CSotD: It’s About Time
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I get up early by most standards, but even earlier this morning because my bedside clock doesn’t change itself, so when I turned on my computer, I realized I’d rolled out an hour earlier than I had to.
No worries: I’ll make it up with a nap later and I didn’t have to wait for GoComics. They apparently didn’t get the word, either, so they updated at 2 a.m. Eastern Whatever instead of 3.
As for the microwave, I haven’t set its clock in years. It only takes a blip in the power system to unset it and it’s not worth the effort.
I’d accuse Stantis of poor timing, given how long it’s been since Congress was fully in session, but given that the time change always comes on a Sunday, the punchline wouldn’t have made sense anyway.
That “extra hour” is pretty imaginary to begin with. If you show up at church early, the service may seem to be starting late, but it won’t be any longer. Well, depending on who’s preaching.
And if you suddenly realize the game you planned to watch won’t start for another hour, take the dog for a walk.
If you’re taking the dog to the woods, make sure you’re both in blaze orange and keep him close. OTOH, Kearney is a Mainer and one of the things I liked when I lived there is that hunting is illegal on Sundays. Even then, I put bells on the dogs besides their vests, but it was nice not to have to be on the alert that day.
This pretty much sums it up. There is such a kerfuffle over the time change that its main value is in giving people something to kvetch over.
Having lived in South Bend for a few years, I managed to get hating time issues out of my system, because not only were we on the edge of a time zone, but there was a patchwork of who went along with Daylight Savings and who didn’t.
So, yes, it was odd living in SoBend just as a band called “Chicago” was asking if anybody really knew what time it was, or cared. GF and I got stuck in Chicago overnight once because we messed up on when the last Vomit Comet left for home.
Our breakup wasn’t over clocks, precisely, but Jonesy might have been eavesdropping, because this was more or less what she said when my time ran out.
Juxtaposition of the Day
This is a Watchbird, watching the people who watch clocks and other people.
This is a Watchbird watching you wonder where on earth Watchbirds came from. Or, if you remember, going into a nostalgic reverie.
You’d think a world-class slacker like Willie would know that, if they fire you because they don’t like you, you can claim unemployment, but if you quit, you’re on your own. Though having been “constructively dismissed” by someone who wanted me to quit so they wouldn’t have to pay unemployment, I’ll agree that sticking around is not the easy way out.
Moudakis unintentionally highlights a bizarre way you could lose your job, which is admittedly more of a concern for a circulation director in a city whose NFL team makes a run at a championship than for one whose Major League Baseball team does.
Start with the realization that Corporate doesn’t care how any of your teams do. However, if you have a team that has an unexpectedly great season, you’ll see single-copy sales increase the morning after each game, far moreso in football where fewer games make each one crucial.
When an NFL team catches fire, next-day single-copy sales go through the roof.
And then the next year, when things calm down and the team has a normal season, corporate will order the circ director to replicate those great single-copy sales figures from the last year, which, obviously, he won’t be able to do.
He might as well pack up his cardboard box, unless he decides to stick around so he can collect unemployment. But he’s toast.
Moreover, it’s not just sports.
Midway through the summer of 2002, my boss got a memo from Corporate wanting to know how he planned to duplicate the single copy sales we’d experienced on September 12, 2001.
In case you’ve ever wondered why there were so many tearful, sentimental Commemorative 9/11 Issues. It was all about profits, not about patriotism.
And ain’t nobody sells weekly special issues headlined “Remembering Last Year’s Game.”
Life Magazine quit publishing a weekly issue a year after Mauldin’s cartoon ran, going monthly until 2000. Today, it’s a ghoul publication, keeping in business by running commemorative issues whenever someone “beloved” dies.
Wouldn’t ya be proud to work there?
Could be worse: You could be a pharmacist. That used to be a good professional job. The pharmacist in our town had a nice house on the lake and when anyone went into the profession, we envied their earning power.
Then the grocery chains started opening pharmacy counters, which wasn’t nearly as bad as when drug store chains began buying out local pharmacies. Over time, while you still needed the training and knowledge, the pay and conditions began to resemble what you’d get for flipping burgers.
Now the chains are going out of business, but there aren’t a whole lot of independent pharmacies left to serve those communities. We’re getting down to grocery stores and Amazon.
When they started talking about bringing back mammoths a few years ago, I sent one of my kid reporters to the Denver Museum of Natural History to talk to someone who understood such things. Her report pooh-poohed the idea because he’d explained to her all the reasons mammoths wouldn’t do well in the current environment.
I’ve seen nothing since to cast doubt on his opinion or her reporting. But if somebody wanted to bring back local pharmacies, I’d be in favor of that.
Here’s a little something that fits today’s theme. More than it might want to, since bringing Gronk and Shag to the modern world didn’t keep their show from becoming extinct:
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