Another big score for “the best health care system in the world,” hooray: a new study by Gallup shows that 86% of full-time employed Americans are missing 450 million days at work due to being either obese or having chronic health problems or both, which doesn’t even count days workers feel ill and don’t take time off. The furious little number crunchers announced that this also means $153 billion a year in “lost productivity” so that business people will take notice and stop hiring fat and sick people, but the joke is on them since it is now basically everybody. Hope America is having fun spending those 13 days of vacation a year they get feeling like shit!
Oh come on, isn’t at least another fading obesity-racked empire suffering worse problems, maybe… uh, Britain, with all their socialist deathcare panels and socialism? Not really, according to Gallup:
The $153 billion in annual lost productivity costs linked to unhealthy workers in the United States is more than four times the cost found in the United Kingdom. The striking difference is the result of fewer unhealthy workers in the U.K. About 14% of full-time U.S. workers are of a normal weight and have no chronic illness, compared with 20% in the U.K.
The high percentages of full-time U.S. workers who have less than ideal health are a significant drain on productivity for U.S. businesses. However, employees and employers have the opportunity to potentially increase productivity if they address the health issues that are currently plaguing the workplace.
Nah, then America would have to start calling itself Canada or something. [Gallup]
{ 264 comments }
Imagine there's no pizza………
That's OK, what Herman Cain is selling can only very generously be described as "pizza product."
Imagine, better yet, that there's no more of Herman Cain AND his shitty pizza.
So fire the sickos and give me a damn job!
Don't count on it. They "eliminated" my position, along with 40% of the other employees at my company due to us being mostly Oldz (It takes time to acquire multiple advanced degrees in chemistry/math/computer science), and they haven't rehired a single person since. However, I just found out that they now expect employees to work on weekends and evenings, without pay. They're "supervising" the foreign workers to whom they outsourced our jobs, so they're not entitled to time-and-a-half for overtime work; and besides, they're allowed to "work from home," or teleloaf, as we used to call it. No comp time, either. They're still expected to put in a 60-hour week.
I feel sorry for those who have kids. That must really suck to be on the phone at 11 pm when your kids are supposed to be in bed and asleep while you bellow over an inadequate connection at people with an inadequate command of your language, only to have to get up at 5 am the next morning to drive the 60 miles to work.
Have you told Thomas Friedman about this?
I will, as soon as I'm reduced to driving a taxi for a living. He only talks to cab drivers, right?
Now, that was good.
Squirrels are arguably the best kind of animal.
F@%&ING SQUIRRELS!!! DEATH TO ALL SQUIRRELS!!!9!!11!!!
(Says my kitty.)
And the birds at the feeder agree! They call 'em "bushy-tailed rats."
And Mrs. weejee also agrees! She's not known as Annie Oakley for nothin'
Yeah, and they are fixated on nuts, those rodent-squirrel pests.
I'll bet s/he likes to sit in the window and chatter the death-chant to squirrels through the glass.
Y'all nuthin' but a bunch of anti-squirrelists and squirrelophobes.
Squirrels bothered me a lot more before the bears came.
Well, dammit, squirrels are just furry rats is what they are! Except they have protruding front teeth. And they're vegetarian. And some of them hibernate. And they're diurnal….
OK, OK, they're nothing like rats!
A charming young squirrel named Cyril
In an argument over a girl
Was lambasted into the Tyrol
By a churl of a squirrel named Earl
I'm sorry. I've been carrying that around in my head for 50 years now. I had to get rid of it SOMEwhere.
Thank you.
That was beautiful.
You are a good friend to animals.
Oh, DerrickWildcat! Sometimes I am convinced you are a professional comedian posting highly snarky weirdnesses here only to gauge our reactions! But most times I just think your pictures of Birds and Shit are utterly beautiful.
Mike Huckabee's recipe book approves of this message.
Next time you're finishing up a jar of peanut butter, put the jar (with some peanut butter remaining in it) out on your porch or other location frequented by squirrels. Pretty soon, you'll see a squirrel head first in the jar, rolling around.
One of the simple pleasures in life.
Damn, you're cruel. Is it wrong of me to admit that I LMFAO at this?
Hey, they STARTED it by stealing my tomatoes, the li'l bastids.
Well I could sure use a day off. But why do I have to be sick and fat to get one?
I know… I'd like some days off. I'd prefer not to be too sick and fat to enjoy them.
Well, it's a good thing we have the Best In The World Health Care system and not that Communist nationalized systems like the Europeans do.
Whoo-hoo, I'm part of the 14%! Which is good, because I have a job without health insurance or paid sick leave so I'd be screwed otherwise…
Give it time. Then you can be one with us fat, old, sick marginalized ones. Without health insurance.
Not you too!
Well, fuck me blind, as they say in the old country. Is there anyone here who HAS both a job AND health insurance and is not working for the government? You don't count, Baldar T. Flagass, the military IS the government.
i am one of the 14%.
a new meme.
I'm so sorry to hear that. And you have advanced degrees, yes? What a fucking pit we have fallen into, when multiple degrees and skillsets can't guarantee a single lousy fucking job.
Today we're all Meghan McCain.
Except those of us with jobs.
I fucking wish, El Pinche. I'd stay home all day just to play with my boobs in one of Mommy's ten fully-staffed homes.
To put it another way, 450 million sick days equals 3.6 billion hours of sick leave per year.
And I don't even want to consider how many sick minutes that is.
I'm sick (gobble gobble) of the gummint (slurp) tryna (chomp-nom-nom) cram healthy eating down my (buuuuuuuurp) throat!
Are you going to Costco on the way home tonight? Would you mind throwing a couple of pallets of Cheetos in the back of the SUV?
Honey, don't forget your grocery list.
Epic. Must’ve missed that one. Astonishing. Contempt-inspiring. Horrifying. All-American!
Cedar cheese. Yummm. Sounds good, but I haven't been able to find it at my grocers.
Keeps the moths away from my pizza rotls and white kasles.
the aisle over from the White Kasuls.
mmmm… "musturd"..
It doesn't help that in colour and texture, those two items are so similar — mustard and turds, that is.
Aha! The famous "Cakes we like" … I'd forgotten where that came from!
I nominate Elvis as official overlord of the "Wonkette Hall of Fame".
Can anyone tell me what "3 intat patatoes" means?
S/he misspelled "intact". I know I hate it when the patatoes arrive home all disjoint.
That there is some sick shit. Guess you could put the cedar cheese in the
bottom of the cage for the fat squirrel!
Never forget.
And mayonnaise, we need a 55 gallon drum of mayonnaise.
Do they eat it, or have sex in it?
Pick me up some corn-syrup plz . I gotta go to the bathroom so I need carb up.
And you a Dok-tor, too.
Do people primarily use sick days when they get sick? Or just when they really need to spend the day watching Price is Right and draining it to porno?
I used mine to sit around waiting for the cable company (name doesn't matter as they all suck) to come out and dick around with the connections for a while so my wife could keep getting her fix of Project Runway and my kids could watch Spongebob and Tosh.O (yes, there is a little spread in ages there.)
You know what's really cool?
HDTV broadcast over the air. Not at all compressed like the satellite and cable company's compromised signals. Picture so sharp and vivid it almost hurts your eyes.
Oh, and also doesn't cost $50/month.
$50/Month? Man you're lucky, I can't get HD cable for under $100; which is why I too don't have cable.
Really? Gotta try it again…not easy in a tall building, but there's no regular payment more irritating than the monthly annuity payment to the cable monopoly.
Every location is different, and requires choosing your antenna carefully.
An hour or two on the big series of tubes is a good idea. I started here (well, mostly here) and learned a lot. My setup ended up costing me around $180 for antenna/amplifier/cables. But now I'm getting 17 digital channels when I used to get three.
Unless of course it's the weekly hush money for the health insurance
that's too fucking expensive to ever USE, you just pay for it to say you
have it in case of an "emergency" like an accidental beheading on the
freeway……
That's what happens when you only get sex once a decade*.
(Old married peepulz' inside joke.)
I'm sick and tired of Obama caving in to Big Squirrel. Show some nuts, Mr. President!
Very nice!
"Big Squirrel" is called "Moose" Natasha.
Obviously, we blame the ACORN lobby.
Double the funny!
And this little fellow has had his fill of ACORN syrup, obvs.
It's why he votes for Big Government.
i would invest in Rascal scooters and coffins, but i need that money for health insurance.
Husky coffins.
Archer Daniels Midland. Corn syrup is the key, it's damned near in everything.
The striking difference is the result of fewer unhealthy workers in the U.K.
Okay, so the bloody Pommies are in pretty good shape, but the Aussies and Kiwis are almost as fat as us. Possibly even fatter, by now.
I think we know who our real allies are.
I'm detecting a distinct correlation with beer… what's the story on Germany?
I was wondering the same thing. Last time I was there, I didn't see nearly as many obviously obese people as in the U.S., but in general, their size was HUGE. When I was in France, you could tell a German on the street from a block away. I can think of one big historic difference between those countries and it ain't beer.
All I can say is when I was hitchhiking through the hippie trail in Asia, the Germans were the fattest, most revolting white people you could ever meet anywhere. Also, the rudest. And least self-aware. To see their enormous, fat-marbled, obese, saggy, grotesquely comically overweight tons of lard burning pink-and-mottled-red in the sun as the slender delicate graceful Balinese/Thai/Singaporean/Malay ladies swept by like sylphs was an exercise in keeping lunch down.
I don't think that's what The Fuhrer had in mind when he thought of conquering the world.
In all honesty, the British really aren't that much healthier than we are. They are the America of Western Europe. In fact, of the world's developed nations, they rank right up there with us among the fattest nations in the world. It's why I was kind of surprised that they used the UK as an example.
Perhaps it's because the *only* real difference between the nations is the health care system.
I think you're right, though, you'd think they'd have measured us against Canada, then, which is even more culturally similar to us. Though, their obesity rates are actually better than Britians'.
This is good news for China and India.
But in both those places, those at the top are, shall we say, full-figured.
The Chinese don't usually eat the fatty meat, and many Indians don't eat meat at all, so I don't understand how it could possibly be good … oh, you mean jobs?
Perhaps *this* is the Republican jobs plan, finally? Keep the 99% physically ill, and companies will need more employees to cover for those who are out sick. As a bonus, they won't feel well enough to rebel against the 1%. Accomplish this goal by continuing farm subsidies for unhealthy food, while claiming all along to be against government waste…
…and let me guess: Chris Christie came up with this plan, amirite?
He's out sick right now and not taking any calls, but he'll get right back to ya.
Maybe if they'd spend all day golfing they'd be in better shape to work.
Don't you need to find a job first in order to get sick? Besides, I refuse to believe that we are unhealthier than wankers who spend 4 hours a day in the pub and beat each other up after every football match:
"The $153 billion in annual lost productivity costs linked to unhealthy workers in the United States is more than four times the cost found in the United Kingdom. "
Now pass the Cheetos, please…
beat each other up after every football match
talk about a healthy workout!
eggzactly. US football fans exhaust themselves by raising their middle fingers at one another, on the rare occasions that they climb into their SUVs and haul their asses to the stadium. They've largely been reduced to drunkenly flaming one another on the YouTubez and Yahooz. (At least I think they're drunk… they certainly seem to be.)
However, employees and employers have the opportunity to potentially increase productivity if they address the health issues that are currently plaguing the workplace.
By making it a national priority to have affordable healthcare available to all? Or by firing their current employees and hiring healthy people from India?
"and hiring healthy people
fromin India?"–fixed.
"and hiring
healthyskinny peoplefromin India?"Fixed again. We'll get it right eventually.
Wait! I lost about 90 pounds, but I still feel like shit. GAAAAAAH!
Is that the "Lose Weight Because You're Sick Diet" that I've been hearing about?
No, it was deliberate. I do look better and feel better in a lot of ways, but the physical problems that slow me down so the fat accumulates are still with me. I can't run/exercise it off so I have to be happy now that businesses are required to give me informed consent (i.e., calories on menus) before taking my lunch money.
Wow, that is great. I'm sorry about the physical problems. I assume you have a gimp like I do. How on earth did you get rid of 90 lb with those limitations?
I'm trying to stay away from teh cheezbrgrs and work out on a recumbent stationary bike, but so far, I've managed a whole four pounds. Not good. Perhaps starvation is the way to go. At least our corporate overlords seem to think so.
Steverino, you rock!
If I lost weight I wouldn't fit in my Tea Party patriot costume anymore… In fact, I can't wear anything else anyway because I grew into my tights. I call it my X-X-XL Plan.
You are on a roll today!
I am the 99 BMI.
UNLEASH THE SNACKIN'!
Well fuck. I'm skinny, employed, and in good health. At this rate, I won't get a day off until I'm 145 years old.
That's when social security and medicare will kick in anyway.
Yeah, but you're gay, right? I mean, aren't you required to be fit?
I'm sure it's in our bylaws, but I'll be damned if I can find it. That shit's longer than the tax code.
Don't you mean bi-laws?
No, no, that's the ones for us BI folk. Gay people have their own bylaws. If we're nice to them, they let us share.
Do you actually have to be sick to take "sick days" off?
Does "sick of dragging my ass into work for the same pay I got five years ago" count?
Yes.
Well, I don't know, but just before they cashiered 40% of us for earning too much money or being too Old or sump'n, the company called us into a general meeting to tell us that they would be going through our medical insurance paperwork because they believed that "some employees" had been carrying their kids on their health plan and should not have done so once those kids were no longer tax-deductible. Mind you, most of us had been working for them for well over 20 years, at that point, so naturally, we took umbrage. And naturally, they "eliminated" all our positions right around then.
One employer I had mandated that to call in sick you had to give 24 hours notice or be penalized. No one plans to be sick 24 hours in advance (not counting the fakery of human nature here), most people wait until the last minute to call in sick when they really need to (human nature, again), so it was a little weird. You could call in "sick" with the Defenestration of Prague or The Irish Potato Famine and it was just fine as long as you gave 24 hours notice. "I'll be sick on Wednesday with a hot tip at the race track" was fine but "I'm volatile at both ends and a serious risk to infect the entire office" was a major mark against you.
Wow. And I thought I worked for the scum of the earth. Kudos, dood. Apparently, you never tried to kill them. Or are they letting you post this from prison?
hey, look on the bright side. that's much, much longer than your obese counterparts will live!
According to the Business Insider, in addition to not getting time off, you're also not getting paid enough: "The Journal of Applied Psychology found that women who are 25 lbs. below average weight take home an additional $15,572 each year. On the other hand, men who are 25 lbs. below average weight take home $8,437 less each year."
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-13/st...
I hope this marxist government "study" doesn't interfere with Wal-Mart's imminent roll out of the official South Park Cheesy Poofs product, with Cartman on the packaging.
Yeah, I saw a bag of those the other day. I will admit, I was tempted.
Italy? Japan? You don't want to know.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-...
Needs more Sumo.
ZOMG. Thank you for the help with the weight loss.
I will never eat again.
That guy's MOOBS have moobs.
Hmm. With Mexico in Number Two and so many Mexicans in the United States, could this be the proof we need that we should build the danged fence (around the fridge)?
I was going to make a joke about Italy being economically inefficient because everybody spends all their time in front of the mirror, preening and admiring the way they look in designer labels. But then I looked at Greece and saw they’re up pretty high on the Blubber Index too. Greek or Italian food: which one would you rather get fat on?
All of 'em, Katie.
(Seriously, I love Greek and Italian food.)
So much for the "Mediterranean Diet" of pasta (fine print: one oz./day), olive oil (fine print: one teaspoon/day), and red wine (fine print: 4 oz./day.) The American version calls for about six times those numbers.
I know mine does! Don’t forget about the resveratrol in that red wine. I’m several years ahead of the recommended daily dose on that.
Too bad N. Korea's not on that list. They would totally rock (the ones that haven't starved yet, anyway).
The "Insane Dictator Diet" does seem to be working well.
Somalia's "Libertarian Free Market Diet" is giving them a run for it, though.
What is this "weighted average" crap, just another FAT JOKE? HUH? You think it's funny?
Poor, fat Slovakia. We weep.
It's because one of their favourite foods is pig fat. Srsly. Bryndzove Halusky one of the national dishes of Slovakia. These are potato dumplings made with sheep cheese and frequently sprinkled with cooked bits of smoked pork fat or bacon.
Except it's mostly smoked pork FAT. Although you can get bacon.
No big loss. All we do at work is surf the net.
WE'RE NUMBER 1, WE'RE NUMBER 1!!!!!! YAY!!!
USA!, USA!, USA!, …
I'd wave a big flag around in celebration but I'm kind of short of breath.
Let me get my hoveround, and we'll stick the flag on the back and ride around for a while.
Too bad watching games on tv all weekend doesn't count as exercise, or Merka would be number one!
I like to say I'm an eater, not a reader.
HA!
The corollary of that being: I am a leader, not an eater. Meaning of course, he would never eat that ketchup, glue and cardboard gruel he was responsible for.
And so many Americans can say they are eaters and not readers. The proof is in the number of chubby folks in front of the TV, wishing they had Cartman's Cheesy Poofs.
Squirrel on a stick. That there is good eat'in.
I still love* how libertarians and conservative claim it is the individuals' personal responsibility to stay healthy and buy their own health care (despite the effects on aggregate productivity), but not only give corporations a pass on pumping poison into the air and sell us processed foods to eat that they flat-out lie about the contents of, but get indignant when you even suggest they be held accountable.
* The word "love" is being used euphemistically for "mad enough to hit someone in the face with a shovel over and over."
A few weeks ago, when Ron Paul was on the Daily Show he said that pollution, under strict libertarian private property law, would be a violation of someone's property.
Like all their ideology, I'm not sure how this works for larger bodies of water (or land) that run through several states, not to mention real common goods like air.
Reality isn't really a big issue for Paul and his followers.
yeah remember, this is the "slaves had it better than blacks under Obama" crowd. And everything=hitler, also.
Pollution? That's just a tragedy of the commoners.
Ahh, "love".
I believe Topka beat you to that definition by just a couple of days. Bummer.
Wa-a-a-ay too much common sense in that post, BMW.
I was going to say I love you, but I see how that could be misinterpreted.
To combat my resentment towards the chronically-absent sick, fat fucks who force the "patriotically portly" among us to pick up the slack at the office, I try to focus on what it must feel like to be a sick, fat fuck. Aaaaaah, I feel better already. Think I'll go celebrate with a few slices of Stuft-Krust and a Slurpee.
That reminds me, I was in the Tampa airport a couple of weeks ago and this sweaty sack of shit who was at least 2/3 as wide as he was tall was wearing this obnoxious shirt that was essentially made of an american flag, maybe plus a crying eagle, and I was really really really compelled to kick his ass for flag desecration. Jesus christ.
what were we talking about again?
You know, there actually is a LAW that says that using the flag as a piece of clothing is punishable by fine, and possibly, jail. 18 USC something. Christ. And the bad taste of adding a crying fucking eagle.
Jeezus Christ, what the FUCK is a Stuft-Krust?
Sounds like something you pick up at the doctor's office from sitting next to some harried bint with too many small, uncontrollable, sick, pestiferous children.
I suspect this is what Edgy is referring to: http://www.slashfood.com/2011/04/05/pizza-hut-ult...
Oh god that is simply terrifying. 500 calories in ONE SLICE? No wonder we're grossly, grotesequely obese!
Even better dipped in ranch dressing, tell you wut.
Our squirrels are looking none too healthy as well.
It's the bumper crop of nuts we're having this year.
Lots of food for squirrels, also.
The greatest threat to the US America economize isn't bankers anymore, it's the Double Down.
Well, we can't all afford those spendie diet pills like that fit Rush Limbaugh has.
"the best health care system in the world"
Of course it is. Say all you want about Europe and Canada, but they have it easy. I'd like to see how well they'd do if they had to keep blobs and blimps and rump-fed runyons alive and hoppin' like the US hospitals need to.
Not so bad considering Canada is slowly catching up, Britain is in the top 10 and Germany is just slightly a mint wafer less blubbery than US America.
Didn't anyone tell you this is Fact-Free Tuesday?
macbeth humor!
cheers!
I haven't heard the term "rump-fed runyon" since we did Shakespeare in high school!
'bout time for a revival, methinks. Too good an insult not to be put to regular use.
Agreed. Aroint thee, Chichikovovich!
The good news in all this, is the Hoveround company is working 3 shifts and hiring.
Yes, but we're all too fat and sick to get jobs there. Let's line up in front of their doors with GUNZ and wait for the Messican job-stealers to show up. They'll be easy to recognize. They'll be *walking* into the parking lot.
If the dagnabbed gubmint would just relax the regulations on high fructose corn syrup, I bet we could get that 14% healthy number down to single digits in no time.
Crap, H.G. Wells had it all wrong. It's the 1% that becomes the Morlocks, thanks to their personal trainers and gourmet groceries. The rest of us, having to live off of Ramen and McDonalds' dollar menu items, are destined to be the Eloi.
as one of the 14%, why can't i get affordable goddamned insurance?
oh right. it doesn't work that way.
It's a wonderful day in America. Burp.
Derp.
Look people, that's a chipmunk, okay? Please proceed.
Omigod! The squirrels have even learned how to disguise themselves as obese chipmunks!
ALVIN!
Nuh uh. That's a fat fucking squirrel right there. Chipmunks are cute and cuddly and little. With stripes and shit.
Oh, sure. That's what you say NOW.
I'll bet you tried to bite it anyway.
Tastes like chicken.
(Honey shark doesn't give a shit. Honey shark is hungry.)
"employees and employers have the opportunity to potentially increase productivity"
If there's one thing we've learned over the past 30+ years, it's that an increase in worker productivity doesn't mean an increase in worker pay.
Productivity is measured in widgets/dollar. No way are they going to increase the denominator.
Oh, Guppy! Don't you know that the only way it shows up as an increase in productivity is if you make MORE people do MORE work for LESS munnies?
Now Rick Perry has a third plank for his economic plan 1.drill-pardner-drill 2.eliminate the EPA 3.put the porky poors on half food stamp rations till they're fit for work
'S OK. (P)Rick DinglePerry is barely treading water any more. In fact, Santorum's pulling ahead in the polls. When you're behind Santorum … well, 'nuff said.
Come on you know those days are only taken off so that Americans can graze on the all you can pasta bowl and bread sticks at the gourmet Olive Garden.
Spent 5 hours in the ER this weekend with my elderly Mom, and it was full of fatties having diabetic issues and fat kids have asthma attacks. The only skinny people were snoring junkies on hallway gurneys sleeping off their OD or whatever, and random car accident victims.
Heroin: get the habit for a skinnier you!
When I was at the supermarket today, an announcement came over the PA system inviting us to visit the pharmacy department where they could teach us "how to love your diabetes." No shit.
Jezus christ, isn't it bad enough we have to love our diabetics, now they want us to love the DISEASE too?
Ha! I read your comment on my Blackberry in the CVS. On the loudspeaker: "Diabetes Starter Kits". Good Lord.
OMG.It's something in the air.
I was with my grandmother in the ER the other night. Apropos of nothing, a homeless man was sitting (and sleeping) right in the middle of the packed waiting room and a guard asked him to leave to which he replied loudly "I'll sleep wherever I want."
I hope your grandmother is OK?
I ended up in the ER (despite being fully employed at the time, and having what Republicans like to call "gold-plated" or "Cadillac" medical insurance — my doctor was booked solid for a month and his nurse said, "Why don't you just go to the ER?" so I did). A young Asian cop came in with three other cops and a wildly combative 450-lb very short woman who was clearly out of her mind on something. Five minutes later, the young Asian cop came running out screaming "She PISSED all over me! She pissed on my UNIform, man!" Don't ask me why, but that was some kind of signal to all of us suffering souls in the ER. Not a dry eye in the house.
Yes, she's all right as one can be after falling down the stairs, but luckily no major broken bones.
ER waiting rooms are a comedians goldmine if they had the bravery to sit through one at night. Nights are the best time.
I'm sorry to hear about her fall! You're a terrific grandson to be taking care of her like that.
I've had my fill of ERs for a while. In fact, of medical facilities, period. Best wishes to your grandmother, may she live a peaceful and comfortable life.
The $153 billion in annual lost productivity costs linked to unhealthy workers in the United States is more than four times the cost found in the United Kingdom."
You know what else is different between workers in the U.S. and the U.K.? U.K. workers have national healthcare, U.S. workers don't. Might go a long way to explaining things.
Nice observation.
OT
KBJ will there be a live blog tonight? How many of the Rethug scrum will rant about OWS being just a bunch of commie scum?
The End Hunger CARE ad is a nice touch, BTW.
Dear American Business:
Here's the deal: You give us 8 weeks of paid vacation a year and socialist health care, and we'll start showing up more to work and stop stuffing fried donuts into our faces.
The American Worker
I dunno…. donuts are delicious.
Give me that much time off and I'll be willing to waste more of it walking.
I think a lot of Americans would have to mull that one over. America runs (well, waddles) on Dunkin, you know.
More jobs to choose from for the rest of us. And I LOVE a good sour cream doughnut but for 8 weeks of vacay I'd grudgingly give them up.
Wait, are you telling me that if I actually went into work, I'd get $153 Billion Dollars??????????
WTF??? How come no one told me this????
Duh, because they don't want you to get the munniez!
At current rates of expansion I see a fantastic opportunity for American Standard, Kohler or one of the other bathroom fixture manufacturers to break out a new line of reclining toilets with beverage coolers built into the arms so you can just watch the bigscreen and intake and excrete to your hearts' content, (and limitations). A set of ionizers and activated charcoal filters to keep the stink down and a nice secure spot for the remote. Borrow or clone the auto-wipe/wash technology from the Japanese (Toto has the best ones supposedly) and off you go, in team colors and logos!
If you could see the toilet enhancements my brother and I just had to buy my hip-replacement-patient mother, you would know that day isn't too far off. As for Toto's toilets … when my friend and I were in Kyoto a few years ago, we were so entrance with the toilet in our hotel we made a video of it.
The terlets in the airports at Seoul and TYO are just heavenly! Not only do they wash your bottom, but they dry it with gently heated air! We flew into Seoul one cold rotten winter, and the plane got delayed because the wind and rain was THAT bad. We just kept on returning to the terlet every 15 minutes or so. The seats were cushy-soft and heated.
But do they keep us from getting teh diabeetees??
I never asked, I was too busy getting my bottom warmed and blown on.
Now I don't feel so bad about calling in sick when I have a hangover. AT LEAST I'M HEALTHY, FATTIES! (ugh, I'll nevah drink again)
Yeah, well, I don't have to call in sick when I have a hangover because I DON'T HAVE A JERB! So there.
Well, on the bright side, lots of people in India are starving.
That's the *bright* side?
Sheesh, no offense or nuthin', but please don't call me when you get depressed.
See, it was a joke based on American workers being over weight, and us shipping so many jobs over there, and…Oh forget it. It's no fun when I have to explain my snarks.
Keep this up and your reputation around here will be worse than mine.
P. S. I liked the original snark.
This is all the fault of unions like the Screen Actors Guild and the NFLPA. Fatties!!
Hmmm . . . maybe instead of laying this at the feet of people being fat, there could be something to the stress of working 60 or 80 hour weeks for flat wages and paltry vacation time. Because making it about being fat is just one more way of blaming workers for shitty working conditions.
Thank you!!
Hey, Hey looks as if that Soshulistic healthcare is a good thing!
Where have you been, beautiful? Barb's MIA too, and I was wondering if you two had snuck off for a little white-cotton-pantie tickle fight, like you're always promising.
And how is your handsome redhead, my charming nephew-in-name?
So they've been squeezing more and more productivity out of Americans for decades without paying us any more, and now they're bitching that we're too fat and sick from lack of time and healthcare to squeeze even more work out of us? I feel so guilty!
No more coffee or booze, according to our next preznit. Eight years of that Mormon half-wit will just about end what is left of this non-existent democracy.
I don't miss work because I'm obese or have chronic health problems.
I miss because I'm either playing golf, drunk or cheating on my wife/girlfriends.
So suck my gallup pole!!!1!!!
USA !
I don't miss work either. Not one bit.
Well, FWIW, your job is easy. Besides, you haz minyunz.
John? John Boehner, is that you?
That squirrel looks like the one I fed leftover Godfather's pizza to.
Oh, no, that one promptly keeled over and dissolved into an orange pool of grease.
Sen. Susan Collins owned by Big Potato!!
"Senate blocks Barack Obama's school potato limit"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-1535913...
Holy fuck, you poor sods have no guaranteed paid leave at all? Zero? And no right to medical care? Little to no job security? Maybe we (Australians) ARE the complacent feather-bedded layabouts our conservatard pols say we are. 'Scuse me while I get in some holiday planning on company time before I go to the doctor for free.
You bastards … you SENT Murdoch here, didn't you?
We may talk funny, but we're not completely stupid…
You *really* know how to hurt a person, don't you?
Maybe Herb Cain's killer fence should have holes in it, so the skinny ones can get in.
Oh, excellent idea. Then they can all go work for the hoveround factory, they're hiring and the rest of us are too fat, old, and sick to work there anyway.
Just switch to a diet of hobo beans and you'll lose the weight in no time, America!
@Sue4466 says "Because making it about being fat is just one more way of blaming workers for shitty working conditions." And, I would add, one more excuse to export jobs, since we obviously can't handle them.
Hey all, stop saying people are fat and ill because they don't have healthcare. In this country it's BECAUSE OF THE DRUG-COMPANY-CONTROLLED medical industry that people ARE fat and sick.
At my work, if we call in more than 3 days in a year, we get written up. Not sure what the "written up" part is going to do to my future career, but I'm exposed to people coughing all sorts of things on me. Do they not expect us to get sick too?
I also cannot even count how many overweight people between the ages of 20 (yes, 20!) and 50 who come in for chest pain.
That's insane. My god. When you lay it out in such stark terms, it really leads to an inescapable conclusion, don't it?
At my work, if we call in more than 3 days in a year, we get written up. Not sure what the "written up" part is going to do to my future career, but I'm exposed to people coughing all sorts of things on me. Do they not expect us to get sick too?
When I worked for a Fortune 100 company here's how strongly we were "encouraged" never to take a sick day. My boss had pneumonia — diagnosed in an emergency room — and she never missed a single HOUR of work. She told us the same dedication was expected of all of us. The company still went out of business, so you see how effective that policy was.
Our company used to tell us not to show up in the office if we were sick, but at the same time, they issued us all laptops which we were encouraged to take home, because, you know, if you get sick, or anything, at least you can still work from home.
Now the thing is, under the law, if you take a sick day, you're not *supposed* to be working *at all,* but no HR person is going to tell you that, of course. Oh, and we were definitely encouraged to "check email regularly" while on vacation. And that was one of my *better* employers. I once worked for a bunch of soulless bastards that *expected* the workforce to put in one day every other weekend — one full, 8-hour Saturday or Sunday — and anyone who *failed* to do so would first be ridiculed publicly as a slacker, and then, in short order, fired.
I love stats like this — American businesses lose 26 billion in productivity every year because employees greet each other with "Hello" or "Good Morning" instead of a grunt, the Average American spends 16 hours a year blowing their nose — add them up and you quickly realize no one ever gets anything done and the entire economy is, year in and year out, 20 trillion in the hole. Damned wonder anyone can pay the rent.
SQUIRREL!!!!!!! ===================>
Oh good golly, we got a real problem with illegal immigration in the country, what with the President's uncles and his aunts coming over here from Kenya.
We're being overrun by illegal Kenyans!!!!
No snark. An acquaintance of mine had chest pains on a job site (construction). His work-mates had enough meds in their personal inventory (glycerin, baby aspirin, etc) to prevent serious damage to his heart while he was awaiting transport to the ER. This is Medicated America. I don't drink, but have several friends in the business, so I visit a bar or two on occasion. The most-often discussed topic sometimes seems to be the patron's and employee's medications and diagnosed maladies. I swear to God it sounds like a medical/pharmaceutical convention some days.
yeah, well, you live in a cave in southern france, so socializms!
Actually, in a tin shed on a hillside facing Vancouver Island (Canada City). But yeah on the socializms.
Thank you, ntD.
Btw, I've been dropping by regularly since you complained about NObody except Spanky visiting you, and now s/he's visiting ME regularly. I can't imagine what the thrill is, but hey.
OK, it's the "toe" part that gets disjoint, right? Right?
Our Gang has some real winners. I'm trying to think of an IRL analogy for what they do. Maybe like those guys who hang around in public bathrooms with upskirt cams? Perhaps the analogy is not quite right, but that pretty much describes how socially useful they are.
It's always nice to see a smiling face when I check in, even if it is the insane smile of a shrieking harpy with a clown afro. Somewhere, behind that nightmarish avatar of yours, is a kind fellow traveler.
Har har. I stepped right into that one.
What did you think he meant by "lebensraum"? I thought it meant "so we fat, fat, fatties can sprawl all over your lands once we kill y'all and take 'em. Plus we won't have you around to remind us how FAT we are!"
Yeah, that's why I have to cough up $350 for ONE LOUSY doctor visit. I'm never going back. I can't afford "health care" at those prices.
Aw, sweetie. You noticed! I was getting all butthurt anaconda no one noticed my cool new av with Michele in a GIANT 'fro with that pick stuck in. (hugs ntD) Except now the stupid bitch has flamed out live IRL on stage, so I'll have to find a nifty new name and av. And Pristine O'Donnell's gone, and so is Palin. Guess I'll have to be Herman Cain, or something.
At least the guys in public terlets get some nekky pikky for their efforts, OK, maybe not *quite* nekky, but close enough. Spanky doesn't even get to sniff our crotches on a hot night, poor kid. S/he's gotta be furiously pulling the pud to *some*thing, but what? It's not like Barb and Limeylizzie ever even invited *US* to their white-cotton-pantie tickle fights.
Thank you. High praise.
Guess I'll have to be Herman Cain, or something.
Clearly, your avatar has the power to cause attrition among its targets, like an intensedebate voodoo doll. Perhaps you could focus its power on journalists (Erin Burnett comes to mind), now that the field of Republican candidates has been decimated. LET LOOSE THE CLOWN WIGS OF WAR
I just can't understand why they'd stop with only "one."
Brilliant! I had asked Extemporanus, in another thread, for new nym suggestions, but I like this one SO much, especially if it works as well on the media whores as it did on the political ones. I shall be JOURNALISTS!
Thanks, ntD!
While I wholeheartedly approve of this new strategy, I MUST KNOW WHAT EXTEMPORANUS TOLD YOU. Whatever it was, it's probably worth doing.
He asked if I had planned a new Whore's Menses of the Apocalypse for my next nym/av. Unfortunately, much as I like it, Whore's Menses of the Apocalypse is way too long. IntenseDebate has a character limit.
Thank you!
I should be getting my camera back by the end of the week so I'll be out taking pictures of birds and shit real soon.
Hooray!
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