Saturday, August 23, 2008
Underestimated
Most of my adult life I seem to have found myself in jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry. How that happened I do not know because I really don’t like people. I guess it’s because I like to travel so this was a great way to do that for free or very low cost and because most of these types of jobs seemed fun and interesting. My current job can be fun and there doesn’t seem to ever be a dull moment.
When one deals with the public, one tends to meet some real morons and I’ve absolutely met a great number of them. However, when I first started my current job, I was told by someone who has been here 20 years, “Some of the stupidest people in the world will walk right through those doors.” Having so many years of this industry under my belt, I figured I had a pretty good idea just how stupid people can be but I have to bow down and admit that I obscenely underestimated my co-worker’s claim. I have come in contact with some of the dumbest fucking people on earth at this job.
By the way, Europe? You really need to watch what you say about us “Murricans” because you have nothing to be proud of. In fact, the few countries that have not embarrassed themselves over here are Ireland, England, Australia, (not part of Europe but included on the list anyway), Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, specifically, Holland; pretty much in that order. The rest of Europe? It’s time you took a long, hard look in the mirror.
Now. As we all know, TS Fay came to Florida and apparently liked it so much, she decided to stick around for awhile. Granted, the center of Fay moved towards the north, first to the east, now back towards the west but and this is a big, “but”, just because the center of the storm is north of here, that does not mean that we have cloudless skies and warm weather. See, there’s these things in those types of storm called “arm bands” or “feeder bands” and those can reach hundreds of miles all around the center of the storm. This is basic meteorology here. You do not have to be a weather junkie such as myself to grasp this concept. Nonetheless, this basic, 4th grade level science seems to escape many people.
So this week we are still getting whipping winds and rain because of Fay and her little arms and this week we are still getting ignorant fucks who get upset because of the weather. I state again: When you travel, one of the first things you should do is check the fucking weather in your location. Turn on the television in your hotel room as you get ready for the day and watch. You don’t need to speak English to understand the graph that shows the storm covering the entire state of Florida. You don’t need to understand English to know that clouds with lightning strikes coming out of them on the 5 day forecast means, Hey! It’s going to be fucking stormy today!
That did not stop one Russian asshole from grilling me about the weather, earlier this week. First he was pissed because it was raining. Then he was pissed because the seats on the boat were wet. (Hello, because you see that water coming out of the sky? Guess where that lands? Guess. It’s impossible for me to dry the seats of the boat because it’s fucking raining ass. HOLE! Then he wanted to know how long it had been raining. I told him it was off and on throughout the day. Well, then, he insisted on knowing the precise minutes between each break in the weather. Dude. Are you serious?
As we went along, he got more bitchy because it wasn’t perfect weather for him and his little family. He was certain I was at fault for the weather and he was determined to take it out on me the entire tour. At one point, aggravated with the conditions, he asked me, hotly, if I worked for the state. What. Are you going to write a letter to the state of Florida demanding that we shoo the clouds away when you visit? No, I do not work for the state, this is a privately owned business but the Everglades themselves, the area we are in, the 4000 + square miles, that’s all National Park. So, hmmm, I don’t know, maybe you can write a letter to GOD about the weather. Bitch to God. Or, if you don’t believe in God, piss and whine to Mother Nature.
I just love it when ignorant pole lickers start pitching fits and throwing tantrums and acting all self righteous about shit they don’t know. The two biggest complaints are about the weather and the alligators. I control neither one but it’s interesting just how many people actually believe you do. These people take it real personal if either of these two things are not to their liking.
If they aren’t bitching about the rain, they’re bitching because it’s too hot. Well, gee, you cheap bastards decided to come to the tropics in the summer. Ever wonder why your airfare and hotel rooms seemed like such a deal? NOW YOU KNOW! Dolts.
And alligators, either they don’t see enough because are expecting gangs of alligators to be swimming around, (they are solitary animals and they are territorial....alligators do not travel in packs), or the alligators aren’t “doing anything” prompting many to conclude that they are “plastique” as the French love to say. To which I turn off the boat and tell them I will wait for them while they get out of the boat, walk through the water and go pick up that fake alligator as a souvenir. Oddly enough, no one takes me up on that offer. The other thing they like to whine about is the size of the alligator.
I had one asshole on the boat this week argue with me about a 3-4 foot alligator we saw on tour. Instead of allowing everyone else to enjoy the sighting, he wanted to put a damper on it by stating, “That one is tiny. He couldn’t hurt a thing.” I told him that indeed a 3-4 foot alligator could open him up like a filet knife. He insisted I was joking, kidding, making it up, looking at me skeptically, it was bullshit, it wouldn’t hurt, blah blah blah.
Really? Ok. Then I will sit here and wait while you get your know it all fat ass out of the boat and go wrestle that wimpy alligator. Go ahead. Again, I was not taken up on my offer. Real impressed, stud.
So, to summarize: If you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, don’t argue with the person who does. Second, do yourselves a favor and check the fucking weather before you go out. If you have a miserable time, that’s nobody’s fault but your own. Capisce, Sparky?
As for Fay, where I live it really wasn’t a big deal. Just another stormy day. I enjoyed it, of course and we did get a day off of work this week, (hurray!) that we are not getting paid for (boo!) like other companies I’ve worked for around this town but it really didn’t do a thing around here except blow a few leaves around. As for all the flooding.....it may look like a mess now but don’t go feeling too bad for the state of Florida. We needed that storm. We needed all that rain in a big way. Not just for people to water their lawns but the lake needed it because that lake feeds much of the water in to the Everglades and the Everglades needed that water like you wouldn’t believe. Florida Water Mismanagement cannot do this right so Nature needed to step in and take care of the issue.
We’ll see what happens in the next week as we have other areas of interest to look at in the Atlantic right now. Frankly, I welcome more. Even if it does mean I have to deal with more twitsicles.
By the way, the really, really crappy thing about this whole “lot of rain” business? The fucking mosquitoes. In fact, a couple of weeks before the storm and up until this time, the mosquitoes have been horrifying this year. Some times, when on tour, no one is listening because they are too busy smacking each other to kill the mosquitoes. Two times a week I have to clean an alligator pit and I am more anxious of the mosquitoes than a fricken pissed off alligator.
No, OFF! Your shit doesn’t work. Many times I have liberally doused myself in repellent and many times I have mosquitoes biting me and then buzzing in my ear to thank me for the complimentary drink before their meal. I would tell you how many bites I have except I can’t count that high.
Does anyone out there have A- blood? I may need a donation soon.
