Recent Comments

1. about 10 hours ago on The Buckets

   I’ve worked for some companies like that… others, the Suits were on the top floor (and were the sole occupants of the whole top floor).

   Regular employees were not allowed to hobnob with the Suits – they had “attack secretaries” to keep you at bay. I had a coworker who was a really good engineer (and had led several profitable projects) who had worked there for years without even hearing from the Chief of Engineering, much less ever meeting him (nor had any of the rest of us). Coworker got frustrated from being unappreciated, and found a new job. On his last day, he decided to see the Chief – went to the top floor, noticed that the attack secretary was away from her desk, and sauntered into the Chief’s office… told the Chief that he wanted to meet the guy he’d been working for the past ten years… the Chief got livid and told him he was fired… too late for that.

   Later we got a memo from the Chief with stern warnings about going to his office… sure helped kill any morale that remained…

2. about 10 hours ago on Basic Instructions

   Hmmm… I was also raised in the South but suffered square dance classes in school. Didn’t get any hoop skirt dance classes or Cotillion classes, although I heard about them later. And did not get taught anything about Henry Ford’s politics – just a little about his auto production line. Maybe the difference was because our town had a lot of transplanted northerners who worked at the three local manufacturing plants.

3. about 11 hours ago on Basic Instructions

   Today is different in that, if the teacher is not entertaining enough, the students turn to their smartphones…

4. about 11 hours ago on Basic Instructions

   When I was in 5th grade we were all too immature to think of the opposite sex as anything more than “yucky”, and avoided contact. I did notice pretty girls, but I was much to shy to approach them. They made us try to square dance, but nobody seemed to like it.

5. about 11 hours ago on Basic Instructions

   In HS (high school) yes we liked any excuse to put our arms around the girls… but in 5th grade girls were “yucky”…

6. about 11 hours ago on Working It Out

   Experienced that, too, indirectly. Same company required you to disclose and give them anything you invented, whether you used company time / resources or not. One of my coworkers (another BS degree) invented a camera mounting system that was very unobtrusive compared to most others on the market… boss pooh-poohed it… coworker marketed it around town (DC) himself…

   The FBI showed a lot of interest, but wanted a number of refinements. Company fired that coworker for 1) marketing it himself, 2) refusing to refine it without any reward, and 3) refusing to prepare a patent documentation package that included the boss’s and Director’s names on it but not the coworker’s. Boss dumped the project on me.

   Before I’d invested much time in it, however, my boss pulled the plug on the whole thing. Turned out, the FBI liked my coworker and hired him directly to work on his invention with their own resources. Company didn’t fight it since they were worried about losing other government contracts.

7. about 11 hours ago on Working It Out

   I worked at an engineering company where my boss considered me a second-class citizen because I only had a BS degree instead of a MS or higher (he had a MS himself). I had a lot of hands-on experience and could troubleshoot so I was assigned to the lab where I tried to make the projects designed by these MS degree holders work…

   Company policy required me to document problems I found and solutions that I suggested… copies went to my boss as well as the Director. My boss pooh-poohed my comments about his intruder sensor project… the Director never kept up with mundane duties (like reviewing project statuses) since that interfered with his golf game…

   So the Air Force tested the intruder sensors we delivered… next day was pretty embarrassing for us since not only had the sensors not detected any intruders, but vandals had sprayed graffiti on the plane that our sensors were protecting… of course, it was “all my fault”…

8. about 12 hours ago on Working It Out

   With a master’s in psychology he should know how to psyche them out and get the cushy job he really wants…

9. about 12 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   “Trump 2.0” implies “new and improved”… nothing about Trump is ever new or improved – just amplified. Yes we will need comfort, but don’t give into his junk food promotions because they hurt you a lot more than they hurt him.

10. about 12 hours ago on Non Sequitur

    Except for Trump – officially he has “excellent cardiac health” and he is within the “ideal” weight range for his height… his “good genes” make him impervious to diets that make most people obese…