This Week in Memes...

3x Thursday:
01/15/y2k+9:
Job Hunt
1. How do you go about looking for a job (websites, papers, etc)?

Well, it has been a while, but I join placement agencies. At my level, the newspaper and baseline Internet sites are not going to show me what I want. I suppose I would check Craigs List, though.

2. At what point do you start looking for jobs? Before you need to find a new one, or when you are made to?

It depends on the situation. I usually hate job hunting but life at USII was bad enough that I had actually begun looking well before they finally laid me off. I saw that coming from miles away. They were not replacing HR generalists who had left, the first big sign.

3. Do you have any requirements when you take a job? If so, what are they?

The usual: a salary comensurate with my position and abilities, two to three weeks vacation and major medical, dental and vision benefits. The rest is gravy.

January 16, 2009
Four For Friday
Q1 - The American Dream: This question comes courtesy of John Zogby, President of Zogby International and the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. Which of the following statements best represents your goals in life?

A. I believe the American dream means material success. It is possible for my family and me and for most middle-class Americans to achieve.

B. I believe you can achieve the American dream through spiritual fulfillment rather than material success.

C. I believe the American dream means material success. It exists but is more likely to be attained by my children and not me.

D. I believe I cannot achieve the American dream, whether material or spiritual, nor can most middle-class Americans.

E. None of the above... I have my own view of what the American dream is, and I am capable of achieving it.

F. None of the above... I have a different view of what the American dream is, and I am not capable of achieving it.

Q2 - Value: It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be. The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May _ a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago. (The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.) Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences. When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution. What value do you place on your own life? Does $6.9 million seem high or low to you?

I don't think one can quanitify any life - human or other - in monetary terms. Clearly the government thinks otherwise, but beaurocratic thinking hasn't gotten us anywhere as a race, has it? And now the government thinks my life is of less value. Great. What a delight. I think that is enough depressing news for one day.

Q3 - Branding the Incident: Quickly after yesterday's crash landing of a US Airways jetliner in New York's Hudson River, television networks began referring to the incident as "Miracle on the Hudson." Do you appreciate that television producers "name" incidents such as these, or do you think its a waste of time and energy to devote critical news gathering and reporting resources to the "branding" of news stories.

I honestly don't know. It is over done. I don't like the news anyway. I noticed the announcer on one channel kept saying there were over 150 survivors. When did it become a problem to say 155 people were saved? Why the emphasis on over 150? What is that about? At any rate, I guess it is a miracle - I have two friends who are pilots and they will tell you that what this guy did is nothing short of completely amazing!

Q4 - Decorating: A popular Los Angeles-based interior designer has been chosen to redecorate the White House. Michael Smith was named this week as the Obama's choice to put their mark on the private quarters in the East Wing of the executive mansion, including the bedrooms of their daughters. If you could completely redecorate any room in your house at someone else's expense, what room would you choose and what would have done to it?

Hmmm... you mean you are not going to ask me what I think of the tax payers' dollars going to redecorating the private residence of the President of the United States...? OK...

Hmmm. Well, my house (as big as it is) is likely to fit in the President's bedroom, so why do the whole thing? I know his rooms aren't as homey as ours, but they are to hell and gone bigger! Much, much bigger. (At least, they should be... for doing the world's most thankless job the least you can have is cavernous living quarters.)