Simon Cowell and Polyanna, go to Hell!

(I reread this post about 3 years after I stopped working with the woman mentioned below. Within a week, I saw her whilst lunching downtown. The universe is messing with me!)

I feel like complaining, but I'm not sure what I want to complain about. There are just so many things. I just finished watching Wonderfalls, which was a really good show. It only lived to see thirteen episodes, but it was so much better than most of the tripe on tv. I hate reality tv! All of it! I wish it would all just disappear. Arrested Development is going off the air, it's just not fair! American Idol is stupider than anything I could have ever dreamed up. So is America's Next Top Model, Survivor, Fear Factor, all of it!

Television ratings seem to be determined by the lowest common denominator. And Fox, though they air weird shows, don't give them much of a chance beyond that. Now I've discovered another show I like, Bones, which is sort of like CSI only better, partly because it stars David Boreanaz, a.k.a. Angel, and Zooey Deschanel's beautiful sister, Emily. But now they've put it up against Lost, which is one of the most popular shows on TV. I had to get a dual tuner DVR just to deal with this.

Are they stupid? I think they are stupid. I think anyone who watches American Idol and then discusses it at work the next day is stupid. I hate Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Ryan Seacrest, and that dude who had gastric bypass surgery. I also hate myself for knowing this much about any of them. But I can't escape it! My coworkers talk about it, my friends have forced me to watch it before, it's always on my MSN homepage, and it's all they ever want to talk about on Headline News in the morning! Fuck American Idol! Fuck it right in the ear! I realize I sound like my crazy, embittered grandma, but I don't care. Sometimes the simplest sentiments express things best. And spare me the crap about watching too much TV. All shows aren't crap. Being preachy is crappy, though.

Another thing that really annoys me but is unrelated, is this woman in my office. Her name is, approximately, Julie Anjeweirdo. She's one of those annoying Mormon ladies who thinks she knows better than everyone else, even though she's totally frumpy. Why on earth should anyone listen to a frump? And she seems to do even less work than I do.

Whenever I call her to ask her a question about the ever-changing rules, policies, and procedures of our corporation, she can't ever understand what I say the first time. Every conversation starts out with me telling her that I have a question about x, and whether x be simple or complex, she always, always, always answers me with, "What? What are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying!" This is because she's not listening. She has the particular position she has because she doesn't really have to do much work.

But the thing that she does that annoys me the most, the thing that just makes me crazy, is that whenever I say something about how this or that policy is unclear or something unfair has been done to a customer, she always says, "Don't say that, be positive!"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate it when people say that! Stating a fact such as, "Mr. Jones doesn't understand why he's been double-charged for every package he's sent in the past month," is not "being negative." Sure, the subject of the sentence is negative--our company is ripping Mr. Jones off, but to be negative would be to say something like, "Our shitty company has been ripping Mr. Jones off for the past month! We suck!" What is the "positive" way to say this? "Mr. Jones wants to congratulate us for so cleverly ripping him off all month?" Idiot.

Or she'll bring out that rusty old adage, "Don't say 'hate.' You don't really 'hate' anything!" Yes, yes, in fact, I do "hate." And what I hate is when people talk to me like I'm five years old! Especially when I'm maybe a million times smarter than they are! Of course, if that's the only way she can ever feel superior to someone, I guess I really shouldn't take that away from her...