I guess it's all those years of jokes about liberal arts graduates finding jobs involving the phrase, "Do you want fries with that?"
Anyway, thanks to Jim Unger.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
We can hope
I don't usually scan anything on the comics page besides Doonesbury or Dilbert, but this caught my eye.
I guess it's all those years of jokes about liberal arts graduates finding jobs involving the phrase, "Do you want fries with that?"
Anyway, thanks to Jim Unger.
I guess it's all those years of jokes about liberal arts graduates finding jobs involving the phrase, "Do you want fries with that?"
Anyway, thanks to Jim Unger.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Recession update
The recession is reaching into high places, which would bring ein bisschen schadenfreude except for the fact that the working stiffs who keep those places exalted are taking the hit.
A story in the WSJ reports that the clubbable set are finding that finances (or financial straits) are trumping exclusivity. Country clubs & yacht clubs are closing either before or after foreclosure. The august institutions that have positively defined the term snootiness for scores of years are being reduced to admitting new members without waiting decades because they need the influx of cash.
They’re even offering current members referral fees for bringing in fresh ones whose money is new but whose checks don’t bounce, & relaxing the dress codes.
So clearly civilization is in the early to mid stages of collapsing entirely.
It’s also interesting to note that corporations have finally taken on board the examples of the outrage caused by Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch & Northern Trust—accepting federal bailout bucks & then heading off for corporate jollies or redecorating the executive offices.
They’re conspicuous by their absence at the Masters Tournament in Augusta. The big wine-&-dine write-off parties are cancelled & if any companies are showing up, they’re not blaring their logos on rented stretch limos or in the yards of houses they rented for $50K a pop to house employees & clients.
Even the scalpers are having a hard time unloading tickets. Four-day passes that brought in up to $3500 last year have gone for $1350 this year.
I’d shed a few CrockTears™ about this, but the people who really get hurt are the waitstaff, limo drivers, caterers, housekeepers & others who keep the clubs & the tournaments running smoothly.
So the ones who are the last to have the wealth trickle down to them again are the first to suffer when the stream dries up.
Nihil novum sub solis.
A story in the WSJ reports that the clubbable set are finding that finances (or financial straits) are trumping exclusivity. Country clubs & yacht clubs are closing either before or after foreclosure. The august institutions that have positively defined the term snootiness for scores of years are being reduced to admitting new members without waiting decades because they need the influx of cash.
They’re even offering current members referral fees for bringing in fresh ones whose money is new but whose checks don’t bounce, & relaxing the dress codes.
So clearly civilization is in the early to mid stages of collapsing entirely.
It’s also interesting to note that corporations have finally taken on board the examples of the outrage caused by Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch & Northern Trust—accepting federal bailout bucks & then heading off for corporate jollies or redecorating the executive offices.
They’re conspicuous by their absence at the Masters Tournament in Augusta. The big wine-&-dine write-off parties are cancelled & if any companies are showing up, they’re not blaring their logos on rented stretch limos or in the yards of houses they rented for $50K a pop to house employees & clients.
Even the scalpers are having a hard time unloading tickets. Four-day passes that brought in up to $3500 last year have gone for $1350 this year.
I’d shed a few CrockTears™ about this, but the people who really get hurt are the waitstaff, limo drivers, caterers, housekeepers & others who keep the clubs & the tournaments running smoothly.
So the ones who are the last to have the wealth trickle down to them again are the first to suffer when the stream dries up.
Nihil novum sub solis.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Break in the economic gloom
Apparently there are ways of looking at the collapsing economy as an opportunity, & the example is from a completely unexpected source: the travel industry is wooing people suddenly faced with more leisure time than anticipated.
Yes, those same people who pile on the charges when it comes to you wanting to change your itinerary, cancel a tour package or travel alone are now bending every which way to lure folks who’ve been laid off, or (as in California) furloughed.
Airlines have announced they’ll refund fares & cruise lines are offering Hyundai-like options to get a full cancellation refund (even if in mid-cruise) for travelers who can prove they’ve been axed.
On the up side—those with severance packages (or retention bonuses accepted as the staff walked out the door) can get really good deals. After all—they’ve got the money, honey, AND the time, so—Kismet.
In the Golden State, ski resorts are offering all sorts of discounts to state employees who’ve been furloughed. Again—time on their hands, ski runs otherwise empty, win-win.
Once the economy gets back on its feet, the airlines will return to their normal level of indifference, inflexibility & arrogance that passes for customer service.
Yes, those same people who pile on the charges when it comes to you wanting to change your itinerary, cancel a tour package or travel alone are now bending every which way to lure folks who’ve been laid off, or (as in California) furloughed.
Airlines have announced they’ll refund fares & cruise lines are offering Hyundai-like options to get a full cancellation refund (even if in mid-cruise) for travelers who can prove they’ve been axed.
On the up side—those with severance packages (or retention bonuses accepted as the staff walked out the door) can get really good deals. After all—they’ve got the money, honey, AND the time, so—Kismet.
In the Golden State, ski resorts are offering all sorts of discounts to state employees who’ve been furloughed. Again—time on their hands, ski runs otherwise empty, win-win.
Once the economy gets back on its feet, the airlines will return to their normal level of indifference, inflexibility & arrogance that passes for customer service.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Working whines
The LA Times reports that the economic downturn is hitting the Y-chromosome-infested set harder than the XX crowd.
The stats: “In December 2007, when the economy started tanking, unemployment ran nearly even at 4.4% for men and 4.3% for women. In February, that tally had shot up to 8.8% for men and 7.3% for women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan at Flint, explains this partly by noting the crash started in construction, which is an 88% male domain, & continued into the financial sector, also dominated by men.
Conversely, healthcare & education are relatively stable, & those two industries run to 77% female, according to Perry. He adds that women tend to be better educated than men, & that the degrees matter these days.
I wonder, though.
Men outnumber women in the labor force—according to this story, by 10 million. Seems logical to me that more of them are likely to get axed, because there are just more of them out there. They’re a bigger target, as it were.
Also, I’m reminded of a seminar on 20th Century US economic & political history in grad school. Each student researched the Great Depression in a different state, & when we came together we found that the Depression didn’t seem to hit as hard in states like Colorado or West Virginia, where people were already living at subsistence level, as it did in New York or California.
& since women in the work force have lived closer to the bone than men, they’ve developed coping mechanisms for dealing with cut-backs & economic upsets. If they get laid off, they spend less time berating the gods over their cruel fate, & more getting on with finding another job. Or two. Or three—whatever it takes to keep the kids in shoes & mac & cheese.
I have to say, the thought of all these men out of work isn’t pretty. Back in Virginia I occasionally attended job-hunt support groups, one primarily for men, the other for women. I just couldn’t handle the former. These guys—mostly telecoms professionals—were so outraged & hurt by the utter injustice of being laid off that they had no strength or will left for finding another job. They were there to prove to the group that they'd tried everything humanly possible, & nothing worked, & so there was just no hope.
The idea was that you come together to share your experiences since the last meeting, get advice on how to handle this or that situation, & find encouragement in your search.
But almost to a man, here’s what would happen: a guy would describe an interview, say, & wonder how he should handle a response, because it was just too weird or hopeless or insulting.
The group facilitator—an amazing woman who is extremely knowledgeable about business, networking & positive attitude—would make some suggestions, & the guy would spend the next ten minutes deflecting each one because of this reason or that.
Rinse & repeat.
I finally realized that these people—who might never have had to look for a job since their first one out of college, having been recruited hither, thither & yon thereafter—only wanted to wallow in their misery, because they shouldn’t have to go through all this, & it’s completely unfair. The layoff shouldn’t have happened to them, & someone should just show up with a six-figure job with their name on it. Anything short of that was a completely unreasonable expectation of society.
I’m betting that’s happening all over the country, to hedge fund managers, auto execs & construction moguls.
So, while I’m sure that the stats on who’s getting the pink slips are accurate, I think the “he-cession” mentioned in the Times story is more to do with perception & spreading the misery than with just the reality of registering for unemployment & networking the daylights out of your Facebook friends.
& let me just say this: whenever I attended one of those meetings, I left feeling way more depressed & hopeless than I had when I arrived. Trust me, that sullenness, truculence & sense of broken entitlement radiates throughout every encounter you have with a recruiter, receptionist or hiring manager.
The stats: “In December 2007, when the economy started tanking, unemployment ran nearly even at 4.4% for men and 4.3% for women. In February, that tally had shot up to 8.8% for men and 7.3% for women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan at Flint, explains this partly by noting the crash started in construction, which is an 88% male domain, & continued into the financial sector, also dominated by men.
Conversely, healthcare & education are relatively stable, & those two industries run to 77% female, according to Perry. He adds that women tend to be better educated than men, & that the degrees matter these days.
I wonder, though.
Men outnumber women in the labor force—according to this story, by 10 million. Seems logical to me that more of them are likely to get axed, because there are just more of them out there. They’re a bigger target, as it were.
Also, I’m reminded of a seminar on 20th Century US economic & political history in grad school. Each student researched the Great Depression in a different state, & when we came together we found that the Depression didn’t seem to hit as hard in states like Colorado or West Virginia, where people were already living at subsistence level, as it did in New York or California.
& since women in the work force have lived closer to the bone than men, they’ve developed coping mechanisms for dealing with cut-backs & economic upsets. If they get laid off, they spend less time berating the gods over their cruel fate, & more getting on with finding another job. Or two. Or three—whatever it takes to keep the kids in shoes & mac & cheese.
I have to say, the thought of all these men out of work isn’t pretty. Back in Virginia I occasionally attended job-hunt support groups, one primarily for men, the other for women. I just couldn’t handle the former. These guys—mostly telecoms professionals—were so outraged & hurt by the utter injustice of being laid off that they had no strength or will left for finding another job. They were there to prove to the group that they'd tried everything humanly possible, & nothing worked, & so there was just no hope.
The idea was that you come together to share your experiences since the last meeting, get advice on how to handle this or that situation, & find encouragement in your search.
But almost to a man, here’s what would happen: a guy would describe an interview, say, & wonder how he should handle a response, because it was just too weird or hopeless or insulting.
The group facilitator—an amazing woman who is extremely knowledgeable about business, networking & positive attitude—would make some suggestions, & the guy would spend the next ten minutes deflecting each one because of this reason or that.
Rinse & repeat.
I finally realized that these people—who might never have had to look for a job since their first one out of college, having been recruited hither, thither & yon thereafter—only wanted to wallow in their misery, because they shouldn’t have to go through all this, & it’s completely unfair. The layoff shouldn’t have happened to them, & someone should just show up with a six-figure job with their name on it. Anything short of that was a completely unreasonable expectation of society.
I’m betting that’s happening all over the country, to hedge fund managers, auto execs & construction moguls.
So, while I’m sure that the stats on who’s getting the pink slips are accurate, I think the “he-cession” mentioned in the Times story is more to do with perception & spreading the misery than with just the reality of registering for unemployment & networking the daylights out of your Facebook friends.
& let me just say this: whenever I attended one of those meetings, I left feeling way more depressed & hopeless than I had when I arrived. Trust me, that sullenness, truculence & sense of broken entitlement radiates throughout every encounter you have with a recruiter, receptionist or hiring manager.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Once upon a blog
Evidently there are cyber romances that don’t end up on the crime pages of major dailies. And apparently love comes to those who blog.
I'm heartened by this story about the no-longer-young-and-buff, although it did take rather a while to take hold.
But it would seem I’m doing something wrong, because I haven’t had so much as an emoticon wink, much less a proposal, after almost a year of blogging.
I wonder if it’s my subject matter? Or my vocabulary?
I'm heartened by this story about the no-longer-young-and-buff, although it did take rather a while to take hold.
But it would seem I’m doing something wrong, because I haven’t had so much as an emoticon wink, much less a proposal, after almost a year of blogging.
I wonder if it’s my subject matter? Or my vocabulary?
Monday, April 6, 2009
WMDs
It’s been a good weekend for the mass murderer set.
You’ll have heard about the man who invaded an immigrant services center in Binghamton, NY, armed with two automatic weapons, extra ammunition & a bullet-proof vest. Before Jiverly A. Wong, 41, finally shot himself, he’d killed 13 & wounded four others.
Before he went on his rampage at the American Civic Association, the Vietnamese immigrant had availed himself of the organization’s services, particularly ESL.
Evidently he had a history of buying weapons at a gun shop in a nearby town, although shop staff could see that the guy was easily rendered hopping mad when they had trouble understanding his English.
Wong did manage to pick up that uniquely-American activity of going postal & taking out as many of your fellow Americans as possible before you either eat your gun or have the back of your skull removed by a SWAT sniper. He certainly absorbed how easy it was to collect weapons & deploy them in a way guaranteed to get yourself noticed.
In fact, were it not for Richard Poplawski, 22, of Pittsburgh, Wong might have stayed in banner heads above the fold all weekend. But when a squabble between Poplawski & his mother brought police to their home Saturday, he greeted the two responding officers with a rifle, which he used to shoot them both in the head. When a third, off-duty, cop arrived at the scene, he shot that one, too, & then held the rest of the force at bay while the three bled out.
Like Wong, Poplawski had taken the precaution of wearing body armor. After several hours, he surrendered & has been charged with three counts of criminal homicide & nine of attempted homicide.
According to neighbors, Poplawski believed that the economic collapse portended the inability of law enforcement to “protect society”, so he (like Wong) had been stockpiling guns & ammo. Lately he was distraught at the thought that the Obama administration was coming to confiscate his collection, which included an AK-47 assault rifle & several handguns.
Finally, it didn’t make the national news that I can tell, but right here in Graham, Washington, a man followed up a fight with his wife in a trailer park by shooting his five children, ages 7 to 16, then driving to the Muckleshoot Casino & eating his high-powered rifle in his car nearby.
That’s 23 dead in three incidents that I know of.
I just wonder how the NRA’s going to spin this.
You’ll have heard about the man who invaded an immigrant services center in Binghamton, NY, armed with two automatic weapons, extra ammunition & a bullet-proof vest. Before Jiverly A. Wong, 41, finally shot himself, he’d killed 13 & wounded four others.
Before he went on his rampage at the American Civic Association, the Vietnamese immigrant had availed himself of the organization’s services, particularly ESL.
Evidently he had a history of buying weapons at a gun shop in a nearby town, although shop staff could see that the guy was easily rendered hopping mad when they had trouble understanding his English.
Wong did manage to pick up that uniquely-American activity of going postal & taking out as many of your fellow Americans as possible before you either eat your gun or have the back of your skull removed by a SWAT sniper. He certainly absorbed how easy it was to collect weapons & deploy them in a way guaranteed to get yourself noticed.
In fact, were it not for Richard Poplawski, 22, of Pittsburgh, Wong might have stayed in banner heads above the fold all weekend. But when a squabble between Poplawski & his mother brought police to their home Saturday, he greeted the two responding officers with a rifle, which he used to shoot them both in the head. When a third, off-duty, cop arrived at the scene, he shot that one, too, & then held the rest of the force at bay while the three bled out.
Like Wong, Poplawski had taken the precaution of wearing body armor. After several hours, he surrendered & has been charged with three counts of criminal homicide & nine of attempted homicide.
According to neighbors, Poplawski believed that the economic collapse portended the inability of law enforcement to “protect society”, so he (like Wong) had been stockpiling guns & ammo. Lately he was distraught at the thought that the Obama administration was coming to confiscate his collection, which included an AK-47 assault rifle & several handguns.
Finally, it didn’t make the national news that I can tell, but right here in Graham, Washington, a man followed up a fight with his wife in a trailer park by shooting his five children, ages 7 to 16, then driving to the Muckleshoot Casino & eating his high-powered rifle in his car nearby.
That’s 23 dead in three incidents that I know of.
I just wonder how the NRA’s going to spin this.
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