Pointless Question: "Do You Workout?"

So in case you missed it, this is the sequel to yesterday's post. I'm sure I will encounter many more pointless questions in my life, but this one is BY FAR the one I hate the most.

Ahem.

I have a confession to make.

I am extremely confused by people sometimes.

I just don't get it.

I feel like they probably don't think through what they say before they say things actually.

You know what I'm saying?

Let's discuss something here.....I don't consider myself to be a meat-head. I mean I keep myself physically in shape for sports and general fitness, eat as healthily as possible, and I enjoy weightlifting. This means (logically) that I look larger and physically stronger then a person my height/weight would be if they didn't exercise, and yes aesthetic benefits accompany this.

That is the way the human body works.....and that is the end result of exercise, especially if you are in your prime years of physical maturity. 

This I understand.

What I don't understand is when you run into people who are blown away by this biological fact and ask one of the most pointless questions known to mankind:: "Do You Workout?"

...........................

No actually I don't.
I just sit around and do absolutely nothing. 

In fact I stare at weights and can absorb them into my body as muscle.

It's a well known fact that sedentary activity and 'making wishes' allows for one to physically get in shape.

You mad??

But seriously, what retards....

Do I look like I workout?

Because if I do look like I workout then why do they ask the stupid question?

Are they expecting me to answer with something like "No, it's magic I'm secretly Harry Potter" and then cast a body-morphing spell on them??

Are they expecting me to tell them that I just shoot up with 92 kinds of drugs and spontaneously get huge??

Honestly people, how am I even supposed to answer this stupid question? 

If I say yes, I look like the biggest narcissist ever, and if I say no I am a liar. 

Lose lose situation, thanks douche balloons.

So to answer the question then yes, I workout. As I mentioned earlier it's called a biological process. It is not magic. It is not from doing nothing. It is for many beneficial reasons.

Holy cow this actually annoys me so much.

The stupid question isn't even a compliment, it's just ignorant at best.

A compliment would be something like "Hey, you look really good, keep it up." Or "Looks like your workouts are paying off." Or even "Looking huge dude, mang yo."

Or maybe people could even have the intelligence to ask something regarding what kind of workout program I have found to be most effective. Or what exercises I like best. Or what steps I have taken in order to accomplish goals I have set out. 

That would be acceptable and understandable!

I have no issues with helping others out with training or legitimate exercise questions.

However, asking "Do you workout" is like asking a Safeway employee who is in uniform "Do you work here?" 

Grahhh.

So next time you see someone who looks like they're in good shape or they workout, assume that they do!

If you compliment them and they say that they don't actually work out that much, then you are in fact paying them even more of a compliment because they have good genes. They will feel warm and fuzzy and you will have made their day. If they do workout, then you don't look like the dope who is creeping on them and asking them the ever ridiculous"Do you workout?"

Do not insult people by being a farfanoogan (The little turd left over after you poop) and stating the obvious.

It makes you seem as smart as roadkill.

It makes us who exercise want to make you roadkill.

Ugh.

Pointless Question: "Hey You're Tall....Do You Play Basketball??"

FYI: Today's blog is to be taken into consideration with the blog that will be posted tomorrow on pointless questions.

I do not consider myself to be a tall person.

In fact I am just shy of 6"4. Which, when considering that the average Canadian male is 6"0...means that I am not that tall in the grand scheme of things.

So why is the first question dopey strangers who I have just met: "You're pretty tall.....do you play basketball??"

No.

I do not play basketball.

I have never played basketball.

I dislike basketball.

I play volleyball.

In fact, I think that being tall is way more advantageous in volleyball then basketball.

This question has no relevance to anything you idiot.

You are a chowderhead for asking me this.

Does it really matter even if I did play basketball??

Seriously. Do I look like a basketball player somehow? 

I don't wear basketball shoes, headbands, wristbands, Kobe Bryant shirts, or Nike clothing.

I don't call it "hoops" or"B-Ball".

I think it's stupid how a 'field goal' is worth 2 points when it's worth 3 in football.

Please explain to me how I look like a basketball player...

In fact, when asked this stupid question (usually by midgets or people shorter than me), I respond with "Hey you're pretty short, do you play miniature golf??"

That usually shuts them up.

Because really, that is pretty much the same kind of statement. 

Why ask a stupid question and expect to get a not-stupid answer?? And of all things why do you assume that I play basketball? 

There are plenty of big hockey players, football players, volleyball players, heck there are even tall tennis players and golfers.

So before you persecute a tall person and make the moronic assumption that they must play basketball.....stop yourself and stuff your hand in your mouth.

Please.

Really....go away.

Ugh.

And that's the Daily Ranter

What?? Speak English Please

Here's the thing. I have nothing against people who speak slightly accented English. I have nothing against people who speak English as their 57th language. I don't even have a problem with people who don't speak English at all.

Until they try to teach me or give me service me in English.

I fail to see how speaking Swahili or some language that consists of clicks and whistles to me in a class where I am trying to learn the syntax and structure of ENLGISH makes any sense.

Seriously, if you are trying to learn the language that's great...high five...yippee.....gold star....Care Bear Hug.

But you should NOT be trying to learn it while teaching or serving English speaking students. You already should have learned it.

That's what school, self-help books, and cultural indoctrination camps are good for. Come back in a month of hard work and see where it's at.

You know what I'm talking about.....instances such as:

• Powerpoint slides that have confusing sentences like "Then Aztecs will you see the past happening to move the moon to now." (True story)
• Your teacher/professor all of a sudden begins to chant or talk in a really fast, pleasant sing-song voice. Soon you are imagining that you are on a river in the middle of a jungle listening to the happy-sounding hum of an outboard engine. Wonderful, but class suddenly ends and you come to the realization that you have learned nothing.
• You go into a store and ask "Can you help me find some jeans?" They look at you blankly and respond with "We no have no beans sale, you check that food place." ....."Jeans not beans." "NO BEANS FOR YOU SIR, NO BEANS. ME LEAVE, NOW YOU LEAVE NOW!!!"
• You attempt to order a muffin from Tim Horton's and end up with a jalapeno flavoured bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese and a large double-double. Any attempt to fix your order only makes it worse and the staff yells at you of all things.
• Your teacher sends you e-mails in cryptic English in all caps THAT MAKES SEEMS YELLING NO??? Then they berate you in class (again unintelligibly) about how you didn't respond to their 'simple message'.
• You are in class and ask your teacher a difficult question. They get so flustered or refuse to answer it that they all of a sudden drop into speaking Russian at a rapid rate. It sounds as though they are preparing to eat human body parts or resurrect Frankenstein. This is scary.

And yes, all of these things in fact have happened to me.

Really.....if you don't know the language, don't teach it. Or don't put yourself in a position that requires it to be fluently used in service until it becomes intelligible and able to be understood by the population.

Above all else, do NOT become a post-secondary professor in an English institution where marking papers and speaking in class requires literacy. If the students have to correct the exams, syllabus, and syntax of the professor, there is a huge problem.

Ugh so frustrating.

You don't even know.

"Just Looking" Does Not Mean "Shoplifting"

Let's be clear here.

As I have previously mentioned I have worked in the retail business. 

For some time I worked on commission and made quite a bit of money while doing it.

That's because I learned the best way to approach customers to make them feel welcome:

Leave them alone.

Despite the opinion of many dip-wad managers and people who think they know everything about sales, most people are legitimately 'just looking' through what is in the store. Most managers are ignoramuses and don't understand the simple concept of creating a welcoming store, but rather breed their staff to be like predatory vultures circling around rotting meat.

But think about it, most people who shop are not dead meat. (Unless they suffer from Shopping Cart Depression.....see my earlier blog). They have many reasons for shopping.

Perhaps it is a store that carries things that they like and they are curious what's new, or maybe they are just killing time before their planned takeover of the world, or maybe they're just trying to keep their child asleep to avoid them screaming bloody murder in the middle of the mall.

The majority of people are not looking for something specific (unless you work in a hardware store, but those people don't make commission and deal with vague comments surrounding "the thingy that flips over and attaches to that thing that's round"....I truly feel for them.)

Anyways, nothing irritates me more then walking into a store such as Sport Chek and being harassed every single step of the way. Harassed doesn't even begin to describe it actually.....the employees might as well be hanging onto my arms and legs and yelling in my ear the entire time.

It starts off innocently enough with a simple hello.

Then about 2 minutes later, you are approached by a sycophantic 12 year old employee who is working on commission who asks if you are looking for anything or need help finding something.

The response is always: 

"No thanks, I'm just looking".

Immediately the 12 year old retreats back into the shadows where he quickly shoots a glance at a few other employees (including the manager) and nods towards you.

Within the next 10 minutes, you are asked by 7 more employees whether you need help finding anything. After which you are again approached by the original employee asking if "You're doing alright"

My answer is always: "I was fine until you asked me 20 questions. Now I'm angry."

Then their little ant antennaes all begin to twitch and the employees all get extremely agitated. You can sense them just writhing inside with inner turmoil.

This is because their 'danger flags' have been raised. 

They assume that you MUST be looking for something otherwise you wouldn't be in their store.

Therefore if you're NOT looking for anything in particular you are a shoplifter.

Then they swarm you with multiple more smiling, question-asking, ant-like zombie employees who all seem to be under the legal working age. They figure that constant vigilance over you means that you know you are being watched closely and will not shoplift.

But the management is a bunch of idiots because being monitored by a bunch of stupid young employees who constantly ask you questions only serves the obvious purpose:

You will become so annoyed you will leave and never want to come back. Or you might just yell at an employee or push them into the nearest clothes display (laughing manically while they fall helplessly into an abyss of baby clothes and women's underwear). Or you might file a human rights complaint over how you are being stalked by employees of an institution.

Because that's pretty much what it is: stalking.

It's creepy. 

It's annoying.

It's bad business.

Seriously, I am "Just looking" for something. If I was looking for something in particular, I have something called a mouth that I can open (usually) and use to speak words to you to find this "thing" that I might be looking for. 

Otherwise these overzealous commissioned employees need to keep their yaps shut.

Let's be real, we all know you work on commission and we all know that you are eager to make more money then the other 1 billion employees hired by your sweatshop of a store. 

I personally will seek out the employee who has not asked me a single question or followed me around the store sniffing my shoulders and credit them with the sale.

I am not shoplifting.

Leave me alone.

Good Grief.

I Hate Classroom Cretins

I apologize for a couple days away, unfortunately I had no internet access due to travel. Anyways, we shall carry on as usual.....

I don't know about most people who attend post-secondary institutions, but I do so because I consider myself to be somewhat intelligent and I want to be there to pursue further education. In fact, I am paying significant amounts of money for this exact thing.

I believe that this is the case with most people.

But not all people.

It would seem that some idiots go to post-secondary so they can pretend to be superior to everyone else in the classroom. They love to listen to their own voice and constantly engage the professor in class.

In fact they completely brown-nose with the teacher and put their hands up every 30 seconds with a new 'fresh' insight into the material being covered. The material is never fresh, and their silly comments make everyone else in the class feel an intense urge to commit hari kari. Meet the 'Classroom Cretin"

Their statements or questions are never relevant (such as questioning the prof on whether they like wolverine meat or squid fetuses better in their soup).

Sometimes they don't even ask an actual question but rather make a stupid observation (such as "It snows in winter duhahahhhahhhhh I have ink for brainssssss).

Many times these dopes will just re-state what the professor has already said and say "Is that right?" Then when the prof agrees with them and further discusses the issue this classroom cretin will nod wisely and give a swift know-it-all glance around the classroom.

Everyone else is wishing they had a Vaporization Gun. 

But this doesn't faze the cretin...oh no...in fact it makes them feel even more superior. Yes! 

They have asked their question before someone else! 

They are engaging with the teacher! 

They are getting participation marks!! 

Everyone is focused on them!! 

They are just killing this class right now!! 

THEY ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS IN THE CLASSROOM AND KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SUBJECT AND EVERYONE LOVES GUHRAHHHHHHHH!!!!

My absolute favorite is when a group of these cretins sit together in a cluster in a classroom. They then feed off of each other like parasitic leeches feasting on fresh blood. One will put up their hand and start a completely useless conversation with the professor. The others will then chirp in with equally pointless conversation and will build off of their own moronic ideas. If they were allowed, I'm pretty sure they would rush towards each other and madly high five back and forth while commenting how intelligent and awesome they are.

Instead, they settle with just smirking impishly at each other and offer remarks such as "Oh, that's such a good comment!" and "I completely agree with that!", especially when discussing the best way to mount a unicorn in an enchanted forest when you have been set on fire and are missing a shoe.

You know, completely relevant things.

Look, I don't pay a billion dollars for my schooling to listen to Mr. and Mrs. Self-absorbed discuss mythical creatures or their own personal thoughts on how Einstein should have had a better hairdresser. I'm pretty sure other people don't either.

Seriously, we are not 2 years old and nobody wants to listen to you brown nose the teacher for the entire class.

If you don't have something useful or relevant to say in class it's pretty simple:

Shut your piehole.

Trust me classroom cretins, you have way less 'friends' in class then you think you do.

Ugh.

That is all.