Tiny Soda Cans, Why?

OK, so while shopping today I came across those stupid, tiny cans of soda that have been popping into existence.  Either 7.5 or 8oz cans are available for people that don’t care for the standard 12oz cans, but what’s the reason behind the can size downgrade?  Is weight of a full 12 oz can too much for the lazy people that inhabit our country?  Are the tiny soda cans so adorable that they make the soda taste better?  It must be one of those, because there is no other reason to drink those stupid things.

If we look at common pricing at Target or Walmart the tiny 7.5oz cans come in 8 packs for about $3.  12 Packs of 12oz cans are $4.  Bizarrely enough, this means you pay 37.5 cents per 7.5oz can and about 33 cents per 12oz can.

Why are you paying more for small cans?  For one additional dollar you can go from 60oz of soda to 144oz of soda.  Even if you drink 7oz from each can and throw them out you’d still be saving money!  This isn’t like buying a 2 liter where it’ll run out of carbonation over time and it’ll be tough to lug around with you where you go.  It’s almost like by buying 7.5oz cans you’re telling companies that not only are you basically retarded when it comes to math, but you’re actually willing to pay more money in order for them to give you less.  They’ve already had their laughs when it came to selling low calorie small portions to you at grocery stores and restaurants while still charging the same amount, but now they’re sticking it to us again, and changing around the quantities of the items around to make it harder (still not hard) to directly compare items.

Not today, you bigwig asshats.  I hope they’ve designed those tiny cans specifically to fit into your billionaire rectums, because that’s right where you can put them.  Please do not let this give you the idea to release anus flavored soda, though.  Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb have enough competition as it is.

I Will Kill The Inventor of Customer Satisfaction Surveys

You ever get those little surveys from retail stores or fast food restaurants that offer you a dollar off your next purchase, or a chance to win money by taking them? Why on Earth do companies rely on these things to make decisions?

Think about the people that are willing to take a 10 minute survey to explain how they feel about their trip to WalMart.  Would you want to cater everyone’s experience around the opinions of someone who has so much extra time that they can spend twenty minutes online taking a survey for a one in a billion chance to win $1000 worth of WalMart merchandise?  If you have that much extra time and so little money that the miniscule chance of winning a mediocre prize paid in cheap products has an influence on how you live your life, you shouldn’t be taking a survey from them, you should be applying for a job working for them.  It almost makes me want to spend time filling out those stupid things, since it makes me upset to think that these companies are now going to be basing business decisions around catering to these morons.

$1000 chance of winning with only a million other people surveyed! That's like .1 cents for 20 minutes of time!

Hey Taco Bell, we already know that your customer service is terrible without the help of some strongly disagree ratings on a survey.  No one goes there and orders more than two things without expecting you to screw something up.  That will never change until you start paying people more than minimum wage.  I don’t even expect it to change, and I certainly don’t want you to take any measures to fix it.  I’ll order one extra taco every time I drive through to make sure you include enough food to fill me up, but you have to hold up to your part of the bargain and not increase operating costs by replacing those creatures that work inside your restaurants, causing operating expenses to go up.  I want to pay 99 cents, and only 99 cents, for each spongey tortilla shell filled with what you call cheese and beef-like product. If you want to make me happy you can stop wasting money by doing these ridiculous surveys and put 10% more imitation meat product in your dollar menu items.  My cancerous tumors and morbid obesity aren’t going to develop themselves.

I don't know what this crap actually is, but give me three! Actually, make it four, because you'll forget one and probably screw another one up.

This world already caters to the 1% of the population that comprise the “squeakiest wheel” demographic.  Please stop giving these people things, and stop making an experience around what these people want.  The customers that have the time to fill out stupid surveys and call and give feedback on the customer service they received by a disinterested clerk at a cheap retail store are the customers that are ruining things for everyone else!  If someone told you that there was a tiny base of customers that would tie up the majority of your customer service department, return enough items to cause half of your refurbished or open-box inventory, and constantly demand credits and free things from your company, you shouldn’t be saying “how can I give these people everything they want?”.  You should be saying “how can I get those dumbasses to go ruin my competitor?”.  Maybe end every one of these surveys with “thanks for wasting your time taking this survey, you goddamn idiot”.

The next time you go to buy a phone and you see three sales people trying placate some irrational stupid’s tirade about how his phone is too confusing because it has too many options that he can’t simply ignore (because he paid for those features!) and how he was tricked into getting a flip phone that was too difficult to use, remember that if you have service with that company you are indirectly paying for the customer service it takes to handle that idiot.  80% of the calls at that phone company’s call center come from the same 5% of people.  You know why so many companies outsource customer service?  It’s because those morons waste so much money worth of peoples’ time that companies can no longer afford to hire Americans to talk to you while keeping service rates competitive.  Those high maintenence jackasses are ruining things for the people that have legitamate problems and just want to speak to someone that can understand the finer intricacies of their own language.

You know why it’s so hard to get a warranty issue taken care of?  It’s because those special people are trying to scam a return due to something they did wrong, or because they don’t take the time to actually try to figure out and resolve the problem on their own. All technical support people assume you’re retarded, because 80% of the time they’re getting calls from that 5% of people that don’t take the time to see if their electronics are plugged in, or have batteries in them, or just need a basic thirty second fix.  This is all not assuming the person the person is a downright bastard and just complaining about imaginary problems with their phone to get the upgraded model he wants.

SPOILER ALERT: 90% of all electronic issues can be resolved by turning the device off and back on, but do you think these people try that?  I swear to you, if I had a recording that played before I took each customer’s call that said “please turn your phone off and back on” I would take half as many troubleshooting calls.  I am not exaggerating.

Next time you go shopping, think about the fact that if you could get rid of the 5% of people that ruin it for everyone else with their incompetence, illogical complaints, ridiculous lawsuits, and abusive attitudes your expensives would be considerably less, the company you worked for would be much more profitable, and you could be paid more.  Now this is not the case if you’re a lawyer, since they feed off the stupid lawsuits and the threat of those lawsuits, but if you are, I feel fairly comfortable tossing you into that 5%.

Don’t Screw With My Vending Machines

Damn you, work.  Bring back my vending machines.  These new high tech vending machines are crap, and it’s immoral to replace perfectly wonderful Hostess goods with your goddamn bags of chips.

If you buy one of those fun size bags of chips then you are the problem, people.  Don’t let Big Vending pressure you into spending a full dollar for six chips in a little foil bag that costs more than the actual chips.  You have the right to say “no”!

(it doesn’t count as more chips if you pre-smash them in the bag)

I know that it seems tempting to buy those chips, but don’t you see what’s happening?  You used to have the option for fruit pies and doughnuts, now they’re muscling you into buying quarter-a-piece Sun Chips because you have no other options.  Sure, your break is only 15 minutes and you can’t make it outside of the building, and if you had the planning and foresight to bring something better to work in the first place you probably would’ve had enough planning and foresight to plan your life in a way that wouldn’t have resulted in you working in a call center.  Still, you need to use your will power to show these snack tyrants that they can’t get away with this.

They already made sodas from the machine so expensive that they had to install a credit card machine into the vending machine so people could buy them.  That is unacceptable!  No vending machine dispensing soda or snacks should be expensive enough to need a credit card swipe!  Work, you have sold out your employees to Big Vending, and this will not stand!

You have no idea what class of human being you are messing with.  With one simple food boycott the morbidly obese office could easily cripple vending profits.  I’m pretty sure they have to restock those vending machines multiple times a week.  Chubby call center folks must have snacks, but they still have SOME self respect, I’m kinda sure!

This is not the first scheme these vending people have pulled on us. Their last trick was designing the machines so they would hold onto bags of chips by the tiniest of threads and never let go.  No matter how many times you tried to buy just one more, thinking an avalanche of chips would fall if you continued to feed the machine money, they would proceed to continue to all get stuck, leaving you snack-less, and too ashamed of your attempt to scam and extra snack from the machine to request your money back.  Haven’t we learned our lesson yet?

Carbs: The Best 4 Calories on Earth

So, do you love doughnuts? Muffins? Ice cream? Chips? Other assorted junk food? Well, let me tell you, I know just how to maximize how you feel about that love. Go on Atkins for a few weeks.

 

I have been on Atkins for less than a full month, and I can still vividly remember thinking about how easy it would be to dispose of the body of my neighbor as she walked past my window with a box of doughnuts. Sometimes I think that even just touching ice cream with my finger would be somehow satisfying.

This is all coming from someone who is NOT obsessed with food, or a big ol’ junk loving fatty. I started this whole thing around 190, and for a guy standing at almost 5’11” that’s America’s version of “Olympic athlete” nowadays.

I can remember a time in my early twenties where I hit as low as 125. I literally went three days during that time period eating nothing but those gross prepackaged Swiss Miss hot chocolate powders mixed with a small amount of water, because that was the only thing in the house. You could see every one of my ribs fairly well pronounced. I remember slamming my head pretty well on a wood floor because I fainted from not eating.

I can also remember a time where I was in the 140s trying to actually put on weight so I wouldn’t be so damn thin. I used to make a meal out of a tube of cookie dough and drink out of a gallon of whole milk. Eating as much as I could, as often as I could, and everything I ate had to be something that would be as calorie dense as possible. I think my waist gained fewer sizes than the arteries in my heart, and I hated every minute of it.

Man, I’m really building a consistent theme of solid health practices, right? I’m pretty sure the health insurance company provided through my employer is going to hire an individual agent to follow me around if they ever happen across this page.

The point? Food does not consume my life… normally. It took two weeks without carbs and now I look at sub bread at Jimmy John’s like that fat friend you had in 6th grade looks at his birthday cake when his mom tell him he has to wait until all the guests arrive at his party before they cut into it. You know what my favorite ice cream flavor of the day is at Kopp’s now? All of them. Even the ones that I know are secretly only on the list to make the other flavors seem better, since I’m pretty sure they only have ice cream flavors with pistachios or mint just so they can get by days where their real flavor of the day hasn’t arrived on time and they need a flavor no one will actually order.

So far I’ve lost about a dozen pounds, and for three weeks that’s not so bad when you factor in that I easily have taken in more calories over this time period than I probably ever have before. Can you imagine a time when a piece of wheat bread looks like it would taste better than bacon and fried eggs? When a cup of nasty concentrated orange juice is more appetizing than a steak? I feel like my whole world is turned upside down.

Let’s not even start on things that come from a potato, nature’s greatest miracle. If you think that potatoes aren’t the best singular food source, you my friend, are a serious retard. Mashed, baked, fried half a dozen different ways, stuffed, on the ground uncooked after some homeless person used it as a sex device in his sick, mentally disturbed homeless person way, it doesn’t matter. I would eat that goddamn potato and I would love it. And that was BEFORE I went on Atkins. Now that potato is like a brown, starchy gift from hell, sent to torment me and tempt me into ruining nearly a month of hard work and sacrifice.

The worst part about the whole thing is that I know that the second I break my diet and wolf down a bread heavy sandwich, or eat some of whatever the hell that cheese at taco bell is made of, thinking “it’s ok, bread looks delicious, and I really miss fruit, so I’ll just eat regular human being version of healthy now”, all that food will IMMEDIATELY lose its appeal. It’s almost as if the Fat Demon will just laugh that she’s ruined my diet and slink back into wherever it is that Rosie O’Donnell lives now. It’s Atkins, too, so I know that first bite of starch will pump five pounds of love handle right into my abdomen.

Oh, and did I mention how I feel about salads, now? I doubt I’ll ever eat another one of those as long as I live. No more lettuce for me ever again, please. That’s how I feel right now, and after I’m done with this diet how is that ever going to change? If you can’t get through a salad covered in ranch, mankind’s mockery of a salad dressing (not the low fat kind, of course, as it has more carbs than the regular), how can I ever be expected to eat anything salad related again? That’s like saying that you plan on eating turd sandwiches again, but from now on you’re going to have to hold the bread.

Look, I just want abs again. Is that so much to ask for? I mean, sure, I’ve hit my thirties, and a thirty year old in Wisconsin having visible abdominal muscles is about as common as a good driver in Illinois, or a Illinois governor than hasn’t done time in prison, or a person from Chicago that has a legitimate job, but it’s a dream. Stupid carbs.