Category Archives: Social comment

Social comment

How to do a labor protest wrong

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Today I’m driving through one of our town’s major intersections, and out in front of Gold’s Gym I see three people holding up a large banner about a labor dispute with Gold’s.  Hmmm.  Okay, well, in general I tend to be friendly to labor in labor disputes, so I loop around and park nearby.  I wander over to find out what it’s about, radiating a friendly aspect.

The picket captain in her orange vest comes over, and it goes something like this:

“Hi, what’s the dispute about?”

“Well, we’re protesting blah blah blah which I can’t talk about for obvious legal reasons, blah blah, but here is a sheet about what the protest is about and it’ll tell you all right there.”  She clearly wanted me gone, mystifying to me, as it doesn’t take three people to hold up that sign.

“You can’t tell me about the dispute?”

“No.  Are in a union, or close to someone who is?”

A little smile.  “You might say that.”  And I’m thinking, Lady, I’m married to one of the most dynamic labor leaders in the whole state of Washington.  If you refuse to even have a conversation with me, your cause is doomed because you are too dumb.  You didn’t even probe that statement.  You should have.  My wife would have been interested.

“Well, everything is in the flyer, so hope you enjoy reading it, and have a nice day.”  She walks off on me.  I’ve barely said a word.  No discussion occurred, no accepting the opportunity to enlist support, not even from someone who walked up and showed interest.  There I am, standing on the grass alone, holding a piece of green paper.  Dismissed.

Bewildered, I walk away reading the flyer with the headline:  SHAME ON GOLD’S GYM For Desecration of the American Way of Life.  Underneath it, it has a rat eating the US flag.  Well, that’s about my personal opinion of both our major parties and their governing abilities, so if they are trying to shock me, that’s not very effective.  I get to reading it, and essentially Gold’s hired a contractor who hired a subcontractor that doesn’t pay the carpenters standard union wages and benefits.  How this is an issue she cannot discuss for ‘obvious legal reasons’ is beyond me.  Why she brushes off a gold-plated chance to make her union’s case to me is even farther beyond me.  It’s an area with very little foot traffic.

For the record, the flyer is authored by the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.  It urges me to call some guy and urge him to change the situation.  Yeah, I’m really sure he’s still taking calls today.

On second thought, at the rate these people are going, maybe he doesn’t even realize there’s a picket.

When I get home, I decide to call the information number to let them know what kind of shape their picket is in.  A recording: please leave your name and number and we’ll have someone call you.

You know what? Nah, I think not. Figure it out yourself.  No wonder organized labor can’t counter the negative propaganda about itself–when given the opportunity and a receptive audience, it won’t talk to it.  It hands it a piece of paper and walks off.

PS:  A friend of mine from Sweden, Mattias, has suggested that they may actually have been rental protesters.  I guess there are companies out there who can be hired to protest, and their own contracts forbid them to talk about the actual issues for legal reasons.  That would fill in a gap of understanding, although she was still an idiot, as the “obvious legal reasons” were hardly obvious to me.  Next time I’ll have a bolt in the quiver:

“So, are you rented protesters or are you actually union members and sympathizers?”

“We can’t talk about that for legal reasons.”

“Heh, thanks.  I have my answer.”

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Why do sportswriters give free pimpage to bowl sponsors?

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I don’t see how ESPN gets paid for doing this, but they do it.  Right here, we have Ted Miller calling every bowl game by its full sponsor name.  Miller is in general a very capable reporter, and I’m a regular reader, but this baffles me.

Some would say that the game should be called by its full name (whatever it is this year) on principle.  Why is that a principle? If you are going to watch the Rose Bowl (which is not being played properly this year, very sadly), you presumably do not care whether it’s sponsored by Coors, Berkshire Hathaway or Joe’s Quikki-Mart.  You care who wins, or if it’s an entertaining game.  Surely ESPN is not getting money to make its writers do it, which would mean that the worst that could happen would be that Rotten.com (or whoever is the sponsor) writes them a nastygram, and ESPN answers, “Pay up if you want advertising.  You bought the bowl, not the media reporting.”  Instead, Miller continues to do this, as he has done in years past.

I do not get it. Unless it’s a friend, or they pay me, I don’t advertise for anyone if I can help it.  Buying a new car? Won’t drive it off the lot with the dealer’s license plate frame in place.  Wear an Old Navy shirt? You’re kidding, I hope.  Old Navy should pay me to wear their shirts, not charge me for advertising.

Maybe Miller is ordered by the brass to do this.  Maybe he just adores our precious major corporations.  Either way, to me, it detracts from his journalism.  Because as far as I’m concerned, UW is playing Baylor in the Alamo Bowl.  I don’t even want to know who sponsors it.  I don’t care.

Social comment

Pizza Hut dishonors coupons–really!

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I was too amused to be annoyed.  Called up to order pizza from PH, current coupon in hand.  It included 10 hot wings and a large pizza, about as simple as it gets.  Slam dunk.

Phone guy, after talking to manager:  “Uh, we can’t do that, our wings come prepackaged and we can only do packages of eight.”

Me:  “Coupon says ten.”

PG:  “They changed everything around just yesterday, we only have packs of eight.”

Me:  “So you’re going to dishonor the coupon?”

PG (defensively):  “You can talk to the manager if you want.”

Me (quite calmly):  “No need.  It’s a simple question; ask whoever you need to ask.  Yes or no:  are you actually going to dishonor a current coupon?”

PG:  “We can’t do ten wings.  They changed everything.”

Me:  “Not my issue.  Yes or no:  going to honor or dishonor your coupon?”

PG:  “I guess the answer would be we’re going to dishonor it.”

Me:  “Okay, thanks, then no need to place the order.  Bye.”

It’s not that I am greatly bothered over a couple of chicken wings.  It’s not that the Pizza Hut (818 N Vineyard, Kennewick, WA) evidently isn’t very well run.  It’s that the guy couldn’t even think sensibly enough to ask his manager to do something intelligent.  The coupon came in one of those mailed coupon packs, so they have to know they’ll hear about this again; obviously a manager needs to devise some form of counter-offer if the coupon is somehow physically impossible to fulfill.  I’m receptive to almost anything except ‘tough beans’ as an answer; ‘tough beans’ basically says “we are dishonoring our advertising, and screw you if you don’t like it–we simply don’t care.”

So I called PH’s customer satisfaction hotline, carefully concealed on their webpage in hopes that no one would call.  The automated answering system did its all to convince me I couldn’t even talk to a person, but I’m persistent.  It put me on a protracted hold, then hung up on me after about five minutes.  Tried again, silent void.

WWHCD? He might get confused if you ask him to locate Libya on a map, but he knew a lot about how not to screw up selling pizza.

What better way to entertain myself while on protracted hold than by blogging the experience to share with the world?

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Penn State

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Well, that’s about as painful as it gets.  All of a sudden UW going 0-12 a few years back, and keeping Tyrone Willingham around purely out of Seattle racial guilt, doesn’t look quite as bad as it felt at the time.  I guess when they say ‘it could always be worse,’ this would be what they meant.

For those unfamiliar with the story, evidently a Penn State assistant football coach has been raping young boys at their facilities for a decade at least, and evidently the coaching staff and university knew to varying degrees that it was going on, and didn’t take steps to put a stop to it.  PSU’s head coach, Joe Paterno, was the longest-tenured and most admired coach in US college football, the symbol of Doing It Right.  So the idea of such an upstanding figure looking the other way, in a case like this, is something just about no one can feel neutral about.  The issue here:  while it happening is bad enough, people who know it happens–and allow it to continue–share at least some of the guilt.  In one especially bad aspect, an assistant (named, disastrously, McQueary) actually caught the rapist in the act at one point, and didn’t do anything about it so far as we’re aware.

Paterno, the AD, the boy-raping assistant, someone else in the athletic department and the president of the university have all been sacked, and several will face felony charges (not Paterno).  Look ahead to about ten years of litigation (probably longer than Paterno will live; he’s 84, had coached there since I was a toddler), profiting only lawyers.  The students are somewhat rioting in support of Paterno, and the country is taking sides.  You either want him and everyone involved hanging from a lamppost, or you think it’s a horrible disservice to the most visible symbol the school ever had.

My own take is that I don’t see either side doing a damn thing for the real victims, which are the boys who got raped.  I see all anger and recrimination, and I understand why, but I do not understand why no one can seem to spare some emotion for those who suffered most.  They certainly suffered more than a half dozen six- (in one case seven-) figure employees, though if a couple of those can’t buy their way into the nice jails, or out of jail altogether, those may get a taste of what the original victims experienced.  My dominant emotion here is not fury and punishment, but what can we do for the real innocents?

I wish I heard more of that, and less rioting and screaming and such.  We get so angry in these situations we forget to invest some energy in support for and kindness to the most damaged.

Social comment

Behavior vs. character

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Some people judge and react to you mainly by your behavior.  Others react primarily to your character.  Is it about doing, or being?

In the case of children at nearly all times, the primary reaction is to behavior.  (Not always.  We’ve all known children with character way beyond their years.)  In adults, behavior is usually the first evidence we have of who they are, so there it begins–but typically gives precedence to character in time.

This is why a child will try to rack up some good deeds to cancel out the bad deeds, or presume eternal forgiveness for all errors and misbehaviors; life is a ledger to them, gold stars and black marks, reward and penalty.  An adult–at least one who thinks like an adult–will seek to correct wrongdoing going forward as well as making amends or atonement.  After paying the bill, a child looks forward to getting by with the deed (or one like it) again.  Plenty of adults in relationships lapse into child thinking, or never actually grow out of it.  Entire segments of society have it as their foundation.  Most families would have no idea how to intrarelate without it, because family is most people’s refuge for bad character.  If you have people who will never reject you for lack of character, why bother to show them good character? For many, that really is what family boils down to.  Paradox:  that’s the low character response anyway.  In short, if one is of low character with family and high character with non-relatives, maybe it means one is of basic low character and just puts on a better front to the world.  Maybe it also means character can be situational, and that the entire subject is more nuanced and complex than I have thought through.  You tell me.  I don’t pretend to be an authority on this.  Dissect the fallacies in my thinking, and I will thank you.

Does behavior reflect character? Not always, but that’s really the fundamental question, is it not? If my wife says something cruel and unjustified to me, does that mean she’s of low character, or that she’s simply having a bad behavioral lapse? If she is of high character, such an utterance is out of her character, and doesn’t reflect who she is.  Of course, if she is of high character, it won’t be long before she’s pretty embarrassed by it, because it is not who she really is.  But while her words may have offended me, my fundamental reaction to her is to her character, not one action.  It would take more than one bad behavior to convince me her character had altered.  Hope she sees me the same way.  She must, because she has self-respect and she stays married to me.  Surely there’s something about my character she likes, because it certainly isn’t because of my mighty deeds (or mighty misdeeds never committed).

What got me thinking about this is a period of watching a child in an adult body, experiencing the world from one unsustainable pleasure or toy to the next, seemingly contrite over black marks and happy over gold stars, happy to do the minimum to get by.  The individual never fully grasped that it wasn’t about bookkeeping good and bad acts, but the development of personal character. And when it became clear that this person’s priority was not the same as my priority, there was nothing left to do but turn her/him loose to find it as s/he might.

Or might not.

Looking back at this, I am alarmed how much I sound like a mediocre Andy Rooney knockoff.  But I’m posting it anyway.  The disappointment hurt, and maybe talking about it will help.

Social comment, Technology

Sprint taken for a huge ongoing scam

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First, I refer you to this fascinating article:

How Sprint loses millions monthly

The amazing thing here is the utter toxicity of the culture there.  There are so many people in on the game that they can undo the efforts to stop it.

Deb and I can relate because the last time we renewed with Sprint, it was such a complete goat rodeo that we swore to fire them as soon as our contract was up, which is not far away.  I really cannot wait to be rid of this outfit, especially when I realize that my costs are higher because of losses from internal scams Sprint lacks the intellect or will to prevent.

Married life, Social comment

Facebook chain sermons about animal love

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Don’t get me wrong, I understand that a lot of folks find themselves deeply moved by some of these–and sometimes they even affect me.  Today I had a good rejoinder for one and was feeling self-promoting enough to share it, with the kind permission of Lisa, who gets props for being a great sport about it.  It accompanied a cartoon picture of a couple in bed, each perched on an edge, with several animals hogging the middle:

“IF I DIDN’T HAVE MY DOGS OR CATS:

  • I could walk around the yard barefoot in safety
  • My house could be carpeted instead of tiled and laminated
  • All flat surfaces, clothing, furniture and cars would be free of hair
  • When the doorbell rings, it wouldn’t sound like a kennel
  • When the doorbell rings, I could get to the door without wading through fuzzy bodies who got there before me
  • I could sit on the couch and bed the way I wanted without taking into consideration how much space several fur bodies would need to get comfortable.
  • I would have money and no guilt to go on a real vacation.
  • I would not be on a first-name basis with 6 veterinarians, as I put their yet unborn grandkids through college.
  • The most used words in my vocabulary would not be: out, sit, down, come, no, stay and leave it ALONE.
  • My house would not be cordoned off into zones with baby gates or barriers.
  • I would not talk ‘baby talk’. ‘Eat your din din’. ‘Yummy yummy for the tummy’…
  • My house would not look like a day care center, toys everywhere.
  • My pockets would not contain things like poop bags, treats and an extra leash.
  • I would no longer have to spell the words B-A-L-L, W-A-L-K, T-R-E-A-T, O-U-T, G-O, R-I-D-E, C-O-O-K-I-E.
  • I would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as outside.
  • I would not look strangely at people who think having ONE dog/cat ties them down too much
  • I’d look forward to spring and the rainy season instead of dreading ‘mud’ season.
  • I would not have to answer the question ‘Why do you have so many animals?’ from people who will never have the joy in their lives of knowing they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an ANGEL as they will ever get.”

How EMPTY my life would be!!!

[last known credit:  Wanda Jones]

I thought about it for a moment, then replied:

“Well, I’ll be able to go along with that the day an actual angel uses my basement as a celestial urinal, or lays a holy steamer next to my wife while she’s decorating our fake holiday tree, or throws up angel yack on my bedroom carpet causing naked me (coming in late and in the dark) to slip and fall on my bare ass in about six quarts of angel vomitus.”

No, I wasn’t making that up or exaggerating.  It happened about six years back.  We have a Labrador Retriever named Fabius.  I named him for Q. Fabius Maximus Verrocosus Cunctator, Dictator of Rome, for a number of reasons.  The chief one was that as a puppy (he was primarily ears and paws), Fabius would not come on his leash.  He delayed us frequently.  Fabius Maximus’ epithet ‘Cunctator’ means ‘the delayer’ or ‘the procrastinator,’ depending on whether you are admiring his tactics of wearing Hannibal down, or grousing that he doesn’t immediately win the war for Rome…’Fabian Tactics’ remain the term for this in military science to this day.  I finally had to drag him along until he got the idea, thus, ‘Fabius.’

Anyway, around 1:30 AM, I came in to go to bed, shucked my clothes in the pitch dark, and worked my way along the base of the bed with caution for the Thigh Hunters–the square bedpost capitals that seek out an author’s quadriceps if he is incautious in the dark, causing him to hiss a curse.  It did not occur to me that Fabius might have cut loose with a spectacular vomit on the carpet, nicely cooled down by now.  I stepped right in it, barefoot, slipped, and landed on my butt with a thud and a volley of pain-pumped swearing.  While I realize this is not what my lovely bride wants to wake her up at 1:30 AM, you try falling on your nalgas in dog puke at that hour (without advance warning, mind you) in silence.

Let me know how that went.

I didn’t take it out on Fabius.  While certainly one shouldn’t, I still think I deserve at least a minor commendation ribbon for not losing it.

Feel free to share your funniest pet disaster in the comments.

Social comment

On aging

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One of our greatest challenges in life and maturity is to see the world through other eyes, empathize with how other people feel.  There are limits to it.  A man may, with significant effort, apply the assumptions of femaleness to life, and see that life somewhat through her eyes.  An adult may quite easily see the world through a child’s eyes, having once owned a pair.  A white person will probably strain to empathize with the experience of being black, but to a degree, it can be done.  Most of this is really a matter of thinking things through:  what would it be like for the other person, and what attitudes, preferences and behaviors does this explain?

One firm bar exists that I do not think we can breach:  age.  I’m 48.  At 24, half a life ago, I could not have conceived how it felt to be double my age, much less quadruple.  This, it seems, only years confer.  My grandmother is 92, nearly double my current age.  The impact of the changes, cycles, generations, the sheer accumulated mass of people she has known, the realization that a vast percentage of them have passed on, the icy reality that even in excellent health and with much luck, the clock of life ticks ahead, these I believe are beyond me despite the greatest effort I might make.

This is why it’s good to talk to people older than ourselves.  They simply know things we do not.  Even a glimmer of their realizations is precious to those of us younger.  And once those realizations fall silent and still with the passing of life, or fade into forgetfulness or loss of mind, they are lost and gone forever.  There will be others, but that set of memories and that gathered mass of realization is no longer available.

I think of this sometimes when working with older clients, and as I become elder myself. Much is there to learn, and to teach if people wish to learn.

I will share with you one bit of that elderly wisdom I gathered up, just over half a lifetime ago.  It was the time Queen Elizabeth II came to UW for a visit, and ROTC cadets and midshipmen were invited to volunteer to help the police and Secret Service with security.  There’s a lot else about the story, but the pertinent part here is where we were assigned to help usher people to their seats.

Well, the bleachers at Hec Ed are not always an easy climb for the ancient and frail.  Noting a very elderly lady struggling to get up to her place, a NROTC midshipman and I simultaneously arrived at her sides.  We somewhat helped and somewhat lifted the lady up the bleachers into her seat.  An unremarkable act of duty in itself, but what was remarkable was her eyes, eyes that had known at least four British monarchs despite Her Majesty’s considerable longevity.  As we set her down gently on the varnished wood, she looked at each of us in turn with an intensity that pierced the soul.  She said quietly but very firmly, “Thank you, you young gentlemen.  Someday, someone will do this for you.”

You’re welcome, ma’am, but I wasn’t the giver.  What I gave was insignificant in comparison to what I received.

Adventures, Social comment

Grandmother’s Land

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For our anniversary, we went up to Canada.  It was a great pleasure:  marital togetherness, great hosts, all the scenic beauty Canada has to offer, the basic warm goodwill of rural Canadians, and Tim Horton’s.

Did you know that Indians of the northern Rockies referred to Canada as the Land of the Great Grandmother? We’ve all heard, of course, about the concept of the Great White Father in D.C., though I suspect a few of the Indians realized how utterly paternalistic the reference was (among its other detracting characteristics).  Anyway, since Victoria I was Queen of Canada during the white invasion of the West, and Canada was often thought a refuge (often it was anything but), some Indians called it after Her Majesty.

One of the best parts was our success at smuggling by full disclosure.  We were bringing two six-packs of Ice Harbor IPA to our friends, plus some homemade salsa.  Problem:  you cannot bring in alcohol as a gift duty-free.  If it’s for your own consumption, yes; as a gift, no.  You also can get in trouble bringing in homemade food.  Bozo, our navigator and planner, put the salsa in with the beer in bubble-wrap to keep it safe.

So we get to the border.  I won’t name the crossing lest it get the guard in trouble.  Customs Canada, which isn’t called that anymore, asked most of the usual questions.  They are more inquisitive nowadays, and make an effort to catch one in a fishy story.

“Do you have any alcohol?”

“Yes, two six-packs of beer.”

“For your own consumption?”

“No, it’s a gift for our friends.”  This was an answer so retardedly honest it was plausible.

“In the future, you may want to reconsider that.  The duties are fairly punitive on alcohol, unless it is for your own consumption.  Please pull around to the left and stop, remaining in your vehicle.”

I was pretty sure we were going to be in trouble, at least to the tune of C$50 for the duty.  When I saw a sign about a C$1000 fine directly before us, I assumed the salsa would be found when they inspected.  We would be asked why we had not disclosed it, and there would not really be a very good reason.  Ouch, ouch.  However, I have an inkling that when they have you pull around, in part they are watching to see if you hurriedly dive back into the back seat and start trying to rearrange things/cover up contraband.  That would have been very unwise, so we just sat cool. After a few minutes, the officer brought back our passports and wished us a safe drive.  No duty, and no trouble for the salsa!

When we reached Jenn and Marcel’s (our wonderful hosts), Jenn advised me from the description that we’d gotten the border guard she considered a ‘douchebag.’  Well, all I can say is that in our case he combined taking his duty seriously with a sense of fairness and goodwill, which is a great combo in a border guard.

Score one for giving a response so self-adversely candid and true that it is believed, since no one would make up something like that.   And thank you, Customs Canada, for not being rough on us.

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Why the US Postal Service is sinking

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Today we had a perfect metaphor for why the P.O. can’t get any revenue and why the private sector is eating its lunch.

I had to mail some valuables to Seattle.  I wanted to insure them.  I could have gone to the post office; my route took me right past it.  Why did I not want to do that? Because the postal employees there make it quite clear that my personal satisfaction is not a priority.  The rules are the rules, they take pleasure in articulating them, and they seem to enjoy when it turns out to be a lot more expensive than one imagined.  Plus, you cannot get angry at them; the slightest action that could even be imagined by the most paranoid mind could be construed as one of the various felonies against the postal service which are punishable with heavy fines and long imprisonment.  In short, one has to just take it.  Or go elsewhere, which I prefer.  So already, we are with me preferring not to deal with the option that should be easiest and cheapest.

So I go to my usual mail place, where they are helpful and friendly and offer a variety of shipping options, including USPS, which is probably what I’ll use anyway.  (My complaint is not that they fail to carry the mail reliably–at that, they do fairly well.)  I explain what I want to do, assuming it’ll cost a little extra, which is fair.  They regretfully inform me that they can’t do insured mail anymore.  Why? Evidently the USPS took that option away.  Brilliant!  Force people to come to the dungeon since you can’t entice them with pleasant helpfulness!  So I ask what my options are.  My mail place makes three phone calls on my behalf (try getting the post office to do that).  Short version:  I could send it registered through them, for a hefty fee, but if I want it insured I must go to the post office.

I think about this possibility.  I could do that.  Then I do mental math, and based entirely on past experience, figure out that it will be significantly more expensive than my most irrational upward estimates.  Plus, no one there has any incentive to be helpful–I’m just annoying extra work to them, a pain to be endured, one more person in the long line.  I decide that insuring it just isn’t going to happen, and I send it UPS with a tracking number.

So, let’s recap.  Basic aversion to cold indifference and apathy sent me elsewhere, where I learned that in order to do what I wanted to do, thanks to the PO trying to force people to go to its facilities to use its services, I have to go to cold indifference and apathyland.  And I get disgusted enough that rather than do that, I choose to do without the service.  It bothers me that they get to be the government when they want to make rules, and a corporation when they want to advertise and make money, able to punish the competition by fiat on a whim.

What’s more, I’m one of their few remaining customers who actually buys stamps and mails first class letters (specifically, paying my bills).  I buy the stamps from someplace other than a P.O. and choose to pay more rather than go there.  I’m one of the holdouts who refuses to bank online, to have a debit card, to allow automatic withdrawals from my checking, or to make payment online at the company’s website.  I am one of their last old school customers.  And I don’t want to go to their store and transact business.  I would rather pay more and go to some other vendor.

That isn’t the only reason the USPS is in a state of fail, but I can’t believe I am the only one, and it’s certainly one reason.