‘We are Wall Street’: No, you’re a walnut

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Wall Street’s rejoinder to Occupy Wall Street protestors

This image of a Wall Street guy’s retort has become a famous Internet meme. We wouldn’t expect anything less from a Wall Street guy, no less.

Now that Quantitative Easing 3 (‘QE3’) is in the offing and our world looks set to completely implode on itself, we need to answer back to this.

(For those who didn’t get the memo, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank announced QE3 a few days ago. QE3 will involve the Fed in open-ended purchase of long-term, mortgage-backed securities at the rate of US$40 billion a month (that’s 40,000 million dollars to you Brits) of mortgage debt. The rationale behind QE3 is to boost economic growth and reduce unemployment.)

What a sharply retarded pile of wrong this is.

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Let’s really spell it out for those who still think QE3/4/5/6/etc is a dynamite idea:

• People aren’t angry that investors are investing and bankers banking.
• People are angry that the powers-that-be gave away their tax dollars to the rich.
• And they’re angry at the rich whose wilful incompetence and outright thievery caused the latest financial diabetes.
• The Occupy protestors should demo in Washington DC instead because it was DC that gave the money way.

More: click on the page 2 now:—

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More email inbox commentary

1pm local time / 16°C (60°F) drizzly

YES, YOU’VE NOTICED temperatures here have dropped (again) steadily from 25°C (77°F) on Monday.

It’s been an angry and upsetting week for me (if you’ve noticed at all from my scribbles this week).

Just got some email comments from real people who didn’t follow proper netiquette about leaving comments.

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The good ones (I think)

For the post “What’s it been? The Engine Room (Part 3)“:—

“These are in fact impressive ideas regarding blogging. You have touched some pleasant factors here. Anyway, keep up the writing.” — Maureen, received 09March 2012

Maureen dear, I think you’re commenting on the phat feature “You don’t blog?” because that post you were commenting on had nothing to do with blogging ideas.

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For the ever-popular post “How well do you know your guitars?“:—

“I have spent a bit of time going through your posts, more than I should have but I must say, it’s worth it!” — Rodea, 08 March

Thank you. It would’ve been even more worth it if you’d just leave your comment there at the post instead.

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For the post “Objectivity: Just another $5 word for subjectivity“:—

“Squares don’t fit in tight circles.” — lauhon on 04 March 2012

True. But I advise you, off-post email comments don’t fit in on-site posts. Namsayin’?

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For the post “Notes: The Man Who Would Be Spy” about my late colleague:—

“I really appreciate this post. […] ‘All that is gold does not glitter, not all those that wander are lost’ by J.R.R. Tolkien.” — kozinski on 25 Feb 2012

Actually the phrase should be, “All that glitters is not gold. All that wanders is not lost.”

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And for no post in particular:—

“In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to begin my own blog now.” — anonymity requested, on 23 Feb 2012

This one clearly came after reading the super-longwinded mega-brain-damaged feature “You don’t blog?“. I thanked him (profusely) that my uncreative writing inabilities has managed to inspire someone, somewhere, out there.

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These were real messages from real people. I emailed them back and they actually replied.

Again, I asked these people why they didn’t put in their comments on the posts themselves. Nearly all replied that they preferred to remain anonymous. To which I told them the default commenting system is anonymity (notwithstanding their ‘handles’ and email address) and they could switch off their OpenID or whatever if they don’t want their gravatars shown.

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The clearly negative ones

Meanwhile I’ve gotten an earful (or eyeful, since they’re email) from some srsly hard-arsed people who hated and despised a couple of my posts recently.

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‘Not worth anything serious’

One commenter considered my “You don’t blog?” feature has been:—

“… not worth anything serious because there are people who may not wish to accept any of your recommendations for their blogs due to [sic: because of] their own requirements.” — jjchan, on 23 Feb 2012 just after the last instalment of that feature

It’s fine by me if others don’t wish to accept. My recommendations are, believe it or not, suggestions. They’re not rules that one has to abide by. Never said as such. Derp.

Like I said in my posts, only you know what’s best for your blog. You don’t have to take in my stinkin’ input.

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‘Uncharitable’

One commenter pointedly told me about my downloadables:—

“It is very uncharitable of you to make your downloads not in MS Word format as I am unable to make changes to them.” — koh29

Why the hell would you want to make changes to them?! If you wish to plagiarise them for homework, go ahead, plagiarise! Stop being a lazy f@#k and type the parts you need to plagiarise and do whatever the hell changes you want!

I’ve also explained to this personage that Microsoft Office documents contain macros (software input sequences) that some browsers and antivirus programs could interpret as being viruses. No, that didn’t gel with koh29. Your loss, not mine.

And, by the way, how is making PDF downloads “uncharitable”?

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‘Foolish things’

Another commenter really took it personally about “A little about linguanophiles“:—

“Dear Sir,

I have read your articles on your website regarding Linguists and I write to complain about your subjective bias about the discipline of Linguistics.

I do not agree with you due to [sic: because] your English is poor in grammar and spelling. Your perspective is subjective and your assessment of Linguistics is not correct because I do not believe you not [sic] studied Linguistics before and therefore you do not understand.

I believe you must apologize for saying those foolish things about Linguistics and attempt to understand more about the discipline of Linguistics as I believe it will [sic: would] assist your [own] English fluency and overall academic standard of written work.

I have also read some [other] articles on your website and under my assessment you are a poor writer and [a] poor judge of character[,] and I belive [sic] you are making our [sic] Chinese people appear [sic: look] bad because you are not Chinese so you do not understand our Chinese way[s].”

I am thoroughly humbled by your staggering standard of English-language fluency and am deeply impressed by it. And your clear and present need for attitude adjustment.

A bias is already subjective, you idiot — is there even such a thing as an objective bias? Learn your education better.

My “assessment” (as you put it) is of course not correct. After all, it was only based on my two years’ worth of linguistics training at university level. My fault, I admit. I never said, insinuated, averred, pronounced, proclaimed — choose the words you like best — that it was better or more correct than anybody else’s. It’s just my own view — and many of my readers understand and appreciate that (except you). And, of course, my English is as poor as YOURS, twithead.

If you paid any attention at all, you sonofabitch bitch, you’d notice from my About and About me pages that YOU YOURSELF is a f@#king disgrace to the Chinese race. I’m embarrassed to have you as part of my race, you little odious c@nt.

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‘Audience is Chinese’

Yet another brain-damaged commenter had to put in this general comment:

“I just do not understand why you have never written any of your post in Chinese as you are living in Hong Kong and your audience is Chinese.”

O rly? Where did you get that phantasmagorical idea that I knew how to read and write Chinese and that my audience is necessarily Chinese, my furry little friend?

Actually, I’ve done some technical sleuthing about the issue. Your problem is your browser isn’t configured for the correct Chinese encoding. That’s why you’re unable to read posts in Chinese but in (poor) English. I think you need to reconfigure your encoding and delete that folder called SYSTEM32 that’s preventing this.

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Ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t like the way I drive, then show me a road on which to drive that I could meet your standards and expectations to make my presence acceptable to your esteemed requirements.

—>> My email is thenakedlistener [aroba] gmail [punto] com. <<—

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

Images: ‘I have nothing to say’ via Cascade Webdev | Pyrite via Critical Crossroad | Don’t give a f@#k via Some eCards | You can’t write via Mauradat | Brains via c4c.

Not what it turns out to be

11.40pm local time
17°C (63°F) drizzly

RATTA (an alias) has been in her new job exactly three weeks now. Judging from what she tells me earlier tonight, I don’t think she’s a happy bunny there.

The trouble is with the people she “has to work with,” as she knowingly puts it.

It’s not Ratta — I know her too well, and she gets along perfect with everyone.

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Turns out the people there are really arrogant, heartless and bloodyminded.

I’ll just relay what Ratta told me in short, conclusive form just to show you how WTF her new employer and co-workers are turning out to be.

1. A morass of ‘products’ (tuition courses) that fit into three sheets of A3 size paper (11½ x 16½ inches, or 29.7 x 42 cm).
2. The course listings have been organised (by others) in quite a chaotic way, or at least not very organised one.
3. There are too many women employees (over 80%).
4. Most of the employees are under 25 years old (over 80%).
5. Ratta could notice (even with one eye shut) that EVERYBODY there dislikes to explain the work system or anything else to anyone, not just to her.
6. There is an expectation in the company that every new employee within a day or two of being hired to fully 100% absorb, digest, understand, appreciate, regurgitate, etc — choose the words you like best — whatever the hell had been badly explained to him or her the first time round (and the only time).
7. Any new employee is expected (nay, required) to say the ‘correct’ words on the go-get when conversing with customers (the parents) or handling enquiries.

You can’t ask a question

In one incident, Ratta was being shown the ropes to doing something by a co-worker. Ratta asked the co-worker to clarify a point. The co-worker at once went poe-faced but pretended to be nice. Then Ratta got her arse hauled into the super’s office.

(I wasn’t there to witness it, naturally, but I trust Ratta’s word on it mainly because I know really well and she’s rather good at noticing these things. Had I been there, as a ‘next-level’ sort of guy myself, a punch in that co-worker’s gob would’ve been my response.)

Jesus H. Christ, is it too much to ask for a slight clarification?!?

You have to be perfect

Another incident: Another supervisor asked Ratta how she would answer an enquiry about a new enrolment.

“I’ll say I just do a quick/small assessment first,” Ratta said what her response would be. That sounds all right, doesn’t it? Sounds all right to me even if I were running on lawyer mode.

But, NO, the supervisor launched on Ratta, telling her, “No! You cannot use the word ‘small’ in your answer.”

Would be f@#king nice to be told beforehand, woudn’t it?!!

There you have it. If you utter one single word ‘wrong’ (that is, not in their spiel script), your arse is unceremoniously hauled in front of the super for a pretend-to-be-nice-and-understanding drubbing whose words leave you in no doubt what could happen to you next.

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Points 5, 6 and 7 really got up my nose. They really got my juices for the vicious going. There are lots of companies and lots of people like that in Hong Kong. No wonder when Hong Kong was ‘given back’ to China, nobody lifted a finger to help us.

Those are exactly the kind of conduct that earned Hongkongers the reputation of being treacherous and two-timing (best described by the Chinese colloquialism 反骨 faan gwut, to invert the bones, or turning the bones inside out).

I will not apologise for saying that. I mean it. I don’t like saying things like that, not about my own people or about anyone else. If you’ve lived long enough and have been to or lived in as many places as I have, you’ll know what I’m saying about Hongkongers.

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My take

This place is probably the Hong Kong version of The War Against Terror (TWAT) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jesus H. Christ! these people are in the education sector.

Jesus H. Christ! these people clearly don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.

Jesus H. Christ! these people are psychopaths.

We bloody well appreciate that your eyes are constantly on the bottom line in an expensive town like Hong Kong were the rent is skyhigh and choices are near zero.

We bloody well appreciate everyone has a sales quota and it’s hard to keep it rolling, given our tougher business conditions caused by psychopaths in power.

We bloody well appreciate that new employees need some time (certainly effing more than three weeks!) to get used to your f@#king brain-dead, money-grubbing, cash-gouging system clearly based on that psychotic Tiger Mother shite.

We bloody well appreciate this new employee had never farkin’ worked in the education sector.

We bloody fuggin’ well appreciate your other employees are young (maybe too young) to appreciate that, to recall Ratta’s own words:—

“…all these women, all young, single and childrenless, clumped together just don’t seem to realise that women don’t always understand how a man, a father, any parent, would see things.”

Jesus H. Christ, even those among us who have interrogated criminals before expect them to ask back questions or be flummoxed once in a while about their own details!

Remind us about Ratta

I might not have mentioned this before, but Ratta used to work for a major Italian luxury sportscar manufacturer. She was in charge of a pair of high-end sportscars that were worth a staggering HK$9 million (US$1.16 million or £734,000) together. She knew everything there was to know (technically or otherwise) about those sportscars. Even ardent fans knew less than she does about them.

If I had a chance, my question to her employer:—

• Could any of your employees be trusted with even touching products costing that much? No? There’s your answer then.

If I could have it my way

So now Ratta is planning to restart her jobhunt yet again.

Right now, I have in mind to draw up a Litigation Risk Assessment for Ratta for:

• poor treatment of employee
• being given misleading information as to the nature of her job and of the expectations of her work
• party or parties, jointly and severally, carrying on a pattern of behaviour or conduct that on the balance of probability knowingly or unknowingly is leading or causing to lead to an unspecified and/or unspecifiable state of mental anguish in Ratta

Jesus H. Christ, these people clearly are ripe to be taught a lesson. And since they are in the education sector, they should be quite amenable to teachable lessons, don’t you think?

What can we expect in children when they’re taught by people like THAT?!!

Again, I remind you all:—

“If you tolerate this, your children will be next.” (English proverb)

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Comment, muthareader. Will you leave one?

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

Images: Ikea Ratta dolla via furry.org.au | Arrogant face via Terra Ferma Media | Arrogant T-shirt via Ken Segall’s Observatory | EjuKayShun via c4c.