Today's thought...

Always a source of infinite wisdom and inspiration, my Starbucks cup did not disappoint today.

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say "no" - they may not be smart enough to say "yes."

west tennessee asthma walk

Come out for a great event benefiting The American Lung Association. Doctors will be on hand conducting FREE asthma screenings, and with air quality in Memphis it would hurt to be screened even if your convinced you don't have asthma. You never know. There will be music and fun for everyone. Brian and I are volunteering - hope to see you there!

September 6, 2008
Registration: 7:30 a.m.
Walk: 9:00 a.m.
Shelby Farms Park – Visitor Center 500 North Pines Lake Drive Memphis, TN

case for incompetence

To figure out what jobs are the most necessary and which are not, one simply has to answer this question: when a position is vacated either by a resignation, a retirement, a death, an insanity plea, season ticket considerations or enlightenment how long does it take to fill it? A large company was once without a CEO for nearly a year. What does that tell you? But if a courier, the lowest rung on our corporate ladder, calls in sick wild pandemonium ensues for the better part of the day. If two couriers call in sick management begins considering its options: a two-instead of one-pack day, Monster.com, a death in the family and/or the phrase, spoken loudly, "I don't care how, just do it!" That last one really works well.

Incompetence, however, can solve problems like this. If an incompetent employee calls in sick, who cares? What did they do at work? They drank coffee, they used the phone, they surfed the net, they wrote memos and organized meetings. Is anybody going to miss that? Similarly, if an incompetent employee leaves. What happens? Nothing. The same thing that happened when they were there. Business moves on as usual. No one has to adjust, nothing changes, another incompetent person moves into the position, nothing gets done again and everyone is happy.

Competence, in reality, is a big problem. Admittedly, it is a rare occurrence, but when it happens it can be devastating. Competent individuals are capable of making themselves necessary even in unnecessary positions. So if they leave or get sick they leave a huge gap where none existed before and the chances of finding another competent individual to fill that gap are very slim.

Another problem is no one has much experience with competence, hence bosses are never really quite sure what to do with competent workers. If they tell them to do something, not only might they actually do it, but they often do it well and on time. This makes everyone else feel inferior and this is startlingly bad for company morale. If morale is low, productivity is low, the bottom-line suffers, managers get stressed, upper-management not knowing what else to do starts making decisions, stock prices drop, stockholders start selling and before anyone has time to react the company relocates to China. The only one able to find another decent job is the competent S.O.B. who started the disaster in the first place.

The lesson in all this is simple: hire incompetent people. By doing this, sick calls, retirements, resignations and firings will all cease to be traumatic and the workplace can maintain the benign consistency that makes status quo the mantra of our time.

women deserve equal pay

For full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only about 77% of what men are paid; for women of color, the gap is even wider. These wage gaps stubbornly remain despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act more than 40 years ago, and a variety of legislation prohibiting employment discrimination.

Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work, let alone equal pay for work of equal value. This disparity not only affects women's spending power; it penalizes their retirement security by creating gaps in social security and pensions.
Facts about pay equity What you can do

Facts About Pay Equity
In 2005, women's median annual earnings were only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men. For women of color, the gap is even worse – only $.71 for African American women and $.58 for Latinas. The General Accounting Office compiled data from the Current Population Survey regarding the ten industries that employ 71 percent of U.S. women workers and 73 percent of U.S. women managers. In seven of the ten industries examined, the pay gap between full-time male and female managers widened between 1995 and 2000.

If women received the same wages as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education and union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain an astounding $200 billion in family income annually. Pay equity in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) would increase wages for women by approximately 18 percent.

Fifty-five percent of all women work in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) whereas only 8.5 percent of all men work in these occupations. However, the men working in female-dominated jobs still receive about 20 percent more than women who work in female-dominated jobs.

Women are paid less in every occupational classification for which sufficient information is available, according to the data analysis in over 300 job classifications provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. In 1963, the year of the Equal Pay Act's passage, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average to the dollar received by men, while in 2005 women were paid 77 cents for every dollar received by men. In other words, for the last 42 years, the wage gap has only narrowed by less than half of a penny per year.

What You Can Do
1. Learn more about the wage gap. Here are some additional resources onpay equity:
American Association of University Women's Information on Pay Equity
Institute for Women's Policy Research: The Gender Wage Ratio: Women's and Men's Earnings Fact Sheet (PDF)
Business and Professional Women: Fact Sheet on Pay Equity
National Women's Law Center analysis of Paycheck Fairness Act (PDF)
National Committee on Pay Equity
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Earnings and Poverty Data from the 2005 American Community Survey. AFL-CIO & the Institute for Women's Policy Research, Equal Pay for Working Families: National and State Data on Pay Gap and Its Costs (1999). A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women? Commissioned by Representatives John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) (2002). Posted 4/16/07

waiting to exhale

A friend once told me about the Buddhist concept of pain without suffering; it's a notion that fascinates me. I mean, is it really possible to say, Yep, my stomach aches, all right, but I don't have to add insult to injury by letting that pain run amok: I can decide to skip the part where I moan, "Now I can't meet my friends at the movie and I'll probably miss work tomorrow, which means I'll blow my deadline, lose my job and die penniless and alone."

Calming a frantic brain in the face of high anxiety is a pretty tall order, especially for someone like me who tends to operate on two basic emotions: panic and barely suppressed panic. But assuming one can actually achieve pain without suffering, where else might this dynamic be applied? Is there such a thing as anger without brooding? And the real question --my current obsession -- can a person feel unbelievably busy without feeling unbelievably overwhelmed?

Lately, I seem to have this constant sense that I'm just keeping my head above water. I'm forever trying to catch up, stay in touch and be where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. I bought a new pair of jeans in July, but I've never worn them because I've never had a chance to get them hemmed. The last novel I remember curling up with is "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" -- and that was in sixth grade.
Almost everybody I know -- whether they're wealthy or struggling to make ends meet, whether they're bachelor girls or celebrating their 25th anniversary, whether their kids are grown or toddlers or nonexistent --everyone seems to be suffering from some sort of culturally induced ADD. Our brains are swamped and our bodies are tired. Blood pressures are up, serotonin levels are down, tempers are short, to-do lists are long, and nerves are shot.

Sometimes I think pain without suffering, anger without brooding, earning a living, maintaining friendships, connecting with the universe, and dancing as fast as you can without screaming, "Stop the music; I want to sit this one out," just isn't an option for anybody anymore. We shoulder-roll out of bed in the morning and gulp coffee from Styrofoam cups on the way to wherever we're trying to go. We catch the sound bite, not the speech. We send the e-mail, not the love letter. We wait our entire lives to exhale.

getting started

kicking thing off with a few oldie transfers from myspace...new insights on the way soon!