Mayor Beetlejuice thrown out.

Chicago held its mayoral primary election yesterday. No only did incumbent Lori Lightfoot not get a majority of the vote, she wasn’t the leading vote getter in a field of eight. She didn’t even finish second to make it to the general election. When you piss on and piss off so many voters that not even the Deceased Americans will support you, you deserve the dubious distinction of being the first Chicago mayor to be thrown out office in 40 years.

Mayor Beetlejuice’s reaction was to play the race card. When crime rates are as high as they are, that card had to be an ace or a king to get re-elected. With her policies of defunding the police and easing bail requirements, that card turned into a deuce.

Uniform Blues

We got new vests at Wally World last year. Most of us held onto the old dark blue vests as long as we could. This week I found out why. My old vests had holes in the pockets for several months. The holes grew to the point my boxcutter fell out of the vest, so I got a new vest. The light blue vest is thinner and difficult to keep clean. It is also harder to get the boxcutter out of the pocket. I may go back to the other vest next week.

Weeding out the help

For most employers trying to hire people it’s warm bodies wanted, cold ones considered. You don’t have to work hard to keep your job. You have to work harder to get fired than you doing your job. At Wally World, one of the stockers got fired for being too slow. It was bad enough she was slow, but she was so slow that she got in the way of the rest of the stockers. I hate to admit it, but when I found out she got walked out the door this morning, I cheered.

Accidental Reduction Plan

At the bottled water company in Phoenix, we had an employee that was responsible for far more than his share of the accidents in the plant.  When he wasn’t causing accidents he was a good employee.  The new plantt manager decided to make him the safety coordinator since he had so much accident experience. 

Our hero was very conscientious assuming his new responsibilities.  He ordered new equipment to make our jobs safer.  He dropped the canned safety meeting topics to focus on the ones that related to the actual accidents we were having.  He even found R-rated videos to drive the point home.  These did not involve busty women getting into accidents.  These videos included amputations, blood and guts security camera footage, and a picture of a torn scrotum exposing the remaining testicle of a guy who got caught in a pinch point.  For a while it actually worked.  We were the safest plant in the region for the next two years.

One day we got a new plant manager. Before she even had the chance to make major changes, our hero encountered an empty box stuck at the top of the incline. Instead of applying his training as safety coordinator and stopping the machine, getting a ladder and removing the box; our hero decides to revert to form and ride the incline conveyor belt to the top of the incline to drop the box to the floor. He manages to get stuck at the top of the incline just as the new plant manager walks by.

After making sure none of his body parts will appear in an R-rated safety video, the new plant manager chews him out and suspends him. To his utter amazement, when he gets back he finds out he is no longer safety coordinator.

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Chanute girls grapple their way to state championship

Chanute, which didn’t even have a girls wrestling team four years ago, came out of nowhere to win the 1A-4A state wrestling championship. The Blue Comets sent five girls to the state tournament. While neither of their finalists won, the losers piled up so many points in the consolation bracket that they clinched the team title before the championship matches began.

Hard times are coming

We hear about layoffs at tech companies and large banks but it doesn’t matter much around here because tech companies never had known presence here and Bank of America left almost a decade ago.  When Walmart announces sales are expected to fall, people around here start paying attention.  Consumers are tapped out and are struggling to pay for food, clothing and shelter.  Anything else simply isn’t going to get bought. If it can’t help me make money or save money, my wallet is shut.

Winding down

After the forensics tournament was done, I stopped by the Sears Hometown Store in Indy to see if they were still open. Surprisingly they were. There were more store furnishings than merchandise, but while they were digging in the back of the store they found some clothes. Hometown stores normally sell appliances and lawn and garden items. I ended up buying some pajamas and a belt for next to nothing.

Getting Judgy

For the third year in a row, I ended up spending a Saturday judging a forensics tournament at Altoona-Midway. The kids give oral performances in a variety of formats including duets, improvisation, informative speech and impromptu. Sometimes the kids pick a topic and sometimes they have to draw a topic at random. We judge their performance based on knowledge, speech quality, and poise. The performances vary from professional grade to truly cringe worthy.

There are three preliminary rounds, most of us judge two of the three preliminary rounds or one preliminary round and finals. There are four to six preliminary contestants in each round at small meets like this one and five to six in the finals. Competition is usually done by mid afternoon so I still got some sleep before work last night.