Stop Bugging Me!

I don't ask for much, and I know I've groused about this before, but I am so tired of business entities and sellers demanding I review their products/work/etc. immediately. Everyone is SO VERY REVIEW DRIVEN and it's really getting on my last nerve. If I had to review every single, solitary product I've bought I'd have no time for anything else because I can't just give them a few stars. NO! They want words from me too. Seriously?

Here's the quick skinny. If I keep buying the product then you can safely assume that I like the product. If you screwed up and sent me an item in the mail, by UPS, etc. and the packaging was far too big for a single item, especially when it is 1 of 3 items, each sent separately with lots of air filled plastic bladders, and what was sealed inside the original item has fallen out of the original packaging, then, yes, I will give you a bad review. Refunding my money might result in me deleting the original negative review, but on no account does that mean I will upgrade the negative service to a positive service. The item was damaged because of poor packaging to send and it was a waste of resources and my time since the item was DAMAGED! Have you finally gotten that message now? Keep bugging me and I will put back up the negative review and mention how you have hounded me several times a day since I contacted you begging me for a review. STOP IT! NOW!

Okay, now that I have that off my mind and I feel a little bit better, I can move on to other things, like almost all my seeds have sprouted and now I need to get busy and plant the other seeds in their little peat buttons, ready the planters, put together the 2 deck chairs I bought, and finish getting rid of the rest of the boxes and packing materials that have accumulated over the past weeks, most of which are for my seeds and plans for container gardening.

And then there are the constant demands and rounds of begging from work insisting that I give up my free time to work even more hours to bail them out because the numerous hospitals they service are running out of turn-around-time and they will be in breach of contract and have to pay for their breach. I get that you need to keep good relations with your customers, but I do my time and should not be expected to pick up the slack on other accounts when you have had me running around learning a whole bunch of different accounts, 7 in the past 3 months, and keeping me in QC hell because I don't have the time to get up to speed on any one account because I am confused learning so many different account protocols in a short space of time without finding my groove in any one account before you bump me into yet another account. Please! Give me some time to get up to speed before you load any more on my tired brain, especially since you want me to also pick up the slack at yet another long list of hospitals and health network without so much as hazard pay or financial remuneration. I like you, but not that much. Be glad that is the case.


Okay, so it's not all bad. They have offerered a 2 for 2 bonus for my extra time and no days off that will result in me getting 2 hours of PTO (paid time off) in return for 2 hours of my free time given to your customer relations, but I would prefer something more useful, like a year's worth of paid health benefits, dental, and vision with no cost to me. That would be better in my opinion. in the meantime, get behind sellers demanding reviews good reviews. I'll get to you eventually -- maybe.

I found yet another Kdrama. This one is called Good Doctor and is about an autistic young man who is brilliant where medicine is concerned. He has the classic autistic behaviors when confronted with violence, chaos, and new situations, but he is still pretty high functioning. I liked the young man, Park Si On (pronounced Park Shi On), and found him sweet, sad, and brilliant, as well as a bit immature. What else could one expect from such a situation? After all, there should be room for growth and advancement, and there was plenty.

Good Doctor reminded me a bit of The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, which is about an autistic young man who is high functioning, but who should be cured, fixed, whatever because he's not like other people. I found Moon's protagonist quite fascinating as he was, even with his rituals and autistic behaviors, but then I enjoy the oddities and special people in life. They make everything more interesting, even when they're being frustrating. Park Si ON was very much like that. Yes, he could be frustrating, but he had a good heart and genuinely cared for the children he was determined to heal, just as Lou Arrendale of Moon's vision of autism is special and as unique as a snowflake even though he was too early to benefit from genetic manipulation that would fix him, as if he were a broken toy. Park Si On isn't a broken toy either and the knowledge he has gained in his studies is not just information contained in a robotic data bank. It's so much more -- even though it is difficult for him to articulate in the normal way. These two young men are extraordinary and I would like to see American television embrace such a concept and give it substance and reality. Now that would be worth watching.

As we strive to make robots more human, maybe we should also spend some time embracing the unusual, odd, and special in humans. That is a subject for another post and will likely encompass Alan Turing and Eva, a 10-year-old free robot who is as unique and beautiful as she is dangerous. After all, every odd duck is complex in so many ways. We shouldn't seek to make them conform or mentally, physically, or chemically castrate them, but celebrate their differences and the unique vision they embody.

One thing I see is that even when a Kdrama is set in modern times the basic themes remain: abuse of power, politics, self-effacement, and romance. Whether set in centuries past or in a modern hospital (the best in the country), the back stabbing and politicking remain, no doubt an offshoot of earlier times when rank and how you get and maintain it is of paramount importance, even to an young boy with autism violently abused by his alcoholic father and neglected to the point where he ends up being brought up in an orphanage because his father hates him and wishes him dead -- at least until it's time for said abusive alcoholic father to face his own mortality and the fact that there will be no filial devotion from the child he battered unless he makes peace just in time to guilt his son into making propitious offerings and setting out ancestral meals for him to enjoy in the aferlife. Reminds me of Livia begging Claudius, who she has repudiated and wished dead numerous times, except that he is a stumbling, bumbling idiot, to make her a goddess when he becomes emperor, as he undoubtedly will because he has outlasted all his relatives, so she won't spend eternity in the fiery furnace of hell for her murders in her quest to make her family important and powerful and wealthy . . . for the good of the Republic. Funny how that works out.

If you'd like to watch a Kdrama, like The Moon Embracing the Sun or Good Doctor, go to Netflix and sign up for streaming or videos by mail. That is where I found them.

There are so many things for me to write about -- Yggdrasil, the heaven-purgatory-hell, 7 levels of existence of Mayan belief, etc. -- not to mention seeds sprouting into plants, getting back to writing, continuing my cross stitch projects, and any number of personal and not so personal subjects, but I'll stop here -- while I'm at least a little ahead. in the meantime . . .

That is all. Disperse.