Tannishblog

I’ve always worked the Unglamorous jobs; retail clerk, general laborer, warehouse schlep. My ongoing joke, good for one use per work crew attended, I comment on how, when scientists advance humanoid robots sufficiently, our jobs are toast.

This is not far wrong, as manual, repetitive tasks are ripe for future robotic drones. But today I realized I was missing a crucial corporate function that already has been refined to non-human algorithms: Human Resources.

I easily envision a near-future candidate (call him Bob) nervously tugging on his Windsor knot and checking for lint on his shoulders in a sterile waiting room, when his name is called by a pinkish Bakelite construct in a neutral pant suit. He rises and extends his hand. The Robot (call her Jane) fails the nonverbal cue and says “Pleased to meet you. Follow me.” In Jane’s tiny cubicle, Bob squeezes into a uncomfortable wire framed chair close enough to her desk to bump his knee. She pauses, then begins her programmed litany delivered in an impersonal, emotionless state expected of a walking computer…

Just like the woman I met the other day. Reading from a memorized script, asking situational questions about hypothetical performance issues that assumes I had run into them before: “Explain a time when a coworker took his lunch before his scheduled break. What did you do?” You know the drill.

Before I got to talk to an arguably real person, I had to endure the hour-long process of creating a user profile on the company’s careers web site, type in my work history, education, references, and THEN upload my resume - upon which all the above information already resides. Then comes the 125 question “Personality Test,” designed to screen out 9 out of 10 applicants. Since all this is already online, expect future HR drones to come equipped standard issue.

Back to Bob and Jane. As she politely but firmly leads him out of her space, uttering platitudes timed with her steps to end precisely as they reach the door, Bob again moved to shake her hand, stopping awkwardly midway. He glances are her vacant eyes, her rubbery smile, her total lack of interest. And he thinks, “A human could do this job.”

A first for the usually dour Tannishblog: A fun and funny video! I bet you didn’t think I had it in me (A funnybone, that is…). I offer to you: A Gentleman’s Duel.

Nearly a thousand public school students and officials marched yesterday in downtown Chicago to protest a plague of student deaths on the city’s south side. The rally began in response to the slaying of Chavez Clarke, 18, in the parking lot of the Simeon Career Academy. As the Chicago Tribune reports:

Violence has claimed the lives of the 22 district students so far this school year, 20 of them by gun violence, a tally that does not include dropouts such as Shannon Brown, a former Fenger High School student who died hours before the rally, after a shooting on the Far South Side.

Chanting “We want futures, not funerals,” and displaying sign that read “Don’t Shoot. I Want To Grow Up,” the high school students and public officials marched around the James R. Thompson Center, which houses state offices.

The victims are often underprivileged kids who have turned to neighborhood gangs to gain stability and security in their lives. Low income, inner city youths have few options beyond street lives.

Kandyce Dean, a Simeon 11th grader who said she was friends with Clarke, believes getting guns off the street is the first step police must take to keep them safe. But she added that students, especially gang members, need more options, including job training, after-school programs and counseling.

“It’s gang-related. These boys are losing their minds. They don’t have anything to fall back on. They just look toward the streets,” Dean said. “They just don’t care.”

The usual posturing occurred. A prominent South Side Reverend called for $5,000 bounty on the shooters. Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley asked the students to call authorities when they see a gun. But the kids know whats needed:

Bayti Dowling-Brown, a 12th grader at Truman Middle College Alternative High School, … and said officials should work with parents to help them keep their children away from gangs and violence.

“Many of these gang members don’t have parents home 24-7. . . . Being in a gang, it’s safety. You have a group that is going to back you up,” she said.

Students also called on police to take a more active role. Many said they want more police at schools and more officers working to get gangs and guns off the street.

Who says inner city students don’t get an education?

My neighbor lady is 88 years old. Her husband died a few years back and they have no surviving children. A scattering of friends, neighbors and her husbands 2 elder brothers are her only lifelines. My wife shops for her, as she can’t drive anymore. As far as I know all she does during the day is watch television and read newspapers. Ever since her husband died, she’s been cleaning out her house of forty years of accumulation. She’s methodically cleaning up after her life, putting her affairs in order and awaiting the inevitable. Some days are good and some days are bad. What kind of life is that in terms of quality?

I think on this as I read a New York Times article on Assisted Suicide. Please read it, it may become a very important subject to you one day.

Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote:

“I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage.

“I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing. I very much want to die, but our society doesn’t let me. Oh for a pill to ease myself out and end my pain, pain, pain.”

No authority exists that has he right to tell anyone they cannot end their life. Not family, friends, the government nor the church can dictate what is best for any person. To the extent that all these entities will try to do so, is the extent to which our society is most wrongfully arrogant.

We have Assisted Living. Why not Assisted Dying. Its humane.

Newsporn star Bill O’Reilly showed his brand of professionalism when he yelled and shoved a Barack Obama campaign staffer. Bill’s response: "I might have called him an SOB." A consummate professional.

As they say: "And now for something completely different." (OK - so I couldn’t think up a reasonable segue. Sorry.)

Wired Magazine outlines the Top Ten New Organisms of 2007, starting with hypoallergenic cats and ending with a yeast that can "Smell" poison. way cool.

I’m determined to return to blogging - I’m resolved. That would make it a resolution!

Whatever. The point is I refuse to let this blog peter out. I also resolve to branch out from the stale and overwrought topic of Politics. Even I am sick of my constant one-note whining about the disgusting state of our disunion. There isn’t anything I can say that is not said better by more illustrious Bloggeratti.

to start, I offer a Geeks-eye-view on the sorry state of mainstream software, coming from DownloadSquad, and found via Reddit:

The Five Most Annoying Programs On Your Computer

So True!!

Sometimes the start of a new year doesn’t happen when expected. We all think of New Years Day, but that means nothing, really - just a societal convention. Nonetheless and to some degree, we all expect some magic moment in mid winter where some kind of difference is experienced. Like when you turned ten, and you awaited the mystical anointing that would herald in your second decade of life.

Such events rarely happen and - in my experience - never happen on time. No; major events happen in their own time and do not dance to the whims of man.

It so happened almost exactly a year ago I, while managing as small warehouse full of aluminum roofing materials, was instructed to downsize the real estate footprint of the business I served. Times were tough. Thus began one of the worst Decembers I can recall in my adult life. It also ushered in a difficult year for my working life.

January, a traditional doldrums for a roofing company, found me and a coworker, with no work. I sat at my desk rigging my laptop to the corporate Internet provider so keep awake. That’s no exaggeration. I spent the next several weeks getting paid to displace air at a certain place for a certain length of time. What work I had was in a sideline of web design, which I accomplished in an empty, inactive office. Once spring began, I believed, matters would improve, and I can again take up the job I have been place holding.

Not to be. Spring came, then summer, and this once proud roofing company floundered in the marketplace. No sales, no work. By July, it was evident that the company needed to close the office. We were let go; unceremoniously dumped.

Not unexpected, perhaps, yet unnerving. I panicked for my family’s sake and spend 80 hours over the next 9 days perusing the job boards until I found what looked to be a decent offer, and a new direction to my career. Looks deceived me. Although aptly warned during the interview process of needing to deal with "brassy" personalities, nothing - not even my youth spent with indifferent parenting - would prepare me for the neurotic insanity that prevailed at this family-owned company. I would bore you with a description, an anecdote or two, but I would neither do the truth justice, nor would anyone believe me.

From the onset, I was miserable, and for twelve weeks, I did my best to adjust for my family’s sake, and failed. After 60 days, a performance review showed, the obvious, that I couldn’t perform to expected levels. Thirty days later, more of the same. At that time I kindly asked my supervisor (who was not directly involved with the family psychosis), to kindly fire me for lack of performance. We both knew I was searching for work, hampered by my commitments, and unable interview without drawing suspicion. As a measure of his kindness and sanity, he allowed this thin veil, as long as I trained my replacement.

So, at the end of a fourteen week ordeal, I was again cast into the unemployment statistics: two days before my birthday. It may have been the best present I have gotten in recent years. Three weeks of difficult searching ended on Friday Nov 30, when I was asked in for a second interview in a local company (4 miles from home- that local), when I was hired to begin last Monday. Another small company, family-owned, and another new direction for me.

I could pontificate for days about the contrast in corporate cultures. I’ve been here less than a week and I already know my Year of Hard Knocks has ended. I have found a new home. I even have the energy, after a very busy day, to blog my experience and to welcome a new year. So Happy New Year to me, and to you, who may also be struggling through these difficult and dangerous times. May you always be open to better days ahead, and aware of the major events of your life and how they refuse to read a calendar.

My energies have turned inward as I struggle through a difficult few month. The job I took after being laid off last summer was wrong for me on many levels, and most of my energy was consumed trying to overcome that. I had to withdraw from the wit and cynicism of America’s political train wreck its blogification.

After three months in an untenable situation, and during my second unsatisfactory assessment meeting, I asked my supervisor to do me the kindness of firing me for lack of performance. He agreed to do so if I would hang on for two weeks training a replacement. I pondered the irony of the situation only briefly - that I who couldn’t meet the owners expectations would "train" someone - as my interests were best served by getting this new person up and running as quickly as possible.

Last Wednesday I was let go. Now I enter a new untenable state of unemployment. Still, my interest in headlines is diminished, as I enter Phase Two of my Employment Crisis. Regarding this site, expect a slow re-emergence throughout the winter months. I know this will never be the Blog that Shook The World, nor will it gain modest notoriety, but the fact that a few peek in everyday despite my absence is heartening. I’ll hang in there if you do… Thank you.

October ninth has been a secret holiday for me. During my preteens and on to high school I was a huge Beatles fan. After the fact, though, as they had disbanded by then. Nonetheless, afterschool hours would find myself and best-friend Paul memorizing every lyric and musical phrase, practicing laughable Liverpudlian accents and pretending to live an a world that few would ever know; inside the lives of two of the most famous people in the world. Yes, my buddy Paul was Paul McCartney, by virtue of name and an uncanny ability to mimic his voice, and I was John Lennon (by default, because, who else could I be in this boyhood fantasy?)

We learned a great deal about the Beatles during our escapist episodes. We both started playing guitars to round out the shared illusion. I still play. Although our lives separated soon after, I’m sure the Paul I knew still does as well.

So John Lennon’s birthday is today, and it’s my secret holiday. A sentimental, nostalgic day.

So sing you favorite John song. I know you have one. And celebrate the stunted love of a confused and brilliant man. John saw firsthand the absurdity of celebrity, the insanity of our world. He tried his best to point that out to us. After that, all he could do was to distance himself and Watch the Wheels go Round and Round.

My hometown of Chicago has unveiled a planned upgrade to its already extensive surveillance system. No longer the “Hog Butcher* to the World”, the City of Broad Shoulders is morphing into the City of Big Brother.

If that’s what helps us clinch the 2016 Olympic bid, I’m all for it. I’ve seen some of the cameras hanging off lampposts about town. The neighborhoods so decorated could use a constant eye. There’s a fine line between oppressive oversight and community service. Even the most well-intentioned neighborhood watch program is vulnerable to misuse. Until that occurs, I say: bring on the bots!

*Thanks, Travis