Would you feel better if you worked for GM and we all saved your job?
Liberal education systems that don't teach sound principles but do teach "self-esteem."
I openly question management contracts that allow for severance not connected to performance and whether they are good or not.
However, it just seems companies aren't as stable as they were 20-30 years ago. I openly wonder why that is.
Speed of communication? Bad management? Speed of technological advancements? Leverage?
Don't know.
Liberal education systems that don't teach sound principles but do teach "self-esteem."
And I apologize that this is a simplistic answer, there is more to it. But when our institutions of "higher learning" are teaching us to be good feeling idiots, that is a major problem.
To be in business is to take a risk, to innovate that business is to take another risk, if the risks you take bite you in the a$$ then people lose their jobs. All companies have ups and downs, some just have downs. If there was a road map to the perfect job at the perfect company we'd all be standing in line.
You want a guarantee in life, become a teacher. Otherwise, get in line with the rest of us.
Life is a hard place, suck it up and deal; or jump out of a window.
I was going to say something similar. You said it better than I would have.
Fwiw I have a high school diploma and failed as a dairy farmer when in 1985 I took an honest look at the numbers and they couldn`t add up.
That was 3 years out of high school,my only brother putting himself through college and two parents who at that point couldn`t physically take care of themselves independently.
We were broke,there was no knowing where the next nickel was coming from.
I took a job essentially as a paper boy in a small city about 45 minutes away from 5:00 am until 10:00am 6 days a week,then come back home and work on a neighbors farm the rest of the day.
Eventually got a job through a friend at a NAPA store in 1988 and stayed there until 2000 when I took the current job.
I will never get wealthy and am fine with that,I learned the value of a dollar back a long time ago and how to manage money.
I have a Scotttrade account,an IRA and a 401k through work so all and all have done alright.
Will admit that there was some lucky breaks along the way and some stupid mistakes along with bitter disappointments.
You know what...that is life and everyone here has a unique but similar story I bet containing those basic elements.
To quote Frank "you accept,you adjust and you move on".
That really is what it is about.
There will be periods of discouragement,maybe even depression but you eventually stare the world in the eye and walk forward.
I am not being judgmental Jake or sarcastic,it just seems that you need to do a bit of reflection on what makes a person and how that has always been the American spirit and made this country.
I am just as appalled at what has happened in the last 20 months and it has forced me to alter plans I was making but am just not giving up that we will find our way eventually out of the rubble.
Good to get your prospective.
I was lucky at Lincoln, they gave me exposure to leaders. One of them was a former leader.
We had a CEO at Lincoln I liked. Older guy. Ian Rolland. Was an actuary, worked his way up through the company. Made some pretty awful mistakes and had some pretty great successes.
What he had, which I think is missing is a sense of honor.
Ian was the CEO for 20 years. He never made nearly as much in those 20 years as his successor made in 5. He thought compensation might be a problem. He took less risks and educated himself more when he took them because he knew if he failed it was his ass and his family in trouble.
I openly wonder if giving someone that much compensation makes them more prone to take higher risks. It is an argument for the shareholders.
Companies have always failed. It's only recently that the government decided they needed to save any of them...and now workers have unemployment, Social Security, and all kinds of other bennies that weren't available, say, in the Great Depression. Of course, that's the reason our country is tanking...
Speaking as a woman who went back to college with 3 kids, got a minimum-wage job after college, and spent years raising kids on next to nothing...you've got to learn to stand on your own, not depend on any company or boss to prop you up.
Its a little difficult right now. You spend half your time making sure you do your own job, and the other half covering your ass for things others will blame you for.I seriously don't think things are different now. There have always been companies that were fair with employees and companies that weren't. Employees have far more rights now than before...the one good thing unions did. But no one has ever been able to just trust that his or her hard work would forever earn them a good place in the company. Just look at how many people worked 30 years in one place...and got nothing but gold watch and a pat on the back in "Thanks." This world is not fair, and you can't look to it for true security...and never could.
Personally, I'm taking some time to do some manual labor and get my head right again. Doing some personal cleaning up as well. Getting rid of the cigarettes, I've been starting to drink a little too much, get myself back in physical shape.
After that I'll figure out what I want to do with my life, past surviving. I'm lucky. I have no children right now. I can take a few months to get myself back in mental order.
I had some goals, I'm kind of disillusioned right now. Till I get my head right and know what I want, I'm not going to find anything that satisfies me.
I also have more reasonable expectations of what I am and what I can do.
Its a little difficult right now. You spend half your time making sure you do your own job, and the other half covering your ass for things others will blame you for.
Personally, I'm taking some time to do some manual labor and get my head right again. Doing some personal cleaning up as well. Getting rid of the cigarettes, I've been starting to drink a little too much, get myself back in physical shape.
After that I'll figure out what I want to do with my life, past surviving. I'm lucky. I have no children right now. I can take a few months to get myself back in mental order.
I had some goals, I'm kind of disillusioned right now. Till I get my head right and know what I want, I'm not going to find anything that satisfies me.
I also have more reasonable expectations of what I am and what I can do.
Jake,if this is all honest and upfront then you have had an unrealistic expectation that doing certain things guarantees you a certain outcome.
That isn `t realistic and feeling that government should make it happen takes a persons self respect away.
Stop with that and take a deep breath.
Can I ask you a quick question?
Who is that guy on your avatar?
It's a gay vampire. Didn't you see 'Twilight'?No I haven't. I just see a guy who needs to bathe/shower and who has an anger problem.....
Can I ask you a quick question?
Who is that guy on your avatar?
It's a gay vampire. Didn't you see 'Twilight'?
Gaius Baltar. He is an interesting character from my favorite TV show.sorry... but I live over at
His world blows up because he was stupid enough to give the defense keys to a race of robots (mostly because the one robot is hot and pretending to be human) and he spends the rest of the show doing crazy stuff. He redeems himself at the end somewhat and becomes a basic farmer and lives with the hot robot. The way they tell the story is better.
He always thought his father was stupid for being a farmer.
Battlestar Gallactica, probably one of the better written shows recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Baltar
It didn't .... :bawl:
:p
Nah, last time I cried was my Dad's funeral. He'd have slapped me but he did at his.You are one sick guy....You can't distinguinsh joking from reality, can you?
and Drees just missed that pass. Damn. Unwinding and decompressing. Figuring out where I want to spend my energy and talents.
You are one sick guy....You can't distinguinsh joking from reality, can you?
I read things literal, it is a disorder. I have a hard time with fiction and metaphors. My father had it to. It is why I like numbers. It is why he was an engineer.
I have a great deal of trouble realizing when someone is joking. Particularly on the internet.
My brother is severely autistic with schizophrenia and I fall on the spectrum at the functional level.
50 years ago they just called us odd or eccentric.
It is kind of hell to live with sometimes. Since it is genetic, I don't believe I want children. I don't think it would be fair to give this to another person.
I should probably stick to what I think will happen with economics, I'm better at that because I can look at a graph and decipher and think about where things are going and try to logically see what will happen.
The other issues, I don't understand as much and I'm probably not that capable of understanding them.
Oh, I see!
NOW YOU'RE A VICTIM!!!!!
That esplains everything!
Funny, I thought is was just the "lefty" ideology that made one lose their sense of humor!
I stand corrected!!!!!!!!!!!!
No I have a disability with reading people that I sometimes have difficulty with. It isn't your responsibility to adjust to me. I'm trying to adjust to you so I can understand what you are trying to communicate.
I'm trying to figure out your personality so I can determine what you are talking about and whether or not you mean it or not, it is a figure of speech, or a cultural norm for the board.
I don't understand why you think some of the things you do and I'm trying to understand. I also understand I've been wrong about things in the past and it is important to test my logic and gather more information.
Oh for cryin' out loud!!!!!!!!!!
You don't even remember your own posts at the DUmp????????????
Jeez, I don't know why a lot of us here think you're a poser!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just can't understand it at all!!!!
Gooooooooooood Grieeeeeeeeeeeeeefffffffffff!
Buy a vowel!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm thinking.
People can be wrong on many things. The dumbest thing in the world is being wrong and insisting you were right. Coming on here is trying to figure out what you believe, why you believe it, and if there is some or whole truths behind it.
Frankly I think it is stupid you can't go on democratic websites and ask questions. I accepted the DU premise for a while. I accepted the OET premise for a while.
I can think of things people said to me personally 2 years ago. They made no sense than, they make sense now. I can think something my father said to me, it made absolutely no sense to me 5 years ago when he said it. Makes perfect sense now. If I believe the same things in 4 years that I believe now, I have learned nothing in life and that would be a tragedy.
I have a disability with reading people that I sometimes have difficulty with.What?
What?
“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.†~ Winston Churchill
I read things literal, it is a disorder. I have a hard time with fiction and metaphors. My father had it to. It is why I like numbers. It is why he was an engineer.
I have a great deal of trouble realizing when someone is joking. Particularly on the internet.
My brother is severely autistic with schizophrenia and I fall on the spectrum at the functional level.
50 years ago they just called us odd or eccentric.
It is kind of hell to live with sometimes. Since it is genetic, I don't believe I want children. I don't think it would be fair to give this to another person.
I should probably stick to what I think will happen with economics, I'm better at that because I can look at a graph and decipher and think about where things are going and try to logically see what will happen.
The other issues, I don't understand as much and I'm probably not that capable of understanding them.
I've never liked that saying :hammer:
:hammer:
Anyway, back to the thread topic. Jake, what I remember about your posts at Democratic Underground is that you seemed to take a much more realistic view of the economy compared to many of the posters. I've appreciated your posts in our economic forum. I'm sure you will clash with many here on political issues, and many will give you a hard time, especially at the beginning, but welcome.
No I have a disability with reading people that I sometimes have difficulty with. It isn't your responsibility to adjust to me. I'm trying to adjust to you so I can understand what you are trying to communicate.
I'm trying to figure out your personality so I can determine what you are talking about and whether or not you mean it or not, it is a figure of speech, or a cultural norm for the board.
I don't understand why you think some of the things you do and I'm trying to understand. I also understand I've been wrong about things in the past and it is important to test my logic and gather more information.
I'm taking a break for a few months. I can. I'll figure out what I want to do and do it. I've had a difficult 3 years with a broken engagement, my mother's cancer, and my father dying of cancer. Life isn't fair, but if you have no kids or no wife you can figure it out. Better I do that now.
I've worked elections ironically enough first as a teenager for a republican for judge. You can have a great candidate, the right strategy, work hard, and still the other guy might win for something stupid like his name is similar to another politician or the order the candidate is on the ballot, or because your party has a bad leader right now and people are just voting simply based on anger at that leader.
I know that. I'm just going to figure out what to do. Besides, we are in an economic depression. Not in the labor force and not spending anything other than on food leaves a job for someone to feed a minor that is dependent on them.
No one else is hurt by me doing this and I'm not taking a government handout. I think it is moral.
Culture of reality denial because you don't like reality.
I always enjoyed the Bible. Outside the miracles in it that I have never seen, I see real people and real lessons.
I love David and Solomon. You see some very complex personalities with very human faults.
Gaius Baltar. He is an interesting character from my favorite TV show.Gaius was the consummate democrat voting liberal.
His world blows up because he was stupid enough to give the defense keys to a race of robots (mostly because the one robot is hot and pretending to be human) and he spends the rest of the show doing crazy stuff. He redeems himself at the end somewhat and becomes a basic farmer and lives with the hot robot. The way they tell the story is better.
He always thought his father was stupid for being a farmer.
Battlestar Gallactica, probably one of the better written shows recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Baltar
In fairness to Gaius, this was the Robot
http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/CapricaSixContinued.jpg
No I have a disability with reading people that I sometimes have difficulty with. It isn't your responsibility to adjust to me. I'm trying to adjust to you so I can understand what you are trying to communicate.
Its a little difficult right now. You spend half your time making sure you do your own job, and the other half covering your ass for things others will blame you for.
Personally, I'm taking some time to do some manual labor and get my head right again. Doing some personal cleaning up as well. Getting rid of the cigarettes, I've been starting to drink a little too much, get myself back in physical shape.
After that I'll figure out what I want to do with my life, past surviving. I'm lucky. I have no children right now. I can take a few months to get myself back in mental order.
I had some goals, I'm kind of disillusioned right now. Till I get my head right and know what I want, I'm not going to find anything that satisfies me.
I also have more reasonable expectations of what I am and what I can do.
Sorry. Not buying it.
Given your previous doccumented comments about Republicans...Tea party folks...President Bush...VP Cheney and this board...your hat in hand aw shucks crap is just that.
Your defense of the shoddy job the Democrats have done over the last four years of running this country into the ground by blaming corporations and crporate structure dosen't help.
You're attempt at revisionist history and hinting that the country is partially founded on Socialist beliefs seals the deal on your insincerity for me.
There is a reason you're here...not sure what it is...but my gut tells me there is a reason and it's not to interact with Conservatives or to try and understand where the other side of the political spectrum comes from.
Jake, I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but TRG is right here. I've seen enough of your screeds in the past to make me say, "A good try." Not usre if you have indeed tried the Capt. Joseph Smith routine (think RMS Titanic) and turn it around, but until I see otherwise, I'd tend towards what AR and TRG are saying.
Jake, I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but TRG is right here. I've seen enough of your screeds in the past to make me say, "A good try." Not usre if you have indeed tried the Capt. Joseph Smith routine (think RMS Titanic) and turn it around, but until I see otherwise, I'd tend towards what AR and TRG are saying.
I openly question management contracts that allow for severance not connected to performance and whether they are good or not.
However, it just seems companies aren't as stable as they were 20-30 years ago. I openly wonder why that is.
Speed of communication? Bad management? Speed of technological advancements? Leverage?
Don't know.
Odd as it may sound, with the Japanese idea of lifetime employment that comes to so many minds when discussing them, much of the treatment of labor as a fungible supply to be bought or dumped as convenient comes from adopting Japanese production models such as TQM and JIT inventory. The truth of the lifetime employment myth is that it was a lot like being a US civil service employee, EXCEPT that this was only true for 'Permanent' employees, and legions of both temporary and contract laborers would come and go with the tides in Japanese industry. The major car manufacturers particularly were notorious for their over-a-barrell rapacity in treating with their suppliers, to a degree that would have made Wal-Mart jealous.
Velocity of change certainly plays its part, as well, in the current age the idea that a category of product or even an entire sector can provide stable and predictable levels of employment over the length of a career, or even half of one, is unrealistic for many, many fields. Still, though it has been good from a stock or GDP point of view to this point, the reality is that business has somewhat overharvested the rewards of disposable labor, at the expense of the long-term interests of the work force and to some extent their own. However, few businesses aside from possibly those making capital expenditures on real estate, the transportation infrastructure, or (Very) durable equipment seem to actually weigh much of anything more than five years out in making their strategic decisions anymore.
Well if this don't prove liberalism is a mental disorder!!
Many people do not realize that Talbot's - a half century old women's clothing company that originally started in MA...is owned by the Japanese.
I don't know for how long, but they were back when I worked for them in the mid-90's, at the catalog center here in E TN.
They ran the call center, as if it were in Japan. Dictating specific work attire(we sat in cubicles-never to be seen by the public, yet a woman's bare leg was not allowed, if wearing a skirt, nylons or tights were mandatory, if wearing slacks - socks were mandatory), having to ask permission to go to the bathroom, 10 minute breaks 2x's a day, and 30-min lunch break, taken in the break-room and not allowed to leave the facility. No personal calls in or out....any that came in went through the reception desk, and they and better be for an emergency. No switching of shifts(work day) or giving one up unless you used a vacation or personal day. I think we were allowed 5 personal days in a year. Vacation was 2 weeks and unpaid. No eating or chewing gum at your desk, but you were allowed a drink in a specific container. Computers were locked into only the programs needed to complete an order.
Every month we were given a perfomance report by our immediate supervisor. Raise reviews were once a year. A 25-cent/hour was the max raise. No one got that...the ones I got were either 22 or 23-cents each time. I think I was up to $7.50 an hour when I quit, after 3.5 years. Start salary is minimum hourly wage.
The "powers that be" could not understand why there was such a high turnover rate. ::)
However, I did have fabulous insurance benefits that cost me less than $20/week, and they did 50% max into retirement up to 6%. Life and dental insurance was also available. Someone with a family could add them into the health and dental, and spouses could also get life insurance.
Holy Smoke! Talk about a hostile work enviro!
Amazing ya lasted 3.5 years! I coulda never done it!
but then we all know women have the patience of a Saint! lol!
ETA:
especially when it comes to revenge! heh!
The last 6 months I was there, I was in and out of my internist's office with chest pains. Was even having them on vacation. They were getting progressively worse, and mirrored the symptoms of a heart attack...the sweaty clamminess, nausea, sheet-white pale, light-headed and intense pain in my chest and neck. I'd lay in a room for an hour hooked up to an EKG, with the printout being within perfectly normal ranges.
After having to drink barium for an upper GI series of x-rays, finding nothing, my symptoms getting worse....my doctor decided to do a Thalium stress test.
If you don't know anything about this stress test, you have a sign a release that, among other stuff.... states YOU MAY DIE DURING OR AS A RESULT OF THIS TEST.
Uh...I wasn't going to sign it. Naw, baby, naw!!! They finally convinced me by telling me the doctor(radiologist) would be by my side the whole time. They lied. ::) He was there when the dye was injected, and while I was on the treadmill....the nurse was complaining that my heart rate was not going up enough, I was too thin, and I wasn't sweating like I should. Huh? After 20 minutes, they stopped the treadmill, laid me out on a suspended stretcher thing while this huge ( I was terrified) machine took 27 minutes to go from my right side to my left.
Had to go back 4 hours later for another scan thing. The tech told me my doctor would call me in a few days.
I finally called after the weekend, as I hadn't heard from my dr. Nurse looked at the results, said I was "textbook perfect". I asked what that meant...she said arteries were completely clear, and everything was normal. But I needed to come in and see the doctor a couple of days later.
When I went back to my doctor....he told me to quit my job. Apparently I hated my job so much, it was stressing out my body. I knew I wasn't crazy about it, but did not realize I hated it.
Took a 3 month leave of absence and went to real estate school. The only times I ever had the pain again, was each month when I had to go back to fill out the leave of absence forms. Have never had them again once I finally quit and that was over 13 years ago. Even as bad as real estate has been the last couple of years, I haven't had any of those symptoms.
Stress does really bad things to a body... :(
I know all about these tests! I've had two and they want me to take another!
I have platelets constricting the vessels to and from my heart. Eventually I'll have to have them send up the roto rooter blades up thru my leg and into the major vessels to clear them out.
Not somethin' I'm lookin' forward to!
I know all about these tests! I've had two and they want me to take another!
I have platelets constricting the vessels to and from my heart. Eventually I'll have to have them send up the roto rooter blades up thru my leg and into the major vessels to clear them out.
Not somethin' I'm lookin' forward to!
I know all about these tests! I've had two and they want me to take another!
I have platelets constricting the vessels to and from my heart. Eventually I'll have to have them send up the roto rooter blades up thru my leg and into the major vessels to clear them out.
Not somethin' I'm lookin' forward to!
I know all about these tests! I've had two and they want me to take another!
I have platelets constricting the vessels to and from my heart. Eventually I'll have to have them send up the roto rooter blades up thru my leg and into the major vessels to clear them out.
Not somethin' I'm lookin' forward to!