Text 10683, 66 rader
Skriven 2014-03-08 14:51:54 av Nancy Backus (1:261/1381.0)
  Kommentar till text 10606 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Re: various fantasies 295
=================================
-=> Quoting MICHAEL LOO to NANCY BACKUS on 06 Mar 14  09:48:00 <=-

 ML> dormice
 JW>> Use of dormice for food and fur and of dormouse
 JW>> fat as a medicament is documented there since the 13th century.
 ML>> Dormice for fur? Ever seen a dormouse? Barbie doll
 ML>> coats, maybe.
 NB>> You take many a tiny fur and sew them altogether to make whatever fur
 NB>> garment one desires...  after all, one needs a number of them to make
 NB>> a meal, too...  ;)
 ML> Are they so common as to allow for this? If so, why would
 ML> the country be so overrun with them?

They might have been a lot more common back in the 13th century... :) 
Admittedly, most of my experience with them is literary... as one of the
participants (somewhat) at Alice's tea party...  ;)

 ML>>  Objection two is the thickness of the, er, pelt. The more I think
 ML>> on this the more I think it's a spoof.
 NB>> Dunno... pieced quilts often are made of a gazillion tiny pieces
 NB>> of cloth... why not dormice garments...?
 ML> I mentioned the thinness of mouse skin. Then there's the
 ML> practicality of it all (unless one could harvest hundreds
 ML> of the things at one go).
 
Maybe one could have, back in the day...  plus, likely, they'd have a
lot more patience, too, and might be working at putting together a
garment over a period of time, as the materials were gathered... 

 ML>> I think it may be time to do a field trip to investigate.
 NB>> That could be fun... :)
 ML> In not too long I will be flying directly over the country,
 ML> the cities of Velenje and Celje to be precise. Unfortunately,
 ML> a stopover would cost many thalers or whatever they call them.

Oh, well... ;)

 ML> time shifts
 NB>>> closest I've seen to "swing" in the sense I've always thought of
 NB>>> it was when Richard was at Home Depot, where one day he might be
 NB>>> opening the store and the next night closing it... or worse, vice
 NB>>> versa... no set schedule at all
 ML>> I've had friends (including another retired/redundified
 ML>> engineer) who have been subjected to such. It would seem
 ML>> to me that opening and closing should be matched to the
 ML>> particular skills of the employees, but what do I know.
 NB>> One would think... but apparently, this is typical of retail...
 ML> Why on earth did such a destructive system evolve? It's
 ML> bad for the employees and efficiency both. What's the
 ML> point of a system that guarantees that the workers will
 ML> screw up their work and their lives as much as possible?
 ML> I'd have hoped for more enlightened personnel management.

I suspect that it has roots in the nature of retail hiring only or
primarily part-time employees... and then HR having to piece together
a schedule based on availabilities, etc...  And then there are some
employees one wouldn't trust either with opening the store or with
closing it...  It doesn't help when employees are seen merely as pieces
to move around, rather than people with lives...   Home health care is
often even worse... from what I've seen...  

ttyl         neb

... Kernel Error -- A squirrel ate it
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20
 * Origin: The Holodeck BBS  telnet://holo.homeip.net:2323 (1:261/1381)