Dries My Sack: The Jackass Whisperer

Welcome to the next entry in my, ongoing, op-ed. This series is titled "Dries My Sack" and can be compared to the Grinds My Gears segment in Family Guy Presents - Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. As I find things in life that piss me off, they'll become part of this series. The title for the series comes from a joke my father made while kayaking. I have a "Dry Sack" for keeping things dry during water sports and he made the joke that I should see a doctor. There you go...

You know what really dries my sack?

Stupid people.  Holy God, my blood pressure went up just typing that.

This post is going to be pretty scattered as "Stupid" is a pretty big category.  Forgive me in advance, or don't, I don't care.

Let me preface this by saying that "Stupid" does not necessarily mean "disagrees with me".  I may be a "brash, opinionated, kind of an asshole at times", but that doesn't mean I am automatically going to think you're stupid.  You have to work on convincing me you're stupid.

Let's look at ways you can do that...

Bad Grammar

The misuse of your and you're; there, their, and they're; whether and weather; etc etc etc.  You get the point.  It takes seconds to proofread and they're important seconds.  I don't care if you're on Facebook or Twitter or your blog or texting or sending an email.  Yes, grammar is important.  Giving me some bullshit line about how you "didn't realize you were being tested on this text" just makes you seem even stupider. Grammar is always important.  Just because you left school doesn't make it less important.  What the Hell do you think you were learning grammar in school for?!

Poor Planning

There's a fantastic saying in the performing arts industry and I am sure other industries use it as well.  A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.  It's simple.  I get a lot of clients that think shit happens by fairy farts and elf ingenuity.  It doesn't.  It happens by the sweat of my brow and the brainpower behind my organizational skills.  I am not magical.  I am not a superhero.  I know, disappointing, right?  I require certain things to do a job.  Equipment, support crew, and time are the three things that come to mind.  So I had a client that hired me to do lighting design for a month long run.  They booked me for my standard lighting design package (NEW WINDOW). I went in to do the spec work and found a total of 16 lights in the venue.  The director obviously wanted more so I specced out additional, modest, equipment needs based on the power available in the building, the board, the timeline, and the needs of the design.  A week went by and the producer (client) told me I had to do the design the way the director wanted with the existing lights.  He also told me I had to be my own programmer, hanging electrician, and focus electrician, and that I had 2 days to do it all.  Obviously, the director wasn't happy and obviously, neither was I.  Needless to say, I am not working for that production.  The producer didn't budget accordingly and expected me to perform magic.  Again, a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

Being a Post Slut

I left Facebook a year and a half ago and it's been a wonderful year and a half.  See, people aren't as dumb on Twitter.  For some reason, Facebook makes people forget that everything they read online isn't necessarily true.  The problem does not exist as heavily on Twitter.  Please please please familiarize yourself with Snopes.com (NEW WINDOW).  Whenever you find yourself getting ready to repost/retweet etc, go to Snopes and type what you're about to post.  Snopes will tell you if it's true and you SHOULD post it or that it's false and you absolutely, under all circumstances, should NOT post it.  Sylvester Stallone is not dead, Trump did not call Republicans dumb in an old People magazine, and Michael Jackson is absolutely not alive.  This also applies to posting hate-mongering and fear-mongering articles.  Just stop it.  You look like a total moron.

Voting Your Party

It's 2016, the year of the laughable election.  I have a lot of Republican friends and family members.  Hell, we used to argue about politics on Facebook all the time.  But now, in 2016, you have to realize, it's no longer about the party.  As a Democrat, I am not saying Clinton is the best choice to run our country or even represent me in the White House.  But please, you must realize, Trump IS the absolute worst possible choice.  DO NOT vote Trump just because you're Republican and he claims to be.  He isn't.  He's a sociopath.  DO NOT vote your party.  Vote your ideals.  Voting for Trump just because you're Republican is one of the stupidest things you can do.

Conclusion

I have never handled stupid very well. I admit, I am so very bad at dealing with stupid people.  I would rather Darwinism their asses out of existence.  You can do a lot to help by not doing the above four things.  I am not the Jackass Whisperer but for some reason, I attract jackasses.  I cannot fix stupid no matter how hard I try but I can educate you on how to prevent you from becoming one of the jackasses that flock to me.

And that's what really dries my sack.