October 19, 2005

Venting

Sometimes you see a friend running a company and you just want to tell the guy that the whole reason the company is starting to fall apart is because the marketing guy is lame. Got great workers, great concept, great creative team, great tech folks ... but the guy he hired as the right hand man, this genius marketer, is just not meshing with the rest of your team. And at that point, you remember this little ditty of Paul Simon's, "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover." Only that doesn't cover things at all. Totally different issue. Well, here's the version that'll help your friend understand what he needs to do:
(original lyrics here.)

50 ways to lose the idiot

The problem is all inside his head,
We told the prez.
The answer is easy if you
Take it logically.
We'd like to help the comp'ny in its struggle
To be solvent.
There must be 50 ways
To lose the idiot.
We said it's really not our habit
To intrude
Furthermore, we hope our meaning
Won't be lost or misconstrued
But we'll repeat ourselves
At the risk of sounding rude
There must be 50 ways
To lose the idiot
50 ways to lose the idiot

CHORUS:
You just send him on back, Jack
Take out an advert, Kurt
You don't need his brain, Lane
Just get the comp'ny free
Slip him some pink, Link
You don't need to discuss much
Just get him gone, John
And get the comp'ny free

We said it grieves us
To see so much wasted time
We wish we could get some work done
To make our bids get won
Prez said, I appreciate that
And would you please explain
About the 50 ways
We said, why don't we all
Just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning
You'll begin to see the light
And then we pointed at him
And realized he wasn't working again

There must be 50 ways
to lose the idiot
50 ways to lose the idiot

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:45 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

September 24, 2005

Parents and Kids

You can go into any high school in the U.S. and tell after just a few minutes what kids have bad parents.

Not an exact quote that I saw on the ShoutBox over at BlogExplosion today, but close. And one that really cheesed me off.

You see, I had everyone at my school snowed. I was an honors student. I never snuck out of the house. I never "did it" with a guy while in high school (or college, for that matter). I never took drugs, not even marijuana. I never TP'd a house even though I did have to clean up after other kids' TP'd ours. If my curfew was 10:00, I was home at 9:55. I got good grades, not valedictorian class, but good. I never did get detention, all the way through school.

I was easily one of the kids this person would have classified as good and coming from good parents.

I was a good kid. But I didn't come from good parents.

Was I the exception to prove the rule? Or do the "statistics" really back up this person's assertion that bad parents = bad kids and good parents = good kids?

Come on, folks -- what do you say?

---

EDITED:
Glad to see some comments rolling in. One commenter (Tim) points out that without knowing my age and more about why I called my parents bad parents, my assertion doesn't hold too much water. He's right, so here's more of the details.

I'm 36, I'll be 37 in November. Why do I consider my parents bad? That's harder to answer in a public forum like this ... but I brought it up to begin with, so I should bite the bullet and put up or shut up.

My mom is OCD, clinically severely depressed, a very co-dependent personality who thinks that the nun psychologist who ran the assessment tests for mom to become a nun about 15 years ago was out to get her.

My dad is an alcoholic, abusive (physically, verbally, and otherwise), addicted to sex, racist, disinterested in his family.

They weren't "bad parents" for being invasive in my life. I'm not an overly sensitive 23 year old who thinks Mom and Dad were meanies. They were bad parents for a myriad of real reasons. And I didn't turn to drugs, alcohol OR acting like them.

---

EDIT 2 (Sunday Morning):
Scooter, as originator of the quote, has some clarifications in the comments section. He further elaborates that I may have confused "bad person" with "bad parent" and the existence of a curfew may just demonstrate they were good parents.

Poppycock. Plain and simple, if you have parents who beat their kids, rape their kids, keep their kids from as much social interaction as they can without getting noticed -- they are bad parents regardless of whether or not there was a curfew and a few other niceties of good parenting. These things make them bad parents as well as bad people. Just having a curfew does not mean they were actually involved in the child's life. Did they actually enforce the curfew? How did they do so? Did the child obey out of extreme fear or respect or just because they didn't want to be grounded (or otherwise reasonably punished)? Two of those reasons imply good parenting. The first reason indicates very very bad parenting.

It's not nature versus nurture as one of the commenters mentioned. It's a mix of both that creates a bad kid, as cooper points out.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:27 PM | Comments (9) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

September 13, 2005

Adult : Child :: Boss : Employee (or is that backwards?)

Why must work suck?

Okay, okay, so not everyone's work sucks and work doesn't necessarily suck all the time. And, of course, there's the whole "do what you love, love what you do" thing.

When I was a teacher, I might fuss about grading (okay, so I complained about grading long and bitterly), but I really, really, really enjoyed my work. And everyone except my department head and the dean of the first year studies thought I was damn good at my job. Even the guys in the teaching and learning center tried to get me to speak to other instructors. And I loved it. I adored teaching. I adored mixing with the students. I loved watching them "get it." I enjoyed commiserating with them about stupid rules. (Like the fact that most majors at ND only got a couple of electives at all and those didn't really come until senior year.) I was crushed when I couldn't reach one of the students, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to reach all of them. Didn't stop me from trying. Didn't stop me from trying to figure out what I could have done differently.

I know a lot of professor types who just hated teaching first-year students. I think it's a blast.

Now, as a copy writer, though, I gotta wonder: does every boss treat their employees like children? I mean, come on! Give me an assignment and let me the heck alone to get it done. From talking to other folks, it sure seems like more bosses than not have this obsessive need to check in on their employees (although the new boss's habit of standing quietly in the doorway to my cubicle has just GOT to stop). I am not a five-year-old. Give me an assignment, give me a general idea of priority or a deadline and I'll get it done for you. And I'll do it well. But I can't get the thing done if you keep coming in and checking on my progress!
(And I also can't get it done when you give 1/2 the project to the dude who works in secret and won't show me anything. I can't write about how to use a website if I haven't seen how that website works!)

The endless explanations that I've heard 18 times and already taken into account (even by his admission -- but it's really important and bears repeating ... again and again) ... the projects changing 76 times in three days ... the projects with no boundaries to them -- write a newsletter for this magazine (a newsletter about what???) ... the ever-changing projects -- this emailer needs to go out Wednesday, no wait, make it about this instead, no wait, we're not ready for that, can you make it about this? Why isn't it ready to mail out?

I can have fun at work and I try not to let all the little changes and office politics bug me. But the tendency of some of the executives to treat the creative department as wayward children is really wearing. How do people deal with this every day?

I wish I was teaching again. (And not just to avoid the executives -- you still get some of that crap from the academic world, too.)
*sigh*
Guess I just needed to vent. That's a part of the reason I've been somewhat quiet over the last couple of weeks.

Oh, and lest this slips into oblivion, here's a quote from the University of Notre Dame's University Writing Program:

Students who have attended FYC regularly and submitted all major assignments should earn As, Bs, Cs, or Ds only. (Fs are reserved for students who stop attending or who do not turn in one or more of the three Unit Assignments.)

You can see it here (it's most of the way down the long page).

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:49 AM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

July 23, 2005

WTF is WRONG with these people????

Okay, so I had kind of intended to go on a Harry Potter binge for a few days, but then I came across this gem. At first, since the post is so short and mostly just that question, what if, I assume my buddy is simply hypothesizing. Hey, I just woke up and my brain is going in 18 different directions. Then I finally realize that there's a hyperlink in there. I click and find JustinLogan.com - What Is the Plan If There's Another 9/11?.

Holy crap. Holy freaking crap. Lemme quote the most pertinent bit:

According to Philip Giraldi, writing in the new issue (not online) of the American Conservative, it's to nuke Iran:

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

So if I understand this right, our plan if we're attacked again, is to strategically nuke a country with some nuclear development AND who hates the crap out of already - WITHOUT ANY INDICATION THAT THE COUNTRY ITSELF IS INVOLVED IN THE ATTACKS!?!?!?!?!???? What freaks are we that when faced with a guerrilla war that is NOT housed in any nation, but is a movement hidden over the world (but mostly somewhat centralized in the Middle East) and we arbitrarily decide without evidence that we're going to punish a nation that our government still holds a grudge against - for something that nation's government did not necessarily do and/or condone????

Now look, I came of age during the Iran hostage crisis. That was the first news story where I started paying attention to the bigger world. And I largely noticed it for several kid-reasons: the Shah came to the U.S. on my sister's birthday and the hostages were taken on mine. Regan was elected on my birthday the next year and I, for the first time in an election, had paid attention to the campaigning and I desperately wanted Carter in office to finish handling the Iran mess. I didn't trust Regan. (And on top of all of this, my dad worked directly under Ross Perot at the time - so I knew about this dweeb, too.)

Anyhow, my gut reaction is to not trust Iran, sure. But, I want very solid evidence of governmental involvement with al Quaeda AND direct connection to any attacks on the U.S. before I feel that I can condone any war with another country. I'm sorry, I guess I'm just odd that way, but I don't feel we should go around attacking other countries based on guesswork, fear and this bull-headed belief that because we had something terrible happen to us, we should make terrible things happen to others.

Look, I don't want another 9/11. I didn't want the one we had. I didn't want Spain to have one. I didn't want England to have one.

I don't want Afghanistan to have one. I don't want Iraq to have one. I don't want Iran to have one.

You know what? There is more than enough pain and suffering out there already. People die in senseless car wrecks. They get sick with cancer, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. A tidal wave takes their home, their livelihood and their family. Crops fail and there's just not enough food for everyone. A company just can't get the business to stay afloat despite severe pay cuts for the upper executives as they try to keep their workers pay fair and a good living wage.

Shit happens. It's the way the world works. Random things happen. Nature happens. And our own sometimes psychotic natures affect what happens to the people around us.

But I don't think there's EVER a call for a psychotic government. And the U.S., in my opinion, is damn close to that right now. There was no call to invade Iraq. And considering this "plan" for how our government wants to react should there be a second major terrorist attack upon the U.S., it's obvious to me that the U.S. government has become psychotic.

Right now, "Hail to the Chief" sounds a hell of a lot like Heil to me.

I wish we could impeach the entire U.S. executive government right now. Get Bush, Cheney and the rest of the psychotic war mongers out of positions of power. I wish we could listen to more of our armed forces brass who keep saying that we're fighting the wrong kind of war.

For example:

The United States and its allies are fighting a networked, global insurgency led by extremist Muslims, he said. The insurgent leaders do not speak for all of Islam, but they threaten to hijack the religion for their own purposes, he said. The United States needs to be on the side of moderate Islam and avoid being set up as an enemy of Islam, he said.

from: The InsideDefense.com

The "he" in this quote is three-star general in charge of Marine Corps forces in the Pacific region, Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson.

He goes on to say: "The center of gravity, the decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world,” he said. “Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people.”

This, from a three star general in the Marines. Not some so-called wishy-washy liberal. A MARINE. Do you get it? That when the freaking gung-ho Marines are saying we are fighting the wrong kind of war that we have well and truly SCREWED UP?

All right. This is why I don't talk about politics often. I get so pissed off at the stupidity of others, particularly those currently in power. But sometimes, if we don't speak up ... if we don't get angry ... if we don't try to do something to set things right, we run the risk of letting another Reich gain a foothold. I'm not saying Bush = Hitler; I'm saying that we run the risk of making horrible, invasive, deadly mistakes. We run the risk of wiping out cultures and people.

Bastante. I'll post some pictures of the mama gorilla and her infant from Brookfield Zoo tomorrow.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:42 AM | Comments (4) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

July 18, 2005

Dude, Where's My Mom?

So okay, a wee little bit of a rant here.
About a month or two ago, my mom found out that she was getting a free flight to Chicago. So, she decides to flit out to Chicago, which is about 2-3 hours from where I live. The plan is to get Grandma from Dayton to Chicago and the two of them will "party" in Chicago for a few days. The second part of the plan is for me and A to drive into Chicago and visit for the weekend. My response is, well it depends on whether or not A has to work that weekend.

Long story short, that weekend is the first week that AM General goes to mandatory 10 hour a day weeks PLUS it's the first weekend that they had to work on Saturday as well (and missing that Saturday - for any reason other than hospitalization is a firing offense). In addition, I have to serve at church that Sunday and it's the first Sunday that there is literally no one else who can serve that weekend except me.

So after much discussion, I call Mom and tell her that there's really just no way that we can drive in to Chicago that weekend -- it would have to be after 2:00 on Saturday, so we'd get to Chicago around 5 - but it would be crazy traffic time (even on Saturday), so we probably wouldn't really get to their hotel (on the far west side of town) until 6 or so. We'd have one hour to spend before we had to get back in the car and head back home. Sunday would be even worse because we'd have to leave early early evening so that A could get a full night's sleep before being at work by five a.m. -- that means getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get to work on time.

Now, Mom lives a good thousand miles away, so I offer a compromise: why doesn't she and Grandma take the train into town, planning on getting to South Bend around 1 p.m. on Saturday and then take the last train back? That was the only way I could see for us to get to spend any time together.

So, Mom says, yeah, cool. She calls me Friday night . . . the evening before she's going to come over. I've been frantically cleaning the house. Yes, she verifies they'll be there in the morning. I'm excited. I continue cleaning the house.

11 a.m. on Saturday morning, she calls and says, no, she can't come in to South Bend because it takes too many train changes and she thinks they'll have to either stay overnight (oh no!) or not stay long enough to make the trip worth it.

Okay, now I'm disappointed. I've cleaned everything for two days to get ready for her and I'm excited to have them see our house. But, I also understand . . . I just wish she'd looked up this stuff earlier in the week when I asked her to instead of leaving it until Saturday morning. At the very least, she should have told me Friday night. But, *sigh* I'm pretty much used to this from her.

"Why don't you and A just drive in to Chicago?" she asks. I about drop the phone. We've gone over this about 15 times now. But, I dutifully explain again that we just can't manage it time-wise this weekend and there's no way around it.

"Why don't you come by yourself?"

"I told you, Mom, I will NOT drive in Chicago -- it's horrible and it terrifies me."

So the conversation continues with way crazy amounts of mom-guilt. "I'm travelling 1000 miles and you can't travel the last 100 to see me????"

Much frustration on both parts, but finally I thought we got to a good place: neither of us was actually happy about the situation. It did suck that mom was so close and I couldn't get over there to see her, but such is life sometimes.

Fast forward to last week. A has been planning a trip to Chicago for us for months -- it's being interrupted by a trip to Dayton, Ohio to see my sister as she makes the cross-country trek from Dallas to New York City, laying over in Dayton at our aunt's house for a few days of relaxation before they complete the trek.

First night that we're all at my aunt's house, my grandma calls my mom so we can all talk - kind of a nice family get-together even though Mom's still a thousand some odd miles away.

Mom and Grandma talk. Mom and Jenny talk. Jenny hands the phone to me.

"Young lady, what are you doing going to Chicago now?"

First words out of her mouth. I'm stunned, shocked. Here I thought she finally understood that we could not work out the schedule the one weekend that she could be in town. Nope, she thinks I did it just to spite her. She lets me know quite clearly that I "obviously" didn't go to Chicago that weekend just to hurt her -- it didn't have anything to do with the fact that we couldn't get there that weekend.

"Well, why didn't you take a vacation two months ago when I was there?" is her response to my pointing out that we're actually both on vacation this week.

I try explaining that A doesn't really get vacations - she gets time off when the plant goes to shutdown, but that's it. And I didn't have enough PT time accrued when she was in town.

"Hmph."

I hurriedly get off the phone. You'd think I had done all of this specifically to hurt her. For someone with a cruddy self-esteem, she sure seems to think the world centers around her.

It'll probably be another couple of months before we speak again. Maybe she'll be in a better mood then. But there's no telling. These random spikes of irrationality have been a pattern with her ever since I was tiny.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:06 PM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

July 12, 2005

Red Monkey Jeans?

Okay, so this Richelle person wants to know where to get "these jeans." Something called Red Monkey Jeans. She wants to know where to get them so much that she emailed me about it. Of course, I have no idea what jeans she's talking about in her email since there is no description of them whatsoever. And, since that obviously wasn't enough to satiate the need she has for "those jeans," she has also posted a comment to my Journeys entry - a post about religion and faith journeys to ask me again, where to get those jeans. This time she's a little more descriptive and she calls them "red monkey jeans."

Despite my love for the little red monkey, I have never heard of red monkey jeans. Despite the search engine hits that BlogPatrol has identified about red monkey jeans, I know nothing about any red monkey jeans. Why would red monkeys need jeans?

Why would I know anything about said jeans? Why would I be inclined to run a more effective Google search for this person so she'll quit asking me about these jeans? And yet, oddly, if I was not heading out for vacation in a couple of hours, I would be hitting Blingo and trying to locate these jeans for this woman.

So, to anyone searching for red monkey jeans -- I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never heard of red monkeys wearing jeans. I've never heard of red monkey jeans. I'm not sure why anyone would think that I would hold secret knowledge about something I've never written about.

Although at this point, I wish CafePress did jeans. I'd make a great Red Monkey design, plaster on a pair of jeans and direct everyone to my Red Monkey Jeans. Come to think of it, I may just have to design a Red Monkey wearing jeans and plaster on a t-shirt just to commemorate this search for red monkey jeans.

And now, I must go pack before my other half yanks the plug out of the computer so I get off-line and get busy.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:14 AM | Comments (10) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble