There are no words to describe how I feel right now.

Inflatable Church

] It's Keith Lichtman's second trip to the Home Depot in
] Long Island City. He's redoing his kitchen and bathroom
] and needed to buy bathroom tiles and accessories.
]
] He's a self-checkout neophyte who didn't want to suffer
] through the long wait at the regular checkout for just a
] handful of items. In five minutes Lichtman had paid for
] all his purchases and was walking away with bag in hand.

Are you f-ing kidding me?! I've tried to use the self-checkout at Home Depot. Actually I tried it twice. I will never do it again. The first time, one of the things I attempted to purchase was a flowerpot. The scanny tag was on the inside rim of the pot. Couldn't scan it. They also don't have a handheld scanny thing. So I was pretty pissed off and frustrated, and it took forever for the cashier or whatever to come over and help me. They did not have an option for typing in the UPC. The second time I went to use the Home Depot self-checkout, one of the things I was purchasing were plastic screws in little plastic baggies. They scanned fine. The problem came when I went to put my screws in the shopping bag. They have these things sense when you put something in the bag... Apparently it senses it by weight. The plastic screws weighed practically nothing, so I'm standing there like an asshole while the machine is screaming "PLEASE PUT YOUR PURCHASE IN THE BAG" and it's not letting me continue scanning things, until I put my screws in the bag. I tried throwing them in the bag REALLY hard, but that didn't fool the machine either. Eventually (after hearing me curse out the f-ing machine several times) someone came over and helped me. I will never use the self-checkout at Home Depot again, even though the regular lines are out of control there.
At Stop-n-Shop, however, I LOVE the self-checkout. It has sensors that see your items on the belt, so you don't have to bag your items right away. Self-checkout there is fun when both of us go, but it sometimes sucks if it's just me, and I buy a lot of stuff, because the bagging area gets full and I have to stop scanning and run down there and bag. But I like that self-checkout. It's fun.

Stuck at the checkout? DIY lane's open.

] Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it has stopped selling men's
] magazines Maxim, Stuff and FHM because the retail chain
] has received complaints from customers about their racy
] content.

File under: 'THIS made the news?'

] Every year between now and the end of May about 300 honey
] hunters - or Mowalis - venture into thick forestry to
] collect wild honey made by some of the largest and most
] aggressive bees in the world.
]
] It's a task fraught with danger - and the bees are not
] the main threat.
]
] Every year 15-20 honey hunters are attacked and killed by
] tigers.

Sweet thrills of Bangladesh jungle

This story reminds me of something that happened to me. I had a really great job in 2000. I got laid off in January 2001. I searched for another job, but the market was tough and I didn't want to go back to retail (been there, done that, don't want to do it EVER again...). Finally in September of 2001, my unemployment benefits ran out, and at around 5pm on 9/11/01, I went to the lab for my drug test to work at Target (I almost didn't go. I had to go THAT DAY (within 24 hours of my job offer). I spent that whole day thinking, 'in the grand scheme of things, how important is this?' but in the end, I really went because I needed a good reason to tear myself away from the TV). I could no longer afford to be picky. I spent my time at Target knowing that as soon as my boyfriend finished his Masters' degree, he would get a job, we would move, and I could start looking for a "real" job again. A few months into my 'career' at Target, where I was a cashier, a woman came into my line, and I recognized her, and she recognized me. It was my 5th-grade teacher, the one who had said I would never amount to anything because I was lazy. In December, I quit. I couldn't take the humiliation of seeing people I knew come to my register and I was tired of feeling like I had to explain myself. I'm not as strong as I'd like to believe I am. So at the end of December, I landed a job I really liked, and then in March I moved up here. Now I have a really great, interesting job, and while it's not what I wanted to do with my life, it's pretty damn good and I'm very lucky that the defense industry -always- needs people. The moral of the story is that you've got to do what you've got to do, and sometimes you have to stand up to the humiliation of taking a position that is "below" you. Things will always turn around but there's no sense being poor in the meantime.

Commute to Nowhere

"I screened job applicants over the phone for a company I didn't work for. My favorite part: Arrogant middle managers who suddenly began to grovel when they realized I wasn't the receptionist."

Outsourcing rejection

] The high court did not comment in turning down Mattel's
] request to reopen a trademark fight over the 1997 dance
] hit "Barbie Girl." Mattel claims the preteen girls who
] buy Barbie dolls were duped into thinking the song was an
] advertisement for the doll or part of Mattel's official
] line of Barbie products.

Supreme Court rejects ugly fight over Barbie doll

10. With the slogan "Sometimes wetter is better,"
Kimberly-Clark (KMB) introduces Cottonelle Fresh
Rollwipes premoistened toilet paper -- or, to put it
another way, baby wipes for adults.

75. Unilever subsidiary Lipton approves an ad in which a man standing in line for communion holds a bowl of onion dip, presumably to improve the taste of the body of Christ. Under protest, Lipton withdraws the ad.

funny stuff.

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

] "It is said that only the desperate seek work at Tyler
] Pipe, a sprawling, rusting pipe foundry out on Route 69,
] just past the flea market. Behind a high metal fence lies
] a workplace that is part Dickens and part Darwin, a dim,
] dirty, hellishly hot place where men are regularly
] disfigured by amputations and burns, where turnover is so
] high that convicts are recruited from local prisons,
] where some workers urinate in their pants because their
] bosses refuse to let them step away from the
] manufacturing line for even a few moments."

This is part one of three. I urge you to read the other two articles also. If this doesn't enrage you, I don't know what will. I cannot believe companies can get away with this shit. Manufacturing is dangerous, people can be (and are) killed doing it, and this company is just out to make a profit, no matter what the cost.

At a Texas Foundry, an Indifference to Life

] "Every S.U.V. I've seen is driven by some soccer mom on
] her cellphone," Mr. Dini said. "I hate these people, and
] that Porsche would throw me into that category made me
] speechless. Just speechless."
]
] Mike Dini is not alone. Since Porsche's S.U.V. project
] was first announced in 1999, it has been dogged by
] controversy.

Wounded to the Quick by an Affair Gone Astray