20 thoughts on “Public Service Announcement”

  3. Bill, you’re a dickhead. Gary has medical complications that prevent him from hauling anything at all, let alone cow manure.
    Christ, can you for once not be a moron?

  4. Who is “Bill”, and why does his troll upset you so much, Phil? Granted, I haven’t been around much of late, but DNFTFT still means something around here, doesn’t it?

  5. It is a thoroughly mean-spirited and nasty troll, Slarti. Attacking people for their political opinions or just because you don’t like them – that’s the rough and tumble of the blogosphere.
    Sneering at someone because he’s unable to work, unable to leave the house, and may become homeless without help: that’s vile.

  7. Granted, I haven’t been around much of late
    Sentence probably should have ended here. Just for future reference.
    If Bill has been paying attention during his unillustrious career here, he knows all about Gary’s situation and was deliberately being a jerk. If he hasn’t been, maybe he oughtta before he mouths off about something he clearly doesn’t understand. Gary’s situation isn’t like Confederate Yankee begging for tips to replace his gas grill.

  8. For the record, I’ve, in my life, worked at a short-order grill, turning over eggs, burgers, bacon, cheese, buns, dogs, and all the other hot order fast stuff, served ice cream in scoops, engaged in more sales jobs than I can remember or count, including many phone sales jobs, as well as many retail jobs selling tvs, washers, dryers, and every other kind of home appliance, as well as temping in every possible kind of office job, as well as clerking and filing in the most menial of positions, as well as working as a janitor, cleaning, throwing out garbage, polishing whiteboards, as well as working as a typist, in the pre-computer days, at an endless roll of paper, endless number of times, as well as working as a secretary innumerable times, as well as then working as a word-processor in numerous situations, as well as working at jobs directing traffic, doing security, organizing a wide number of efforts, ranging from coordinating school immunization programs across over fifty districts, being a city court clerk, being a late-night manager of a book store, fundraising for a wide variety of efforts, including the Campaign For Yale, selling TV Guide, selling Time-Life Books, selling crap-ass fraudulent ads for con artists, being a legal secretary, being a legal processor, and, well, gosh, dozens and dozens of other jobs in my life, not going into the ones in publishing, which became my primary career, such as it was, both freelance for many years as a copyeditor, proofreader, and copywriter, consulting editor, reader, and as an in-house editor for a couple of years. I had a major break-down in 1988, after my father died, simultaneously the week my mentor and friend, Terry Carr died, and I ended up being so unable to cope that I got myself fired. Thereafter I had a lot of freelance jobs, and a number of temp jobs, but more and more was unable to work.
    Most recently I spent almost a year at a local Sears, being paid just above minimum wage for being part of the team that works all night replacing price signs on items, five nights a week. After that I sold electronics in that department, until not long after, the store closed as part of the Crossroads Mall disappearing. After that, I sold stuff for CompUSA, until I lost the job because of too many sick days. All that for a single digit a day of pay, usually around $7-$8 an hour.
    For the record. I really really enjoy going into these facts, of course.
    Thanks to all who spoke up, particularly, of course, including Jes.
    “Got to go with Phil and Jes. I mean, there is a point at which you can’t write off such a mean spirited comment as just trolling.”
    Well, no, because that’s all trolling is. It’s the norm.
    That’s why trolling is, you know, not nice, and why we don’t think well of trollers. It’s just not a respectable way to approach other real people.
    Imagine a troller responding that way to a family member: it would be disgusting and outrageous. Although family members do tend to do that sort of thing to each other.
    It’s not actually nicer when done to strangers, because we’re all not actually dissimilar to family members, if you spend a smattering of hours to get to know us. We’re all parallels to one cousin or another. We’re all pretty similar.
    And family ripping family apart is even less nice than ripping strangers.
    But, what the heck: people ripping each other is the Way Of The Net. Kindness is an exception.

  10. “All that for a single digit a day of pay, usually around $7-$8 an hour.”
    That should be “All that for a single digit an hour of pay, usually around $7-$8 an hour.”
    Sorry.

  11. “That was me, trying to get out from Typepad’s usual erroneous attempt to prevent me from posting.”
    If ObWi used web-community software, you could just log in and post away 🙂
    But seriously – here’s hoping that TypePad is the most vexing of your problems in the coming year.

  12. Bill: “I used to haul cow manure ……”
    You can stop now. Not that I mind cow manure so much, being a little full of it myself.
    I’ve always believed the reason we don’t mandate full employment in this country is because it would deprive some among us of the pleasure of rolling down the car window and brow-beating the unemployed.
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do gravediggers die?
    A little work never hurt anyone, but why take the chance?
    The same people who say a little work never hurt anyone also tell the story of their pappy who worked himself little by little into an early grave.
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why did Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush do so little work in their lives.
    MONEY Magazine probably believes a little work never hurt anyone, but then they do a cover story every month about how to retire early and do no work.
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do employers fire people and replace them with robotics and computers.
    If a little work never hurt anyone, and no work can kill them, why don’t we get sick leave while we’re on vacation, since not working is so harmful.
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why is Bill seeing a chiropractor?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do I cuss so extravagantly when I hit my thumb with a hammer?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why is there so much work to do and the insistence on unpaid overtime?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, then why do we have to incentivize C.E.O.s with options packages, since some of them obviously are not being hurt by the little work they do?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do I feel like I need a butler and a gardener?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why didn’t Tom Delay and Bill Frist force Terry Schiavo to get a job?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, what accounts for the fact that so many of us have so much time to blog during working hours?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do some object to high marginal tax rates which disincentivize people from doing a lot of work, which must hurt even less?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, why do corporations outsource work to low-wage countries, telling those who lose their jobs that shareholders are being hurt by the little work they do?
    If a little work never hurt anyone, what accounts for disability insurance?

  13. I have both some first- and second-hand knowledge of what Gary is talking about and I emphasize. But I wonder: isn’t there anybody among the US readers of ObWi, CT, Unfogged etc. that can set him up with some regular work that can be done remotely and preferably under not too tight deadlines in the areas of proofreading, editing, tech-writing or whatever else is feasible under the circumstances for him to do?

  14. Not for nothing, but I reckon Gary to be one of the most assiduous posters, here and other places he posts, that I’ve seen. By “assiduous”, I mean he goes and finds the sources for the information that form the basis of his thoughts and opinions, and brings those all back here (and elsewhere) for the rest of us to benefit from.
    That is called work.
    Some bloggers get paid, some don’t. Some deserve to, and some don’t. IMO Gary does, because he works hard at it, and the information he shares is useful and valuable.
    If it’s not worth it to you to make a contribution, don’t. Nobody’s trying to make you. You’ll get the benefit of Gary’s research skills and work ethic for free. Some of the rest of us don’t mind helping him out.
    Thanks –

  15. I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me here, russell, but I sure don’t like the preachy and condescending tone. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding, if so, my apologies.
    Getting someone work requires a lot more effort than handing over $25 via Paypal. I think it would be doable because a lot of people who read Gary seem to be working in areas where his talents might be of use (I don’t). It could help him financially and psychologically and might provide a longterm solution as opposed to these rather demeaning pledge drives.

  16. Got to go with Phil and Jes. I mean, there is a point at which you can’t write off such a mean spirited comment as just trolling.

    As Gary says, it absolutely is just trolling. Giving a troll an angry response is just exactly what the troll is looking for.
    Which doesn’t mean I speak for Gary in this; it absolutely doesn’t. It also doesn’t mean that I disagree with Phil and Jesurgislac; I absolutely do agree with them. I simply maintain that people who are being deliberately, maliciously provocative don’t deserve to be included in polite conversation.
    And now, sadly, I’ve FTFT.

  17. I simply maintain that people who are being deliberately, maliciously provocative don’t deserve to be included in polite conversation.
    Who was being polite to Bill, Slarti?
    Had Bill taken Gary down over Gary’s nit-picking, his politics, his grammar, his spelling, his choice of topics to comment on – all of these might have been ordinary trolling or might have been trolling rendering him unfit for polite conversation or might have been boring or stupid or funny (well, since we’re supposing Bill, I doubt it would be funny).
    None of these apply.
    What Bill said was vile. It was calculated – and, I am sure, intentionally calculated – to make Gary feel uncomfortable about being the recipient of charity. It was no more tolerable to be passed in silence than someone making a mean crack to a wheelchair user who is being carried up a flight of stairs about how they should lose weight if they expect to be carried everywhere.
    Really. It wasn’t.

  18. OOHHH!!! Can I play referee?
    I think Slarti’s point was not that Bill isn’t vile, but that responding to him gives him greater impetus to be vile in the future. You can certainly argue that point, but I think we can all agree that it would be better for there to be no vile comments than to have them and have to respond to them, right?
    I also think novakant was simply trying to help, not disuade anyone from sending Gary a bit of cash.
    Damn, where’s my whistle?

  19. I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me here, russell, but I sure don’t like the preachy and condescending tone.
    My comment was directed at Bill’s post upthread. I was just late to the game.
    Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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