The Dot Com layoffs recently just hit me, and I made a very interesting observation.
You see, one of the other contractors I was working with gave his notice about a month ago. For that he got harassed and begged to stay on longer, because they really needed him to finish a project. So he haggled and convinced everyone that he had to leave within the month, because his new job started ASAP. A month is a long time to give anyone for a departure, heck even in his contract all he had to do was give a 2-week notice. He was being kind by giving them a whole month to find a replacement for that position. Then steps in the recruiting company; they bitched, moaned, and tried to get him to feel guilty about only giving a month notice.
Mind you, not finishing out your contract is not a good thing. You signed the contract that stated you would try and finish it. So I know it wasn’t the best for him to break the contract, but in the contract it did state that he could leave with a 2-week notice. Anyway, so what happened was that the company decided that they were going to do the “in” thing and layoff 15% of their staff. (They gave us some bullshit about staying afloat and not making any money. You know what the best way to stay afloat is? To have customers who want to put real fucking money down on the service you offer. No customer, no dough, therefore no fucking chance in hell of making money.).
But I digress; what I wanted to point out next was that the company laid him and me off with a 2-day notice. A 2- fucking day notice, yet they were having a heart attack because he was only giving a month notice. So you think the recruiting company would stand up for us and demand that the contract at least continue on for the allotted 2-week notice period? No, they just rolled over and said, so sorry, Robert, you are out of a job so you need to go find something else. No comments about the company being wrong or about getting us the 2-weeks pay we should receive. All we got was a swift kick in the ass and a “we will see if we can find you something else, but no guarantee.” Now I know I am a contractor and I should expect stuff like this, but really I don’t expect getting it in the ass from both sides. I would really love to find a recruiting firm that cares about the individuals instead of these damn companies that insist that contractors are scum and the company is always right.
Aren’t the contractors also customers to the recruiting firm? Don’t we provide hours of service so that the recruiter can sit in their office, and tell us that they don’t have shit for us to do? I understand that the companies pay the wages, but without the contractors then who are they going to pay the wages for?
Sorry, this is just a load of crap. A recruiting firm should support both sides of the coin, just like any other good customer service-oriented firm.
Cheers,
Roger Smit
Has anyone every sat down to ponder, what the fuck is so funny about height challenged individuals, or midgets in layman’s terms.
Why do people laugh out loud when a little man comes on the TV screen riding a tricycle? Why do we laugh when we see a growth-stunted person wearing a hat on his head filled with chips and salsa walking through a Mexican restaurant? Should we be asking these types of questions or should we be asking, when did this size challenged mocking truly begin?
I’ve decided to scour the web and come up with the answers about our preoccupation with laughing at short people.
Scour, Scour, Scour…. Yawn … Snore … Making up stuff…. Done
All right here is my results, ever since I could remember all of the dwarves I’ve seen represented on television where always dressed funny and sang stupid songs.
Here are a few examples:
The Oompa Loompa’s in Willy Wonka in the Chocolate factory, always singing some crap about “What should we do.” (Those elves were slaves to this Willy Wonka freak, but stayed put. You want to know why? Because they would have been laughed at, just like they where laughed at when millions of people watched them in this stupid flick.)
The Munchkin’s from the Wizard of Oz were another classic example of hilarity. Here they where dressed up in stupid outfits singing songs about a dumb yellow brick road. Couldn’t they come up with something fun, something more upbeat, and why did they have to sing about the road instead of just telling them about it. Also where they really afraid of the Wicked Witch, or where they just lazy, or did they just not have the balls to go after her and kick her ass?
This portrayal continues on with scenes in Darby O’Gill and the Little People (drunk little people they were), Star Wars (they had to wear furry outfits in order to be in this series), Snow white and the seven dwarves (even the politically correct people at Disney had to add a quick “Dopey” jab at midgets), and many more degrading roles. Do they not have a short syndrome Hollywood association that could help get them some better roles?
So I often wondered why we think small humans are so funny, and the case is proven that they are so funny, because of the way they are portrayed in Hollywood. Couldn’t they take a few serious roles, and become known for their non-hilarity based work? Do they always have to wear bright yellow spandex and sing about following the pucker fish into his hole?
I think the not-tall people of the world should unite and start The People’s Front of the Midget’s or the Midget’s People’s Front? Whichever the case at least they need to fire their agents and get some who know a little bit about what roles “shorter than you and I” should be able to play. Why not have Indiana Jones types movie staring a midget? You could have him battling bad guys, riding horses into caverns, and grabbing at magic stones. He could run from a big stone ball that is careening ever closer to him as he tries to escape the cavern alive.
Well, alright maybe I see the point, that would be a funny movie, a little man would have to have a really small horse and he would have to have help climbing up to grab that stone. Then let’s not even go into the whole idea of him trying to escape a boulder, that would just be too ridiculous.
Alright maybe there is no way to explain it except, midgets are just funny.
Cheers,
Roger Smit
I am glad that I finally convinced the fine people at SillyShorts.com to add a special section for me called Meanderings. Not sure how much Silly stuff is going to be included in this, but hey let's be different for once (or we could go with the crowd and be different always).
DISLCAIMER: This might not be a silly everyone likes. If you don't like it well you can kiss my ass, but if you do like it then you can also kiss my ass.
What is this whole idea behind the current working man's actions? Why is it that the more money you make the less work they have for you? This would seem reasonable, because they could get a lackey to do the smaller stuff, and then just pay you to do the hard work. Simple and a great idea to save some cash, or that is how normal people would conceive it. WRONG, here is the stupid part, those idiots still want you around for 80 hours, and they will pay you for it, but they don't want you to do anything.
I remember when I was younger working for a small technology firm, working my ass off 100+ hours a week. I always had too much work to do and not enough time to do it. We could of hired 3 more people just to help me out, but they couldn't afford to. So I took the brunt of the work and stayed until it was done. I tell you it was fun and invigorating to be the person that everything rested on. Being at work all the time with no time to spare for anything, let alone food or bathroom breaks. I got paid Jack Squat, but I didn’t care, I was learning new stuff, and didn’t have time to care about anything but working.
Then, we fast forward to the present, I am still working those long hours but getting paid a lot more. So you would think, wow he must have a lot of work to do. WRONG again, buddy, now I spend my time doing quick fixes, browsing the web, and writing shit like this. Why do you think we have Dot Com closures all over the dam place? EToys.com closing down laying off hundreds, CarClub.com dropping out of the shit race, Amazon.com laying off hundreds closing down offices, all the shit is hitting the fan. Why, because managers are paying lots of money for people like me to sit on my ass and do jack shit. They hire people to oversee people, who oversee people, who hire people, who oversee people. It seems as if they are paying me to not work for other companies that actually might have work for me to do.
I guess I shouldn’t complain, because I am getting paid good money to do nothing. But still inside I feel as if I am losing my edge, dropping my skills a little, or writing crap for SillyShorts.com. Part of me even feels a bit guilty for taking the money from these companies, but really I am not an idiot. I am not going to rush in, and demand a pay cut so that I feel better about myself. Nope, I will let them figure it out, and hopefully they will, or they will close their doors. Either way I know there is another company, which (I hope) might utilize my skills or at least supply me with a hefty paycheck.
Cheers,
Roger Smit