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In a year where Time Magazine chose their Person of the Year as the “Protestor” and Rebecca Black taught us that Friday comes after Thursday as the most popular YouTube video (is she really only 15? she certainly don’t look like it!), this world and more specifically this country is messed up. This is the reason why I call 2011 “The Year of the Dumbass”. Let’s continue on with those that made up the year that should not have been.
Supreme Court denies women right to class action against Walmart
So a bunch of female managers whined that they didn’t want to be part of the discrimination lawsuit against Walmart. The Supreme Court listened and threw the case out at the expense of the thousands of those women who felt discriminated against. Sadly, now the women will have to sue Walmart individually if they feel justified in doing so. This will in some states cause massive clogs and backlogs in states where there are already overloads all ready. Many probably won’t ever bother to file a complaint as the thought of even trying to secure a lawyer may be next to impossible. Those that do get one may find that Walmart (like Staples) will create misleading information about the women thus denying their individual cases especially if they fight their case here in Maine. Shame on the Supreme Court for not letting this case go forward just because a few didn’t want it to advance. Has anyone not heard of opt-out of a case? Apparently Walmart hasn’t! Dumbass award to Female Walmart Managers and sharing it with the Supreme Court.
Herman Cain in Denial
As a typical manager, Cain was in denial of every womanizing relationship he had until the one came along that claimed a 13 year relationship. Apparently his memory suddenly was restored with this one while he didn’t remember the others. Selective memory or sick of hiding from the truth…at least he has left the Presidential race..hopefully for good. A Dumbass award to you for your wonderful memory.
Paul LePage Keeps Offending Everyone
After only 1 year as governor of Maine, Paul LePage has successfully offended many people of the state. It all started with him putting up the “Open for Business” sign at the foot of the state as if the state was nothing more than a giant Marden’s. He continued to make waves by saying that the President should “kiss his butt” after not attending Martin Luther King luncheon. This video went viral and made him look like a complete jerk. To continue on, he removed a mural at the state labor board because he found it to be unrepresentative of employers. Just because your face isn’t on it, you take it down..once again excellent job!! Now he wants to throw 70,000 off of the MaineCare system. Another bonehead idea met with strong opposition. Will he get impeached or terminated in 2012? We can only hope! To make matters worse, a poll came out that asked if voters could have a do-over, they would vote for someone other than him. So for all of this mess and frustration, you earn a Dumbass Award.
As a write this, Mr. LePage finished off the year by offending a former legislator at a recent town meeting. He asked her in response to a question “What Planet are you from?” Certainly not the type of answer that should be said from someone in his position.
City Council Wants Free Health Care
The city councilors of my town of South Portland, Maine wants to allow themselves to get free health care at an average cost of $17,000 per councilor. But here is the rub, the councilors work part-time and are not paid for their services. Is this fair to give them free health care when thousands of others in the state are not even covered? Why can’t these councilors get health care through their regular jobs..is it too expensive or do they just want to steal from the citizens of the town? I believe it is more of the latter answer, therefore the council earns a Dumbass Award.
Best Buy Cancels Christmas
Imagine walking into your local car dealership and wanting to buy a $100,000 Cadillac. You already pay for it so all you have to do is wait for your order. It is a gift and it was promised to arrive by Christmas. However, a week before the holiday, you get an email from the dealer saying they can’t get the vehicle and is offering you a 1980 Yugo with 200,000 miles on it for the same price. Certainly, this is just an alternative but the choice is left to the customer. Not only will you not get what you ordered, but the dealer informed you too late to go a different route. Sadly, this is EXACTLY what Best Buy did this Christmas when it cancelled orders that it could not fulfill for items ordered on their website on Black Friday. Was nobody tallying the number sold? Wasn’t orders set aside as they came in? Apparently, Best Buy allowed everybody to order what they wanted without any way of checking the amount of available inventory. To make matters worse, they offered customers downgrades on their orders. Smart move for them as usually companies would offer a courtesy upgrade not a downgrade. But we are talking Best Buy here..the second worst company behind Staples. Sadly, service in store at Best Buy has suffered as much and is basically intolerable and help in the store is virtually impossible to find. They must feel they can do all this since their major competitor of Circuit City is gone. Dumbass Award for Best Buy being the Christmas Grinch.
Staples Steals Credit Card Information
Speaking of Staples, this one scam came out of left field and caught me completely by surprise. Since this scam involved my mother’s credit card (which I am also on) and my email account, I assume (without a doubt) that Staples matched the credit card number to an old rewards card that I haven’t used in over 3 years and got the email address registered to that rewards card to send me an email for a product review of an item purchased with my mother’s credit card. This certainly should be a violation of credit card agreements for the illegal storage of credit card numbers. It is this kind of problem where identity theft can thrive and must be stopped even if it means Staples GO BYE-BYE. Dumbass award to them for this highly undesirable scam and worse that they would even do such a thing.
Update: If you missed it, I have sent this complaint to the Better Business Bureau for further investigation. Under no circumstances is any of this acceptable and it certainly will be interesting to see what Staples has to say about this. I will keep you posted about this.
Lowe’s Sneaks Out of Town with Virtually No Warning
Speaking of companies going bye-bye, Lowe’s the home improvement store decided without much less of a day’s notice to shut their Biddeford Maine store along with about 20 others. They claim that these stores were “low-performing stores”. Seriously, did the managers not know about the possible closing less than a days notice. I highly doubt it. More than likely they were given at least a month’s notice of what was happening but didn’t want any employees going to the media with the company’s plans. It certainly would have created a panic amongst employees and also would make the local residences think that the company was going to have a going-out-of-business sale. Instead, a store meeting was held on a Sunday night and by Monday morning all the signage was off the store and the store was basically empty of all product. Even thieves could not plan an extensive robbery this fast and thorough. Certainly, the company must have given management a lot more warning than 24 hours. Its interesting to point out that a proposed casino to be voted on just a few days later was only about a half mile away from their store. Coincidence? Hmmm…possibly. What is not just a possibly though is a Dumbass Award for being a multimillion dollar company and dumping about a 100 people out on the streets with no notice. Enjoy your savings and your award.
No More Casinos for Maine for Now
First let me say that the group behind the Pro-Casino group had a Facebook page that banned me along with other people for writing truths that apparently the group did not want to hear. It is bad when freedom of speech is impacted to the extent that the truth cannot be told. I was so glad when both questions regarding casinos in Biddeford and Lewiston were both defeated. Apparently, Mainers got through the lies of these Pro groups and realized that jobs would not really go Mainers nor would education benefit with funds from the casinos. Even worse is that the investors of the existing (or building of) the casino in Oxford County is being backed by Las Vegas investors. So much for that Maine companies are running the casinos.. Therefore the Pro-Casino supporters earn a Dumbass Award and yes it does come from Maine!!
Sprint Sends Email Bills To Non-Customer
Sad, but true Sprint is sending ME email bills of somebody else’s account through my Gmail. I have tried for over 9 months to get rid of this to no avail. Every time I get a response that it would be ending in 90 days(!) and after the period has ended I still get the emails. The last communication I received from Sprint was that they contacted the offending customer to change their email address because somehow it conflicts with mine. The representative wrote me and stated that I should just mark the email as spam and ignore it. This is NOT a solution to the real problem, just a bandage for abuse of an email account. Why am I getting so many emails that I never signed up for into this account though is the bigger question? Only Google knows for sure…So a Dumbass Award to Sprint and yea I will send it to your Spam Account again and again and again….
In Conclusion:
All of the above awards to some extent involves some sort of management. This will prove my ongoing point that managers (especially store managers) are dumbasses. As I continue on with this blog, keep in mind that every jerk reaction takes someone with authority to have happen and sadly every day this is happening. This is why this blog exists, not just for my own painful story, but all other painful stories as well. And I will hand out more Dumbass Awards as I see fit…it won’t be just an annual event.
Next Up: 2012 Predictions
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