This has been quite the month for whiners, hasn't it? But tis the season I guess. First, people lost they damn minds over the whole "Duck Dynasty" debacle, then the Target thing and, finally, the UPS/FedEx holiday delivery fiasco. Everybody has a beef with something. Obviously, I completely understand the outrage at the Target issue, especially since several people I know have been affected by it. People losing their minds over that one is all kindsa justified. But the other two...not so much, in my opinion.
I admit I used to be a semi-regular watcher of "Duck Dynasty". This was back around the time it began and wasn't really a household name type of show. Even though I watched it every week, I still didn't quite know what to make of it. A couple of the family members are hysterical (Jase and Uncle Si), but the rest are all kinda 'meh'. The family patriarch always rubbed me the wrong way though. He seemed to be 'meh' about the whole family business, TV show and brand and he didn't add much to the show. His scenes were all filler. I stopped watching the show around the time it went mainstream, mostly because I rarely got around to watching it on my DVR and it was taking up too much space. Of course, now DD merchandise is literally everywhere and the family is plastered all over magazines and promotions. I read the article about this dude's comments to a magazine and I knew it would become a big deal. But I didn't understand why it became such a big deal. He was asked for his views and he relayed them. End of story. It has since come to light that he bashed gays during some sort of service awhile back, and I get the backlash about that, but no one would have cared enough to dig for that footage if not for the interview he gave. And the only reason someone went digging was because the views he expressed were not those of the mainstream. It's ridiculous that now people are crucified for expressing a point of view. Is the dude anti-gay? Probably. But it's not like anyone who has watched a single episode of that show hasn't assumed that to be the case. I mean, the dude brags about having cheated on his wife numerous times over the years and spews Bible jargon in a lot of his scenes. Obviously, a lot of people don't think it was a major deal since A&E reversed its decision to pull him off the show. Much ado about nothing, as usual.
So UPS and FedEx (who seems to be taking less heat over this) had theyselves a little snafu over the holidays. Both fell way behind on delivering packages, causing a bunch of people to bitch about their "ruined" Christmases. Couple things; first, if you wait until the week before or the weekend before Christmas to order things that need to be shipped, then you're an idiot and a poor planner and you deserve what you got. Second, how is your Christmas ruined just because you didn't get any of your gifts on time? Christmas isn't about stuff, although most of us seem to have forgotten that. Did you spend time with your family/friends? Did you eat good food? Are you still alive? Then quit your bitching, your Christmas was just fine. UPS posted a 'Merry Christmas' wish to their Facebook page and the comments were 99.9% negative. One comment was from a UPS driver who said he'd been working 60 hour weeks since the month began, rarely saw his family, had no time to Christmas shopping of his own, and usually didn't get a chance to even eat untl the evening hours thanks to his schedule. The response? People attacked him and called all UPS drivers idiots. Really? Someone who is an employee of the company, and has zero pull over what the policies are is who you think is responsible for your supposedly "ruined" Christmas? Are people also screaming at the cashiers at Target because their information was breached? Of course not. As with Target, this is a corporate issue. Someone at that level should have done the math and realized they bit off more than they could chew and they should've either stopped taking on packages that needed to arrive by Christmas, or put a big red banner at all shipping centers and online warning people that things would likely not arrive by Christmas, regardless of what service was used. Yes, they screwed up. No, no one's holiday was "ruined" by it. Everything you ordered will have just as much use next week as it would've on Christmas day. And if your family or friends thought you looked stupid because your gifts weren't there yet, then ya'll both need a reminder that it's just STUFF.
