To err is human. – by Denis Kaplun

Published by M2J under Contributions, Rants on February 20, 2008

“To err is human.”

Indeed, people make mistakes and, in time, people learn from them. That is the basic textbook definition of “experience.” My experience at my last place of employment certainly presented me a lot of so-called experience, none more important than the realization that working there may have been one of the biggest mistakes my life. This company is a business model—a model of what every employer would want to avoid emulating.

 

In order to preserve some sort of anonymity, I shall refer to this place simply as J. J is a well-known retail location, which has expanded beyond anyone’s guess. While its success seems admirable, the behind-the-scenes look shows this to be a façade. From treating its employees, the supposed most important asset, as expendable property to screwing over customers and workers alike, J has become a haven of bad business theory, enacted by uneducated management.

 

To err is human. I am human. I too could make mistakes and am susceptible to bias. As a result, I shall present only fact and logic. Emotion will not be implicitly stated, although each reader is urged to come his or her own opinion.

 

As an employee of J, I was entitled to fewer rights than the customers I was supposed to serve. In attempt to make a personal purchase, I myself have become a customer. Being an employee I am entitled to a discount, albeit not usually a very promising one. As a result, I could obtain no help from the salespeople in helping me choose a product. On one such instance, I have gone to the store and asked a salesman a question about a certain item. Unbeknownst to him, I was his coworker and thus he helped. Upon finding out about my status, and knowing he will not be receiving any commission for his help, I have yet to see him again. J creates an atmosphere in which its subjects refuse to aid anyone unless it benefits them.

 

J carries an extremely popular item, one that is not easy to obtain and is usually sold out. When it does come in stock, one would think that an employee would be able to get one for him and increase his productivity through happiness. But J, being a keen business entity, bars employees from such items. These are reserved only for those who are lucky to not wear the badge of J. In my attempt to get this highly sought product, I have asked a manager if I can pay full price to get it. I decided to not just to go behind their backs, but to be up-front. The answer was a very dismissive “I’ll talk to the buyers” as he made a haste exit and I have yet to hear any more from him on this issue. My money, as it seems, is not good enough for them! And once more did my employment at J result in me getting a worse treatment than a customer.

 

J is a type of company that preferred to do things that are legal but are inherently immoral. They would often pick on a person so often that would be forced to quit. This would save J money, as they do not have to pay any unemployment. Because the pay we received was above minimum wage, they would force people to work whatever hours they desired (but more on that later.) When a manager (who was one of the very few who was actually good) died, the company went on as nothing happened. At the funeral, which I was honored to attend, only two of the upper managers came. The owner, of course, was too busy to be bothered with such an event.

 

The management of J, as I quickly realized, has no experience being actual management. They were instead egomaniacs on power trips who instituted policies randomly and arbitrarily. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, they have done it to the extent where it is downright counterproductive and insulting. The head manager, who could not compose an email with no grammatical errors to save his last follicle on his head, enacted policies, which have caused a mass outcry.

 

I have worked 8 hours a day, plus an hour lunch, 5 days a week. When it was a busy season, J enacted a mandatory 6 days a week schedule (which is of questionable legal nature) in order to have enough staff. However, once enacted, J would rather keep this policy even when it is no longer necessary. Since they pay the same regardless, they have no need to limit the hours. This policy is kept to the sole whim of the management, and not for the greater good. While this is somewhat understandable, J also deems it necessary to use this as a source of punishment. Every so often they suddenly surmise—based on no evidence whatsoever—that it will be busy. They ask for volunteers. But of course we are all privy to their faux future telling and no one volunteers. Instead of taking this with stride, they decide to punish everyone by making them work an extra day. They were wrong; it was not busy.

 

Among the more ridiculous reasons to penalize an employee, J illegally punished us for minor infractions such as misspelling of a customer’s email address. They wanted us to get the email address twice and then read it back to them, no doubt so they can sell it of to the highest bidder (and probably the lowest bidder as well!) People were penalized because when we told the customer the truth, full aware that it is the truth, we had not consulted with the management. There is no need to involve them and yet they demanded so just so they have an extra bullet in their barrel for you! We even got punished when a different department made mistakes, which was unbelievably common.

 

The thing that J’s managers hated the most was to give the employees any time off. Be it a personal day, a vacation, or a legitimate illness, they vehemently refuse to accommodate. They even went as far as to demand make up days! They would force and threaten people to come in when they were sick and could not physically make the trip. Some managers provided advice on what to do so the employee could still come in, never mind that they had no medical training whatsoever. Others, the lazy ones, would just transfer the person to a manager who was very adamant and stubborn. And an employee would have to pray to whichever deity it is that they pray to in order to escape the fury that would follow if one would call out on a weekend! I once had a family emergency and called out, saying it was a personal issue. The management called me back three times and then called me into the office to explain myself the next time I came in.

 

The management was such that it expected a lot but appreciated nothing. No act was good. When a fellow employee broke a record, which has stood there for 20 odd years, he was praised. Until the next day when the owner of J, Mr. J himself, squeaked at him that he was not impressed. He would rather see less performance but in which the customers are squeezed for everything they are worth. If you excel in one area, they will attack another. If you improve that area, it is not enough. They will always find some sort of problem, ignoring the fact that the business is slow. I myself was told that I was too fast of a worker, even though I was efficient and good at what I was doing.

 

It seems that everything that J institutes has the sole purpose of demoralizing its employees in order to be able to train them better. We received threatening emails from the management, we were being threatened to be fire on a continuous basis, we are treated as disposable assets. They bring people up just to make them crash farther. They give out “employee of the month” award, as the name would imply, on a monthly basis. We have long since learned that this “award” is actually a kiss of death as most people get suspended or fired within weeks of receiving this “honor.” People have been known to quit within a week and I even heard stories of people taking a lunch on their first day and never coming back. The turnover rate in my department, and especially in others, was tremendous. The customer service department always had new faces and we wondered what happened to the old ones. Most of the other departments are seriously understaffed. And when mistakes occur due to not having enough manpower for all of the work to do, they fire people in great haste and with very little consideration. They release the workers and then they ponder why there is so much workload.

 

Which brings us to J’s finest hour. As a favor to a fellow worker, I have switched schedules with him in order to accommodate his evening plans. I came on time for his schedule but unfortunately he had come a little late. Toward the end of the day, my fellow coworker has a conversation in the office of one of J’s managers. To pacify the manager, my coworker has offered to stay longer to make up the hours but the manager has declined the offer. As my coworker was leaving, the manager, in his infinite wisdom, cursed out his worker. Being a man of pride, my coworker has confronted him. The following day, he was told he was on thin ice, as this manager cowered in the corner as another had to do his dirty work. He was then promptly fired due to the fact that a manager cursed him out.

 

In a normal work environment, the management is there to help the employees do their job. It is on this mutual relationship that businesses prosper. J, however, decided to have a different style. The management would not make decisions, as they did not want to be liable. They would always say they would ask someone else. They just wanted to cover their own asses. They would at times tell us to ask on a different day just so they can ask someone else. While they had no problem is forcing us to do their bidding, so to speak, they had a tremendous problem doing anything on our behalf.

 

They also liked to play a game of “good cop, bad cop” when they had to inform us of anything. They will make it seem like we were in big trouble and that they fought to lower the punishment to whatever it is. In reality, they just wanted that punishment. A coworker of mine was told that he was in trouble and that no manager liked him. The only way he could save his job was to go to a later, and a lesser sought, shift. They pretended to be on your side and blame everything on their superiors, but in reality they were basically autonomous and made the decisions and instituted punishments all on their own.

 

We did socialize with the managers, joked around. But their feeble egos cannot react properly as soon as their authority is challenged. It is like talking to a bipolar multiple personality disorder patient, unsure which face you will be talking to today. One time a manager walked by and scolded me for having my feet on my desk. While that gripe is understandable, not a week has passed since he was doing the same. I questioned his doing so and his return explained it all: “I’m a manager, I can do it.” Some of the managers asked us to get them food if it was on the way for us when we were doing so. One of the managers asks me to get him food during my lunch hour and then he chides me for being late! I suppose manners were not taught! Not more than four hours have passed that he suspended me because a customer, who was in the wrong, complained about me.

 

And this is a good segue into J’s biggest downfall: the customer, as wrong as they are, are not always right, but are entitled to presidential treatment when they deserve a straightjacket (literally, in some cases.) The management assumes the customer is always right and allows its employees no chance to defend him or herself. Well, they do. They just do not take that into any consideration; once their mind is made up, it stays that way. The customers would make up any story they could, reality was optional, fact was overlooked. The managers bought their stories. Be it an increase in returns, faulty price adjustments, lies about what they were told, and of course the apparent mistreatment by the workforce. The managers, in their laziness, would oftentimes give customers free items or money back just not to speak to them. While the customer could do no wrong, we were the scapegoats. Be it issues related to the customer’s bad credit or the customers providing wrong information to begin with, we were at fault.

 

Up until recently, J was involved in a program that allowed people in prisons and mental institutions to call and pretend to do business. These inmates would call up and waste an inordinate amount of time. They were almost always rude. They demanded things that just could not be done. And the saddest thing of all: J probably bid and won such a privilege.

 

It would seem weird how much went wrong and how little was mentioned of Mr. J, the owner. Mr. J is a man who married well. His wife’s father gave them the money to start the store and this store expanded. Instead of thanking his lucky stars, he relishes in the fact that he is better than everyone. From his speaking manner to his actions, nothing about his screams humble. This man was banned from the store by his wife due to his treatment of employees and customers alike. He is now only allowed into the warehouse, although he is wanted there by no one; it is as if the whole place is on red alert when he is present. He is known for his mood swings and his squeaky voice. He threatens people in all department, claims to know more than we do, and makes up stories when he is proven wrong! While he is not allowed in the store, I have seen him sitting by the store—like a watchdog of sorts. This is from a man who parks on fire hydrants because he is too good to look for a parking spot (proof is readily available.) This is from a man who has physically threatened people to bash their skulls in. This is from a man who would take candy from a baby just to try to get his employees to sell it back!

 

The year and a half I have spent there was filled humorous stories, had they been featured in a comedic movie. It was full of backstabbing from the managers, absurd rules that they decided to pass, and fake interactions between us. So yes: to err is human. And thank you, J, for the experience that I have received.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Published by M2J under Reviews on February 10, 2008

As a huge fan of the 80s Horror genre of movies, I’ve decided to go through one of my favorites, A Nightmare on Elm St. This movie was released in late 1984 and I feel it is the best of the series. It was done very well, although I do have gripes with it that I would like to see changed if the movie was ever remade. What I will do is run a play by play of the movie, raving about what I like and ranting about what I do not. Let’s get to the flick.

The opening shot we get is our unidentified friend making what looks to be a glove with knives on the fingers. That’s all we get. That’s all we need. We are in a very unsanitary looking place, and one of our little starlets is wandering around it in a night-gown and barefoot. She seems as confused as we are, various noises and things are happening that make this setting all the more creepy. Our friend with the claw reveals himself to her (but not us). She runs for it. Just as she stops to catch her breath, our still unknown villain jumps up behind her and grabs her, she wakes up and we discover she was just dreaming…or was she? Her gown is torn, for parallel slashes to be exact. Nice touch.

We meet the rest of our team of teens. Of course a conversation of the dream comes up. We move to later in the evening, Tina is having a sleep over to feel better about what is taking place. More detail of the dream is discussed. Turns out that the girl we have met already (Tina) and the second one (Nancy) both dreamt about this creepy gentleman with the claw. Better yet, Nancy’s boyfriend (Glen) flashes them a look while they’re describing this man as if he has too seen him. Freaky huh?

Rod shows up. Although we weren’t 100% sure, Rod is more or less Tina’s main squeeze, as they go off into the other room and do it. Glen and Tina don’t, Glen is bummed. At this point in the movie, Rod and Tina talk a little bit, one of my favorite lines of all time is delivered by Tina, “Jungle man fix Jane.” Not “Tarzan” but “Jungle man.” But she’s Tina, not Jane! Anyway, Rod eludes to the point that he has had nightmares too.

Everyone is now asleep. Tina is woken up by someone throwing things at the window. We then cut to Nancy sleeping, above her the wall starts moving and we can make out an outline of a person within. This was pointless. She’s either sleeping, or dreaming, she isn’t dreaming of sleeping. On a side note, they throw Jesus on a crucifix into this mix a few times. Dumb.

Back to Tina, she decides she is going to go outside and investigate this disruption. She is wearing shirt, that’s all. She’s a 15 year old girl and she is going out to find out who is throwing rocks at the window in the middle of the night by herself…no one ever accused her of being smart I guess. This is probably my favorite scene in the entire movie. Our villain’s official debut. We can tell this is where we will be confronting him. I love this scene. We see his shadow, followed by his appearance. In nightmare-like fashion, he is sporting arms that stretch for a long time.

Does it look goofy here? Yes. This was the 80s, however. The concept is perfect. This can’t happen in reality. She is dreaming. A subtle touch like this makes it clear that we are no it the realm of safety and logic. After informing her that he is God, he runs after her. She runs away and he’s in front of her. She runs in a different direction and he pops out from behind a tiny tree like in a cartoon. Although unlike the lovable Bugs Bunny, he slices his fingers off and reveals he has slime, not blood inside of him. Wow. How do you screw with that? Finally, Tina reaches a dead end and he grabs her. The wrestle around on the floor and she tries to claw at this face. She succeeds in pulling it off, but we discover he doesn’t care. Brilliant use of the nightmare thing again. We then see her from the perspective of someone who is awake. She is getting torn to shreds, levitating and moved up along the wall. She seems to be awake, but it is too late. Rod is confused obviously. He flees. Obviously he is suspected.

Nancy goes to school to forget about this stuff. On her way Rod stops her and tells her he didn’t do it. The cops grab him. We see Nancy in class, she falls asleep and things start happening. The reading aloud one of her classmates was doing becomes a haunting passage about bad dreams. She sees Tina in a body bag and then follows a trail of blood outside in the hall. She’s greeted by a hall monitor who is wearing similar threads to our villian.

After the walks away, the hall monitor is sporting the glove. Yep, we’re dreaming. She ends up wandering to a boiler room, similar to the place we saw in the intro of the movie. She is now face to face with the killer. Again he cuts himself to reveal slime… and maggots.

Finally our villain says “Come to Freddy.” In a panic, Nancy burns herself on a pipe. She awakes screaming in class and takes off. Outside she discover she is actually burned.

She visits Rod who is in jail. He tells her how he saw Tina die and describes the cuts appearing on her body. He now opens up and talks about the guy with the “knives for fingers.” Nancy goes home takes a bath.

After a gratuitous happy shot, her mom wakes her up and tells her she has “heated up some warm milk.” This is a lie, she heated up milk, it is now warm. Nancy is pulled under water and Freddy makes another attempt to at her life. He fails and she begins drinking a lot of coffee and taking pills to stay awake. Glen sneaks over to her house and they talk more. The stress is apparently taking its toll on her. She looks in the mirror and says “I look 20 years old.” This is funny because she actually was, that actress that is. She was playing a 15 year old. She tells Glen to watch her and he falls asleep as well. In her dream she goes to Rod’s jail cell. Freddy walks right through the bars and makes a noose out of his bed sheet and hang him…or does he? He’s no longer a one trick pony now. He is not even sporting his glove in the scene. I like him even more.

Suddenly he is gone and Rod is fine. Nancy then sees Tina standing in the body bag again atop snakes and mud. Freddy makes his attempt at her again. She runs back home. When she gets to the stairs, her feet go through them as if they are marshmallow. Freddy begins breaking into the house, now sporting Tina’s face and speaking in her voice. She says “Save me from…” the voice becomes Freddy’s and he finishes the sentence with “Freddy!” She gets to her room and closes the door. After telling herself this is just a dream while looking in her mirror, Freddy flies out of said mirror They wrestle around and when she wakes up. She chews Glen for sleeping before they rush to the jail just in time to see Rod hanged.

At his funeral, she tells her parents what she’s been seeing. Based on the look they give each other, they know something. By the way, she is wearing a really stand outish blue dress at the funeral where everyone else is wearing black. Her mom takes her to the hospital. She’s having her dreams measured somehow by the guy who did the voice of Roger Rabbit. Her dreams of course go off the scale. We just hear sounds. She wakes up with several cuts on her hand, gray hair, and she is holding the hat we have seen atop Freddy’s head. Back home her mom hides the hat. Something is up here. Nancy apparently sees that the hat reads Freddy’s full name inside of it. Any good dream demon writes his name on his clothes. ROFL

We see Glen and Nancy talking about dreams. Glen seems to know some stuff about dreams and dealing with them. Apparently when you meet a monster in your dream, you turn your back on it, taking away it’s presence and it goes away. Later that night, Nancy’s mom tells her the story of Freddy Krueger. So he was real. Apparently he was a child killer in the neighborhood, and on a technicality was found not guilty. The parents then found him in the boiler room that he hung out in and burned him to death. Another great line, “He’s dead honey because mommy killed him.” Priceless!

She then reveals the glove.

Glen is home watching TV and listening to music. Nancy warns him to not fall asleep. She calls him and the parents don’t want her to talk to him, they keep the phone off the hook. Glen falls asleep. Nancy gets a call from … well, sounds like scraping of knives against metal. She rips the phone out of the wall. It rings again. Freddy delivers the message, “I’m your boyfriend now” and the mouth piece of the phone becomes Freddy’s mouth, with tongue action. Classic!

We seen Glen get pulled into his bed and basically a volcano of blood emerges from it.

Nancy makes a game plan. She sets traps all over the house. She plans to fall asleep for ten minutes and try to wake up while having a hold of Freddy, therefore waking up with him and he will be stuck in reality. She tells her dad (the sheriff) to be at the house at 12:30 exactly to arrest him. Of course he thinks she is nuts and has no intention of doing so. Bad dad.

She finds him. Finally she wakes up while they are wrestling on the ground. We get a classic, “He’s not here…or is he?” She beats him up real good for the next few minutes, the whole time screaming out the window at the cops outside at the recently departed Glen’s house and telling them to come help her. They continue to ignore her. After throwing everything she can at Freddy, she sets him on fire. His reacting is priceless. He seems genuinely scared of fire. Finally they get there. He has found his way up to Nancy’s mother’s room. When they get there, he is on the bed strangling her, still on fire. This is where it falls apart.

After Freddy is struck with a wooden chair, he falls limp and on top of Nancy’s mother. Nancy’s father grabs a blanket and smothers them both to put the fire out. When he pulls it off only the burnt body of the mother remains and under her is a void-looking…thing. She soft of picks her hand up and begins slowly sinking into this void before the surface of the bed disappears and she is apparently gone. The father looks stunned, Nancy asks, “Now do you believe me?” The father doesn’t communicate with her at this point and frankly, I can’t tell what is real and what isn’t at this point. The mom disappearing into the bed is strange as well. Where did Freddy go? Well Nancy tells her father to go downstairs and she will follow. The door closes by itself and when Nancy turns away from the bed, Freddy returns, coming from underneath the sheet and slicing it with his claw to get out. Nancy states that she isn’t afraid, this is just a dream and that she demands her mother and friends again. Freddy makes one more attempt at her and disappears before he can get to her, we hear him screaming. Nancy opens the door and we are outside during a bright morning. Everything seems perfect. The mom is being nice, proclaims she is going to stop drinking and everything. Her friends all pull up to take her to school. As soon as she gets into the car, the top to the convertible closes, red and green stripes like Freddy’s sweater. Apparently this is all happening without anyone’s actions to make it so. The doors lock, windows roll up and the car drives away with them all screaming. The mom waves and Freddy’s arm comes through the window on the door and pulls the mom through. The end.

WTF was that!? So she was still dreaming when she thought she woke up with Freddy? She woke up, everything happened and it was too bad? She fell back asleep? This ending is so lousy! This is the only thing I would change in the movie without any doubt. Either she overcame Freddy, or she didn’t. If you take the answer that she never actually woke up, that would be really neat, but it doesn’t make that clear and doesn’t seem to make any sense. The whole movie I was so happy feeling like we were getting somewhere and then this has to happen. Killing him and being done with it would have given us a good ending with closure. Making it clear that she never woke up would have been cool too. Well a remake is in progress, I guess we’ll see if someone smartened up this time.