Communication Breakdown

So maybe I'm old fashioned. I hope not because I'm really not that old--maybe I'm just old school, or perhaps I just like certain things they way they used to be and secretly wish some things would never change. Whoever I am, I seem to have taken issue with certain components of communication via social networking. This comes from a guy who worked for an online business for more than two years; whose job it was to monitor the trends of social media networks and low budget viral advertising campaigns. The concept is ingenious, and the ability to connect with people anywhere in the world is amazing. I just have a hard time accepting that this form of communication should replace the most basic communication functions.  

I first encountered Facebook back in 2005 while exploring advertising opportunities for the company I worked for. At the time, not many people in my office had even heard of this website. In fact, nearly all networking of this kind was being done exclusively on MySpace--at least in the U.S. anyway. I'll admit that the idea of connecting with friends, colleagues and even strangers was intriguing, but I had no interest beyond that initial impression. 

Let's fast-forward two and a half years to about the third month of my trip around the world. I was in South Africa when I first realized that nearly every young traveler kept in touch with their friends and families by keeping an updated profile on Facebook. I was blown away to learn that hardly anyone we met kept in touch through conventional methods like phone calls (although Skype did come in very handy), or even email. Was I really that out of touch with the way my generation communicated? Clearly I was, and when I got back to the states in mid 2007 I learned that most of my friends were all Facebook members. In light of being a total loser, I created an account, built a profile, and caught up with the 21st Century. Little did I know, phone calls and emails would now become second rate forms of keeping in touch with people--even when trying to find out what some of my closest friends were doing for an upcoming weekend. 

Don't misread what I'm saying here. I, like millions of other users, think that this outlet is amazing and has forever changed the way people will communicate--and I'll admit that when I first created an account I was hooked. It was fun to look at other peoples profiles, see what friends had been up to, loose myself for several hours while catching up on gossip or glancing through photo albums. But then I started getting friend requests from people I hadn't seen or heard from in over 10 years. People who I was never really friends with in real life started to track me down. At first I felt obligated to accept them, as though I were bound to the unwritten rules of cyber-friendship. Then I felt conflicted as I would hesitantly ignore friend requests from people who I didn't think needed to have a peek into my online social life--which often translates into real life. As soon as I realized the number of friends I had on Facebook outnumbered the amount of friends I had programmed in my cell phone contacts, I decided to scale back on my Facebook time.

Since my re-introduction to social networking I've also observed that people hardly communicate or plan things in conventional ways anymore. If there's a party coming up I usually get a Facebook message, if my friends band is playing I get a Facebook message, if someone is wondering what I did last Friday night I get a Facebook message. If I don't get a Facebook message I'll assume I'm not invited. 

In my old fashioned ideology I wait for a phone call, but instead I may get a text message. I like communicating real-time, and although a text message is exactly that, I wary quickly as I try and parse together conversations through the pad of my cell phone. After two or three messages I'll try and call the person, often not getting an answer. "I know you're there", I'll think to myself, "We just exchanged messages for 20 minutes in what could have been a three minute phone call." Alas, voicemail.

These frustrations, like so many things in life, are not constant. On occasion I relish in the solidarity of hiding behind an online profile, or eliminating small-talk by sending a note through my phone. But not all the time. The human element of correspondence (i.e. a persons voice) cannot be topped. So I say, let's carry on with communication via technology, but let's not forget that it's still safe to give me a ring...even if I choose to screen my calls if I'm not in the mood to talk. 

 

Restaurant Follies

When I was 19 I bussed tables at a restaurant in Trolley Square, and although I can't honestly say I took away any life-altering value lessons from working in that industry I did find myself asking the same question over and over again. Where do these people come from? 

As commodity-gobblers we have all witnessed fowl, mysterious, rude or otherwise inappropriate behavior from people in a public place of business. Maybe it was you getting aggressive with the teller because you couldn't figure out how to access your bank account online. Perhaps you saw me scolding the stocker at the grocery store for not carrying a consistent inventory of coconut milk. And so on.  At one time or another we've all been guilty of sour hostility towards a person who, in their job description, has no control or authority over our minor inconveniences. Someone has to witness the wrath of our fury.

This behavior is on the forefront of my mind today as I contemplate the current regressive stage of my life. By that I mean working at a restaurant again (strangely enough at Trolley Square once more)--13 years after my illustrious career as a busser.  Memories of the old days flutter: the twin botox queens from JMR Chalk garden who would come in at 11:30 am every Monday morning and drink a bottle White Zinfandale on ice, so they could make it through the day. The couple who were caught stealing beers from the ice cooler in the middle of the restaurant, who then tried to say the man at the table next to them had been the person to load the woman's purse with Amstel Light. The iceberg lettuce, shoestring fries, broken glass and sugar packets strewn about an entire section of the dining room after a young, unruly family of four had sucked the life out of our Diet Coke supply. And so on.

These are memories I had catalogued deep in the archive of my mind after the restaurant closed and I was forced to pursue new work. But now that I'm back in the glorious industry of serving food the images are starting to resurface, and as they saturate my mind I've observed two things since I've been working at The Pub: the liberal policy of cocaine use has all but vanished, yet the atrocious behavior of patrons has not.   

Recent example: two couples, say mid-forties, come in on a busy Saturday night. They scoff at the prospect of the delicious beers we brew and serve on location, and instead order a pitcher of Bud Light. Fair enough. They then order prosciutto wrapped chicken and enjoy it thuroughly--even commenting on how delicious the meal was. So satisfied were they, that they celebrated their feast with more beer. Bud Light it is. Upon recieving their second round they notice a shard of glass missing from the rim of the pitcher. Disgusted and appalled they send it back demanding a unscathed container. Fair enough. No one likes the prospect of swallowing small slivers of glass. When they recieve the replacement they scutinize the pitcher, reaching for any flaw they can find, observing its oldness, its lack of lustre, etc. Relunctanty they accept, and drink. Later in the night, people who were sitting in the proximity of this table will tell a few of us working that the demeanor of the these four had changed from fairy pleasant, to visibly hostile while they stewed and gulped their malty beverages (all of which they drank).

Their exit from the restaurant was as hasty as their change of attitude, and as my co-worker approached the empty table she noticed a small pile. There was an eye here, a piece of a building there, an eagles head with no beak. Put them all together and you had two, one dollar bills shredded into tiny pieces, left behind as the tip on a $75 tab. Part of me wanted to chase these people down and shove the bits down their pie holes, yet another part of me wanted to light the tiny heap on fire and finish their act of anarchy. Instead, the destroyed currency was brushed into the empty beer pitcher and hauled away to the kitchen. Again, I ask, where do these people come from? 

Perhaps the more important question is, how is it that I have come to be reliving my final days as a teenager? I really don't have an answer for that, but if I've learned anything from my experience working in a restaurant it's this: squeeze the citrus into your glass, but don't put the actual lemon in your drink.

  

Calm After the Media Storm

So I've had a lot of time on my hands over the past few months, yet I've found myself immersed in something unexpected. It was my objective to try and write during all this spare time, get some articles published, start making some money, and then never return to a regular 9-5 job. My wife granted leniency and allowed me to give it a shot--six months was the timeframe.  The reality of the past sixty days though (two months of my allotted six) has been slightly different than I anticipated, and the bombastic commentary of certain events has led me to do one thing above all others--read the news. 

Now I haven't just been reading the news, I've been reading with unabated diligence. While I sip my morning coffee, when I sit down in the afternoon for a mid-day brainstorming session, or any other time that should be dedicating to researching or writing, I end up absorbing information from CNN, NPR, FOX News (yes, it's true), BBC, USA Today, CNet, etc., etc. While in the heart of election season I'm betting you can guess what I've been reading about . Yeah, war heros, domestic Arab terrorists and pigs, er, pitbulls with lipstick. 

The new-found hobby has been beyond my abilities of personal restraint, and my wife would see me glued to the computer screen, roll her eyes and say things like, "Are you still reading the news?", or, "Are you reading the news again?", or, "You've developed a serious addiction and need help." I'd become so intoxicated with the words of the media that I had to literally restrain myself from getting near my laptop in order to process all the informational analysis on the politico 'straight talk', rhetoric and 'stump speeches'. 

As I refelcted on my mass media overload I came to realize a common theme in the way political pundits were covering this election. If a campaign is going well, it has been mostly rewarded with positive press attention, i.e. McCain/Palin directly following the RNC, or Barack Obama ever since the Palin hype slid back into its dank hole. Does that mean McCain has been short-changed by the media like he claims? Maybe it does. But the Obama camp seems to be a smooth running machine that doesn't veer out of control when the Republicans dump an oil slick in their path. Does that mean he runs a more honorable campaign than Jon McCain? I don't know. What I do know is that the media seems to have wholeheartedly embraced Obama while depicting McCain as desperate, and to use Obama's catch-phrase, "out of touch." 

Not only do I think this is bad journalism, but I also think it is part of the reason a candidate like McCain, or John Kerry in 2004, gets put on their heels and has to come back throwing wild punches, thus prompting negative attention from the press. Presidential campaigns with momentum nearly always get the blessing of political reporters, and its a jaded practice that leaves people like you and I to filter through the muck in order to get to the truth. Who has time to do that....oh, wait. 

I'll be happy when this is all over and I can go back to reading uninspired columns about the distribution of $700,000,000,000 into our defunct financial system, the debate on how to deal with climate change and, of course, celebrity gossip--you know, the stuff that dominates headlines when people don't feel as though the future of our country is a stake any longer. I, for one, know I'll have more time on my hands come November 5th. 

Onward and upward America. Go Obama.

All About Me

I'm not one for introductions so let's keep this one short and sweet, shall we? My name is Jared Matkin, I am 31 years young, and struggling to find my identity in this strange existence. Over a year ago I quit my corporate job in Public Relations and traveled around the world for 11 months with my lovely wife (more on that here--www.escape29.blogspot.com). Now back in my home city, I face the grim challenge of trying to figure out how to keep enjoying myself without completely selling out to the whims of a conditioned society (partial sellout has not been ruled out entirely). Since I've never really been a writer, but would like to be, this blog will be a hodgepodge of literary prose and originality aimed at stimulating my creative juices.

Disclaimer: This site is dedicated to nothing in particular. Rather, it will be an anthology of thoughts (coherent or otherwise), nonsensical gibberish, rants, raves and the occasional dose of unfiltered blasphemy. Topics will cover whatever is on my mind when I sit down, from the political fodder of federal and state government, to my assessment of a complete stranger, or the deep animosity I have for motorcycles that are way louder than they need to be. Who knows. I could be offensive or I may be pleasant; I might be irrational or maybe I'll be level-headed, it will just depend on the day--and perhaps how many pundits I have encountered via consumption of mass media while sipping my morning coffee. 

Let the record state that I'm not a narcissist so much as I am an ordinary observer, who believes that for the sake of my own well-being some things just need to be unloaded from head-to-page so I don't explode as a result of life's absurdities, and the consequential emotions they are packaged with (i.e. rage, shock, awe, amusement, fear, joy, etc.). With that said, and like the title of this page suggests, this blog is all about me and my observations. As the old maxim so neatly summarizes, 'Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one." Hope you enjoy mine.....opinions that is, not asshole.