2010

Yes, it's a decade in the year 2000 now. What's happening over this last decade? Green House gas increased, pollution rampant, U$ is getting "stupider" by the minute and more in debt, China's getting to a real estate bubble going strong, air travel in North America is worse than Shanghai public transport. Man, this can't get better, can't it?

After two years in Asia, coming back this way makes me feel things are standing still. And I always thought China was stupid but at least the country is moving forward even though the one-party policy sometimes (mostly) favours a selected group. At least everything for a visitor feels welcome. Efficient. No line-ups. After 40 years of lining up for rationing, the least favourite activity for Chinese is line-up. Supermarket, fast check-out. Immigration, fast pass-thru. Custom, bring them in. Here in North America, everything seems so backward now! Man! Supermarket, you do your own check-out with computer software that is so confusing to use. Hey, you want my money, you work at it! Not the other way around. Why there is a row of check-out counters and only two are working yet the entire store has staff standing around stocking? Immigration, (O we welcome you), my a$$. The recording is so warming but the attitudes stinks. That reminded me of the old commie style attitude. I have a 44-page passport. Why the hell are you guys stamping page 13 and then page 31? Now, when you want to check my passport for entries, you are going to f*%%^king make me wait for your past stupidity. In HK, the Immigration actually tries to line up the stamp to save pages and stamp the pages according to page number sequence. Actually I do that myself now with the speed pass with the e-Channel.

Airline check-in. Who thought of those self check counters and then the staff yelling with strong lungs for the next passenger with luggage tags. That's not efficiency; that's total chaos. And it does not save time, it wastes time! If any normal with half a brain passenger without morning coffee can spot this problem the first time, what does it tell us about the airline management? Service improvement, I think not. On the way across with AC from Shanghai to Vancouver, I actually refuse the little bag that contains tooth brush, tooth paste and socks. The bag is NOT a good design. It's a waste. Someone from some artsy fartsy design studio sold this dumb design to AC to make it more pleasing; it's not. We have to roll out the bag into three little velcro strips containing all our in-flight personal items. Half the stuff I don't use. I can't reuse the bag afterward. It's a throwaway. Now if an airline wants to save $, this is not the design. I actually brought my own personal items onboard to save some garbage. Do I get a discount from AC now? NO. It probably wants to charge more.

Looks to me 2010 in NA is more ranting for me. Wonder sometimes how this world functions. But I guess I know how from my Prairie work years. Smart people in places within an organization steering. Dumb people on top.