Unions: fine in theory, worse in practice
Conservatives usually focus on larger more general issues when bashing labor unions, the fact they are a left-wing group supporting only left-wing candidates whereas for me it's more personal. The long and the short of it is that unions make it harder to fire people and this seems to be the main complaint I've heard from young conservative managers I've worked under. I worked in a library once, a heavily unionized job if there ever was one and it was my job to do Interlibrary Loans (ILL), alot to do as books come from all over the country. As a sidenote this is weird but one of the more popular books that folks reserved was Mortuary Science but anyways this young woman, we'll call her Amy, was being groomed to be my backup on those days I was off or on vacation. Took a week off and enjoyed my vacation thinking all was well and when I got back found out she called out sick the entire week so I had more work than ever. Seems to me the director should have been able to take her aside and say to her "look Amy I don't know what's going on in your life right now. Maybe it's all legitimate but you do have this pattern of calling out sick alot and you cannot in my view contribute effectively to this workplace. Good luck in your future endeavours." So that's a problem. Now do unions make for a better work environment? You would think so but having a long and varied resume myself consisting of union and non-union jobs I would say the answer is in large part no. Shit still happens that's not supposed to happen despite your dues going up all the time and believe me they will. I've also found that many times and it doesn't seem to matter what the issue is unions will often side with management, a form of collusion it would seem. Another interesting sidenote: even during the last Democratic primary season our union early on endorsed Obama over Hillary so what does that tell you?
& there's something weird about this season's American Idol
Admittedly I'm a heavy channel-surfer but from what I've caught it goes like this. A week or two ago this young singer named Didi was up and she belted out her version of Linda Ronstadt's 1974 hit "You're No Good." Now I'm not a professional when it comes to these things, had no musical training whatsoever but to me it was near perfect so Randy got the ball going and the rest always seem to follow his lead. It's all kind of Stepford Wive-ish so you're getting that vibe of something not quite right but anyway Randy said the girl was "pitchy" his fave phrase this season and the rest, Ellen, Kara and Simon all panned her with nothing good to say. Now I've heard another viewer say they've had flat singers come on to rave reviews so clearly something's up and it ain't with the singers who are singing their hearts out. DJ's the next morning often scratch their heads. Your options:
(a) Is the show fixed?
(b) Are they all on drugs (mysterious substances to be determined later)? or
(c) Have they simply made a fetish out of being quirky?
If I may tie this all together we will now be forced to buy health insurance or else pay fines and they're calling this health-care reform, you got Al Sharpton talking about an N-word tape that only he has seen, ya got your Idol problems, unions are no good and things in general just don't make sense. If you're a woman Tiger Woods wants to slap you around and choke you a little according to the latest e-mails recorded for all posterity by his porn mistress so that goes beyond being your average red-blooded American male imo. It's not just that we're liberal or conservative, always have been, but we seem to be meandering along in this fog of weirdness we're in, not quite thinking straight and not knowing we have a problem and if you point out that something is wrong then you're from the Fringe ((key up weird Suspiria music)).
Don't be scared but I'm introducing a new phrase myself here (btw don't try this at home, leave it to the pros). Re the whole health-care debate white liberals have niggerized the discussion, the whole process and that basically means they wanna keep the old racial flames burning. You see if you niggerize something you can never really put our old racial history to bed, let folks live in peace and Move On. You're in crisis mode all the time and you like it, it's your whole goal to agitate, to roil, to masturbate people's minds.
a'ight?
What bothers me about unions is that their purpose was so that the management could not abuse the worker, but what prevents the management from abuses by unions or their members when you cannot fire someone?
ReplyDeleteAs for Idol, I am no music expert either but I didn't think Didi's rendition of "You're No Good" was very good. Ellen might be a parrot to whatever Randy says, but I think the other judges are making the right calls this year.
I noticed the show going downhill when Kara joined the show, ever since then the judging has gotten weird. It's reached the point where I can't even watch the stuff and I've heard other viewers quit in frustration too. I think the show has seen its heyday, it's way past it's prime and deserves to go into its final phase.
ReplyDeleteBeth that's the main bone of contention why so many young conservative managers don't like unions, you can't get rid of the riffraff, you can't clean house. In any of the union jobs I've had you can come up with a handful of people right off the bat and ask yourself what are they doing here? Also with unions alot of documentation is required before you can even fire somebody and many bosses don't bother.
ReplyDeleteThe judging is pretty weird, but I have only watched it since season 7 so I am not an expert on how it was before. They give conflicting messages about the right song choice, and when it's good to do a song their own way, and when they do too much to the songs and change them too much. But, all in all, what else is there to watch on TV that I can watch with my kids, so we'll keep watching.
ReplyDeleteMy favs this year are Casey, Crystal and Lee, but think Crystal should win it all.
I have to get back to Didi for a minute and her rendition of "You're No Good" because it's such a classic example of what I'm talking about here (eliminated btw last night, why am I not surprised?). IMO the judging has gotten way too subjective. Granted there has to be a little element of this I guess but when I heard Didi do that Linda Ronstadt song two things: she has a great voice and she did her version of the song well so I expected to hear maybe a minor criticism or two but not the thoroughly bad comments I heard from all four judges. They seem to be expecting Celine Dion standards and these are just kids. To make the matter even weirder and I've heard other people say this is I've heard other singers who while I didn't think they were horrible weren't great either and all four judges would rave about them. I get the sense Andy Garcia is a fave but I really get nothing out of him to be honest. I think it was good they went to a four judge panel but not with Kara, spacey Kara.
ReplyDelete& to add here I have watched Idol pretty much from Day One when it was only Randy, Paula and Simon. In them days Randy was a mixed bag but generally tried giving more positive reviews than Simon. Ryan Seacrest even noted a few weeks ago that this season Randy seemed grumpy (meaning more petty criticisms of contestants). Paula was Paula of course and it would pain her to even say something bad about someone who sang like a horse.
ReplyDeleteBut that was back in the day.
So how did all of a sudden did Randy become so negative? Is it because the contestants are worse? this wouldn't seem to be the case. Now Paula may have been ditzy in her personal life but you'd think after she left the judging would be better no? BTW maybe you can explain but what does "pitchy" mean?
"Unions: fine in theory, worse in practice."
ReplyDeleteIf something cannot effectively be put into practice then by definition it is NOT to be deemed good theory. A theory or a hypothesis? Certainly. But a "good" one? Absolutely not.