Category: Fail

Posted on

This employer vaccine thing is concerning…

Before you lose your mind…

Wait!

This kind of thing has always concerned me. I’ve worked for several companies that I LEFT because of health insurance or corporation biases.

There was one company that noticed I had a motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license during the onboarding process.

The HR person told me that I’d have to provide them with a bill of sale for my bike within 30 days. She then went on to tell me that riding my motorcycle onto company property was a fireable offense.

After saying this, she went on as if she expected me to just comply without any pushback. When I asked her what the hell? She was quite shocked that I didn’t understand. After a bit of prodding she explained that the group insurance policy forbade anyone being covered from riding a motorcycle.

She was even more shocked when I told her we were done and asked for the hiring paperwork that I’d already filled out so that I could shred it. Then she got mad. I remember her screeching, “We’re only trying to protect you!”

My retort was, “Yep, at the price of becoming an indentured servant whose rights are granted by my employer, instead of The United States Constitution. What’s next? Approval of my sexual practices? Will I have to bring in the bedsheets weekly to prove that I’m not having sex if I’m unmarried? Will I have to prove that I’m not masturbating as well?”

Hey, I was younger and more prone to hyperbole.

I remember walking out of that place so pissed off I literally had to sit in my car in a mall parking lot to calm down for the drive home. Then I realized, “I’m at a mall, screw it! I’m going shopping!”

Then there was another company where smoking was suddenly forbidden, dictated again by a change in their insurance policy. This was not just on company property but in your home. I’d quit smoking a couple of years before, but that day when I stopped for gas I bought a pack of smokes. Then I found a nice bar and ordered a double. I sat there drinking and smoking much too late. I quit the job the following Monday, I quit smoking again about a month later. I made sure that when I went in to quit I reeked of cigarette smoke.

Then there was a company who sent out a survey to each employee asking if they were SCUBA divers, or skydivers, pilots, mountain climbers, motorcyclists, dirt bike riders, or enjoyed hang gliding. Most employees thought they were doing one of those HR team building things where the company would build clubs of likeminded people to tout their work life balance. My antenna went up immediately after reading the list of activities. I didn’t send my survey back.

Two weeks later an HR representative was standing at my desk with a stack of surveys demanding that the employee named on the survey fill it out while they waited. The representative testily pointed out that lying on a company form was grounds for dismissal.

She had maybe 30 other surveys in her hand. I asked, “Why is it so important for you to know if an employee participates in this specific group of activities?”

She told me, “the reason was none of my business.”

I told her, “Then write that I do all of them, then you’ll have whatever reason you’re fishing for to do whatever you’re going to do.”

Ahh… The fun of open office plans with 4′ cubicle walls. Several of my colleagues had incomplete surveys to fill out too. They heard the exchange and marked all of the above as well.

I’d already interviewed for another position with a competitor, and been offered the job.

The little lady stomped off, and I finished my resignation letter effective immediately. My boss pointed out that 2 weeks was customary and I said, “I’m not going to allow a company to dictate my personal life.”

My boss sat back and said, “Oh, you’ve heard.” I said, “Nope, but I’ve been to this rodeo before and know how it ends. Out of courtesy, I’ll give you two weeks because you’ve been decent to me.”

The next week, HR announced that the company decided the activities listed on the survey were too dangerous and employees were not to participate in them because medical insurance would not cover “Dangerous Activities”. In the HR announcement, they said they’d be reaching out to employees with acceptable methods that employees could prove to the company they’d given up these “dangerous” hobbies.

Over the next two weeks, the company received the resignations of about 20 engineering employees. In the end, they were begging for people to stay. HR remained intractable and started trying to hire replacements. But the word was out in the engineering community. It turned out that American engineers like to have fun in their off time.

These are examples of employer overreach from my own life and personal experience.

I’ll grant you that COVID vaccination was a bit different when the vaccines were being touted as providing immunity. But now?

We’ve been told by the CDC, and Dr Fauci that the vaccines against COVID-19 are therapeutic not preventative. We’ve seen articles in the mainstream press saying that the vaccine will prevent hospitalization with COVID but that even vaccinated persons can still get COVID and spread it.

So NOW with this knowledge, is it reasonable for corporations or governments to demand their employees be vaccinated? Is it right for those corporations to insinuate themselves into the personal lives of their employees? Will the future hold that an employee with HIV or cancer, or heart disease be threatened with their job if they don’t take HIV meds, or choose not to have chemo, or refuse a pacemaker?

This comes to mind because T-Mobile can be added to the list of employers demanding that their corporate employees get vaccinated. The article is here.

Since I’m adamantly against a corporation dictating any aspect of my life except when I must be at work to do my job, I’m in a bit of a conundrum.

I don’t want to support companies that do this sort of thing. But after doing some research it turns out that T-Mobile provides the best plans and pricing for me given my family’s needs.

Generally speaking, I’ve been terminating my connections/subscriptions to companies whose policies I disagree with. Apple being a notable exception although I have been reducing the new dollars that I give them.

There’s a problem being entrenched in any corporate ecosystem. You try to get out and they keep pulling you back in… To paraphrase the movie line about the Mafia.

I miss the good ol’ days when companies were just about making profit and were publicly apolitical. I know we’ll never get back to simple transactional relationships with Corporate America.

That doesn’t mean I can’t miss the simplicity.

Posted on

Wow, Neil Young thought he was still a star…

I find it really amusing that Neil Young blew it so badly.

Let’s see, he’s been in the entertainment industry for decades. You’d think that in all that time he’d have learned something about that business model.

You know, a little thing like, “Cash talks, Bullshit walks”.

Anyone with half a brain would have seen which way Spotify was going to go.

Option A, fold to Young’s childish demands and loose a ton of money by cancelling a current star like Rogan.

Option B, cancel a has been rocker that a lot of younger folks have no clue about.

Clearly Young missed the lesson of “Follow the Money”.

Now, Neil Young is asking for other ancient has been rockers to join his little snit. Apparently some are, Peter Frampton and Joni Mitchell have sided with Young.

It took Spotify less than 24 hours to come to a decision and delete Neil Young’s catalog. I imagine that if it comes to it, Frampton and Mitchell’s, music will be gone in less time. Other “Artists” may find their catalogs removed in seconds, not hours.

That’s the funny part of computers. The first iteration of something is always the slowest, the second, third, or fourth iterations of a function go much quicker.

I’d have to check the history of rock but wasn’t there a reason that Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, just became Crosby, Stills & Nash?

I could see Spotify getting to the point that they just present a message to the Artist;

“You are about to delete your entire music catalog from Spotify. This represents XXXX Dollars per week of income to you. This action cannot be undone.

Continue? Y / N”

Then we’d see who really had conviction and valued the “Moral High Ground”. I might even respect those who pressed “Y”.

Apple has chosen to take this opportunity to “Make Hay while the sun shines,” by featuring Neil Young on Apple Music.

If Neil Young thinks this is anything but Apple blatantly attempting to woo new subscribers to their service, he better think again. Once again, this is only about the Benjamins. Apple will move on as soon as the media hype drops off. It’s not personal, it’s simply business.

I find myself questioning Apple more and more these days, but that is another story.

Thankfully I have no need of new Apple products and therefore don’t find myself with the dilemma of choosing to confront my growing concern that Apple has become “Evil” like Google did, versus wanting something Apple makes. I know it’s a cheap way out, but I really don’t want to deal with mixed platforms again, this way I can delay feeling like I have to decide.

It’s bad enough that I’m cancelling Amazon Prime, and Hulu. While neither of them are watched or listened to in this household enough to justify their costs. I’ll miss those odd moments when I want to watch something mindless like, Ancient Aliens, for the hell of it but don’t want to actually “Buy” it.

Kinda like how Spotify fed the aging boomers Neil Young’s music, allowing them to relive their glory days without having to pay for the shitty “B” sides.

(That’s a reference a lot of younger folks won’t get. You used to be able to tell which side of a vinyl LP had the best songs when you pulled it out of the sleeve. One side was worn and slightly gray while the other was pristine and shiny black. )

Honestly, I wish the entertainers would just stick to entertaining. I’m tired of having my political awareness triggered when I hear some favorite song. I hate hearing something and then getting sucked down the rabbit hole of, “That’s a song by X, they’ve been demanding Y be cancelled and saying if you disagree you’re part of the problem.” It’s at this point that I hit skip on the music player.

I just want to enjoy the music or the movie without having that internal political discussion.

A couple of examples;

Hocus Pocus – Bette Midler completely destroyed that old favorite movie for me. Why? Because now when I see her being an overbearing nasty witch on screen, I kinda think she wan’t acting. If that’s the case, she’s not a very nice person.

Cher – I grew up on her music. She had a special place in my heart. The Sonny & Cher show wasn’t missed often when I was growing up. But now… Every time she opens her mouth I’m appalled.

Jane Fonda – I was too young to understand why my Father and Step Father would change the channel if she was on TV. It didn’t matter to them if she was being an actress or an activist. Neither of them would allow her to be on the TV in their homes. It wasn’t until I was an adult with my own home and TV that I got to see her films.

Now, as an older adult, I get it, because I’ve begun to feel the same way about a lot of my icons.

Posted on

One of those strange coincidences

Last Thursday the other half went to the drug store and dutifully got their COVID booster shot.

The day started out normally. The other half was feeling fine and went to work as normal. After work the other half dropped by the drug store and got the booster. Within four hours of having the booster, the other half was trying to cough up a lung. This was far worse than when they’d gotten the first vaccination.

I was worried because their coughing was so intense and rattling. I tried my best to be supportive asking if there was anything I could get for them and offering to make dinner. You know, the usual stuff you do when someone you care about is feeling under the weather.

Then the next day, I was coughing and running a low grade fever. This was a, “what the heck moment for me,” I hadn’t been around anyone that was ill except the other half who’d left the house perfectly fine Thursday morning.

I haven’t left the house for about 4 weeks, For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been nursing a bum knee and between the snow and ice, haven’t wanted to take the chance that I’d slip and make the knee worse. It’s been all I could do to navigate the level areas inside the house with a cane. This pretty much means that whatever I caught, I got it from the other half.

As we headed into the weekend both of us sounded like a tuberculosis ward.

Saturday neither of us did much of anything but sleep. My fever was running about 102F and seemed to remain fairly constant.

Sunday was much of the same although my fever was dropping off to just a degree or two above normal.

Both of us did a lot of sleeping on Sunday too. The whole weekend got away from us.

That’s not that big a deal, we both needed some down time.

The timing is just strange. I haven’t been sick since April of 2020 mainly because I haven’t been interacting with anyone. I’m unemployed and there’s simply not much reason for me to leave the house.

I think this is just an odd coincidence that the other half got the booster and then was actually sick and that I got sick too.

In the back of your mind though, when is events are apparently so closely related, you have to wonder if there’s not something else going on.

Honestly, if this was Omicron I’m fine with it.

Today I woke up feeling pretty good. I’m still a little feverish but it’s minor. Oddly, the knee that had been so swollen it hurt to bend is miraculously 90% better. Right now I’m feeling just like I do on the tail end of any standard cold.

Another day & I’m going to be back to my normal self. I’m likely going to nap a bit today between doing chores. Laundry for example works great with short naps.

The other half is doing much better today as well. Although anything respiratory takes a long time to clear for them. Which is why they decided to get the vaccination in the first place.

Being somewhat conspiracy “Curious” I can see a situation where if I was a full on conspiracy believer I’d conflate the onset of illness after a booster as proof that the vaccines are bad.

If you believed in an evil cabal of pharmaceutical companies, world governments, and the whole depopulate the planet thing… Something coincidental like this could feed right into your paranoia.

I choose to believe that it was just odd timing and bad luck.

If it wasn’t just odd timing and bad luck… Then the evil cabal took their shot at me and missed. I’m on the mend, and have survived. It’s gonna take a lot more than that to kill off this old buzzard!

Hope you all have a great week.

Posted on

Okay, this is just insane.

By now, you may have heard of or seen the altercation that happened on a Delta Flight from Tampa to Atlanta. When I read the text of their exchange I was laughing my butt off.

The other half said, “Thank God you weren’t that old man…”

Yeah, I do have a bit of a temper and do not respond well to phrases like, “Stand your ass up!” Believe me, I’d have probably stood up, then given this particular “Karen” a verbal dressing down she’d not soon forget.

Had she slapped me, all bets would be off. As annoying and frustrating as flying anywhere has become I’d already be edgy. A slap to the face and her rearing back as though she was going to punch me, (as some reports have indicated she was doing,) would have resulted in extreme violence and rage on my part.

I think the older gentleman handled this “Karen” situation far better than I would have.

According to some of the police reports I’ve read, this whole thing started because Patricia Cornwall was trying to get back to her seat after coming from the bathroom. She was blocked by the beverage cart.

Most civilized people who have flown before know that you have to wait for the cart to clear the aisle, you have two choices, remain standing or “borrow” an empty seat until the cart has passed your seat row. It’s not a difficult problem if you think about it.

I’ve been in the exact situation and simply asked a passenger seated next to an empty seat, “May I borrow this for a minute?”

Ms Cornwall demonstrated that she was clearly a product of the American Educational system given this simple logic problem evaded her.

Things went off the rails when the flight attendant told Ms. Cornwall to grab an empty seat until the beverage service was complete. At this point Cornwall replied, “What am I Rosa Parks?”

According to reports, this is when the elder gentleman pointed out that Cornwall wasn’t black, they were not in Alabama, nor were they on a bus.

I’d have added, “Unlike you lady, Rosa Parks had a point!”

It appears that after this exchange the two of them were, “off to the races” so to speak.

At some point during the dust-up Cornwall was demanding that the gentleman put his mask on, (hers however was being worn as a chin diaper,)

There may have been the word “Bitch” tossed around, and the elderly gentleman is quoted as saying, “Sit down Karen.” If the elderly man called this woman a bitch, he was being as polite as possible given her behavior. I’d have called her much worse, and stood by my descriptors.

In the ensuing scuffle, Cornwall appears to have injured two other passengers and at least one Delta employee.

Ms. Cornwall was taken into custody in Atlanta and paid 20,000 bail to get out of jail.

This is one of those things that speaks volumes about the society.

There was a time when you treated elders, even crotchety elders with respect. When you’re on a flight, or a bus, or any other public transportation you are supposed to mind your manners and be cooperative. Apparently Ms. Cornwall missed those days in etiquette class.

But hey, she was a playboy bunny and an actress right? She’s special… Uh huh.

It’s been reported that the gentleman is 80. Given that he is about 30 years her senior, he legitimately called out Ms. Cornwall on her poor behavior. She was being childish. He may well have been a father, or grandfather. I’m betting that slipped into “Dad” mode without even thinking about it.

Even I, as much of an ass as I can be, I listen to an Elder. One telling me to cool my jets would be met with a contrite, “Yes Sir.”

Too many women like Cornwall seem to think that it’s perfectly okay to smack a man and that they’ll get away with it. Those same women run to the police when, after smacking a man, he hits ’em back.

A man’s only recourse today is to involve the law and doing so makes us feel weak and powerless, even if the police take the matter seriously, (often they don’t).

That’s why I hope this gentleman presses charges and doesn’t just let it go. I hope he puts it all out there. Elder abuse, Assault, pain and suffering due to the public nature of the crime, and anything else his attorney can toss into the mix.

The trouble is, as men we’re taught to “Suck it up,” and move on. If he happens to be a “Southern Gentleman” I’d say the odds are high that he’ll let it go.

In the same situation, I might do the same even knowing that letting it go would be tacitly condoning women getting away with abusing men.

Posted on

I was looking for a new keyboard, but…

Maybe a month or two ago I ran across a nifty computer keyboard in some publication. At the time I thought, “It’s really nice, I like that it’s mechanical, It’s cool that you can order it with switches that are firm, medium, or light, which allow you to have a keyboard that is exactly what you want, but dang that’s really expensive,”

So I moved on to the next thing and forgot the manufacturers name. After all, the 8 year old keyboard I’ve got works just fine and I’m used to it.

Then yesterday, my reliable old keyboard started missing space bar presses and occasionally other keys as well. I considered the problem and admitted that it might be time for me to pony up the cash for a new one. I tried to go back and find the article in my Apple News History. I haven’t found the article I was looking for but did stumble across the Alec Baldwin, George Stephanopoulos interview where Baldwin tearfully claims he didn’t pull the trigger.

What a load of runny horse shit!

I was able to let the statement of the Armorer from the production “Someone must have put a live bullet in the gun,” go because that statement was so stupid it required no comment.

Had I commented at the time, I’d have said, “No Shit dumbass!“

But Alec Baldwin crying and saying he didn’t pull the trigger?

Oh hell no, I can’t let that one go.

The gun reportedly used in the crime, (Yes, it was a crime!) was a period specific Colt revolver or a replica of the venerable Colt revolver. This gun, as are most guns, is a purely mechanical machine. There are no batteries, no electronics, no circuitry, and no software.

Guns in general are relatively simple machines that exist in the real physical world and require real physical actions to operate. They can’t be hacked.

The person holding the gun is the power source and the directing intelligence.

As you can see from the diagram, (Thank you Nichols Ranch), There are approximately 24 components in a revolver. (24 in the diagram, there could be fewer in other models) The last two components in the diagram above are the Bullet and its shell.

Functionally, you could loose the grips and the logos, possibly the ejector rod and spring, and the cylinder cover, and still have a functional weapon. It would probably bruise your hand if you fired it without the grips but the weapon would still work as designed.

There is no magic here. This is simply an elegant mechanical system.

To fire the assembled weapon requires the following steps.

Open the cylinder cover
Put rounds (a bullet and its shell) in at least some of the chambers of the cylinder. In this case a maximum of six chambers can have rounds inserted.
Close the cylinder cover
Cock the hammer.
Take aim
Pull the trigger

Repeat the last three steps as necessary five more times, then start at step one.

Note there are three inherent safety mechanisms present.

If rounds are not loaded, the gun is not ready to fire
If the hammer isn’t cocked, the gun is not ready to fire.
If the trigger is not pulled, the gun will not fire, even if rounds are present and the hammer is cocked.

I’m not a gunsmith, but if I’m looking at the diagram correctly, it appears that the action of cocking the hammer is what causes the cylinder to rotate, moving the next round to firing position.

This mechanical simplicity is why the revolver and integrated shells & bullets revolutionized guns.

Prior to the revolver, the choice was a cap and ball pistol, which basically gave you one shot, then you had to spend a minute reloading before you could take a second shot (think about a cannon). That’s probably why everyone carried a sword with their pistol.

For close to 200 years, the revolver has been around, it’s well understood, reliable, and has undergone some evolution but not a whole lot.

There is a variation of the revolver where pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer.

This is why when handling a weapon you never put your finger on the trigger, and you never take anyone’s word for it, that the weapon is not loaded. You always check!

Even then if you need to pull the trigger (as in you’re checking proper function,) you always aim in a safe direction. You do not pull the trigger unless you are sure that no-one is downrange.

Given the simplicity of the revolver that Baldwin was probably using, for him to claim he didn’t pull the trigger is a bald faced lie. He may not remember pulling the trigger, but he sure as hell did.

The only other scenario that has a remote possibility is that he partially cocked the revolver when he pulled it from the holster. In that scenario though, it’s far more likely that he would have had the weapon fire the moment it cleared the holster.

I rather suspect that in that scenario Baldwin would have shot himself. I also suspect that the mechanism that rotates the cylinder would not have brought a round into correct firing position since the hammer wouldn’t have completed its travel.

That being said, if the weapon was worn or had been abused it’s a remote possibility.

However there wouldn’t have been enough of a delay for Baldwin to have brought the weapon to a firing position for the view of the camera. (They were rehearsing, the assumption is they were trying to frame a shot.)

No matter what. In this situation Alec Baldwin was the person holding the weapon. Baldwin was the person who violated gun safety protocols. Baldwin is the person who clearly still has no idea how guns work.

Ultimately, Alec Baldwin is the person who shot two people, one fatally. Alec Baldwin is therefore the responsible party and must answer for his negligence.

Update: I was just reading another article on Baldwin’s interview.

Baldwin said, “So, I take the gun and I start to cock the gun. I’m not going to pull the trigger,” he continued. “And I cock the gun, I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun – the gun goes off.“

Was the gun cocked Alec or was it not? In this type of gun if you’re holding the trigger down and you pull the hammer back then release it the gun will fire. You’d know that if you’d paid attention in any of the on-site gun training you’ve no doubt received during your many years of movie making where you were handling guns. You’re essentially describing that you “fanned” the hammer.

Stephanopoulos stated, “There are some who say you’re never supposed to point a gun on anyone on a set no matter what.”

Baldwin replied, “Unless the person is the cinematographer, who’s directing me at where to point the gun for her camera angle,” Baldwin replied. “I didn’t point the gun at her, and she said, ‘Hey, man, don’t point the gun at me.’ I pointed the gun in a direction she wanted.”

Is it me or does Baldwin’s reply sound like he was trying to blame the victim?

“Do you feel guilt?,” Stephanopoulos asked.

“No. No,” Baldwin said. “I feel that someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.“

What a piece of Shit Alec Baldwin is!

He goes on to describe how he has dreams and emotional distress. Trying to paint himself as the victim.

Really? Alec Baldwin, you are filth! I cannot even describe how reading your responses has sickened me.

I hope the family, the members on set, and everyone in the production sues you into poverty. I hope the police, the district attorney, the judge, and a jury throw the book at you. I hope you end up doing hard labor in a prison in New Mexico for the rest of your miserable life.

It’s one thing to have this be an accident. It’s quite another for you to try to slime your way out of responsibility and essentially say, she was asking for it.

BTW… I still haven’t found that keyboard site!