Discussion Bullies

As I've mentioned, I love a good discussion. There are plenty of topics that get me animated and very few that get me in a twist. My style is questionable (I've been told) but full of good intentions in the spirit of self discovery. Without probing an opposing (or even the same) position, I find it difficult to identify the building blocks for a new point of view.

Let me say up front, I recognize the effect that picking at definitions and terms can have on a discussion. Many people view this type of questioning as antagonistic, but agreeing on or just assuming a premise is critical to following the logic and reasoning behind a conclusion. After all, we might find ourselves debating 'what color tastes the best?' and both think 'Red, of course!' Without defining the terms, we might not be talking about the same thing. For me, red = cherry.... for you, red = strawberry....

Anywhooo... I had a run in with this guy on a discussion about Glass Ceilings. He was all over the place with tangents and obscure references which I can overlook. However, he was making a big case for 'true' capitalism versus greedy capitalism. I agreed on pretty much all his conclusions putting Glass Ceilings in context with economics, and I wanted to offer a different approach arriving at the same place. Having Sociology to draw from, I tried to get clarity on the definition of capitalism. I'll spare you the blow by blow, but feel free to read for yourself.

Weeeeeell...... He took my small points as an attack on his entire economic theory/belief system. To put it in perspective, 25 of 34 posts were him spouting off on tangents. The guy is in his 60's, if he is a day. He is out of work, had his 401K demolished, and here I come picking at this idea of true capitalism versus greedy capitalism (I was/am right by the way).

So, my dilemma -

The forum was/is LinkedIn. Since it is a professional social network, I use a more formal tone and am careful to stay within bounds of what my colleagues and perhaps future employers would view as .... professional.

I feel like this guy is not getting work because of his crap a$$ attitude, not his skill or experience level. If he is willing to be a jerk in front prospective employers, fine. More power to him and his dumb a$$.

Then I think about the way I 'debate'. Am I the bully? Do I ask for it, so to speak? Is it unreasonable to think that a discussion is a give and take? Should I just let people have their soapbox? If so, what is the point of calling it a discussion?

If he wanted everyone to just agree with him, then he should post to a more private or exclusive forum. Better yet, write a book/article/pamphlet/whatever...... If people like his brand of economics, then he can teach a class where he really can tell people to get bent.

To flu shot or not to flu shot....

I am always excited to have a good conversation, even though perhaps I am over animated when get to sink my teeth into a good topic. Well, here is doozie.

Should everyone be getting the seasonal flu shot, much less the Swine Flu shot? I was struggling to illustrate my reasoning for not taking advantage of my employer's fully covered program this year, when I stumbled across a great article on this very topic (URL - http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1 ).

The author has posed some interesting points and some very critical questions. Would love to hear some thoughts.

Of course, I am awesome (!?!?)

Making your way in the world today.... holy crap, I am a TV baby. Rewind......

Earning a living in today's America can be quite challenging, as I am sure everyone would agree. There are many aspects to consider in building a life toward whatever goal or end suits you. I think people take for granted the personal infrastructure required to even acquire a life-style sustaining position much less maintain or advance in one. Saving for other discussion, I am really just going to complain about a small feature in corporate culture. Self Reviews.

What a steamy crock of all-you-can-eat-contest induced diarrhea those little gems are. For the unindoctrinated, let me describe this modern nail pull. At the beginning of each year, I must, along with every other full time employee at my company, write a list of goals for myself. The details of what go into this document are even more boring than this description, so moving forward. Those goals are reviewed and agreed upon with your manager, and they get filed away. They are the basis or measuring stick for Self Reviews at Mid-Year and Year-End.

Here is where it starts to get silly. I have the control it would seem. I write the goals & I measure my own progress against these goals to show my worth and maybe get some extra cash in my paycheck. Do I set the bar low & leap over, or do I set the bar high and scrap over.

Too low, this is seen as an obvious slack ass. Of course you were able to exceed your goals, you committed to bless us with your presence and promptly take a nap everyday.

Too high, how high is that for you? What is the mark that you know you won't miss & will impress. Sucks to be the guy that promises the world and delivers lunch. This is seen as a possible dumb ass. Ummmm, did you really think you could raise the stock price 20% by yourself?

That is the trick I think; you have to find a balance of safety and risk in designing your goals.

Here is where is starts to get stupid. I am not a mind reader. I only have one skin suit to look out of, and my boss will inevitably have a different view. The goals I thought were aggressive but achievable aren't to him. Or worse, they don't support his goals (AHHHH!!!!!). I end up getting the fifth draft approved. I mentioned they are filed - with my boss's boss.

At Mid-Year (yah, you guessed it - June'ish), I blow the dust of that list. Oh No! The funding for one of these was cut. Doh! I had to reduce the scope on this one. ..... You get the picture. Things change, and I have to adjust. I measure myself against my goals as best I can - read as in the best possible light. My boss takes the same number of passes at my drafts for the same reasons mentioned above. The Mid-Year Review is filed with his boss, and we are done.

What am I crying about, you say? If only it ended there, if only it was this easy, if only .......

Here is where is gets down right & painfully foooooooked. I have to do the same exercise for Year-End Review. There a bonus though. I get to assign myself a number across 10 or 12 categories which get averaged out. Get a 1, and you are golden. Nice raise and a hefty bonus, if the economy isn't in the toilet. Get a 5, and .... well, nobody gets a 5. If you were doing that poorly, you would have been canned. Get a 4, and you neck is first in line for any cuts. Getting 3's means doing what is expected of you, nothing more.

This process is supposed to take the onus off management. "Raises were not arbitrary, they were determined by the employee." , "Promotions were not given as personal favors, they were based on strong performance measured by the employee." , you get it right? The kicker is that my boss can disagree and change my ratings as long a he explains why. Oh, it looks terrible for a self rating of 1 to marked down to a 3.

Enter the arbitrary...... The reality is evident. Everyone can't get a 1 or even a 2. In order to be fair and 'equitable', a bell curve must be applied. Only a few will get to keep the high self-ratings. Frankly, most will be happy to end up with a 3. Many don't even try for a 1 or 2 because there are too many variables that can't be predicted and the effort is likely to go unrewarded.

I guess what really burns me is that something, this Self Review process, intended to advance employee control and involvement in performance evaluation and the resulting rewards has been turned into perhaps the most powerful tool in attenuating & redirecting performance while making merit based rewards almost entirely subjective. What is the friggin' point? Why should I have to stress out three times a year to play this silly game?

Bah, whatever.... They do have to pay me to work, still.... for now. Thanks for the space to vent my friends.

Childhood Part 2

My son started Kindergarten. It's been a couple weeks now, and I can see him changing. I love it, but it makes me sad.

Franken v. Coleman

Franken wins in a legally protracted squeaker.

http://www.savethis.clickability.com/st/saveThisApp?clickMap=link&webPadID=K406271140

So a few random, possibly insulting thoughts. Franken is most famous for two things - first as a cast member (?) of Saturday Night Live, and second as a radio show host on Air America, radio's response to Rush Limbaugh et al. Part of the other side of the partisan 'news' machine. On the 'right,' you have Fox and that channel they claim is based on actual facts, and a whole slew of radio personalities. On the 'left,' we have Air Americam some would argue CNN and MSNBC, and more recently the Huffington Post, whic, let's face it, is basically no more important than this blog is. Frankly, no blog is really news, imo. Not really. It's mostly just really shrill accusations from one side or the other, depending on who's got the conch, as it were.

So, yeah, Franken. I never thought he was funny. Sorry. That said, Coleman looks like he may, in fact, be the least-funny man who ever lived. Maybe. Those two things said, I've got five bucks that says that of the two, Coleman is more likely to be an asshole about it.

No, what really gets me about this little dustup has nothing to do with the winner - I don't care. I am happy with the hand on the National tiller, and it's been going fine without either of these two yahoos. Fuck em.

No, what caught my eye and thoughts was one tiny line in the article on CNN.

"Defense attorney Ben Ginsberg told CNN that the court's order "wrongly disenfranchised" thousands of voters."

Now, he goes on to describe how the courts have been consistent with regards to themselves, but have acted in ways that do not enfranchise voters. But the way it reads kind of amused me.

Because what he's basically saying, Coleman's lawyer, is that the courts, in ruling for Franken, have disenfranchised voters. He means that it was done by allowing county-to-county discrepancies in the counting of various ballots - absentee or otherwise. But how it READS is that the voters are disenfranchised because they lost!!

By that reasoning, I was disenfranchised in 2000.

'Bonuses'

Oh for fuck's sake people.

AIG - bonuses. The outraged public demands that no bonus be paid. Sentaors are outraged. The president is outraged.

Why? The word selection.

You see, these 'bonuses' are not bonuses at all - they're simply a non-salary compensation component. The average American maybe gets a bonus, but when we do (I have gotten some, in the interests of full disclosure), it's usually performance based - either our performance individually or as a team or unit or company. Generally speaking, we think of a bonus as being additional pay that we cannot expect or count on - it comes as an addition to our expected salary and compensation.

And that's why everyone is so pissed. Because for these guys, the bonus is part of the promised package - often with contractually binding terms and language. So those guys who are getting $1 million bonuses? That's really not a bonus - it's just a different form of compensation. These folks knew they could earn these bonuses and worked hard to meet whatever requirements were mandated. I guaran-fucking-tee you that not one of these bonuses was contingent on the company making money or solvency or anything of the kind - these legal contracts were in place and binding long before anyone needed bailing out. Err, said they needed bailing out.

So these people are getting paid the money they have earned, and we are up in arms. Fuck you. If I were making $50K a year with a $20k bonus if I hit all my metrics, and I hit all my metrics - fuck you. That's my money. You can't take it away from me - it was promised before you ahd any say in the matter.

And if you try to apply a 100% tax on it, prepare for that law to be challenged in court tomorrow AM - you can't apply a tax like that, to a select group of people - the government cannot punitively tax a subset of the population. They earned this money, and despite the fact that they are now heavily subsidized, they still have existing contractual obligations they need to either see through or renegotiate.

All of you shrill Americans demanding these bonuses not be paid - what would you do if someone contractually owed you a million dollars? Would you refuse it? C'mon now - you've spent all year knowing you were getting a million dollar bonus. You can't tell me you don't have plans for travel, home improvement, a Vegas binge, a new car, whatever.

So Joe and Jane Podunk step up and cry about how the government is essentially paying my bonus. Well, fuck you. It's my income - sorry for the misuse of the word 'bonus.' Also note that it will probably be several years, if ever, before I have a chance to make that kind of money again. So I might need to bank that mill to keep my family afloat for the 8-10 years it takes to rebuild.

Anyhow, it's just another example of the American public getting outraged because it fails to understand, and a media who sits by and fans the flames of discontent instead of responsibly helping elevate the dialogue to a level that demands more intelligence from the American public. Don't dumb it down for the masses - force the masses to smarten up.

Once again - a bonus is not necessarily a bonus.

Embryonic stem cell reversal is distraction, congressman says - CNN.com

Embryonic stem cell reversal is distraction, congressman says - CNN.com: "Embryonic stem cell reversal is distraction, congressman says"

Translation: We invest heavily in people who help us make arguments that align with our economic mentality. These people cost a lot of money, have huge organizations, and shift their priorities with all of the agility of a container ship. When you jump off the economy, the topic which all of our political machines are wrangling with in hopes of undermining any real progress to curry political advantage in the next election, then you cost us a hell of a lot of money.

Besides, what I'm really saying is what America, or at least the press, seems to believe - that we can only handle one thing at a time. So economy now - stem cell stuff later.

Folks, this stuff drives me up the fucking wall. Seriously, who reading has ever - EVER - had the luxury of doing one thing at a time? It's absurd. It's simplistic. It's insulting.

Fix it. Fix it all. Fix it all at once.