Trying to understand

When it comes to life’s little challenges and annoyances, I tend to see things in black or white. And unfortunately lately there are a lot of things that don’t make sense to me.

I call this, the things that make me go hmmm column.

You be the judge:

–I pulled into Wawa recently. (As I wrote recently, I’m a big fan of Wawa.) In any event, I noticed that a big guy in a huge gas-guzzling Chevy Suburban pulled up next to me in the next spot. In the few minutes I sat in my car checking email, he looked to be waiting on someone. You could tell that he was nervous. He was chain smoking, lighting cigarette after another. He couldn’t puff quick enough. I wouldn’t have even noticed, but I couldn’t help but spot the shiny racing bike loaded up on the back of his SUV, the kind that only the most serious of bikers would have. I wouldn’t have cared, but when he left he came inches away from hitting my car. What am I missing? Exercise phenom  or a couch potato?

–People who ask for your feedback or input, but then do all the talking. Last week, I was stopped going into grocery store by a guy who wanted my thoughts for a survey he was running. I’d like to say that I gave him some spine tingling feedback. Nah, he took so long telling me how the survey was organized and all that went into it that I told him I didn’t have the time. I find this happens a lot and not just with tele-marketers or pollsters. I saw a meme that explained this problem to a “T.” Most people listen to reply, not to understand. If people really want your opinion, they need to listen.

–I’ve mentioned often in this blog that I love to write, it’s my passion, but it doesn’t mean that I love everything about it. English grammar rules come to mind. For example, I can never figure out whether to use affect or effect. Yes, I know the specific rule: affect is a verb, effect the noun. You affect an effect. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Or even a doozey of a question: lay, lie, laid, or lied?

Or how about who or whom? Yes, again I know the rule that if you can substitute the who or whom with a subject pronoun like I, he, she, we, or they, then who is needed; if you would substitute the who or whom with an object pronoun like me, her, him, us, or them, then whom is needed. Oh heck with it. The rules still don’t make it any easier.

–I’ve noticed more and more lately that companies say they want to better serve their customers. They say how important their customers are, but how they act in reality is the complete opposite.

I stopped at a grocery store the other day after work to pick up dinner for myself. I raced around the store picking up an item here, throwing-in an item there. I got to the front. They had twenty rows of cashiers. I got excited thinking that I would be in-and-out and on my way home in seconds. When I neared the front though, the store actually had just three cash registers open with a long line formed behind each one. In fact, it was really only two open lines because the third cashier was trying to track down the price of a customer’s spicy soy sauce.

I shook my head in disgust. My quick five minute trip become a 35-minute death march. I vowed to myself to shop at another grocery store in the future.

If only the rest of the world lived by my simple black-and-white rules.

 

 

 

 

 

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