Kicking the Unemployed

People are quick to judge, quick to condemn, quick to write off. I read (and teach) about looking for work in the age of the myth of privacy, warn of the dangers of expressing yourself in social media and how people (read employers) will move on with little provocation. And now I'm hearing that some employers and recruiters won't consider candidates who are unemployed, which is bullshit, believing that they are somehow tainted or use quill pens and churn their own butter.

And yes, I take this a bit personally as a victim (along with 40 others) of a lay-off myself in 2009. I knew the quality of the people who were sacked along with me and there wasn't one that would have been let go if the greed of corporate America hadn't forced it. I decided to start my own business and hopefully have a bit more control (insert laughter here) but I know that many of my friends had difficulty finding new work, several were even forced to leave advertising. And my group was just the beginning. At the end my former employer laid off more than a hundred others. 

Not considering a candidate simply because they fell victim to an almost unprecedented economic crisis is short-sighted and really just idiotic. I must confess to a bit of schadenfreude (look it up) when an HR manager, who once told me she had to "strip the deadwood" from a large workforce because they cost too much, was laid off from a very large corporation last year. I don't wish that on anyone but my hope is that she finds a new job and becomes a lot more empathetic.

The EEOC is looking into the legality of this practice and while I don't know if the policy is illegal I hope the threat of investigation will cause employers to think twice about ignoring the out of work. And then I'm disgusted because threat of a lawsuit will have to do this instead of simply being a little bit human.

Watching Japan

I continue to watch coverage of the earthquake in Japan and the nicely paired nuclear crisis that has come with it. Insult to injury just doesn't cover it. I have no concept of what these people are experiencing. To have nothing, to have nowhere to go, to lose family and friends and even my entire city, it's unfathomable to me. The Japanese are an interesting people. I was lucky enough to go there in the 90s for work and we were given a handbook on behavior, customs, food etc. It was like getting a manual for a trip to another planet. Even hand gestures were detailed due to the vast difference in cultures.

The country was beautiful, organized, dignified with a touch of whimsy here and there and I loved it. Our driver (we called him the Penguin because he resembled an Asian Burgess Meredith) wore white gloves and whenever we stopped he whipped out a long fuzzy dusting rod and went over the car front to rear in case we had picked up a speck of dirt since the last stop.

The attention to detail was wonderful. From the handrails in the public spaces to the painstakingly wrought plastic models of the food offered in the little noodle shops (which thankfully kept me from ordering eel eyebrows or something). The client treated us to a magnificent and mysterious dinner one evening and although I didn't recognize the majority of the food it was lovely in its presentation and endless in its delivery. And because of the custom of filling drinks as soon as they became even the slightest bit low we were pleasantly hammered about halfway through the meal. Our hosts were unfailingly pleasant, accommodating and pretty amused by us and our game attempts to try everything and by the end of the evening we were all laughing and pretty darned drunk.

We took a detour to the old capital, Kyoto, before we came home and wandered from temple to garden to little alleyway and it was so intriguing to see monks walking side by side with kids in Power Puff Girls backpacks. I stayed in a traditionally tatami hotel room with a giant cedar bathtub where I floated for about an hour before turning on the TV to see the Chiefs/Broncos game and, I kid you not, a Godzilla movie.

I've read that the vending machines in Sendai are still intact even though the people there have little food or water but to crack into the machines is such a foreign concept that they remain unmolested. We've all seen American behavior when there is the slightest disruption, and we all run to steal TVs. The people I've seen so far are stoic, calm, polite and getting to work to restore their homes. I heard a word, gaman, which means perseverance, determination and patience. It describes what I've seen perfectly. It's what I remember from my trip so long ago.

We may see a nuclear disaster that changes the world forever or we may not but the Japanese people will deal with it and move on.

After all, they've done it before.

Compost Happens

Thank God spring is finally threatening to appear. I'm so sick of snow and cold weather I could scream. I'm tired of space heaters, thick socks over thick socks, mysterious breezes in the office and if I see another fleece pullover I'm setting fire to it. Today was in the 50s, with that sort of cloudy sunny sky that happens in spring and the wind actually had some warmth to it.

Time to go outside.

My vegetable garden was basically a total disaster last year. My promising zucchini was completely obliterated by stink bugs. Those little bastards killed my beautiful plants literally overnight and then moved on to the cucumbers and murdered them as well. So after tempering my anger and the urge to napalm the whole area I filled a bucket with water, pulled the limp and bleeding plants from the bed and tried to kill the bugs without resorting to pesticides. I scooped the shield shaped villains and dumped them in the bucket and then stomped on what I could find. Sometimes my commitment to organic gardening can be a real pain in the ass. Time will tell if I they're gone or not.

The beans were listless and unhappy and the peppers were stunted. My tomatoes were victim to an early spring deluge followed by a beastly hot and dry summer so they responded by not producing a single fruit until fricking August. So while I berated and begged them I bought tomatoes from a delightful and flirty Italian man in the parking lot of the discount bread store. He was about 80, thought he was 30, and I was only too glad to exchange some sexual harassment for his lovely yellow and glowing red tomatoes. I'll pretty much do anything for a good caprese salad. Ask anyone.

About the only thing that thrived was the damn mint which took over the herb garden, the rose bed, crept through the fence and I'm sure was under the couch at some point. I probably used it twice over the summer.

So after my garden was victim to weather and homicide I promised myself that I would take this season off, let the ground rest and plant a few things in pots hoping for a little bit of summer produce.

And then I broke ground, spread compost and planted spinach and lettuce this afternoon. Jason helped me by pouring a handful of seed into the same spot and then stomping on the ground. I laid a piece of old metal fence over the top to keep the neighborhood feral cats from using my garden as a toilet and felt like I had accomplished something today. Surely I can eke out one little round of greens to celebrate making it through another Missouri winter.

I swear its the only thing going into the area this year. Although I do need somewhere to put the elephant ears and I really want to grow some cannas.

But that's it.

Probably.