Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for June 05, 2016

Everyone knows that a job becomes a career when you start surfing for porn on the company’s computers.

620 days is approximately 1½ years, right?

The reality is, as I’ve seen for my nieces and nephews, no one wants to hire anyone long term anymore. They don’t want to deal with benefits or pensions, just hourly salaries, even for kids with college degrees. So several of my young relatives are working overseas, teaching ‘English as a second language’ to people in Thailand and Taiwan who intend to open businesses in the US!

It’s no surprise, in that atmosphere, that younger workers no longer feel a sense of long term loyalty to an employer…

“Five’ll Getcha Tenure”“Viva Lost Wages” (♬)“Workin’On A Chain Gang” (♬)“In-human Resources”“The Amazing Rat Race”“Career View Mirror”“Securi-tease”“Coffee And Grindstones”“A Broken Rung On The Corporate Ladder”“Be That, As It Résum锓CareeRe-builder”“Zip- Your- Lip, Recruiter”“Shattered Glassdoor”“Monstrosity”“Chairman Of The Job Board”or“A Pink Slip Of The Tongue”

“Most of the life long jobs were killed off in the mad move over seas or in disappeared due to permanent economic shrinkage.”. I doubt it was madness, unless we consider the lower stability of many other countries.I assume they factored that in..There is no reason to think an economic shrinkage is permanent unless it is a part of the economy for which the demand has been replaced by other things — no buggy whips, few vacuum tubes desired, no ivory carving.Those jobs have been replaced by other things, in places where the economy expanded..People keep building better mouse traps and the makers of the old mouse traps think the economy went south.

And in addition, many places now require everyone to be already “fully trained”, and “already experienced”. Seems as though no one wants to have to teach a person anything, even those “fresh out of school”. -Even when a new arrival has experience, many times, they may not be fully prepared for the individual nuances peculiar to the specific location they work at, let alone any quirks that may come with being at that company, position, business or industry.

On a lighter note, it seems ko-winkidental that Luann is babysitting "Lindy Lewis in the middle pannel here, as well as the story going on over at “Luann Againn”…

It’s actually the reverse…

Vacation? What’s that?It’s “a career” when you’re doing what you want to do and have a legitimate expectation that you will be allowed to continue doing it for an indefinite period….

Luann & Bernice reverting back to their “youth” here. After their NYC trip, they had become adults and having a discussion in a different setting, instead of the bunk.

The bunk is their comfort zone. They can be more open and honest there.

Good ole Mrs. Horner, who was Luann’s moral compass.

In 2008 I retired after 36½ years with the phone company. Like one of my fellow retirees said “we were in the right place at the right time”. She’s a grandma, I never had kids.♦I am so glad that I never had children and therefore grandchildren and great grandchildren to feed into the ruthless dog eat dog of the new reality. I’m glad that I’m old and don’t have a lifetime of this ahead of me.

People don’t use things/services for any length of time anymore. So businesses tend not to last long. Or they get bought out by bigger companies. Either way careers are less likely to happen anymore.

Ah Luann. CHERISH those “Jobs” you had/have, because somewhere overseas, probably in China or Japan, Robots are being designed to replace You in EVERY Single One of them. All those Engineers need is to develop a longer lasting independent power-source, like “Fusion Batteries” or something.

So SWEET “Dreams,” Kiddo……..,

Oh, and YES, i realize the importance of online music. My husband, in the large lab he then worked for, was one of the people who first thought of the concept and figured out how to do it. It was an uphill battle convincing many in the computer industry that online music made sense, but many musicians realized it right away. That includes online concerts, since he and some of those he worked with did the did the first ever – a folk concert to get donations to help finance cardiovascular surgery for Utah Phillips. The biggest aspect of downloadable music is that it saved a better future for number of non-pop types of music which were being shut out by clear channel radio changes.What i am wondering, though, is what coukd be the NEXT big draw in at home entertainment? Not a modification or refinement of what is now being done, but something very different. Of course, many wonder about that…And, yes, re my earlier post i know the freezer history aspect before home freezers w Nixon, Rebozo (sp?), refrigerator cars on rails, and how that affected the California produce industry. Both home freezers and several major steps down the line also home movies arose by creating changes to something first created for business, though, so that may be somewhere to look for the seed. On a different note, but also jobs related, there are huge advances in affordable and often highly portable medical equipment/labs done as applications. There are some fun at home and educational possibilities there.Sorry, rambling… Okay, maybe rambling a lot. That sometimes means my brain has an idea that is not pulling together enough to see it yet, so maybe these are all parts in some way.

Okay, several things are concreting. During the bank collapse Iceland recovered better than many other nations partly because of crafting. People offset costs with crafting, they creating product to sell with crafting, and they had better items for themselves due to crafting. (Example: fewer garments but bespoke and certainly even made to measure ones wind up better and more attractive than sweatshop garments, says she who has too many more standard garments).That got me thinking of the joys our grade school, middle school, and high school great-nieces and great-nephews have for a few years now been getting from crafting and learning mechanical abilities, and how it is an especially large draw w the grade school ones. What if the next best openings in at home entertainment might rest in facilitating quality crafting? Yes, i meant to put quality in there as a modifier – with items to be proud of rather than highly disposable as the ultimate goal once the skill sets have been developed.Honestly, i have no idea how likely that is, but the options for children’s craft and skill books have increased in recent years in the places where i buy.Now, i know that even if a person has had good items, sometimes crafted ones can mean much more. After my sister got me over many years to give her over half my jewelry from our parents’ and grandparents’ business for her to save for her daughter, i wound up giving all the rest (except for a scant handful of modest memory pieces) to the other nieces, but then after Dad died i inherited some tools which had been his and his father’s and have been teaching myself to make modest pieces (nothing costly). They really do mean more to me than bought ones, and more than the costly ones i once had.Because of my eye i also think a lot about accessibility. Accessibility affects how i craft such as how i use tools and magnification, and how i use touch as well as sight now, and also provides some limits and especially requires some creative solutions.That of course, got me wondering where the next big financial opportunity for crafting – if it does take off – is, and one answer to that is easy: someone needs to totally rethink sewing machines. If you look at the mechanical tools used in many crafts they have become increasingly user friendly, often in highly creative and novel ways. But if you you look at sewing machines, they are far from ergonomic, and while they have added bits of sparkle like self-winding bobbins, and programmable smocking they still in large part have the exact same difficulties that filled many of us – including me – with dread of sewing machines over a half century ago. They just are not user friendly. Instead, the user learns to adjust around the machine and its many problems rather than the machine being friendly. Machines are not spouses. We all learn to deal with the people we love, but a good machine is a friendly servant-tool, not a person, and there is no good reason to not thoroughly rethink a type that has many problems.Friendly approaches to sewing also affect the packaging industry. Recently Kraft had a lot of problems with the bags designed to replace boxes for Morningstar burgers. We personally saw a 20% failure rate in the bags bought then. They found a solution – and it came from sewing! They added pleats! That solved two difficulties. Much of packaging simply DOES face the same problems as sewing, and sewing has had thousands of years of use to already solve those problems. Needles and threads were not involved, but technique was.Anyway, looking toward a future, i have to wonder if the joy of crafting things for oneself and their equipment, and to some degree avoiding the blackbox viewpoint of equipment might gain footholds as industries with growth and job potential. The biggest scores then will be in solving problems people have gotten too used to having.

Vacation? Luann, what is the meaning of this word, can you explain it?

A job becomes a job when you stop enjoying it

You have a career when you start checking off and counting days left until your Retirement Eligibility Date on your “Short-Timer’s Calendar”.

Arggggh, HUGE careless typo (and a minor one)!Obviously, i meant INSTABILITY when i wrote:during the course of a day: large pension plans, huge banks, etc. it has bedn an ever worsing problem which increases market stability as will until a solution, perhaps reasonable tax system which taxes short term trading heavily but long term very gently, comes into play. If

People can’t be doing that bad in the job market. Almost everyone I know can afford a Smart Phone, frequent trips to Starbuck and eating out several time a week. Those are all luxuries that the middle class indulges in.

Luann has had 5 jobs by age 19. Has Bernice ever had a paying job?

“Most of the life long jobs were killed off in the mad move over seas”*NG: Question— I haven’t been shopping at WalMart due to the facts it prevents its workers from organizing and kit gets some of its merch from impoverished workers in 3rd world countries.*On the other hand, WalMart is now paying its workers more than most other retailers. Is it moral to shop there? Anyone else?

And as far as Luann’s comment goes, the Kidz job must be HER career as she was counting down the days last summer until her planned-for NYC trip with Quill. (Quill was her then-boyfriend)

Ah, I didn’t know she was still doing that. It seems like a volunteer job. Though those, by definition, are still jobs.

A job is a chore.A career is a path.

“A career is a job that’s gone on too long.”

@SukieCrandall

“On a different note, but also jobs related, there are huge advances in affordable and often highly portable medical equipment/labs done as applications.”.Every time a doctor uses a stethoscope, I think of how ancient the technology is — a diaphragm and a hollow tube..This can obviously be replaced with even the cheapest of microphones, hear better, feed it to a CPU for processing and get all kinds of information the doctor can’t possibly hear even assuming good hearing..Some of the advances are so great that i can’t possibly keep up with them. Done right, we will be able to avoid health problems before they become health problems and won’t need to go to a doctor and tie up a nurse..Studies of genetics, proteomics, ultrasound imaging should soon allow quick, accurate diagnoses and cures. Larry Niven’s “autodoc” gets closer every day..People who oppose usage of machines and particularly robots to replace health care professionals are forgetting the benefits of lower health care cost, fewer health care related killings more wellness over the joys of changing out bedpans and attending funerals.-It would result in a shift in employment and if employment is more important than good healthcare, we should go back to doing everything by hand and forget vaccinations, laser scalpels, blood tests and x-rays.

Also can add “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” after taxes….

In my case, Punday is “Eight Days A Week” (♬)…

@SukieCrandall

“until a solution, perhaps reasonable tax system which taxes short term trading heavily but long term very gently, comes into play.”.Carrot and stick approach..I read a long time ago most companies needed to tie benefits to CEO types to the long term health of a company so they wouldn’t effectively cook the books like Dukakis did for Massachusetts..(It ain’t only businesses who do it. Ask the Clients of the VA.)

I would say that a career becomes a job when you start counting the days to your vacation…

I doubt that last week’s arc will end without our knowing where Piro is.

Today was a day when many talked about rough sides of people. I just read this and thought that it might cheer some:http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/03/480176649/tea-pride-mystery-for-one-family-that-fled-the-nazis-a-tin-canister-held-it-all

For those who are still wondering, here is a reference to Luann’s day camp/after-school teaching job being a paying position:

Which also explains where the money for the NYC trip came from …

“less restrictions on how they do business which such organizations as OSHA seem to put undue stress on the modern business.”.My other brother mentioned some folks from OSHA coming by and talking to them about progress in improving occupational health and safety. They told him they believed they had gone about as far as they could go in reducing injuries by way of the companies. Most injuries nowadays were being caused by workers ignoring company safety rules despite the efforts of the companies to avoid those injuries.They explained they were considering taking the next promising step: start fining individuals who insisted on breaking the safety rules..It made sense to me. When I heard about the Deepwater Horizon disaster, I was very surprised. When I worked offshore everyone on the rig drove home the point that anybody on the semi-submersible could shut down operations at any time for any perceived safety violation. A slough of people had to be ignoring safety regulations for it to happen.I wondered if they had quit informing workers of the hazards and their power to respond or if the crew somehow didn’t understand their lives were on the line every second of every day they were offshore...“Even our own govt aided them in their moves. Something Alexander Hamilton did not approve of. Cutting ones own country’s throat for a little more money was a mistake he saw. Still suicidal today.”.Hamilton was a great man, but I’m pretty sure he understood people in government were dangerous even before the vice president shot and killed him.

“The fact that there are many more unemployed not counted and the under employed which are counted in some cases several times.”.There’s always somebody who thinks the Obama Administration is lying to them, yet they don’t show the source of their distrust.He’s a good man, dadgummit, cut him some slack..People who aren’t working or wanting to be working are not unemployed by definition.People who are working, no matter the work, are not unemployed, by definition..This being counted multiple times makes no sense.They don’t go around counting every person in the nation and base their report on that. They do surveys and apply statistical analysis to project the totals and the Bureau of Labor Statistics spells out the basis of their calculations at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm.“When you have a plethora of poor and working poor you can pay less and offer less and it is a vicious circle.”.And that addresses the expense side of business, but does not address the fact that people will not do business with you if your employees are incompetent (unless the government forces them to do so, naturally) and the income side goes down and the company goes out of business..The top quartile company performers are careful to reduce labor turnover which reduces training costs and cost of lost business due to poorly prepared workers..Of course, the vicious cycle might kick in when poor performers go to work for poor companies and manage to flip and sink their collective boat.

“However the US and Europe did not. And they are still in trouble, the criminals responsible still in charge and all the money paid to them that they wasted.”.According to the Obama Administration,m they got all their money back with interest and saved the economy in the process..I suspect part of what helped was when the people who wanted federal bailouts discovered they would not get their bonuses until they got themselves away from the public trough..Carrot and stick..By the way, I’m not sure how many in the USA had actually done anything in violation of US law. In some cases they were in such deep trouble because the federal government pushed them to lend money to the poor in the twisted thought process that people with homes would become good workers, noncriminals with steady jobs rather than considering the concept that people who were good workers would have steady jobs and be able to afford homes..The government governs best that governs sanely.

“That one is a hard one, but it must be understood that the workers made them change to what they are doing now. What companies use to do automatically in the past.”.So they DID unite in a union?By the way, those who think people can’t form unions are mistaken, the First Amendment freedom of assembly actually includes the concept of forming organizations for any noncriminal activity such as contract negotiation..And I’m not sure which companies ever automatically gave across the board raises to all their employees..People who complain about Wal-Mart say they pay too little and yet they also say they pay so much that other businesses can’t afford to hire them away from WM.They used to complain that they weren’t accessible to inner city dwellers and then they complained that their proximity put all the minority business owners out of business..Sam Walton used to say it it was made in the USA, WM would carry it. They carried it but people still often bought items from other countries either due to lower cost or higher quality.naturally, the folks for whom WM can do no right, complained WM shouldn’t have given them the choice. (Natural born dictators, all.).Personally, even though I have little dealings with WM, I can’t forget that after hurricanes, they had trucks full of disaster supplies in Pensacola at least a day before FEMA. They didn’t give it away, but they didn’t jack up prices either and they didn’t run out.. That’s worth something.

@DavidHuieGreen“Cowboy Milking Associates?”.Yet another reason I am glad I’m not a cowboy.I wouldn’t enjoy being milked.

David wrote: There’s always somebody who thinks the Obama Administration is lying to them, yet they don’t show the source of their distrust.He’s a good man, dadgummit, cut him some slack.Agreed, and his administration created some major improvements all while helping the nation emerge from the recession he inherited while avoiding an inflationary recession (which was a real threat for a while). Is there more to do? Of course. Is the direction achieved the right one? Well, just look at what the spiral was like before he took office and the answer is affirmative.

Sometimes acquiring wealth requires timing, reputation, and luck. Sometimes it is simply a matter of doing whatever is necessary to escape the city limits of a large cesspool of crime, drugs, and burned out houses.

Yes, Puzz. I can not spell. My head hangs in shame ( but in a sideways glance i wink.)

Oh, wow. GoComic recovered a reply i sent that did not appear when it reloaded just as i hit submit, so i wrote a second one. Delayed recovery… Kind of cool knowing that might happen.

Oh, and, yes, David, those knitting machines are very cool. I think they are still quite costly but could be wrong. Several years back a friend in the fashion industry mentioned some HC pieces she had seen which were made that way, and she was highly impressed by the quality.

@DavidHuieGreen…and won’t need to go to a doctor and tie up a nurse..“I think there’s some unintended humor there — if one were to take that too literally…”.Never intentionally offend the one who holds the needle.

“When I think of how close that guy came to being elected President in 1988, I shudder to think of what would have happened to the U. S. economy if Dukakis (I call him Du-carcass) had won.”.At least this time we won’t have to wonder if the winner will be a liar.WE ALREADY KNOW.(Oh joy)

SPOILER ALERT

And now for something entirely different… Returning to the regularly scheduled program, could one plan be succeeding even while another fails?

…we are the only ones that know that some day we will die.

And yet so many of us act as if we have forever to right our personal wrongs…

Note that Luann forgot to mention “counter-girl at Weenieworld”.

@Argythree@DavidHuieGreen“It takes money to start a business. Lending institutions these days only want to lend to people who don’t actually need money.”.I was just now reading where Elon Musk offered $325 million to a company which had developed a way to extract lithium from brine..The deal fell through and they went bankrupt. The thing which caught my attention is that they actually needed $400 million to build the plant to do the thing right..They had money but needed much more money. Without it, their costs killed them. With it, they could have made much more money while supplying the manufacture of all these lithium ion batteries which are currently changing and improving the world..Another thing is that folks have insisted most of the future lithium is going to come out of Argentina (outpacing Australia and Chile) because they see a static world. .As Galileo said — although in another context, “It moves.”.The potential for profit has led people all over the world to consider other ways to supply lithium so they could get some of that money. Solutions have been found and will be found..(And then outsiders will gripe because somebody else is earning the rewards, not the social-justice types who didn’t contribute but still demand their cut.)

I miss Lindy, she had such a cute smile…