Job loss

A friend of ours who works as a waiter at a local restaurant was led to believe that he was going to be hired to work in the warehouse of the local Pepsi distributor.  Instead, the hiring manager told our friend that the manager ended up having to hire the son of the owner/general manager.

I used to drink Pepsi whenever I chose a soft drink, even though my cousin is an executive for Coca-Cola in Atlanta.

Now, based on the nepotism and narrow-mindedness of the local Pepsi distributor, I’m going to return the narrow-mindedness and not drink Pepsi anymore.

Speaking of narrow-mindedness, I heard that a neutral country generally north of Italy and east of France has decided to rename its wellknown commodity to Oprah chocolate from Swiss chocolate — be warned: it has a bittersweet taste and costs a lot of money.

Managing a species

Putting aside the proposition that the ridiculous concept of a species is an arbitrary label which makes no sense on planetary scales of billion-year timelines, let us look at the Management 101 viewpoint of coordinating the activities of our species.

You see, on one hand, we have a company named SAIC that has made many a millionaire in areas around towns like Washington, D.C, and Huntsville, Alabama.

Then, on the other hand, we have the SAIC-haters who see companies like SAIC that hire brilliant (and not-so-brilliant) engineers and scientists in the government intelligence welfare program to create, protect and defend government assets around the world.

That, in itself, is a whole lot of concepts through out there in a couple of paragraphs.

What separates the scientifically-minded people who work for companies like SAIC from the scientifically-minded people who think SAIC shouldn’t exist?

In the spectrum of seven-plus billion people on this planet, where do those two groups generally fall?

I am no purist.  I hope I am a realist who writes science fiction fantastic tales for a money-losing tax writeoff against my government’s desire to earn revenue from me.

I understand the need for a company like SAIC that would create titles such as “Program Manager for Lethality and Mortality,” a job position that requires a person to manage a missile design program which ensures the most number of deaths when dropped on the ‘enemy’ [the lethality part] and the least number of deaths when used as a shield from incoming missiles directed by the ‘enemy’ [the mortality part].

In a perfect world, we would all be friends helping each other out rather than playing boy-toy wargames and killing the peasants with our war toys for fun.

Or would we?

“Come on down!  You’re the next contestant in the ‘Price is Right’!”

Is it a gender issue?  Is SAIC the result of years of patriarchal leadership?  In other words, does testosterone mixed with adrenaline drive our culture to war, spying and government/corporate control?

Is there an alternative that completely replaces our species’ need for hierarchical control?

How many police officers see the world as a sea of perps?

How many peace lovers see the world as a sea of love surrounding a few desert islands of the misguided?

Does the concept of haves-vs-the havenots have anything to do with this?

What about a global consumer economy of “I want more, More, MORE!!!!”?

Say, I am a student of the STEM disciplines and I know that my education will lead me not only to a comfortable lifestyle but a lavish one?  Would I trade a career where I spend more time in pure research, long hours and low pay for a career where I spend more time in government-supported commercial development, fewer hours and high pay?

What are my motivations?  What of my socioeconomic background?  What of my general/public education, starting with my formative years?

Am I assertive, rebellious and outspoken?  Or am I introverted, a good follower who obeys orders/commands starting with the simplest “30 MPH when road is wet” sign?

What if you’re a combination of these traits?

What would a personality profile test tell you?

And what about those of us who will decide how to give you the best guidance for your life as you transition from your childhood years to your adult years, based on your desires, motivations, skills, training and personality traits?

See, we want both the SAIC millionaire employees and the anti-SAIC haters, regardless of their socioeconomic status.

We have room for you, whoever you are, and whatever you want, spooks and nonspooks alike.

The economic pie keeps growing, even if portions of it shrink sometimes, or seems to be made of unequal slice sizes.

Your input is valuable and helps us reshape the pie based on current trends.

Keep in mind that negativity and satire have a funny way of shaping the future.  What you complaint about and make fun of often (Orwell’s “1984,” for instance) causes your opposition to move further into the business of undiscoverable dark secrets, digging deeper trenches that are harder to cross and meet your opposition halfway.

Instead of berating the cybersecurity spy business, propose a future that takes all seven-plus billion of us into account, including the SAIC millionaires who don’t want their fortunes to disappear overnight a la Enron, GM, Lehman Brothers, etc.

We can work with a positive proposal much easier than negative protesting or scathing satire.  Those of us who want to change the world have to pass the newspaper test, go home to our children, live with our friends and seek happiness as much as you do.

High school notes simmering on the back burner of life

I was bothered last evening by the lingering memory of intercepting a note passed between high school classmates 35 years ago.

Then it dawned on me that I used to work in the sewer rehabilitation industry where we were Number 1 and Number 2 in our business.

You needn’t understand what I’m joking about here — it’s just a personal thought recorded for posterity, remembering all the brown trouts I used to love to study to know the pipe shape/profile and speed of sewage in order to calculate the volume of material flowing through a sewer system, estimating any I&I and other aspects of what a municipality must anticipate when planning and maintaining a sewer treatment plant.

Being in love and sexual tension will keep you awake at night, too.

It’s not just the bills you have to pay because you’re un/underemployed that cause sleeplessness.

There’s the age-old argument of structural-vs-cyclical unemployment that can dog your thoughts at all hours of the day and night.

There’s also the ache and pain of separation anxiety.

That, my friends, is my problem right now.

At least here in this fictional universe, it is.

Maybe in reality, too.

I’ll keep you posted.

Time for a nap!

Advice to a small world

So what can I say? In a town full of suits, my wife and I walk into an office building on the square (where it’s hip to be square) and meet, much to our surprise, Kelly Moise, investment advisor for Dryden, Bound & Associates, also wife of Patrick, a new friend of ours.

Great to know that Kelley has finished several marathons which she compared to giving birth — you don’t remember the pain of the last one until you’re well-committed to the next.

We look forward to securing our financial future.

In the meantime, we enjoy good food and drink at Below The Radar Brewhouse, thx to George and the crew.

Should government get out of the sciences?

The fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading this means we have voluntarily agreed to accept the fact that government-funded scientific research produces positive results in general socioeconomic terms.

Is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Should government get out of the sciences and leave everything to commerce/free enterprise?

You decide.