CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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George Jetson: The First Cubicle Worker

Thursday, July 27, 2006

this entry brought to you by mates of state, "think long"


When I was a kid I was quite the cartoon snob, and anything labeled "Hanna Barbera" was usually poorly animated, had terrible jokes, and often, bizarrely, a laugh track, despite there was no way it was animated in front of an audience, and the sound of the laughter was so canned and synthetic it ceased to sound like laughter half way through the show. My childhood cartoon memories didn't include the typical fare of Scooby Doo or Yogi Bear or the Super Friends or any of that shit. I did, however, have a soft spot for The Jetsons and The Flintstones (but not the The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones), mostly because, being 30 minute long prime-time cartoons made to be watched by prime-time audiences, there was an active attempt for them to not suck, although the backgrounds were still cheap and they still had that god-awful laugh track.

Anyway, here's my point to all this: If you think about it, The Jetsons, completely unwittingly, predicted the cubicle workspace environment decades before they were common. George Jetson, you'll recall, worked for Spacely Sprockets, sat in front of a giant computer screen, and all he did was press a single button all day. Of course, this was a joke. The idea that in the future things would be so easy that a bad job would be something where all you did was push a button all day was silly. Nowadays, however, the idea of sitting in a cold, uncomfortable room pushing a button so much you work up an injury, a cold, uncaring monitor staring you down every day, the constant threat of being fired or "downsized" by an egomaniacal boss, is a soul-crushingly unfunny nightmare millions of people wake up to five days of their wretched, pitiful lives. And we don't even get the perks of having a talking, man-sized dog and a sassy robot maid like George Jetson had.
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on this day last year filler entry that's just pictures of the family. good pictures, just not worth clicking.
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with love from CRS @ 10:34 PM 

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