The man sitting next to me in the office told me that he sent me an e-mail containing the name of a file he needed. I bet him that if he told me the name, I could pull the file and have it in his hands before the e-mail got to me. I didn’t even need to rush, and now he owes me a bagel.
So it has now gotten to the point when it is easier to talk to someone but we still e-mail, call, fax or send BlackBerry messages to each other. All this technology was designed to streamline communications and provide independence, but all it seems to have done is complicate things and make us prisoners.
Even though the technology at my disposal should allow me to my job flawlessly from the bathtub, the Black Forest, my secret lover’s bedroom or wherever else I happen to be, I still work full-time hours in the office, with the added bonus of having a BlackBerry all the time so I can fully separate from work.
These circumstances would be possibly bearable if it weren’t for the fact that my co-workers and I spend a lot of our time addressing issues caused by these machines. I spent four hours reading how my BlackBerry works. Although e-mail, scanners and cell phones were all working (I know this because of the insufferable sounds and songs they emit), the office ground to a near halt because the fax was disconnected. I was waiting for people to regress to loincloths and clubs by the time I had addressed the problem.
Dr. Judith Orloff, addressing the issue of “techno-despair,” says we always have an option when machines make us frustrated: turn them off. Of course, I could get disciplinary action for doing so, but it is an option, especially when I dream of powering down my laptop by very gently pressing the “off” button with a lead pipe.
But there is yet hope. While I am putting out a fire caused by a co-worker’s tie getting too close to the laser printer roller and waiting for an e-mail of a fax saying the phones are down, I rest assured that my computer will quack when I get it.
It makes me proud to be an American.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Performance Management
My grandfather worked the same job for nearly his entire life. My father has probably had eight so far. I have, too, and I'm younger than my father, depending on who you ask.
So that progression, linked with the fact that Minotaur has now lost three employees in as many days in their New York office alone, says to me that the protective temple of the American worker that was fought for in Pittsburgh's rail yards and Chicago's meat factories has been sacked and burned by the Visigoths.
The unions, the fair pay laws and everything else can now be boiled down into a barely legible laminated poster in our break room, stating all of our rights as workers. The great amount of text is promising but even if we could read it, none of us can understand it.
We also have something called "at-will employment," meaning the job can be terminated on the spot by either the employer or employee with no notice or severance whatsoever. So I just looked up one day and discovered three empty desks.
Working at Minotaur is lucrative but hard. I just finished a work week that passed 60 hours yesterday. So it's not for everybody. The fact that three people left is not as interesting to me as the manner in which they did.
They were disposable. The desks will be filled soon by other people with other resumes, although probably ones that still complain about parking prices and congestion on the LIE. They walked out of the manager's office, took ten minutes to finish paperwork while I catalogued their equipment and left with a handshake to "bigger and better things." It sounded to me more like "a far, far better place," but I hope they do okay.
Of course, if they got hit by a bus five minutes later, they would have no medical insurance, no steady income and not enough personal worth to offset the cost of treatment. I wouldn't have either a month ago, but at least I'm used to it.
The departures came after the high command of Minotaur issued a new performance plan, dictating strict rules for employees. If they did not meet certain targets, they would have to enter a "coaching plan." If that failed, further "performance management" would be necessary, including termination of employment.
I've heard "you're fired," "you're gone," "here's your pink slip" and "we're going to have to let you go." But no euphemism was quite as annoying to me as "performance management." Imagine carting a 40-year-old guy with two kids and an 80-year mortgage into your office and telling him it's now all in jeopardy by saying "I'm sorry, but we have to manage your performance."
Perhaps the American workplace will find that, since everyone knows all that crap means firing, management might as well stop bothering trying to find new names for it. If they're that concerned, it would be far more cost-effective to find new ways to spell it.
So maybe I'll walk into the office one day and hear, "Hawk, you're ferid."
So that progression, linked with the fact that Minotaur has now lost three employees in as many days in their New York office alone, says to me that the protective temple of the American worker that was fought for in Pittsburgh's rail yards and Chicago's meat factories has been sacked and burned by the Visigoths.
The unions, the fair pay laws and everything else can now be boiled down into a barely legible laminated poster in our break room, stating all of our rights as workers. The great amount of text is promising but even if we could read it, none of us can understand it.
We also have something called "at-will employment," meaning the job can be terminated on the spot by either the employer or employee with no notice or severance whatsoever. So I just looked up one day and discovered three empty desks.
Working at Minotaur is lucrative but hard. I just finished a work week that passed 60 hours yesterday. So it's not for everybody. The fact that three people left is not as interesting to me as the manner in which they did.
They were disposable. The desks will be filled soon by other people with other resumes, although probably ones that still complain about parking prices and congestion on the LIE. They walked out of the manager's office, took ten minutes to finish paperwork while I catalogued their equipment and left with a handshake to "bigger and better things." It sounded to me more like "a far, far better place," but I hope they do okay.
Of course, if they got hit by a bus five minutes later, they would have no medical insurance, no steady income and not enough personal worth to offset the cost of treatment. I wouldn't have either a month ago, but at least I'm used to it.
The departures came after the high command of Minotaur issued a new performance plan, dictating strict rules for employees. If they did not meet certain targets, they would have to enter a "coaching plan." If that failed, further "performance management" would be necessary, including termination of employment.
I've heard "you're fired," "you're gone," "here's your pink slip" and "we're going to have to let you go." But no euphemism was quite as annoying to me as "performance management." Imagine carting a 40-year-old guy with two kids and an 80-year mortgage into your office and telling him it's now all in jeopardy by saying "I'm sorry, but we have to manage your performance."
Perhaps the American workplace will find that, since everyone knows all that crap means firing, management might as well stop bothering trying to find new names for it. If they're that concerned, it would be far more cost-effective to find new ways to spell it.
So maybe I'll walk into the office one day and hear, "Hawk, you're ferid."
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Three cheers for the subway!
I walked a friend to Penn Station so I took the 1 train home. At 14th Street, a man with glasses got on and sat opposite a woman engrossed with paperwork. While she read printed emails and scribbled notes, he opened a notebook and began sketching her.
The two women sitting on each side of him watched intently as he shaped her eyes, nose and mouth and finally enclosed it in a round face scattered with hair. She looked up once, probably perceiving she was being watched, but never noticed what the man was doing. It was intriguing enough for me to stay on the train three stops too long to watch him finish.
He looked up every once in a while but focused on the paper. When he was finished, he turned the page and looked for a new subject. He scanned the pair of lovers sitting in the corner, an old woman with groceries, a police officer staring intently out the window and even me, hanging loosely from the pole. He decided on a bearded man reading the newspaper and began again, the woman already forgotten.
Now tell me this kind of thing happens on the bus.
I like the subway for the timeliness, speed and predictability of temperature. But there's something other than that to consider. Few cities have subways. My native town did and, even with its two lines, it managed to captivate my attention. Buses and cabs operate in the real world, whereas subways work in their own. Their stations and the tracks have no other purpose. It is like a reverse surface under the ground. Whatever the weather or time of day, it's always the same in the subway. I even like the graffiti.
There's nothing new about this opinion, as I find many New Yorkers prefer either the subway or the bus to get around the city. I never bothered to learn the bus system unless it was in areas beyond the subway's reach. The special thing about the preference is that those who prefer subways seem to share similar characteristics:
- Organization of mind and space
- Good memory
- Romantic to the point of cheesiness
I missed a lot. Help me fill them in.
The two women sitting on each side of him watched intently as he shaped her eyes, nose and mouth and finally enclosed it in a round face scattered with hair. She looked up once, probably perceiving she was being watched, but never noticed what the man was doing. It was intriguing enough for me to stay on the train three stops too long to watch him finish.
He looked up every once in a while but focused on the paper. When he was finished, he turned the page and looked for a new subject. He scanned the pair of lovers sitting in the corner, an old woman with groceries, a police officer staring intently out the window and even me, hanging loosely from the pole. He decided on a bearded man reading the newspaper and began again, the woman already forgotten.
Now tell me this kind of thing happens on the bus.
I like the subway for the timeliness, speed and predictability of temperature. But there's something other than that to consider. Few cities have subways. My native town did and, even with its two lines, it managed to captivate my attention. Buses and cabs operate in the real world, whereas subways work in their own. Their stations and the tracks have no other purpose. It is like a reverse surface under the ground. Whatever the weather or time of day, it's always the same in the subway. I even like the graffiti.
There's nothing new about this opinion, as I find many New Yorkers prefer either the subway or the bus to get around the city. I never bothered to learn the bus system unless it was in areas beyond the subway's reach. The special thing about the preference is that those who prefer subways seem to share similar characteristics:
- Organization of mind and space
- Good memory
- Romantic to the point of cheesiness
I missed a lot. Help me fill them in.
Monday, June 4, 2007
$5.00 is too high a price. . .
One of my favorite scenes from "The West Wing" is at the end of the pilot episode. It sets the scene for the series nicely when the President of the United States comes into a White House conference room and gives a couple right-wing nuts a well-deserved slapping around.
One of them asks him, "If children can buy pornography on the street for $5.00, isn't that too high a price for free speech?" The answer is "no, but I do think $5.00 is too high a price for pornography."
I was reminded of that today when an executive at one of the places I work (which I will call Minotaur - who can guess why?) handed over some receipts for reimbursement. Expense reporting at Minotaur is a byzantine and precise process. One small error can result in complete failure and you end up not getting your refund for weeks.
This executive had gone on a business trip and lived pretty well. I found hotel bills, meal receipts, taxi fare and one very interesting little item. It was an itemized receipt from an adult entertainment store, totaling more than $70 for three movies, each clearly named on the slip.
At first, I assumed it was a joke. Perhaps it was put there to see if anyone was paying attention. But as the afternoon went on in a slightly surreal way, it was not to be.
To be honest, the thing that struck me the most was the cost of it all. Had this person never tried buying honest cheap porn in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Taiwan, the Internet or anywhere else it must have been cheaper?
Also, what adult entertainment store, a place where discretion would be valorous, itemizes receipts? And again, who the hell would KEEP the receipt?
Putting on my detective hat, I stepped into a late-night curiosity shop near the NYU campus and asked the cashier, who had been pierced more times than St. Theresa, if she ever gave itemized receipts. She recalled only one time, when the customer apparently asked for it.
"Did they say why?" I felt compelled to ask.
"He said it was tax deductible," she told me. "Some part of therapy."
You heard it here first, folks. That vibrator, magazine or black leather thong can be reported to the IRS as "therapy." It makes you wonder how many people get away with that, and how many live in Greenwich Village.
As for the Minotaur exec, we pulled the receipt. Even if he gets a break on his adjusted gross income, I wouldn't want to be the one who signs for a complete refund of the least economical porn I have ever heard of.
One of them asks him, "If children can buy pornography on the street for $5.00, isn't that too high a price for free speech?" The answer is "no, but I do think $5.00 is too high a price for pornography."
I was reminded of that today when an executive at one of the places I work (which I will call Minotaur - who can guess why?) handed over some receipts for reimbursement. Expense reporting at Minotaur is a byzantine and precise process. One small error can result in complete failure and you end up not getting your refund for weeks.
This executive had gone on a business trip and lived pretty well. I found hotel bills, meal receipts, taxi fare and one very interesting little item. It was an itemized receipt from an adult entertainment store, totaling more than $70 for three movies, each clearly named on the slip.
At first, I assumed it was a joke. Perhaps it was put there to see if anyone was paying attention. But as the afternoon went on in a slightly surreal way, it was not to be.
To be honest, the thing that struck me the most was the cost of it all. Had this person never tried buying honest cheap porn in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Taiwan, the Internet or anywhere else it must have been cheaper?
Also, what adult entertainment store, a place where discretion would be valorous, itemizes receipts? And again, who the hell would KEEP the receipt?
Putting on my detective hat, I stepped into a late-night curiosity shop near the NYU campus and asked the cashier, who had been pierced more times than St. Theresa, if she ever gave itemized receipts. She recalled only one time, when the customer apparently asked for it.
"Did they say why?" I felt compelled to ask.
"He said it was tax deductible," she told me. "Some part of therapy."
You heard it here first, folks. That vibrator, magazine or black leather thong can be reported to the IRS as "therapy." It makes you wonder how many people get away with that, and how many live in Greenwich Village.
As for the Minotaur exec, we pulled the receipt. Even if he gets a break on his adjusted gross income, I wouldn't want to be the one who signs for a complete refund of the least economical porn I have ever heard of.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Grand Theft Pedestrian
Transportation in New York is like picking out chips at the grocery store. Do I want the lightly salted with vinegar or the sour cream and onion or maybe the new extreme barbecue that's guaranteed to wake you up by setting fire to each taste bud and giving you breath to kill co-workers with?
You could take a cab. You could take a pedicab. There are buses, trains, subways, els, rickshaws and the old fashioned passenger cars that fit right into conspicuous consumption by burning $3.25 a gallon and taking up space. And yes, I did cheat by separating subways and els, but my point is still valid. There are lots of ways to get places.
While buying chips, I still like the old-fashioned slice of potato drenched in hot oil until crispy.
In short, I walk.
I take the subway on longer distances or during scorching heat, but I get out a stop or two early and walk the rest of the way. I find that walking on Manhattan sidewalks not only is good exercise for the body but also for the senses and the mind. If you can cut through, loop around or in extreme cases, jump over all the obstacles on your path, you are fully worthy of the Jedi name you made for yourself in middle school.
Just as a game, I try to make it as far as I can without coming into contact with anyone or anything. I stand skinny at crowded crosswalks, leap over garbage bags and weave through the annoying groups practicing social diffusion (when three or four people are walking in a row very slowly so they can have a conversation and block the whole damn sidewalk). If I luff up against the side of a cab, some scaffolding or a stranger's ass, I have to start again.
This practice gave me a good idea for a video game that would tie into two important developments in entertainment: the debate over video violence affecting children and the new game platforms that read a player's movements.
We need a video game that simulates commuting in New York. It would put everything from rushing cars to pregnant women in your way and you would have to negotiate yourself around them all. You lose points for contact, lose more points for painful or obscene contact and lose a life if you, say, get hit by a cab or fall in front of the subway.
Think of how this device would increase the physical condition, reflex response and spatial acuity of the player. Instead of leading cops on car chases or hacking away at fictional beasts, America's children would be on treadmills in front of motion sensors dodging real-life problems like junkies and account executives. Since everyone in New York now listens to MP3 players while traveling, the game can include an awesome soundtrack as well. It's perfect for the new generation of video game controls. As an added bonus, players will learn the geography of the city so they will be prepared when they decide to move out of Mommy's house and chase their dreams, sans automobile collision.
As for violence, the game can avoid any of the shadier pitfalls. There will be no "You got mugged at the ATM; begin again at Fulton Street." Just good, clean fun on the streets of a major city. Imagine the possibilities.
I'll give you a topic for comments to this post. Discuss:
I have listed ten neighborhoods at random below. The person who lists them in the best order of difficulty, from greatest to least, for the video game I just described gets a nice prize.
a. Park Slope
b. Fort Greene
c. Financial District
d. Harlem
e. Midtown East
f. The Hub
g. JFK Airport
h. Hunts Point
i. West Side
j. Staten Island
Hint: Anyone who picks "J" as hardest will not win.
You could take a cab. You could take a pedicab. There are buses, trains, subways, els, rickshaws and the old fashioned passenger cars that fit right into conspicuous consumption by burning $3.25 a gallon and taking up space. And yes, I did cheat by separating subways and els, but my point is still valid. There are lots of ways to get places.
While buying chips, I still like the old-fashioned slice of potato drenched in hot oil until crispy.
In short, I walk.
I take the subway on longer distances or during scorching heat, but I get out a stop or two early and walk the rest of the way. I find that walking on Manhattan sidewalks not only is good exercise for the body but also for the senses and the mind. If you can cut through, loop around or in extreme cases, jump over all the obstacles on your path, you are fully worthy of the Jedi name you made for yourself in middle school.
Just as a game, I try to make it as far as I can without coming into contact with anyone or anything. I stand skinny at crowded crosswalks, leap over garbage bags and weave through the annoying groups practicing social diffusion (when three or four people are walking in a row very slowly so they can have a conversation and block the whole damn sidewalk). If I luff up against the side of a cab, some scaffolding or a stranger's ass, I have to start again.
This practice gave me a good idea for a video game that would tie into two important developments in entertainment: the debate over video violence affecting children and the new game platforms that read a player's movements.
We need a video game that simulates commuting in New York. It would put everything from rushing cars to pregnant women in your way and you would have to negotiate yourself around them all. You lose points for contact, lose more points for painful or obscene contact and lose a life if you, say, get hit by a cab or fall in front of the subway.
Think of how this device would increase the physical condition, reflex response and spatial acuity of the player. Instead of leading cops on car chases or hacking away at fictional beasts, America's children would be on treadmills in front of motion sensors dodging real-life problems like junkies and account executives. Since everyone in New York now listens to MP3 players while traveling, the game can include an awesome soundtrack as well. It's perfect for the new generation of video game controls. As an added bonus, players will learn the geography of the city so they will be prepared when they decide to move out of Mommy's house and chase their dreams, sans automobile collision.
As for violence, the game can avoid any of the shadier pitfalls. There will be no "You got mugged at the ATM; begin again at Fulton Street." Just good, clean fun on the streets of a major city. Imagine the possibilities.
I'll give you a topic for comments to this post. Discuss:
I have listed ten neighborhoods at random below. The person who lists them in the best order of difficulty, from greatest to least, for the video game I just described gets a nice prize.
a. Park Slope
b. Fort Greene
c. Financial District
d. Harlem
e. Midtown East
f. The Hub
g. JFK Airport
h. Hunts Point
i. West Side
j. Staten Island
Hint: Anyone who picks "J" as hardest will not win.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Welcome to the Hawk's new nest!
Dear readers,Greetings to all from the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps and other cliches about the City of New York. For those of you who are new to my mildly controlled ranting, I bid you welcome. You're in for a bumpy ride.
And for those who are familiar with The Hawk Has Landed, I hope you enjoy my new home. Although I cannot promise the same international flair that you have come to expect from me, I can assure you of a more intricate study than the 700-word blasts you are used to. I now live in New York, work in New York and think a lot about New York. Whereas my previous journal was more retrospective, this will be more oriented to the present.
For those of you who are not aware, I have temporarily given up the freedom of frequent flyer miles for a comfy and stationary job on Park Avenue. This, as you may have guessed, is not my style, and has been done to a certain extent for the rapid acquisition of certain financial instruments.
Relax! I haven't sold out. The tie comes off as soon as I'm out the door and 14 hours a day (if I'm lucky) are mine and mine alone to discover new things, meet new people and fall down new storm drains. And you get to hear about all of it, while remaining reasonably dry and free of garbage smell.
And, as always, keep your travel insurance updated. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Just have a backup in case you can't make it here.
Love,
the Hawk
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