The general decline in standards today

[Undertow]

Perhaps you all would enjoy this story:

Men Growing Up to be Boys

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Very much enjoyed that. Very very true.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

You're so right - and its hard to be loyal to employers these days, especially if you know you might get let go any second, not to mention shady business practices. Everybody I know has no more loyalty to the companies they work for than a pair of shoes. Vanity Fair once held a poll asking people if they felt their employers valued them, and the vast majority said no.

One of the things I had to deal with as an employer, was to find people that had the talent and skills to do the work, and that would show up sober. In the long run, I was able to do that. I myself have always paid my employees a very attractive wage, treated them like family and have made sure they enjoy what they do. In my rewards for this, I have not had to worry about theft, misconduct, or problems with quality. If I have ever fired someone, I have always over paid them making sure they see that they have been over paid and discuss giving them a positive reference. I have kept this policy to make sure if I have had to let someone go, they do not have anything negative to say about anything. To date, I have only fired 2 people, since 1997. I tend to do a lot of investigation prior to hiring, and what to find out what a person is really like, aside from how well they can actually do the job required. I know that has helped me hire very good people.

I do understand some business owners are to tight to whistle in a hurricane, and have no clue about how to treat anyone decent.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Good article,Undertow.
HD

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

Once a guy needs to "ask permission" from his other half to have the remote in his own home, it's over for him.

One cool thing about becoming a man was buying "big boy" shoes with leather soles and going to a tailor, as well as finding a hat shop and buying your first lid. Some guys never experience this. Sad stuff.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Agreed. I had a girlfriend get upset with me once because I changed the channel IN MY OWN HOUSE.

Once a guy needs to "ask permission" from his other half to have the remote in his own home, it's over for him.

 

[Widebrim]

Agreed. I had a girlfriend get upset with me once because I changed the channel IN MY OWN HOUSE.

Wow, that is bad, Tom.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Now, I put up with plenty, especially from the gal I'm talking about. I just didn't think it was too much to ask for to wanna watch Frasier after a long day at work!

Wow, that is bad, Tom.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

She was testing your manhood. If they're not kept in check on this then they lose respect for you as their bo. Then they're touching some other guys remote if they're not already.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I think she was just a pain lol There's good women out there, it's just a ton of work to find one. My father did, I just hope I do.

She was testing your manhood. If they're not kept in check on this then they lose respect for you as their bo. Then they're touching some other guys remote if they're not already.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

*Hey Tom, gimme the clicker and let's watch "Project Runway"*.

You must maintain your position while keeping composure. It could get ugly.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Project Runway, I'd vomit. To top it off, she had yelled at me to come sit down. I was hanging new curtains in the kitchen.

*Hey Tom, gimme the clicker and let's watch "Project Runway"*.

You must maintain your position while keeping composure. It could get ugly.

 

[Edward]

I have never used a fitting room anywhere. For some reason you gal's do not mind using them, but for the life of me, I just cannot find it in me to use a fitting room. I will buy something, go home, try it on and if it does not fit, then I go all the way back to exchange or get a refund.

Jinkies, that's extreme. Back in the Old Country, I avoided Dunnes Stores for years because they didn't have fitting rooms. Amazing returns policy, but so much hassle to go back (maybe that was the idea?? lol ). They have 'em now though. Just as well..... only a mother could say "stop fussing and try those trousers on, go behind that stand, nobody's looking there" "Er.... that's the window....".

I almost think the fitting room is some sort of chamber that can allow just anyone to see you in a state you don't want to be seen in! lol! (Not that anyone is going to, but that is the feeling I get about them).

I did hear of a chain in the US (don't know the name) that has a sign up in the changing room to the effect that, for security purposes, the changing rooms are monitored by "persons of your own gender". I'd draw the line at that!

Most places do not allow things to be unclean. The worst places however for keeping clean are gas station restrooms. They top the list of nasty, in my book!

And there are always nasty men who want to kill you and eat your innards in them. It's true, it is!

Isn't THAT the truth! Women are worse, if you can believe it. I've actually used a men's restroom instead, because the women's bathroom was so gross :eeek:

Once, at the end of a residential weekend while at Uni, I was rotaed to clean out the girls' bathrooms at the end of the event. Shattered all my 'sugar and spice' illusions, I can tell ya..... Endless bit of dirty cotton wool, a three day old breakfast half eaten, you name it....

I've long gotten used to ladies coming in to use the men's at the theatre, especially during Rocky Horror runs. As much as anything it's the queues that are the issue for them. The queue for the toilets in a theatre is the one time I've ever heard a woman admit to penis envy.

Once a guy needs to "ask permission" from his other half to have the remote in his own home, it's over for him.

This always amuses me. It's obvious some contemporary notion of manhood, having control of the remote. Was the vintage equivalent insisting on getting up and changing a channel for the lady?

One cool thing about becoming a man was buying "big boy" shoes with leather soles and going to a tailor, as well as finding a hat shop and buying your first lid. Some guys never experience this. Sad stuff.

Over this way, in my Dad's generation the big transition was the shift from short trousers to proper, long trousers. There was a time he remembers when little boys wore shorts year round. I don't remember ever seeing him in a pair of shorts myself, which I'm sure has something to do with my rejection of them as 'for kids', even though he and I don't dress much alike otherwise.

 

[PoohBang]

She was testing your manhood.

If changing channels is testing one's manhood, then maybe they didn't have much manhood to begin with.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Changing channels was less of an issue in the past anyway -- the whole idea of channel-grazing is an innovation of the cable era. When you only had three channels, you didn't have much excuse to flick around. And when the channel needed to be changed, it was one of the kids who was ordered to do it. And then you had to go back and adjust the fine tuning, the contrast, the horizontal hold, and the vertical hold. And then your parents got exasperated and said "JUST SIT DOWN AND LET ME DO IT."

 

[PoohBang]

you forgot the 20 seconds of waiting for the tubes to heat up....

 

[LizzieMaine]

And being asked to hold the tinfoil on the end of the left rabbit ear so that Channel 8 would come in.

 

[jamespowers]

Perhaps you all would enjoy this story:

Men Growing Up to be Boys

This nails it all:
"Yet popular culture continues to fetishize the traditional, ’50s model of masculinity, but in a distilled form—kick-ass machismo stripped of the accompanying values of honor, duty and loyalty. We seem to have carried with us the unreconstructed sexism of the past—the objectification of women, inability to connect or communicate—but discarded its redeeming virtues. Where traditional masculinity embraced marriage, children and work as rites of passage into manhood, the 21st century version shuns them as emasculating, with the wife cast in the role of the castrating mother. The result resembles a childlike fantasy of manhood that is endowed with the perks of adulthood—money, sex, freedom—but none of its responsibilities."

Don't think so? Go watch an episode of Married with Children. It burns me to no end to see men cast as idiot husbands who can't think or work their way out of a paper bag. That isn't a man---that's a child.

 

[Undertow]

Changing channels was less of an issue in the past anyway -- the whole idea of channel-grazing is an innovation of the cable era. When you only had three channels, you didn't have much excuse to flick around. And when the channel needed to be changed, it was one of the kids who was ordered to do it. And then you had to go back and adjust the fine tuning, the contrast, the horizontal hold, and the vertical hold. And then your parents got exasperated and said "JUST SIT DOWN AND LET ME DO IT."

Ah...memories. Even as a child of the 80's, we still used an old console tv from the late 50's (hand down). I remember waiting for the tubes to warm, then a gentle glow would appear, the picture would slowly get better and then there would be a process of adjusting the screen.

After all that, we could play 78's, 45's and 33's in the accompanying turntable. My god, those were the days!

 

[jamespowers]

And being asked to hold the tinfoil on the end of the left rabbit ear so that Channel 8 would come in.

Tin foil or not. Just standing there holding the antenna would help. Sometimes just standing there would work. lol