence/no response on the Internet is just as egregious as a non-response face-to-face. I’m not talking about if a person is at work and has to dash away from the computer. But if you’re actively talking and a person just drops the conversation altogether, or leaves the computer and comes back with no reply to what you’ve said 30-40 minutes prior, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. What has just been said is still lingering and you can see it on the screen. If I want to type and get zero response, I’ll write in my journal.

I can’t stress this enough. Reciprocity, my friends. Word of the day, week, year, life. Ask questions. Respond accordingly. Engage with your fellow wo/man, preferably who also knows and uses The Rules. Guaranteed satisfying conversation will ensue. I know I don’t enjoy breaking out my “WTF” face because yet again, I’ve conducted a conversation that has turned out to be meaningless.

The back and forth, give and take nature that I speak of is applicable to “IRL” conversations. Most of the time when people say a date went horribly bad, it’s because conversation totally blew chunks. See faces of the two people below, enduring awkwardness, especially the guy on the right.

It’s about courtesy, respect, and an enjoyment of the dialogue occurring between two people. Some people might call that synergy. There’s a reason there is an art to this. It’s not arbitrary.

Go forth and have meaningful conversations.

Merci pour votre attention.

Filed Under: Rants, Relative to Everyone Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

An Open Letter to Big Employers in this Crap Economy

February 21, 2011 8 Comments

Dear Large Company and/or Corporate Giant,

My name is Zoe. I am not currently looking for work (thank the Lord Jesus) but I am writing to express my grievance about a particular concept that has infuriated me and countless others since its inception. I am sure that when it was proposed at the Important Management Conference in [fill in outrageously ritzy location of your choice] some number of years ago, that it astounded, awed, and the person behind it got a really colossal bonus. Or at least a standing ovation.

I am talking about the decision to construct an online employment application process through your own particular company’s website, one in which each person who is interested in applying must create a User Name that can not be one’s email address and a unique password consisting of at least ten characters, with one uppercase, lowercase, symbol, and Alt code included. You know, something “easy to remember.”

Another stellar quality of this idea is giving the potential employee the option of importing his or her résumé through your special “X Company Résumé Importer!” function. The person who writes your codes/algorithms must also be sure to omit something or add something extraneous that will make the user want to take a mallet to his or her computer – because of course the uploader will not work. Conversely, if it does work, it must import all of the information incorrectly so that one must manually go through and take more time to correct the errors than if one had retyped the résumé from memory into your convenient boxes. (As we all know, résumés all look the same because no one is an individual. If a person opts to use bullet points in his/her résumé, anything next to one will either show up in the Title area or be omitted altogether.)

(I liken the online employment form to Hell Week at a sorority or fraternity. You’ll do a lot of things you would never do in any other situation and you’ll proclaim that you enjoy it. It’s some BS rite of passage.)

Some brainiac also suggested not letting a person have any symbols in the text of one’s résumé (especially a / mark), uploading a cover letter is a joke, or it’s left as Optional. (Note to anyone who doesn’t exercise this option: it’s a test. ALWAYS upload or write in a cover letter!) If you get one of those boxes where it asks you to simply type or paste in your cover letter from an actual word processor like MS Word, the formatting will be so messed up that it completely erases a person’s chances of ever getting a call back. It’s physically painful.

By the time we get to the end of this nightmare, the relief is palpable. But then, you sneaky bastards, you have one more trick up your sleeve. Two options are before us job seekers: take a completely obvious, mandatory personality test survey or ask “interview questions” that are incredibly strange and limit a person’s response to 250 characters. Please – I beg of you – if you have to force us to do these things, at least spring it on us when we’re called in for an interview. It gives us some sliver of hope that this “system” works and we didn’t waste an entire afternoon spend all that time on your employment site for nothing. Spending an additional 30-45 minutes at home on a personality test with questions like this makes me grind my teeth into dust. (Who actually says Strongly Agree to “I can be cold and aloof.” ? Does anybody fall for this?)

I understand that you may be testing people’s basic grasp of following instructions and “computer skills,” but there are better ways of gleaning this information from your candidates. Also, please don’t resort to this tactic: don’t insert an easily overlooked instruction such as, “YOU MUST PUT Code 4UX937P in the reference area to be considered!” somewhere in the fine print of the description of the position. Throwing away someone’s application that took him or her two hours to complete because of an easy mistake like that is flat out asinine. You look like a jerk before you even get someone to apply. Wait until the third interview or the first day to reveal that you’re not that great of a place to work, in fact.

This is an employer’s market. Do you get that? You, the Big Corporation, can be choosey! You don’t have to put us through these ridiculous hoops! Please take the time to make it appear as if you give a single crap about the type of person you are going to hire. I don’t know about other people, but I avoid even applying for positions with companies that use these methods strictly on principle. I immediately put you on that list of Top 100 Douchebag Places to Work Every Single Year Running.

It is only under times of desperation that I have submitted to this process because I trick myself into thinking that it must work. Surely someone is attaining a job in this manner. However! I can’t actually attest to this because despite my being a very qualified person with more than reasonable articulation, not once have I ever gotten a call or an email back from one of these places. It always makes me wonder who is on the other end of these things. Is it some poor sap whose sole job is to sort through the barrage of poorly copied/pasted résumés and personality tests? Is someone reading these things line by line and highlighting those who put down Strongly Disagree that s/he can be cold and aloof?

Under normal circumstances, I am not this cynical. But let’s be honest: this market sucks whale junk and it’ll be years before it dramatically improves. We know you employers are going to be inundated with umpteen more applications per available job than you would have received five years ago. But one thing you can do is make it a teensy bit easier on those who desperately need work and are applying to as many positions per day as they can find: if you are not going to use a staffing firm or headhunter to scale down the applicants for you, simply set up an email address where people can easily attach a cover letter, résumé or CV. Not having the ability to read attachments is ridiculous. It’s 2011. And if nothing else, if you are unable to designate an email address at your company, e.g., jobs@bigcompany, make it a Gmail address. Sending in a résumé to Hotmail screams, “Please e-rape me.” Seriously.

I implore you to heed this advice from an experienced job seeker. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Happily, gratefully employed,
Zoe

Filed Under: Rants, Relative to Everyone Tagged With: , , , ,

R.I.P. to Two of My Faves

January 20, 2011 7 Comments

Some things are absolute in this world; this is both good and bad.

The good part is that when you find something that is the best, you can rely on it and you get satisfaction from it, whatever “it” is, every time.

The bad part is that if it disappears, you’re screwed. Such is the case with two of my beloved favorite things going extinct.*Sniffle*

Some of you may remember the brand Mentadent. They had that weird toothpaste where when you pushed down the top of the plastic dispenser, the baking soda combo would come out one side and the fluoride and other goop would come out the other. They’d mix together on your brush to create their magical form of teeth cleaning excellence. Right.

Well, one thing they got right were their toothbrushes. Specifically, their Pro Care line with the flexible handles and array of beautiful colors, not to mention full and soft bristle heads. Can you tell I’ve used these for years? They’re seriously fantastic and I have yet – YET! – to find a toothbrush as good in all aspects.Allow me to show you so you can oooh and aaah, as well.

They first started being hard to find back in 2005. I just couldn’t find them at the drugstore anymore. I had a roommate that found them for me in NYC at a Rainbow store. I’m pretty sure Rainbow is a New York thing but it was a mixture of hardware and household goods. And they had my toothbrushes! I would buy four or five at a time.

Later, I found them at Drugstore.com. I was so happy! I conservatively purchased two of them upon my last order.

Then: disaster struck. They are now completely gone from Drugstore.com. Frantic, I searched Amazon but found them only in bundle packs for over $50. Someone clearly knew they were a popular item. As much as I adore them, I cannot bring myself to pay that much for toothbrushes.

Inside, I am mourning. I have to say goodbye to a true hero of dental hygiene. I don’t know why other companies can’t replicate this ergonomically sound, pretty, effective tooth tool. But they do not. Instead, I will have to resort to finding something that will have to serve as second best (if that).

As if that weren’t bad enough, my favorite shampoo and conditioner brand is no longer found in drugstores. For years, I was using Sunsilk’s yellow bottles of Anti-Flat shampoo and conditioner. It had a punchy (but not overwhelming) citrus smell and the conditioner has yet to be beaten by another. It’s lightweight, gives the hair a boost, reasonably priced, and flat out smells terrific. This is the perfect combo for people like me who need volume but don’t want to leave residue on the roots. Here’s a photo:

Photo has been removed multiple times due to whatever glitch that prevents it from showing up. Maybe Sunsilk doesn’t like former product photos being out on the interwebs. It was a bright yellow bottle with retro font wording. I miss it.

Even the conditioner bottle is designed so that it’s upside down, giving you maximum usage. I have one bottle in my bathroom that is dwindling away. I’ve found packs of these online, too, but they are overpriced. I heard a rumor that Sunsilk was completely redoing the formulas to “improve” their line but I can’t even find the new line in grocery stores or drugstores. Have they gone out of business? I have no clue. I only know that another one bites the dust. I’ve been experimenting with Pantene and Clairol’s Herbal Essence line (another one that was overhauled and the original smell was taken away).

My question to these companies is, if you have a bestseller, why are you striving to improve it? Leave it the hell alone! I can see redoing the packaging and that there is probably some marketing research done that shows that sales are kept up with new packaging but really? Redoing the formula? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – because you’re not fixing it, you’re ruining it!

I need to get a hold of myself.

Some might say, “Who cares? It’s only shampoo.” Some would be right. Except that finding that perfect shampoo/conditioner combo is really important to women. And some men. Having good hair is a part of our daily lives. Having good-smelling hair is important to people like me. I’m a Super Smeller. That’s a whole other post for another time.

I wish these companies would check with me first before they try to reinvent the wheel and then inevitably go bankrupt. And what about the leftovers? I would have taken all the remaining toothbrushes and shampoo/conditioner off their hands!

Goodbye, Best Toothbrush Evar and Best Conditioner (and shampoo) Evar. You meant a lot to me. You will always be in my memory. Hell, I’ve dedicated internet space to you. You were simply the best.

Love,

Your Most Faithful Fan Zoe

Filed Under: Occurrences, Rants, Zoe Recommends Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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