Editor's Note: I am a bit leery to post this. All my readers know that I am a libertarian, and know that I am hitting a bit of a slump. I see no shame in temporary assistance. In fact, given the miserable nature of the current economic climate, the advantages outweigh, at this time, the disadvantages (I assure you we'll discuss that sad state eventually). I do hope to eventually find some reasonable work leveraging my talents into sufficient pay to justify the loss of benefits, thus re-establishing my anti-authoritarian Free-Market cred.
Until then, we work with what we got, eh?
Today, I "swept" my floor on my hands and knees, using an old T-shirt and vinegar soap. Two things occurred to me, as I bent and hunched over the tiles. Chiefly:
1) I need to lose weight. Seriously, I looked ridiculous and felt unhealthy, like a ponderous hippo.
2) Why can't I buy cleaning supplies with food stamps? What do people do for a broom?
I did a bit of research on the Internet to take a look. What do food stamp recipients do when they need to clean their house? After all, the absolute worst thing you can do as a poor person is look poor.
And it's a small way to feel some dignity over the less-than-stellar situation they find themselves.
The Internet is full of ideas. The best frugal cleaning information came from rich hipsters who are rediscovering the techniques of their grandparents - those whom lived through the great depression.
If you want to help the poor in your neighborhood, but feel cash is gauche or risks enabling alcoholism or drug use, I suggest the following items. Most can be bought if someone is receiving SNAP or TANF. They are not available on food stamps.
.Some of these seem counter-intuitive. I don't want to repeat this list.
1) Paper products.
Going to start off with a touchy subject. They don't provide a lot of paper products at the Food Pantry, and you can't buy them with Food Stamps. Not sure why - it's not like their are many ways to use Toilet Paper to commit crimes - unless you count it's actual use. I admit that sometimes I think my movements are criminal.
The Food Pantry offers 1 4-pack of rolls a month. Given the diet the food pantry provides, you'd think they'd be more aware of it's gastrointestinal effects and provide accordingly. TP is not something most people think to donate and it is possibly the best thing in the world.
2) Cleaning Supplies
Do you have an old plastic bucket lying about? Maybe a broom? How about some old T-shirts and a scissors? This is actually more important than cleaning chemicals - some of which can be purchased with food stamps. But all the food into cleaner recipes require lidded jars, buckets, bowls and cups, and cleaning requires sponges, rags, and brooms. Seriously, I'd give my left kidney for a broom*
3) Soap
Soap is huge as well. Laundry detergent, shampoo, body soap. dish soap. The food pantry let's you pick one. One. Shampoo or body wash or bar soap, but not all. And you can't buy this with food stamps. Fels-Naptha is a great cheap soap for laundry. Any cheap soap will do. Soap is a little expensive. Go for large scale brands like Dial or Irish Spring. It may seem nice to buy fancy goat-milk soap that smells like unicorn butts and lavender, but these expensive tend to be burned through quickly.
4) Cleaning Chemicals
I like the smell of chemicals like bleach and Windex. I'm weird. But the Food Pantry doesn't offer much by way of solutions.
What makes this so low on the list is that vinegar and baking soda do nicely for cleaning and are available on food stamps. My kitchen smells like vinegar, but it's clean, and shall remain ant-free.
5) Cooking Supplies
Many cleaning hacks require some equipment, a blender, or . Do you have a spare blender? Maybe some canning jars or some large bowls? Rather than dump these on Goodwill, give them to someone who can use them. Much can be done with a frying pan and a baking dish, but more can be done with a blender.
There you go. A list of things not normally given to the impoverished that can make their life much better.
*Thanks to type II diabetes, that's probably all it's worth anyways.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
I was mugged today.
I was mugged today.
Soon I shall be kidnapped.
It was very clever if him, the mugger. Several cars and a
beer truck passed by; a few looked before moving on. People walked,
oblivious or unaware at what was happening. The mugger was very clever. Most
muggers skulk in shadows, this one stood out, openly, brazenly.
I can't say I didn't notice him, out in the sun. . Seeing him,
I stiffened, whispered an oath. It's
terrible to say, but I knew immediately what he was and his intent. Maybe it was the clothes he wore, or
the car he drove. Perhaps it was a sixth
sense. I don't know.
I drove past, hoping he hadn't noticed me. He pulled out
behind to follow, I knew I was his mark. I hoped, foolishly, that he perhaps had received some instructions and would leave me at peace. But when he
turned on the lights atop his car, my hopes were dashed in the strobe of red and blue
My mugger was incredibly clever, you see. With his blue
uniform, his white car topped with attention-grabbing lights, and his gold badge, I could have easily mistaken him
for a police officer. But the gun on his hip and the restraints on his belt
displayed, without doubt, that he was an agent of force. And he would use the force to steal from my wallet.
He was clever, very clever. He had pulled me over,
ostensibly, for public safety. My taillight was broken. And it was, having taken water some time ago. I feigned
passive ignorance. It's best not to make any sudden moves around those capable
of violence, nor to volunteer information to those you don't trust. "Did I know," he asked? I claimed I didn't. He chucked.
Be polite to the person with the gun. I remember my
self-defense classes.
He asked if I was in the racket. The racket, of course, is
where you pay in, betting you will crash a car. They call it "car insurance" Like a good citizen, I had paid my "premium" - though I would call it "the ante" or blind. Failure to do so and drive is punished with extortion. But I didn't have proof, he kindly noted that would be an extra pilfering.
He asked where I lived. See, the mugger can do this. If
anyone else asks, I can refuse. But to refuse the mugger leads quickly to assault and kidnapping.
So, reluctantly, I admitted my home.
He left to go back to his car. Most muggers attempt to make
the transaction expedient. They close in swiftly, demand your wallet, and escape. Not this one. They are clever. They are confident.
You may ask why didn't you run when he turned his back. Had I left, he would have given chase, called
on other gang members. They would have assaulted me, and kidnapped me, and
tossed me in a dungeon. That is how they deal with those who don't acquiesce.
So you can see why I was afraid to flee.
After waiting about 10 minutes, He returned. He handed me my license and a paper. I have 15 days to
repair the light, and 15 to produce proof I am in their i gambling racket. Failure
results in his gang issuing me a "citation" - piece of paper - a contract I did not sign but they enforced. And if I don't pay, well - accidents happen to those who don't pay up. They tend to find themselves securely ensconced in the slammer.
I
tried to plead with my mugger – I have no money. Could they at least mug
someone who has money?
No.
I won't be able to repair the light, I will be fined, and I
will be kidnapped.
No, you see we are all equally victims under their laws. Not laws that protect property or lives, but laws that allow for "cause."
What can they offer as an excuse? Do they make the city
safer? Perhaps. But not one block from the mugging, fifteen people walked casually
across a busy street. No crosswalk, no indication of their intent to cross to warn motorists. They simply strolled out
in front of cars hurrying to their destination. They trusted the vigilance of drivers. Compared to a
tail-light, that is very unsafe. Surely we ought have a mugger at that street, compelling, with threat of force, that they use the crosswalk.
Not five blocks away, I person was going fifty in a thirty, past a
government building and in defiance of speed limits. Surely his speed was unsafe speed limits, generally are to reduce the damage in accidents and ensure the driver can react. Sadly, my mugger was too
busy finishing his report to be there. And they coyly say they can't mug whom
they don't see. Surely we ought have a gang member stationed there, or several, lest these marks go on with their day un-accosted.
A gang-member, in his blue and with his badge of gold, on every corner. Sounds quaint. But if public safety is the issue, then they ought better ensure it.
A gang-member, in his blue and with his badge of gold, on every corner. Sounds quaint. But if public safety is the issue, then they ought better ensure it.
And how is kidnapping going to improve the circumstances? So
kidnapped, I cannot work, I cannot pay taxes. I shall be useless to the gang
leaders and gang shot-callers as a revenue stream. I shall only exist as a warning. "Do not resist when we mug you, but give your money quietly, lest we kidnap you!" In short, kidnapping is a short-term resolution.
Because that's not what mugging is all about. Safety? They do not
are for safety. City peace – not one whit. These are the polite lies they use to mask what they really want: money. They cannot offer a service that deserves it - when was the last time crime was prevented by a cop. They offer deterrent, perhaps (though most criminals simply return to their trade.) But deterrent is a small satisfaction when you are the victim of a crime.
If someone simply, on threat of
force, pilfered cash from your wallet. Why you'd call it a crime. And perhaps
you'd even get help. So long as that help wasn't busy mugging someone else, they will get around to your case - eventually. Too bad your wallet will have been emptied by then. .
So I am preparing to be kidnapped. I hope I can put myself at
the mercy of the shot-callers, and avoid this. But in the event I cannot, then
so be it. Better imprisonment then.
This all seems melodramatic. I assure you, I know. But what
kind of world do we live in when armed gangs run the cities, extort the
citizenry, and – through equal punishment, punish unequally? After all, where I
not poor, I could simply repair my car.
Arguing that a car is a luxury gets us nowhere. Your case rests on the use of force. We must have a license because to drive without one incurs the wrath of the gang. Yes, a car is not a right. But property, and it's use, is. It harms no one to use my vehicle with a busted taillight. They have not attempted to convince me, using reason, that my taillight endangers anyone sufficiently that I must be mugged. So they apply force.
They have the guns, they make the rules, I suppose.
So, this front line mugger, this reverse-Robin-Hood champion in the war against
the poor, as struck a double blow. I was
mugged today. Soon I shall be kidnapped.
Monday, September 15, 2014
A Mistake
As I apply for the umpteenth mcjob. As I send out countless digital resumes, I realized, once again, I made a terrible mistake.
Now,I am not one for great regret, but the other day, waiting for a meeting to determine my future among the "not-a-living-wage" type jobs, I found a book on tackling the"Brick Wall" of a tight, hyper-competative job market.
This book starts, with all, to find a direction. You have to know what you want. It asks that we perform an exercise called the Seven Stories. The premise is simple: write down 20 to 25 enjoyable accomplishments. Look back into childhood, in young adulthood, hobbies and in jobs orcareers you have held.
I did my list on the back of the folded piece of paper I snagged; some expired advertisement for well-passed Employment Fairs. When I have a phone, or camera, or scanner, I can prove it. Imagine a scribbled note here:
I want you to note something - something immediately apparent. Not a single accomplishment was related to IT, Technical Support, or call center work. I am reminded of 2001 when I had the option
to intern with an Art Instructor. Since I could not ratiocinate both work and the instruction with respect to time, I gave up on the internship, because you've got to work to eat.
The mistake has always been my inability to sacrifice a job for a career. I always chose the job: A small piddly, temporary thing over the work of a career: a long course. My head wa snever one for computers. I can work with computers, I understand their value, but I found them incredibly tedious to work with. Had I been able to find them even a bit interesting, perhaps I would have tried harder. But the work with them was about as interesting, and important to me, as one might feel working at Mcdonalds. And whilst working these jobs, I did not work on my talents/
When you have gifts, you must work in the direction to increase efficacy. If you have talent for something, it would be foolish to let it whither.
And I am not saying I am special (not in this post, anyway). I think we all have talents and I think most of us give up on using them. I want to say it's circumstances that lead us to this, but that's only half of it. Circumstances, internal and external can only become so obnoxious before your will is thwarted.
Mastering a skill boils down to desire overcoming obstacles. And success, and expertise, is simply displaying mastery in a skill. Your upbringing and genetics make it somewhat more easy to walk some paths than others. We call these talents.
When I was offered opportunities to master skills in my life, to test skills, I tended to withdraw. And this was my mistake. I was not prescient enough to realize the existential pain of regret would be far worse than the difficulty at the time.
I don't know if GenY has this problem. Do you? There seems a certainty among others that I never felt. Better parenting, better schools? Better information? The Internet has done wonders to help our self-esteem, and (destroy it).
All I can say, is, in wisdom borne from foolish mistakes plus years of making the same mistakes, is that if you have a passion, do make time to work on them. Work on them intensely, passionately, and consistently.
Now,I am not one for great regret, but the other day, waiting for a meeting to determine my future among the "not-a-living-wage" type jobs, I found a book on tackling the"Brick Wall" of a tight, hyper-competative job market.
This book starts, with all, to find a direction. You have to know what you want. It asks that we perform an exercise called the Seven Stories. The premise is simple: write down 20 to 25 enjoyable accomplishments. Look back into childhood, in young adulthood, hobbies and in jobs orcareers you have held.
I did my list on the back of the folded piece of paper I snagged; some expired advertisement for well-passed Employment Fairs. When I have a phone, or camera, or scanner, I can prove it. Imagine a scribbled note here:
Editors Note: Scribbly Note goes here. Use your imagination.Some items that were on the list were: Piggy Pirates, A relationship that helped me learn about relationships, myself, and people, My brief stint with chain mail, Several stories I wrote in college and my work in 400 University Drive and the Ubiquitous. A portrait of Ian Anderson that caused my father to not have a critical remark. Tutoring adults and children in several subjects and having them do well.
I want you to note something - something immediately apparent. Not a single accomplishment was related to IT, Technical Support, or call center work. I am reminded of 2001 when I had the option
to intern with an Art Instructor. Since I could not ratiocinate both work and the instruction with respect to time, I gave up on the internship, because you've got to work to eat.
The mistake has always been my inability to sacrifice a job for a career. I always chose the job: A small piddly, temporary thing over the work of a career: a long course. My head wa snever one for computers. I can work with computers, I understand their value, but I found them incredibly tedious to work with. Had I been able to find them even a bit interesting, perhaps I would have tried harder. But the work with them was about as interesting, and important to me, as one might feel working at Mcdonalds. And whilst working these jobs, I did not work on my talents/
When you have gifts, you must work in the direction to increase efficacy. If you have talent for something, it would be foolish to let it whither.
And I am not saying I am special (not in this post, anyway). I think we all have talents and I think most of us give up on using them. I want to say it's circumstances that lead us to this, but that's only half of it. Circumstances, internal and external can only become so obnoxious before your will is thwarted.
Mastering a skill boils down to desire overcoming obstacles. And success, and expertise, is simply displaying mastery in a skill. Your upbringing and genetics make it somewhat more easy to walk some paths than others. We call these talents.
When I was offered opportunities to master skills in my life, to test skills, I tended to withdraw. And this was my mistake. I was not prescient enough to realize the existential pain of regret would be far worse than the difficulty at the time.
I don't know if GenY has this problem. Do you? There seems a certainty among others that I never felt. Better parenting, better schools? Better information? The Internet has done wonders to help our self-esteem, and (destroy it).
All I can say, is, in wisdom borne from foolish mistakes plus years of making the same mistakes, is that if you have a passion, do make time to work on them. Work on them intensely, passionately, and consistently.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
More on Metrics.
Editor's Note:** According to our metrics, your donation makes increases beatings of the author by 21%. this, in turn, leads a 7% increase in writing quality and quantity. Your donations matter.
I realized, as I worked on this post, about Comcast, I have a lot to say about metrics. A whole lot. It's not an easy subject, and the corporate world loves metrics. Every middle manager in the country becomes flush at the sight of a report detailing the After Call Percent, the Labor Percent, and the time in queue. They are positively froth at the notion.
Now, I am going to upset a lot of people. Maybe I won't come off as an expert. I have a lot of experience with metrics. And before you say that studies show that metrics are the best performance measures we have, remember that whenever you say "best" you have to ask, for whom.
Metrics, in a lot of ways, are a justification. No company likes it's technical support division. This love-child of rapidly growing tech, coupled with furtive and error-prone tech, is a sinkhole for company money. I'd bet that half of R&D is basically just "make it less error prone." It's certainly cheaper.
But as technology increased, Tech Support became the second sales associate. We were the soft sell. "Hey, thanks for buying out product. All technology, even that car, has issues. We know that it's inconvenient when it doesn't work, let's get it working right for you."
The flip side - it's a sinkhole for companies to offer free support. They'd charge but most customers suffer a disconnect - they see a technician fiddle some buttons and then the computer works. The technological "wizardry" is largely subtle. When you take your car in for a repaire, they lift it up on blocks, pull out parts. It looks like work. It's easy to understand as actual skill. When a technician rapidly scrolls through text, presses a few buttons, reboots your computer, there doesn't seem to be any substance.
So the company wants a profit on a department and the customer doesn't want to pay for what looks like crystal waving hoodoo. But tech support needs to exist.
So Technical support managers use metrics because to the executives, who care only for the bottom line and who listen only to bean-counters, need, desperately need, to know why this red mark exists in the the ledger of their exchequer. They see this entire department that has no income and they can seem to justify it.
I don't understand why. They happily understand exchange of money for goods, at least - they ought. Unless, they don't. When they take their ski trips, do they not pay people for food? For shelter? Why do they think the $30 dollar bottle of hair product is worth it? I mean, their computers need fixing too. I get frustrated that I have to buy cleaning supplies, but after living in some lichen-coated ogre-caves in my past, I wouldn't be caught dead without at least a bottle of bleach. .
Metrics, in this case, justify something that ought need no justification. Tech Support is the second customer service. Once the item has been sold, follow-up falls, mostly, on service. If service is handcuffed to metrics, or poorly staffed, or poorly paid, you lose your ability to create meaningful and important customer experience. Yes, you will have a trickle of naive and bright-eyed techs who will begin the job with open-hearts. But your system will turn them into cowering, mumbling misanthropes in six months. And then, you'll need a retention team.
My point is exactly this: Metrics should never cost the customer experience. The customer experience needs to be managed. If you manage the customer they will have a bad experience.
Truth is, metrics are not all bad. On the contrary, someone I admire, Jon Taffer, uses a type of metric called analytics. He touts the "science of the bar business." He uses these metrics to aid the bar in increasing profit. But bars make money by improving and lengthening the positive customer experience. It's may sometimes come off as if you your chairs are 5 cm higher then profits increase 10%, but only because on TV, they edit and use shorthand. Bars make money on happy, well-served, pleasantly-buzzed-and-entertained customers. If a metric increases short-term profit for a bar at the cost of long term customers - then it isn't used.
Growth under the current system that puts profit first will fall. Profit is important, despite my difficulty understanding work, I can understand profit.
Good service, a good product, and good follow-up, is not a detriment to service. You don't make profit and then, as an afterthought, offer a good experience, or an experience. You don't begrudgingly slough off to work, petulant and angry like a spoiled child, (or yours truly). You don't try to mitigate it as a "unfortunate and unintended consequence."
You offer a service and a good experience, and, in trade, you are provided other services or goods, or the shorthand, money.
Imagine! Imagine the bar that, as a a consequence, has nice lighting and a dance floor. "What do you mean, we have to have good liquor and clean bars? I just want to sell drinks!" or a Pizza place? "Quality ingredients? Psh! Just sell them them ground up cardstock!*" How many people would be impressed by an executive with unwashed hair and a ratty suit?
And, as customers go elsewhere (assuming they can - Telecoms have the system locked up). You are left with needing "Retention specialists", basically glorified beggars and strong-arm experts who's sole purpose is to keep your unhappy customers on the hook. You are no better than some back alley clip joint.
If you need metrics to justify your position, you haven't adequately managed your value. And if you need, god help you, an extortionist in "retention." then you aren't providing a service worth retaining.
* I am talking to you Pizza Hut. Little Caesar's tastes better. And it's cheaper. You should be ashamed.
** It's just me, but I put on a spiffy bowler and a monocle.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Application to play Sysiphus
Editors Note: Trying a new thing. All instances of swear words have been replaced with other words. The author is woefully unaware of our trick. Let us know if you it.
I don't know how many of you are on the hunt for a job. I'll say I am, but the truth is I am half-heartedly engaged in the process. It's not that I don't want to work, it's just that I don't really want a job. If I, or anyone, is required to perform such a job, perhaps there should be some recompense in less hours? I mean, robots can do our work anyway.
Recently I got the chance to speak to my friend Linda, who is about my fathers age, about work. Labor. Her generation, and therefore my fathers, prided themselves on work. A good job, in a factory, marked your status in the community.
Even Norman Rockwell would find this quaint. A modern jaded hipster would find this the worst, hopeless conceit of a poor imagination. Not because we are afraid of work, but because the stable jobs are all low-wage unlivable jobs or high-stress paperwork jobs. Go on, read about the twenty hours staring at excel.
The truth is, the economy is sideways. The black-and-white Calvinistic, Austrian model of economics hasn't just been turned on it's ear, it's been kidnapped, gagged, and forced to inform people by the use of hoots, grunts, and interpretive dance.
Face it, the rules that applied back then simply don't anymore. Not in any meaningful way. Our parents, leaders, and corporate elite haven't informed us that the rules have changed. Partially from ignorance. But also, out of malice.
Job applications have certainly not changed for the better. They are, in all honestly, a hopeless bureaucracy,designed to inhibit, deter and prevent you from getting a job.
In my father's day, you could walk in, ask for a job, and get one, or told to get lost. And, if so rebuffed, you'd head down one door. "Hitting the pavement" was the euphemism for what you actually did. Now you apply on for Internet websites, press submit. Answer 400 questions about your personality. And though there are no right answers, clearly I answer them wrong because I never get a call back. i just send my application into the either.
And call on an application? They don't really do that anymore. They will call you.
Sure they will.
The worst so far, Qdoba. Do you really need to ask 300 questions. I go to Qdoba frequently, and the biggest question I have is: Can you find someone who can actually roll a borking burrito? fire the people who make those long personality tests, use that money to bus your burrito rollers to La Bamba for a day.
McDonald's was only slightly less aggravating. They ask a series of questions and you choose the question that most reflects your views. These are the same questions. For example
"OK" I clicked the former - though my boss has nose hairs you could land Apache gunships on.
So now what? Do I contradict myself or do I make Jack-the-ripper look like a children's educator?
Sure, it's a bit of hyperbole, but it still aggravates me. What does any of this have to do with pressing burgers and dropping fries in hot oil?
I'll tell you what, I ain't no slacker. Baby dolphins be damned.
Sparkfire kindly posted this graphic. I know it's bogus when it talks about farmers. "No Job Hunt. No Career improvement."
Nonsense. Farmer is one of the most important jobs. The plight of the farmer was not one of improvement, it was about the poor economic and political policies. Yes, being a feudal serf might have sucked. But barring disaster, a skilled farmer lived quite a good life in the US.
And besides, in this hyper-corporate project-based, intern-serfdom world. Maybe a stable job with consistent pay is just the thing we need.
I tell you Zach Weiner is positively prophetic. I suspect he has a lot of Millennial friends less-than-employed.
We are reaching the existential crisis of the Job Market. On one hand, we have a a bunch of slack-jawed sociopaths babbling about "returns on investments", "10 percent improvement in process efficacy" and "item action productivity", on the other, we have an overabundance labor jobs (replaced by automation) and service jobs "not meant to be a living wage." On the third, yes, third hand, we have an ever-swelling, leviathan-like government bureaucracy that exists to leech off the low- and moderately-waged and make serfs of those at the bottom. And the fourth hand we have people who, by virtue of illness, disability, or plain orn'riness, refuse to have anything to do with this nonsense.
Yes, the current job market is basically a 4-armed tentacled monster. In my nightmares it has Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama's face, melded like a sick love child.
And it's not like the basic rules have changed. So why the horse and pony show?
The massive tentacled beast destroying or economic possibilities does have some vestigial arms - farmers (often automated), medical technicians (rapidly becoming educated button mashers), the arts. Things that were, or are, still valued for producing. But the system doesn't like those arms. Bankers making money on bailouts hate to hear that maybe the guy that grows pumpkins is doing more for the country. At least the farmer isn't giving money to people who hate the US.
At least you can become a plumber or tradesman, with years of schooling and byzantine apprenticeships.
The markets are being made to keep people out.
But that's another blog post (or two, if I talk about neo-cottage revolutions). I'm losing my point today. Forgive me.
If you are, or were, looking for a job in an old way, you are right-borked. Unless you know somebody. And I am not even kidding.
That McDonald's job? I have applied at McDonald's before. That specific McDonald's, for a soul-sucking mcjob that I can work around my desire to not actually do that job. Something that lets me pretend that I will be an artist some day.
They have ignored my application, but a caseworker of mine works with and knows the manager there. And he says he will hook me up.
Networking required for a "not a livable wage" job. This is madness. Absolute madness. Regulation and litigation have made companies terrified of just giving a job.
If I weren't already a little on the batshit side, this would be enough to make me so.
If you can't talk to people and hob knob, you might as well enjoy mopping floors. It's not like starting a business is much an option. Even in the blog post above, he needed way more money than he new. if you are in poverty, how are you going to manage that?
Remember when we were told to get a good job and not to be an artist? Remember that? I sure as hell do.
That was before Patreon and Kickstarter made fools of all of us, except the damn fools that followed their dreams. It's a new world, and prescient as I might have been, I was sure dumb on that account.
I don't know how many of you are on the hunt for a job. I'll say I am, but the truth is I am half-heartedly engaged in the process. It's not that I don't want to work, it's just that I don't really want a job. If I, or anyone, is required to perform such a job, perhaps there should be some recompense in less hours? I mean, robots can do our work anyway.
Recently I got the chance to speak to my friend Linda, who is about my fathers age, about work. Labor. Her generation, and therefore my fathers, prided themselves on work. A good job, in a factory, marked your status in the community.
Even Norman Rockwell would find this quaint. A modern jaded hipster would find this the worst, hopeless conceit of a poor imagination. Not because we are afraid of work, but because the stable jobs are all low-wage unlivable jobs or high-stress paperwork jobs. Go on, read about the twenty hours staring at excel.
The truth is, the economy is sideways. The black-and-white Calvinistic, Austrian model of economics hasn't just been turned on it's ear, it's been kidnapped, gagged, and forced to inform people by the use of hoots, grunts, and interpretive dance.
Face it, the rules that applied back then simply don't anymore. Not in any meaningful way. Our parents, leaders, and corporate elite haven't informed us that the rules have changed. Partially from ignorance. But also, out of malice.
Job applications have certainly not changed for the better. They are, in all honestly, a hopeless bureaucracy,designed to inhibit, deter and prevent you from getting a job.
In my father's day, you could walk in, ask for a job, and get one, or told to get lost. And, if so rebuffed, you'd head down one door. "Hitting the pavement" was the euphemism for what you actually did. Now you apply on for Internet websites, press submit. Answer 400 questions about your personality. And though there are no right answers, clearly I answer them wrong because I never get a call back. i just send my application into the either.
And call on an application? They don't really do that anymore. They will call you.
Sure they will.
The worst so far, Qdoba. Do you really need to ask 300 questions. I go to Qdoba frequently, and the biggest question I have is: Can you find someone who can actually roll a borking burrito? fire the people who make those long personality tests, use that money to bus your burrito rollers to La Bamba for a day.
McDonald's was only slightly less aggravating. They ask a series of questions and you choose the question that most reflects your views. These are the same questions. For example
"I am a hard worker" vs "I like to watch butterflies fly into my bosses nose."
"OK" I clicked the former - though my boss has nose hairs you could land Apache gunships on.
"I am a lazy good-for-nothing slacker" vs "I eat baby dolphins because I hate life."
So now what? Do I contradict myself or do I make Jack-the-ripper look like a children's educator?
Sure, it's a bit of hyperbole, but it still aggravates me. What does any of this have to do with pressing burgers and dropping fries in hot oil?
I'll tell you what, I ain't no slacker. Baby dolphins be damned.
Sparkfire kindly posted this graphic. I know it's bogus when it talks about farmers. "No Job Hunt. No Career improvement."
Nonsense. Farmer is one of the most important jobs. The plight of the farmer was not one of improvement, it was about the poor economic and political policies. Yes, being a feudal serf might have sucked. But barring disaster, a skilled farmer lived quite a good life in the US.
And besides, in this hyper-corporate project-based, intern-serfdom world. Maybe a stable job with consistent pay is just the thing we need.
I tell you Zach Weiner is positively prophetic. I suspect he has a lot of Millennial friends less-than-employed.
We are reaching the existential crisis of the Job Market. On one hand, we have a a bunch of slack-jawed sociopaths babbling about "returns on investments", "10 percent improvement in process efficacy" and "item action productivity", on the other, we have an overabundance labor jobs (replaced by automation) and service jobs "not meant to be a living wage." On the third, yes, third hand, we have an ever-swelling, leviathan-like government bureaucracy that exists to leech off the low- and moderately-waged and make serfs of those at the bottom. And the fourth hand we have people who, by virtue of illness, disability, or plain orn'riness, refuse to have anything to do with this nonsense.
Yes, the current job market is basically a 4-armed tentacled monster. In my nightmares it has Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama's face, melded like a sick love child.
And it's not like the basic rules have changed. So why the horse and pony show?
The massive tentacled beast destroying or economic possibilities does have some vestigial arms - farmers (often automated), medical technicians (rapidly becoming educated button mashers), the arts. Things that were, or are, still valued for producing. But the system doesn't like those arms. Bankers making money on bailouts hate to hear that maybe the guy that grows pumpkins is doing more for the country. At least the farmer isn't giving money to people who hate the US.
At least you can become a plumber or tradesman, with years of schooling and byzantine apprenticeships.
The markets are being made to keep people out.
But that's another blog post (or two, if I talk about neo-cottage revolutions). I'm losing my point today. Forgive me.
If you are, or were, looking for a job in an old way, you are right-borked. Unless you know somebody. And I am not even kidding.
That McDonald's job? I have applied at McDonald's before. That specific McDonald's, for a soul-sucking mcjob that I can work around my desire to not actually do that job. Something that lets me pretend that I will be an artist some day.
They have ignored my application, but a caseworker of mine works with and knows the manager there. And he says he will hook me up.
Networking required for a "not a livable wage" job. This is madness. Absolute madness. Regulation and litigation have made companies terrified of just giving a job.
If I weren't already a little on the batshit side, this would be enough to make me so.
If you can't talk to people and hob knob, you might as well enjoy mopping floors. It's not like starting a business is much an option. Even in the blog post above, he needed way more money than he new. if you are in poverty, how are you going to manage that?
Remember when we were told to get a good job and not to be an artist? Remember that? I sure as hell do.
That was before Patreon and Kickstarter made fools of all of us, except the damn fools that followed their dreams. It's a new world, and prescient as I might have been, I was sure dumb on that account.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
The Comcast Effect.
I seem, very much, to be in a tizzy over the economy - specifically how we work, why we work, and what we work on. I think the whole system, created by industrialization, has turned like some modern-day ouroboros, onto itself. The mechanization and industrialization has ran away with regulations (and de-regulations) all in the wrong places. It's left the free market, good work, and the lower-class gasping in the dust.
As for the middle class, our current legislative body, from fed to state, and often local, stabbed it in 2002, it just took this long for it to bleed out. The middle class barely had tiem to gasp "Et tu?"
The ever-increasing hatred of Comcast is a bandwagon that has perhaps circle. Recordings and interviews making the rounds, showing us the madness of the Comcast system. And regardless of claims to the otherwise, Comcast knows about and encourages it.
In fact, I feel like translating the Comcast apology:
(As a mercenary who doesn't have apersonal beef with Comcast, I'd like to say to them: I am up to the rewrite job, and my fees are reasonable. It's will be $10,000 a month. You can bundle that with my $5000 a month consulting and my $3000 cartooning. Now separately you'd pay 18 grand for all that, but with introductory bundling, I can get you two for $9000 or all 3 for only $6000 for 6 months! What a deal!)*
Sometime in the past we gave up on the simple idea of good products and services. There used to be this process. You made a product or a service, then shared it and exchanged it for money. if the product and/or service was good, and you were reasonable, you would get returns and some profit. Industrialization was, supposedly, simply an extension. of this.
But something went sideways. We stopped looking at return customers and happy customers as signs of good work and started engineering opinions. We sent out surveys. And the surveys said things like 'the call was too long" or "they didn't fix the problem and I had to call again." And we valued signing up new customers, at any cost. We added flow lists and databases and metrics because we thought the science and data backed it up. And it did, to a point.
But we stopped offering service, and offering to do the jobs, and starting managing the customer. Not his expectations, but them. We forgot that all the data in the world isn't giving the customer what they want or need.
The fact is, while it's true that no sane or honest business owner goes into the game to lose money, the profit - the bottom line, comes from relationships, and connections.
Rather than asking "What can we do to help the customer?' We ask: "Can we make the customer happy in 6 minutes." Then we ask "Can we finish the call in 6 minutes to help the next person, and can we make them wait in a queue."
I have discussed this before here.
Comcast is not alone. I worked for a small Telecom, TDS. I was a pretty solid employee,but I had a problem. I wanted customers to be helped. I want to solve their problem and make sure they didn't need to talk to me again.
Did some of the customers need multiple things? Yes. That, at first, didn't bother me. Did some customers ask me for things outside my scope of support? certainly - I explained that I could help, or couldn't. If I could help, I said other agents might not be able to help.
I had excellent customer service. But in the world of metrics and numbers, this was unacceptable. And the simple answer is because our managers were so divorced from the customer and the process that they couldn't even understand good customer service, and why their metrics were detrimental to the people on the floor. Customer Service Representatives breaking out in a sweat when the difficult call takes very long. raises lost to skewed averages and you miss a metric.
All companies do this. Marco's Pizza did this. Measuring the time to make pizza, the time in the oven, the time on cut and time out the door. All of these do, in fact affect customer service. But, in the end, the only thing that really matters is the quality of the pizza and the good customer experience. At Marco's Pizza, the management is not distant from the customer. If a customer is happy, metrics are loosened. If a customer is unhappy, no amount of metrics repair it.
Metrics tell very little about the customer experience. It is a game of testing boundaries - how much can we get away with in our search for profit and speed and still have a positive experience.
It seems insane. In order to give a "positive experience" I had to not do all the things that made an experience positive.
Now the same telecom sent all their tech jobs to uneducated Jamaicans, costing the US jobs and giving a worse customer experience.
Madness and bad customer experience in a search for profit. No company went out of business by building positive relationships.
Something has happened. Industrialization and profit-hunting have become metric chasing. Desperate attempts to show your job is relevant by explaining why your imaginary measurements are good measurements. That the science of profit, time management, and efficacy replaced the ability to craft a good customer experience.
*Comcast must sign a 12 month contract. After 6 months the introductory rate become $19,999 a month. Early termination fees apply.
As for the middle class, our current legislative body, from fed to state, and often local, stabbed it in 2002, it just took this long for it to bleed out. The middle class barely had tiem to gasp "Et tu?"
The ever-increasing hatred of Comcast is a bandwagon that has perhaps circle. Recordings and interviews making the rounds, showing us the madness of the Comcast system. And regardless of claims to the otherwise, Comcast knows about and encourages it.
In fact, I feel like translating the Comcast apology:
We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and Ms. Belmont and are contacting them to personally apologize.Translation: We are so busted. This is just like when mom caught me stealing as a child. I had to go, apologize, and promise to pay back the shopkeeper. So now we have to apologize even though the candy we stole was delicious. Lame
The way in which our representative communicated with them is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives.Translation: We do not precisely train our CSRs like this. In fact, it's not until they get on the call center floor where we discreetly discuss metrics. We reinforce these metrics at their 30- and 60-day reviewt
We are investigating this situation and will take quick action.Translation: So, we know what's up and we will handle it in-house by completely ignoring it and.or firing the employee.
While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.Translation: This happens all the time, but we will add an extra ten minutes in training to discuss how much we care about our customers so we can update the published date on our training materisl. We'll make it look like an overhaul by paying people way more money than they ought to rewrite the language of our training materials.
(As a mercenary who doesn't have apersonal beef with Comcast, I'd like to say to them: I am up to the rewrite job, and my fees are reasonable. It's will be $10,000 a month. You can bundle that with my $5000 a month consulting and my $3000 cartooning. Now separately you'd pay 18 grand for all that, but with introductory bundling, I can get you two for $9000 or all 3 for only $6000 for 6 months! What a deal!)*
Sometime in the past we gave up on the simple idea of good products and services. There used to be this process. You made a product or a service, then shared it and exchanged it for money. if the product and/or service was good, and you were reasonable, you would get returns and some profit. Industrialization was, supposedly, simply an extension. of this.
But something went sideways. We stopped looking at return customers and happy customers as signs of good work and started engineering opinions. We sent out surveys. And the surveys said things like 'the call was too long" or "they didn't fix the problem and I had to call again." And we valued signing up new customers, at any cost. We added flow lists and databases and metrics because we thought the science and data backed it up. And it did, to a point.
But we stopped offering service, and offering to do the jobs, and starting managing the customer. Not his expectations, but them. We forgot that all the data in the world isn't giving the customer what they want or need.
The fact is, while it's true that no sane or honest business owner goes into the game to lose money, the profit - the bottom line, comes from relationships, and connections.
Rather than asking "What can we do to help the customer?' We ask: "Can we make the customer happy in 6 minutes." Then we ask "Can we finish the call in 6 minutes to help the next person, and can we make them wait in a queue."
I have discussed this before here.
Comcast is not alone. I worked for a small Telecom, TDS. I was a pretty solid employee,but I had a problem. I wanted customers to be helped. I want to solve their problem and make sure they didn't need to talk to me again.
Did some of the customers need multiple things? Yes. That, at first, didn't bother me. Did some customers ask me for things outside my scope of support? certainly - I explained that I could help, or couldn't. If I could help, I said other agents might not be able to help.
I had excellent customer service. But in the world of metrics and numbers, this was unacceptable. And the simple answer is because our managers were so divorced from the customer and the process that they couldn't even understand good customer service, and why their metrics were detrimental to the people on the floor. Customer Service Representatives breaking out in a sweat when the difficult call takes very long. raises lost to skewed averages and you miss a metric.
All companies do this. Marco's Pizza did this. Measuring the time to make pizza, the time in the oven, the time on cut and time out the door. All of these do, in fact affect customer service. But, in the end, the only thing that really matters is the quality of the pizza and the good customer experience. At Marco's Pizza, the management is not distant from the customer. If a customer is happy, metrics are loosened. If a customer is unhappy, no amount of metrics repair it.
Metrics tell very little about the customer experience. It is a game of testing boundaries - how much can we get away with in our search for profit and speed and still have a positive experience.
It seems insane. In order to give a "positive experience" I had to not do all the things that made an experience positive.
Now the same telecom sent all their tech jobs to uneducated Jamaicans, costing the US jobs and giving a worse customer experience.
Madness and bad customer experience in a search for profit. No company went out of business by building positive relationships.
Something has happened. Industrialization and profit-hunting have become metric chasing. Desperate attempts to show your job is relevant by explaining why your imaginary measurements are good measurements. That the science of profit, time management, and efficacy replaced the ability to craft a good customer experience.
*Comcast must sign a 12 month contract. After 6 months the introductory rate become $19,999 a month. Early termination fees apply.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
My FCC comment.
In light of net neutrality (I.E. Comcast F*cking the Internet), I conntected the FCC and commented thus:
I am not a lawyer, my language may be colloquial - I am a blogger and would-be demagogue. But if enough us remind them that the internet is useful, as a tool of information for us, or, at the very least, an easy leash for our masters - they may realize what a terrible idea Comcasts lanes will be.
Go here: http://www.fcc.gov/comments and comment on 14-28
"Simply put, the telecoms, all of which are thinly-veiled actual monopolies, cannot be trusted with the Internet. They use strong arm tactics and bullying, both on providers like Netflix, and on customers attempting to extricate them from the service. In no way can we trust them to ensure the fast lane/slow lane service will be priced fairly.
Our Internet lags behind many other countries, only because the monopolies - sorry - telecoms do not want to provide better service. They want to profit, and ignobly. "Get the mostest and offer the leastest." It would be comical if it weren't so true.
When we came to this country, a man or woman could make good in this country by simply carving out a part of the public land. The Internet is the new frontier, and technology the way to freedom. My giving this power to the telecomonopolies, you are denying the will to prosper of the United States. New blogs, new stores, new industry using the logistics and the easy messaging of the Internet to make money, for themselves and for the government.
How many Internet business will we lose because access is only by slow lane? How many subscribers will quit Netflix and use libraries to get movies? The unintended costs of letting telecomonopolies introduce lanes will be staggering as it deincentivizes Internet use and Internet commerce. Economically it will be a disaster. Does that matter to you? the GDP used to matter, does it anymore? What happened to being a country of producers?
The media is woefully inadequate and untrustworthy. Pictures of George Zimmerman were lightened. His 911 call, manipulated. An informed public cannot trust television and radio sources. Several news agencies have outright said they are biased, and one even won a lawsuit, claiming they didn't even have to tell truth. But on the Internet, where information is free, the truth can be found. And even if it requires digging through stacks of useless cat pictures and diatribes, I do it gladly to find out facts - something other media outlets often lacks.
By giving in to the telecomonopolies, you are taking steps to ensure that we cannot find any truth but the one most well liked by the corporations. What's next, a firewall to prevent us from knowing things outside Oceania? That would certainly prevent the spread of crimethink.
If an appeal to your nobler capitalist side side does not dissuade you, let me then try your more ignoble, despotic side.
Fast, inexpensive Internet is literally circuses. Imagine, if you will, a society of people who have access to cat pictures all day. With the incredible amount of slacktivism today, don't you think it would be wise to let people speak out on the Internet. They will spend their time lamenting with Facebook E-cards and never be so idle as to pick up protest placard and brick.
Open up the internet, and we will immerse ourselves in hedonistic voyeurism, and leave you alone. Close it down, and our idle hands will have to find something to do. Maybe rallying against a corrupt government is just the thing to get us off our Netflix-deprived couch-sitting asses."
I am not a lawyer, my language may be colloquial - I am a blogger and would-be demagogue. But if enough us remind them that the internet is useful, as a tool of information for us, or, at the very least, an easy leash for our masters - they may realize what a terrible idea Comcasts lanes will be.
Go here: http://www.fcc.gov/comments and comment on 14-28
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Another Quick Update:
Just so you don't forget about me, I am still relocating. The process should be completed this weekend. I have a several weeks of posts that will come starting Monday.
Dissolution has finished, we think, and now we move to Separation. So stay tuned!
Dissolution has finished, we think, and now we move to Separation. So stay tuned!
Friday, August 15, 2014
Quick Update
For all 6 of my readers!
I am currently in the process of relocating, and so there will be some time before I can post again. But don't go away! Sign up for rss feeds, so when I return, you'll know!
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I am currently in the process of relocating, and so there will be some time before I can post again. But don't go away! Sign up for rss feeds, so when I return, you'll know!
.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
No Excuses (For Throw back...Sunday?)
Hey guys, small post for today. I recently changed from random work to politics, but I still like to find ways to empower you. I found one
No Excuse List, which has aggregated several ways to learn new skills.
As soon as I can be consistent with anything, I shall start using it myself.
No Excuse List, which has aggregated several ways to learn new skills.
As soon as I can be consistent with anything, I shall start using it myself.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Paul Soglin, Uber and Lyft are here to stay.
I am not a hip cat. I do not own a tablet. The IQ of my phone is not anywhere near "smart." I am still confused by social media and I routinely threaten to quit Facebook in a huff.
In short, I am somewhat slow in adapting to new technology. Not unlike Paul Soglin in Madison and other cities.
Our world is hurtling into the future, creating new ways to do old things. Facebook changed the way we connect to others and share our life. Instagram changed the way we share pictures and make our friends feel jealous. Tinder changed the way we date. And Uber and Lyft change the way we travel around town.
Lawmakers need to keep up, and stop bowing to the special interests that line their pockets.
Uber and Lyft are being cited as an "unregulated taxi services" according to the government. This just means they won't pony up the enormous fees to be a Taxi company. And Taxi companies are quite pissed about it. They argue under the pretense of safety. They claim the service needs be 24/7. The legislators leave unsaid the $2200 per cab that needs be paid every two years to the city. The Taxi cabs leave unsaid that Uber and Lyft take away from their market share.
I have never used Uber or Lyft , but they are becoming more popular with a college crowd. And rather than bullying them out of the market, like Madison wants to do, maybe we should encourage entrepreneurship, like Milwaukee has begun to do.
And Taxi cab companies, rather than press your legislators to beat up on new services, why not ask "why are Uber and Lyft so popular?" or "what makes Uber and Lyft more enticing than our services?" Because Uber and Lyft are being used in Madison, even with your bully-tactics. So they have to be doing something right.
This fiasco is just another example of corporatism, where a business buys a politician rather than competes in the market.
Legislators and City Officials like Paul Soglin need to get hip to the times and listen to his constituents, not the Taxi Cab Lobbyists. Madison is full of young people, keen on technology and ready for the cyber-capitalist revolution. People who, like Alder Scott Resnik want access to the options technology is bringing. The technology is here, the desire for it is here. The markets are turning fast - too fast for heavy handed control. The digital-age genie is out of the bottle. And no amount of legislative saber-rattling will put it back.
In short, I am somewhat slow in adapting to new technology. Not unlike Paul Soglin in Madison and other cities.
Our world is hurtling into the future, creating new ways to do old things. Facebook changed the way we connect to others and share our life. Instagram changed the way we share pictures and make our friends feel jealous. Tinder changed the way we date. And Uber and Lyft change the way we travel around town.
Lawmakers need to keep up, and stop bowing to the special interests that line their pockets.
Uber and Lyft are being cited as an "unregulated taxi services" according to the government. This just means they won't pony up the enormous fees to be a Taxi company. And Taxi companies are quite pissed about it. They argue under the pretense of safety. They claim the service needs be 24/7. The legislators leave unsaid the $2200 per cab that needs be paid every two years to the city. The Taxi cabs leave unsaid that Uber and Lyft take away from their market share.
I have never used Uber or Lyft , but they are becoming more popular with a college crowd. And rather than bullying them out of the market, like Madison wants to do, maybe we should encourage entrepreneurship, like Milwaukee has begun to do.
And Taxi cab companies, rather than press your legislators to beat up on new services, why not ask "why are Uber and Lyft so popular?" or "what makes Uber and Lyft more enticing than our services?" Because Uber and Lyft are being used in Madison, even with your bully-tactics. So they have to be doing something right.
This fiasco is just another example of corporatism, where a business buys a politician rather than competes in the market.
Legislators and City Officials like Paul Soglin need to get hip to the times and listen to his constituents, not the Taxi Cab Lobbyists. Madison is full of young people, keen on technology and ready for the cyber-capitalist revolution. People who, like Alder Scott Resnik want access to the options technology is bringing. The technology is here, the desire for it is here. The markets are turning fast - too fast for heavy handed control. The digital-age genie is out of the bottle. And no amount of legislative saber-rattling will put it back.
"You should run for office!"
In the past 3-4 weeks, a lot of people have told me I should run for office. This level of synchronicity cannot be ignored. The people say I have the personality for politics. This is a terrifying thought. It implies that, like most politicians, I have combination of bull-headed fanaticism and brusque down-to-earth charm, with just a dash of sociopathy.
I can't say they are wrong if that's the case. Or it could be that I make any place my soapbox. I'll pontificate at the drop of the hat. Seems to me that the if you have a passion for something (pontificating) and are good at it, you shouldn't do it for free.
Unfortunately, that means I ought go into politics, as a pundit or a talk show host (or, alternatively into motivational speaking or preaching).
I am careful to try and maintain some anonymity on the internet. This fools errand stems from a positive fear that, should I ever get my act together, someone will pull out some transcript and try to shame me. I have said, for mischief or in jest, so many things that can damn a burgeoning Political Career.
Seriously, I've said some shit. I won't deny it. I say things sometimes just to piss people off.
But, in light of this, I will, in the future, articulate some stances. Those who know me already know I want to find a better balance between corporate interests and people. Warning, there is a lot of cussing in my previous posts.
I want to find a better balance, and better solutions - primarily capitalist solutions, to problems. But I think the rise of neo-con corporatism leads to resentment when it walks hand-in-hand with entitlement. The economy of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s is gone, I fully admit this. But the new economic reality exists mostly because wealth had flowed upward at breakneck pace. Wealth always does flow upward, but since the 90s the rising tide has left the bottom underwater.
I don't want people working. I want people prosperous. This distinction is lost on most Republicans and Democrats. Republicans talk about getting people to work, Democrats discuss people making living wages without regards to the long term damage. neither discuss prosperity.
I realize I am in the minority, that, like an entrepreneur, can't work for someone else. For most people, the American Dream was never about becoming rich - it was about reaching a level of safety and comfort for you and your family.
Many people can be happy with a stable 40-hour job, so long as they have disposable income enough for a movie and pizza on Saturday and a big screen TV for Football on Sunday Or boardgames and Firefly marathons. Or a library full of books and two cats. Or weekends hunting with friends.
I firmly believe that everyone just wants enough disposable income to have a place for themselves and entertainment and enjoyment. I realize that philosophers and theologians might ask if there is something more, something greater. That's fine, I certainly do. But I don't begrudge what a person wants to do with their free time. That's their business. But prosperity, that is, a satisfactory work/life balance, is the key to a productive and happy nation.
How do we get that? Well, I am definitely pro-capitalist solutions. But as a realist, I also cannot deny that post-scarcity is coming, and the economic realities with regard to that mean that I cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility of basic income. This is ultimately why I am a moderate. There are solutions I don't like that may ultimately be the best solution. I can't dismiss a view simply because I don't like it or it doesn't fit my ideal.
This is becoming a very complicated topic, it seems. On this digital soapbox, I could write until my fingers fall off and still not achieve the sort of Hegelian synthesis and distinctness of meaning I am looking for. So let's move on, and I'll expand in future segments.
I am unwilling to deny that the world is changing, and laws that worked in 1985 may not work today. There examples of social media and smartphones radically changing the way we do business and socialize. I don't know, without some deliberation, if re should regulate, or deregulate - but I am inclined towards liberty, and therefore the latter.
That's the big deal for me. Your life is your life. I want you to have options, and I want people who don't like the way you live your life to, if you'll pardon, shut their pieholes. If you are not hurting someone I advocate that it's none of my business. Gay? Straight? Religious? Atheist? None of my business and not the business of the government. I feel that all of our problems are based on people in power limiting, regulating, and legislating our options on behalf of the nannies, the religious, the super-rich, and the scared. They do this from moral high ground that they know what's best and what they like is the best thing ever. They do this to protect their wealth. They do this because they are afraid of a little risk and a little adventure. They do this out of envy.
That's idiotic. I think people who deny your options because they don't like them are nincompoops. I think demanding the use of legislation to force you to live the way they want is stupid. The person who best knows what you want, need, and are, is you. You are therefore responsible for living the life you want - so long as it doesn't harm others. And so I feel the job of government is to, through least action possible, discourage legislating and regulating your life.
Enough, but not too much, is the mantra of good government.
If you feel similarly, I will happily try my hand at politics. It's a hard row to hoe, partially because I don't know where to start. Crowdfunding? Facebook activism? Door to door chats?
If you want to see a new policy of live and let live on the domestic front, then share this on facebook or Google+. Post this on Reddit. And don't forget to drop by the donate button and toss some cheddar my way.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Give Me Cannoli's or Give Me Death! (More Obstacles)
Note: Make sure to check out out changes page to learn what's new
I posted in my profile the following quote, which I think appropriate to the direction this blog is heading. It's important to make it clear:
He is rapidly becoming my favorite political and economic thinker. Again.
Anyway, let's continue showing the regulatory nightmare that impedes liberty and wealth. If you haven't, start with part one here.
I love the idea of micro-businesses. Let's say you have a great recipe to share with people. Wouldn't it be great to have a kitchen that actually meets FDA and Health Code standards so you could sell your product?
This woman thought so. I noted, with ever increasing frustration, that Chicago disagreed. I don't even understand. Cooking, as an art or craft, is truly available to everyone. Cooking is easy - don't get me wrong, being a chef is not. But a single recipe, perfected, is one of the fastest ways to provide a service and gain wealth. It ranks with programming as a way to go from poverty to reasonable wealth, and a career, expediently. It's hard work, but it didn't require a costly education to bake a few types of cookies and sell them. What story of a chef doesn't start with a recipe learned from a grandparent?
Zina Murray wanted to remove an obstacle to wealth for individuals in poverty. With a much smaller start up cost, her clients could build and row a business.
They were closed down, and have re-opened. I couldn't find a Brick and mortar location. They are focusing on helping people work through the system's sizable amount of paperwork, even as that system closed their business.They teach food safety as well.
Minnesota seems to agree that baked goods need not be made in an FDA kitchen. But "Cottage Food" laws
prevent most in-home bakers from expanding. After a certain amount of profit, you become a bakery, and are suddenly subject to FDA regulations. And recently - very recently, the Second District court dismissed the suit against the law.
I realize we need to have healthy food standards. There are people, who, in attempt to make a quick buck or shave down margins, will ignore customer health. However, I believe these people are becoming fewer in number, and in ignoring quality, will lose money.
Perhaps Zina Murray should open her Logan Square Kitchen in St. Paul.
Let's say that in order to save money, you want a garden. Now that's something we can't have. Now I have no problem with agricultural science, or even GMOs - they are reducing famine and hunger. I do have a problem when local government tells people they can't grow vegetables - healthy, life-sustaining vegetables, on their property. You know, property they purchased and paid taxes on?
What's more, small scale production will help in areas that generally don't have grocery access. It cuts down on food costs and increases sustainability. Small-scale food growing is not for the wealthy or the suburbs. It has a beneficial impact on urban areas. I'm no environmentalist hippy, but when you can save money, increase property values, and help the environment, and feed people - I call that a win-win...win...win.
Now, this is an attempt to keep Miami Shores "character." I might suggest Hermine and Tom sell their home to a Stepford wife. Because apparently "character" means "bland mediocrity" in Miami Shores.
I have seen, first hand, what a garden can do for an area. Compare my what I drive past nearly every day, to a drive I take about once a month. I'll take a garden, any day of the week.
It's this foolish madness - byzantine and Kafka-esque ordinances. You can put ugly flamingo's and fruit in your front yard, but not zucchini. The orange and the strawberry and the hideous garden gnome is permitted, but WOE, WOE unto the CARROT.
I say blow their minds: Plant a Tomato!
This is only part two. We have more idiocy at local levels. I am reminded of person who get upset when you decide that you don't want to see the movie they want to see. Instead of going alone, they cajole, coerce and restrict you. It's childish in the extreme.
Part three we will discuss when the government fixes prices by making things more expensive.
I posted in my profile the following quote, which I think appropriate to the direction this blog is heading. It's important to make it clear:
“Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion” - Thomas Hobbes
He is rapidly becoming my favorite political and economic thinker. Again.
Anyway, let's continue showing the regulatory nightmare that impedes liberty and wealth. If you haven't, start with part one here.
I love the idea of micro-businesses. Let's say you have a great recipe to share with people. Wouldn't it be great to have a kitchen that actually meets FDA and Health Code standards so you could sell your product?
This woman thought so. I noted, with ever increasing frustration, that Chicago disagreed. I don't even understand. Cooking, as an art or craft, is truly available to everyone. Cooking is easy - don't get me wrong, being a chef is not. But a single recipe, perfected, is one of the fastest ways to provide a service and gain wealth. It ranks with programming as a way to go from poverty to reasonable wealth, and a career, expediently. It's hard work, but it didn't require a costly education to bake a few types of cookies and sell them. What story of a chef doesn't start with a recipe learned from a grandparent?
Zina Murray wanted to remove an obstacle to wealth for individuals in poverty. With a much smaller start up cost, her clients could build and row a business.
They were closed down, and have re-opened. I couldn't find a Brick and mortar location. They are focusing on helping people work through the system's sizable amount of paperwork, even as that system closed their business.They teach food safety as well.
Minnesota seems to agree that baked goods need not be made in an FDA kitchen. But "Cottage Food" laws
prevent most in-home bakers from expanding. After a certain amount of profit, you become a bakery, and are suddenly subject to FDA regulations. And recently - very recently, the Second District court dismissed the suit against the law.
I realize we need to have healthy food standards. There are people, who, in attempt to make a quick buck or shave down margins, will ignore customer health. However, I believe these people are becoming fewer in number, and in ignoring quality, will lose money.
Perhaps Zina Murray should open her Logan Square Kitchen in St. Paul.
Let's say that in order to save money, you want a garden. Now that's something we can't have. Now I have no problem with agricultural science, or even GMOs - they are reducing famine and hunger. I do have a problem when local government tells people they can't grow vegetables - healthy, life-sustaining vegetables, on their property. You know, property they purchased and paid taxes on?
What's more, small scale production will help in areas that generally don't have grocery access. It cuts down on food costs and increases sustainability. Small-scale food growing is not for the wealthy or the suburbs. It has a beneficial impact on urban areas. I'm no environmentalist hippy, but when you can save money, increase property values, and help the environment, and feed people - I call that a win-win...win...win.
Now, this is an attempt to keep Miami Shores "character." I might suggest Hermine and Tom sell their home to a Stepford wife. Because apparently "character" means "bland mediocrity" in Miami Shores.
I have seen, first hand, what a garden can do for an area. Compare my what I drive past nearly every day, to a drive I take about once a month. I'll take a garden, any day of the week.
It's this foolish madness - byzantine and Kafka-esque ordinances. You can put ugly flamingo's and fruit in your front yard, but not zucchini. The orange and the strawberry and the hideous garden gnome is permitted, but WOE, WOE unto the CARROT.
I say blow their minds: Plant a Tomato!
This is only part two. We have more idiocy at local levels. I am reminded of person who get upset when you decide that you don't want to see the movie they want to see. Instead of going alone, they cajole, coerce and restrict you. It's childish in the extreme.
Part three we will discuss when the government fixes prices by making things more expensive.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Changes to the blog
I changed the layout to a cleaner, more professional look. When I started this blog, I didn't really have a plan. I called it "What Is He Building In There" as a nod to Tom Wait, but also because my plan was to write about a rebuilding process. Specifically mine.
I wanted to write as part of an alternative graduate degree. At first I just wrote as I chose, irregularly "shotgunning" posts . Post whatever I like and see what sticks. And though I'm not done writing whatever comes to mind, I seem to enjoy waxing political. So it's likely there will be a radical increase in frequency to informing against (and occasionally, rarely, for) the government and the well-established corporatocracy.
I wanted to get a more professional look, something easy to read. I also updated my profile, as I plan to swear significantly less. If this style whiplash offends, please let me know. I will be happy to cuss up a storm if it pleases my audience.
The name change is from Hobbes. I find I am Hobbesian in my outlook, and that is why we must attempt to be helpful. World's a scary place, let's try to make it less scary.
Finally, I have on the left a donate button. If you like what you read, and want to see more, please donate. if you don't like what you see and want something different, donate and tell me. Most just donate.
And don't forget to share on Facebook and Google Plus if your are entertained.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Obstacles to Economic Freedom (Part 1)
So I want to discuss the problem with jobs, and offer solutions. My favorite solution, being a libertarian, is small business. You have a service or product and you offer it to others in return for money. It's a pretty easy system that becomes terribly complicated very soon. And this unregulated capitalism has one glaring flaw - it's only flaw:
Without proper deregulation, it leads to corporatism.
See, if you are a canny business-man or -woman, and more importantly, a callous one, you become a de facto lawmaker. It becomes cheaper for you to influence local government via campaign contributions than to actually make a better product.
It happens at all levels. Here are several examples, mostly local. We've already ranted on the major corporations and minimum wages here. And this is a follow-up to Jobs Don't Work..
So let's get started. Have you tried to start a job? In theory it's quite simple. You fill apply for an Employer Identification Number. The SBA lists 10 steps required, but really, all you need to be in business as a sole proprietorship is an EIN number and a name. You don't even need to register the name, even though you ought.
My ambivalence to the taxes aside, I don't begrudge the EIN number. However, in Milwaukee Area, they utterly wreck your ability to hang a shingle. Literally, without a building to work in, you cannot have signage.
What's the reasoning here? It's simple. Signage reduces property values. Nobody wants to see a big sign on your house. But then, so do bullet holes, but Milwaukee seems totally OK with that.
The entire video is full of completely ridiculous. Treating books like guns? The street vendor lottery? Is book theft that big of a deal? Already we have laws to protect against unsafe food, the Better Business Bureau and Angie's List for services like interior decorators. Anyone who uses a service should demand references from that service.
If Chuck wants to start a business, he's out of luck.
The problem is an inherent corruption. Claims to the contrary, government officials rarely care about issues once the money starts rolling in. Instead, a government career is now a brilliant scam; become wealthy without producing anything. If a business is popular, look under nearby rocks to find a Bureaucrat or Legislator seeking to put his hand out under the guise of "public good."
When my uncle gets a haircut, he goes to a small quiet Latino neighborhood. He arrives at a house int he early evening, and there is usually a line. He hears three or four languages, he talks with neighbors and sees children playing. Each patron -old men, women, children, is eventually led to a chair where and old mother and her daughters cut hair for 5 dollars. Five dollars. Needless to say, barbers and cosmetologists hate this. How can they charge 100 or more for a perm if they are being undercut in the market?
Government bureaucrats to the rescue! Lock up these hair-braiding miscreants!
It's insanity. It's working for money, not for good service, not for quality, not for a better world. And it's short-sighted, because it doesn't improve wealth over all by allowing for people to break away from poverty.
Might as well follow Chuck back to his no-good dead-end job. Unfortunately, that job is being outsourced or automated. It might not be there when he returns.
We'll continue with more examples in part two. Chicago is an egregious over-regulator, stemming from a history of criminals. In civil office or otherwise.
Without proper deregulation, it leads to corporatism.
See, if you are a canny business-man or -woman, and more importantly, a callous one, you become a de facto lawmaker. It becomes cheaper for you to influence local government via campaign contributions than to actually make a better product.
It happens at all levels. Here are several examples, mostly local. We've already ranted on the major corporations and minimum wages here. And this is a follow-up to Jobs Don't Work..
So let's get started. Have you tried to start a job? In theory it's quite simple. You fill apply for an Employer Identification Number. The SBA lists 10 steps required, but really, all you need to be in business as a sole proprietorship is an EIN number and a name. You don't even need to register the name, even though you ought.
My ambivalence to the taxes aside, I don't begrudge the EIN number. However, in Milwaukee Area, they utterly wreck your ability to hang a shingle. Literally, without a building to work in, you cannot have signage.
What's the reasoning here? It's simple. Signage reduces property values. Nobody wants to see a big sign on your house. But then, so do bullet holes, but Milwaukee seems totally OK with that.
The entire video is full of completely ridiculous. Treating books like guns? The street vendor lottery? Is book theft that big of a deal? Already we have laws to protect against unsafe food, the Better Business Bureau and Angie's List for services like interior decorators. Anyone who uses a service should demand references from that service.
If Chuck wants to start a business, he's out of luck.
The problem is an inherent corruption. Claims to the contrary, government officials rarely care about issues once the money starts rolling in. Instead, a government career is now a brilliant scam; become wealthy without producing anything. If a business is popular, look under nearby rocks to find a Bureaucrat or Legislator seeking to put his hand out under the guise of "public good."
When my uncle gets a haircut, he goes to a small quiet Latino neighborhood. He arrives at a house int he early evening, and there is usually a line. He hears three or four languages, he talks with neighbors and sees children playing. Each patron -old men, women, children, is eventually led to a chair where and old mother and her daughters cut hair for 5 dollars. Five dollars. Needless to say, barbers and cosmetologists hate this. How can they charge 100 or more for a perm if they are being undercut in the market?
Government bureaucrats to the rescue! Lock up these hair-braiding miscreants!
It's insanity. It's working for money, not for good service, not for quality, not for a better world. And it's short-sighted, because it doesn't improve wealth over all by allowing for people to break away from poverty.
Might as well follow Chuck back to his no-good dead-end job. Unfortunately, that job is being outsourced or automated. It might not be there when he returns.
We'll continue with more examples in part two. Chicago is an egregious over-regulator, stemming from a history of criminals. In civil office or otherwise.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Chicken Salad Recipe
I could live forever on a good chicken salad.
I used canned chicken for this recipe. I price checked, and it worked out to be about 1 cent cheaper and with more protein than chicken thighs I would normally use. I use Aldi's brand.
12 oz can chunk chicken.
1 tablespoon mustard
3 tablespoon sour cream
3 tablespoon mayo
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
2 tablespoons Sriracha
Salt and Pepper
a dash of garlic powder
1 stalk celery
It works out to be about 900 calories, 6-8 grams of Carbohydrates, and 74 grams of protein. On Keto we don't worry over much about fat, but it works out to 54 grams of fat.
Jobs don't work.
Marco's update: Apparently my legend grows, even those who loathed me (except for the antagonist) say they miss me. I am touched by the sentiment, but sadly sentiment doesn't pay the rent(iment). I am still planning a crowd funding and to add a donation/buy stuff button as soon as I can figure out a product or service other than "miserably bad advice", "swear word portmanteaus", and "anti-corporate screeds." Hell, I bet I could raise about 50 dollars just for the service of "shutting my mouth."
I looked back at my work experience, and I have settled all previous jobs into two categories: "Useless Insanity" and "Unskilled Idiocy." I imagine that I am not the only person to categorize so, nor the first to realize the futility of work. My talent for miscreance, and the words of Michael Ventura, Alan Watts (or read the transcript) ,and Harlan Ellison have left me bereft of job morale.
Why, in that video by Alan Watts, he echoes my sentiment - or perhaps I echo his:
But if you do a job, if you do a job with the sole purpose of making money, you are absurd.He suggests that when we do so, we begin to equate money with happiness. I can't argue, or won't, rather. I don't want utilize my talent for opposition today
My work has been as absurd as Alan Watts suggests. I was taught, rather harshly, that I must have a job. That my talents were not in fast food or factory, that I have a natural savant-like idiocy when it comes to schedules, rules, and policies. A trained monkey with a severe bleeding head injury can follow rules that I find as alien and incomprehensible as Martian mating rituals.
Actually, given my lewdness, I suspect extraterrestrial sex makes more sense to me.
I was raised to work jobs. I had to have a job, according to my father. I don't blame my father completely. His father was raised on German work ethic and an industrial-revolution perspective of the world. My father would pull apart guns at age six and draw each part, then put them back together flawlessly. And when he performed this miracle, his father and mother told him that it was "nice" , but he ought get a job in a factory.
Lamentable. If a child showed such precociousness today, his parents would encourage him to study math and become an engineer.
My father said the same thing, like a mantra. You have to have a job. You have to have a job. You have to have a job.
And so I spent much of my time working as call center tech support, my stock and "trade". This trade constitutes being yelled at, screeched at, cried at, for 40 hours a week, but for the blissful two hours a month when we were droned at or yelled by our manager about our metrics.
No call center I worked for scored me on customer satisfaction. On the contrary, they scored me negatively if I spent the time to actually help the customer. I was told at TDS Telecom that despite having more "Kudos" (compliments from customers) than other technicians, if I didn't lower my call times I would be fired.
Let that ruminate in your head. A kudos required extra work from the customer, and generally meant they were satisfied beyond mere resolution. TDS threatened to terminate me for helping customers.
But that doesn't matter. What matters is call times. If your call takes longer than 6 minutes, you are doing your job wrong. Hang up on the customer - so long as they don't call back - and the managers are happy. Avoid helping the customer and - so long as the customer doesn't complain - call centers are happy.
And if we are being honest, companies placed "First Call Resolution" as a metric only because agents hung up on customers to meet call length metrics.It's hard to fix someone's error in six minutes when you spend two of those minutes gathering required information and another two trying get them to find the start button.
Absurd, absurd, absurd. Insanity. Put together unreasonable expectations and then get angry when people cannot meet them. That is the nature of corporate jobs.
I don't have a particularly good answer - I have some, but that will have to wait for another blog post.
If you want to read more, or see videos of these screeds, don't be afraid to subscribe, share on Facebook, on Twitter, or +1 on Google.
Marco's update part II: As I typed this, a coworker texted me that the blow-job-enjoying manager told the antagonistic coworker to eat a bag of dicks as well. But he did it when they were punched out (and away from the eyes of corporate). Marco's me fired for breaking the illusion of cog-like perfection and order Frank -er, my manager, had cultivated.
Don't send them hate mail. Send me 5 dollar donation I receive I will mail them a drawing of a bag of dicks. A dollar donation means I'll spent more than 30 seconds proofreading.Or, actually proofread.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Self-Soothing, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Moment.
A lot of times people say you need to let go. Yesterday I finally understood it. I discovered something that helped me. Hopefully it will help others.
I am not a psychologist, a psychiatrist , or a psychic. But it struck me with a particular pop profundity.
Depression causes me to hold on tightly to negative experiences instead of positive ones.
Experiences are how we build self-identity. What we experience informs who we are. In self-soothing, we are asked to experience, in a positive way, a moment in our day. We are to focus on the five senses. they say, for ease of remembering, this mnemonic: 5 sights, 4 sounds, 3 touches, 2 smells, 1 taste.
For example:
After my workout, I sat in McDonald's and watched a breeze play over a pink dogwood. The leaves rippled and swayed, I imagined, in an extemporaneous and improvised dance. As I watched, a woman leaned urgently over an envelope in a table to my left. She would carefully write in small letters, then look up at me tersely. Her arms warded off onlookers.
I sipped my ice water. Condensation collected on the outside in spite of the the air conditioning. I lifted the cup to my lips, and I was struck by how heavy and leaden it felt in my hands.My knee pressed into the half-wall near me. I felt grave. I moved my knee away and suddenly felt as if I might fly away. I turned and set it again to the wall.
In therapy we discussed some moments in our past that were pleasant. As we relived them, even the most unhappy of us smiled wistfully. It was then that the thought struck me that for the briefest instant that telling these stories, these details, made us seem like people without depression. When "normies" talk, they share positive experiences. In sharing them they relive them. Most often they share humorous, happy, and pleasant stories. Let me emphasize: They are routinely connecting with levity.
I hold tightly to negative experiences and ignore positive ones. So my self-identity is made up of a remarkable number of sadness.
And in pandering to this depression caused me to avoid positive experiences. I often suffered bouts of depression that kept me from engaging in and enjoying positive experiences. Parties, concerts, dinners with friends.
I see it a lot in my father. He will have a bad day if he has a single bad experience in a day. If I attempt to argue that his day went well, he will refuse to acknowledge it.
Depression is described as a black hole. I can't argue. i use positive emotions to try and fill that hole, but can't seem to. And while I won't discount biology (Well, I will for me), I will say that depression has trained me to connect with negativity. I feel intimately tied to it. It's cliche to say, but I wrapped myself in it.I gave unhappy moment s more gravity than they deserve.And I've spent years practicing this.
People without depression seem to have a much easier time letting go of sadness. They have an easier time finding pleasant experiences that connect them to happiness. they, in fact, have a long history of practicing self-soothing.
Self-soothing is connecting with positive experiences. Pleasant experiences. As trite as it sounds, self-soothing trains people with depression to look on the bright side. Something we often dislike being told to do.
This module has convinced me further that dialectical behavioral therapy simply trains you to think and act like a normal person.
Monday, July 21, 2014
In Defense of Chefs (Where I Pick On Endive)
The other day as I flew down the State Highway 41 on my way to a paying gig as a dancing monkey and I slipped on NPR. Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! always entertains me. This week their special guest, Thomas Keller, owns two restaurants. At The French Laundry, he serves very small-portion many course meals at brickshittingly high prices.
Seriously? $175? Maybe I am a dirty philistine ankle deep in bacon, but I don't see the need for Endive.
You know what, I am just going to say it. Fuck Endive. It can suck eggs.
OK, I want to shift gears. Because menus like this, combined with the apparent arrogant bullfuckery of Chefs, leads many who don;t know better to ask "Why are Chefs such douchebags?"
A justified but inappropriate response by a chef is to put the thousand dollar knives through the offending ignoramuses neck. Put down your babies. A better response is to puff up you chef's jacket and paraphrase the book of Job:
A Chef isn't just some random dorkfaced snotweasel in the kitchen baking a pie. Any jerk can yank a recipe from the Internet and slap together a solid Apple Crumb Pie or Casserole. If you think this is cooking, then eat a bag of dicks. [FB friends - ;) ]
A Chef has to be several things by the time they get to rightfully be called a chef. They are at once a hustler, salesman, artist, an accountant,and an epicurean.
Hustler
I mean hustler as "one who hustles". You see, when some 16-17-year-old says "I want to be a chef" what they are really saying is "I want to be a gopher bitch-boy (or gopher bitch-girl)." They are going to start at the bottom, amongst a bunch of bottom feeders. Assuming you have a bit of sense, a smidgen of education, and some luck, you start as a Chef de partie. In the US we call them station cooks or line cooks. There are a bunch of types, but the all mean the same thing. Tedious-fucking-peon. Go on, fry shit for eight hours in a kitchen that is as hot and greasy as Hell's asshole. And when you aren't risking 3rd degree burns frying, sauteing, and baking, frying, you are stocking, and prepping for the other four. Bathroom breaks? Fuck you. Cigarette breaks? Not if you want someday move up to rotisserie and roundsman. And say goodbye to your days off. You have to ship 12 appetizers out in four to six minutes. It's liked those timed cooking competitions, but for hours. Don't fuck up.
And that's if you are lucky enough to snag a chef position. In actuality you'll start as a busser or a dishwasher. All the heat, all the grease, but with 200% more "half-eaten-food-sludge"
Oh, and did I mention these positions pay right about minimum wage? Maybe a few dollars more. This is why I nope'd right the hell out of being a chef.
This never stops, by the way. You just sort of add more work and that work has greater repercussions. Instead of holding the line back 5 minutes for a single customer, suddenly your failure to inventory causes you run out of Endive in the middle of Friday dinner service. Fucking Endive.
Salesman
Diners are the biggest whiners ever. They have high expectations despite the fact that their meal is made by minimum wage gophers amongst 30 meals. And when they see the bill they choke on their spiteful tongues. When I found out it costs $175 dollars a plate for The French Laundry, I just about pissed myself. But Then Chef Keller started describing one of his dishes, about the experience of small plates and diminish returns. He wanted each person to ask "I want a little more." and receive the new surprise.
Why, this old art hating philistine wistfully thought on being in Yountsville and dropping two bills.
See, he smartly turned it from "$200 dollars in tiny food" to an experience. A good salesman will sell the feeling, not the product.
Artist
A chef is always trying to wow you, to evoke feelings. Whether it's the feeling of comfort in a hot curry or the sensual lust of a dessert. They are trying to provide a unique dining experience. The philistine in me struggles with this. When I see them haul out a frozen block to paint with chocolate, I yawn. I am impressed by the clever design of Heston's feast - and I might enjoy the experience. But I find it unnecessary.
I am wrong. Dead wrong. The search for novelty - the driving force of humanity, demands greater and greater effort into cleverness. No longer is steak good enough. Now we have to have a pureed steak milkshake with garlic mashed potatoes and Endive sprinkles.
That three-minute cigarette doesn't come with a mental disengagement. Anytime not spent cooking is spent
Accountant
Once you work five or six years of 18 hour days and become a head chef (often by virtue of simply sticking it out), you have to start performing Inventory, which is Latin for "counting boxes with a clipboard." and can also mean "alcoholism." You have a limited budget,often provided by an owner who is clearly living in 1765 when chickens went for a half-farthing for ten. How many boxes of goat spleen do you have? How many services tonight? How long until the spleen goes bad? And can you get by after that idiot Ralph dumped an entire box of Endive?
Can you? I sure as hell can't, not after working seven 18-hour days.
So they have a right to be arrogant - as anyone who exhibits expertise won through hard sacrifice deserves a goddamn medal.
You know what, I am just going to say it. Fuck Endive. It can suck eggs.
OK, I want to shift gears. Because menus like this, combined with the apparent arrogant bullfuckery of Chefs, leads many who don;t know better to ask "Why are Chefs such douchebags?"
A justified but inappropriate response by a chef is to put the thousand dollar knives through the offending ignoramuses neck. Put down your babies. A better response is to puff up you chef's jacket and paraphrase the book of Job:
Gird up now thy loins like a Chef; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.I wanted to be a Chef for approximately 3-4 hours back in 1999. I saw the Chefs in their fine whites and thought it was fun. And hey, I can cook - I use recipes. But unlike a lot of people who chef-hate, when I realized what was involved, I said "Fuck this shit" and decided to be headbutted in the dick by a goat. Much less stressful.
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Dish Tell me, if you understand. Who hath memorized the measures there of? Or who had stretched the dough upon it!
A Chef isn't just some random dorkfaced snotweasel in the kitchen baking a pie. Any jerk can yank a recipe from the Internet and slap together a solid Apple Crumb Pie or Casserole. If you think this is cooking, then eat a bag of dicks. [FB friends - ;) ]
A Chef has to be several things by the time they get to rightfully be called a chef. They are at once a hustler, salesman, artist, an accountant,and an epicurean.
Hustler
I mean hustler as "one who hustles". You see, when some 16-17-year-old says "I want to be a chef" what they are really saying is "I want to be a gopher bitch-boy (or gopher bitch-girl)." They are going to start at the bottom, amongst a bunch of bottom feeders. Assuming you have a bit of sense, a smidgen of education, and some luck, you start as a Chef de partie. In the US we call them station cooks or line cooks. There are a bunch of types, but the all mean the same thing. Tedious-fucking-peon. Go on, fry shit for eight hours in a kitchen that is as hot and greasy as Hell's asshole. And when you aren't risking 3rd degree burns frying, sauteing, and baking, frying, you are stocking, and prepping for the other four. Bathroom breaks? Fuck you. Cigarette breaks? Not if you want someday move up to rotisserie and roundsman. And say goodbye to your days off. You have to ship 12 appetizers out in four to six minutes. It's liked those timed cooking competitions, but for hours. Don't fuck up.
And that's if you are lucky enough to snag a chef position. In actuality you'll start as a busser or a dishwasher. All the heat, all the grease, but with 200% more "half-eaten-food-sludge"
Oh, and did I mention these positions pay right about minimum wage? Maybe a few dollars more. This is why I nope'd right the hell out of being a chef.
This never stops, by the way. You just sort of add more work and that work has greater repercussions. Instead of holding the line back 5 minutes for a single customer, suddenly your failure to inventory causes you run out of Endive in the middle of Friday dinner service. Fucking Endive.
Salesman
Diners are the biggest whiners ever. They have high expectations despite the fact that their meal is made by minimum wage gophers amongst 30 meals. And when they see the bill they choke on their spiteful tongues. When I found out it costs $175 dollars a plate for The French Laundry, I just about pissed myself. But Then Chef Keller started describing one of his dishes, about the experience of small plates and diminish returns. He wanted each person to ask "I want a little more." and receive the new surprise.
Why, this old art hating philistine wistfully thought on being in Yountsville and dropping two bills.
See, he smartly turned it from "$200 dollars in tiny food" to an experience. A good salesman will sell the feeling, not the product.
Artist
A chef is always trying to wow you, to evoke feelings. Whether it's the feeling of comfort in a hot curry or the sensual lust of a dessert. They are trying to provide a unique dining experience. The philistine in me struggles with this. When I see them haul out a frozen block to paint with chocolate, I yawn. I am impressed by the clever design of Heston's feast - and I might enjoy the experience. But I find it unnecessary.
I am wrong. Dead wrong. The search for novelty - the driving force of humanity, demands greater and greater effort into cleverness. No longer is steak good enough. Now we have to have a pureed steak milkshake with garlic mashed potatoes and Endive sprinkles.
That three-minute cigarette doesn't come with a mental disengagement. Anytime not spent cooking is spent
Accountant
Once you work five or six years of 18 hour days and become a head chef (often by virtue of simply sticking it out), you have to start performing Inventory, which is Latin for "counting boxes with a clipboard." and can also mean "alcoholism." You have a limited budget,often provided by an owner who is clearly living in 1765 when chickens went for a half-farthing for ten. How many boxes of goat spleen do you have? How many services tonight? How long until the spleen goes bad? And can you get by after that idiot Ralph dumped an entire box of Endive?
Can you? I sure as hell can't, not after working seven 18-hour days.
So they have a right to be arrogant - as anyone who exhibits expertise won through hard sacrifice deserves a goddamn medal.
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