And crash his wartime economy? Well, yes, he does have the choice of blowing his own brains out, but most of us don’t consider that a choice.

Lemmy is big on making fun of “forever growth”. But that’s how the world has always worked, there is no ideal steady state. We Americans are within a couple of years of slamming into the brick wall of “can’t buy shit”.

Nothing will save us but straight raping the rich for what they’ve done to us. And since they’ve bought and paid for all the mechanisms to claw back even a morsel, too late. There will quickly come a time when they can no longer be their own best customers. We provide the labor, value and purchasing power.

That’s how I talk! Maybe not those words, but yeah, I talk to them like a friend-of-a-friend who called for help. I SO love getting someone like that on the phone. When I realize I’m talking to a human that gives two fucks, my attitude lines right up, even if I started mad. Amazing how people react when treated like people.

Lemmy: I’m autistic and need a 254-page manual as to how to smile correctly.

No, you’re not autistic, you were robbed of human social interaction by schools and society. There’s nothing wrong with your brain, you’re not special, you’re a victim (sorta, get over it), STFU.

And the next waiter or waitress that says, “Absolutely sir!”, gets punched. These people have an instruction book that mandates “absolutely”?! I humbly ask for some salt. “YES SIR ABSOLUTELY SIR WOULD YOU LIKE A BLOWJOB SIR?” “Just some salt would be nice enough. Thank you.”

How about this? HANG UP THE FUCKING PHONE. Heard my wife do this today. You get one chance to be an ass, then fuck you. “But MY job, bla, bla, bla.” She works for the largest company of it’s kind. She hangs up.

And BTW, English is her second language, so imagine the racism and abuse people start with. Yet she’s rocking out and next in line for a promotion. Yet native English speakers get their ass kicked. One must wonder what is happening. Must be the customers, couldn’t be the rep.

Thanks for the reality check. I had wondered about NG. One of my first IT jobs was for a place that made burners to vent the waste from drilling. Wasn’t profitable then, wondered if it was now. BTW, John Zinc in Tulsa, OK also designed burners for the Third Reich. Yeah, they don’t talk about that, but old people that worked there knew.

This is how people dress when things are looking up in the world.

How people dress in 2025.

So, treating customers as faceless idiots working out for you? Maybe treat them like people who need your aid? Is kissing ass the only way you know to interact with strangers whose approval you require?

You have utterly failed to understand the assignment. You could not have wrote a worse response if you fed it through AI.

“Customers don’t treat me like a person. 😢”

That’s because they don’t see you as a person, because you don’t treat them like a person. Know what? This conversation is hopeless. You do you.

A rep comes at me with that voice and I know damned well they aren’t listening to me, don’t give a fuck about what I called about.

I was training a customer service class and we listened in on my best friend. He was bullshitting with someone from near his hometown about local foot-the-ball. They were stunned! How unprofessional! Then my guy promptly handled their issue, everyone happy.

The point wasn’t that he had the background to talk to someone like that. The point was that he talked to them as another human.

Rarely. Up until 2 years ago I had to pay my mortgage with a check, but that was a Habitat for Humanity thing. Not like they’re funded for shit. It’s become strange to see someone paying with paper at a grocery store.

We still “pay by check” for a lot of things online as there’s usually no extra charge. It’s a way to dodge credit card fees, for both parties.

Speaking of cc charges, the government can be painful on that topic. Laws were written, charges were set in stone with no flexibility to collect more to cover cc fees.

Yes! I was thinking my last Solaris desktop looked much like that.

Most Americans can’t read past an 8th-grade level, and that shocks hell out of me. When I was in 6th-grade, standardized tests pegged me at “college level”, which I figured was utter bullshit, thought I was being buttered-up somehow. Turns out it was true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

In 2023, 28% of adults scored at or below Level 1, 29% at Level 2, and 44% at Level 3 or above.[1] Adults scoring in the lowest levels of literacy increased 9 percentage points between 2017 and 2023. In 2017, 19% of U.S. adults achieved a Level 1 or below in literacy while 48% achieved the highest levels.[2]

Anything below Level 3 is considered “partially illiterate” (see also § Definitions below).[3] Adults scoring below Level 1 can comprehend simple sentences and short paragraphs with minimal structure but will struggle with multi-step instructions or complex sentences, while those at Level 1 can locate explicitly cued information in short texts, lists, or simple digital pages with minimal distractions but will struggle with multi-page texts and complex prose.[4] In general, both groups struggle reading complex sentences, texts requiring multiple-step processing, and texts with distractions.[4]

This explains so much about all the stupid shit I see. Most Americans literally aren’t literate enough to follow a piece of literature, would struggle with any given novel.

If I posted the same words about Lindsey Graham as he posted about Thuneberg, there would be an investigation, if not an outright arrest.

I never used that bullshit voice, simply talked to customers as I would a stranger a friend referred for help. Guess what? Hardly ever got disrespected, let alone chewed out.

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”

–from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.

tl;dr: Treat people as people and not “customers”. Be amazed.

Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey previously told Newsweek: “As we look ahead, while operating conditions are expected to remain dynamic, our strategy is clear, our top-line momentum is strong, and we are flexing into our advantages to protect margins as we grow.”

“Look, lord knows what our fuckwit President will do next, but our plan is clear. While our profits continue to be strong, we’ll use our heft to squeeze suppliers and our near monopoly in rural areas to squeeze customers. In any case, we’ll protect our bottom line and continue to grow.”

Every other answer on this thread boils down to tribalism.

You must be right. Oklahoma has some hills, but it’s flat as hell around Stillwater.

Even if America’s GPS constellation is jammed, what about Europe’s? The Russians have to be using something for their own movements.

No one implied otherwise here, and speaking of here, you’re rather preaching to the choir, don’t you think?