Is it a conspiracy?

So just about everything you buy today is from a foreign country. I'm not one to particularly care where something originated from but with the numerous cases of lead from China, I do like to watch the labels.
As the new school year started, we began the search for a lunchbox. After examining every lunch box on the shelves, Sweetpea picked an adorable panda bear lunchbox. Attached was a large tag indicating it was "LEAD FREE". Oh good, at least I don't have to worry about that and we took it home with us.
That evening while I was removing all of the tags I turned the cute fuzzy lunch box around to find this...

Okay, is it just me or do you find these Fun Facts a bit upsetting? I'm all for sharing educational tidbits about pandas but did they have to make ALL the S's backwards? Isn't it hard enough for most children to learn the proper direction for letters to face? Why would you go and put something intentionally incorrect just to be "cute". I would assume the target audience for these are not adults who know better, but children who learn from what they see.

So is this an evil ploy to disrupt the American educational system? Probably not. I did write a letter of concern to the parent company though. I'm not sure I'll get a response though. They may not be able to read it with all of my letters facing the proper way!

Just complaining...

How do you handle people who annoy you with the things they do? This is a question I debate on days like today. My team at work is comprised of 5 people. Our boss and 4 of us who perform the daily work. This week our boss is on vacation so I have to perform his duties and another team member is also out. This leaves us with 2 people performing daily tasks instead of 4. I am also involved in a 3 day seminar which leaves me with no spare time for any additional work. Our one team member (who is still "new" to the job) has been doing a great job of keeping up with eveything. The other one hasn't been doing his fair share. Then I come in today to find out that he is taking a last minute half a day of vacation today and a full day tomorrow. He got this approved by the director (who of course said sure, she doesn't know our workload issues). I am so annoyed right now. Due to this I am skipping the final day of the seminar so I can at least be here to cover for his absence. He also does this type of stuff all of the time (taking off early, leaving because he has a headache, calling in sick the day after he took a vacation day, and calling out when he knows we are short staffed). One last point to mention is that Fridays are always rough around here. It is only on Fridays that last minute emergencies arise that require people to stay late or work from home (which he complains about if he has to be the one to stay past 4:30 when he only comes into work at 8:30).
So here is the question? Do I mention it directly to my boss when he returns? Do I just deal with it and move on? Do I put it in his mid-year review which I have to write this week? What would you do? Have you ever dealt with someone like this before?

Ok I guess I'll get back to work, just wanted to vent a bit.

Where has the world gone....

This weekend was my nephew's birthday and he requested that we all go to Hershey Park. So on Saturday the family met at Hershey. Now since it was a beautiful day the park was filled to overflowing and the lines were long but it is what it is. We knew going in (just by looking at the filled to capacity parking lot) that it was going to be a long day but it is a good chance to hang out with family and spend some nice time together. We had an overall enjoyable day and Sweetpea did a very good job of walking and standing in line (we told her since she is 5 now she can no longer have a stroller). One thing really annoyed me though, and that is other people who have no compassion for anyone else. We were standing in line for the Comet at about 10 pm (so everyone was tired) and they have soda machines in the line. A man about 6 people in front of us stopped to get a drink from the machine. Invariably as he is fighting with the dollar bill the line in front of him moved up a few feet. Now we were still very far away from the actual ride and had at least another 30 minutes of waiting to go so if we didn't move right away we weren't going to miss anything. So this poor man is standing there trying to get a drink and the people behind us start complaining that he isn't moving up (when if you just look you can see what he is doing). They are going on about how "this is ridiculous, why can't he move up, he doesn't really need a drink, etc." Then the woman suggests they cut the line and duck under the pole to get in front of the man and of course all of us behind him. OK that is where the final straw comes in. I am not good at keeping my opinions to myself so I answered her. I told her that cutting the line is not appropriate and that she should be considerate of others and let the man get his drink. In addition, where did she think she was going to get anyway by jumping 6 feet ahead in the line? I didn't get a response (except for the dropped jaw) but they didn't cut the line either. I really just want to know what part of our lives (and society) have changed where we no longer care about anyone around us and their needs and all we want is to rush rush rush. Is there any harm in caring for strangers? I know I want Sweetpea to be considerate of others and I try to teach her that. I also know that there are times I am the one rushing through life and being inconsiderate of others but at least I try. So perhaps I was rude by saying something but ughghh people just annoy me sometimes. OK, done ranting for now...