Book Review

This past week, I mentioned on Facebook that I had finished listening to an audio version of War and Peace, and Joel seemed to think I should write a book review.  So here's a book review, but not of War and Peace.  Instead, I started reading the second book in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, this one called Fifty Shades Darker.

Previously, I reviewed the first book.  I was not a big fan.  To recap, the Shades of Grey series is fan fiction, a sort of homage to the Twilight series.  George Takei brilliantly summed up the theme of the Twilight series this way:  [Said in a whiny voice] "Does my boyfriend like me?"  E. L. James captures this idea all too well, and it just isn't a subject that holds my interest.

Let's be fair; there are sex scenes, and that's why the books are so popular.  But just like the movie Nine and a Half Weeks, even sex scenes will only get you so far.  In between, the story makes you want to give up.  Which I did.

At the end of the last book, our heroine Anastasia and her kinky boyfriend Christian, who is the most attractive man on the planet, a self-made (of course) billionaire, a pianist and helicopter pilot, and twenty-something I think, had a dramatic and heart-wrenching (for them -- I didn't care) breakup.  So the first thing this book needs to do is get them back together.  So Christian calls Anastasia, and she agrees to see him again.  Hmm, maybe that breakup wasn't all that heart-wrenching for them either.

They have sex at least a couple more times (I really should keep better count), then Christian takes Anastasia to have her hair done, facial, makeup, whatever.  Only this doesn't work out so well, because the famous Mrs. Robinson is there, the older woman who lured Christian into his kinky world of sex (and yes, Mrs. Robinson is a reference to The Graduate, not the woman's actual name.)  Christian didn't know that Mrs. Robinson would be there, because although she owns the place, she is usually not there.  Anyway, Anastasia is furious and storms out, and is angry that Christian is such a typical stupid man and that he doesn't understand why she is angry.

I don't understand either.  I suppose it is true to Twilight, again, to conjure up conflict in ways that seem contrived and artificial, so good job there.  But he took her to a place where he did not expect Mrs. Robinson to be, but Mrs. Robinson was there, so damn stupid thoughtless man, of course she's upset.  Only...why again?  So I stopped on page 100 or so, and I'm not going back.  The only reason I did (OK, and the sex) is that it was more than a year ago that I read the last one, so the pain had dulled with time.

What I Learned from Sallie Krawcheck

Popular,
I know about popular

-from the musical Wicked.

Sallie Krawcheck is a very successful businesswoman, but she has been fired a couple of times and has written about the experiences.  When I went into LinkedIn today, I saw an article Sallie wrote titled "The 7 Things I Learned When I Got Fired (Again.)"  So let's look at Sallie's seven lessons.

1.  If it feels too good to be true, it probably is.  She did not get to meet any of her peers before she started, or the Board members, which should have warned her.
2.  The power of culture.
3.  Face time still matters.
4.  A sponsor matters even more.
5.  Business results are not everything.  Here she says that on the day she left, the business was ahead of budget and gaining share.

Let me interrupt for a second here.  I think that at least numbers 2 through 5 are summed up by number 5.  It's not about results, it's about...relationships, and...synergy, and...leadership...

It's all about popular.
It's not about aptitude,
It's the way you're viewed

OK, but isn't that the same lesson you learned in high school when you couldn't make it onto the cheerleading squad, not because you couldn't bounce around in a skirt, but because you didn't flirt with the right boys or wear the right clothes, so the other girls didn't like you? 

What bothers me is that this article legitimizes the nebulous, undefinable, un-measurable corporate buzzwords that are used to make indefensible behavior sound defensible.  Really, you were let go because of failing to meet your peers, "culture," face time," and lack of "a sponsor" and despite business results, and you learned valuable lessons from that?  About what you should do differently?

Time to move on...

6.  A strong outside network helps a lot.  Yeah, in case you get fired from your job for no discernible reason.

7.  Gratitude helps even more.  As my mother would have said, oh for criminy's sake (not sure how to spell "criminy," but it's pronounced "cry-mini," accent on the first syllable.)  Perhaps I'm an ingrate, but I think I would have been pissed.

The Contracting Thing

I landed another contract position this week, this time before my old one ran out, so I will go from one to the next without any time off.  Since May, I have worked all but a few weeks, and those were around the time of my vacation to Alaska.

The secret has been working with Kristy, the owner of a recruiting agency that seems to consist of her and an assistant.  She has kept me busy and has also come up with several possibilities that didn't work out, so she always has something in the pipeline.  This is a big contrast to the other firms I have worked with, who couldn't keep me working even half the time and generally paid less.

I feel lucky to have gotten in touch with Kristy, but I almost blew the chance.  She contacted me right when I was interviewing with Symetra, and all my energies were focused on that, so I put her off (I hear from a lot of recruiters.)  When the Symetra possibility flamed out, it had been two weeks, and I contacted her again.  When we finally met, it had been a month since she first emailed me, but she was very upbeat and found me work within a few weeks, and she seems to be able to keep me busy.  As long as that keeps up, I can keep contracting indefinitely.

I try to think of contracting as running a small business; I kind of like that idea.  Particularly working with Kristy, I either bill her or the client directly, so I am not technically employed by anyone..  My product is accounting services, my salespeople are the recruiters who find work for me, and my marketing efforts amount to keeping up with recruiters and using LinkedIn.

Like a lot of small businesses, mine started out kind of slowly.  During the first year or so that I put myself into the contracting market, I worked only 3.5 months.  However, in my second year, I have worked 4 months, have worked lined up for 3 more, and then have four months left to go.  So business is looking up.

There are some definite downsides to this business.  One is the uncertainty; no job is ever certain, but this kind of work is inherently unsteady.  Another is pay.  As a contractor working for most recruiters, say Robert Half, you get no holidays or vacation, so those days are just unpaid.  I figure you have to subtract 10% for that.  Working for Kristy as a 1099 contractor, subtract another 10% (sticking with round numbers) for self-employment taxes.  (I do make at least 10% more working for her.)  I don't make enough to make up for all that, let alone medical benefits (I'm going to use Jackie's) or a 401K.  Still, it's not too much less.  Also, I can add back 10% because I work less, or if they want me to work more, I get paid for it.  That helps.

So it looks like I am busy through December at least.  This is great news.

Interesting Times - Liars

First, I would like to thank the leaders of the Republican Party for their fine work, shutting down the government and threatening to cause the country to default on its debts.  You see, just a few posts back, well before all the current drama, I wrote about the need to get rid of the Republican Party altogether, plus I have been predicting their eventual demise as a party since Bush II was re-elected in 2004.  The recent Republican antics have made me look prescient and well-informed and wise, and have contributed significantly to the possibility that the party will in fact be wiped out in time.  Nice job guys.

But this post is not about the shutdown or the debt limit.  This post is about a fundamental quality of Republicans that explains the need to destroy their party, and that is that they are liars.  Liars, liars, liars, every one of them.

I'm not really talking about the two pictured above (for them you need a stronger term than liars, like Super-Liars or something), nor about the political leadership or the talking heads like Rush Limbaugh.  Of course those people are liars.  But I'm talking about the rank and file Republicans, the ones who keep voting those leaders into office and listening to conservative talk radio and watching Fox News.  They're liars too.

"Liars" is my brother's word, and he might have picked it up because Al Franken used it, but I used to like to give the rank and file the benefit of the doubt and say that they were "irrational."  I'm warming up to the word "liars," because I think that Republicans are irrational by choice, that they have to realize at some level that they are giving themselves permission to deny reality and reason and start reaching conclusions that are utter nonsense.  Their thought processes are intellectually dishonest.

For an example, take global warming.  Most Republicans understand what science is, and they are used to relying on it.  If they read that a new planet was discovered close to a nearby star, they believe it, even though they don't examine the evidence closely or understand how one finds a planet.  If they hear that earthquakes are caused by shifting plates on the Earth's crust, they accept it even though they have not seen the shifting plates themselves.  But tell them that human activity is causing the Earth to get warmer (which always seemed very plausible to me), and suddenly scientists are all liberals and liars and cheaters out to fool us all, and only Fox News is telling the truth, and the world is NOT getting hotter, or if it is, people didn't cause it.

Deep down, most conservatives have to realize that their point of view on global warming is about the biggest load of horseshit ever, but they have given themselves permission to lie, telling themselves they really believe what they say.  But they know better.  You can't just deny reality without a voice going off in your head, telling you that something isn't right here.  You can shut off that voice and make yourself believe any stupid thing you want to believe, just because that's what you really want to believe it, but at some level, you know that's what you are doing.

The sad thing is, conservatives might have had something of value to say about this issue.  They could have proposed solutions.  We could have had a discussion about the best way to go about solving the problem, how much to use government resources versus private industry, how much money to spend, who should pay for research, etc.  But Republicans decided to deny the whole thing, not because they really don't believe it, but because they don't like the idea that Al Gore was right, or because they hate environmentalists, or something, and so they cannot have a voice in any solutions.  They are just in the way.  The healthcare issue isn't very different, nor gun control.  Conservative don't engage in the discussion because they pretend there isn't any problem.

However, you say, if we destroy the Republican party, these functional idiots, these irrational-by-choice lunatics will still be out there.  Well, the people will still be out there, but people can change.  Consider that most people don't support slavery anymore, or that they don't (openly) demand racial segregation.  The downfall and discrediting of the Republican Party, along with maybe (crosses fingers) Fox News falling into disgrace and going off the air, could do a lot to change the culture.  Denying climate science, or promoting trickle-down economics, or wanting to shut down the government when the American people don't vote for your party, might one day be seen as signs of stupidity and a moral deficit, not just by intelligent people who are paying attention, but across society.

One can hope.