h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thought I'd say hello.

I know we haven't talked here, and the only experience you ever had with me made you leave the thread, which I regretted, but I don't expect you to remember that.

Whatever, I just came to say that you're not as alone as you may think.

Bel

Hi.

That wasn't about the Kharmann Ghia entry, was it?

Thanks for stopping by.

Who are the Brain Police?

Oh, so you remember it after all.

Brain Police?
Sorry for being thick, but I'm completely in the dark with that one.

Air-cooled VWs are one of my history fixes.

"Who are the Brain Police?" is from Frank Zappa's first album, 'Freak Out'. Either that or it's from 'We're Only In It For The Money', the second album, the one with the Sergeant Pepper's parody cover.

Oh, you made me search for it now, and I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U-ACcyrfjs&feature=related

Wow. Too bad I have old computer. I can't get it to load correctly. May have to load new adobe.

Must go now. Have to sleep. Just got off work.

Ta.

Did you work double shift?

Sleep well.

No. I work 10pm-6am five nights and 6am-2pm two days a week.

I may have misphrased it.I don't remember what time I wrote that post.

I've just come from taking an extra day off, calling in sick to both my jobs. I couldn't face another customer. The weather was doing odd things and I was just worn out. My managers at both jobs didn't even ask what the problem was. They just let me off.

Is that a good sign or a bad sign? I mean, it seems to imply that both managers trust you enough to not 'pull a sicky', and know that if you call in sick you are indeed ill.
On the other hand it could indicate that they don't care.

hich is it?

And are you feeling better now?
And working eight hours each day can't be healthy. But then I guess you don't have a choice.
The customers where I work are mostly very friendly. Still, with shifts like yours I'd probably soon reach a point where I wouldn't want to see any customers anymore.

"I'd probably soon reach a point where I wouldn't want to see any customers anymore."

Yes, you are smarter than a fifth grader!

I reached that point two years ago. And I'll have been there three years in a couple weeks.

No, the managers are likeable women and they know I don't call out without a reason. I don't always tell them the reason and I shouldn't have to.

I've been trying to get a real day off for about a month and this seemed like a good time.

You are right, I think the law here is that you don't have to tell your boss what exactly you are suffering from. Except if it is work-related, because then it's not your own health insurance which pays, but the Employer's Liability Insurance Association (imagine, that's just one word in German. )

Fifth grade is how old, 11?

Oh, and if you work from 10pm to 6am then from 6am to 2pm you have at least one day per week where you work for 16 hours non-stop? Are the shops close to one another? I imagine that aprt from having to work 16h it must be strssing to get from one job to the next without so much as a break even.

"Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" is a game show on Amurrican TV.

It's kind of like "Weakest Link" with a different gimmick.

You are a native speaker of Deutsch?
My dotter took four years of German in High School... and one year of Franch.

I work four days at 10-6, have one day off, from Monday morning to Tuesday morning, then work 6-2 Tuesday and Wednesday, going back to 10-6 on Wednesday night.

I used to ride my bike from one job to the other, doing them back to back, but it turned out to be a bit much. The two store are approximately a half mile apart. If I take the back streets I can manage it in ten minutes, since half of it is down hill.

Oh, I see. I think we have a similar show on TV here, but I don't watch much TV so have only watched it once, I think. It's a quiz show.

After four years of German your daughter should be able to speak it quite well, I guess. Can she make use of it for her job?

And yes, I'm a native speaker of Deutsch.

How are the driving lessons going? And what's a WR?

Eh. The dotter, known as Shnooks, took HIGH SCHOOL German. I think she reads and speaks it well enough not to be laughed at by a four year old in Shleswig-Holstein, but a baby in Munich might say,"Huh?"

She studied traditional German dance, German cooking and something they call poetry. In this part of Texas there is a very strong presence of '49ers from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Poland, and Ohio.

The WR is the Willendorf Rabbit, a female friend of mine that is very often the only person I can depend upon... to make my life miserable or vice versa. The name is a joke.

"I don't watch much TV "

I got rid of mine in January, after I found out a friend had died.

I 'got rid' of mine two days ago after my eldest son who has just moved out had taken his, and my youngest son immediately nicked mine.

Was your friend's death related to the TV somehow?

The gentleman who died was a vigourous sort who functioned in the face of several disabilities that he had suffered since childhood. He died on Christmas Eve in the hospital from a heart attack connected to his diabetes. He was 51.

I had had a suspicion about him when he went absent from visiting the store for several days. He was a regular. He was also my friend.

When I had my suspicions confirmed because his sister-in-law visited the store to tell my boss, I went home and contemplated my existence.
That man had done so much with his life in a short time and he was very busy doing things that so many others can't be bothered to do. I saw the way I had arranged the living room so that the altar to the one-eyed god ( or as Harlan Ellison called it, 'the glass teat') was afforded and unobstructed view. I decided that I had spent enough of my life not doing things and just sitting back and watching the products of other's efforts. So I gave my TV away.

It has changed my perspective on a lot of things.

I see, and I understand your decision.

I'm surious, though: did you start doing the things you think are worth doing? I imagine that with working hours like yours there's not much of a chance for them?

I really hope you work to live, and don't live to work.
I tried out an additional job (money is tight) last week.
It meant that I had to get up at 4.00am to start work an hour later. So far, so good.
However, it also meant that I went to bed at 8.30pm the nights before, and was too tired and exhausted to do anything for the rest of the day after work.
I'm sure I'd not have minded too much (I'd have got used to it pretty soon), had the conditions not been so bad, starting with very low wages followed by an incredible amount of stress at work, and not having even a minute to get some breath during the six hours I spent there (let alone a bite of something to eat). I was even too tired to eat for the rest of the day - not very becoming when you're not overweight.

In the end, I decided that money wasn't all, and that I'd rather look for a better job.

I spent fourteen years mostly raising my daughter. Then my ex left me and took my daughter and I had to put me nose to the grindstone in order to avoid living on the streets. My ex had made more than I for most of our marriage and I had attempted to manage the money so that everyone benefited. Turned out that wasn't enough. She considered her earnings to be her money and no one else's business.

Since she left me she has accumulated another 50,000 dollars in debt... and I have been holding my own with what work I can find in a community that is very aware that I am not from here.

Since I got rid of the TV I have spent a lot of time reading and playing my guitars. I am not drawing as much as I'd like, but my hands are very tired and my brain is fried after the graphic intensity of my jobs.

I really do not know how to look for better work. I am an Asperger's child.

I'm just reading up on Asperger's - does the knowledge of it make anything easier for you or does it make no difference at all?

And what do you mean: you are not from the community you live in?

Like in 'being a foreigner'?

Or like in 'being different'?