New Food!

I have officially learned how to make a decent lentil soup/stew thing. It’s very exciting because A) lentils are cheap and healthy and B) this brings the total number of dishes I know how to make into double figures with 10. Lentils are also awesome because overcooking them seems to have no impact on the taste of the food. They just get mushier and mushier but taste exactly the same.

Ingredients:

• Bag of lentils (sold near the rice)
• Water–twice as much by volume as the lentils
• A few carrots
• A fatty onion (yellow is tastiest)
• Ham
• Salt
• Tabasco sauce

Directions:

1. Combined in a pot made of something that won’t melt, bring the lentils and water to a boil and then turn the heat way down.
2. Chop up the onion, carrots, and ham, and add them to the pot.
3. Add salt and tobasco sauce to taste. You’ll probably end up adding way more than you expected because lentils just soak that stuff up.
4. Wait for a while. Twenty minutes seems to be pretty good.
5. Eat ‘em!

 

Call Center Life

Yesterday was election day in Washington, where I’m living these days. I usually don’t get campaign calls because, as a young person, I don’t fit the standard profile for a likely voter. On Monday, though, I got a surprise phone call from a campaign volunteer urging my to get my ballot in (I did) and vote against a domestic partnership measure in Washington (I didn’t). I’m guessing the caller I heard from was not a volunteer. I could here the strain in her voice–it’s an unmistakable sound if you know it. A call center worker’s voice has this tortured quality to it, a product of florescent lighting and brain cells offing themselves to escape the boredom.

I have worked for a lot of call centers over the years. My first real job was doing telephone surveys for a political polling firm in Oklahoma. I’ve done cold calls for an insurance agent, I’ve made thousands of phone calls recruiting volunteers for campaigns, and I’ve taken thousands of phone calls reporting car accidents for a different insurance company. I *get* what it’s like to work in a call center. Here’s how a typical day goes:

• 5:00pm: Log-in to the automated system that keeps track of your phone time down to the second. Make sure to go to the bathroom first, because once you’re logged-in you can’t leave your headset until your federally mandated 15 minute break three hours later.
• 5:01pm:   The automated computer dialer connects your first call. It’s almost definitely an answering machine.
• 5:02pm: Surreptitiously sneak your book out of your bag and into your lap. With good concentration you can get threw two or three pages before you have to actually talk to someone.
• 5:07pm: Your first angry answer. If you’re lucky, they hang up before yelling at you. If you’re really lucky, they use offensive language and you get to hang up on them.
• 5:15pm: Your first confused, elderly answer. Either due to dementia or hearing loss, poor old Mrs. Beale has no idea what you’re talking about, but she’s also too lonely to hang up on you. This conversation will last until exactly the last question on the survey, when Matlock will come on and she wanders away.
• 5:16pm–6:45pm: Read a paragraph out of your book, talk to an angry middle-aged person or a confused elderly person, repeat.
• 6:46pm: Manager spots your book. Sheepishly put it away and wonder whether or not you’ll be downsized.
• 6:58pm: Particularly rude respondent puts you in an even worse mood. Begin smiling into the phone while you give your spiel to hide the seething hostility in your voice.
• 7:10pm: Entertain yourself by leaving random movie quotes on strangers’ answering machines.
• 7:14pm: Jesus…still 16 minutes till your break.
• 7:30pm: Break time! Buy a diet coke and try not to make eye contact with your coworkers–you don’t have the emotional strength to see something so pitiful right now.
• 7:45pm: Back to the auto-dialer. First call up is invariably the worst of the evening. You’re working so hard to contain the seething that tiny blood vessels in your eyes start popping. Careful…if you go blind you’re fired.
• 8:11pm: Guy answers with an obviously fake Indian accent and starts talking about random nonsense. He thinks his clever prank is getting you back for interrupting his night, but really it’s the most amusing thing you’ve heard in four hours.
• 8:53pm: Seven minutes before your shift ends, you get a doddering old man on the phone. Disaster. You can’t leave mid-call, which means you’re stuck at work until the old guy finally completes the survey. Hopefully he won’t take so long you miss you bus.
• 9:07pm: Call with the old guy ends just to early to justify rounding up to an extra quarter of an hour, and just too late to make it to your bus on time. Have fun standing in the rain for an extra half hour. At least you don’t have to make any more phone calls…today.

Fortunately, my call center days are probably behind me. Please remember, though, the next time you get an irritating phone call, that the person on the other line has a much more soul-crushing, mind-numbing job than you do. It’s not their fault. And the “Do Not Call” list doesn’t apply to political communications.

 

 

Voting Against a Public Health Care Option: An Open Letter

Dear Senator or Representative,

I understand that you’ve been considering opposing the proposed “public option” for insurance as part of the comprehensive health care reform bill. I’ve composed an exhaustive list of possible justifications for voting against the public health care option to help you make this difficult decision. If you don’t fit into one of the catagories below, then rest assured: there is no conceivable reason for you to vote no.

1. Agents of the American Medical Association have kidnapped a member of your immediate family and, instead of ransom, are demanding a “no” vote.
2. Marty McFly burst into your office in a Delorean shouting about impending doom if uninsured children gain access to coverage.
3. You confuse the “no” button on your desk with the button that stops the world from ending on Lost, or you think the “yes” button means “yes, fire all our nuclear weapons at China.
4. You don’t want to let poor people go to the doctor because you’re trying to spark a socialist revolution by exacerbating class disparity.
5. The Psychiatrists’ lobby convinces you it’s opposite day.
6. You hate poor people.*
7. The bill gives you a severe paper cut and extreme blood loss makes you feel dizzy, causing you to stumble and fall onto the “no” button.
8. You hate your job, but unlike some people, you’re not willing to resign. Instead, you just vote against your constituent’s best interests in that hope that you’ll get fired.
9. You think that the free market will provide a solution and that the government should just stay out of the way.**

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Concerned Citizen Sled Dog

*Not an actual justification, just makes you an asshole.

**Not an actual justification, just makes you an ignorant moron.

 

Dear Starbucks, Free Wifi is a Must

Dear Starbucks,

You may have noticed that your company is in serious trouble. Your labor force is acting up, McDonald’s is gobbling up your market share, you’ve cut almost 20,000 jobs in just over a year, and in the middle of recession your customers just aren’t willing to spend $4.50 on a mediocre latte. Given all these problems, it might be time to stop sticking your thumb in customers’ eyes by charging them for Internet access.

I’m typing this from a small, local coffee shop less than a block from two of your locations. To be honest, I’d rather be sitting sitting in one of those comfy recliners in your stores than this wobbly hardwood table. You cafes are quieter and more comfortable than this place, and the coffee is just as good at pretty much the same price. But you want me to pay to use the Internet, so I’m spending my money over here instead.

Look, this is the 21st century. Everyone and their dog has a laptop or tablet, and virtually every other coffee shop I’ve seen in major urban areas offers free internet access. That’s why the cafe I’m sitting in now is filled with people (ranging from poor college students to business people to some guy who looks like a trucker) typing away. Yeah, there’s a recession and maybe the apple pie and cherry cheesecake sales are suffering, but at least people are here. Your locations are completely empty.

Starbucks, for a few years there you looked like the poster child for the vitality of American commerce. Now you’re crumbling. It’s not that you flew too close to the sun–it’s that you’re trying to squeeze every last penny out of your customers and we just don’t care for it. In the words of Stringer Bell, “ya’ll actin like you got an inelastic product when you don’t!” Email me if you ever get your act together. Until then, I’ll be over here.

Sincerely,

Sled Dog

 

Pollution in China: Exceeding the Hype

Sunshine through smog, Beijing

I’d heard the pollution in China was intense. The entire global media establishment was writing stories about it shortly before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the nothing I read even came close to describing the real deal. My first day in China, I sat in the window seat on a flight from Beijing to Xi’an. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but the smog was so thick that five minutes after takeoff I couldn’t see the ground. I didn’t see blue sky for the first 12 days, until a major thunderstorm cleared out the air for while.

The air actually feels icky on really bad days. After an afternoon walking around sweating in the heat, I felt like I had grainy coal particles coating my skin. Some days the smog is so thick it could be a traffic hazard. Visibility drops to maybe 150 meters. Past that, all you see is gray. I cannot imagine having to breath the stuff every day for a lifetime.

Seeing firsthand how bad the air is in China makes me laugh at the feeble climate change initiatives being considered in the US. If we really want to cut carbon emissions in a meaningful way, we’re going to need cold fusion or something similar. Cap and trade just isn’ t going to cut it for a country with a population of 1.6 billion and GDP growth rates topping 8% a year. I’m pretty convinced it’s time to start investing in levees.

 

Traveling in China: A Few Tips

While a week in Xi’an and another in Beijing hardly makes me an expert on traveling in the People’s Republic of China, I think it puts me a step ahead of most people. My time in China was a hell of a lot of fun, but it would have been better if I’d known a few important things beforehand:

1. Be prepared to bargain: as a general rule, price tags are just opening offers. That goes for souvenir shops, obviously, but also for bars, restaurants, clothing shops, and pretty much everywhere else. As a general rule, the higher the ration of westerners toChinese in a particular spot, the more inflated the initial asking price. In Beijing’s silk market, for example, a pair of knock-off Ray-bans will fetch an opening offer of between 400-500 RMB . You shouldn’t pay more than 60 or so. In touristy spots, your offer should probably be less than 10% of the asking price. The vendor will probably act insulted and knock 5% off the price. Then you say something like “well, we’re not going to be able to work anything out” and walk off. They’ll chase after you if you’re even in the ballpark.

2. There is no such thing as “original art” in China: On at least three different occasions, I was hustled into “art studios” where folks tried to sell me original works by struggling local artists. The three studios had completely identical prints. Some of them are very beautiful but unless you watch some one paint it, it’s probably a reproduction.

3. Use your hotel/hostel’s bathroom: You don’t want to be wandering around the hutongs looking for a public restroom. Even if you find one, you won’t want to use it. The only places you’ll find toilet seats are at your hotel, the airport, and maybe some upscale restaurants (like Pizza Hut!). Same goes for toilet paper.

4. Carry a map and a business card from the hotel: If you’re looking to explore at all, you will probably get lost. Most of the street signs have pinyin translations, but the sounds aren’t familiar so they’re very difficult to memorize. For example, it’s pretty tough to keep a word like “dongjiaominxiang” rattling around in your brain, especially after a night of knocking back 25 centTsingtaos . And even if you could, you probably couldn’t say it with an understandable accent anyway. But if you have a map and a business card, you can get acabby to drive you home despite the language barrier.

5. Worry about getting scammed, not getting mugged: I have yet to hear a story from any westerner I met in China about being the victim of violent crime. The police apparently just won’t tolerate it. If you’re walking down a dark alley by yourself, fear not! It’s far more likely your cab driver overcharged you than some one will rob you at knife point.

6. Fast food in China is even grosser than fast food in the US: McDonald’s and KFC are easy to find, but not worth eating. If you’re desperate for some familiar food (and you probably will be), scope out a Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut is, inexplicably, five star dining in China. It’s also very affordable. For non-pizza alternatives, look around the popular touristy bar districts. I found a place in theSanlitun district of Beijing with a Mexican theme. I had a delicious qeusadilla.

7. Stash a bottle of fresh water in your room: after a long night of too much fun at various bars, I stumbled into the hostel only to discover all the local markets were boarded up and there was nary a bottle of clean water to be found. Tap water is undrinkable, so I got to spend a long night with a parched mouth staring at a spinning ceiling. Big mistake.

8. Avoid fresh veggies and fresh fruit: after a week of eating salty, vinegary Chinese food, you will probably be pretty tempted to buy dirt cheap produce from a local open-air stand. Don’t. Or if you do, wash it thoroughly with boiled water. Otherwise,diarrhea is virtually guaranteed. The only way to be 100% safe with local produce is stick to things you can peel yourself, like oranges,lichee, dragon fruit, etc…

But despite the warnings above, I have to say that my time in China was remarkably easy. I don’t speak a word of Chinese and before this trip I’d never left the United States, but I got around just fine. I highly recommend it.