Fat Kids = Child Abuse?

I don’t if any of you have watched any amount of daytime TV (and anyone who has done a stint with unemployment probably has) has seen those talk shows where mothers come out with their grossly obese blobs of children. Some of them are quite shocking.

http://drphil.com/shows/show/183/

A four year old who weighs 160 pounds???? That’s insane, that’s more then I weigh, that’s almost as much as Mr. First Year weighs!

At 12 another child weighs 262….I remember being 12 and I was barely above 100, he’s like 2.5 normal 12 year olds, that’s not big boned, cute, soft, cuddly or anything else. That’s just plain FAT.

And my personal favorite:

“Amanda's StoryTwenty-year-old Amanda was eight months pregnant when she first appeared on Dr. Phil. Her 3-year-old son, Jared, had beenplaced in foster care because she had allowed him to become obese. He weighed 120 pounds when he was taken away and lost 70 pounds in foster care. Amanda desperately wanted her son back and feared her unborn child might be taken from her as well."Since I went on the Dr. Phil show, we had a court date," explains Amanda. "My parental rights [with Jared] were terminated. I had my last visit with him. It was for an hour, and that's the last time I can see him until he turns 18.""I gave birth to my daughter on February 4. A case worker came into the hospital ... He showed me the paper. The judge had signed it to be able to take the baby away from me. The foster mom came in and took her. Any babies I have in the future will be taken."

Good for child protective services I say, letting or making your kid get so fat is in fact your fault and its cruel to a child. Why would a mother want to subject her own children to the health problems and social concerns that come from being obese. Does she want them to end up like those 1000 pound people who cannot leave their house and need to be weighed on scales made for whales and other large sea animals?

As much as you all might hate clicking on a link to the Dr. Phil show its worth a look, just to see the pictures of these obese kids. These kids are not slightly tubby, this is no baby fat, there is no way in hell these kids got to that size eating even marginally well. And when you’re 3 and 4 years old you only have one place where food comes from, from your parents. When you listen to these shows and hear what these parents are feeding their children I just want to smack them. Your four year old shouldn’t be eating a bucket of fried chicken and a whole large pizza for dinner. That is so obviously unhealthy and too much then even the least educated in society should be aware that it’s a bad thing to do.

That’s why I don’t buy the ignorance argument. Look at your kid! He/She is HUGE, look at all the other kids, they might be a bit tubby or sort of soft but they can run rather then waddle. Where in the world would these people get in their heads that their children should be eating fast food for 2 meals a day 7 days a week, not only is that extremely unhealthy, its also very expensive. You cannot claim that you “didn’t know” how bad it was, that four year old couldn’t even run around his own backyard, what kind of moron wouldn’t see a problem.

And as an answer to the question, “Well what can I do, that’s what he likes to eat.”…..you can…..wait for it…..be a parent! That’s right, instead of going to hit up the pizza hut and taco bell to buy him 12 tacos and a pizza plus chicken wings for dinner go buy a bag of that pre-washed lettuce, grill up a chicken breast and cut it up, then dumb the lettuce plus chicken breast into a bowl and put it in front of tubby. Since you were incompetent in your initial attempt to parent him/her the kid will probably refuse the healthy food. That’s OK, he’s fat he can skip a meal. Eventually hunger will win out. If you feed your kid mass quantities of junk that’s all they will eat. If you give them many types of food, most of which is healthy then they will grow up all the better for it.

And all the above is why I agree with taking children away from parents who refuse to do anything about their obesity and generally are the cause of it because I do feel as it’s a form of abuse (see this story from England if you feel like it http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1434607.ece )

Feeding your child to obesity is basically inflicting an entire life of social problems and health concerns. Childhood diabetes is on the rise, kids are even having heart problems these days. Only awful parents would think its OK and even cute for their kids to be this fat.

What say the rest of you?

First Year J

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead :)

Well now that I am back out and about I can share my wonderful work related news. My most hated of all my coworkers had “severed her relationship with the company”. It was a wonderful little scandal to come back to, such a high ranking person canned with no warning? Juicy! So to honor the memory of the world’s worse coworker and project manger every I will commiserate with the things I liked and hated most about her.

Liked: (yes, this is going to be very hard).

1. Her office was on the total opposite end of the floor from me. Even if she screamed at full throttle I would be safe from her hyena type laugh in my office.

2. She was so lazy she often didn’t come in to work or came late and left early. While this meant she never got her work actually done, it did mean I didn’t have to deal with her as much.

3. She was an easy target, it was so easy to get her flustered and no entertaining to watch the meltdown that would ensue, I will miss that it was almost better then having direct TV, almost.

Hated: (I will try to keep it to 3…..no promises)

1. Utter incompetence with menial tasks. For example I know she knew how to mail a letter but for some reason she would spend 10 times the amount of time it would take to place postage on the envelope and slip it into the “out” mailbox to find someone else to do this task for her. Ditto for copying, faxing or any of the other things we all spend a few seconds doing here and there. She was always so swamped she never had time to do these tasks, but somehow she always had the 10-15 minutes per task it would take her to locate someone to do it for her. Pure genius.

2. Nastiness. Not only was she dumb, lazy and worthless she was also horribly mean, demeaning, patronizing, and just a jack-ass. Everyone hated her, no one invited her anywhere, and office doors would slam shut if we heard her hooves coming down the hallway. If you’re going to be an idiot you cannot also be a huge bitch, unless of course you’re model quality hot, which she wasn’t.

3. Job performance. I don’t know how much of her day she spent on actual work, but from my calculations it was even less then me (and that’s amazing). Seriously, I’d ask her to do a task that would take half an hour or less and she wouldn’t get to the task for 2 weeks despite numerous reminders. But, before some of you feel bad for her because she was so busy, no she wasn’t during those 2 weeks she sent out numerous joke emails, requests for magazines to read, and other indications that she was bored.


Well that’s it, now she’s gone from our lives forever. Cutting off her benefits was one of the most gratifying things I’ve gotten to do at this job. The sadness and slight feeling of loss that accompanied a beloved coworkers departure is distinctly missing here. I don’t really wish her luck as I feel bad for whoever ends up with her. She’s difficult to work with, the subordinates hate her, her coworkers hate her, and in the end even the big boss ended up hated her. She was a nasty, lazy and even ugly person.

That felt better J

First Year-

Cough Cough...DIE

Sorry for the lack of posts.... I have been deathly ill with whatever disease had been floating around the office. You should have heard it in here last week, its quite pleasant to work when all you can hear is :::hack::::hack:::::aaaaachoooo::::sniffle::::sniffle:::: and so on.

So the boss has an ingenious idea, sent all the sick people home and order them to stay there until their disease is gone. Looking around the office today the same number of people apear to be sick, they are just different people now.

I am getting mostly better, but I just can't seem to shake it. So, I will be back with a vengence and hopefully without a hacking cough.

First Year :)

Getting Sappy.....

So...its close to Valentine's Day and we should be all romatic and lovely right? But its not always like that...sometimes theres a different good for each couple. Me and the Mr. have not had the best luck with this holiday. I have wanted this big romatic to do and he has failed to plan it. Then I get all dissapointed and sad, and then nothing works. But really..... all I want this is year is something heartfelt and sweet. Jewlry, candy, flowers, plush items they would all be nice, but I would give everything up for something heartfelt.

I would 100000% rather have the Mr. tell me that I mean everything to him and tell me all the things that made him fall in love with me and how much he loves me and how happy he is I am in his life then any present and any espensive dinner in a fancy place. I would treasure this moment more then any other, and no money could buy the feeling that my man telling me what I mean to him would.

So, if you've spent a few V-days together like me and the mister have.... Cook her a meal, light the candles, write a letter, and just tell her how much you love her. Because after the fancy jewelry and the nice meals, and whatever else....there is just you and her. Make sure she knows that you'd not want anyone other then her there. And no matter how much you think she should know that she's the only one for you...she needs to hear it, spoken from you.

So, tell your sweetie you love her. And if you don't have a sweetie.....well who the fuck cares, cause we all know we're fucking awsome, and we don't NEED someone....but if we do have someone they should make us realize we're the best and the most perfect someone for them......got that Mr. First Year?

:) First Year-

Payton Manning.....

I hate you... I am sorry you won, I really wanted your entire NFL career to go by without a single Super Bowl victory. I hope you never win another game, or better yet get injured in the off season doing something totally lame and non-football related.

On the other hand, Vinetari did manage another Super Bowl win, good for him. He's probably the only reason Indy didn't manage to loose during this years playoff like they usually do.

So, to reitterate...fuck you Indy, Payton Manning sucks...... but I am not bitter :)

The Adult Version of "My Dog Ate my Homework"

At the end of the month the excuses as to why time isn't entered into the system, why expense reports aren't filed, and why various other mundane yet crucial administrative tasks aren't done are always very interesting. They range from the ordinary to the unbelievable, to excuses that tug at the heart strings and ones that make me wonder if the person giving it to me thinks I am an idiot. Below, a sampling of the lame-o excuses I have recieved Thursday and Today about why end of the month stuff hasn't been done, when its past the first.

1. The boring and mundane:

I hate these types the most, if you're going to make up some crap at least be original, give me something interesting to read. Writing out, "Sorry I've been swamped and I haven't finished entering my time in" is not only yawn inducing but its also a lie (because I can in fact see that you haven't entered a single hour for the month....not only did you not finish, you didn't start). Of course theres the usual chorus of, "I've been out sick the last few days of the month" (No, you haven't, you've been here and have just been too busy watching YouTube and reading Business Week). And the inevitable, "Oh I forgot how late it was getting in the month!" (What??? You totally lost track of the date, the fact that you sit in front of a computer with your calendar blinking at you all day doesn't clue you in? How about the 3-4 emails I sent around about the end of the month approaching and then arriving? Missed all those too huh?). But my point is this, your excuse is dumb, its easily proven to be untrue, and really its just old, sad, and used up. So think of something else, especially those of you who use the same on each month!

2. The Unbelievable:

One of mid-level manager types actually attempted to use this excuse this month, "I entered my time and submitted it and somehow the system must have deleted half of the time for 2 weeks. But I definetly entered it, and I don't want to enter it again, because I already did and it just isn't in there."

Me: Oh....really? Hmmm, I'll put a call into tech support.

Me to Tech Support: One of our employees says that the program deleted half of two of her timesheet. Is that possible?

Tech Support: No, not really.... its not likely the program will randomly something, but if it did would delete the entire timesheet, not just half of it.

Me: Thats what I thought....thanks.


Now, really...who is going to believe that a software program just randomly ate up half (not the whole but half) of your time sheet, not once but twice. Something tells me you're just being lazy. But at least you made up something good. So I am going to add to my advice from the previous section. Not only should your excuse be interesting and difficult to prove to be a lie, it should also be feasible. Don't use an excuse that couldn't actually have happened. For example, if you tell me you got into a car wreck and were in a comma for a few weeks I am not likely to believe you, if you tell me you got a flat tire and poor you had to spend the day waiting for AAA and buying a new tire from Goodyear I am more likely to let it go (though I still wont believe you).

3. Stupid, ignorant, mean-spirited:

These types don't even try an excuse they just skip straight to the rudeness and indignation. If I had a dollar for every time I hear, "I shouldn't have to do this because I am too highly billed/important/busy", well I wouldn't have to do my job. Sure...you might be highly billed and important to someone other then me, but the fact remains that you still need to put the time that you spent on client work into a program that then bills the client for the work done for them. Its not hard, and really unless you have a secretary following you around all day taking notes I do believe its easier for you to just do it yourself and not try to get some junior staff member to enter it for you. Think about it, if you have to write out on paper all of your hours for the assistant to enter into the program, why didn't you just enter it into the program? It would take less time then what you did. So, simply being too much of a snobbish ass, who is also too stupid to realize that his (or it could be a her, but to me this one's a him, a very specific him) delgating is wasting way more of his time then its saving, is also not a good excuse.

So, in wrap up... don't bore me, don't make it too obvious you're lying to me, don't tell me something that cannot be true, and don't use your foul personality as an excuse.

Thanks and get your damn time in!

First Year :)