I remain befuddled as to why business has picked up. I love it, but I’m not dumb enough to count on it until it continues a long time. I even got a small contract to make ID cards, and there is a notable condition on that. I’ve been warning people for decades about loosing personal information on the Internet, and all I got was suspicious glances or worse. Well, these ID cards were to have names and pictures on one side, but only “Staff” or “Volunteer” on the other.
The user has an option of which side of the card they show in their ID badge. Plainly, the majority must have insisted on this option, since it doubles the price of the cards. What is unusual about this particular batch is the source: a large group of reverends, deacons and church workers. So I was right. One should very carefully control the information that gets out to only so-called “public records”.
I’m due for surgery, again for my heart, and everyone knows I am far too young to for this. I agree. Surgery is such a drastic word; I’m getting a stent replaced. Stents seem to have a six-year duty cycle with me. Symptomatically, I’ve learned to avoid 99% of the situations which trip an event but of course, I cannot completely get away from phones ringing. I estimate I am operating at 40% efficiency. I had to walk four blocks today and it took me 45 minutes.
The good news is some guy came in with 200 leather cell phone cases and clips. They weren’t brand names or anything, just older stock. But lots of people are holding on to older cell phones. The guy just needed $20, so I was able to flip the lot at a fairly decent profit. Wow, have you seen what those things sell for?
Something I find dispiriting about the job market these days, besides the impossibly low rates of pay, is the obviousness that employers are taking advantage of the applicants. I’m seeing things creeping into the ads that the phone company would have loved to do twenty years ago: make everybody do everything regardless of what they were hired for. Call me old fashioned but I don’t think a qualified worker should have to sweep the floor when it isn’t busy.
Don’t jump to extremes with that. I still think people should keep their work area and the lunch room tidy. But there are some things I don’t want my doctor doing. I’m saying that even in a classless society, there are those more skilled than others and what you pay them does not stop at dollars. I also draw a distinction at “intellectual pay”. Some people go into accounting so they don’t have to deal with customers, and your back room technicians are not “inside salespersons”. Hear that, AT&T, or does it have to be repeated like 90% of everything else when talking to you.
Others say you do what you have to for a job these days. Yeah, well that is how unions grow big and strong. Unions exist not to protect the workers from the company, but to prevent the company from turning the workers against each other. Some people have trouble with that concept. Without unions, there is little to stop workers from doing extra to curry favors from the management. The boss told me that while I was over last weekend mowing his lawn. Just kidding. I predict an eventual rise in union membership, or at least a better union environment than back when times were good.
