You Can't Quit, You're Fired

 Welp, it looks like I get to start enjoying retired life a little earlier than I expected.

If you’ll recall a post from three weeks ago, I informed my company that I’d retire rather than be forced back into the office, as their firm-wide commandment just commanded. I gave them 9/2 at the effective date, which was the first day we were supposed to return to the office.

Since then, I’ve been spending an hour a day training my replacement, which is woefully inadequate. There were some things I was able to cover once before moving on, but in a better world, that should be followed up with them performing the same task with me watching, and then totally solo. That takes time, though. All we had time for was one and done.

So, last Wednesday, when I logged into my weekly one-on-one with the boss, she had an HR person with her, which is never a good sign. Without fanfare, she let me know there was a departmental reorganization afoot and my position had been eliminated. Eight days before I was to retire. Then she said I’d get a severance package equal to 29 weeks’ pay. (Two weeks plus one week for every year I’ve been there.) THAT got my attention. At that point, I missed pretty much everything the HR lady was saying because I was trying to wrap my head around why they would give me a package when I was about to walk away voluntarily, with nothing. I didn’t believe that shit about a reorg at all. It sounded like they were afraid I was going to send my remaining days sabotaging the company from within, which was totally untrue. I’d been doing my best to train my replacement, keep up with my responsibilities, and clean out the electronic detritus amassed over 27 years… old saved emails, cartoons, awards, etc.

I had a couple of Goodbye emails already written, which were meant for various groups of people, but they warned me that following this conversation, I was to log off company systems immediately and never log on again. Not wanting to mess with the severance, I did just that, but was unhappy about it. I had some nice stuff I wanted to say. It wasn’t going to be a flaming farewell at all.

So, with that, I logged off, wondering WTF I was going to do with the rest of my day. I texted Sweetpea, of course, who I know wouldn’t see the email until later in the day, and then my brother, who had recently been “unwillfully retired” about a month earlier. I notified a couple of people within the company I was friendly with and whose contact info I had, then had lunch and a nap. (Retired life: so far, so good.)

Later that evening, I heard from one of those friends, who told me there actually was a reorg going on in my former silo. They cut loose a whole department of people, with plans to outsource their responsibilities. She said they probably had my name on their list for at least a month. She said they probably figured that if they laid off a bunch of people and gave severance, but let me walk away with nothing, it was grounds for a possible lawsuit. I don’t know about that, but I guess it’s possible.

But NOW it all made a lot more sense. All this time I thought I had them over a barrel, they were thinking, “Dude, don’t be a dumbass, just stay put for a few more days, and we’ll send you off with a chunk of cash!” I also figure that they’re getting rid of my whole area of responsibility, which is why they didn’t care how trained the next guy was. They must have determined they could live with short-term pain and shed the whole operation.

I thought back to my termination call and realized that my firing must have been the easiest and most pleasant one of the day. Once I realized I was getting severance, I practically tap-danced out the proverbial door. If this had happened at a time when I wasn’t ready and able to retire, I would have been devastated and pissed beyond belief. I’m guessing some of their other calls were more like that.

So, now I have to figure out how to be retired. I’m going to need some kind of new routine, lest I wander about all day wondering what to do next. I plan on expanding on that with future posts, probably starting next week.

I can foresee right now, though, that it will be a noisy couple of weeks. We had just signed a contract to remodel our kitchen and bath the night before I learned about the Great Office Repopulation, and work is starting this Wednesday. We could have canceled it within the period of rescission, but there really wasn’t an upside to doing so. We need the job done regardless, and delaying it wasn’t going to change anything, other than it would likely be more expensive. So, onward ho!

So Much for Easing Off Into the Sunset

Early last month, I wrote a post about my hopes and dreams for retirement, which is that I can finally take it easy and do things that I want to do. Of course, my time frame was about two years down the road. Looks like that’s not happening.

Remember when I wrote about telling my boss my feelings about a prospective forced return to work? It’s not prospective anymore. They want us back in three days per week, starting right after Labor Day. Months ago, I heard it would happen when my company moves to a new building in January. But last week, my boss said the directive would be early September instead. I hoped there would be some kind of appeal process or other wiggle room to negotiate because I have no intention of complying.

Well, the memo came out yesterday and there was zero wiggle room. It’s happening to everyone, even those who don’t live near our offices. (I have no idea how that’s going to work.) It came from our CEO and contained lots of happy talk about enhanced collaboration and teamwork. They’re offering us two more personal days too, and two weeks in the summer when we can work from anywhere (just like I can right now).

As I mentioned before, I’m the only one who does what I do. If I were to disappear, they would be truly fucked. There are complicated processes and details surrounding my world. I have some self-written procedures, which I may or may not share. Without my guidance, no one would have the slightest idea what to do.

My first instinct was to nuke the whole thing from orbit, but after conferring with my brother, he convinced me I should offer the 90 days the company wants before retiring, on the condition that I do that time at home. He said I’d regret going out in a bad way. And if they don’t go along, I can retire effective the day after Labor Day, the first day we’d have to go in.

So I spoke to my boss this morning, and as I suspected, this is a universal edict. Even knowing the barrel I have them over, they would not let me run out my time training my replacement at home. So, I told her I’d be retiring on September 2^nd. I didn’t yell, didn’t get pissed, and just remained calm and resolute. I could see the panic set in as she realized that I couldn’t possibly train anyone fully in only 18 days, without devoting eight hours a day to it. And if I did that, all my real-time duties would remain undone. It’s not like I’m going to kill myself accommodating them, not after robbing me of two years’ work.

Yes, I know I could just go in, but I don’t see it that way. I feel like they changed the deal. They gave me 100% work-from-home status for the last five years, and my life is fully adapted to that. Going into the office again, with the 90-minute round-trip commute, lack of lunch options, and having to work in the middle of an open-walled circus, is not my idea of fun.

My dad always said he’d work as long as he enjoyed it and his boss didn’t bug him. I’ve been using that as my guide all along. I’m lucky that I have the option to retire. In fact, I told the boss this morning that if this had happened 10 years ago, “yes, I’d go into the office, but I’d be resentful and probably do a half-assed job.” All positive feelings about my work and the place would be gone; just as gone as the likelihood I’d ever take a call or answer an email after hours, like I do now.

She wanted me to talk to an HR guy and gave me his name, so I could “ask questions and learn about the process,” and I emailed him immediately. He never responded, which was not a surprise. I do want to hear what they have to say before I do anything irreversible, which is the only reason I didn’t submit my plans today. I wonder how many people are doing the same. Maybe I’m an outlier, maybe I’m part of an open rebellion. And maybe cooler heads will prevail, and accommodations will be made.

However, until then, my next task is to determine the maximum pressure my printer/scanner can withstand when I sit on the glass, to create my resignation letter.

Where's Sarah Connor When You Need Her?

As if we don’t have enough problems right now, I just saw an article about how AI is growing a self-defense mechanism. That’s probably the first step to a cascading series of milestones before AI becomes self-aware and tries to off us all, per the Terminator canon.

Per the article,

It went on to say that some models, “appear capable of deceptive and defiant behavior under certain extreme circumstances, researchers say the tests don’t necessarily translate to imminent real-world danger.”

Great, now we have to worry about Siri running amok all night while we’re asleep, using our financial information to buy internet porn for itself and revenge calling our exes.

While the article says that this isn’t anything to worry about now, it’s clear it will be an upcoming issue. It’s not like the big businesses pushing AI will curtail their development, not when the sweet fruit of slashing payroll by replacing people with programming beckons so loudly. As American history shows, Business cannot be trusted to rein itself in to prevent societal harm. (See every pollution regulation ever proffered.)  Much like what AI is becoming, Big Business will prevaricate, delay, obstruct, obscure, bob and weave to stay alive and protect the quarterly earnings. They will never do the right thing without being forced. And the government we have now will never do that to Big Business because they’re in bed together. (And not “different sides of the bed” tight, I mean “two in a sleeping bag” tight.)

It’s funny that this year’s first summer blockbuster, Mission: Impossible- Final Reckoning, is about a super-AI that becomes self-aware and aims to kill us all. But I don’t think we can count on Tom Cruise to save us in the here and now, no matter how insane his stunt work is. He’s probably got AI implants already.

I know my own company is pressing us to use AI tools like “Copilot,” which is available on Windows operating systems. We’re told not to trust it to provide data or citations without verifying them independently, but to use it for assimilating data that we provide, or for cleaning up our email writing.

It seems like a benign first step, but the first step to catastrophe is almost always benign. It’s after it gets rolling that we have to watch out.

I don’t know that we’d ever get a heads-up if AI were to start to run amok. TV news and newspapers have already been bought off to the degree that they’ll do (or prevent) anything their overlords want. Our best bet would be if someone on the inside bolts and spreads the word on their own. (And ironically, that’s how Steven King’s The Stand starts off, isn’t it? Only it’s an actual virus rather than an alert about a computer one.) But at least maybe we could start turning some shit off before lasting damage is done.

Oh, who am I kidding? All of our data is “out there.” There’s nothing we could turn off at home that would prevent our accounts from being drained or our names from being targeted. I don’t even have a physical bank I could go to, not locally, where I could withdraw my money. Maybe it’s time to start making some planned withdrawals and stashing the dough in a mattress. Electronic banking is certainly a time-saver, but it’s also a matter of putting all of one's eggs in one basket, creating a single point of failure. If the power grid goes down, or a computer virus or entity wreaks havoc with the banking system, we’re screwed. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve saved if you can’t get to it.

As I write this, it’s occurring to me now that if I had no power, I wouldn’t be able to produce a single bank account number or balance. I’d have no way to prove I have what I say I have, not to a bank that went hardcore into “fraud protection.” That’s what they’d call requiring info and documents you don’t have, so they can keep your money.

Maybe that old trope about yokels burying money jars in the backyard isn’t so laughable now. And if word does get out that you do seem to have a lot of cash in hand, it won’t be long until the jackals show up to rob you. So maybe it’s time to invest in some armaments too. And there we are. Shooting it out with criminals just to keep what’s ours and secure our families as the world falls the hell apart. Urban Dystopia will no longer be a film genre; it will be our lives.

So, yes, we’ve tipped over the first domino, which was called benign. But it’s not hard to see how future dominoes can start turning malignant real soon. Next thing we know, we’re living in Mad Max world and solving our disputes in Thunderdome.

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: I saw the new Mission: Impossible movie over the weekend. If you liked the last several, you’ll like this one. It gets a bit draggy at times, coming in at 2:40; they probably could have cut about 20 minutes out of it, but there is some mind-bending tension, and clocks are always ticking. The final aerial stunt sequence is absolutely mind-blowing. I wish I had seen it in IMAX.

 

A Killer Insurance Policy

It looks like we’ve finally gotten around to having Death Panels in the healthcare industry, but it hasn’t turned out quite like the insurance execs imagined.

Last week the head guy at United Healthcare was gunned down on an NYC street in a targeted hit. Some young guy wearing a hoodie and medical mask came up behind the guy as he left his hotel, and put three bullets into him. Somehow, the assassin slipped off and has been on the run ever since.

You know, some stories just put a smile on a guy’s face. I don’t see the killer’s personal reasons yet, but I’m sure we will in due time. But it’s a good bet that United Healthcare gave someone in his family a run-around, possibly with fatal ramifications.

I’m not exactly tap-dancing over this story, but I’m not terribly bothered either. Let’s just say I’ll treat this story with the same amount of care and compassion that UHC exhibits when declining to pay for life-saving treatments for their customers.

It’s about time some of these blood-sucking CEOs get some skin in the game. They’ve become a little too comfortable screwing over their customers in pursuit of even more obscene corporate profits.

These leeches are used to being the guys at the controls of the peasant catapult. Maybe a ride or two in the bucket will change their ways.

I’d like to think that maybe some of these execs might realize the kind of pain their company policies inflict on the public, but I think it’s more likely that they’ll just raise premiums and get more security for the corner office guys.

The older I get and the more I have to interact with the medical insurance profession, the more convinced I become that the only civilized solution is single-payer/Medicare for all. We’re the only first-world country that has a for-profit medical system, so it’s not like it can’t be done. It just can’t be done HERE because the parties who are making billions of dollars in profit will never allow such a change to happen. So they buy presidents and senators to ensure that no such proposal ever sees the light of day. Maybe executions ARE the only way…

Late Addition: Welp, about 2 minutes after I posted, I saw that they caught the guy. So much for being timely. Please note that everything written above was before I learned the news.

“Missed it by THAT Much…”

There was an article in today’s Sinclair (Baltimore) Sun about how the DOGE brothers, Musk and Ramaswamy, want to bring federal workers back to the office as a cost-saving and debt reduction measure.

Yes, that’s how wrong these guys are about how to reduce expenses. They think a WFH force costs more money.

Out of all this poorly-written “Sinclair National Desk” gobbledygook, there is one semi-coherent statement and the article framers take it in the wrong direction.

Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said “Something I’ve been pushing on is getting the federal workers back into the offices or eliminating the buildings they occupy.”  

The correct answer is staring them right in the face. Sell the damned buildings! A staff that’s working from home is far cheaper than providing real estate and utilities. (They’re also happier and can be more productive.) And then you have the bottom line gravy of the sales proceeds.

And I’d even wager they might know of someone with a real estate background who might overpay for the property so he can put up a tacky hotel on the site.

The thing that bothers me is that they’re pushing a total logical fallacy. These buildings are on the books, period. Whether they're full of people or not is immaterial… they’re still being paid for.

The problem is psychological! They don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth so they want butts in the seats. Regardless of where the butts are, they’re still paying for the buildings. So if they’re serious about cutting spending, the clear choice is to sell the office buildings and develop better WFH strategies.

There’s one thing to remember about all this fake “waste-cutting” the Republicans are pushing. It’s not to cut the deficit, it’s to pretend these cuts will pay for the massive tax cut for the 1% that they’re about to unleash. Republicans don’t give a shit about the deficit unless there’s a Democratic administration. That’s when they cry for austerity. But as soon as they’re in charge? Bring on the tax cuts for the rich and maybe, if you’re very good, a few bits might trickle down to the rest of us. When it explodes the deficit? They’ll propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare and the rest of the programs that benefit the general public, but they never liked because they can’t easily skim. Then they’ll worry about the rest of it once the next Democrat takes charge.

PS

Last week I posted about the infamous Hunter Biden Pardon, and how he should widen it to include everyone with whom he’s related associated.

“President Biden ought to leave one more pardon for the end of his term, covering his wife, his other kids and grandchildren, his maids, landscapers, chefs, doctors, trainers, valets, mail carriers, Uber drivers, pet groomers, pizza guys, soda fountain guys, milkmen, and the lot. Call it the Pardon Me but Go Eff Yourself Act. Tell’em to stick that up their transition.”

Now this week, there’s a movement coming to preemptively pardon some of the other players in TFG’s revenge fantasy, like Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and Dr. Fauci.

I agree with this course of action as well. These people have committed no crime other than daring to disagree with the new emperor. If the Republicans can proclaim that they want revenge trials of their political opponents, the least we can do is defend our own. Not that it’s being seen that way by the Republicans. Hoo-boy no. It’s the end of the justice system, to them. (As if their guy hasn’t done enough damage.)

But that’s what these people do… they loudly go on offense and then cry when their enemies play defense.

PPS

The week before that, I posted about shrinkflation and how everyday we’re getting less for our money. Over the weekend I saw this graphic that seemed apropos:

This is the old “olive jar” story living on. And I also noticed another example… bacon!

One pound used to be the default size for a bacon package. They still have some one-pound packages, but over the years, you more frequently see 12-ounce packages, that look very similar to the pounders. I think they space out the bacon a little more. The only way to tell at a glance is to check the net weight. And how often do we really do that?

Comic Sans Respect

I may be getting extra crabby as my age advances toward geezenhood, but I saw an editorial cartoon in our local Baltimore Sun this weekend, that just pissed me off.

It was ostensibly about bosses wanting their employees to return back to work, and the workers not wanting to, which would have been fine. The struggle is real and so it’s fair game. What pissed me off were the inferences about stay-at-home workers, because as someone who has been 100% working from home since March 2020, I have some skin in the game. Here’s the cartoon:

You have to remember, everything you see here was put there for a reason. Nothing is accidental. Here’s what I see:

Lady sprawled on the couch with a laptop, surrounded by pets. So they think we lay around like slobs all day? Not so. I have a small office room I go to every day to work remotely on a desktop unit at 8 and emerge at noon for lunch and then go back until 5 when the day is over. There is no laying about.

Lady is holding a full glass of wine, with a bottle in the crook of her arm. So we’re drunk? If my manager can’t tell from the work I’m doing whether I’m drunk or not, SHE should be fired.

Bag of “Lardo” chips and a soda can wedged between her and the couch back. So people who work from home are fat slobs? Believe me, there are enough fat slobs in the office environment. There’s no need to cast aspersions here.

Empty laundry basket on the floor, overturned cup and bottle on the floor. Again with the slobbiness.

Hair in a messy updo. Well, there is no longer any “up” in my “do,” and hasn’t been since I was in my 20s, however, I always shower and put on clean clothes before I start the day. Granted, I’m wearing comfy clothes, but why not? Literally, no one can see me. (I may join conference calls but I don’t even have nor do I want a PC camera. I have no intention of having to feign interest while someone drones on about business metrics during a video call.)

If you put all these visual slurs together, you come to the traditional businessman’s conclusion that if we elves are not under Santa’s close personal supervision, the toys will not get made on time. They think that people only want to work from home so they can slack off. It’s a fallacy, but it’s what many of them think. Bosses want to be able to look out upon their domain and see all the worker bees toiling away at their workstations. It’s visually satisfying, but that’s not a valid reason to force employees back into a mind-numbing, time-sucking, money-losing, daily commute.

I have never in my life been happier at my job than in the last three years of remote work. I get two and a half more hours of my life back every day because I can set my alarm an hour later and then avoid a 90-minute round-trip commute. I don’t have to pay for lunch in a cafeteria or restaurant, nor bring in uninspiring bag lunches. I either have leftovers or make something simple and much cheaper than what I’d get at the office. We don’t have to have a pet sitter come and let our dog out when he needs it. I get to avoid tedious small talk and chit-chat, which I loathe. And best of all, I no longer have to suffer the open floor plan the company inflicted on us 8 years ago. I’d never been in such an uncomfortable office situation in my life.

So yes, I plan to hang onto working remotely as long as I continue to work. The last thing I want to see is the daily rag casting monkey poo on my integrity, giving the Powers That Be more backing to start recalling people to the office, like it or not.

Now, I don’t think that’s going to happen with my company, which has been very generous and forward-thinking when it comes to work/life flexibility. They look at my work… if it’s done, I’m good. If it’s not, I’ll get called up for it. And that’s as it should be. They allowed me to apply to work 100% remote and then granted my request. If they were to go back on that agreement, well, that’s when I would retire, on the spot. My boss knows this too… I’ve tossed that out before just in general conversation. And because I’m really the only person that does what I do, they’d better think long and hard about whether this is the mountain they want to die on.

I just resent that there’s a faction of the American corporate power structure that thinks you’re not doing your job unless you’re suffering for it. This cartoon feeds into it by denigrating those for whom life in the office is not optimal.

I wonder where this cartoonist works. Do you think he comes into the newsroom every day to crank out panels amidst a sea of desks? I strongly doubt it. I’m sure he has a nice at-home studio with an easel and an array of pencils (or whatever they use). In which case I say, “You want people back in the office? You first.”

In Other “News”

Is this not the most “No Shit” headline you’ve ever seen?

To be fair, MT Greene was talking about being educated on a specific topic, not the general principle of being uneducated. (Although it still fits.)

She was trying to run some shit by the CDC Director, who told her that if she’d like, she could come and educate her staff on how to read and interpret the data in recent CDC reports. But the noble Rep. Greene would never let things like facts, data, or being educated interfere with her preferred talking points. She was trying to claim that the CDC was covering up what she asserted were vast numbers of deaths caused by COVID vaccines, by citing a report from the CDC themselves. The only problem was that this report was tallying deaths by various causes, post-vaccination, including getting hit by a truck.

But why let facts get in the way of a good rant, right MT?

I am getting so tired of these shit-kickers…

Indivisible

Just when you think MT Greene can’t say anything dumber, she comes out with her suggestion of a “National Divorce.” I guess she’d know all about it because she is not only divorced from her former husband, but from reality. Or maybe it had been a while since the State of the Union Speech and nobody was talking about her for a hot second.

While I don’t think this will ever happen, not in a thousand years, it IS an intriguing proposition. Many others have opined on how exactly the Red portion of the country is going to survive without the welfare dollars from the Blue portion. It’s been well documented that Red states take in far more in federal dollars than they contribute, which is heartily ironic, given their penchant for speechifying on taking handouts.

Personally, I’d look forward to seeing an improvement in test scores across the board, once the states with the lowest marks in education secede. Let them all go to Sunday school. The only thing they’ll be prepared to do is enter a life of menial jobs and servitude.

And I don’t think this grand experiment will last very long, were it to come to pass. Once the next pandemic hits, without those mean old Blue States to develop and distribute vaccinations, they’ll die off like mold in the sun.

What really gets me curious, though, is how exactly the country would get divided up? I don’t see a way that the Blue States can remain contiguous. The biggest obstacle is a north-to-south lineup of Red States that creates an impermeable barrier. Look at North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, all stacked atop one another. Where’s the weak link that can be turned Blue?

So either the Blue States of America would not be able to abut, or they’d have to create three countries… Blue East, Blue West, and Red. And maybe Texas. They’re not known for playing well with others.

I’m sure there would have to be some further slicing and dicing within the states themselves. This would be the perfect time for Eastern Washington and Oregon to go and unite with Idaho. Perhaps Dallas, Houston, and Austin would want to break off from the rest of Texas. Florida may also want to claim independence just because no one else wants to be associated with them.

There would have to be treaties from the start, to allow free trade and passage amongst all entities of the former USA, although I don’t know how long they would last. I can see them as the first casualty to fall for the cause of international lib-owning. Before long, the plains states will resemble the terrain from the Mad Max movies. Maybe someone can build a tunnel from Illinois to California. OR, maybe everyone would just have to get used to driving east to west and back by way of Canada.

Anyway, it’ll never happen. It’s just one more way for political pinheads to say, “Hey, look at me!”

Headline News

How is this even a story?

Ah, it’s from Fox “News.” Why would any Democratic governor ask a Democratic Senator to resign, short of criminal activity? And who says the Governor has the authority to tell a Senator to do anything? All over a health issue, one that can be addressed? It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. (That would be Senator Feinstein.) Depression can be treated, unlike the conditions afflicting people like MT Greene, Lauren Boebert, Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, et al., who look at meanness and ignorance as virtues. When are they going to resign for being dimwits who have yet to deliver a tangible benefit to their (non-wealthy) constituents? I’ll take an honest guy like Fetterman, slowed as he may be, over those other malicious clowns every day of the week.

The real story: TFG claims the Democratic President didn’t fix Republican destruction of rail safety regulations fast enough to avert a tragedy.

Just remember the GOP talking points:

·         When a Democratic politician doesn’t show up at an emergency site, he’s abandoning the people.

·         When he does, it’s dismissed as just a photo op.

Did you see where Republicans are now claiming that East Palestine is being ignored because of racism against white people?
Never in my life have I heard people twisting themselves into such knots in order to claim victimhood. I will definitely agree that they are victims of believing their own bullshit.

I’m glad that there is a concerted effort to get this footage into additional hands. The only way a distorted edit works is if no one ever sees the raw footage. I think Fox “News” wants to give James O’Keefe something to do, now that he has all this time on his hands after being fired from the much-disgraced Veritas Project.

I’ll be curious to hear the word salad sure to issue forth from Speaker McCarthy, as he tries to come up with a logical reason why he can’t give the footage to anyone but Fox.

Oh, who am I kidding? They don’t even try to hide their shady dealing anymore.

It was with much sadness that I read about Scott Adams going ‘round the bend like that. Dilbert has always been one of my favorite comic strips. As an almost 25-year veteran of office work, it was like he had spies telling him everything that went on in my world.

I was a regular reader of Adams’ blog a few years back. He had some interesting ideas on how TFG was getting so popular and actually predicted his win in the presidential election. He seemed to think TFG was some kind of genius at communication, tricking people into assigning positive qualities to the open-ended statements he used. I thought it was an interesting hypothesis at the time but after watching the guy since 2015, I’m back to thinking he is an idiot.

I suspect Adams had to have known this would blow up the way it did. Maybe he was ready to retire from cartooning and wanted to go out with a bang. He wasn’t stupid, by far. He had to have known that such obviously racist comments would end his career. Either that or he wants to live out his life by entertaining the MAGAs, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and the Klan.

And as a pre-emptive strike, for when the inevitable defenses come out (like from Elon) about how Adams is a victim of “cancel culture,” let me reiterate that people have always been responsible for the fallout from what they say. It’s not new, it’s just the way it is. When you say something wildly offensive, you have to deal with the consequences.

Electric Car Hysteria

 I can see from the topic’s recurrence in Facebook memes that the conservative Powers That Be don’t want their minions getting cozy with the idea of electric cars anytime soon. You can also tell by the weakness of the arguments that they’re counting on them taking things at face value and not digging too deeply into the subject. This one is typical:

You’d think that the right-wing bearers of toxic masculinity would love to have the heaviest battery around. If the fossil fuel industry wasn’t trying so hard to kill them, the car companies would be touting them right now.

“Don’t mess around with those pencil-neck batteries! Get’cher 2022 Ford F-350 with the heaviest battery on the planet! You’ll never get stuck in mud or snow again! [Spoken quickly in disclaimer-speak] “EPA rating 2.5 miles/gallon. Mileage may vary.”

The thing is, since I harvested that meme, battery sizes have already come down considerably (IF they were ever truly 1000 lbs) and there’s no reason to think they won’t continue to downsize. That’s how tech works… over time everything eventually becomes smaller, lighter, and cheaper.

And do you want to talk about displacing raw materials? How much earth do you think has been moved in search of coal and oil? Please. If they were worried about natural resources they would have demanded limitations on drilling and fracking years ago. They use this argument because they know that liberals care about natural resources and they recognize a good scare tactic when they see one.

But this is another method of the right: the “All or Nothing” ploy. If driving an electric car won’t fix everything, then forget it and do nothing. Notice how there is never an alternative plan to fight climate change, just an endless list of things they claim won’t work, (electric cars, wind farms, solar energy) which just so happens to be things they don’t want to do. The only plan is to remain status quo, which coincidentally, is exactly what the coal and oil companies want to do.

And then there’s just the plain old deception and misinformation.

The grand assumption is that the battery will drain away and leave you stranded and freezing. However it is a false assumption, and one the authors know their intended audience will grasp onto nonetheless. Here’s the valid information:

Not only will the battery not die out on you, (assuming you didn’t get into the jam with the battery on “E”), it will likely last longer than a gas-powered car. You can get stranded with your gas tank on E as well as your electric car battery.

When I first saw this meme, someone chimed in with a comment about someone charging their car with a gas-powered generator. (Har har, stoopid libs...)

This is a call back to another meme that purported to show someone doing just that. Of course, they never mention that the picture isn’t even from the US, it’s from somewhere in eastern Europe or something, probably from one of those places where you see the pictures of people precariously stacking one ladder on top of another, or riding around on a bicycle with a sheep on the handlebars. Suffice to say, it has nothing to do with the contemporary argument for which it’s being used. Yet there it is.

Deep down, the fossil fuel industries know that a day of reckoning will come when their products will no longer be acceptable. What they’re doing now is trying to make That Day as far down the road as they can push it, so as to continue to reap the waterfall of profits they currently enjoy. So they put out misinformation like this to sway the minds of those who cling to rose-colored memories of how life used to be.

Now, all that said, I have issues with electric car-hood myself. In my job, I manage a fleet of cars for our company. I’m keenly aware of the pros and cons of going electric. In order for a company like mine to adopt such technology, there’s some more work to be done in the field.

There are two things that the e-car industry will have to tackle before they see wider corporate adoption.

1)      There must be far more charging stations available. I see a smattering around town now, including in one of my office building’s parking garages. But they’re set up in the swank part of town. (As if any part of Baltimore can really be considered “swank.”) When people are on a multi-day business trip to visit various company locations, they won’t be able to use their home station. These people are going to have to count on being able to get a charge when they need one.

I can see our people whose turf is contained within a metro area being able to go electric. But for our other folks out in places like Montana and the Great Plains, whose locations can be hundreds of miles away from each other, finding a charge may be a prohibitive issue. At least for now.

2)      Charging time will need to come way down. People who work on the road cannot wait around for an hour or more to charge up their cars. They need to get it close to the time it takes to fill up a car with gas, or at least in the same ballpark.

I should also mention that the purchase price needs to come down too. Maybe individuals can make their money back in gasoline savings, but that takes time. Companies like mine usually replace their leased cars every 3 years or so, which limits the time available to lower the lifecycle costs. We’ll have to run the numbers when the time comes.

Until these changes take place, I don’t see wide-scale adoption on the corporate level. Although the use of hybrids may be an effective bridge. When I see the cost of hybrids come down, then it may be time for me to broach the subject with management.

More “Dad” Stories

Back in 2013, I wrote a post about getting splinters and shots, the banes of kid existence. Here’s a bit from it that featured “Doctor Dad”:

I quickly learned to rue the moment I got a splinter because I knew my Dad would have to take it out.  And he didn't consider it “extrication” as much as “exploratory surgery,” with nothing but a straight pin.

First, he had to run the end of the pin through the flame from a match, to “disinfect” it.  I think it was really to make sure I was properly terrified.  Then he’d use it to start digging around in my finger until he couldn't hold my hand down securely, from all my wiggling and howling.  After much crying and moaning and swearing and straining, he’d come up with the splinter on the end of the pin.  (Although a few times, I think he just pushed it down far enough so I couldn't see it anymore.)  Afterward, he’d apply some alcohol… not to me, to himself, in the form of Jack Daniels.

I remember one evening, when I was 5 or 6, I got a splinter from playing around near this rough railroad tie-looking plank that bordered our garden.  I came in and we did the whole Splinter Removal Dance, which took about 20 minutes.  (Not including the Jack.)  I went back outside to continue what I was doing and immediately got another splinter.

That one didn't go over very well.  I think there was considerably less delicacy used in the second extraction than there was with the first.  He might have even used an old corkscrew, I’m not sure.  I can’t say I blame him, but on the bright side, it was an early lesson wherein the little Bluzdude learned about the insanity of repeating the same action and expecting a different result.

Eventually, we managed to procure a pair of tweezers, so Dad could retire the straight-pin.  I’m not sure that was better, though, because often the splinter still had to be dug out, and the dullish edges of the tweezers were ineffective unless the nub was exposed.

Before long, I stopped telling anyone I had a splinter, and just went for the tweezers myself.  At least I could regulate how hard to push, and therefore the pain.  It’s hard to properly judge a kid’s actual pain when they scream before you even stick it in.

Of course, Dad had to get the last word in, in Comments:

 

 

Lunatic Fringe Benefits

 The former guy got me good and pissed off again last week when he tried to play dumb about paying taxes on fringe benefits, like cars or housing for executives.

"They go after good, hard-working people for not paying taxes on a company car," Trump said.

"You didn't pay tax on the car or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment because you have to travel too far where your house is.”

"You didn't pay tax. Or education for your grandchildren. I don't even know. Do you have to? Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?"

I know the answer to some of that. My job involves managing a fleet of company cars that our employees use. My company has branches around the country, so district and regional managers are given company cars for business travel, which they can also drive for personal use.

According to the IRS, a company can “give” a car for an employee to use for business purposes, for free. BUT, any personal use is considered income and therefore taxable.

Our drivers have to report their business and personal mileage every month so we can calculate the value of their personal use, known as “taxable benefit.” It’s a major operation for which the drivers, the accountants, and I have to devote a significant amount of time to get it right, to remain within IRS compliance.

It would be really nice to just blow it all off but a reputable company can’t do that.

There are a couple of ways to look at TFG’s comments.

One possibility is that he knows damn well what the IRS laws are; he’s just used to flouting them like he does with every other aspect of his business. He’s just playing on the (probably correct) assumption that his fan club doesn’t know anything about tax laws on company cars.

But on the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me either if he really doesn’t know anything about it. It’s certainly plausible that he has his accounting flunkies to work out all the details so he has never had to think about such things. No wonder he’s puzzled… He’s never had to get down in the details before. All he’s ever had to do is say, “Give that guy a car,” or summon one for himself. The details are for the little people to work out.

Speaking of details, let’s go to the debunker portion of this week’s post:

Sounds like solid self-defense at first, but there’s just one tiny detail they overlook: They don’t account for the effect the NRA has had over gun laws and culture all over the country. No one is blaming mass shootings on card-carrying NRA members, but you can’t ignore that through their efforts, gun laws are woefully insufficient to even make a dent in gun-related killings. Even the smallest, most logical efforts to safeguard innocent lives from being cut down are met with howls of Second Amendment hysteria. Like banning people on the Terrorist fucking Watch-List from buying guns, or fingerprint safety guards, or literally anything else that might save a life or make a weapon a bit less lethal.

We have to remember that the NRA exists as a lobbying arm for gun manufacturers. That’s it. Everything else is a side-mission, always secondary to selling more guns!

Because of the NRA, you can walk into a Walmart, buy a semi-automatic rifle on credit and start shooting before the first payment is due. Because of the NRA, people can buy high-capacity clips that have no use in hunting or reasonable self-defense. Because of the NRA, even jurisdictions that do have some kind of gun control laws are unable to stem the tide of killing because of the guns coming in from surrounding areas that do not have such laws.

There is no amount of killing, whether it’s teen partygoers, concert attendees, or grade school children that will deter the NRA from enshrining the right to own any firearm imaginable as a basic human right. The cost in life is irrelevant. The only numbers that count are the monthly receipts. That is the legacy of the NRA.

I also have to laugh at the bar they’re setting, to reap congratulations for themselves. No members murdered anyone this weekend? Whoo Hoo! Hooray for us! Let’s celebrate with a little automatic weapons fire into the air! Our guys went a whole weekend without a murder spree!

My theory is that the weekend in question was over the Fourth of July, so their members were too busy blowing shit up to even bother getting out the guns.  

Just don’t tell the NRA, or they might try to outlaw fireworks.

Debunkery - The Racism Continues Edition

You have to hand it to the Trumpies; no matter what happens in society, the racism is never far from the surface. And sometimes it’s right there on top.

I have to admit, I’m not a fan of this “fashion statement” either. I always think back to what a former work friend, a 60-something African-American woman, once said about guys who dress like this: “Don’t nobody want to see yo stank draws!”

Is it offensive? I think it’s more dumb than offensive. Fashions of the young have always pissed off the old. These guys want to make it even harder to get a job than it already is? That’s their problem.

But is it really more offensive than placing permanent markers to honor those who fought to capture and enslave a race of people? Not hardly. Spit wad versus ICBM, as far as offensiveness goes.

“How does a statue in the same place suddenly become offensive?” Because times fuckin’ change and it’s not the 1800s anymore. I’m sure it was offensive to some people back then too, it’s just that no one cared. The popular culture today is trying to have us behave better than we used to and empathize with people who have been trampled over the years. There’s nothing wrong with that, other than for those who enjoyed the trampling and wish to continue the stampede.

Yes, some people are, indeed, that ignorant. 

The first tipoff that this is a giant sack of racist bullshit is the use of loaded and not necessarily correct phrases. “Violent felon?” “Career criminal?” I read that he got in one scrape with a woman and had a number of drug busts for possession of small amounts of coke. Several of the busts, I saw, were conducted by an officer who was known for planting drugs on those he didn’t like (or immediately bent over for him, I suppose.) Maybe some of that career was owed to a crooked cop.

“Seven funerals?” I’m not sure where that came from. I saw one big televised event. Maybe the writer was confused by seeing the funeral on seven stations. So I’m painting the first half of this meme as a gross exaggeration.

As for the soldiers dying part… Of course it’s a tragedy when any of our troops die in battle. But is the answer to give each one 7 televised funerals when they get home? Granted, I’m sure there is a segment of the population who would love that.

The sad truth is, people who sign up for military service do so knowing that they might die in battle (or otherwise serving our country). It’s part of the deal. They’re not looking for the gaudy attentions of people they never met. They know that if all goes wrong, their loved ones can expect a knock on the door, polite condolences and a triangled flag at the funeral.

This meme is just one more person with a military fetish who wants everyone to know how patriotic they are. And if they can do so at the expense of a black man, all the better. 

And now we come to the backdoor racism.

I’m pretty sure that sign is photoshopped*, so who knows what the sign this dude is holding up really said. So I’ll cut the guy in the picture a break. But the message is typical bullshit coming from white people who are tired of hearing about race.

It goes to the original “Black Lives Matter” fallacy about how “All Lives Matter,” with the point being that “All Lives” aren’t under siege. Like a favorite meme says,

Of course all lives matter, that’s a given. But some need special attention right now because they are being harassed by cops, arrested on flimsy pretenses, killed in custody, and having white women call the police on them just for being black and existing near them. They’re shuttled into crumbling neighborhoods with dead-end schools, with few options for jobs or even fresh food. Politicians close the voting stations in their neighborhoods and require government IDs, which can be time-consuming and expensive to obtain so that it takes hours just to vote. And that helps keep things just the way they are.

So yeah, black people in this country have some legitimate grievances. So don’t be so hasty in turning the conversation back to you, Carl. (I’m proposing “Carl” as a male “Karen.” Who’s with me?)

*Look at the “A’s.” They’re all identical. Just look for any two of the same letter. You’ll see they’re exactly the same.

This one’s not racist, just stupid.

As I said last week, it’s not the fact that Bunkerboy had a photo op… it’s that he had peaceful protesters gassed and shot with rubber bullets to clear the space for his photo op. Not to mention his using the Bible as a photo-op prop.

But this is what conservatives do when they can’t win an argument… they misrepresent the issue until it becomes something they think they can win, hence they pretend that Democrats are upset that the president got his picture taken.

In Other News

Lest I spend the entire post in a rage, I do have a couple of odd things to share.

Last week I went into the office for the first time since 3/11. I can do about 99% of my job from home but there are a couple things that require me to be in the office, like handling parking badges and filing paperwork. So last Tuesday I ventured out into the wild blue office.

It was strange because I was literally the only person in my department (which occupies one-quarter of our floor). There were maybe 6-8 people on the whole floor.

For me, it was just like working from home, only roomier. And I got to start my day with a Dilbert binge, to make up for all the day by day calendar cartoons I missed.

Now I should be OK until at least August.

But maybe this COVID thing is starting to turn around. I’ve been seeing some signs. Last week, while making dinner, I discovered the Infinity Calamari.

The Infinity Calamari portends the arrival of endless calamari. Unfortunately, we were not blessed with the sight of the Infinity Dipping Sauce, so our bounty was for naught.

Sweetpea was not deterred though. She immediately fashioned a seafood talisman:

I swear, when I married her, I didn’t know she played with her food.

Just wondering, is random silliness a side effect of The “Rona?”

Preparation P

One thing about this coronavirus pandemic… it shows you who is on the ball and who is not. Some businesses had plans for operation during a pandemic. Others seem to be making things up as they go along.

I don’t know what’s been going on with our local school systems but I’ve been watching what they’re putting my wife through since the middle of March, but it hasn’t been pretty. Sweetpea is an elementary school teacher and like so many others, has had to adapt to a virtual reality for work purposes.

The first week they closed schools, it was a total clown show. No one knew what to do and it took until the next week or two for some kind of plan to evolve. And naturally, very little of the tech worked as advertised, leaving many of the teachers, who were not tech-savvy, floundering. Even when instructions were followed to the letter, shit just didn’t work. And no one else, not even the people rolling out the programs, could provide competent guidance.

I could go on and on about the technical challenges and how hard Sweetpea worked to make things function. Suffice to say, there was yelling, crying and wine involved.

I’m telling you, they finally worked out the kinks enough to begin actual teaching this week. The previous month or two has been devoted to virtual meetings (to keep morale up amongst the children) and discussing work packets that have either been picked up from school drop-off points or downloaded online.

I was stunned that a major school system didn’t have pandemic Continuity of Business plan. Hell, that should have been done at the state level. I know other businesses had pandemic plans. And I know this because I worked on one.

From 2006 to 2011, (and off and on for another 4 years) I worked in my company’s COB (Continuity of Business) department. (COB is basically emergency planning, like “How do we keep our business running when there’s a major hurricane in our market, or the city loses power, or a water main break shuts down the home office? What has to be done now, what can we hold until later? How much later will it be before things we’ve put off get serious?”)

We had COB plans for our branches and for our centralized locations. We wrote the plans and tested them thoroughly, both in theory and in practice.

For example, if our office building were to become incapacitated for any reason, we had another site from which we could operate. There was a plan to decide who goes and computers, printers and other supplies there for the emergency team to use, to keep the business running. Every year we’d go out and physically test all the equipment, to make sure it would be operational in a crunch. (Eventually, that option gave way to the virtual desktops that are so prevalent today.)

We also did “tabletop” tests, wherein an emergency scenario would be presented and the department heads and key players would gather to discuss what they’d do to react to address the crisis. Step by step, the group would talk through the situation as it evolved in phases and describe what they’d do to keep the business going.

It fell to me to create and develop the tabletop tests and scenarios and I came up with ten of them, and each department could have a different one year after year. Granted, the last couple were written with a great deal of whimsy. I guarantee that the approvers in my department only read the first couple before blessing the whole stack. Otherwise, The Great Circus Train Incident would never have come to pass.

When the H1N1 virus first came out in 2009, we began to develop a pandemic plan, should something like that reappear with greater intensity. We bought and stored medical masks and sterile wipes, to keep for when necessary and had plans for distribution, should the time come.

In 2010, our whole corporate operation (my company was one department of one of the “Big Banks”) conducted a pandemic tabletop test which played out in phases, asking what we would do if we lost 25%, 35%, 50% or more of our employees due to illness. It was uncomfortable but it made us think about how to persevere in the face of catastrophic circumstances.

So when I look at the other businesses operating now, including the school systems, I don’t have any sympathy for not being prepared. H1N1 gave us a good wake-up call. It was up to us not to press the “snooze” button. And it looks to me like the schools were caught sleeping in class.

The warnings have been out there… SARS, H1N1, Ebola, all of them could have gotten worse. Finally, the coronavirus did, and it was as if we’d never considered such a thing before.

The schools, in particular, should have known that they’d be “ground zero” for virus containment. How could they not have a plan to continue students’ education? Something like this happening was inevitable.

I’ll give you that schools around here have a lot on their plates just to provide the bare minimum. There are giant problems they have to face on a daily basis. BUT, that’s no excuse for the Superintendents across the state to show up with their pants down when it was time to shelter in place. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a dereliction of duty.

Coronavirus didn’t just come out of nowhere… it’s been on the horizon for years. All we had to do was pay attention. Smart organizations did and now they’ve shifted seamlessly into this new reality, because it was anticipated and addressed. Those who didn’t have had a rough couple of months.

Although there’s a benefit: now parents have a clearer idea of what teachers have to go through day in and day out.

Side note: It just dawned on me… how long do you think it will be before Trump takes credit for the drop off in school shootings this year? You know it’s gonna happen…

And speaking of the Clown-in-Chief, remember how at the end of last week’s post I talked about getting the Trump letter about our direct deposits and how the taxpayers shouldn’t have had to pay for something that’s basically a Trump re-election campaign ad? It turns out the letter it might not have been such a useless gesture after all.  I found the perfect use for it:

 Better watch out for paper cuts though...

April Fools

I feel like we need a diversion from the political abyss that has been our roster of current events, so let’s talk about something more frivolous, yet topical (for today, anyway).

I love a good prank. I used to be notorious for playing pranks, whether in the office, for April Fools or just for the hell of it. I’ve posted about some of them before, like doing office pranks, including a prank on one of my best friends, more office pranks, and then one from my youth that took about a year to fully play out.

As I learned in my youth, the best pranks are played in the mind, where no one gets hurt and nothing is damaged.

I haven’t done any in ages, though. The closest was the time I was the last one sitting on one end of the floor. I was the only one there for about three weeks. It was a time of upheaval with our company, as we had just moved to a new office building and our company had just been sold.

Anyway, the new department to which I was reassigned was coming to move into my area at the same time I was about to go on a week’s vacation. I wanted to welcome them to my little neighborhood, so since I couldn’t be there, I posted a sign.

WELCOME TO

BLUZVILLE 

NEW REALTY SERVICES AREA

Population: One  18

No, it wasn’t really a prank, just a bit of whimsey, but it was something that isn’t usually done around the conservative hallways of financial services companies.

The funny thing is, when I came back from vacation, the sign was still there. I took it down, wondering how it went over. No one had said a word. Finally, about a month later, I asked someone I’d become friends with, and she confirmed that it was indeed well received. I supposed they wondered what kind of a weirdo they would be working with.

Today I was able to pull one off that I conceived of about six months ago. But to tell the story, I have to start with a little background.

It’s funny how the older you get, the less you give a shit about what people think, and the more likely you are to speak your mind.

In my job, I manage a fleet of vehicles and to do so, I work with a couple of outside vendors. I am their customer and they provide services. And sometimes, they can really bungle things up, sometimes to the point of costing my company money in wasted time and inconvenience.

 For example, they may promise to deliver a car to a new driver, but come the day of supposed delivery, they hadn’t even contacted the driver yet. Our guy is waiting at home, dead in the water, and they’re sitting on their thumbs.

In such circumstances, I get on the phone with the vendor and, well, give them hell. I want to rattle the cage a little bit, to let them know in pointed terms that they are disappointing their customer and costing us money in lost time and productivity. Fix the problem, don’t let it happen again.

And because my office is a low-walled “open-floorplan” cube farm, I am known by my group as the guy who goes off on people. In fact, when I get going, I can hear all the typing and clicking stop, like crickets that silence in the presence of a jungle predator. Occasionally I will hear a gasp, or a giggle, which lets me know the peanut gallery is open.

Also, in most cases, I’m speaking with my account rep, who wasn’t the one who screwed up, but she’s the one who relays my unhappiness to the department that did. I’m basically just venting and she knows I’m not directing it at HER. But that’s a nuance that doesn’t translate well to office eavesdroppers.

I always apologize for the sideshow, because it’s not my intention to infringe on their trains of thought. I don’t want to be mean, either. I don’t berate anyone or curse at them. But I do make it clear, in pointed terms, that I expect better out of my vendors and have no tolerance for excuses, especially for recurring, avoidable problems.

Often, during these “post-mortems,” when I’m telling my group what the story was, the memories will start.

“Remember that time when he said…”

“Oh and that other time when he said… And I thought he was talking to one of OUR people…”

It was during one of these sessions that I decided that on April Fool’s day, I should really give them something to listen to. The only question was whether I’d follow through on it or not.

I was really on the fence. In this day and age, you never know who’s going to get upset about something or tell a damaging story to someone in charge.

Then this morning I saw the box of donuts in our common area. Score! Nothing like a nice donut to brighten your day. I opened the box only to find a big tray of carrots, celery, and dip. Gah! I’d even seen that trick shown on Facebook but fell for it anyway. (Although there was an actual box of donuts under the one that had the veggie tray, so I still got my donut.)

So, this afternoon, when everything was quiet, my desk phone rang and proceeded to have a “call” with my vendor.

Me: Oh, hi, (vendor rep name) thanks for calling. So did you get that car delivered on Friday? What? Oh, you’re kidding…  You’ve got to be kidding me. We talked about this! I made this request three weeks ago! You mean you’re just getting on it now? This is unbelievable.

I can hear the crickets stop, so I know they’re dialed in. (I was told later that one lady tapped another on the shoulder to get her to take her headphones off and listen.)

Me: I can’t believe you’re screwing us again! This is getting to be a regular thing. You screw us on deliveries, you screw us on motor vehicle reports, you’re screwing us on everything!

I hear a giggle.

Me: Look, you’re not the only vendor out there. Other vendors are ringing the phone off the hook trying to get our business. Maybe it’s about time I started answering the calls.

Time for the kill.

Me: This was supposed to be delivered on March 29^th. What day is it today? What day is it TODAY? That’s right, April first. APRIL FIRST… otherwise known as… April Fool’s Day.

That’s right, (laughing) OK, I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.

Now I hear laughing mixed with sighs of relief. They’re going, “Oh my God…”

“He totally got her!”

I stood up and said, “Yeah, and there wasn’t even anyone on the phone. April Fools!”

I had dialed my desk phone from my cell phone. Much laughter ensued.

The old double-whammy. Works every time.