Currently Beautiful Freak By Eels see related

A new low

Currently Futurama, Vol. 3 By Billy West, John Di Maggio, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Phil LaMarr see related

Facebook Sucks

Why I’m not on, and will never join facebook.

            I have never been afraid of technology, indeed a good portion of my free time is spent using my computer for research, entertainment and gaming. I also utilize instant messaging as one of the three primary ways that I maintain social relationships outside of face-to-face contact (email, phone, IM). Yet I have never wanted to join facebook in any of its iterations.

            I remember when facebook was exclusive to colleges, and I specifically remember the day that it came to my school. I was a freshman and was amazed at how excited people were for the website to include our school. It didn’t make any sense to me why such a website could create such a stir. I saw the website as a way for different people to compete against each other to see whose friend totals were higher. From what I knew about the website, I wanted nothing to do with it. I said then and maintain to this day that if I ever need a website or other service to manage my friends, there is something seriously wrong with my life.

            If people are truly my friends, I shouldn’t need something to constantly tell me what my friends are doing, when special dates are arriving, or how I know a certain person. If I don’t know what you are doing, then its either because I haven’t asked or you don’t want me to know. If I forget a specific date relevant to a friend, then they must not have been important enough to me for me to remember it. If I can’t remember how I know you, there is no way that I can argue you are actually a friend of mine.

            A key part of friendship is the exchanging of information and experiences. Facebook takes this away and automates it. If I were on facebook I wouldn’t have discussions with friends about my weekend’s happenings, or how things were going in my life because they’d merely need to check on the website’s ticker. Part of what makes friendship significant over mere association or familiarity is the effort that is put in by both members of the friendship toward each other. Facebook diminishes the effort that is required to maintain closeness in friendship. It used to be a friend knowing everything about you was significant, now anyone who is a facebook friend has equal access to any information you put on your profile.

            This brings me to my next point, that facebook is the enemy of privacy. Facebook’s open nature means that anyone who takes a picture of you now has an open forum to share that picture with anyone who knows them (not necessarily you). No matter how private you try to be in your actual life, any shred of information will become public on facebook. How many people have you heard of getting in trouble or getting fired over a picture that appeared on facebook? How many relationships have ended because of things that have surfaced with the help of facebook?

As someone who values his privacy greatly, I am never going to surrender any amount of information to a website that is all about sharing things on an open network. Facebook’s record with privacy is notoriously poor. From tracking what websites one visits, to alerting all “friends” as to every last activity through its ticker (a feature that was short-lived due to large scale protest), the patterned relationship between privacy and facebook is that of a continued abuse by the latter on the former. I recognize there are increased privacy measures on the site now, but they can only do so much as the whole point of the site is sharing. If I want a friend to know something about me, or I feel like sharing something, I’ll do it on a small scale, not on a website where 150,000,000 people may have the opportunity to view it.

            I have significant qualms with any website that quantifies a person’s popularity as starkly as facebook does. While in college, I roomed with someone who had 500 friends on facebook (a figure I now am told is average to below average). By turning people into numbers, facebook fundamentally cheapens a quality that should be of the highest value. I’ve seen people have entire days ruined because they didn’t feel their facebook totals were high enough, or worse still that some of their friends “defriended” them for whatever reason. I wonder what answer I would have gotten had I asked any of them how they knew the “defriender” originally.

            The idea that facebook allows for long lost acquaintances to find you is an exaggerated positive. While it is true that facebook allows for people we have fallen out of touch with to find us once again, this consideration conveniently forgets that doing so without the help of facebook is hardly impossible. Also, while facebook may make it easier for an old friend to find you, it does the exact same thing for old enemies. Facebook makes it just as easy for those who you don’t want seeing your information as it does for those who do. Before facebook was the social crutch, people managed to find each other, social interaction still took place. In fact, I would say that with people being slightly more difficult to track down the value of finding someone was greater than in the current era of “find anyone through a website”. Having to make actual effort to find someone incurs value.

The idea that people might expect to find you on facebook is a purely ego-centric view that only someone on facebook would hold. Facebook somehow engenders a “I can’t believe that anyone would choose to do something I don’t” attitude that is as stuck up as the prom queen you didn’t vote for. As someone who happily exists outside of this network, I can say without doubt that I would not want to be friends with someone who was only able to find me and communicate with me through a website.

The same point can be made even more firmly when it comes to employment. Any employment agency that expects to find its candidates through facebook, and holds membership as any form of criteria is bound to miss numerous candidates through its narrow focus and mindset. Never would I work for a company requiring membership to a facebook or any other website.

            Furthermore, the air with which members of facebook talk about their network borders on elitism. This is purely evident in your article’s title “You have no friends. Everyone else is on facebook, why aren’t you?” It seems to be a common trait of facebook users that anyone who doesn’t utilize their chosen website is an unpopular, antisocial luddite. This can’t be further from the case. Those who choose to remain off of facebook are choosing to make more effort towards their friends, not to have their privacy cheapened through excess availability, and to not “make” friends simply for the sake of a numerical total.

            Facebook’s determination to get everyone to join its ranks disguises its closed minded viewpoint on friendship maintenance with its vision of an open world. Facebook fails to take into account the idea that some people would actually choose to make more of an effort towards their friends, than to simply have all their information up on a website where their friends must update themselves. Facebook’s open network fosters lazy relationship maintenance techniques, and the attitude that it is the fault of the non-members for any social problems is like blaming a chardonnay vine for drunk driving. 

©James Boswell 2009

Currently 6 and 12 String Guitar By Leo Kottke see related

Writing Prompt #7

Not like it matters, but I've not been writing all that much for my blog recently. Call it laziness if you will. I've just had more important things to do. Like sleep, and play video games. And stuff. I could write about how much of a loser i've been (that post might be upcoming actually), but I'd rather just not care. I guess I'm tired of being so unproductive, so when Sam sent me a list of interesting writing prompts http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/5/4wiencek.html I felt a compulsion to try one that I thought to be the best. I decided on number seven, probably because it seemed the easiest to me. The following is the first draft of my short story, I haven't edited it at all. The story is open to revision and feedback. Let me know what you think of it.

            Even with an extra 400 pounds weighing the car down, the Ferrari still handled with the lithe quickness one would expect from a $350,000 car. This detail didn’t escape the appreciation of Benjamin Mangold, the man lucky enough to be piloting the F360 Spider. Indeed, while most of the traffic was ambling across town at 45 mph, Benjamin was routinely winding the car into the triple digits. Normally Benjamin would have been one of the other cars, driving cautiously so that he wouldn’t get a ticket or cause an accident.

His bright red Ferrari had gained him more than his fair share of attention from the long arm of the law. The tickets were nothing more than an inconvenience, his lawyer could usually get them dismissed or reduced and the legal expenses incurred had about the same effect on his finances as taking a glass of water out of the Atlantic did on global sea levels. What he hated about getting pulled over was that his schedule was designed so tightly that a traffic stop made him late to his meeting, not to mention having to endure the policeman lecturing him like he was 12.

Today none of that concerned him. Instead of taking the Ferrari on some country road for a joy ride, or driving himself to another pointless meeting with associates from Dubai, he was driving himself to a part of town he usually avoided. Another key difference was that in the passenger seat sat a massive pile of money. Most of it was 20 dollar bills, but he had told the bank to mix in some 50s and 100s as well. All told, he had close to 25 million dollars riding shotgun.

He had chosen the spider model because he wanted a convertible. What point is there in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car if you can’t feel the wind in your hair? Today the top was down and at higher speeds bills would float of the car, fluttering behind him and disrupting traffic as drivers behind him realized what it was that was coming out of his car.

As he sped across the expressway that branched over and through downtown and towards the northern section of the city, he didn’t feel the nervousness that usually crept into him every time he ventured into the poorer part of town. If he ever had to go into this area, he made sure he had his wallet locked in the glove box and never took more than 200 dollars cash with him. This time he was taking 125,000 times more than that with him, in the open air of the passenger seat and gradually decreasing anytime a gust of wind took his earnings for a flight.

Sometimes at stoplights he would take a big handful of bills, and as he took off from the light with a screeching of rubber throw the wad in the air. As the wind took hold of the money the bills would separate and from a distance it looking almost like a puff of smoke. A $10,000 dollar puff of smoke. He’d laugh to himself as the roar of the engine drowned out the commotion he left behind as the pedestrians who had been patiently waiting to cross the road would dash into the street having realized that the sports car had left more than burned rubber and noise in its wake.

He had decided this was the best way he could spend his last day on the planet. The brokerage firm that he had worked at for the past 25 years and now owned was set to release its quarterly earnings report. Although many companies had been struggling recently, the numbers his company was set to release spelled certain doom for company. He had already done the math and knew that the stock would drop to the point where the company would be bankrupt. Worse, he had received a subpoena from the Department of Justice asking for all his financial records. Ever since owning the company, he had been embezzling money from the company’s most successful foreign accounts. He never though it would arouse suspicion because a successful account wasn’t looked at with the same level of scrutiny as a failing one.

With the release of the company’s records (and certain bankruptcy) and the federal government’s pursuit of him, he knew that his future housing situation would be one drastically different from his 8 bedroom mansion in the hills outside of town. Most likely he’d be spending time in a 400 bedroom “mansion” operated by the government. The first thing he did after reading the subpoena was drive to the bank to make a withdrawal. He didn’t care if his behavior was suspicious, and he knew the bank’s president had put in a call to the FBI immediately after he left. He didn’t care because it no longer mattered what happened to him.

He continued driving through the slums at double the posted limit until he had thrown all the cash he could out of the windows. He’d pull up to stop signs and tell whoever he saw to come over and take as much as they could carry. He’d light his cigar on the embers of a 100 dollar bill. All he cared about was that he had enough gas left in his car to carry him to the beach on the edge of town. When the passenger seat was emptied of its payload he sped off, thinking only briefly of what his philanthropic gift would do for the lives of the people he had spent the last 10 years of his life avoiding.

The final effect that Benjamin Mangold had on any of the people who touched his money that day was of thorough confusion. Although the cliffs overlooking the beaches outside of town were over 5 miles away, some denizens of this slum were lucky enough to hear the traces of the explosion the Ferrari made as it completed its 200 foot fall from road’s edge to rock strewn cliff bottom. Of course they didn’t connect the noise they heard to the strange man in the bright car giving away money, but the few who watched the news were able to piece the story together when they heard of a wealthy man dying in a car accident on the cliffs near the beach.

Richard had never seen a car like that driving through this part of town before. In fact, the closest this part of town had come to seeing or hearing a Ferrari was when one of the children played their Xbox on a big screen TV at top volume. That was the first thing that Richard had thought when he heard the tinny exhaust note of the high performance Italian vehicle. “Someone needs to tell that brat to turn that down, I can hear them playing all the way out on the street!” He had thought with a special kind of malice for parents who let their children do whatever they wanted. When he felt the whoosh of air as the car sped past him his disdain for those who lived around him turned into disbelief that an actual Ferrari passed within 10 feet of him. The exhaust of the car was temporarily muted by the sharp screeching noise the car made as it stopped suddenly for the traffic signal.

Dressed in a suit that Richard somehow knew to be worth more than what he made in 6 months, the man gestured to him to come over to him. He was leaning of some kind of pile in the passenger seat, but Richard couldn’t deduce what it was at first. Although suspicious, he didn’t have anything to lose and was certainly curious of the dream car parked just feet from where he was standing. As he approached the car he realized what was seated next to the driver. It was a pile of money stacked almost as high as the window, and strapped in with a seatbelt; perhaps for ironic effect.

“Take some before the light turns green, or you’ll never have another chance!” The strange man shouted over the hum of his car.

“I don’t think I should, where did this all come from?” Richard was struck with a hesitancy that perplexed him. Why was he so anxious about this? Maybe the car and the money were stolen, maybe it was a setup or a cruel joke. Whatever the case may be, Richard still knew that he was risking little by taking some. He closed the distance between himself and the car and grabbed as much as he could carry just as the driver gunned the engine and sped off, leaving Richard with an armful of paper and a lungful of carbon monoxide.

It never occurred to him how difficult it would be to hold 5 pound of loose paper in his arms. With the bills clutched to his chest, he was unsure what to do next? He would certainly be a prime target for anyone to mug now, carrying more money in his arms than most people had spent in the past year. People were beginning to crowd around the area he was standing in as numerous bills littered the ground around him. Taking a deep breath he walked away from the growing commotion as coolly as he could without drawing undue attention to himself. Using his left arm to steady his payload, he used his right hand to stuff as much money as he could into his pockets, simultaneously organizing and steadying his cargo. Eventually he was able to stuff a manageable amount in his threadbare khakis, and had shifted the rest of the money so that it sat underneath his button down shirt. Occasionally as he made his way home a note would stick out of the gap between the buttons and he would momentarily panic out of fear of someone noticing the wealth he was concealing.

 The 5 block walk back to his basement apartment felt as though it would never end. He was glad to not have run into any of his friends, although he wouldn’t have noticed anyone as he made the majority of the walk with his head down, scanning the street for stray bills and avoiding attention of others.

He was additionally thankful when he arrived at his door to find the door was not locked. He didn’t want to spend the time in the hallway fishing through his pockets and hunting for his keys that were now hidden amongst the crumpled mass of paper bulging from his hips. He never felt safe in the hallway to his apartment, because he knew what type of people lived in the building, and was not enthusiastic about running into any of them with the type of goods he was currently carrying. It was more of an exaggeration than anything else to even call where he lived an apartment. The basement that he lived in had the dank smell of mildew, whose unpleasant smell was occasionally eclipsed by a smell that served to remind Richard and anyone else that the basement had not been completely cleaned the last time the sewers had flooded the basement. It was still a place to live, even though his plumbing had been shut off the past week, and his electricity was under constant threat of being cut off. “You will never believe what happened to me on the way to work today!” Richard said as he shoved the door open, stumbling over a pile of garbage bags stacked next to the door as he walked in.

“What happened this time? Did you remember to pick up the groceries on the way home? Our food stamps should still get us some bread and cheese.” His wife Jennifer was flat in her tone, obviously not interested in whatever story Richard was about to regale her with.

“I don’t have any groceries tonight, but I think you’ll like what I brought back even more.” With that he unbuttoned his shirt and let the contents fall onto their kitchen table. The already cluttered table became a total mess the bills knocked over ash trays and half filled glasses of stale beer. Although initially drowned out by the clattering of things as the money landed on the table, Jennifer was still gasping as Richard looked at her with a smile. The next thing he knew he was holding her as she jumped into his arms. After a long, affectionate kiss, Jennifer’s smile faded and her eyebrows slanted downwards into an expression of suspicion.

“How exactly did you get all of this? There must be 4,000 dollars here. Richard, what did you do?”

“Some guy in a Ferrari was driving around town giving it away, hell if I know why. I just took it before he sped off. Honest, I didn’t steal it. And you know I don’t deal anymore.”

“If I find out that you’re lying, I’m leaving you faster than you can pull down your fly and rub one out. And you know that’s exactly what you’ll be doing if I find out you stole this.”

“Jenny, I promise you. I couldn’t even make this up. I don’t know what that dude’s deal was, but I have the cash now, and there’s no way anyone can take it from us.”

“Alright, well, what are we going to do with it? I could use a new purse, and Trixie is going to need some new clothes for the winter.”

“I was thinking the first thing we should do is celebrate our newfound luck. I’ll find Paul and see if I can get us an eighth or two, and then we’ll go to Paulie Rucker’s new bar and have a night out for once.”

“Are you sure? We haven’t even counted all the money yet. Don’t you think we should at least buy some decent food for a change, or buy some winter clothes for Trixie? Kids get sick so easily, and you haven’t spent any money on her in weeks.” Trixie was their daughter, and a large reason why they continued to remain together. As bad as things got for either of them, they still had her. Although she was only 4, she learned quickly and had the seemingly magical ability to brighten her surroundings, no matter how drab.

“I know, we’ll go out and buy a new TV and gaming system for her. That will keep her happy for a while. And I’ll be able to watch the games in HD for a change, we’ll even spring for cable so won’t have to constantly fiddle with the antenna. Basements get shit reception as it is.”

“Ricky, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, let’s at least pay our bills up so we don’t have our power cut off like we did last July. It wasn’t that bad then because it was warm out, but its getting colder out now, and I don’t want to freeze to death because your deadbeat ass can’t remember to mail a check once every fucking month.”

“Honey, do you have to start with this again, I’ll do it first thing tomorrow, I promise. But I’m going to go out and get that new TV now. Imagine the look on the salesman’s face when I come in and pay for it will all 100s.”

“I wish you’d think of me or Trixie first sometime, but I can’t tell you what to do, its your money after all, and I’m sure they’ll be some left over.”

“Of course there will be. I’ll make sure to save some for you, but enough talking. It’s starting to get late and I want to make it to the electronics store before they close.” And with that he was out the door almost as fast as he came in. Jennifer sat down on their moldy couch and flicked on the latest episode of Ricky Lake, only to be interrupted by the soft voice of her daughter Trixie.

“Mommy, I need to go potty.”

“Sure thing honey, just make sure you don’t use the bathroom, we still don’t have water, remember?”

“Why don’t we have water mommy? We always used to have water, didn’t we? Did I break it?”

“No of course you didn’t break it honey, it’s a long story, and you wouldn’t understand, but it involves a certain someone not being responsible enough to mail a check…” She trailed off, knowing that her daughter didn’t need to hear this. Instead of continuing on about her frustration with Richard to pay the bills instead of blow the money on booze and weed, she merely sighed deeply and brought the tin bucket she had found in the abandoned lot across the street. The bucket that now served as the rusty latrine for the three of them until Richard could settle the water bill. She held her daughter’s hand as she did her business. Amazing how little kids don’t complain about things if you hold their hand while they do it.

Currently Listening Third Eye Blind By Third Eye Blind see related

2 Weeks Notice

I'm quitting my job at Dick's Sporting Goods. For those of you whom I haven't talked to, the place sucks. The following is the exact text of the letter I am handing in to management informting them of my departure from the company. If I make any changes to the letter, I'll post edits to the blog. I will also update this entry with news regarding how things go before I fianlly get to quit.

To: Management of Dick’s Sporting Goods #221

From: James Boswell

Subject: Notification of Departure

            The purpose of this letter is to inform you that I hereby notify you of my intent to depart from this company in two weeks time, on Friday November 14^th 2008. Should my services no longer be needed prior to this date, I am willing to terminate my employment sooner. The rest of this document is a detailing of my experience at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I offer this as a constructive criticism of the company, and a way of suggesting how things may be run better in the future. I know that employee turnover is a concern to the company, and the reasons listed below may help to elucidate some of the primary causes.

            I have loved sports my entire life. Since the day I was first physically capable of kicking a ball I have played soccer, and as I grew older I also picked up football, baseball, basketball, tennis, volleyball and running. I knew that my experience as a manager for a small retail operation would help, as would my knowledge of the Spanish language.

For these reasons I was excited to begin working at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I thought that my love of sports would be an excellent match for a sporting goods retail company. I was even willing to accept a lower salary than I had been receiving at my past job for the opportunity to be involved in a large company and the opportunity to succeed and be promoted. In fact, promotion was practically promised during my initial interview. So it was with excitement and an open mind that I began with my tenure at Dick’s.

            My first few weeks required some adjustments on my part, but making the proper changes, I feel that I became an extremely knowledgeable salesperson. I felt that I had proven myself as capable and deserving of a promotion. I was willing to look past the fact that I was turning back an average of 4 soccer games a week so that I could succeed at Dick’s. The volatility and late notice of my schedule didn’t bother me much at first, because I was determined to prove myself as an asset to the company.

            As time wore on at Dick’s, my opinion began to change about how the company was run. Despite my desires to give excellent customer service, a combination of understaffing and excessive cosmetic tasks detracted severely from my ability (as well as many other associate’s) to give customers the level of attention they wanted and deserved. Eventually everything task was completed, but at times not without the added effort of Chris; either working late after clocking out, or coming in for extra hours to help ensure tasks were completed.

Furthermore, the volatility of scheduling added to the stress placed on individual employees by not allowing for a consistent approach to the work week. Numerous times associates were scheduled for times prohibited by their availabilities, or associates were scheduled for time that had previously been indicated as inconvenient but possible.     Personally, the unreliable nature of my schedule has prevented me from refereeing numerous games, and hindered my professional advancement. Up until this point it was thought to be a trade off, that guaranteed hours and potential promotion would outweigh the higher pay and greater rewards that refereeing offers. One clear demonstration that I was not valued as an employee was the denial of my request for time off on the 15^th of November to attend a recertification clinic for USSF. Failure to recertify jeopardizes my refereeing license for an entire year. A more understanding approach from management would have shown me that the company understood that I had a life outside of working for the company.

            The current rate at which I am paid by Dick’s Sporting Goods is $8.50 per hour. Simple mathematics tells you that if I were to work for 35 hours every week, 52 weeks a year, I would make $297.50 per week, and $15,470 annually. Before taxes. This is not a wage that can be lived on. Factoring in hourly reductions and taxes, this rate can easily fall below the federally established poverty line for an individual below 65 ($10,787). Calling the wages Dick’s pays this full time employee “poverty wages” would actually be a heaping of praise.

            Beyond the poor pay, employees are offered virtually nothing in exchange for their hard work except the pittance the company calls wages. Paying employees poorly and expecting perfection out of them is (to put it lightly) unrealistic. When employees are made to feel as they don’t matter, and that the reward for them is merely the wage the take home every 2 weeks, it should come as no surprise to management that the turnover rate is as high as it is. Having no added incentives for stellar performance only discourages maximum effort. On a long enough timeline, the truly excellent employees are bound to leave the company out of feeling as though they are not being rewarded for their talents. What this leads to is the employment of people who stay at Dick’s out of desperation, not out of dedication or ability.

            This is not to say that the experience has been entirely negative. Dick’s has offered me the opportunity to expand my knowledge of retail operations, as well as greatly enhance my understand of footwear technology and product lines. I am more marketable now than I was 4 months ago, and Dick’s has given me a great deal of education towards that end. I also am more skilled at handling multiple customers at once, as well as more knowledgeable about creating displays and operating PDT scanners and printers.

            I must also say that the quality of employees in the footwear department has extended my stay at the company. If it were not for the dedication that Chris Thrasher has shown both for the company and the wellbeing of his employees, I almost certainly would have already left by now. Chris has a dedication to the footwear department that immediately evident, and his efforts should be recognized.

            Unfortunately, my experience at Dick’s has not been a positive one, and the final reason for this is the failure of management to make good on their indications regarding future promotions. Upon my arrival and initial interview, I was informed that my resumé, experience, credentials and educational background were all of such high caliber that I was qualified for the top position of footwear upon commencement of employment. While I was informed that wouldn’t be possible for reasons of fairness, and the necessity of proving myself as capable, it was nonetheless an understanding that after a short trial period with the company I would be promoted to a higher role. To this date I have waited 2 weeks since my interview for the Running Specialist position and have heard no news as to what decisions will be made.

I feel as though I was lied to in my initial interview, and am now seeking to cut my losses with the company. Upon the official termination of my employment I will be able to finally pursue in earnest the true reason I moved to Charleston, refereeing soccer professionally. This goal has been hamstrung by my unreliable schedule, and I welcome the change. If Dick’s had paid a fairer wage I’d be more willing to overlook this problem, but in 3 months the company has not proven itself as capable of doing so.

            It is with regret that I leave, because I know that the company is losing a valuable employee at an extremely important time of the year. Instead of having an experienced associate to aid during the holiday season, management and footwear will have to train a new associate at the most difficult time possible. Unfortunately, I am convinced that management sees my employment as nothing more than that, and I am not concerned about the wellbeing of the company, because I know that any such sentiment would not be reciprocated. It should also be noted that I could offer further suggestions for improvement. For the sake of brevity, I will not go on in this letter. If further reasons are sought for my departure, I will be available for meetings during any of the time that I am scheduled to work between today and my date of departure.

            Thus I am hereby notifying you of my departure from the company on or before Friday, November 14^th 2008.

            Thank you for the employment and the experience with the company.

                        James Boswell

***UPDATE***

   11/17/08

 My last day at Dick's was Thursday the 13th. The two weeks I spent at Dick's after leaving was an awkward period of time. Its one thing for you to hate your boss and still work for him without him knowing. Its a completely different feeling to have those feelings known to everyone in the company, yet still have to go on as usual.

     The day I handed in the letter I was not on the schedule, but was covering hours for Chris because he had a doctor's appointment. When he came in, I gave him the letter for him to read over first. I felt it was only fair that he understand what I was going to do before I informed management. I explained all my reasons for leaving, the lack of pay, the unstable hours, the high workload, ineffectual management, lack of reward structures, etc. After telling him all of this as well as offering a comparison to refereeing, Chris understood the reasons for my departure. He also informed me that if it weren't for certain circumstances he himself would have quit about one year ago; because management had blundered in a manner which negatively affected him. Before I handed the letter in, Chris had made a photocopy of the letter for his own records. I told him he was welcome to a copy, and to let anyone else who was interested read it as well.

     Over the next few days of my time working there, a number of people at Dick's read my letter, and I don't think I got any negative feedback from anyone whom I talked to. Several people encouraged me to send a copy to the district manager or the corporate offices. To this date I have not done so, although the thought still lingers. The fact that so many people read my letter and agreed with my objections helped make my decision easier to deal with, because atleast I had reinforcement that I had in fact made the right decision.

     I would have to say that my time at Dick's would have to be divided into two parts, before I handed in my letter and afterwards. Before I handed in my letter, I felt like most people in the store wanted little or nothing to do with me, that I was an outsider whose northern ways didn't mesh with the deep south. I was clean cut and precise, a khakis and button down shirt college student, they were hiking boots and muddy jeans hunters. After I handed in my letter, those differences still remained, but I felt like anyone in the store who had read or heard of my letter respected me much more. It was as though they finally found a way to identify with me in a pertinent manner, and the conversations I had with the employees after handing in that letter took on a completely different tone.

     That is not to say that the management cared all that much for my sentiments. With the exception of the newest manager (a recent college graduate with a degree in management), I was informed that my letter was taken largely as a joke by management. The young manager (Brian) agreed with some of my principal arguments, and was also upset to see me leave the company, as he recognized my abilities and work ethic as a valuable asset the company was losing. I had also made it clear to Brian that the letter was not written with any decisions of his in mind. I later went out to a bar with Brian and his girlfriend for drinks on the evening of my last day at Dick's.

    On my last day at work, I received information that made me both angry and elated. Before I explain that news, it is important to give background: When I first began working at Dick's, one of the major issues with our own store was the scores we were receiving on customer service surveys. Our scores when I first began were approximately 33 percent positive feedback, with the remaining 67 percent negative or neutral. I was surprised how low they were, because that meant to me that only 1 out of 3 people were having a positive experience shopping with us. I refused to believe those scores were accurate, but never devoted much mental energy to the metric because it didn't affect my job or my life.

     One morning the store manager was discussing our low scores on customer service and how we needed to improve them. I didn't feel that his approach was going to do anything, because he was giving the same speech I had been hearing from him since I had started, and knew that doing the same thing we had always been doing was going to get the same results we had always been getting. I raised my hand and remarked that I thought that there was a problem with the way we were measuring the scores, because I didn't think it was possible that we were pissing off 2 out of every 3 customers that bought something with us. He told me that every other score in the district had higher scores than we did, using the same measurements. I told him that we were obviously measuring things incorrectly then, because there was no way that we were doing as poor a job on customer service as our scores indicated. He then asked me if I thought I was smarter than the people working at corporate who had devised the algorithms and surveys. "Do you think you know more than the guys at corporate who have degrees from MIT specific to these kinds of issues?"

    Me "Actually, in this case I do, because I'm convinced they've gotten something wrong here."

    Manager "Well, would you want to tell the guys in Pittsburg about that?"

    Me "Sure, when does my flight leave?"

    Everyone else sitting in the meeting: Uneasy laughter.

It was that morning that I determined that I was going to bring our store's customer service score up, just to prove a point. So I devised a plan that I was convinced would work, and for 5 straight days I worked hard to execute it. The same morning I showed up the store manager, Brian came onto the footwear deck and asked me about my plan, and I explained it to him as well as my motives for doing it. "I don't really care about our store's scores, I just want to shut Tron up."

     The reason I stopped doing this after 5 days was likely due to my decision to give 2 weeks notice. After I gave my two weeks notice I had no reason to make any extra effort around the store. I largely forgot about the scores, because they had no effect on me whatsoever - I was quitting either way.

     The very last day I was working, Brian came onto the footwear deck and was asking me what my plans were for the future. I expressed my uncertainty about the future but emphasized my convictions for leaving. He asked me if I had heard anything about the previous month's customer service scores. He informed me that our scores for the past month were 56 percent. A jump of about 18 points over our last scores, and roughly a 47 percent increase. He complimented me on my efforts, and the way I rethought the system to fix our scores. This was the comment that both elated and angered me.

     I was elated because it meant that I had been right all along. Not only was I right about our scores, but I had proven it in a quantifiable and indisputable way. Brian even expressly stated that I was right. Furthermore, he told me that he had personally given me credit for a large portion of the increase - "Guys, part of the reason why our scores jumped so much last month was because James busted his ass to get customers to fill out good surveys. Those scores? Thats because of James right there."

 "Yeah, sure Brian" ~Management.

I was happy because I knew I had succeeded but I was also angry because I knew that my success wasn't recognized by the people whom I had targeted. I was also angry because my talents weren't being recognized or rewarded, and that I was quitting just as I had proven my abilities. I finally decided that I'd be happy knowing that the store was losing me and didn't deserve to have someone of my talents around after having snubbed me the numerous times it did.

So what am I doing now that I'm officially unemployed? Refereeing is not giving me alot of hours, so I've got alot of free time on my hands to read, write, play video games and sleep. This would be a great arrangement if I didn't have to pay bills. We'll see where this goes from here.

Currently Listening Chutes Too Narrow By The Shins Pink Bullets see related

10 Rules To Live By

            Ten Rules to Live By. Not organized by importance

1. Don’t marry a girl that you can’t carry through the front door of your hotel suite. If you can’t pick her up, or fit her through the door while carrying her; she is too fat to be deserving of a husband. Either that or you need to bulk up so that you can lift a moderate amount of weight. In that case you aren’t deserving of a wife. Wimp.
2. Don’t smell something foreign on someone’s recommendation. Never in your life will the smell in question be a pleasant one. If the smell was good, whoever was telling you to smell it wouldn’t be asking you to smell it, they’d be upbeat and offer it to you. Phrasing is key here “Dude, check this smell out” is bad. “Man, this smells good, check it out” is good. Smells’ immediacy make it unlikely that someone would smell something nasty and then be quick enough to lie about them smelling good.
3. If the sun is not visible in the sky, you should not be waking up to start your day. The sun serves a critical purpose for humans. For the majority of history, the sun was our only way of telling time. We could see during the times the sun was up, so our activity was concentrated during that time period. Darkness makes us tired and depressed. Light inclines us to stay awake, and increasing our exposure to bright settings has been clinically shown to improve affect. When the sun isn’t visible in the sky, nature is giving us a slight hint. Stay asleep.
4. Never call anyone more than twice in a row. Maybe on the first try there was an error. The second try eliminates that risk. Calling anyone more than 2 times in a row elevates you to the lofty ranks of stalkers and obsessive compulsives. You don’t want to join their club.
5. Don’t buy new clothing that would fit in equally well on a rack at a thrift store. If you are paying top dollar for clothing, shouldn’t it be brand new? Why in the world would I want to buy something that is already stained, painted and damaged? If you want that look bad enough, do it yourself. Buying new clothing that looks old can turn you from fashionable to “poseur” in the time it takes your credit card to authorize the transaction.
6. Nobody is above being asked “Why is that?” or “Can you prove it?” One key aspect of intellect is being able to explain a concept of any complexity to any audience. These inquiries demand that from a party. If someone can’t explain something, they may very well be full of shit. It is also a good idea to ask this of someone whenever they announce a personal belief, or just spout off something that you think is bullshit. Depending on who is more full of crap, you will either cause them to humiliate themselves, or you may just learn something. Either way, there is no harm in asking the question “Why?” Just don’t do it forever
7. Don’t eat a food that smells the same whether it’s fresh or spoiled. Two examples come to mind: fish and cheese. For me, whenever I smell fish I immediately gag. This should not be the response to something you are supposed to eat. People claim that fresh fish smells different than old fish, but I have yet to discern much of a difference. The same goes for certain cheeses, like blue cheese. I’m not sure its possible for blue cheese to go bad, it starts out rotten – how could it get worse?
8. On any given day you should laugh more times than you go to the bathroom. Laughter is extremely important for sanity. If you can’t finds something that is funny in your day, then you need to seriously reconsider the way you are living. Or consider obtaining a sense of humor. I figure that the number of times you go to the bathroom is a fairly constant number throughout time, and also reasonably low. So laugh it up, if you are immature enough you can easily abide by this rule by simply making a bathroom joke before you go use the bathroom.
9. Referring to rule #8 – If the former causes the latter, then you either laugh far too easily, have very funny friends, or are very old. In any case, laughter causing you to go to the bathroom is a problem that you should deal with. If you are so old that anytime you laugh you go to the bathroom, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you’ve had a good run.
10. Never lose sleep over a sporting event that you weren’t directly involved with. It’s fine to have a devotion to a team. But unless you are actually playing for that team, your dedication shouldn’t interfere with your daily life (beyond occasionally missing events to watch the team play). Any fan that loses sleep because their team lost needs to reevaluate priorities in their life. Athletes, coaches, referees and anyone else who actually affects the game in question have reason to worry about what happened in the game, but that’s where I draw the line. Find something more important to care about.