Job appreciation weeks we’ll never see

Just like National Butterscotch Brownie Day, National Lost Sock Memorial Day, National Sleepover Day and National Third Shift Workers Day is all on the same day, Teacher Appreciation Week and Nurses Appreciation Week are both during the same week. This week. With the fine job nurses and teachers do, couldn't they get their own week? Did they have to do sharesies? Are there so many jobs being celebrated with national weeks that they had to double up?

If this is all just too much celebrating for you, rest assured the following jobs will likely never be honored or appreciated with their own week. We will never see any of the following.

Beach Badge Checker Appreciation Week — A week to honor the men and women (okay, more like vapid boys and girls) who get paid to sit on chairs tanning and texting while occasionally ruining people's whole day by shaking them down for blood money to step on their precious sand and making sure no 2% by volume wine cooler makes it onto the beach. What do you think you're on vacation or something?

Parking Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week — A time to pay respect to the officers who (should we even be calling them officers? Can they affect an arrest? Do they have any gear except that stupid ticket book and a pen?) keep the revenue flowing into local coffers in places like Asbury Park and Jersey City. If it weren't for these fine men and women we motorists wouldn't be able to, uh, well leave our cars someplace for free while we spend money supporting their local businesses I suppose.

Politician Appreciation Week — The lying, the stealing, the cheating; it's like every bad ex you ever had all rolled up into one. Behold the New Jersey politician. Its natural prey is any civilian with money left in their pockets. If it weren't for these creatures who hunt in packs we'd be stuck living in an affordable state with little red tape strangling business and who needs that? It's far more interesting to live life paycheck to paycheck plotting our escape routes from this death trap. Thanks for keeping us on our toes Mr. Politician guy!

Painfully Slow Dead-eyed Cashier Appreciation Week — When life moves too quickly and you need a break from things like picking your child up from daycare on time so you're not charged $5 for every 2 minutes you're late in comes the painfully slow dead-eyed cashier to put things in perspective. You can often find them at WalMart or anyplace with low wages offering no incentive for caring. Yes when life gets too hectic a great way to stop and smell the impulse rack Chap Stick is with these good folks. Here's to you! Keeping us from getting on with our busy day is what you're all about. You barely look ambulatory, so you ringing those items up at a clip of 3 per minute is truly awe inspiring.

Toll Collector Appreciation Week — Still working towards paying off those roads so those toll booths come down, these stalwarts of our premium highways are some of the unfriendliest folks around. If lack of eye contact or the absence of even the slightest acknowledgement is your thing you're in luck cuz this crew will always deliver. You wonder how they could still exist with advancing technology and yet there some still are, handing sweaty singles back into your palm like it's 1972. We salute you Mr. and Mrs. Toll Collector! The only problem is by the time we get up to your booth half of this appreciation week will be gone.

Heavily Accented Customer Service Rep Appreciation Week — Celebrating inclusivity and swimming like a happy minnow in the Jersey melting pot never gets better than when you have to talk to a customer service representative on the phone to handle a complex company screw up and you can barely understand the gibberish they're speaking. You're in New Jersey, calling a New Jersey company, for work they botched in New Jersey, and your call is answered in Bangalore, India by a guy named Tom of course. Thus your appreciation begins. Every sentence ends with okay?, and you swear somewhere in the middle were the words cheesecloth, flibbertigibbet and Spanx. You'd ask to speak to a supervisor but you know you'll be transferred to either Thailand or the International Space Station. We appreciate these folks because they let us know the American dream is alive and well and living abroad.

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