How to Help someone Through a Health Scare
Once again, this was based on an actual conversation. The guy’s uncle told him to call if he had chest pains and the uncle, who had suffered more than one heart attack, would tell him if he should go to the hospital.
I pointed out that heart attacks don’t present the same way for everyone, but that argument didn’t impress him. I did suggest that before he tell his uncle his symptoms, he should make it clear that his uncle is not a beneficiary in his will, and has no motive to want his nephew to die.
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Why I Make a Point of Telling People That I Don't Like Sports
Missy and I went on the JoCo Cruise many years ago. This was back before it got big enough to take over an entire ship, so the JoCo cruisers shared the ship with the people who just happened to have a cruise booked on that ship that week. Many of those people were alarmed to find the ship half populated by young people (forty and under, which, on that particular ship, seemed pretty young) who were celebrating being fans of things they’d never heard of, and proudly calling themselves “geeks.”
One day, Missy and I were on an elevator with a man riding alone and a pleasant older couple. The older lady was dressed very well and fully made up. The older gentleman wore slacks, a golf shirt, and a very expensive watch. The lady asked us what the JoCo Cruise was all about, and what kind of things we were all doing in our private events, and why we didn’t seem insulted by the term “geek.”
Missy named a bunch of things we were all into, and of all the examples, the only thing the older couple seemed to have heard of was Star Trek.
The very first time the doors opened, the man riding the elevator alone got off without saying a word, even though I’m pretty sure it was not his floor. I suspect the main reason he left at that point was that he was Wil Wheaton.
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How to Debunk a Frightening Myth
It’s also hard to buy enough ice to fill a tub without raising suspicion. Seriously. If the cashier doesn’t give you trouble, the other hotel guests who see you hauling all of that ice in will almost certainly complain to the lobby about the wild party you’re preparing. I’d bet if any perpetrators have been caught in the act of harvesting kidneys in a hotel, it was by police officers who showed up hoping to nab some under-aged drinkers.
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How to Get to the Root Cause of Your Irritation
When you work in a place that operates under a ridiculous and byzantine system, there’s a great deal of power in being the person that understands that system. I have, on two occasions, been around when such a system was replaced with a new, much simpler, easier to learn system, and I have seen the people who understood the old system fight tooth and nail to prevent the new system from being implemented.
Of course, they couldn’t really explain why the new system wasn’t as good, but they’d never really been able to explain the old system at all, so that didn’t trouble them much.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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