Nice Guy Syndrome

This used to more or less be my strategy for getting girls:

It’s not a perfect example, because my approach was, I like to think, rather less sinister and Stockholm Syndrome-y, but as in the comic, I figured that if the object of my affection (phrase chosen advisedly) just got to know what a nice guy I was, of course they’d fall for me eventually.  How could they not?  I’m such a nice guy.  Who wouldn’t want me?

Remarkably, it didn’t ever work.    I’m sure you’re all shocked. 

But then again, being bad at small talk and romance in general, I didn’t exactly feel like I had a plethora of options before me (whether or not I actually did), and this is certainly the path of least resistance.  Who doesn’t like the path of least resistance?  It works for electricity, why shouldn’t it work for the rest of us?  It's just not fair!

 

Anyways, when it inevitably failed, out came the standard line about girls supposedly wanting nice guys.  XKCD has a nice summation of that, too (yes, I really like XKCD.  Why do you ask?):

Because, of course, just being a nice guy has absolutely nothing to do with common interests, chemistry, or any of the other things that actually have anything to do with the connections required for an actual relationship.

Ultimately, it’s really an entitlement issue.  I think I’m a great guy; I’m certainly better than a lot of the other guys out there, right?  So therefore don’t I deserve what I want? 

The answer, of course, is no.  (Just in case that needed clarification.)  Being a nice guy doesn’t entitle you to squat, nor should it.  But it’s a comforting line to feed yourself.  Certainly beats the alternative, anyways.  (At least until you consider some of the implications contained within it.)

I think I’m fortunate, in some respects (well, in a lot of respects, but we'll stick to the relevant ones here).  Due in a large part to band (which is, again, awesome) and other academic programs, I’ve had, pretty much since I started school, at least as many female friends as male friends, if not more.  (And the vast majority of them were not subject to this.  Again, just to clarify, since many of them will possibly be reading this.)  And as you would expect, they were all smart, capable people that it never occurred to me to treat as anything but equal.

Likewise, the Internet didn’t really exist, as we know it today, even through most of high school, which means it wasn’t nearly as easy to talk to people not-in-person.  That, in turn, meant that your only real interaction with people was face-to-face, rather than behind a shield of anonymity.

And so I never fell into any sort of bitterness or other ill feeling towards women.  Any sense of entitlement I might have developed was nicely kept in check.  Not gone, if I’m going to be honest, and certainly enough for me to be a bit whiny at times, but certainly very limited.  And women certainly weren't anything to be feared (except when asking them out on dates or to marry me; that's all still nerve-wracking even when you know the answer will be yes, and even worse when you don't), looked down upon, hated, resented, etc., etc.

But without those sorts of positive influences, and the absence of negative influences, I can see how things might have gone differently.  While I'd like to think that my innate goodness, purity and innocence (I can keep going if you want...) would keep me from heading down that path, I know better.  I know, from experience, that I can be swayed into doing things, or at least going along with things, that I later might not be, y'know, super proud of.  (Don't worry, Mom and Dad, nothing criminal or self-destructive, I promise.)  It's not fun to admit, but self-awareness is generally a good thing, right?

And that's with all of the positivity and stuff.  Without it, who knows?

Don't get me wrong, I am not excusing, in the slightest, anyone who goes down this path.  Harassing or hurting others is never okay.  All I'm saying is that I can understand how someone can wind up there without necessarily any evil or malicious intent, but just because they didn't have anyone to bring them back.  And understanding is an important step to fixing the situation.  But more on that next time!

(Note: I actually had this mostly written before the events in Marysville on Friday.  I honestly have no idea if there's any connection between what I'm describing here and the shooter, but I sat on this for a couple days to give it some space, just in case.)

Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: Curious George

(This is the start of a series where I look at just how terrible some children's books really are.  I did a Facebook post on Curious George a while back, but in case you've already read that, rest assured that this is a revised and expanded version.)

Is it just me, or are the Curious George stories actually terrible things to be reading to children?

In general, we want the books we read our children to reflect the life lessons we want them to sneakily absorb.  Sure, they should be inventive and fun and engaging and entertaining (or I'm certainly not going to read them; boring!), but my life as a parent certainly gets a lot easier when I can foist the heavy moralizing and social instruction off onto storytime.  Who's got time to do that themselves?

But the lessons that are embedded in Curious George are absolutely horrifying.  Let's look at the typical story arc for George, especially in the newer books (which I'm going to assume the TV show more closely resembles):

1) George goes somewhere with the man with the yellow hat.
2) George promises to be good while the man with the yellow hat goes off somewhere else. (Don't worry, we'll be discussing the man with the yellow hat later.)
3) George is good for about 5 seconds before saying, "Screw it", and doing his own thing.
4) George gets into trouble.
5) (common but not universal) George runs away to avoid being in trouble.
6) George fixes (usually accidentally) a problem that was caused by his screw-up to begin with.
7) George wins all the praise!

Written out like that, it's like it was scripted by Honest Toddler or something.  (Although surprisingly, Honest Toddler doesn't like Curious George.  Haven't figured that one out yet.  Maybe Caillou does?)  But seriously, this is the storyline we want our kids to absorb? No consequences, just everything working itself out in the end to your advantage? "Oh, no, George, I don't mind at all that you've made hours of extra work for me by dumping all the dirt in my dump truck into the pond! You made a nice unplanned island for ducks that will probably last about 3 days in reality, so it's all okay, and you're awesome!"

And the adults... hoo boy, the adults in this book.

Let's start with the fact that the man with the yellow hat KIDNAPS George from the jungle to take him halfway across the world and sell him to a zoo. That was a bit eye-opening to read, although in keeping with the times, I suppose.

And as a pseudo-parent, the man with the yellow hat is comically naive and nigh-criminally negligent in his supervision of George.  Sometimes he just asks George to wait somewhere, despite the hundreds of pages in previous tales that shows that George is entirely incapable of waiting.  Sometimes he leaves George entirely unattended in the house (or elsewhere) for hours at a time! 

And let's not even talk about the time that George goes missing, gets press-ganged by a circus (which they were planning on attending together), and the man takes a break from his supposedly-frantic searching for George TO GO TO THE CIRCUS ANYWAYS.  Without George.  Hey, when you've got tickets, y'know?  Of course, since George is there, having been Tom Sawyered into performing, it all works out in the end.  Of course.

The rest of the adults are generally petty, vengeful, physically-threatening overreacters. It's honestly hard to blame George for running away when most adults seem to react to his misdeeds by charging at him with a clear intent of bodily assault.  Of course, everyone changes their tune once George has his [sarcasm]crowning moment of awesome[\sarcasm].  George is magically forgiven for everything, regardless of any property damage, accidental poisoning, bodily harm or other massive inconvenience he might have caused.

I did call out the later books above specifically, because the older books aren't quite so bad.  If nothing else, they're way more entertaining, because they are insane.  In one book, George:

1) Receives a letter while once again being left unattended at home for hours.
2) Tries to write his own letter (despite not being able to read) and spills ink everywhere by trying to fill a fountain pen with a funnel.
3) Floods the room with soap and water trying to clean up.
4) Steals a pump and a cow to pull it.
5) Hops a ride on a truck going who-knows-where to avoid apprehension by the owners of the pump and cow.  (How George hasn't wound up in another state, never to be found again, is beyond me.)
6) Destroys a dinosaur exhibit at the science museum trying to eat fake coconuts.
7) Gets rescued from yet another bout of incarceration by the man with the yellow hat, who tells everyone that the letter was from the director of the science museum, who then forgives George for the thousands of dollars of damage and the destruction of priceless fossils.
8) Agrees, under what can hardly be called informed consent, to demonstrate the ejection capability of a rocket that the director has apparently built (in his backyard or something, I don't know.  It's pretty sketchy).
9) Undergoes extremely minimal training, and is escorted to a rocket and launch pad that basically look like they were built by Estes.
10) Is summarily launched with minimal countdown or launch preparations (including protections for those launching the rocket).
11) Is nearly lost in space before he overcomes (apparently unanticipated) g-forces to activate the ejection mechanism, which is placed inconveniently far away for a small monkey, yet is large enough to displace most other controls that would be useful in actually controlling the rocket.
12) Is feted by everyone in town upon his return, including the woman who spent hours cleaning up the soap and water mess.

I just... I mean... what?  All the problems I mention above are still there, but at least it's so over-the-top crazy that it's entertaining to read.   The new ones aren't nearly so entertaining (although at least they're shorter).

Also, George's place of residence seems to change with every book.  One time he's in an apartment.  Another time he's in the city.  Other times he's in the suburbs/other smaller towns, although the surroundings are always different.  Perhaps the man with the yellow hat is a spy, and is constantly forced to change locations due to the visibility George is bringing him?  This would also explain why he leaves George alone for so long so frequently.  Yep, this is my headcanon now.

Unfortunately, Kieran really likes them, so the best I can do is just enforce a break from them every now and then (and try to steer him back to the Berenstain Bears).  But really, how did a series with such lousy role models and life lessons get so popular and prevalent?  Never underestimate the power of a small monkey, I guess.

At least it's better than Caillou.

Grad School

(Programming note: My second year of grad school started last week.  Accordingly, updates will probably be a bit fewer and farther between, at least until I get a handle on how much time this quarter’s class is going to take up.  Plus, I figure I should actually spend some time with my wife when I’m not doing homework… However, I’m going to try to at least post something every other week, and hopefully more frequently than that, time permitting.)

“What do you do when you realize that your entire life has been a waste?”

When I was 19, I had a nice leather-covered journal with a cloth bookmark and gold page edges and everything.  It was pretty fancy, and I’m pretty sure it’s still lying around the house somewhere.  It contains exactly one entry, beginning with the above question, more or less word for word.  I couldn’t tell you specifically what else I wrote, although I remember the basic sense of it, but that first sentence has always stuck with me.

That reason is mostly because of how silly I realize I sounded.  It’s funny how trying to be profound generally just comes off as self-involved or whiny or simply melodramatic most of the time (especially when you’re 19).  Why was I trying to be like the Chinese guy from the Karate Kid?  Well, mostly because it was a nice journal, and I felt like I should write profound things in it.  Why put trivial things in such a nice journal?  That just seems like a waste!  (A blog, on the other hand…)

As I said, that one entry is the only thing in the journal.  It rambles for two or three pages, whining about this, that, and the other.  I remember that I’d just watched Chasing Amy, and was feeling like I hadn’t really, y’know, lived.  (Because that’s a totally realistic expectation at 19.)  (For the record, I’m not implying that I wanted Chasing Amy to be a model for “living”, either.  Just so we’re clear.  But there’s passion, and drama, and passionate dramatic kisses in the rain, and Seattle has lots of rain, and I was 19, I’m just saying.)  It’s the only entry because even then, I realized that I was really just whining, and whining is obnoxious and silly, not profound.

Not that knowing I’m whining necessarily prevents me from continuing to do so, sometimes at length.

And anyways, the question isn’t even really true.  It certainly wasn’t true then, and it’s even more not true now.   And I wasn’t depressed or anything, just writing down overwrought teenage angst in an attempt to sound deep.  My life was not a waste then, and it’s definitely not now.

But that question also sticks with me, not for the question itself, but for the call to arms inherent in the answer.  What do you do?  Well, you stop wasting your life, right?  How inspiring!  I do not regret the things that I have done, but those I did not do!  Of course, it’s easier said than done, but most things are, and it’s at least a good reminder.

So what brought this to mind now?  Who knows where thoughts come from?  They just appear!  Well, actually, as I noted above, my second year of grad school started last week.  Typically, you go to grad school to develop yourself, your skills, your knowledge, etc., in the pursuit of “making something of yourself”.  And typically, you’re doing it in an area you’re passionate about, or one that’ll advance your career, right?

I always get a bit awkward when someone asks me why I’m in grad school, because, to be honest, I don’t have a good answer.  Is it going to help me in my job?  No, not really.  And shifting to one of the engineering design areas that the program is geared for would be a significant career change for me.

So why am I doing it?  Well, basically because (a) I like learning (seriously, why can’t someone just pay me to go to classes and learn all the things?  You want my dream job, there you go), and (b) having a Master’s in anything generally doesn’t hurt (especially since my company varies experience requirements for job levels based on education), and (c) the company’s paying for the tuition and books, so my entire cost is pretty much just my time and effort.  And I feel bad even saying that, because everyone else I know who’s done grad school was either doing it full-time, or was sacrificing basically all their free time outside of work to do it, and my program simply doesn’t require that of me.  (As evidenced by the fact I still have time to post here.)

But having an answer that basically boils down to a shrug and a “Why not?” isn’t very satisfactory.  So am I wasting my time on this?

(This question is actually why this post is so much later than I expected it to be.  Seriously, I’ve been chipping away at this for a week, and I’ve had to update the note up top from “today” to “this week” to “last week”.  Settling on an answer to the question has been… difficult.  Maybe I just need to set myself an arbitrary deadline, like 1:37 this afternoon.  Of course, that didn’t turn out well, so maybe not…)

Some little part of me wants to say that yes, I’m wasting my time.  After all, this program isn’t really going to benefit me at work without, as noted above, a significant step sideways or even backwards in my career.  And jobs are what’s really important, right?  They’re the yardstick by which our worth as a person is measured?  That’s certainly what American culture tells us nowadays, and this little part of me has bought into that hook, line, and sinker.

However, the more I think about it, the more I don’t agree with that little part of me.  (This is how much this part has changed: when I originally started working on this, that was not going to be the conclusion.)  

Part of the reason is that I think the American cultural attitude towards work is profoundly unhealthy.  I’m generally not one to tell other people what to do (or at least, I try not to be) (and unless it’s telling people to stop arguing with the experts, or how to merge or drive on the freeway, or… okay, maybe I do tell other people what to do now and then), so if making work your #1 priority is what makes you happiest, and it’s not hurting others (family, etc.), then go for it!  But that’s not me, and I don’t think it’s any sort of moral failing to be content with doing my job well for as much time as I’m expected to, and then moving on with the rest of my life for the rest of the day.

(This may or may not wind up as a separate post, depending on how daring I’m feeling, but I really don’t see any moral virtue in gainful employment.  I do think it’s good for everyone to have something productive or meaningful or fulfilling to do with their days, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be “work”, especially just for the sake of work.)

So the fact that grad school isn’t necessarily going to help me with work doesn’t automatically make it a waste of time.  Cool.  It might help, though!  You never know what opportunities may lie down the road, right?  So, despite my statement up above, maybe “Why not?” isn’t the worst reason in the world.  Continuing education is a good thing, and you never know when it might come in handy.  I mean, despite not working directly in an engineering design group, my engineering degree has still been useful, so this grad school stuff might, too, right?  So there’s another part.

And the third part (because every good list has three things, as long as they don’t all mean the same thing) is that my job currently kinda sucks.  Actually, it started getting worse not quite a year and a half ago (if you know where I work, this should be a fairly trivial exercise to figure out), and has been steadily declining.  My group doesn’t really have any say in how we do our jobs any longer, and most of the interesting workload has been given to other groups (and what workload we do get to keep, our managers keep trying to screw up).

And grad school, honestly, gives me something to be excited about, and provides some intellectual stimulation.  I get way more amped up now about class and even homework than I do my job.  Don’t get me wrong, I get excited about family, and get intellectual stimulation at home, but grad school is much more work-related in terms of those things, and therefore a different category.

So no, I guess grad school isn’t a waste of time.  Yay!

I’m not sure I have a point to this, honestly.  I’m not fishing for any sort of reassurance, nor am I attempting to solicit advice (although if anyone has any groundbreaking insights, I’ll listen)(note that “Find a new job” would not actually be one.  I didn’t want to bog things down explaining why I’m still where I am, but there are reasons).  I’m also trying not to keep this from being “Fancy journal, part II”.  And this post certainly had more immediacy when it was “grad school starts today” than it does as “grad school started a week ago”.  But at this point, I’d put so much effort into this post that I didn’t want to just abandon it!

I guess maybe I just needed to work through a few things in my head.  Obviously, by working through writing this, I’ve changed my mind about a few things, so maybe writing this was the point.  And I don’t know, maybe if you strip out the details, the general outline is relatable to someone else?  After all, if one kid out of a hundred million feels that he relates, that’s great, right?

Anyways, that’s that.  If you’re still with me, thanks for reading!  But then again, you voluntarily signed up to read a blog that’s basically whatever I feel like writing about, so you can’t say you weren’t warned…

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

In January of every year, the Husky Marching Band holds the band banquet, which is a chance to come together, eat some generally decent food, reminisce about the last season (including a member-made video of varying quality), and hand out some individual and sectional awards.  It's generally a pretty good time.

For the last several years, this has been held at the Don James Center in Husky Stadium, which is basically a club for rich people at the top of the North side of the lower bowl.  (If you happen to Google it, know that it looks way nicer now, after the stadium renovation, than it did while I was there.)  (And now I have to specify the location in the stadium, because there are several clubs for rich people there now.  Back in my day, there was just the one.) However, that wasn't always the case.

My rookie year in band, the band banquet was held at a marina.  (I want to say it was the Shilshole Bay Marina, but it doesn't look like what I remember on Google Maps, and I caught a ride with someone else and was still figuring out the layout of Seattle, so I didn't have a lot of reference points at the time.  Anyone who wants to confirm or correct that, be my guest.)  It was a pretty nice setup; a long room with lots of tables seating about 8, nice centerpieces with candles in jars, etc.  Food was alright, too, as I recall.

The problem arose after dinner, when the awards started being handed out.  The problem with long rooms like this is that those sitting way in the back, as I was, can't hear very well, and really just aren't terribly involved with the ongoing proceedings.  Additionally, the clarinet section that year, while certainly full of nice people, wasn't likely to be winning any awards that year.

(The problem was that the section, for the most part, was completely introverted.  We rarely did anything with any of the other sections.  On band trips, instead of partying, or at least hanging out, with anyone else, we all sat around in a room together, with MAYBE one bottle of alcohol.  (Which I did not drink, Mom and Dad.  (Who it turns out really do read this, despite my earlier jokes (or what I thought were jokes), which is slightly awkward, but I'm a grown-up and going to power through it.))  So no one outside the section really knew us, and we weren't really likely to win awards for most spirited or anything like that.  Even performance-based awards kind of require you to be known to other people, so basically we were screwed.)

And so, boredom set in.  Being clarinets, especially as described above, we were too polite to carry on our own loud side conversations, so there really wasn't much going on at the table.

So I lit a napkin on fire.

I didn't really mean to, though.

At least, not like it turned out.

(And they were paper napkins, so it's not like I was burning fine linen or something.)

In my boredom, and because I'm a fidgety person, I was playing with one of the paper napkins... folding, unfolding, rolling up.  And somewhere along the way, I thought it would be entertaining to light the end of the rolled-up napkin on fire with the centerpiece candle.  We had lots of water at the table, so I wasn't worried about lighting the table on fire or anything.

So I did.  And the fire gradually burned down the length of the napkin, leaving behind charred napkin, but never really flaring up too much.  It was fun, and killed a few minutes, and then the flame was near my fingers, the rest of it was just char, and I figured I'd just toss the napkin into the candle to let it finish burning out.

And the entire napkin went up at once.  Apparently there was still plenty of viable fuel inside all that char.  Who knew?

Anyways, the flame from the napkin absolutely dwarfed the candle flame.  It looked like the entire jar was on fire (these weren't the tiny concession-stand style napkins, or even the common dinner-table type napkins you get at Target in packages of 500.  These were the nice, thick, large paper napkins you get when you want things to look fancy but you don't want to have to wash 250 napkins afterwards.  So it pretty much filled the jar around the wick).  And this wasn't exactly subtle; it was like someone had just turned a 60-watt lightbulb on at our table in a rather darkened room.  The surrounding tables were quite obviously being lit up as well, and they were noticing.

I froze.  This was not at all what I had expected.  And how was I going to put it out?  I couldn't just dump an entire glass of water into the candle jar to put it out!  (Well, I suppose I could have, but I didn't want to make that much of a mess.)  And it didn't seem like it was going to burn itself out anytime soon; for all I knew, the entire napkin would still be burning when we left an hour later!  I'm in college now; I'm supposed to be responsible!  Responsible people don't set entire napkins on fire!  What was I thinking?  Was I going to be forever known as the guy who started a bonfire at the band banquet?  That's not exactly what I wanted to be known for!

Someone (and to this day, I can't remember if it was me or someone else at the table) finally put a plate over the candle jar, the fire smothered and went out, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  I would NOT be the person who burned down the band banquet.  And, as usual, Brad (the director) hadn't noticed something the clarinets were doing.  (One time, we played an entire song in the wrong key because we'd gotten the wrong music, directly in front of him, and he didn't notice.  Seriously, we were off by a minor third, standing right next to his podium, and nothing.  It sounded pretty cool, actually (it was like a dirge version of Battle Hymn of the Republic), but was clearly wrong.)

And from then on, I vowed to never burn entire napkins again.  Small strips of napkin only!  Because giving up burning things entirely?  Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Addendum to Poor Driving: Freeway Speed Edition

(I realized the other day that I left a key scenario out of my discussion of getting up to freeway speed.  This lack did not go unnoticed by others, so I hereby add it here.  I'll try to avoid needing a whole errata section for my blog...)

When changing lanes, match the goddamn speed of the new lane

Oh my God, this pisses me off so much.  I cannot count the number of times this has happened to me: I'm driving along, cheerfully minding my own business, passing all the dipshits in the lanes to my right who can't manage to go the speed limit.  Suddenly, up ahead, I see one of these slow assholes change lanes into my lane to go around an even slower asshole.  No big deal, right?  Except this asshole doesn't speed up, he keeps puttering along at the same shitty slow-ass speed he was going in the other lane that was about to get him passed in the first place!  And I, innocent in all of this mess, am forced to slam on my brakes so that I don't rear-end this moron who is completely oblivious to the complete clusterfuck he's caused.

Don't do this.  Don't you fucking do this.  When you change lanes, figure out first how fast the lane is going that you want to move to, and then go that fast, motherfucker!  It's like a fucking mini-merge, which you're also probably shitty at!  And if you don't have room to speed up because of the even slower dipshit in front of you, then you damn well better step on the goddamn gas once you've changed lanes so that you don't fuck up the people behind you.

Motherfucker.

Poor Driving: Freeway Speed Edition

Welcome back to the "Poor Driving" blog post series!  I'm not sure what it says about me or the rest of you that my most popular post so far has been the one where I cuss up a blue streak, but don't worry, we're not going to mess with a good thing.  So here we go...

Alright, you shitty Seattle drivers.  In case you missed it, there was yet another fucking survey recently to verify that not only are you shitty drivers, you're actually somehow managing to get shittier.  I didn't think that was possible, but there you have it.

So last time, we walked you through how to get your fucking act together and get onto the fucking freeway without clogging things up like you just took a giant shit in the on-ramp.  As you may recall, part of the lesson was to get your fucking ass up to freeway speed while you're still in the goddamn on-ramp.  And while "freeway speed" should be intuitive as hell in this case, you clearly struggle with the concept once you're on the freeway, which is fucking the rest of us over harder than a St. Louis County cop.  So let's review a few concepts that you should have learned years ago in your damn driver's ed class.

Go the fucking speed limit

It's not that fucking hard.  Yes, yes, there are caveats:

"Oh my God, I can't see through my windshield because water is coming down like I'm in bed with R. Kelly!"  Okay, yes, you can slow down.

"Oh my God, there are raindrops on my windshield!"  Don't you fucking even.  (Funniest, yet most infuriating, experience on the freeway?  Seeing a wave of a brake lights a half-mile ahead of me and knowing that it's going to start raining when I get there.)

"But the traffic in front of me is only going 20 mph because people around here are shitty mergers!"  Yes, you're right, and there's not much you can do about this.

"But there are other cars on the road with me!"  Give me your damn driver's license so I can shred it.

Etc., etc.  But here's the bottom line:  Under normal traffic conditions, there is no goddamn reason not to go the motherfucking speed limit.  Don't want to go any faster?  Fine!  I can respect that.  Keep your ass in the right-hand lane, and I'll mentally nod respectfully in your direction as I pass you.  BUT GO THE GODDAMN SPEED LIMIT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

If you are not passing cars, get the fuck out of the left lanes.

I'm undecided on what the worst cause of this is, obliviousness or vigilantism, but they both piss me off.  This is actually LAW people.  There are fucking signs along I-90 through Issaquah (and probably elsewhere) because you're so bad at this.  I've seen them!  Stay right except to pass.  Cruising in the left-hand lanes and forcing me to move right (if I even can) to pass you will make me mad.  Very, very mad.

If you're oblivious, I'll just want to punch you for being a shitty driver.  If you're doing it because you feel God has ordained you with some sort of fucking deputy badge to enforce the goddamn speed limit that you're barely going, then think again.  Even the police don't want you doing this, because it's not your goddamn responsibility, and you're going to piss people off and make things more dangerous than speeders would be.  So knock it the fuck off.

For the love of all that is good and holy and wonderful in this world, learn to maintain a constant speed.

There are a couple scenarios here:

Uphill

Let's review some really fucking basic physics here.  We won't even use any math, so you've got absolutely no fucking excuse to not follow here.  Going uphill is harder than going downhill or level, right?  Because gravity?  Right.  Okay.  So what the fuck do you think is going to happen if you go up a hill without pressing harder on the accelerator?  Yes, you're going to slow down.  Don't do that.  Don't you fucking do that.  Press your fucking foot down on the gas pedal and get your shitty driving ass up the goddamn hill.  I don't want to find myself stuck behind you suddenly going 45 because you don't get this basic physics problem that my three-year-old has already figured out on his fucking trike.

Passing

To be honest, I can't think of a single thing more likely to turn me into a raging asshole of righteous driverly fury than finally getting to pass someone who's been going way too fucking slowly, only to have them speed up by about 10-15 mph as I try to do so.  I honestly don't understand this.  Did you not realize how slowly you were going until I tried to pass you, and you noticed that you were only going about 2/3 of the allowed speed?  If so, why the fuck can't you wait until I'm past you to speed up?  Why the fuck do you have to do it right now?  Or are you just a gigantic asshole who doesn't want me to pass you?  I've actually seen a couple people like that, who sped up until I abandoned the passing attempt, only to have them slow back down once I'm back behind them.  I just... what the hell?

Luckily, there's a really easy solution for both of these scenarios in many cases, and it's already built right into your car!  It's called the cruise control.  You already paid for this fucking miracle of engineering, so you might as well use it to be less of an asshole on the road.

But not every situation lends itself to the use of cruise control, I understand.  In those cases, you're just going to have to put on your big boy pants and learn how to be less of a shitty driver all on your very own.  God help us all.

Oh, and one time to absolutely not maintain your speed?  When you're right next to another fucking vehicle and you're going the same fucking speed!  Because do you know what happens?  You two assholes block the road and keep anyone from getting around you!  So speed up or slow down or do something, dipshit, and stop blocking the fucking road!

Exiting the Freeway

Basic driver's ed instruction is that you don't start slowing down until after you've exited the goddamn freeway.  So don't slow down until you're off the goddamn freeway.  Assholes.

Tunnels

Saving the best for last here, and I've got a particular tunnel in mind: the I-90 Eastbound Mount Baker tunnel.  Let me make this abundantly clear: there is abso-fucking-lutely no reason to slow down when going through this goddamn tunnel.  None.  Whatsoever.  Period.  End of fucking discussion.

Here's the thing.  You shitty drivers manage to drive for hundreds of miles without touching the shoulder line once.  But suddenly there's a fucking tunnel wall three feet away on the other side of the line you don't fucking cross anyways, and you freak out and slam on the brakes?  What.  The.  Fuck.

Yes, the lane also narrows slightly.  So the fuck what?  The lane divider stripe keeps going straight, and there's still plenty of room in each lane.  There's no fucking merge.  There're no fucking lane adjustments.  Just keep fucking driving, and you'll be fine.  Stop slamming on your fucking brakes!

This goes for the ramp from I-5 Northbound to the Express lanes (by the Seneca exit) as well.  Yes, it's dark in there when it's sunny out.  But you know what?  You get your own fucking lane, and if there's a slowdown, you'll see the bright red glow of the goddamn brake lights from all of the cars in front of you that are slowing down!  You're not going to be the first person surprised by a backup, dipshit!  So get your ass into the tunnel and stop fucking up the traffic patterns all the way back to the West Seattle Bridge because you're a fucking baby.

TL;DR: Go the right speed and stay out of the way.

Alright, kind readers, anything else you'd like to add on freeway driving?  Or should I move on to the civilization-ending disaster that are four-way stops next time?

In Support of Unions

I hope you all had a good Labor Day weekend (well, those of you who are in countries that have Labor Day this past weekend, anyways).  Plenty of BBQing?  Lamenting the end of summer?  Hopefully most members of your household weren't sick, forcing you to sleep in the guest bedroom to avoid being stricken by the plague, and later to avoid all the coughing and nose-blowing?  Good, good.  Definitely none of that here, either.  Nope.

Of course, that's not all that Labor Day is about.  It's also about "the social and economic achievements of American workers", and came about primarily due to the labor movement in the 1800s (both for being proposed by union members, and as a means of mollifying workers after the disastrous end to the Pullman strike that involved people getting shot by the government).  It seems an appropriate time, therefore, to talk about unions.  (Yes, yes, verging on politics again, but this is another one of those things that really shouldn't be political.)

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a union member, because the position I hold at my current employer, who shall remain nameless but is a rather large, and formerly-locally-headquartered, aerospace company, is designated as one that is union-represented, in large part because of my engineering degree. 

Would I chose to be a union member if it were entirely up to me?  An interesting question.  Back when I first started, I probably would have said no, being concerned with the dues (which are actually extremely minimal), or not really had an answer either way.  And I'll admit it's a bit nerve-racking during negotiations.  But overall, at this point, yes, I'm glad to be a union member.

"But why?" I can hear you asking.  (And if you're not, I'm just going to ignore that and use this as my segue anyways.  Deal with it.)

Well, first of all, let's get the usual criticisms of unions out of the way:

The Bad:

Unions are resistant to change

This is true.  There's good reason for it; the unions are supposed to represent their workers, and have negotiated with companies for a defined contract.  If the companies want to alter the deal (and just pray they don't alter it any further), the union's job is to evaluate the proposed changes, and negotiate how to address those changes and to propose offsetting changes.  That's, like, literally their job (well, one of them).

Additionally, if circumstances are changing due to poor management decisions, it seems perfectly fair to me for unions to resist changes that unduly punish workers for problems that they didn't cause, and often have done their best to fix or avoid in the first place.

Can unions be overly resistant to any changes to the contract?  Can they take a very long time to respond to changes?  Sure, sometimes this responsibility can be taken to an extreme.  But the base reason for it is still valid.

It's hard to fire union workers

Also true, but again, there's a reason for this, too.  Most non-represented workers are employed at-will, which means they can be terminated for any reason whatsoever (or no reason at all).  There are some legal exceptions to that (age, gender, sexual orientation, etc.), obviously, but proving them can be extraordinarily difficult and expensive.  The union's goal is to make sure that its represented workers are actually fired for valid reasons (especially since there's a long history of employers firing anyone who looks like they might cause some trouble by trying to organize a union or something).

Can this be taken so far that it's nearly impossible to fire represented workers?  Of course it can, but it's worth remembering that the procedures for this are usually defined in the contract, which the company agrees to, so this isn't completely on the union.  And given the choice between it being too easy and too hard to fire someone, it's easy to see why unions come down on the side that they do.

Union workers are all lazy

This one I really don't get.  Can I speak categorically for all union workers?  Of course not.  Are there some represented workers who slack off, knowing that it'll be nearly impossible to fire them?  I'm sure there are.  However, in my personal experience (my organization, and even my immediate group, are both a mix of represented and non-represented workers), union workers work just as hard as the non-represented workers.  We're all out to do our jobs and make our projects as successful as they can be.

Unions limit the ability of businesses to be competitive

In general, this seems to boil down to three main areas: resistance to changing circumstances (discussed above), costing too much, and limiting a business' flexibility.

As far as costing too much... there are a few answers to that.  First, it's worth remembering, again, that this is generally defined by the contract, which is agreed to by both the union and the company.  If the company wants to pay people less, then they can risk a strike if the represented workers don't agree to it.  We'll talk more about this in a bit.  Second, turnover is generally reduced the more stable and well-compensated a job is, which has its own cost savings in training and knowledge transfer.  And third, employees who aren't in terror that their jobs or benefits will be arbitrarily and unilaterally altered or taken away are happier employees.  Happier employees tend to be more engaged employees.  And more engaged employees tend to be more productive and innovative employees, which ultimately carries cost benefits with it as well.

On the flexibility side, this usually means replacing represented workers with non-represented workers, or simply moving work to areas that are less hospitable to unions.  When it comes to replacement, I think unions will happily cop to the charge that they don't want their members replaced.  Again, that's, like, their job.  And my employer has demonstrated that relocation isn't really that much of a problem unless you make the mistake of saying on the record that it's being done in response to legally-protected collective actions (like strikes).

And finally...

Unions are living in the past

To some extent, this is the one I agree with the most.  I'm sure you heard many times this past weekend that unions are to thank for the holiday, for the weekend, for 40-hour work weeks, for paid vacation and sick leave, etc.  That's all true, and it's good to remember, but my opinion is that it gets bandied about too much.  Most workers get those things now, so what have unions done lately?

We'll get to that in a minute, but first, I just want to address a few of the really strange union criticisms I see now and then:

If you don't like your job/salary/benefits, just go get another job.

First of all, easier said than done in this economy.  (I won't talk politics here... I won't talk politics here... I won't talk politics here...) Second of all, why should I?  Why should a business get to unilaterally set my compensation and working conditions?  Why can't I try to improve conditions where I am, rather than just up and leaving for a new job?  If I'm valuable to the company, they should be on board for that, right?

Well, then, negotiate for yourself! Why do you need a union to do it for you?

Not everyone is good at negotiating for themselves.  And second, while that may work at a smaller business, a large employer, like mine, has all the leverage when it comes to individual jobs, and no interest in negotiating individually.  Collective action not only helps those who can't or won't negotiate for themselves, but it also gives the workers additional leverage.  (Plus, it spares the company from having to do all of those individual negotiations.  Surely that's worth something, too.)

Hey, I don't get all these benefits in my job.  Why should you get all these cushy perks?

If you don't like your benefits, then just go get another job, right?  Or, alternatively, get yourself a union!  Then maybe you can have these benefits, too.  Just because you've chosen not to take advantage of the opportunity to gain some leverage doesn't mean I should give up mine, after all.

Okay, so now that we've gotten all of the negative stuff out of the way, let's talk about the good that unions do.

The Good:

In addition to some of the counters mentioned above in the discussion of the negatives, it ultimately comes down to giving the average worker some protection and leverage against the whims of their employer.  But let's look at a couple concrete cases.

(Note that everything I'm going to talk about here, when it applies to my employer, is public information.  I won't be saying anything that's proprietary or otherwise not public.  I also won't be providing links, but it should be easy enough to Google some for yourself if you want to verify what I'm saying.)

Protection from arbitrary changes to benefits

In the past few years, my employer has unilaterally changed the health-care and retirement benefits for non-represented workers.  This was done in the name of cutting costs to be more "competitive".  The main point, however, is that these non-represented workers had no say in these changes when they were made; the company was free to do whatever they wanted.  Additionally, workers had little or no forewarning of these changes, making it difficult to plan ahead.

One of the most egregious examples, though, were the changes to the continuing education program that the company ran.  Prior to the changes, the company would pay for just about any courses you wanted to take, from law degrees, to cooking classes, to getting a pilot's license.  After the changes, the company would really only pay for programs that related to your job or advanced your career, and even there they weren't necessarily 100% covered.

To be clear, the content of the changes wasn't objectionable.  The program prior to the changes was ridiculously generous, and I don't fault the company at all for wanting to rein things in a bit and make sure that they're spending their money on programs that benefit them, too.  That's perfectly reasonable, and I have no issues with that.

The problem was that this was handled in a completely ham-handed fashion.  The company simply said, just a couple months in advance, that these changes would be happening at the beginning of the new year.  And that's not at the beginning of a new school year, but a calendar year.  For anyone in the middle of getting a degree, this potentially left them out in the cold with a partially-completed degree that they'd started with the understanding that the company would pay for it, but which they'd now have to pay out of pocket for if they wanted to finish it.

This actually happened to someone in my vanpool.  He was a couple years into getting a law degree when this edict came down.  Now, one of the things to understand about this program is that, even prior to the changes, it didn't necessary cover all of your costs.  For degrees that weren't directly related to your job (like this one), there were limits to the amount that the company could cover before it became subject to federal taxes. 

Therefore, this guy was two years into paying thousands of dollars, out of pocket, in taxes alone, to get this degree.  And now the company wasn't going to cover any of it.  What was he supposed to do?  Quit the program and send those thousands of dollars down the drain?  Pay his own way for the rest of the degree?  Sure, plenty of other people have to pay their own way, but most of them don't start programs with the understanding that the company would cover it, only to have the rug pulled out from under them partway through.

This is where the union came in.  For those employees who were represented, the union made the case that this program was part of the benefits defined in the contract, and therefore couldn't be unilaterally altered by the company.  While the changes still ultimately stood, the union was able to soften the landing for the people who suddenly found themselves up a creek (a creek consisting of mixed metaphors, no doubt).  The non-represented folks were flat out of luck.

Leverage to balance the company's power

Here's another example.  During the last round of negotiations, one of the points of contention was the raise pool, i.e., the amount of money allotted for raises.  The company wanted a pool worth an average of a 2% raise, and the union wanted 5% (which was consistent with the previous contract signed at the end of 2008.  As you might recall, the economy was currently going in the tank then, so this wasn't a contract the company foolishly signed thinking the golden times would go on forever).

The company's position was that they simply couldn't be competitive with a 5% raise pool.  And on the surface, it's a fair point.  Based on the numbers that the union provided, by the fourth year of the contract, the difference in the average salary, based on 2% or 5% annual raises, would be over $14,500 (the miracle of compounding in action!), for a total cost of over $335 million.  And remember, that's just the difference between the two proposed raise pools.  (It's also in the fourth and last year of the contract; the difference would be smaller in the previous years.  For example, in the first year of the contract, the difference would only be about $76 million.  "Only".)

I'm not going to lie, $335 million is a big chunk of change, so the competitiveness argument makes some sense.  Except for what happened next.  Later that year, the board of directors approved an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.485/share to $0.73/share.  Multiplying this across a full year gives a cost of over $700 million just for the increase alone. 

In other words, shortly after the company argued that it couldn't afford to spend an extra $814 million across four years (the total difference between the two proposed raise pools across the four years of the contract) on its employees, it decided that it could afford to give away at least $700 million per year to the shareholders.  I say "at least" because the dividend has only been going up for the last 10 years (in fact, it's 3x what it was 10 years ago, and I leave it to the reader to figure out what happened in approximately that time frame), so it's likely that the dividend will increase even more during the next few years of the contract.

As you can imagine, things like this don't elicit a strong feeling of trust in what the company says regarding its costs.

Unfortunately, non-represented workers aren't immune to the company's desire to cut the raise pools, which means they do get smaller raises, and can't do anything about it.

In a similar vein, shortly after the company argued that the pension plans were an unbearable expense and started working to get rid of them for all employees, they announced a $10 billion stock buyback program.  Instead of spending it on the employees, the company has decided to give it away to the shareholders.

Now, don't get me wrong; I don't object to dividends or stock buyback programs in general; one of the reasons for a company to exist is to disburse some of its profits to its owners; i.e, the shareholders.  (Note that it's not the only reason, or even the primary reason; it is not legally required, nor is it in most corporations' charters that they have to maximize shareholder returns, which is an ubiquitous misunderstanding, and is important enough it probably shouldn't be in a parenthetical.)  However, the egregiousness of both the size and timing of these two announcements is just... wrong, and would seem to indicate the lack of regard that the company has for its employees.

To get to the ultimate point, though, because retirement benefits and raise pools are part of the union contract with the company, any changes are subject to negotiation, and the union can act to counter the company's desire to maximize profit and shareholder returns on the backs of the workers.

The Future:

For the sake of argument, let's say that we decide it's desirable to not let unions die out.  What should the future look like?

More unions

If you accept the proposition that unions are worthwhile, then naturally we need more of them.  There's a common misconception that unions are only for blue-collar workers and public employees, but that white-collar workers can't have, or don't need, unions.  First of all, it's perfectly possible for white-collar employees to have a union, as evidenced by mine. 

Second, I'd argue that white-collar workers are reaching a point where they need unions just as much, if not more, than blue-collar workers.  Gallup recently released some survey results showing that 50% of salaried workers reported working 50+ hours a week (granted, research has shown that there's some overestimating when self-reporting hours worked), surely in part because of the ridiculous rules that salaried employees are overtime-exempt, but also because they don't have unions to advocate for them against mandatory overtime, etc.

As unions become more pervasive, they'll also become more accepted, and companies will grow accustomed to working with them, rather than simply trying to stamp them out.  And that leads into my next point...

Works councils

In case you missed the news, the UAW recently tried to unionize the new VW plant that just opened in Tennessee.  Not only was VW actually supportive of this effort, but they actually wanted to go a step further and include the UAW in a works council, where the union would work together with management in determining policies, strategy, and the future of the company.

(In a rare foray into politics here, I think it's worth noting that certain Tennessean elected officials attempted to discourage unionization at the VW plant despite VW being in favor of it.  It's one thing to be anti-union and argue that the formation of a union chapter will hurt job creation or whatever, but to do it when the company itself is disagreeing with you is unlocking a new achievement in chutzpah.)

I bring these first two topics up together, along with the VW example, because there's something that ties them together, and that something is Germany.  In Germany, most workers belong to unions, and most companies have arrangements like a works council, where there are often labor representatives on the board of directors itself.  Remarkably, German industry has somehow avoided collapsing into the fiery chasm of uncompetitiveness so often predicted on our side of the ocean as a result of a fraction of this level of labor organization.  In other words, these are not pie-in-the-sky goals, but something that's successfully happening in the world today.  They can work.  There's empirical proof.

And finally...

A renewed respect for workers

In this country, there's a tendency to lionize CEOs and business owners.  However, "[n]inety percent of Americans work for someone else... Most of them not only will never own their own business, for most of them that isn't their dream. Their dream is to have a good job, with an income that will allow them to support their family."

Why aren't such people equally worthy of respect?  Aren't their contributions, their social and economic achievements, if you will, just as necessary, if not more so, to the success of businesses as those of the executives?

Of course they are.  This is why strikes, or even the threat of strikes, are successful.  It's why, despite the rhetoric, my employer quickly agreed to nearly everything the union wanted when the company's brand new flagship product was suddenly taken out of service due to defects that it realized it needed its represented members to fix.  Without the humble non-executive workers, things don't get made.  And in many areas, such as mine, skilled employees are not easy to replace, whatever the rhetoric may be.

Workers are not just expenses.  They're not just faceless resources.  They're people who can make or break the success of your company.  And treating them right can have all sorts of benefits.

One last example: Market Basket, a grocery chain on the East Coast.  In case you haven't seen the news, Market Basket is a company that pays its employees well, gives them good benefits, and still manages to turn a profit while having lower prices than Wal-mart.  Part of the reason?  Engaged employees and low turnover, which reduces training costs and increases customer satisfaction.  (Costco is similar, but I figure it's an overused example around here, plus they don't have the upcoming twist.)  Look, more empirical proof that you can treat employees well and still be successful as a company!

Unfortunately for Market Basket, the board of directors forced out the extremely popular CEO in the interests of cutting employee pay and benefits to increase profit.  This resulted in the employees essentially staging a massive strike, despite the fact that they're not unionized, to demand the return of the CEO (when's the last time you heard that?).  Not only were the stores not being resupplied or restocked, but the customers even joined in, refusing to shop at Market Basket while this was going on.  Market Basket began losing millions of dollars a day.

Ultimately, the former CEO was able to buy back a controlling share of the company and will be returning.  The stores are being restocked and reopened.  And this success was possible because of collective action by the employees.  Sure, they're not unionized, but they effectively acted as if they were.

Their lack of unionization helps me make one last point.  Many companies discourage unions on the grounds that they want to deal directly with the employees.  Supposedly this is better for the employees.  However, that's ultimately a decision for the employees to make.  If they don't trust the company or feel that the company is treating them well, they're likely to unionize anyways.  

However, in a case like Market Basket, there really isn't a reason for the employees to unionize.  The company is already voluntarily giving them everything they'd be getting if they unionized anyways, and they're clearly not afraid to take collective action, union or no.  What's the lesson?  If you don't want your employees to unionize, don't give them a reason to!  Give them decent wages and benefits and a reason to trust you.  Work with them, show them you actually have their best interests at heart and care about them personally (rather than simply as resources to be used), and you might be surprised what happens.

TL;DR: I don't even know how to sum this up.  How do you sum up 3800 words in a sentence? Um, unions have some areas they can improve on, but do good things and serve a good purpose, and have a role in the future.  There!

Alright, your turn.  Anyone part of a union: like or dislike?  Why?  Anyone not part of a union: do you want to be?  Why or why not?  Anyone happen to be in management opposite a union?  Let's keep it civil, but I think there's plenty of room for good discussion on the topic.

To those who made it all this way, I salute you.