The follow up call

The year is 2014. We have developed several technologies that allow us to communicate. Instant messaging and email are just the beginning.

And yet, there are some individuals who persist in following up all communication with an additional communication, particularly with a phone call.

If I had a dollar for every time I received a phone call that started with "I sent you an email but wanted to make sure you had read it," I would request those dollars in coin form and hold them while I punch the caller in the throat.

Here's the deal, people. Just because I haven't answered your email or IM does not mean I didn't receive it. It could be (I know this is surprising to those of you that get six emails a day) that it is currently sitting unread in my pile of 300 as-yet-unread emails in ye olde inbox. The other option is I read it and have not yet formulated a reply. The other option  is that I read it and determined not to reply to you.

Note - none of those options require a phone call. In the first two, I will answer you. In the last, I won't. Your desire to speak to me will not change that fact.

What makes this worse? Usually the people making these calls make them within seconds of sending the electronic communication as if they can't get it through their brain that they are not the number one agenda item to everyone else in the world and if you didn't answer in twenty-four seconds, then something must be wrong with the technology.

And if I don't answer your phone call? You could make it ten times worse by leaving me a voice mail making sure I got your email (here's a hint, perhaps I am just not at my desk at the moment). You're better than that.

Daytime Pajamas

Pajamas (or pyjamas as Wikimedia informed me they are also spelled, though I would never spell them that way) are a comfortable and perfectly acceptable clothing item to wear.

When sleeping.

Of late, there has been a trend of more and more people wearing PJs out and about in public.

I have to admit, I was fine ignoring this trend when it was confined to Wal-Mart shoppers. The easy solution there was to avoid Wal-Mart, which I went ahead and did.

Then I ignored the trend when it was just a teenager thing, mostly confined to girls, because I dismissed it as a stupid teenage fashion trend that is allowed because teenagers have no responsibility.

But nowadays? I see GROWN MEN AND WOMEN wearing pajama pants to the mall.

Nope, nope, nope, and now I'm even retracting my previous ignoring. Pajamas are not acceptable daytime attire and make you look like a stoner, a slob, a complete loser, or all of the above.

Seriously? You could not take the six minutes to change out of the stank-pants that you slept in for the past week without coming out into the world to expose the rest of us to it? I'm going to judge and stereotype you here (because that is what your choice of pants leads me to do) and say that likely your home is not a bastion of cleanliness. That said, it likely means that you already have PANTS lying around your house. You don't even have to go and GET them out of a drawer in order to put them on, you just pick them up off of last night's pizza box and put one leg in and a second leg in and then zip. That simple.

And while I can't say there are quite a few things that I would say the government of Caddo Parish, Louisiana gets right, I have to agree with the law they proposed in 2012 that bans pajama pants in public. That's government working to protect its citizens right there.

The only thing worse than wearing pajama pants in public? Wearing them to work. Pants, people. You're better than that.