Generally Discontent

"How many stars are on the American flag?"

I'm hacking open Palm E2's by the boxload, slicing thick plastic and trying not to cut myself. My hands hurt, this is shitty work, but at least it's paying work. I mean, I'm not adverse to doing hard work (yeah, I couldn't keep a straight face reading that, either), but this stuff sucks. Oh well, at least I have fine company: Pierre, the Haitian shipping manager guy who likes to sing and make bad jokes; Dan, the tall, old guy with shaky hands and a pleasant disposition; and Yeungling, the aforementioned future citizen of these United States of America. Oh, and also Yeungling's tapes. Her tapes kept me company, too.

"What do the fifty stars on the flag represent?"

See, she's taking the citizenship test in early March, and she needs to bone up on the over 100 possible questions they might ask. From what I hear, they only ask a small handful on the actual test, but they make you memorize all of them just in case. And due to my current predicament, I was forced to memorize them as well!

Not that it was so bad, those first couple of days. I was tired and zoning out from all the robot work, so having something to listen to was welcome. Though it was better when Pierre turned on the radio and we got to listen to the smooth hits of the 60s, 70s and…and that's it. But they played some good stuff, played some Bob Seger and Journey and Queen and generally all the stuff I like to play on any jukebox I can get my hands on because A) I genuinely like these songs, and B) I know they'll annoy the jackasses who had just played Fifty Cent for an hour straight. Go me!

Anyway, the tapes were okay at first. And it helped that I wasn't always working in the shipping room, so I had a few days off from the American History re-education. But then I had to go back at the end of last week for a big "Hey, who wants to hack open 1,300 Palm Pilot cases? You do, Josh? Great!" party. Though by now this was almost preferable to sitting in the production department while folks tried to show me how things work around this place.

Side note: everyone here talks to me like I'm a complete idiot. I don't know why. The tasks I've been handling are extremely simple and repetitive, with a few random bits of variety thrown in here and there, a few minor things that I'd really only know if I had been doing these things for years. But still, everyone seems to think that these are humungous, Herculean exercises in human cunning and fortitude, and how dare I think I could understand them after watching someone do them a couple of times!? Feh!

Uh, anyway.

Back to the other day, to the tapes. We were listening to the Who or Pink Floyd or something good on the radio, when suddenly the music stops. Click. Clickity-clack! CLICK.

"How many stripes are on the American flag?"

God damn it all to hell. Bad form, Yeungling, bad form. You don't just shut off the radio when there are a bunch of people listening to it! They should put that kind of crap on these tapes.

"Should you shut off the radio when a bunch of people are listening to it?"
"(Chinese translation)"
"NO!"
"(Chinese translation)"

Bah. The tapes had gone from mildly entertaining and educational (hey, I didn't say I could easily answer all this stuff…they asked a lot of junk I didn't know or had forgotten) to plain annoying and boring as fuck. It's like they hired Ben Stein's entire extended family to record these things, the voices were so monotone and boring.

Now, I understand that the guy asking the questions has to be deadpan, as it's easier to understand if you're not a native English speaker. Also, I understand that Yeungling was very excited and nervous about this test, so of course she'll want to review the questions as much as possible. I'm not heartless, after all. Also, I don't have a spine, so it's not like I was gonna do anything about it besides bitch on the internet.

Tape Guy: "What do the thirteen stripes represent?"
Me (in my head): "The original thirteen colonies."
Tape Guy: "The original thirteen states."
Me (in my head): "Pardon?"

And the tapes weren't necessarily all the accurate, either. I think one of the questions said that we only had two political parties, which was awesome. Though they did get humorous and downright creepy later on, when she put in the "Let's practice our dictation" tape, geared towards helping folks speak better English through a series of common questions and answers. What made it funny was the guy asking the questions sounded absolutely pissed off, and the woman answering sounded as happy as a human being possibly could be. What made it creepy was that it started off with him sounding like he was trying to hit on her, only to segue sharply into loonytown. To wit:

Mr. Angry: "Are you married?"
Ms. Happy: "No, I am not married."
Mr. Angry: "Do you work around here?"
Ms. Happy: "Yes, I work at the Golden Dragon in Chinatown."
Mr. Angry: "ARE YOU A COMMUNIST!?"

Seriously, he asked if she was a Communist. She said no, of course. But she did say she would fight for America, so that's cool. I can finally sleep at night knowing Ms. Happy is keeping the borders safe. I guess maybe the tapes were made in the late 80s or something. But considering the Q&A tapes claimed that Bill Clinton is president, who the fuck knows?

Ah well, this could all be much, much worse, of course. At least I have a job, even if it's kinda dumb. But it's good enough for now, and at least I'm learning lots of great stuff that I'll most likely never have to use ever again! Woo!