Peg in the Machine

Ok… I trashed the original post.  Yep, completely (I found things that made some points potentially invalid, so I cleared it up).  See this is how it was… some people say employers doing credit checks hurt your credit score, others say it doesn’t.  Both say the inquiries are listed in your credit report (so yeah, two competitors could potentially see you applied for the other — like that’s going to help you).  But in the end it kind of falls into a simple thing, credit scores are spirals.  If you have good credit, you can get more; if you have bad, it’s only going to get worse without more effort than it took to get in that state (a single accident could trash your credit).

And in the end, it’s that simple thing that causes problems for everything.  You have to pay out more money if you have a bad credit score — so the people with less money have to pay even more.  Those with more money get discounts.  If you’ve got to pay more for the same things, it’s possible you’ll get further behind on some payments.  Then when a company does a check, what do they see?  Short credit history (if you closed accounts on your own of old accounts), late payments, etc.  So now they think you’re a lazy slob who can’t manage things.  Now you run the risk of not being hired (although they do have to tell you why if it’s because of the report — now if they do this….), or being hired and given less pay than you would’ve before, less chance for advancement/etc.

Apparently in the State of Washington there’s a pizza joint whose employees accidently left the heat turned on 55ºF one night — only to be told the next day that “no one can turn the heat on now”.

It was said by employees that the temperatures inside the store drop to below freezing when it’s cold outside, because the exhaust fan is really good at sending the oven heat out of the store.

The reporters sent to the store said it was 55ºF inside when they arrived, but noticed something interesting: the real boss had a space heater in her room to keep warm.

If true, that the place gets really cold in the winter and such, it’s a very sad thing to think that a business would even consider making workers do their jobs in freezing and cold temperatures (especially since they weren’t hired to work in a freezer or other extreme temperature place [which do have requirements for working in them]). While some may find 55ºF comfortable, there’s probably more that consider that to be “chilly” or even “cold” let alone below freezing temps. It should be unthinkable to force employees to work in such temps when there’s no reason for it. And there, sadly, needs to be laws passed now to specify temps for working conditions — at least in ranges to give businesses some room for flexibility.

But even from a general business standpoint: how is having your workplace potentially being freezing good for bringing in customers from the “cold”? And better yet, exactly what does it do for the pizzas? Can you imagine making food at home, then immediately putting it from the oven to the freezer for, say, 10 minutes? Is that really going to to be hot and delicious pizza — or some luke-warm one?

It’s 2009. The time of year where those still writing checks mess up the dates, and checks from Jan 2008 are still potentially “valid” (as they could have just been a mistake of the year). And this year, it’s also the year of a new President in the United States – although that would be true no matter who won.

May it be a safe and peaceful one.

And no, this one isn’t about politics.

This is about all those commercials (such as finally fast dot com — which I won’t even link, enzyte, etc) that outright deceive you to get your money. Do a quick search online about them, and you’ll get more warnings and outright “it’s a scam” than anything. [If you're wondering, enzyte's apparently been sued (and other things) and finally fast can't be installed if you have anti-spyware/malware software on your computer. Apparently you install the bad crap, then you pay them money so you can "remove" it].

But worst of all?  A little man called “Peter Popoff”.  He’s the man who hears the word of god (his wife) to have knowledge only known to god (that the people gave his wife), to be able to heal them —- then was exposed back in the 80s and had to file for bankruptcy.  And now he’s BACK!  And bringing in millions (one news source said he brings in 600K/yr as does his wife and kids, all while driving a 100K car and living in a 2.1 million dollar mansion [or 2.4 mil]), over his “free” miracle manna and spring water.  Oh, it’s “true” that you get it free… but apparently if you want god to bless you, it’s required you sent him multiple checks.

Now I’m sure there’s laws against this (as he lawsuits have shown) — but something needs to be passed to prevent anyone from being taken in by them.  I know what many would think, too great of chance of discriminating or just a freedom of speach thing.  But here’s the thing, the stuff I’m talking about can be tested by a third party to see if it’s a scam.

The finally fast has been tested and found to contain bad software things.  Any enlargement things… well to be honest unless it’s a one-pill never need another (i.e. you don’t need on it for life as it’s just herbs and spices), it’s a scam.  And with Popoff… he’s knocked down by ministers for being a fraud.  It’s good that the internet exists for things like this so people can be more careful, but when you’ve got commercials for products that the #1 function of the product is to take your money – the #2 being to do the job it does, that’s when you’ve got a problem.

I do know that businesses want to make money, and that’s their main goal.  But I’m not talking about that.  A business might create a brand new television to make money, but they’re also wanting to improve on existing things.  It’s not like taking some spices on your spice rack, tossing it into in a pill and say “it makes you larger!  $50 please for 30!”  When the ingredients cost maybe 5 cents a pill.

I’m not even sure exactly what to do without causing potential problems for legitimate people, it is a touchy thing.  But something needs to be done to prevent them from being put on television before thousands fall victim to the scam.

It’s what organizations seem to be great at doing — wasting time doing stupid stuff.  It’s no that the things they waste time on are stupid in themselves, but they’re just things that don’t really mater overall.

It’s like an organization that wants to implement a new idea, let’s say whether or not to redesign their website, but instead of saying “new website with x, y, z: yes or no?” they do the following:

- Person A says “We need a new website with the following items [list of all the items in categories and subcategories, even with a summary and purpose section]”

- Person B says “we can’t vote on that!!!!  The proposal isn’t in the approved format!  It’s suposed to be [format template]”

- Person C says “but we never voted on that format, we just make proposals in the clearest way”

- Person B says “we need to implement the proposal I said since it’s the standard”

- Person C says “what standard?  we can implement whatever we want for our organization…”

(and so on, and so on…..)

- Person B says “you can’t just implement something person D says because person D said it!  The only reason it was approved was the people who disagreed left”

- Person C says “so a vote with the majority approving doesn’t count…. because they don’t agree with you?”

(ensue the fighting until personal attacks happen and a cooling off period takes place)

[months/years later]

- “Hey everyone!  We still need a new website…..”

Sadly I’m not even eggerating… corporations, politicians, even organizations spend tons of time messing around to take care of things that don’t matter — such as the method to make a proposal to do something — instead of taking on the actual problem!

Life’s short, and there’s enough messed up things in the world as it it that deserve attention.  Wasting time debating on the method to use to submit the idea needs to be stopped.

A lot of things are going on right now… and some things will be postponed a bit more than I had planned.

I remember the days when people said “you don’t read the paper??? But how do you get the news!”

I haven’t gotten the paper in over two years now — because it stopped reporting the news.  Oh, they’d report maybe one full page of local news, obits, letter to the editor (some days), and two pages for sports, and two for classifieds, with about two more pages of advertising.  But that’s it.

And I know many are probably saying “but that’s onen page of local news!”  Yeah… if you consider “local business gets a new copy machine!” as front-page worthy news.  Or even “hospital gets new doctor!” (we’ve had one doctor ariive, get sued and leave, get sued at another place and leave, get sued at the other place and leave, then come back as the “best new doctor!”).  We had a place get robbed — never made it to the paper.  Fire?  Only if they feel like it.  Sex scandel?  Only if it’s someone who isn’t known in town.  Drug arrest?  Only if the person’s not known.

When the paper starts to filter what people do and don’t see — and considers things such as “new copy machine” front-page worthy — but not “local politician wanted for soliciting sex with underage girl”… doesn’t make you want to run out and see what’s going on.

I hope it’s not a trend everywhere.  It’s a sad thing when newspapers and media agencies think “news is what we say it is, and depends on who’s doing it” and not “news is everywhere”.

This is one of the stranger things I’ve ever heard of, and not entirely right either.  Apparently in my small town, the power company “forgot” or just decided not to send out people to read the meters for the past three months.  As many know, those were the summer months for the USA.  You know — the months where people have to run the air to manage not to fill a tub with sweat.

So guess what happened this month?  If you said “a power bill 2-3x the normal amount” you’d be right!

Apparently, despite it being the summer months, the power company just charged the “no heat or air conditioning electric bill price” for the months.  It apparently never occured to them to charge say, $50-75 more a month and then consider it a credit if people didn’t use that much.  Or for that matter, not say “here’s your bill that’s up to 3x as much as normal (talking a $300-1000 bill for some home people) and say “yep, it’s still due this month!”