I read this article on yahoo about 1 in 7 Americans live in Poverty. That’s just insane, and I’m frankly getting tired of people blaming the President, Congress, politics, etc., and not realizing that WE, the actual Americans living in America are the problem and the solution at the same time! Let me break it down for y’all:

The Real Reason America is losing jobs is because of the Americans
Think about about it for a moment: why are we losing jobs? Well there’s not enough people buying U.S. made consumer stuff, and that’s because our U.S. made stuff has an over-inflated price, so we go for the cheap stuff, the overseas stuff or next door country stuff. We go for the cheap stuff, so U.S. businesses aren’t selling as much stuff so they have to cut down on costs.
Let’s leave the stuff word out for a moment and focus on the micro situation. Businesses have many reasons to lay workers off. Low sales volumes, high fixed/variable costs…This is old news!
That’s why nobody’s listening.
These were the reasons businesses were laying off people back in the 50′s! With all the new technology and advances that exist today, it’s no wonder why people are out of a job; computers, the internet, and even my phone has taken jobs of all the people around my neighborhood.
We have become a nation who has the word efficiency on its right pocket. We have 2 CPA’s and 2 computers doing the job of 40, we have 2 computer savvy HR people maintaining what was once a 20 crew HR team, we have robotic machinery with one gal pushing buttons and other inspecting material that was originally built by 100 steel workers.

It’s like eating burgers, fries, and a 40oz. Coke every meal of the day in front of a TV blaming my fat ass on Obama while my running shoes collect dust and my treadmill is plugged into the wall with all it’s blinking lights in glory pulsing 0.00 on it’s bright freakin’ LED. A high calorie diet with low body movement is how our nation is running. The diet being the efficiency and the low body movement being the business as usual concept.

Efficiency is great. I can’t diss it. But if everything were efficient, then an economy would not work. And if work were efficient, we should rename it; call it ‘unwork’. If a production company ran on 4 employees, then the cost of products should be low, but it isn’t! Things cost on average 3 times as much as they did 20 years ago. So the only thing I can blame this economy on is on all the businesses that only care only about the bottom line; fattening one to three people’s pockets at a time–and those other business that do business as usual, or better yet, those business that adapt to technological efficiency but keep their prices high. Some call it capitalism, I think of it as greed.

Don’t mistaken me an anti-American, I love my country! This place is wonderful with all it’s 50 stars; this is a call for concern.

What I propose is that we, as Americans, find a way to slow things back down. Just a tad. Find a way to go back to “those simple times of yesterday, when a man was a man, and a friend was a friend.” -Babyface Quoted

Again some efficiency is good–like a dishwasher, man I love my dishwasher–things that free our time to actually work and be productive in something, well, productive. And I think being productive is the lesson here. Efficiency can free our time and space, but turning around and then saying, “ok, now that I don’t have to wash dishes for a half hour, I will use this time to learn to play the piano.” Something along those lines, you get what I’m saying right? Not this, “ok, now that I don’t have to wash dishes for a half hour, I’m gonna go put the TV on and sleep in front of it.”

Do you see the difference? Businesses can take a proactive approach to business and say, “now that we have this nifty machine that auto welds and frees up 20,000 workers, let’s put all these workers in a new field. Let’s train some of them for sales, customer service, design, innovation!”

And instead of saying, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to be part of a statistic of unemployed by tomorrow,” they can easily say, “look, the position you’re in right now has become obsolete, but we are offering free training if you want to go into sales or HR or customer service, design, innovation. You won’t be getting paid during training, but pass all the training and you’ll have a job with us again.”

This would give jobs again, fix the economy, and strengthen that same business with people that know that company’s product and it won’t cost any more than some time and a teacher. We got ourselves into this, we have to get ourselves out. And blaming just Obama for this, when he’s just one man trying to help our fat ass get off the couch, that’s fucked up. And don’t tell me John McCain would’ve done better, Ha.

Whoa, conquer rejection; key to success in life. Looks like I got a ways to go. I’ve been rejected over 67 times this year, 2010, and every time hurts just like the first time. I guess one learns to grow a thick skin.

I’m gonna start asking for what I want and plan to get it. May rejection be conquered or may my heart not get hurt.

I was in and out within the hour. I got my teeth counted (at least that’s what it sounded like–1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 4…we’re just checking on the wiggle of your teeth–it was kinda soothing), got x-rays, and got a quadrant of my teeth cleaned, all within an hour. The Hygienist, Dorcas, explained the process of cleaning, complimented my brushing and showed me how to floss correctly. I know there was poking on my gums, but she was so gentle it didn’t hurt one bit. I felt really relaxed.
I don’t know if it was the cosmetic dentist experience or the fact that they really know how to treat a client that I had a great time at the dentist. If you are my area and are looking to have some dental work done, I highly recommend checking out the Salem Dental Studio. This may sound like a commercial, but it wouldn’t writing if it weren’t mind-blowing. And as a business strategy, learn from this: Great Customer Service is the New Mind-Blower–call it the wealthy’s habit.

HOW I GOT WINDOWS 7 TO FREAKIN’ INSTALL
K, I finally went to hp.com (if you have an hp and having trouble) and looked under Windows 7 support. I downloaded and installed SoundCard, VideoCard firmware updates and BIOS update. Restarted my computer, backed up my computer using Windows Easy Transfer, created a BIOS update bootable CD and off to the races. Pushed all the install buttons, did a CUSTOM install, deleting all files on HD (gulp). And waiting…waiting more…and waiting more…see, I worry at this point because I’ve waited here before. Overnight in fact and sometimes it’s stayed frozen and makes me think, “This blows!”

But after all the firmware installations, it finally didn’t freeze! I kept movin’ along and making HD sounds and CD reading sounds and I was happy. the orange light kept on flickering showing me it wasn’t frozen! That finally did it. Firmware, hardware issues were the culprits! Finally I’m gonna get to enjoy the 46+ people–out of 21 million who have purchased it–who figured out how to install Windows 7 and rave it’s nuances!

This kept me up all night thinkin’, “how can this be? She can’t know about that stuff! Oh, no!!”

Then I quickly blamed in on the internet! Yeah, that stupid Internet, yeah, it’s the Internet’s fault. I mean really you can find anything on there! I’m surprised she hasn’t put together a bomb with all the information from wikipedia.

But come on-I told myself-it’s MY fault. I didn’t put the parental controls on the computer to block her from finding this stuff on the Internet. Yeah, I’m the idiot who didn’t read the manual on how to set parental controls on Windows Vista! Yeah, I’m the loser who thought Windows took care of these things for me!

Then I thought…Freakin’ MICROSOFT! Yeah, they didn’t send me a manual on how to set up a computer in case kids and preteens wanted to check out porn! They didn’t bother to help out their Freakin’ Consumer that knew only a little computer stuff and had freakin’ kids living at home.

But I have a Bachelor’s in Integrated Media, computer science stuff-like degree, so my SCHOOL!!!!!! They should have taught me how to set up parental controls on a computer if I was going to be using a computer for a living and I didn’t expect them to be stupid enough to think that I wasn’t going to grow up, have kids in my house with computers, and that the kids were one day going to be curious about porn and check it out online.

That’s how it went on in my head all night long till I faded to black and the curtains closed. Then I woke up to the dog wanting to take a dump!

CHICAGO—In a report with dire implications for the intellectual future of America, a University of Chicago study revealed Monday that the nation’s uneducated are breeding twice as fast and twice as often as its educated. “The average member of the American underclass spawns at age 15, compared to age 30 for the average college-educated professional,” study leader Kenneth Stalls said. “America’s intellectual elite, as a result, are badly losing the genetic marathon, with two generations of dullards born for every one generation of cultured literates.” Added Stalls: “At this rate, by the year 2100 there will be five smart people on Earth, swallowed whole by more than 12 billion mouth-breathers incapable of understanding the binary exponentiation that swamped the Earth with their like.” High-school dropout Mandi Drucker, 16, said of the findings, “All I know is, we’re in love.” –THE ONION

Digidesign suggested the following, which worked for me:
Mbox 2/Mbox 2 Mini Unit Should be Online Prior to Engaging Phantom Power
Phantom power should only be engaged after the Mbox 2/Mbox 2 Mini is connected and Pro Tools is launched. If phantom power is on when the Mbox 2/Mbox 2 Mini is first connected to the CPU, it may drop offline. So in these cases, the following steps are encouraged:

• Connect the Mbox 2/Mbox 2 Mini to the USB port with PHANTOM POWER OFF
• Launch Pro Tools
• Connect any phantom-powered microphones
• Turn phantom power on

These steps should keep the Mbox 2/Mbox 2 Mini online.

Try it, see if it relieves some frustration. You can read more on it here.

What the hell?

That’ roughly $1,450 a month, and that’s not including groceries or even my fiancee’s debts. I’ve managed to cut cable, reduce my insurance, gave the dog a diet (sorry buddy), haggle with my car and pay only $178 to finish the car payments, tried the light off thing to reduce utilities, asked the kids to help out with turning off lights, water off when not in use, blah, blah. Still there doesn’t seem like there’s a way to reduce my debt any further unless I sell one of the kids–hmm…ha, just kidding. Kids are all in school now (all 4 of them, yeah I know, tell me about it), so that helps with the lights and stuff at home.

But for a family of 6, come on, it seems like I’m scrapin’ the bottom of this barrel with a dull blade. Not only that, but these little monkey kids are getting bigger and hungrier.

Damn, just the other day, I thought I’d be nice and treat them all to a $1 whopper jr. I look at the bank, $8. K, that’s ok, one for each, we drink water, bamm. It’s like my birthday all over again. They eat their burgers in about 3 minutes (we’re talkin’ 11, 8, 7, 5 years of age here) and start asking for another one. I’m wondering if these guy chewed their food; I hadn’t even finished unwrapping mine. My lady is looking at me as if I’m cheap and tells me, “What? are you thinking about how much money you’re spending.” Well hell yeah, I am. But not about what I’m going to spend now, another $4, but how it’s going to be when all 4 get well into puberty.

Can you imagine when the dynamic four are asking me for $70 designer shoes, $50 jeans, $50 for makeup, $10 toilet paper? Taking the fam costs $40 to go to the movies right now, which I’ve avoided driving certain roads now, but when I don’t get the kid discount, easily $60–and that’s just admission!! They always want soda and popcorn, and that crap ain’t cheap! Another $50 there. Whoa, my head aches just thinkin’ about it. So forget the $4 whopper deal, $400 is a long way to go. About half of my pay check already goes to making sure they’re well, hell, I’ll just make a bumper sticker sign that says, “Hi, I am a serf to my kids” or better yet, “My boss should just direct deposit my check into my kid’s bank accounts ’cause it would make my life easier.”

I better start buying scratch-its.

Although we like to think that the people in our lives are well-adjusted, happy, healthy minded individuals, we sometimes realize that it just isn’t so. Personally, I’ve had moments where I’ll be skipping through my day, happy as can be, thinking life is grand and BAM, I’ll be blindsided by someone who manages to knock the happy wind out of my sails. Sometimes it is easy to write it off and other times, not so much.

Maybe you are a positive person, but when you are around a certain individual, you feel negative. Or, maybe you have an idealistic view of the world and when you are with certain people, you are made to feel silly, unrealistic or delusional. Or, maybe you pride yourself in being completely independent and in control of your life, but when you are around a certain family member, you regress into a state of childhood.

Some of these situations, and yes, these people, can have a tremendously negative impact on our lives. And, although we are all human and have our ‘issues,’ some ‘issues’ are quite frankly, toxic. They are toxic to our happiness. They are toxic to our mental outlook. They are toxic to our self-esteem. And they are toxic to our lives. They can suck the life out of us and even shorten our lifespan.

Here are the worst of the toxic personalities out there and how to spot them:

1. Manipulative Mary: These individuals are experts at manipulation tactics. Is a matter of fact, you may not even realize you have been manipulated until it is too late. These individuals figure out what your ‘buttons’ are, and push them to get what they want.

Why they are toxic: These people have a way of eating away at your belief system and self-esteem. They find ways to make you do things that you don’t necessarily want to do and before you know it, you lose your sense of identity, your personal priorities and your ability to see the reality of the situation. The world all of a sudden becomes centered around their needs and their priorities.
2. Narcissistic Nancy: These people have an extreme sense of self-importance and believe that the world revolves around them. They are often not as sly as the Manipulative Marys of the world, but instead, tend to be a bit overt about getting their needs met. You often want to say to them “It isn’t always about you.”

Why they are toxic: They are solely focused on their needs, leaving your needs in the dust. You are left disappointed and unfulfilled. Further, they zap your energy by getting you to focus so much on them, that you have nothing left for yourself.
3. Debbie Downers: These people can’t appreciate the positive in life. If you tell them that it is a beautiful day, they will tell you about the impending dreary forecast. If you tell them you aced a mid-term, they’ll tell you about how difficult the final is going to be.

Why they are toxic: They take the joy out of everything. Your rosy outlook on life continues to get squashed with negativity. Before you know it, their negativity consumes you and you start looking at things with gray colored glasses yourself.
4. Judgmental Jims: When you see things as cute and quirky, they see things as strange and unattractive. If you find people’s unique perspectives refreshing, they find them ‘wrong’. If you like someone’s eclectic taste, they find it ‘disturbing’ or ‘bad’.

Why they are toxic: Judgmental people are much like Debbie Downers. In a world where freedom rings, judgment is sooo over. If the world was a homogeneous place, life would be pretty boring. Spending a lot of time with these types can inadvertently convert you into a judgmental person as well.
5. Dream Killing Keiths: Every time you have an idea, these people tell you why you can’t do it. As you achieve, they try to pull you down. As you dream, they are the first to tell you it is impossible.

Why they are toxic: These people are stuck in what is instead of what could be. Further, these individuals eat away at your self-esteem and your belief in yourself. Progress and change can only occur from doing new things and innovating, dreaming the impossible and reaching for the stars.
6. Insincere Illissas: You never quite feel that these people are being sincere. You tell a funny story, they give you a polite laugh. You feel depressed and sad and they give you a ‘there, there’ type response. You tell them you are excited about something and you get a very ho-hum response.

Why they are toxic: People who aren’t sincere or genuine build relationships on superficial criteria. This breeds shallow, meaningless relationships. When you are really in need of a friend, they won’t be there. When you really need constructive criticism, they would rather tell you that you are great the way you are. When you need support, they would rather see you fail or make a fool of yourself.
7. Disrespectful Dannys: These people will say or do things at the most inappropriate times and in the most inappropriate ways. In essence, they are more subtle, grown up bullies. Maybe this person is a friend who you confided in and uses your secret against you. Maybe it is a family member who puts their busy-body nose into your affairs when it is none of their business. Or maybe, it is a colleague who says demeaning things to you.

Why they are toxic: These people have no sense of boundaries and don’t respect your feelings or, for that matter, your privacy. These people will cause you to feel frustrated and disrespected.
8. Never Enough Nellies: You can never give enough to these people to make them happy. They take you for granted and have unrealistic expectations of you. They find ways to continually fault you and never take responsibility for anything themselves.

Why they are toxic: You will spend so much time trying to please them, that you will end up losing yourself in the process. They will require all of your time and energy, leaving you worn out and your own needs sacrificed.
All of these personalities have several things in common. 1) the more these people get away with their behavior, the more they will continue. 2) Unfortunately, most of these people don’t see that what they do is wrong and as a result, talking to them about it will fall on deaf ears, leaving you wondering if you are the crazy one. 3) Most of these people get worse with age, making their impact on you stronger with time.

Frankly, life is too short to spend your time dealing with toxicity. If you can, avoid spending mucho time with people who are indicative of these behaviors and you’ll feel a lot happier. Have you encountered these personalities? What have you done? Any personalities you would add?

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Posted by Jett Wed May 13, 2009 1:00pm PDT
Boy do I know what you mean! I have had many people in my life who have been toxic to various extents. I don’t know that I can classify them completely into the categories you’ve outlined, though:

My best friend all through elementary school was a Manipulative Mary, I guess. We became instant best friends in first grade and remained so until fifth grade when I defected from her table in the lunchroom to a table of another friend. Mary wasn’t truly manipulative in the sense that she would get me to do immoral things, but she liked to be queen and would treat me sort of as her servant at times. At the time I actually left the group because of her two other friends, not her, but in the end, if she had been a better friend and if our friendship were meant to last, I would have stayed, or we would have become friends again later. We called it quits officially in 7th grade. I’m just glad I had enough willpower and self-esteem to look for better.

Ironically, it was in this second group of friends that I found Debbie Downers and Judgmental Jim! Debbie would make us all feel that if we had any good news we had to stifle it. She would call it bragging, and it took me many years to realize that it wasn’t bragging — it was just feeling good about an accomplishment. Jim would make me feel (and still does to an extent) that I’m sort of stupid and my tastes in things like music aren’t good enough. Why’d I stay friends with them? Because besides their faults, they were actually really good friends when I needed them. I guess we all have Jim and Debbie and Mary in us somewhere. And to Debbie’s credit, it turned out she’s clinically depressed, so after high school when she was on meds, she became a lot nicer. Still, it’s awkward when I go back and visit them (I live almost 6 hours away now) because I realized we just don’t have a lot in common. I was friends with them for convenience I guess, because I’d been dumped by Mary and had nowhere else to go. Once I met other people in college I realized just how my high school friends had affected the way I would think and found myself repeating the mantras that Debbie would spout about how stupid certain things were. It took me awhile to get past that.

But the only person I would truly list as a Debbie Downers was a co-worker I had a few years ago. She would talk about her own life — her lazy, emotionally-abusive husband and bratty children — constantly without even coming up for air so I could interject. Literally, I would sit on the phone with her for AN HOUR and not have to say anything other than “yeah” or “huh.” Eventually she would say she had to go, if I didn’t manage to interrupt her monologue to tell her I really had to hang up, and afterwards I would either feel so drained from how bad her life was or so glad that my life was so much better! She would almost never ask about me, or if she did it would just remind her of something else to complain about and she’d go of again for another half hour. Finally I just stopped calling her. I didn’t let her know my new number when I moved (Both of us had left the company by then, so we didn’t have to work together.) That relationship was completely one-sided, and the weird thing was she didn’t even need me. She had family and other friends she ranted to also — all the same things she would repeat to me.