Andrew's Rants.

DO YOUR JOB

The other day I purchased a bed for my kid and a Weed Eater for myself on my day off from work. Ethan felt that the bed he currently had was for little kids and wanted to put his mattress on something more manly. He is getting to be a teen and is feeling like he needs to assert himself. We picked out a queen size brushed stainless steel and pine bed that has a very definite masculine flair. Next we went to the ever present and ubiquitous Wal-Mart and I picked out a new Weed Eater. It was a Toro brand but looked exactly like the Snapper I had last season. It was a piece of underpowered crap and fell apart after two months of use. We took our purchases home but stopped on the way at Lowe’s. On an impulse I bought an entertainment center made out of that compressed fake wood stuff that weighs a ton. I had to hurry home before I completely spent the entirety of my paycheck for the week. The first thing I opened was the Weed Eater. I figured that I would work outside while it was still cool enough in the morning and then when it got hot I would go inside and assemble the
furniture. I had to use a box cutter to get into the packaging because they had it sealed like Fort Knox. 3 layers of cardboard with huge brass staples 3 inches long holding it all together. Inside the form fitting Styrofoam posed another obstacle and then the plastic bagging that was to tough to tear with your hands and had to be cut off with special attention to the heavy fiber reinforced tape that closed the ends of the bag that was almost indestructible. Like any real man I did not read the instructions but just started assembling the unit. It was the same exact one as the Snapper I already had. The same company, just sold to a different middleman, made it and their name was placed on it. I got rather pissed at the fact that I had paid more money for the exact same product, but what can you do. I finally managed to get the entire thing assembled and was down to putting on the support handle and realized there were no screws to attach the unit. I looked all through the packaging and could not find them. Now I was mad. In some foreign country like that pest hole called Indonesia there is a factory cranking out these things. Some slope head on the assembly line has the job of dropping in a hardware package into each box as it trundles by on its way to the civilized world. Somehow the simple act of placing one prewrapped plastic pouch in each box seems to be beyond these snapper heads. Little Nyoman, as I refer to him, screws it up. He misses several boxes at a time. Drool collecting on his chin, eyes crossed, and all of his brain cells burned away from the crack he has lived on all his life. He has no idea of what his is doing. Wal-Mart who used to advertise that they bought everything American made whenever they could no longer follows this policy and buys the cheapest product available worldwide to feed the American consumers thirst for cheaper products. As a result quality went out the window. You can’t bring the price down and expect quality to remain high. So I suffer and Nyoman gets a job slacking off and earning 2 American dollars a day. All he had to do was put 4 frigging screws into the damn box but that was beyond him. Pissed off and sweaty I returned the Weed Eater to Wal-Mart and exchanged it for a new one. I got back home after being subjected to the mind numbing process of going through Wal-Mart's return procedures and trying to reassure the dumb blond behind the desk that the unit did not have fuel in it. I sat down on the back porch steps and began the process again. I started with the support handle and yes, the parts were there. But when I got to the trimming head it was missing the reverse threaded nut that holds it onto the shaft. Now normally I would have just taken it like a dicked over consumer and found a nut in my shop to place on the unit, but this was a reverse threaded 11 millimeter metric nut. I doubt there was one in the entire town available at any of the hardware stores and specialty fastener places combined. I freaked out. Nyoman had screwed me again. All he had to do was place the parts in the freaking box as it went by. What did he do with them? If he missed a box then did he realize his mistake and perhaps put two hardware packs in the next box in an erroneous attempt to make up for his screw up? If so why did I never get a box with two packs of hardware?

Really pissed off now I returned this unit to Wal-Mart. I then went to a place that sells lawn equipment exclusively. It's expensive and out of the way but I needed a new trimmer that worked. I bought a Husquavarna. It was a beauty. It came fully assembled and ready to go. Just add the gas and oil mix and you are on your way. It cost 350.00 for the fool thing but it was like buying the equivalent of a Lexus in lawn equipment. I trimmed the yard for a while and then went inside to assemble the entertainment system. Yep, you guessed it. It was missing about 20 of the little locking cams that fit into precut slots and hold the thing together. In this instance Nyoman was supposed to place about 50 of these little fasteners in the bag but managed in his slope headed ignorance to miscount by 20. Was it just pure apathy or simple “eat up with the dumb ass” as my best buddy George used to say that caused this phenomenon. I took this unit back
to Lowe's and exchanged it. Before I made a repeat of my earlier mistake with the Weed Eater I opened the new one they’re on the sales floor before I even loaded the heavy sucker into the flat cart. I wanted to make sure it had all the parts. I had opened a total of 5 boxes before I got so disgusted that I just left the entire mess there and walked out. Nyoman had struck again, not a single one had contained the correct hardware to assemble them. I returned home and with fear and trepidation I opened the box containing my kid’s bed. Surely I thought Nyoman didn’t get this one as well. But Nope! I was wrong. It was missing all but one of the bolts that connect the frame to the headboard and footboard. I went to Home Depot this time with that one bolt. I did manage to match it up and got 7 more along with the necessary washers and nuts. My whole point to this is the Nyomans of the World should do their jobs. They have one specific thing to do in their job description and somehow they manage to screw it up 99% of the time. They get my order wrong in the Drive Thru, they misapply my power bill payment or my cable bill payment. I have consumer products that are missing all the parts and pieces or the auto mechanic forgets to put back in the oil plug when I have the oil changed. My mower doesn’t work when I get it home it just blows smoke or my new hard drive has a faulty motor. Do Your Job people. That’s all I ask is just do the little mind numbingly simple task you have been assigned. Wipe the slobber from your lower lip and stop grunting like a Neanderthal long enough to use at least two brain cells and create some friction up there in the vast emptiness that is your skull. To the genius at the newspaper who screwed up my add and listed me as having a Yard Sale, I have nothing but contempt for you. All you had to do was type in what I gave you exactly as it was on the paper. But NOOOOOO! He screwed up the only thing he does.

To all the Nyomans out there who screw up their simplistic jobs with an alacrity that borders on fanaticism, you are just useless pieces of human trash good for nothing more than spending life sucking on the welfare teat and being a leech to society. In fact I would rather they not work at all, as opposed to screwing up my day by doing their job badly. Don’t the places that hire them have quality controls or care about the negative impact on their bottom line from all the returned merchandise. I have had some stinker jobs in my life that I hated, but I always did them to the best of my ability even if I didn’t like them. Is that something to brag about? I don’t think so. It should just be standard practice. If you don’t like what you are doing then
find something different but don’t do your job badly and screw up my day. Once again, DO YOUR JOB! That’s all I ask is just do your job right. Screw those caps on tight, count those nuts and bolts, pass those laws in Congress whatever it is, just freaking do it and don’t make me have to do it for you.