How to Consider a Differing Opinion
This comic was based on a conversation at Comic Con 2012 with Shena Wolf (My contact at GoComics at the time) and Doug Savage, creator of the very funny comic Savage Chickens.
Here’s the comic he got out of the conversation.
Notice that he has less text in his entire comic than I do in all but one of my word balloons. It’s almost as if he thinks comics are some sort of visual medium.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Engage in Recreational Cruelty
The reality show I describe in this comic is mean-spirited, but is The Masked Singer really any better? The premise of The Masked Singer is that they take people who are already famous, put them in mascot costumes and make them perform for our amusement, then, when they are unmasked we act surprised that they were the person who managed to entertain us.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Handle Personal Conflict
Please, be kind to receptionists.
In my former office job, the one where my official title was “Office Manager,” I answered the phones, greeted guests, and got them any refreshments they needed. If I had referred to myself as “a glorified receptionist” most of my coworkers would have only been surprised that I considered myself to be in any way “glorified.”
I can tell you from experience that the receptionist has to deal with every client, customer, and vendor that calls or comes in, so anyone who is angry at anyone in the office takes it out on the receptionist first. Often, they only take it out on the receptionist, right after the receptionist tells them that the person they want to berate is not available, while that person listens from the next room over.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Assign Blame
Once, a long time ago, the company I worked for opened a new facility, and I applied for a transfer to the new place.
To get the transfer I had to sit for an interview. The interviewer asked me what I thought was my biggest flaw as an employee. I said that I cared too much about doing things right, which is about the lamest answer I can think of.
I’m sure my interviewer thought it was self-serving BS. It was an accurate description of one of my issues, but it was not my biggest flaw as an employee. My biggest flaw was that I actively detested a large part of the job I held at the time, the same position was interviewing for at the new location.
Having to lie to work around that fact forced me to admit it to myself, and kept me from being too disappointed when my transfer was declined.
Note from Missy: That said, knowing the company in question, caring too much about doing things right was a very rare trait, and definitely looked down on by other employees, so it’s one of the rare places that it was a legit answer. 🤣
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Reassure Someone
I understand why the police use red light cameras. And I understand why people don’t like them
Police use red light cameras because they generate revenue through fines. They don’t use them because they’re a deterrent. They aren’t. I don’t believe most people deliberately run red lights, and if the few who do aren’t deterred by the risk to their lives, the threat of being photographed dying won’t impress them much.
Citizens, on the other hand, don’t like red light cameras because they don’t want to be fined. They complain that the cameras are an invasion of their privacy. I don’t buy that because I grew up in a small town, and as such I understand that privacy is a myth. Also, if you want to keep something you’re doing private, you probably won’t do it while driving through an intersection.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Support Someone's Decision
When I was a kid–this would be in the very late ’70s or very early ’80s (because I am astonishingly old)–I had a toy that I loved. It looked like model of an airplane hangar, except there was an orange handle and a big orange button on the back of the building. When I raised the handle the two doors that formed the roof of the hangar would hinge open and a missile launcher holding a paper glider would rise up like something out of Thunderbirds, or a James Bond movie. Hitting the button would blow a puff of air into the launcher, firing the glider across the room.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I can’t remember what this toy was called, and I can find no evidence that it ever existed on the internet. I’m beginning to think I imagined it. Does this sound familiar to any of my fellow gen-Xers?
I wish I could honestly say that I haven’t lost sleep over this.
NOTE: Two readers, Paul Hauser and Michael Becnel, have written in to let me know that they toy in question was a Mattel product called “Wings Away.” I am grateful to the point of it becoming embarrasing.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Attract the Right Kind of Interest
This strip contains an inaccuracy. Humans did try to kill Alf. They wrote a season finale cliffhanger where Alf was captured by government agents who meant to dissect him, planning to make Alf fans wait all summer to see how he escaped.
Unfortunately, the series got canceled over the summer. So a show meant for families with small children ended with the title character fleeing for his life only to be captured by military personnel intent on killing him.
They later made a TV movie that explained how he got away and gave him and the family a happy ending. I kinda wish they hadn’t, but then again, I wasn’t one of the children traumatized by the original ending.
Note from Missy: Panel 3 made me remember the ’80s film Earth Girls Are Easy. Now I feel a horrible urge to watch it and see all of the ways where it doesn’t hold up today.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Let a Conversation "Flow"
My dad has always had a shed and for many years had a van.
The shed was always full of grimy bolts, rusted bits of metal he thought would be handy, and tools which were both grimy and rusted. He is a tinkerer by nature, and his shed was absolutely vital to his lifestyle, so much so that when he moved into a houseboat he put the shed on some old logs as floats and tied it to the dock. Making the shed amphibious did nothing to help the grime and rust situation.
His van was a phone company surplus model with a weird rack that wasn’t good for anything but telecommunications equipment bolted to the roof. The cargo area behind the two front seats was completely empty. The walls were 1-ply steel with exposed structural ribs and the “upholstery: was a thin rubber mat glued to the floor. When he’d have the three of us boys for the weekend he’d make the back more comfortable by duct taping two lawn chairs together for us to use as a second row of seats.
Note: I said he made the back more comfortable, not more safe.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).