So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

This was not an "old money" country club, but a then fairly recent club catering to the more recently "arrived."

These are, in my lifelong experience of dealing with such people, the very worst to deal with. I'm not a fan of the American Aristocracy, but when the revolution comes, the arrivistes will be the first to go.

 

[p51]

It has taken analog-era me years to develop a sense of how this digital stuff works. I'm accustomed to one button doing one thing, and not half a dozen others, depending on what "mode" the gizmo happens to be in.

I'm quite sired of things needing to be hooked up to the internet before they'll even work. We bought a TV a year ago and if you didn't have a Wi-Fi router, you couldn't even turn the thing on! Took forever to hook the thing up.

In my early teen years I briefly caddied at a country club. I was a lousy caddy, mostly on account of never having gotten any training. For the most part, the club members whose clubs I carried treated me well, and, sensing that I was ill-prepared, graciously passed along pointers.
But the offspring of some of the members -- kids my age, more or less -- were given to reminding us caddies of our status, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. If I were a better golfer I might have earned a smidgen of their respect. But I wasn't, and I didn't.

I grew up in a real redneck part of the country (North Florida, close to the Georgia border). There really weren't too many class issues as just about everyone was in the same socio-economic level. But there are two universities in the town I grew up in, and those kids would lord over the locals from time to time. My buddies and I used to go trolling for one of them to say something stupid. I'll never forget one night, a group of FSU students tried to go ahead of us at the Putt-Putt golf course (it was removed soon after this). One of the guys I hung with was always spoiling for a fight and they chose the wrong guy to mouth off to for being a local. That rarely happened, but when it did, the locals were usually ready. Not one of the students was still standing after making the comment. I didn't get in on the 'whupping' (I must admit that I just stood back and watched) but it was quick and brutal. You never know who you're talking trash to.
Cut to several years later, I went to FSU and became an Army officer. One day I was at the Tacoma Mall when I saw some soldiers being extremely rude in uniform to some Mall employees. I walked over, realizing they were wearing my Division patch and told them they needed to calm down because they shouldn't be doing this in uniform. I was asked who the [bleep] did I think I was talking to, as they were NCOs and I didn't have the right to tell them anything. I reached for my wallet and said, "That's, 'you don't have the right to tell us anything... SIR'" and then showed them my ID card. I asked what unit they were in. Turns out, they were in another company in my own Battalion! You should have seen the look on their faces, especially since I didn't even look angry. That matter-of-factly look is usually a sign you're in some really big trouble from someone who'll make life bad for you very fast, something I'd seen myself a couple of times... :eusa_doh:
I said, "Never assume anything. You will not be treating people like this in uniform or anyway else. I'm not impressed and you should be grateful you're not in my company because your careers would be taking a pretty hit." They thought they dodged the bullet, but come Monday morning, I was in their First Sergeant's office explaining what had happened. I talked with their company commander later and I was told that it got pretty ugly for those NCOs that day.

 

[GHT]

Trivial...but I remember when written instructions came with most products.

Have you seen the instructions for Apple's smart phones? It begins: "Instructions to use your new phone, if you need them." Then directs you to a web site.
If you need them?
Hell, why do all manufacturers of this kind of technology think that we are born with the knowledge to instinctively understand it? But ask a techno-geek to read a map:
20 Traditional skills that are dying out.

 

[tonyb]

Well, p51, I can cite a few examples of people mouthing off to the wrong person. I recall an incident of a cab driver giving some racist guff to an elderly woman who turned out to be the mayor's mother. Oops.

We should all remind ourselves it's better to make allies than enemies. This is not to say that we ought to befriend every jerk that comes along, or not to voice objections when objections are in order, but to always keep our ultimate aim in sight. It can be tough to resist the urge to dress down a person who seems to have it coming, but humiliating people typically results in them digging in their heels and plotting revenge.

 

[dh66]

Well, p51, I can cite a few examples of people mouthing off to the wrong person. I recall an incident of a cab driver giving some racist guff to an elderly woman who turned out to be the mayor's mother. Oops.

We should all remind ourselves it's better to make allies than enemies. This is not to say that we ought to befriend every jerk that comes along, or not to voice objections when objections are in order, but to always keep our ultimate aim in sight. It can be tough to resist the urge to dress down a person who seems to have it coming, but humiliating people typically results in them digging in their heels and plotting revenge.

Be mindful of any toes you step on today........they may be attached to the @ss you have to kiss tomorrow.

 

[p51]

Have you seen the instructions for Apple's smart phones? It begins: "Instructions to use your new phone, if you need them." Then directs you to a web site.
If you need them?

Or how about if your computer has problems, and you call the customer service line and all it does is give a recorded message to go on their website? If your computer is having problems, wouldn't it be likely that you might not be able to get online?

 

[tonyb]

I've had to remind the little twits that the reason I use their company's (Apple) stuff is because I have very little interest in how this stuff works, I just want it to work, and that among your product line's attributes is that it is more "intuitive." Further, the reason I called you is because I either couldn't access the website or that going there didn't resolve the problem. So humor this old man, okay? We'll all be dead and gone soon enough, and then you'll be old yourself and a new crop of snooty youngsters will condescend to you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, you didn't have to understand radio theory if all you wanted to do was listen to "Lum and Abner." A radio was an appliance, not a measure of your technological prowess. I think of my computer the same way -- I know enough about it to set it up and turn it on, and I can replace faulty parts when they fail, but I really couldn't care less about theory, I'm not impressed by mumbo-jumbo, and I don't need the condescending BS from the tech support drones. If my connection is down, just get it working again and keep your yap shut while you're doing it.

 

[2jakes]

I’m stubborn.
When there is an issue with Mac & the machine hasn’t completely shut down.
I will go to google & enter what I believe to be the problem & hope that there is
a solution.

I usually spend more time in trying to figure out the correct wording to ask my question.

And when I do find it.
I open up the site.

Usually all I find is similar posts about other poor souls who are having similar problems.
But no solution.

But I’m stubborn.

So I keep trying.
Finally, I see a post from an expert who has the steps on how to correct the problem.

Luckily, besides the Mac, I have set up a secondary desktop window on my Sony TV.

Now I can view the steps on the computer & on the secondary window I can go to
the settings & make the corrections.

About the only time I take it to the shop is when the thing will not open up at all.

A friend tells me... “sorry but I’m not going to your “pity-party” !

He refuses to get a computer because he knows that he will be
abducted & forever roam the twilight zone of " Geekdom “ .

 

[Hercule]

Several times now in as many weeks, I been in family type restaurants where someone at a nearby table has been watching TV or something on their phone or tablet with the volume turned up enough to be heard well across the room. Imagine the joy of being submitted to the tinny speakers of a mobile device. Thanks for sharing. Have people no sense of being in public?

 

[dh66]

......Have people no sense of being in public?

Uhhhhmmm.......for the most part, No. How else do you explain the vast hordes roaming the supermarkets in their pajamas.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's the Cult Of The Individual, and it's a far more dangerous thing than simply an annoyance in a restaurant or an offense against fashion. When all that matters is our own self-interest, we lose the essential meaning of what it is to be a part of a community greater than ourselves. And when we lose that, we deceive ourselves into thinking we don't *need* that community in order to survive as a civilization.

 

[tonyb]

I long ago accepted that all life forms capable of action act in their own self-interest. We "higher" forms, capable of reflection and abstract reasoning (or so it is hoped) ought realize that it is in the individual's own best interest to remain mindful of the interests of others, and to act accordingly. Call it manners. Or simple decency.

 

[p51]

"Cult of the Individual"... I like that. I can't recall who, but a comedian recently said that aliens orbiting the Earth and monitoring communications would come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans were famous.
I've been seeing a scary number of people refusing to turn their phones off during movies and sometimes even taking photos of their kids during the movie! The theater people are at their wit's end, I could tell when they threw one out two weeks ago for this. The person with the cell really had no idea why she was being removed!
Heck, a co-worker told me of a family at a funeral recently where the kids were playing with loud tablets and the mother as on the phone, during the entire service! So glad that wasn't me, I'd have given them all the bum's rush for sure.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

"Cult of the Individual"... I like that. I can't recall who, but a comedian recently said that aliens orbiting the Earth and monitoring communications would come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans were famous.
I've been seeing a scary number of people refusing to turn their phones off during movies and sometimes even taking photos of their kids during the movie! The theater people are at their wit's end, I could tell when they threw one out two weeks ago for this. The person with the cell really had no idea why she was being removed!
Heck, a co-worker told me of a family at a funeral recently where the kids were playing with loud tablets and the mother as on the phone, during the entire service! So glad that wasn't me, I'd have given them all the bum's rush for sure.

[video=youtube;hut3VRL5XRE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hut3VRL5XRE[/video]

 

[Hercule]

Uhhhhmmm.......for the most part, No. How else do you explain the vast hordes roaming the supermarkets in their pajamas.

What a timely comment. Just yesterday my wife and I had bit of a row over my son's shorts (he's 9 and this week he's in a science/nature field camp). She insisted on having him wear casual "gym" shorts and I preferred that he wear real shorts (actual pants material, with a real waist band and pockets). I'm as casual as anybody in our casual society. But I draw the line at wearing anything but proper clothes in public!

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Cult of the Individual"... I like that. I can't recall who, but a comedian recently said that aliens orbiting the Earth and monitoring communications would come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans were famous.
I've been seeing a scary number of people refusing to turn their phones off during movies and sometimes even taking photos of their kids during the movie! The theater people are at their wit's end, I could tell when they threw one out two weeks ago for this. The person with the cell really had no idea why she was being removed!
Heck, a co-worker told me of a family at a funeral recently where the kids were playing with loud tablets and the mother as on the phone, during the entire service! So glad that wasn't me, I'd have given them all the bum's rush for sure.

I eject people who refuse a direct order to turn their phones off, and I tell them that obviously they have personal business that's more important to them than attending a show, and they'd best be dealing with it.

They also get a pointed warning before the show starts.

 

[tonyb]

Seeing that clip, and the other one featuring you at the theater, I'm reminded of my peripheral acquaintance with the manager of the Blue Mouse in the Proctor District of Tacoma, Washington. The Blue Mouse, which has been there since 1923, is run as a for-profit business, although any proceeds above the cost of running the place is typically put back into the structure. For the owners and the workers, it truly is a labor of love.

I've also attended movies at the Ruby Theater in Chelan, Washington, which opened in 1914, back when movie theaters were sometimes called "photohouses," as was the Ruby, when it opened.

Perhaps the future of the movie theater business is to be found in its history. The multiplex experience just isn't the same thing as the old movie palace. And with the quality (and size!) of "home theater" equipment these days, I dunno, I'm thinking that if I were in the multiplex business I'd be getting out of the multiplex business.

You gotta sell something people can't get at home, and, frankly, I'd just as soon see most Hollywood offerings on a big screen in someone's home as in one of those shoebox auditoriums at the multiplex. Seriously, the big-screen TV's take up as much or more of one's field of vision as he gets at the multiplex. A nephew has a TV the size of a queen-sized bed. (If that's an exaggeration, it isn't much of one.)

Sure, people still go to the movies, and industry boosters can point to figures showing how healthy the business is. But I'm reminded of a lunch I had with my then boss, the publisher of a chain of newspapers, back in the late 1990s. Old Jerry had been in the newspaper business since the 1940s, and had kept the doors open all those years, so he quite obviously knew things about the business I never will. I asked him if he thought the Internet would be a threat to our biz. Nah, he said. Radio was gonna put newspapers out of business, TV was gonna put newspapers out of business. Now they're saying the Internet will put newspapers out of business. We've never sold more ads, we've never printed more pages. So don't worry about it.

Jerry lived long enough to see just how wrong he was. He passed away just last year.

 

[ChiTownScion]

[video=youtube;hut3VRL5XRE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hut3VRL5XRE[/video]

Call me cynical, but that looked staged. First day of class routine to drive home the point that attention is to be focused on the here and now.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Seeing that clip, and the other one featuring you at the theater, I'm reminded of my peripheral acquaintance with the manager of the Blue Mouse in the Proctor District of Tacoma, Washington. The Blue Mouse, which has been there since 1923, is run as a for-profit business, although any proceeds above the cost of running the place is typically put back into the structure. For the owners and the workers, it truly is a labor of love.

We're a non-profit now, and our big selling point is our role in the community. We're not a palace or a multiplex -- we're an independent small-town neighborhood theatre, and we know most of our patrons on a first-name basis. Those of us who run the place do so as a family, and we're inviting people to come spend some of their leisure time with us and see pictures they might not have heard about , or live events they wouldn't otherwise have a chance to see at all. We're not in it to Make Money -- because nobody's making money unless they're dishing up Iron Man XXXVIII to an audience of nacho-eating fifteen-year-olds. We're in it because we believe that we need to do everything possible to hold onto what was once the common collective sense of belonging to a community.