Friday, August 28, 2009

the land of 5:00

Well.....I've nearly gotten through another Friday at the sweatshop, aka my job.

I went out drinking last night with my boss, and ended up eating a deli sandwich around midnight sitting at a Chelsea construction site...i was not harassed or bothered by passersby in any fashion, which somehow seems depressing. I also got the bright idea of going back to the bar where I left my partner (because, in my drunk reasoning, I wanted to make sure he was okay...i felt like I just left him) and caught him in the act of chatting up a random guy (random Asian guy...are we doing sticky rice now??). Then I tried telling him (drunken reasoning again) how, lately, I have felt so much more love for him, and that its so amazing, because you would think that our love would wane with the passing years. He responded by saying something along the lines of, 'you're talking drunk'. After, we went to Veselka, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to eat on drunk nights. (www.veselka.com for any New Yorkers reading this.)

I CANNOT WAIT to be off work...the land of 5:00 seems like a distant beautiful dream.

I'm leaving you with a hilarious Craigslist posting my co-worker Ashley found. I'm just cutting and pasting because I don't want it to expire...this is a keeper:

"Live in Luxury - Seeking Girlfriend

Date: 2009-08-28, 9:52AM
Yes, I know this isn't for everyone.

I've had an incredible life so far. I live my fantasies every day. I'm rich, fit, funny, generous. I travel whenever I like, to wherever I like. I go to great concerts. I date amazing, beautiful women in their 20's, though I'm 50. I have an extraordinary estate here in the valley, eight bedrooms, views to die for.

Come live with me in an amazing eight-bedroom hillside mansion. We'll be great together.
You be 22-28, fit, trim, modelesque, beautiful in and out, open minded and open to adventure. Bi-curious is a plus.

You'll always be cherished, always be heard. Whatever your financial problems, we'll fix them. Looking to change your life? This could be for you. I live a life of the highest truth and integrity. You'll know this immediately.

To start, please send me a few pics. There's so much spam here on CL that I can't answer responses without pics. And feel free to tell me about yourself. Tell me about your successes in life, and tell me about the challenges you face right now, and how I might be able to help.

Please put I'M YOUR GF in the subject header. That slows the web bots down, I think.

I look forward to chatting with you soon, and hope that this posting makes for the path to all your dreams coming true, and mine too."

Thursday, August 27, 2009

reviewing Yelp

I just removed myself from Yelp.com. I only had two reviews anyway, so its no great loss. My partner and I were talking about Yelp the other night, and we agreed that it sort of sucks.

This is my reasoning: If you could be certain that every person reviewing on Yelp was fair-minded, with half a brain cell, and the best intentions, it would be one thing. But you can't be. Anybody can be on Yelp...any mean, spoiled fool can be on Yelp, and they can have a big impact on a person's livelihood.

My partner is a stylist in a small hair salon in NYC. He's gotten quite a few good reviews, and those are awesome, of course. But he's also gotten a couple of shitty reviews, and in those, the reviewer didn't even necessarily paint an accurate picture of what happened. The reviewers were able to use his name in their reviews, but they can disguise their own identities. And its bad form for any employee to respond to a bad Yelp review that names them. So they can't say, for example, "Well, Jogita, if you hadn't been an hour late, or had had any idea what you wanted when you came in, then you might have walked out with a cut more to your liking."

Anybody who has worked in the service industry knows that there are times that you do everything in your power to please a customer, and the customer is a psychopath determined to stick it to you for their own amusement. The problem with Yelp is, there is no way to tell if the reviewer is this kind of person, or a nice, smart, decent person who, unfortunately, did not like their haircut.