This story takes place in the early ‘90’s. I was working at my first employer, a local pizza place. I didn’t really have any experience of how work “worked”, and was just learning and growing, as young workers do.
So anyways, one day I come in to work and the I’m immediately stopped by one of the managers. He’s angry AF. I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was on time for work, and so the whole thing just caught me off guard. My memory of the incident is a little hazy, but I want to say the other manager was behind him and she had not an angry expression, but had a really concerned look on her face.
We’re still in the entranceway of the employee entrance and I don’t see anyone else in the store right then. The manager orders me in a stern tone, “Show me your shoes.” What? I don’t think I actually responded but probably had an extremely confused look on my face. He ordered me again, “Lift up your foot, show me your shoes.” I don’t even think this second order sunk in. It just sounded like a joke. Maybe I laughed. I’m just wearing black sneakers. I just came in, so it’s not like I tracked shit around the store or anything.
Again, “I’m being serious. Show me the bottom of your shoe.” And with complete confusion, I complied. He looked closely at my shoes and with a somewhat relieved tone, said, “ok.” He and the other manager went back to the office and I was left completely baffled.
And now, the rest of the story.
It turns out that a discovery was made in the back storage room. Some bags of flour had been stacked up and apparently some shoe prints were found on the bags. They were trying to find out whose shoes had a matching pattern. The reason for this witch hunt was not any health or safety violation. The bags were stacked up against the side wall of the bathroom, and the elevated position provided a viewing spot through a small crack near the top of the wall.
Yup, there was a voyeur in our ranks. While my memory of the female manager is a little spotty, I clearly remember that at the time we had recently hired two other females to work phones and register during busy nights. Otherwise, the place was all dudes.
It didn’t occur to me then, but looking back at it now, I wonder if I should be offended that I was accosted that strongly. Was I that much of a suspect? Or maybe everyone was treated like that? I have no idea. But, after the full story came out, there was one person that was the first suspect in everyone’s mind: Bruce.
Bruce was the son of Jack. Both Bruce and Jack worked at the store as delivery drivers. Bruce was about as awkward and different as you would expect a peeping tom to be. For what it’s worth, Jack was a Baptist minister in the town, so no telling what kind of upbringing Bruce had. Although he was only the prime suspect in everyone’s mind, Bruce never worked there another day after that event. An official ruling was never made. The rumor was that his dad called him and told him not to come in, which is pretty outrageous, but nowadays, seems like it would be just normal.
And it was never discussed again.
Stop This Shit
https://blog.cheapism.com/lies-teachers-told-17314
I don’t do many commentary posts, but this article really dug at me and it came on the heels of a response I had given somewhere about Mike Rowe. The commonality in both of these is that there is a line, and it’s not exactly a fine line, where information becomes inflammation.
To start with, the title is “50 lies you learn in school”. Before you’ve read anything, the article is implying that teachers, the people trained to educate you, are purposely lying to you. In order to lie, you have to know the truth. So the article is saying that your teachers know the truth and have intentionally told you otherwise.
If you go through this slide show, you will start with moments of, “Ok, I didn’t know that”, and “Huh, neat” but then, less than halfway through, you’re hit with “You can’t end sentences with prepositions.” Whether or not you agree or not, does this sound like a lie? By the definition, yes, it is a lie. However, that statement is not what is taught. You would be taught, “You should not end sentences with prepositions.” And that is not a lie, because it is not being presented as a fact or a rule, merely a guideline. The same thing with “You can’t begin sentences with conjunctions.” A style guide is just that, a guide.
The other type of tactic this article uses is on display with “The tongue map”. The slide says “The tongue map drawn back in 1901 is a lie.” And this is what REALLY pisses me off. It is not a lie when you do not know any better. The slide immediately says, “Scientists now know…” which means they were not intentionally hiding the truth back in 1901, they just had limited information at the time. This is repeated over and over with “facts” that had to be revised as more information became available. That does not make the original facts “lies”.
Another tactic is playing with words. “There’s no gravity in space” is clearly a lie. Why? Because the proper statement is “There is not a substantial amount of gravity in space.” The article proposes that not being explicit enough is a lie. Then the slide show starts to get into fringe medicine, such as “You need milk for strong bones” which cites as a reason some potential cronyism by an executive. There’s a couple of “facts/lies” I have never heard before in my life. “Blood is blue in the body”?
All in all, this is a terrible article, and let me now explain the Mike Rowe connection. There is a growing wave of anti-intellectualism here in America. It is dangerous as fuck and since about 2016, it’s been blowing up everywhere. It is the absolute proof that Idiocracy is coming to pass. It’s not enough that people are not taking the time to educate themselves, which is damaging enough, but now there is an active effort by some people to discredit other people who are intellectual.
Here’s the gist of how it works. You find some information that used to be considered factual, but because of additional study, is now considered wrong. And that former information is not labeled “obsolete”, but is instead touted as a “lie”. The argument is that the “smart people” lied to you all these years with that incorrect information. But the insane part of that argument is that it was the “smart people” who corrected the mistake.
The goal of this article and other examples of it (like Mike Rowe’s position on science) is to cause people to distrust information from learned sources. They want people to ignore “best practices” because they are not completely proven yet. Even if they are proven, what is proof? They want everyone to live in a “We just don’t know enough yet to make a decision” mindset. Conservative to to the point of regression.