Layout Confusion

I just found out that my on-line provider has yet again altered its home page. At least the layout isn’t drastically different this time. Am I the only person who finds this frustrating?

My life is chaos much of the time, hence the continuing lack of balance regarding work, family and free time. Every time balance seems imminent, I face-plant into the net. So, when I actually have time to check email or post a blog, I don’t want to waste it navigating a new home page.

Have you noticed Costco also uses this technique? As if navigating around excess patrons, seasonal displays and sample-station bottlenecks isn’t challenge enough...

H.R. doesn’t post signs telling you they’ve shifted merchandise—you walk in unawares, planning the safest ingress. Fifteen minutes later, panting and bruised, you've reached the peanut-butter aisle. Only...it’s no longer the peanut-butter aisle. It now houses fast-food condiments, which, under different circumstances, you might find ironic or mildly humorous…

I’m sure the marketing strategy is based on customers viewing new items, thereby increasing sales. I’m also sure employees take bets regarding customer confusion while zipping around during nightly forklift missions. The driver sporting ketchup stains is my handiwork.

I realized the extent of my frustrations during a teaching conference last weekend. I attended a workshop regarding children’s anger management. The instructor gave each attendee a ball of play dough, explaining its stress-relieving value.

I spent her lecture squashing play dough in my hands, rolling it into balls which I promptly flattened, rolling it into snakes which I coiled and promptly flattened… I was quite relaxed by the end of class.

Standing to leave, I glanced at the table behind me, stunned. That participant had spent the workshop sculpting an intricate play-dough basket, filled with intricate, realistic flowers. She’d also made a detailed frosted cake. Mentally, I promptly flattened her works of art, deciding she had serious repression issues requiring psychiatric evaluation…

More coffee, please...