Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


No, seriously. According to this news article from CTV....

Seasonal misery peaks today: U.K. researcher
CTV.ca News Staff

For people having a hard time facing the world today, there's now quantifiable reason to believe you're not alone. According to a British expert in the seasonal ebb and flow of peoples' moods, Jan. 24 is typically "the most depressing day" of the year -- and in 2005 it's even worse because it falls on a Monday.

The University of Cardiff's Dr. Cliff Arnall singled out today based on a complex calculation of six mood-affecting factors. Arnall starts with the season's combination of shortened days and poor weather (W), and adds the post-Christmas financial burden of debt (D) minus monthly salary (d). Then, he factors that with a combination of time since Christmas (T), the time since new year's resolutions were abandoned (Q), and divides that by the product of low motivation (M) and the feeling of needing to take action (NA).

In sum, the formula looks like: [W + (D-d)] x TQ/M x NA

And when Arnall crunched the numbers, they added up to Britons' worst day of the year. And the equation would seem to apply to Canada as well, where winter often brings with it a blanket of depression that's been dubbed seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. More severe than a run-of-the-mill seasonal low, SAD is characterized by often debilitating depression. Short of escaping wintry climes for someplace sunny, sufferers can seek phototherapy -- in which they sit in front of a bright lightbox -- or turn to antidepressant drugs. Experts says moderate physical activity, however, can be enough to lift people out of a mild case of the winter blahs.

And already I'm inclined to agree with them. So far this morning, I woke up to Kitchener-Waterloo snow instead of warm Maui beaches, I didn't win a million dollars, and there were no throngs of worshippers bowing and scraping to me on the lawn in front of our building. Truly, this is indeed a terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad day!

In the meantime, I'm amused at how there is a seemingly mathematical formula for depression. It makes me wonder if there is in fact a mathematical formula for explaining why people can be idiots, and customers can be dicks. Let's see...many of the customers (C) any of us love to hate are rude. We shall classify this as (R). So to begin we have:

C = R

But as we all know, rudeness is an ever-changing variable, contingent on multiple factors including: arrogance to the nth degree (A)nth; and how bad a day they're having, which must be expressed naturally in a negative integer, -(D).

We must also take into account the fact that in some people, human DNA holds some problematic genes that naturally contribute to people's ignorance or idiocy. It's human nature to be rude, beligerant and destructive. To touch briefly on philosophy, in an ideal world there would be no service industries, as everyone would willingly place themselves in a serving position that only better elevates humanity as a whole.

But alas, we all have this destructive capacity to some degree. Naturally, we must combine this weakness with an individual's varying degree of arrogance, as one tends to exaserbate the other. The equation for rude customers then becomes:

C = (-D) * [(A)nth + (Gen)nth]

As customers, like all of us, have our bad days, this can be more simply expressed in terms of personality. How would you describe the personality of someone snapping at you? Rude? Cranky? Irritable? Consider all these and other descriptions that pop into your head, however. They are all symptoms of this bad day, not the cause itself. What is the leading cause of people having bad days, you ask. The answer is: stress. People are overly stressed and exhausted. In a word, they are haggard (H). So we can simplify -(D) in this fashion:

-(D) = H

Let's also not overlook the flaw in our own human genetics. Originally we wrote it as (Gen)nth, where genetics to a certain degree can contribute to some people being just plain rude. How can we simplify this to make it easier for the common person to understand? Well, consider: how many times have you encountered a thoroughly rude individual, and exclaimed, "What a tit!"

All right, admittedly you'd be more inclined to hear that in Britain, but work with me on this. Some people are simply stupid tits (T), no way around it. Or, if you're of the Canadian calibre, they're simply an idiot (I). There is no better explanation, and in truth no other explanation. In which case:

(Gen)nth = I/T

How else can we simplify this equation? Arrogance to the nth degree is also more commonly known as a superiority complex. In which case:

(A)nth = S

So when all is said and done, you wind up with C = (S)(H)(I)(T). Which would subsequently imply that rude customers are simply full of shit. Yeah, that was a longwinded delivery for a ridiculous punchline. Thank you and good night.


You Must Read: the Bunny. http://www.frozenreality.co.uk/comic/bunny/index.php


posted by Phillip at 8:22 AM