What a glorious thing we thought reality tv was.  The early Real World and Survivor blew us away.  They were great!  Look at these real people making fools of themselves!  What voyeurs we are.  It was awesome.

Now, however, there isn’t much to choose from BESIDES reality tv show.  Survivor, The Real World, The Hills (barely), Trading Spouses, Big Brother, L.A. Ink, Miami Ink, The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, America/ Austrailia/ Canada /Britain’s Next Top Models, Biggest Loser, etc. etc.  These are supposed to be ‘real’ people given opportunities to win money, fame, a title, weight, etc.  But the more reality show dribble that is being produced, the less real it is!  And even if it was real, we don’t care anymore!

Instead of real people being on tv, it’s now aspiring actors and celebrity-esque competitors.  Everyone is on to how ‘alliances’ work, and there is always some kind of shocking scandal- what a surprise that a girl on Top Model has an eating disorder, or that some asshole on Biggest Loser drank 40 gallons of water to throw the vote, or someone passes out or gets slapped, whatever.  How many times can we watch the same thing happen? 

It was cool the first time a Survivor contestant got naked, it was shocking when the guy on the Real World slapped the girl with Lupus back in ‘98, and we all loved the religious rant of that creepy lady on wife swap, but attention television networks:  Just because we liked it the first time doesn’t mean you have to do it for every fucking show. 

And as far as this Hollywood writer’s strike- GOOD!  You guys suck too!  Maybe if you wrote something good we wouldn’t be forced to turn to the “unpredictable” antics of reality television.  I’m sorry but everyone needs to get their own personal reality check and stop encouraging this crap.  I say spread the fires towards Hollywood and lets rebuild from scratch.  I demand some quality programming.  I want to see a sitcom that strays from the same 5 plots writers have been using since TGIF fifteen years ago.  And I don’t want to hear about fat people losing weight, slutty people being slutty, fanatical people being psycho, and models passing out from eating nothing but apple seeds for two weeks. 

Heroes sucks, 24 sucks, Grey’s Anatomy SUCKS, every thing on television sucks.  Everything.  I don’t even want cable because that sucks too.  And maybe you’re saying “well why don’t you write a show if you don’t like the selection?”  Because I am not a television writer, and if I wrote television shows they would all be about smoking weed and complaining about television- and I have to common sense to know that people don’t want to watch that. 

Back to my original topic- I didn’t intend to touch on regular television shows- but back to Reality Television.  Stop it.  Just stop.  How many more $100,000 prizes can we give out?  How long until we run out of fat people to go on Biggest Loser or people who want a phoenix tattooed on their arm by Kat Von Slut?  How many more islands are left to film Survivor on and how long until the people on Trading Spouses realize that the person who comes into their home is going to make them live differently than they’re used to- that is the point.  And how many more seasons of the Real World can we stomach?  I went to college, and it was the same fucking thing, alcoholic sluts throwing things at each other. 

Does anyone else out there die a little inside every time they hear a good song used for a stupid commercial?  I think I finally realized the seriousness of this issue the other day when “All you need is Love” was used in a fucking baby wipes commercial!!!!

Commercials are overplayed and annoying anyway, and to have what used to be a favorite song become overplayed and annoying is a tragedy. 

Any “artist” (Beatles not included, since I didn’t think they had the rights to a lot of their songs- correct me if I’m wrong) who sells their music to an Ad agency is an asshole, and I hate them.  Don’t they have enough money floating around?  Why can’t they just do a stupid reality show like every other washed up celebrity?  Why do they have to go and ruin the one thing that got their names out there in the first place?  If I had any talent at all and actually had a song that was GOOD, I would never in a million years let some asshole trying to sell something near it! 

Where are all the jingle writers out there?  Living on the streets?  Why not let unknown bands promote their music and use their stuff?   Wait… because when bands are still unknown they actually have a shred of dignity and actually care about their songs and would never compromise their integrity for a fucking commercial… so nevermind. 

When did this huge shift in society occur?  At what point did any asshole with an opinion have any credibility?  When did the ladies of The View become political commentators?  Who cares what a Survivor contestant (who didn’t even win the game!), two comedians, and an uptight reporter (who I give credit to, because she’s one of the FEW reporters out there who remains objective) have to say??

I think everyone on television and in “show business” (even the people who are famous but don’t really do anything) need a “Humble Check”.  People are so self absorbed, myself included of course, and actually think people care about their opinions.  The scary thing?  People do!!!

I suggest a mass movement of IGNORING celebrities and various television personalities.  We need to go back to the basic principle that news should be OBJECTIVE, and I think there are way too many opinionated talk shows out there.  I’m mixing Paris Hilton with The View a little here, but it’s all the same thing.  We, the public, are too busy caring about what Rosie O’Donnell said and about who Britney Spears slept with.  We need to be educating ourselves about all the shit that is going on in the world right now rather than picking up the latest edition of US Weekly. 

Our preoccupation with superficial nonsense and people who are more concerned with stirring up controversy than with the topics they’re “discussing” is the reason everyone is completely in the dark about world affairs.  Everyone complains that Bush is an idiot or something, but do they really know why or are they just watching the late night show skit that makes fun of his facial expressions? 

How about giving people who have done the research and can share it without letting their own opinions leak in the limelight?  There are a lot of smart people out there who are capable of doing this but I guess they don’t sell.

So as I mentioned, I am awaiting a work permit and unfortunately not working right now.  BUT, I did have a job at a bakery for about 5 days. 

After a morning of job hunting and resumes, I was walking down the street and passed a bakery with a help wanted sign in the window.  Now, normally I would never bother applying for this kind of job, I went to college and was under the impression that if you go to college you don’t have to work at places where you have to touch food.  But in my current state of desperation I decided to apply.

So I fill out the application and the man at the counter said his wife would be out to talk to me shortly.  He was probably the thinnest man I’ve ever seen (odd for working at a bakery, I thought).  So his wife comes out, she’s a cute older woman who I found friendly and nice.  Later, I would remember that Hitler was charasmatic too.

Beginning of a long story short, I go for an interview the next day, give her the forms for hiring an immigrant, and she says I can start the next day and that she will pay me cash for the time being because she’s “allowed to do that”.  Now, I like to do things legally, but who the hell would say no to that when your rent is due and your husband is in graduate school and you’re bored and the lady says she can do that???

Thursday: Day One

Lady Boss is in charge, Husband Boss is the baker.  Lady Boss (LB) informs me that she will start me slow, and as I learn one task, we will move on to the next.  Fair enough, but task one was putting doughnuts on a tray.  And it took me 9 hours to learn that task I guess because that’s all I was allowed to do all day.  So I put all these disgusting doughnuts on trays and was showed around the back of the store. 

After day one I come to learn that LB is probably the cheapest woman in the world.  I don’t know if anyone watches Arrested Development, but if you do… think Carl Weathers times 20.  There was a crumb bucket to put miscellaneous crumbs that we collected off trays, and a nut bucket to put wayward nut crumbs that fell off long johns, were scraped off the table, whatever.  “Nut Bucket” would actually be a good name for that hellhole.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that LB requested light pants and light colored tops for my work attire… this will come into play later.

So after day one I was tired, covered in icing, gagged at  the smell of sugar…

Friday: Day Two

So I get to work Friday morning.  I have on white pants and a white shirt (which kills me because I NEVER wear white, or pastels).  LB likes my outfit.  Why, thank you…

I spend the day washing pans, loading doughnuts onto the pans, collecting crumbs for the respective buckets, and also get to learn how to put an f-ing doughnut in a bag.  I’m so honored that LB deemed me ready for this task.  I am still, however, not allowed to talk to customers.  Despite my 10 years of retail experience, I cannot talk to an old man who wants a loaf of bread.  And I certainly cannot put the bread into a bag unless LB tells me to do so.  Whatever, she said she was “particular”.

So throughout the day she fusses and fusses over how I’m doing things.  Her husband tells me to dip doughnuts one way, so I do it, and then she comes back and freaks out about how I’m dipping the doughnuts!  I cannot believe I am having this conversation with her.  Countless other incidents like this happen, along with me getting yelled at for putting a danish in a bag before she tells me.   I’m sorry, but if a person walks in, I’m going to say hello.  And if they immediately say “I’d like a cherry danish”, I’m going to put it in the bag.  Not go and ask permission.  I think I can handle putting a danish in a bag.

Oh, and instead of tongs to pick things up we used old (and I mean OLD) bread bags.  So I have to place my hand in a bread bag, pick up whatever I’m getting, and put it in 0ne of three choices:

1.  an old box from the grocery store… used for doughnuts, cookies, whatever is a bulk order.  Most of the boxes say “lettuce” but I support recycling.

2.  a paper bag… which must be opened a certain way.  Paper bags are for whatever can be squeezed in them.  Use the smallest one possible, but don’t move up to the next size unless there is apple turnover spilling out the top.

3.  Bakery boxes… sounds like the obvious first choice, but no.  Those are expensive, so even though there were millions stockpiled in the back, they were used sparingly.

Saturday: Day Three

LB, myself, and two high school students are working today.  I am still limited to putting doughnuts on trays and putting doughnuts in bags (ONLY when instucted).  But, unfortunately, I am wearing the incorrect shade of blue.  It was an azure top, I guess if you want to get specific.  But it was wrong!!!  I guess “light colors” can mean a lot of different things.

So I spend the day scraping icing off pans and putting it back into a bucket of icing, decorating gingerbread men, putting my hands in bread bags, and staring blankly when customers ask me for something.  Oh, and keep in mind that during all this, LB is constantly correcting the way I put doughnuts on the pans and everything else.  “Just use your hands”, “don’t dry the pans now”, “don’t throw out nut crumbs”, “use this brush with three bristles left in it to clean off the bread machine”. 

Then I got paid, and went home, and figured she was just weird, and I could put up with it.  To take a quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas… “then things got weird”

Monday: Day Four

So I wear a pink t-shirt with a scoop neck with a yellow tank top underneath it.  “Too naked” for LB and she is clearly disgusted.  Now, this top comes to about an inch below my collarbones, and I am NOT a well endowed girl.  So LB goes on for about a half hour lecturing me about light colors and describing in detail the kinds of outfits she expects me to go out and buy especially for this shit job.  Keep in mind I am still barely allowed in the front of the store anyway!

A new woman comes to work today after a three week vacation.  She is just as bad as LB, so now I have 3 people telling me 3 different ways to do 3 different things, and none of them are right.  AND it’s a matter of putting doughnuts on a tray!  I think I can handle that. 

The new woman says no to everything I start to do to keep busy.  Every time I do something that I was told to do by one person, another person comes and yells at me for doing it!  I am losing my mind.

A customer comes in and orders a brownie, I go to put the brownie in a bag, but new lady tells me to wait.  “Are you eating it now?”  “Probably”  “Well are you going to hold it and eat it right away?”  “Well, yeah, I guess”

Okay… so I am instructed to take the brownie in my bread-bag clad hand, and take it to the customer, and let her take the brownie from my hand.  No napkin, no wax paper, and certainly no bag.  That’s apparently too expensive.  I was embarrassed and the customer was clearly weirded out. 

I sweep… don’t do that now

I wash pans…  you should be sweeping now

I make cream long johns… you should be decorating gingerbread men

The nitpicking is making me hear voices in my head, I never knew working at a bakery required the same timing and methods as launching a spaceship.  Good Lord. 

I drop a tray of chocolate doughnuts… they are sold anyway.  Disgusting….

Tuesday: Day Five… Fin

I wear a green, conservative top to work.  LB has a problem again.  Green is too dark I guess:

“LB, I am sorry, but I am wearing what I have, doing the best I can.  I thought this was light colored”

“I don’t like it”

“Well I’m sorry, but I don’t have the budget to go out and buy a whole new pastel wardrobe for you”

“That’s fine but blah blah blah” 

She makes me nervous, so as I’m washing my hands (I’m the only person who does this) and I reach under the sink out of habit (that’s where I keep my dish towels at home) and quickly shut the door and move to the correct spot where we keep clean towels.  I am physically grabbed and told “we dont use dirty towels to dry our hands, we use the clean towels to do that”

“I know that LB” I said.  I do happen to know that it’s best to use a clean towel to dry my hands… and was doing so before she even corrected me!

I told her that she was making me nervous with all her fussing, that I was capable of doing the simple tasks she had me do, and didn’t need correcting all the time.  She called over the other lady and they both started telling me all this nonsense… I quit… it got ugly, I went back at three for my final pay, and got the silent treatment.

So this doesn’t sound like a big deal, probably.  But unfortunately I do not have the words (or the memory, thanks to all the pot needed to help me recover from this experience)  to describe the five days there in perfect detail.   I will just say this, I have work A LOT of weird jobs, and met  A LOT of truly crazy people.  And I have never worked for such an anal retentive, psychotic, cheap, slave – driving woman in my entire life.  No word can describe the oddities I witnessed while there, and unless you have been under LB’s thumb yourself you will never know the horrors of that job.

1.  amazing… especially when it’s pronounced “AMAZING!!!”

2.  Stoked.  Do not use this word around me.

3.  Orientated.  I know it’s a word, I looked it up, but it sounds stupid.

4.  Retard.  I find this word offensive, especially if you are over 12.  If you are over 12 and still say “retard” then you should know that it makes you sounds foolish.

5.  Literally, often used by people who say “AMAZING” and almost always used incorrectly.