Rather than allow GM to layoff workers when conditions warranted, the UAW had GM assign workers to the Jobs Bank, where they were paid almost full wages and benefits NOT to work. The Jobs Bank was pitched nominally as a retraining program, where workers would acquire the skills and train themselves in the technologies and techniques of the future… Alas, the Jobs Bank became little more than a casino and lounge, where workers would report for a full day of leisure, reading newspapers, playing cards, and generally not adding value to GM’s vehicles. (Sounds a bit like my job description, actually.)

Okay. Truthfully, it sounds a little like my job description, too. But at least we do useful work, providing actual value to others. Just because we enjoy our jobs doesn’t mean it’s a boondoggle. And sometimes I do need to get things done that I don’t feel like doing. My job requires discipline.

Actually, I take that back. I’m not in the wrong line of work. But sometimes I do wish someone would pay me NOT to work, so that I can have a little more fun and less discipline.

-TimK

What’s with all the sex on Private Practice?

OMG! Is it going to turn into another Grey’s Anatomy?!

Here’s a better question: Why aren’t there any nighttime TV dramas about computer programmers? Is it because software developers don’t have ethical conflicts?

-TimK

Also expect changes to the layout of website in the coming month.

First of all, I’ve been looking forward to this for a week, ever since I noticed that it was going to be on TV. As you may recall, I’m a huge fan of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s work. Well, Amy got started in her career by working on Roseanne, back in the day. And Oxygen is running a whole block of episodes today, including a number that Amy had written. So I’ve been planning for a over a week to sit down and turn on Oxygen and catch up on email and such. But…

At the appointed time, I turned on my TV, tuned into channel 32. And what do I see? MTV2.

Now, occasionally, RCN will rearrange the channels, to put them in a better order. MTV2 used to be at 76. Now, channel 76 is broadcasting white snow.

Frantically, I go to RCN’s website to try to find some word on what’s going on. The only information I could find at all about their channel lineup confirmed that, indeed, Oxygen is channel 32 and MTV2 is channel 76.

And now I’m missing what I’ve been waiting a week for, and I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to watch Oxygen ever again. And that’s why I’m pissed at RCN.

Now, you might think this is a pretty insignificant issue. So the one cable channel I wanted to watch isn’t on my TV anymore. So they didn’t properly announce the changes they are making. So I don’t know what to expect. So what?

But isn’t that the point? If such an insignificant point can piss me off so much that I feel the inexplicable need to write a blog post about it…

If RCN had just posted an announcement to their website. (Or for that matter, if their website were navigable. Or if it worked under Firefox. That’s another story.) If RCN had just told me what was going on so that I knew what to expect, I probably wouldn’t feel this way. I probably wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. And I probably wouldn’t feel betrayed. And I probably wouldn’t be thinking about that guy that keeps coming around asking if I want to switch to Comcast.

The object lesson is simple: People will put up with almost anything from you–almost any policy change, almost any goof, almost any gaffe, almost any risk– They’ll put up with your foibles and your egocentricity and your humanness and everything else, if they know what to expect.

Or as I tell my daughter–and if you’re a parent, you’ll surely understand this– I tell her, “Most of what you want to do, it’s okay with me. Whether you’re visiting a friend, or staying late after school, or whatever. You just need to tell me, because I need to know where you are.”

-TimK

As you know, I’m currently reading . Despite all the interruptions I’ve had while reading this book, I’m almost done. But I honestly don’t know what book to read next. Maybe someone else can help me out. Here’s the stack of books on the edge of my bathtub. Two stacks, actually. One for fiction and the other for non-fiction.

Non-fiction:

• How to Stop Worrying & Start Living by Dale Carnegie. (I started it after reading How to Win Friends & Influence People, but then I got sidetracked.)

• The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball by Scott Gray. (Another freebie from InBubbleWrap.com. I think it was the “complete outsider” bit that caught my attention. It wasn’t the baseball part.)

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. (I’m a story geek as well as a computer geek and a wanna-be wine geek.)

• What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey. (One day I’ll write about how leadership is about grace.)

• Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. (Want to know the true story of Thanksgiving? Just don’t tell your kids, or else you’ll get a talking to by the principle!)

• Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics by Doug Bandow. (Doug Bandow is a fellow at the Cato Institute, and his articles and talks have caught my attention.)

• Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition by Edward M. Reingold, Nachum Dershowitz. (Okay, I’m not actually going to read this. But it is on my shelf, a very expensive book that I never even cracked open. Yup, there’s a story behind that.)

• Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill. (This was given to me as a gift. I would never have bought it for myself. But it might give me ideas for a series of 21’st-century Zorro-esque stories I’ve been writing, or trying to write.

You’ll note, there are no computer books. (Except for Calendrical Calculations.) That’s because there are none on my bookshelf that I haven’t read. (Except for Calendrical Calculations.)

Fiction:

• The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. (Having loved the movie and mildly enjoyed the first book.)

• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. (No, I’m not a teenager. I just act like one sometimes.)

• Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila Williams. (She has a really inspiring story, by the way. Left a top executive job to remake herself as a novelist. Talk about following your passion!)

• Battlestar Galactica: Destiny by Richard Hatch and Brad Linaweaver. (One day I’ll post my list of ten reasons why the new Battlestar Galactica is not the best show on TV.)

• Dragon’s Kin by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. (I haven’t read any of the others in the series.)

• The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner. (I loved the movie. I haven’t read any of Mario Puzo’s novels.)

• Cat in an Orange Twist by Carole Nelson Douglas. (This is what happens when I step into Barnes and Noble’s with a gift card and happen to walk through the discount section.)

• Northern Lights by Nora Roberts. (And this is what happens when I’m in the discount section and I get desperate for something, anything to read.)

That’s what’s on my book shelf, more or less, that I have not yet read. What should I read next?

-TimK

At his site are stills of the girl from the animation as well as some computer-generated imagery suitable for Maxim, but which you probably don’t want on you computer screen at work. The site is at this-wonderful-life.com.

-TimK

This week’s LinkedinBloggers Blog Boost: Laura Ricci’s “Winning Ideas” blog. Interesting recent posts include “How to Prevent Burnout”, “Professional Bloggers”, and “The Ways We Sabotage Proposals (And Other Projects)”. This last begins with a quote: “When you have been working more than 15 hours on the same project, you have the same mental impairment as someone who is legally drunk.”

This blog is now among my subscribed feeds. Be sure to subscribe using her FeedBurner feed, as the WordPress feeds are currently broken and not redirecting to FeedBurner.

-TimK

But talk is cheap. If you want to know what someone really believes, look at what he does, not at what he says.

Managers who actually believe these things are few and far between.

You don’t have to go far to see why I agree so strongly with Kathy. Just recently, I wrote about initiative, comments that she now echoes.

-TimK

Feeds are an important part of blog reading, and as more readers are subscribing to this blog via the feed, and being the entrepreneurial type, I wanted to experiment with Pheedo ads.

Later in the Spring—well, Spring around here—I plan to report back and let you know the results, just in case you’re curious.

Thank you for understanding.

-TimK

-TimK