Patrick’s Rants

A friend of mine works in the charitable industry; a private company that accepts government grants and private donations to help people. They have budgets and projections and targets just like any other business. And just like Peter Gibbons, he has around eight different bosses that point out all of his “mistakes”.

In the current economic climate he has had to cut back on employee hours, eliminate overtime, etc. Just like any business. Due to the fact that he has to meet certain targets for “production” he gets monthly updates on the budget for his site. He recently exceeded his sales goal – even in this downturn which has people holding onto their stuff and not donating household goods – and was given a modest bonus for the sales figure. He was then sent an email chastising him for exceeding his payroll for the month – by the amount of the bonus. As Peter Gibbons would say,

“when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation, is not to be hassled…”

Unlike Peter Gibbons, though, my friend works his tail off. And for that they should ignore the bonus when looking at exceeding payroll.

Will trade wife for beer

As a result of locking the computer at work down I discovered that Firefox is totally broken. There was a new Firefox release recently. I downloaded the new version (updating has been failing, I have to do a full install) and attempted to install it. The install failed to complete – presumably because I don’t have permissions for the Windows System folder. I tried to uninstall the new version, and then the prior version. Neither would complete so I have a broken Firefox install on my work machine. IE is an older tab-less version so I have to open a new window for everything. The thing is, when using the Outlook (yech, but I’m not in charge) browser connection hitting the shortcut key sequence of Ctrl+N might open a new window or it might open a new email compose window. I’m sure that has something to do with where my pointer is on the screen when I hit Ctrl+N but it’s really annoying that IE would be hijacked like that.

Flagstaff is a small town. We went to Movies on the Square(note: this site uses JavaScript for its menu, with no warning if you have it disabled) last Friday and saw our kids’ pediatrician. Dr. Ron is apparently well known it town as he had an entourage of different people who sat close and around him. So we ended up getting introduced to a KAFF radio personality (not that we knew who she was – country music…) and a short time later mayor Sarah Presler showed up. I’m not much impressed by celebrity, but still kinda cool.

The economy is in a very precarious position. Many states are having trouble passing their budgets, putting many state employees and state funded private businesses one IOU paycheck from the edge. The mom who works in New York who has to keep going to work while the paychecks are no good or non-existent can’t pay for gas, food or rent. The gas station won’t take an IOU. The grocery store won’t take a “Wimpy payment” and hopefully the landlord is understanding – but they have bills to pay too. If enough tenants don’t pay on time the building could plummet into foreclosure forcing entire buildings of families out onto the street.

I believe the next big wave of foreclosures, adverse credit actions, and unemployment will come out of these state budget problems. I could be wrong, but I believe this newest ripple will have an effect for the next 16 months as people try to claw back to almost making it.

Todd S. Purdum has a long article recently published in Vanity Fair covering Sarah Palin. Coincidently or not Sarah stepped down as Governor of Alaska so she wouldn’t become a “lame duck” within a week of the article being published. Todd titled his article, “It Came From Wasilla” and attempts to get inside Palin’s personality.

I originally heard Todd giving an interview on NPR and then Steve pointed me to the story. It’s a bit bizarre, but that’s kind of what I’ve come to expect from Palin.

And just for grins, here’s Maureen Dowd with Sarah’s diary.

Rod Blagojevich has to be looking over his shoulder as one of his top aides pleads guilty to trying to sell the Obama Senate seat.
If Rod did anything wrong, and it’s certainly looking like he probably did, then he needs to face the music. I don’t care which side of the aisle you’re on we place a tremendous amount of trust and faith in those elected (and appointed) to serve the people. If you misstep you will pay the price.