Category: Business

Fuck Off Granddad, They Explained

Business

As a sexagenarian who has pretty much resigned himself to an employment future which consists of WalMart greeter or Uber driver, I read this little piece (found at Insty’s) with something of a mordant attitude:

A few weeks ago, Verizon placed an ad on Facebook to recruit applicants for a unit focused on financial planning and analysis. The ad showed a smiling, millennial-aged woman seated at a computer and promised that new hires could look forward to a rewarding career in which they would be “more than just a number.”
Some relevant numbers were not immediately evident. The promotion was set to run on the Facebook feeds of users 25 to 36 years old who lived in the nation’s capital, or had recently visited there, and had demonstrated an interest in finance. For a vast majority of the hundreds of millions of people who check Facebook every day, the ad did not exist.

In other words, they’re only interested in hiring younger people — no doubt because inexperienced young people don’t cost as much in salaries as experienced older people who might actually, you know, be productive on Day One.

Fine; it’s their business, let ’em hire who they want. When companies like Verizon discover that their future employees have the loyalty of dockside prostitutes and are not only ignorant of finance beyond their student debt, but insist on being accommodated in all their snowflake demands, the companies deserve everything that happens to them.

Older employees are not only more knowledgeable about the work, they’re also less demanding because they’ve walked this road many times before and understand how the world works.

For myself, I’m perfectly happy to try and find some kind of employment which makes me my own boss — the thought of working for Global MegaCorp Inc., with all its bullshit PC workplace regulations, makes me feel slightly ill. And by the way, Verizon is guilty of a bald-faced fucking lie in the above ad: all their employees below a certain level in the hierarchy are just numbers — witness how layoffs always refer to “headcount” which, lest anyone doesn’t know, is a number.

And just in case anyone from Global MegaCorp / Verizon happens to read this post, allow me to be completely honest with you: go fuck yourself.  I don’t need your pissy little job that badly, even though I could probably do it in my sleep. And frankly, if you don’t hire the best person for the job regardless of age, you’re even bigger fools than I thought you were.

And just FYI: I don’t read Faecesbook anyway.

Cult News

Business

My hostility towards Apple (the company and its poxy little products) is a well-known fact of this blog. It dates back to when I first used an Apple IIe — I was the very first person at the Great Big Research Company to own a personal computer, back in the early 1980s — and discovered that while the Apple was a fun toy, it clearly lacked the serious horsepower to perform any complex or large data management/manipulation. And that situation never changed.

Along the way, though, Apple developed into a cult: first of personality, through its founder/tinpot dictator Steve Jobs, and then its ethos, through its “cool” design and cutesy, “user-friendly” operation.

The writing was on the wall, though. For such a cool company, Apple was always remarkably totalitarian — closed operating systems, inflexible programs, antagonistic towards non-corporate developers and hostility to DIY improvement and maintenance by its users — witness the “unlocking” commotion when the iPhone originally mandated AT&T phone service with its product. Without the logo and corporate blessing, it seemed, everything was pretty much streng verboten — but implicit with all this, as with so many totalitarian systems, was the promise of “Trust Apple”.

So much for trust. It appears that Apple has been caught with its grubby little fingers in some pretty shameful corporate skulduggery, slowing down the operating system of its older iPhones to “persuade” users to upgrade to newer (and, of course, more expensive and more profitable) models:

Apple has long inspired an almost religious devotion among customers and tech aficionados — but it just seriously undermined its fans’ faith and loyalty.
The company on Wednesday acknowledged what some people have long suspected: that it has been secretly stifling the performance of older iPhones.
Critics have accused the company in the past, based on anecdotal evidence, of purposely slowing phones to compel users to upgrade to the latest model.
While Apple admitted to the practice on Wednesday, it sought to underscore that it had done so for a purely altruistic reason: to prevent older phones from shutting down unexpectedly.

Yeah, of course you only had good intentions, you bastards. That’s like telling the judge you raped the woman not for your own benefit, but so that she could have an orgasm.

And this is not the usual weasel “some rogue employees done it” bullshit: this was corporate policy. Management had a meeting, and decided on this action.

There are two lessons to be learned from this little bit of malfeasance. The first is for Apple users: your little idol has not only feet of clay, but claws under the velvet glove. (Non-Apple users like me have known this for some time, but all we got was abuse from Apple acolytes and groupies.) Enjoy your pain and disillusionment.

The second lesson is a broader one for all of us: Never trust a corporation, no matter how altruistic they may sound, even when — and maybe especially when — their corporate mantra is “Don’t be evil”. Your benefit is not their primary concern; their primary concern is either market share or profit, or both.

I’m not saying that this is a Bad Thing, necessarily; profit is the sole purpose of a corporation, after all. Just don’t let them fool you into thinking that your benefit won’t get compromised if it interferes with their ultimate goal (see: Microsoft, elimination of Outlook Express, MS Paint, etc., to name just one other example).

And cultists are always easiest to fool because all religious adherents are easier to fool, by whatever deity they follow, be it companies like Apple, charities like the United Way, or Big Government.

Don’t be gullible, don’t be fooled by the marketing and the PR, don’t follow the herd, don’t be loyal. Trust no one, and  especially do not trust institutions created by men for motives of profit or power, because ultimately, you too will get “throttled”.

No More Reason Needed

Business, Food & Drink, Politics

If ever you want to know why Britain’s leaving the EU (“Brexit”) is not only a Good Thing, but absolutely vital, here’s proof:

A change in European Union rules could see doner kebabs banned across the continent, infuriating takeaways and fast-food lovers.
The European Union’s legislature is moving to ban the phosphates used in the slabs of meat at the heart of the popular street snack that originated in Turkey.
Up-in-arms kebab vendors in Germany have skewered the idea.
EU lawmakers are citing health concerns based on studies that linked phosphates to cardiovascular disease.

Just so we’re all clear what’s being discussed here, this is what these tools want to ban:

Lamb Shwarma happens to be one of my favorite “fast foods”; and nobody tell my kids about this or else there’ll be murders (as they say Over Here). Along with pizza and crêpes, doner was one of their staple street foods when we traveled together in Euroland: cheap, filling and delicious; and if these disappeared from Europe, it would be a major disincentive to go there. I’m not kidding.

And if the above pic has made yer mouth start to water, I’m sorry (not really).

 

 

In The Red

Business, Numbers & Statistics, Politics

In the Daily Telegraph, Matthew Lynn explains what happens when the coffers start to run dry across Europe:

[Last Tuesday] was the day when France ran out of money. As of Nov 7, all the money the government raises through its taxes – and this being France, there are literally dozens of them – had been spent. The rest of the year is financed completely on tick [credit].

In other words, for the French government to continue to function, the rest of November and all of December requires that they borrow money — i.e. run a current account deficit.

Most governments these days do the same, of course: the article goes on to point out that Spain likewise ran out of money on Saturday Nov 11, Romania on Nov 13, Poland will be broke on Nov 21, and Italy on Nov 26. The UK, astonishingly, will run out of money on December 7, while of the other large numbers, only Germany (duh) and Sweden (!!!) will be funded into the new year from their current tax incomes.

So, you may ask, how does the U.S.A. stack up against these spendthrift Euro countries?

We ran out of money in mid-October.

Feel free to write to your Congressweasel, or else sharpen the pitchforks, pluck the chickens and heat up the tar. Guess which action I prefer.

 

Bloody Commies

Business, Politics

Given the history of Communism’s brutality, the headline could be regarded as a truism, but in this case it’s simply an insult. Red Robbo has died, and sadly, far too long after he should have. Leo McKinstry describes it perfectly:

Leyland had inherited great motoring marques such as Austin and Rover but, in large part because of Robinson’s malign influence and that of others in his thrall, quality and innovation rapidly declined.
Increasingly synonymous with shoddiness, the company struggled to compete in the marketplace — not that Robinson cared. As a far Left ideologue, he did not believe in the market. [emphasis added]
But his gospel of permanent workplace revolt exposed a fundamental paradox of Robinson’s career: the man who constantly prattled about the protection of workers’ rights was the greatest destroyer of jobs in the UK motor sector.

But there’s a bright side to this bastard Commie’s activities, as McKinstry notes:

Through his spectacular recklessness, he ultimately repelled the British public and paved the way for the election of Margaret Thatcher — she described him in her memoirs as a ‘notorious agitator’ — with a mandate to tackle the unions. His very name was a vote-winning weapon for the Conservatives in 1979.
It is a rich irony that, in his communist fervour, Red Robbo was inadvertently one of the Tories’ strongest allies as they embarked on ending Labour’s disastrous experiment in trades union domination.

Needless to say, the death of this ghastly pustule has had all the current Commies in the Labour Party lauding his career because that’s what Commies do, the fuckheads.

Wherever Robinson is now, I hope the temperature is set to “Broil”…