Can we please have a moratorium on Christmas...

At least until after Thanksgiving?

I don't care how incredibly cute the John Lewis 2014 Christmas advert featuring Monty the Penguin is...


(And it is insulin-injection-needed-stat cute.)

I do NOT want to see advertising for Christmas on November 7th...

When I beheld the ad above and this Christmas spectacle at Stamford Town Center, featuring Santa Claus, several elves, and Christmas music being blasted from speakers...

And I especially do NOT want to start celebrating Christmas on November 1st (when the Crowne Plaza in New Orleans put up its Christmas decorations), or on November 6th (which also happens to be my birthday and when John Lewis published its Monty the Penguin Christmas advert), or pick your date in November!

Nor do I want to celebrate Christmas (or Hanukkah, for that matter) on Thanksgiving. (DO YOU HEAR ME, RETAILERS? Apparently not, except for you, Nordstrom and Costco. For which I thank you.)

Can't a girl enjoy the fall, and some turkey and stuffing, in peace, without feeling pressured to shop? (I'm pretty sure the mas in Christmas does not stand for mas shopping.)

I am so exasperated, I am thinking of starting a petition on Change.org. But before I do, I would love some feedback from all of you. Do you think I'm a Scrooge and that we should start celebrating Christmas as soon as Halloween has ended? Or do you think, like me, that the Christmas season should not begin until December 1st? Please let me know via a (respectful, non-abusive) comment.

I wish you a merry November.

It's not bitching...

It's Verbal Release Therapy.

In fact, when you think about it, or the alternatives, bitching is downright good for you.

When you hold in all that anger, all that frustration, what do you get? An ulcer. Or high blood pressure. Or a serial killer. You're like a ticking time bomb, ready to go off.

But by bitching (or kvetching, or grumbling, or complaining, or venting*) about that jerk who cut you off on your way to work, or your computer crashing right in the middle of typing that important paper, or why you seem to be the only person in the house who is able to change a roll of toilet paper (or load/unload the dishwasher, or put shit away, or do laundry, or clean up), or how no one ever reads your blog posts, or how your football team sucks, or -- you get the idea -- you release all that stress and frustration and negative energy into the ether and can begin the healing process.

[Deep breath in through the nose... vent out through the mouth. Aaaaaah.]

Of course, like everything else in life, you should bitch, or complain, or vent in moderation. (Nobody likes a whiner.) Preferably to someone who loves or cares about you, or whom you are paying, who will be a good listener, and will not tell you to "relax," or "chill out," or "what you should do is," which will only result in more anger and frustration and... bitching.

This has been a public service announcement.


*Did you know the English language has over three dozen words, or synonyms, for complain?

Failure sucks

I am a failure.

Or, maybe I should say, I feel like a failure -- as in lacking professional (and personal) success.

As in, no matter how hard I work or try, it seems I never succeed, or my efforts fail to get noticed or make money. Apparently, like the Despair.com poster says, my best just isn't good enough.

And as anyone who has studied really hard for a test, or spent days working on a paper, prepared really hard for a presentation, or worked her ass for a promotion or raise, only to get a poor grade, have the presentation fall flat, or get passed over for that promotion can tell you, failure sucks.

Sure, I know that somewhere out there there are people who have failed worse than I have. At least I think there are. I don't really know because you never (or rarely) read about them. Or you only read about them after they have failed and then become enormously successful. Or they failed so spectacularly that they make front page news.

Just read Inc. and Fast Company or The New York Times or Business Insider. (Or don't. It's reading all those entrepreneur and blogger success stories that got me to start my own blog and ecommerce business -- and into this funk.)

And while failing rarely feels good, social media has made us small-time, run-of-the-mill failures feel even worse. Indeed, if I am to believe everyone's Facebook or Twitter feed, I am the only failure out there.

By the way, for all of you out there reading this and saying "J! No wonder you are a failure. You have a bad attitude. You need to think positively! What you need is... a vision board!" Fuck you. And I mean that in the kindest, nicest way. It's like telling someone who is upset or stressed out "Just relax!" (Which doesn't work either.) Or "You need to meditate! And join a book club!" (Been there, done that. Feel worse.)

If I am a pessimist -- or, as I like to say, a realist -- it's because I did everything I was supposed to (or was told I needed or had to do); followed all the rules; and yet never won or got the promised reward. While I saw people who cheated or cut corners or just knew the right person get ahead.

Wait. What's that I hear? Tiny violins? Playing just for me? Yes, I hear them, too.

But the point of this post is not to elicit your sympathy. (Though if you do feel even the tiniest bit sorry for me or want to make me feel a little less like a failure, share a link to this blog and/or to my ecommerce clothing business on your social media feeds or blogs -- or just buy a t-shirt or polo shirt.)

Frankly, I'm not exactly sure what the point of this blog post is. Maybe it's to feel a little less alone -- to feel as though I am not the only one out there (or here) who spent days, or weeks, or months, or years laboring over something, really giving it my all, or my best, only to have it fall flat or not be noticed by anyone. (If you write an article or create a business and no one knows about it or talks about it on social media, have you actually written an article or created a business?)

Btw, that's not a call for you to one-up me with your failure stories. ("You think you failed? Let me tell you about the time I failed!") Or tell me about your dieting failures. (Please, I'm begging you, don't.) Or to humble brag about your failure. (Complaining about getting a million dollar bonus while your buddy got a five-million-dollar bonus does not make you a failure. It makes you a jerk.) But I could use, or would appreciate, a little company.

If you want something done right...

I am not a perfectionist (despite what the spouse and teenager think). I just like things done a certain way. The right way. (Which is why I have always been loathe to hire people to work for me -- and am always very careful about recommending people for jobs.)

True, "right" is open to some interpretation, but I think we can all agree that there are right ways to do things and wrong ways. Like loading the dishwasher, for instance...

Or making the bed.

This one drives me crazy. How effing hard is it to make a bed? I'm not talking hospital corners here, people, though they do look so nice.

I'm talking about making sure the fitted sheet fits and the top sheet and blanket (or comforter) are evenly spread across the bed. Seriously, how frickin' hard is it to make sure you have the same or similar amount of sheet and blanket or comforter (or duvet for my European readers) on each side?! Yet every cleaning person or service I have ever hired cannot figure this out (nor can the spouse -- though I still love you, honey), even after I've shown them. WTF?

And do not get me started about laundry or folding clothes (you know, so they don't get wrinkled and fit in your drawers)...

Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of delegating. But as the old saying goes, good help is hard to find. 

Thoughts?

Customer service? More like customer disservice.

The other day, while on hold, waiting for the nice customer service representative to figure out why she couldn't find my account, again, I wondered, How much of our lives is wasted dealing with customer service -- or on hold waiting for a customer service representative? And how much of that wasted time is spent trying to fix a problem the company (not you) created...



Or a problem that you thought had been already resolved, but wasn't?

Granted, mistakes happen. That's why companies have Customer Service departments. I just think companies have different definitions of "service."

Oh to have a dollar for every customer service representative who was flat out incompetent. (I swear, if I have to spell my first and last name for my insurance broker, whom I have been working with for three years now, one more time, I'm going to explode.)

Or those customer service reps who can't actually help you with your problem, even though you know you pressed the right option on the customer support phone tree, and transfer you to someone else, often more than once....



[I have actually had this happen with my credit card company -- not Discover -- and with my digital subscription to my newspaper, which doesn't allow you to cancel your digital subscription online. You have to call -- and then have to go through two different departments, after going through a phone tree.]

Or those customer service -- or tech support -- folks who don't give a f@ck about your problem (or you)...



[Raise your hand if this has happened to you! Though I do somewhat sympathize with those IT help desk guys.]

Though the worst ones, at least to me, or the ones who seem all friendly and helpful -- who cheerfully "Yes, dear" you -- leading you to believe your issue has been resolved. Then days or weeks later you find out the problem hasn't been solved, and you have to go through the process all over again.

GRR.

So, any of you got beefs with customer service, or the lack thereof? Leave me a comment.

Does your family suffer from kitchen blindness?

Does it seem like your spouse and/or your children call your name every time they go looking for something in the kitchen, only to discover the item in question was right in front of them (or close by)?

Do they leave dishes or pots or pans in the sink, waiting for the washing-up fairy to magically appear? Or perhaps they wash a pot or a dish or two but leave several others behind (not wishing to offend the washing-up fairy)?

Is their idea of cleaning the counters to clean one or two, or just that spot in front of where they were standing or sitting? 

And when you ask them to vacuum the kitchen floor, do they carefully navigate around chairs and tables, instead of vacuuming under them, where the crumbs lie?

If you answered "yes" to one or more of these questions, your family may suffer from Kitchen Blindness, the inability to see objects, especially dirt or grime, directly in front of or near you when in a kitchen environment.

Sadly, there is no cure for Kitchen Blindness*, at least that I know of. However, sarcasm and humor (see "Hon, where's the butter?" card, above) have been known to alleviate the condition in some instances.

*Though if you know of one, please let me know.

Remember when you knew what ads were advertising?

So one of my current favorite ads is the Volkswagen ad with the two guys going on a road trip where one of the guys decides it would be fun to learn Spanish, instead of listening to music.



[This ad cracks me up every time -- probably because I've been brushing up on my French and wish all it took was a long car ride to sound fluent.]

The problem is that despite seeing the ad several times, I had no idea which car Volkswagen was advertising (turns out, the Passat). And I was more inspired to buy a language-learning CD than I was a car. Which, if the purpose of the ad was to sell me a car, means the ad failed. (Though, to borrow a phrase from my daughter, it was not an "epic fail.")

Now not that I buy stuff based on ads, but back in the day, at least ya knew what was being advertised. Today? Not so much. While there are lots of witty/clever ads out there, how many of you when you see a commercial remember what was being advertised a few hours -- heck, a few minutes -- later?

Call me an old fart, but I still remember Star-Kist and Charlie the Tuna.



["Sorry Charlie. Star-Kist doesn't want tunas with good taste. Star-Kist wants tunas that tastes good!"]

And I can still sing "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us," the old Burger King song. (Though I preferred McDonald's burgers and fries.)



Also, all anyone has to do is sing "meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow," and I immediately think Meow Mix!



And I have a sneaking feeling these ads for Dr. Pepper, featuring David Naughton, may have been partially responsible for my Dr. Pepper addiction.



Anyone else a Pepper?

I could go on and on, but I'd like to open the floor to all of you. Which classic ads do you miss? And do you think advertisers do a better job today of selling stuff on TV or not so much? Leave me a comment.

Things that no longer shock me

Back in the day, I used to think life was fair, that nice guys finished first, and bad deeds (and bad people) would be punished. Now? Not so much. Indeed, few things I read in the news or watch on TV surprise or shock me anymore. Which is kind of sad.

How jaded have I become? (Just remember, you can't spell jaded without J!) To find out I compiled the following list of those things that used to shock or surprise me but now barely raise an eyebrow.

* Politicians cheating on their wives

* Athletes cheating on their wives

* Celebrities cheating on their wives

* Anyone with a penis cheating on his wife

* Priests abusing children

* Priests (and bishops and cardinals) covering up priests abusing children

* Politicians acting in their own self interest, screw their constituents (and wives; see "Politicians cheating on their wives")

* CEOs and top executives who make hundreds of times more than their non-executive employees, even when the company is losing money

* CEOs and top executives who layoff hundreds of employees right before Christmas and then give themselves lavish Christmas bonuses

* How many people in this country are obese

* Teenage girls dressing (and/or acting) like hookers

* Reality TV (see "obese people," "teenage girls dressing/acting like hookers," above)

* Shock jocks

* Bears shopping in supermarkets



So what no longer shocks or surprises you? Leave a comment.