Yesterday when I was trimming some mahogany trees at a building related to an Institution Of Higher Learning That Shall Remain Nameless, a lady came up to me and asked about a guy with an Irish accent who used to do my job. She lamented his absence because she she “loved hearing that accent.”

A couple of weeks ago at the same place, a guy came up to me and point blank asked me if I had a Scottish accent, because the guy who did my job before me was a fascinating sort and he loved listening to his Scottish accent.

Before that, another lady said she missed “the British Guy” and hearing “his accent.”

So… would people like me better if I faked an accent from someplace in the British Isles? Would they think I was more competent? I always wanted to do something like deliver pizza, or wait tables and see if I got more tips if I faked an accent, and which fake accent got the most tips. However, the only accent I can reasonable fake is a Scottish one, and that only if I’ve been listening to Fiona Ritchie on the radio, or reading a lot of Irvine Welsh books, which causes me to think in that accent… and probably use slang that nobody could understand anyway (although a customer probably wouldn’t be too pleased if I called him or her a “radgie wee cunt”).

So many things I would do if I didn’t have to work at a stupid job all day!

awesome job on Craig’s list:

JOB TITLE: Foreign Language Specialist
DIVISION/DEPARTMENT: Business Development
REPORTS TO: VP of International Business Development

JOB SCOPE AND DIMENSIONS

Job Summary: DirectoryM is an online marketing company located in Cambridge, MA. We are launching the international end of our online network and are looking for qualified applicants to help edit our translated online articles. Applicants must have an advanced comprehension of either British or Australian language and culture: work from home and pay is assessed by the person’s aptitude in the specified language.

Responsibilities:

· Edit articles to make them appropriate to English (UK) and/or Australian language and culture
· ‘Localize’ articles converting them from American specific to British or Australian
· Provide suggestions to our technical teams to continually enhance the value of the international site by reporting analytic requirements.

Minimum job requirements:

· MUST be a native of United Kingdom or Australia
· Must be familiar with UK and Australian culture and taxonomy
· Strong written skills, editing experience preferred
· Proven capacity to work independently and manage multiple, competing demands
· Ability to work and effectively communicate in a highly dynamic environment

A foreign language specialist… for English! Pay is $5 per article. Does it count if I watch an assload of Doctor Who?

I think I need a new job. My wrist is killing me, and so far I haven’t been able to find a way to make it not hurt so much. Plus, this plant thing is just exhausting. Maybe I’m getting old and just want a desk job… on second thought, a desk job sounds dismal as well. Humph. I need some marketable job skillz.

First link, from The Biatch: Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Second of all, thanks to Krustee, I’ve just ordered one of these:

Other than that, I spent all 11 hours of my work day composing an entry in my head about how kooky rich people are, specifically at two ends of the spectrum where I began and ended my work day: at Whole Foods (organic snobby grocery store) and at a Lexus dealership.

By the end of the day, I was so sick of thinking about rich people that I really don’t want to write much on the subject except for one observation…

Whole Foods is an Inconvenience store. Not only is everything wicked expensive, but people go out of their way to be inconvenienced there. For example… all the plants I water are on top of the dairy aisle. When I’m in the dairy aisle, I’m on a ladder, which blocks whatever ladder-wide section I happen to be in front of. No matter what people are looking for, they ALWAYS go tot he section of food my ladder is blocking first. At first I thought this was a coincidence, but then I started studying the pattern. The aisle would be empty except for me and my ladder… a customer would come into the aisle, look confused for a moment, and then in a perturbed manner, would sigh and try to crane their necks around my ladder to get a better look. Perhaps he or she would move closer, possibly making a small grunting noise of impatience. Perhaps he or she would try to get around the ladder and then make a huge show of apologizing like 100 times for bumping into me… the kind of apology that is actually a passive-aggressive way of saying “YOU’RE IN MY WAY, ASSHOLE!” The customer would then the actual product he or she was looking for, which was obviously nowhere near my ladder, pick it up and then exit the aisle. This happened with at least 80% of the customers. It’s really kind of hysterical– people go into Whole Foods looking to suffer for their organic wheat-grass infused yak yogurt for $9.99 a cup!

Compare with this Market Basket, which is the ghetto store where I shop (nobody I know will step foot in one, proclaiming it to be “too scary” i.e., full of ethic/poor people). There was a cart blocking part of the juice aisle when I was in there the other day, and people avoided the area like the plague. I don’t think a single person even considered buying juice while the cart was there– it just wasn’t important enough for them to get around or ask about. Market Basket shoppers, though they can be annoying in their own way just like anyone in a grocery store, don’t have the same self-important feeling like nothing should be hindering their God-Given Right To Shop.

Just as a comparison:

Ski Queen gjetost (cheese from Norway)

Whole Foods price: $6.99 (a total bargain for cheese there!)

Market Basket price: $2.99

for THE SAME SIZE cheese.

Anyway, this cheese is awesome, you should try it. My two weaknesses are cheese and fruit juice, both of which they have in abundance at Whole Foods. It really sucks spending several hours there a week, because they have cheese in every single fucking section. They have little displays of it in the fruit section, near the bread, sometimes by the meat. I BUMP INTO CHEESE EVERY WHERE I GO! I’ve bought 2 different kinds of cheese there this week: one goat’s milk aged cheese that tastes like bleu cheese with that goaty aftertaste (it’s OK– not amazing, but good) and one called Madon (I think?) which is yummy! It’s kind of like gouda, but a little stronger. I need to stop this because cheese has been taking up my entire grocery budget. I need a cheese budget!