Today's topic: Office e-mails
If you've ever worked in an office, especially an office tied to a government organization, then you are probably going to relate with the following statements. If you have not worked in an office and plan to, you'll find out about this soon enough. If you don't plan on working in an office, then read it anyway to find out what us "office people" deal with.
Just about every day there are office e-mails that circulate amongst the various staff members of that particular office. Most are harmless and involve correspondence between 2 or 3 people who need to share important information. This is not problematic. However, there is a type of e-mail that also gets circulated around that just really grinds my chair wheels.
This e-mail is the "Everyone" e-mail. This is an e-mail that contains vital, essential office information such as, "We're having a sale on used toilet brushes on the 2nd floor basement! Hurry quick! They're going fast!" Or else they'll contain messages such as, "The ultrahyper system in the 4th floor office was marginalized with a 4% return ratio on rationalized data. The IT team is currently working to retrofit the prospectus and the system is expected to be functioning normally within a millenium." These messages really only have appeal to, and really only need to be sent to, a few people. But, whoever is sending out the e-mails apparently thinks that the names of these people are "Everyone" and types that into the "To:" area of Outlook Express. Then, the chain reaction begins.
First, the e-mail is sent to everyone. Most people see the subject line (e.g. Important, Vital Information to Office Safety!) and immediately delete it. But there are a few people (whom the e-mail was originally intended for) who read it. Then they suddenly realize that the "Everyone" in the subject line really meant, "Just you, e-mail reader," and then they forward it to "Everyone" AGAIN! But just to add to the fun, they add some other peoples' names to the e-mail to make sure that some of their closest friends and family outside the organziation can be "in the know" when it comes to their work. So the e-mail gets sent to everyone again.
Then, as with the first e-mail, most people will notice the subject line: "FWD:" and immediately delete the e-mail. But then those people outside the organization who received the e-mail receive it and read it. Then they, being overly concerned with the office's information circulation system, RE-SEND the e-mail, just in case that past message didn't manage to get to everyone in the office. But they don't just send it back, they add a little tag line to the top like, "Thanks for the info, Jane Doe!" (Of course the person's name wouldn't be Jane Doe, unless the respondant really wanted to keep that person's name anonymous, which would probably be better served saying, "Thanks for the info, anonymous information heralder!")
By this time, the people who are included in that "Everyone" tag line are getting a bit upset about receiving the same information multiple times (once was enough...). So this causes the receivers of the e-mail to try to go insane learning programming so they can send viruses to the people who resend "Everyone" e-mails. Now, I can understand why some people would be tempted to send "Everyone" e-mails multiple times. I'm sure somewhere in the vacant hall that is their brain that they believe each person's definition of "Everyone" is different, especially when it comes to standardized Outlook Express settings. When we think of "Everyone," especially in an office setting, we might think of that term meaning everyone in the office, or everyone on the floor, or everyone I talk to on a regular basis, or everyone within a 2-foot radius of me. So, they might have assumed that the original sender's "Everyone" meant only a handfull of specially select people whom were destined to receive important information and spread it to us lesser information gatherers. So, not wanting us to be left "out of the loop," and out of the generosity of their hearts, they resend the message, just in case.
But this "Everyone" e-mail isn't the only "Everyone" e-mail out there. There are others too. I think the ones that are more annoying than the useless information e-mails are what I like to call the "Whiny Me" e-mails. As the name suggests, the e-mails consist of one person announcing to the whole office that they spilled some sort of fluid on their keyboard and, "for some strange reason," it stopped working. That and they demand that IT get on it "right away" lest the office get swept up in a tide of inactivity since everyone else's work depends on theirs.
But in all honesty, those e-mails aren't sent out. It just seems like they are. They really say, "I can't access my server! I need my server! We were supposed to go to lunch this afternoon! How am I supposed to get my work done without my server!?!?!?" And so IT, being the highly-trained, elite response force that they are, sits around and drinks coffee. Then when the caffeine rush kicks in, they start drinking coffee faster. It isn't until that second caffeine rush kicks in that they actually start reading the 5,000,000 complaints that came into their office within the last minute. Then, at lightning speed, they immediately begin sending e-mails telling the people that they're going to have to assign the problem to someone else.
And, of course, this is all going on in "Everyone" e-mails. But there is a measure of enjoyment that exists within these e-mails. You get your own mini soap opera while you're in your office. "Will John's e-mail get transferred by Jane to Janet? Will Jane transfer it back to Steve? Will John ever make the lunch date with his server? Find out on the next episode of, THE E-MAILS OF OUR LIVES!"
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some e-mails that I have to reply to.
Monday, March 24, 2008
A treatise on why college students don't vote
Upon writing my new status message [on FaceBook] and going to the restroom immediately afterward, I had an epiphany. I finally learned the reason why many college students don't vote. My answer: HOMEWORK.
That's right. I said it. The reason why college students don't vote is because they are swamped with homework. Come election time, college students usually have this mindset, "Man, there's a midterm coming up this week and due to all of the homework I've had, I haven't even had the chance to read any of the material that I'm supposed to read for it. Let alone the material I was supposed to be reading in the first place for the class. How am I supposed to read the information on all those NEW PROPOSITIONS that the governor and random people keep asking me to pass? How am I even supposed to know who to vote for for President when I don't even know what's the co secant of the tangent of 3? Plus I think the election is some sort of an exam... What if I fail? What if I bubble in the wrong person? Well, since they say the test is voluntary, I might as well just study what I know, advanced physics and United States History from the years 1893-1894."
When the youth finally got Congress to pass the amendment allowing persons age 18 and older to vote, Congress immediately passed the "Never-ending Homework Bill," which, by law, requires that all college-level professors to hand out never-ending amounts of homework assignments, requiring them to add on items as the assignment due date approaches, and double the necessary reading requirements for each class period. There are some professors who follow this law wholeheartedly (such as my accounting professor) and others who rebel and think the idea of homework is, in technical, professory terms, "stupid." The aim of the bill was to keep college students so wrapped up in their school lives that when it came time to vote, their stress level would already be too high and the thought of voting would send them into shock. This would prevent any college student from voting until they got out of college, got a job, and actually started paying taxes (not to mention campaign contributions).
Did you ever notice that whenever you talk to your parents about their homeworkload during college, or even your grandparents' homeworkload during college they'll always say, "I never had THAT much homework when I was in school..." Of course not, they couldn't vote. That's why Congress didn't care that professors didn't assign huge homework assignments that took people forever to finish. Perhaps I'm writing this because I had an epiphany or perhaps I'm just writing this because I don't want to do my endless supply of homework, but mainly I'm writing it because I'm feeling creative today, too creative to do homework.
That's right. I said it. The reason why college students don't vote is because they are swamped with homework. Come election time, college students usually have this mindset, "Man, there's a midterm coming up this week and due to all of the homework I've had, I haven't even had the chance to read any of the material that I'm supposed to read for it. Let alone the material I was supposed to be reading in the first place for the class. How am I supposed to read the information on all those NEW PROPOSITIONS that the governor and random people keep asking me to pass? How am I even supposed to know who to vote for for President when I don't even know what's the co secant of the tangent of 3? Plus I think the election is some sort of an exam... What if I fail? What if I bubble in the wrong person? Well, since they say the test is voluntary, I might as well just study what I know, advanced physics and United States History from the years 1893-1894."
When the youth finally got Congress to pass the amendment allowing persons age 18 and older to vote, Congress immediately passed the "Never-ending Homework Bill," which, by law, requires that all college-level professors to hand out never-ending amounts of homework assignments, requiring them to add on items as the assignment due date approaches, and double the necessary reading requirements for each class period. There are some professors who follow this law wholeheartedly (such as my accounting professor) and others who rebel and think the idea of homework is, in technical, professory terms, "stupid." The aim of the bill was to keep college students so wrapped up in their school lives that when it came time to vote, their stress level would already be too high and the thought of voting would send them into shock. This would prevent any college student from voting until they got out of college, got a job, and actually started paying taxes (not to mention campaign contributions).
Did you ever notice that whenever you talk to your parents about their homeworkload during college, or even your grandparents' homeworkload during college they'll always say, "I never had THAT much homework when I was in school..." Of course not, they couldn't vote. That's why Congress didn't care that professors didn't assign huge homework assignments that took people forever to finish. Perhaps I'm writing this because I had an epiphany or perhaps I'm just writing this because I don't want to do my endless supply of homework, but mainly I'm writing it because I'm feeling creative today, too creative to do homework.
Random thoughts of a working man (sort of...)
Thought #1:
I was looking at some pictures on FaceBook and I saw some pictures for a Colored Student Conference. I got to thinking, "These groups are interesting..." I do believe in equal rights, minority representation, and all that, but the one thing I don't understand is how few "white" people there are in these groups. The last time I checked, white was a color too.
Scientifically speaking, white is the color that encompasses all colors. The color white is produced when all the colors of the spectrum go unreflected through the atmosphere and then reflect off of a surface into our eyes. Scientifically speaking, white is the most colorful color. Racially speaking, white is devoid of color. Somehow in the spectrum of things, white people in a "white-person's world" somehow lack color when other ethnic minorities have their own color. Now I'm not saying that ethnic minorities don't deserve some special recognition in the "white-person's world," but I'm just saying that the focus of these groups are to attract students of ethnic minorities while basically saying, "If you're white you can join if you want, but you're not our target audience." This brings that question, "When was white considered a non-color?" And speaking of that, "white" people were predjudiced when they came to America during the Industrial Revolution. Anybody who wasn't a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (known henceforth as WASPs) was persecuted by those who were. We have months, special festivals, and all of these sorts of things for "colored" minority groups while no special event (to my knowledge) is given to the people who came over to America and faced this kind of persecution. Now, I'm all for the special events dedicated to "colored" history (I love learning about other cultures), but I don't understand why they can't simply make a national culture month which takes into account all races, all religions, all ethnicities, and whatnot, and explain their contribution to our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-colored nation?
We students have enough problems not mobilizing politically and getting raped by older generations, looking at college tuitions going up, student services being cut, aide for education going down, social security disappearing, wars being fought in our name without our consent, and so much more that we don't need to focus on a "colored" student conference. Let's just have a Student Conference where anybody of any color can come in and speak for the collective good of everyone.
Thought #2:
Ordering sandwiches can be fun and aggrivating. The two big sandwich places I go to for lunch (other than home) are Subway and Toni's Catering & Deli. Now when I go to Toni's there's a couple of sandwiches that I choose from, although I swear I'm going to try new ones all the time, and depending on who I get as the sandwich maker depends on my experience. There are 4 people there who make the sandwiches on a regular basis and 2 are more pleasant while the other 2 are less pleasant. It has nothing to do with their personality, mind you, but the fact that 2 ask what you want on the sandwich and the other 2 assume what you want on the sandwich. The two who make assumptions usually frustrate me because there is a pretty high counter blocking the view of the sandwich-making process and I can't tell what they're doing, or what they're putting on the sandwich.
One time I ordered a French Dip, which I expected to be a roll with roast beef that contained a side of aus jus that I could dip the thing in (like Arby's does). When I opened the sandwich up after receiving it, I saw a roll, with roast beef, like expected, but then there were these two white, dairy-like products sitting between the bread and the beef. One of the two dairy-like products could only be identified by several experts (namely my ex-co-worker Amanda and myself) as Swiss Cheese. The other dairy-like substance was identified by the same experts as "something resembling mayonaisse." Regardless, in my opinion mayonaisse should never be allowed to come within a nauticle mile of aus jus. I decided I would be brave and after removing the cheese I attempted to eat the sandwich with the mayonaisse-ish substance with the aus jus. The result was extreme nausea. After finishing most of one half of the sandwich, I had to scrape the gunk off of the other half. But the moral of this paragraph is that when I order sandwiches at Tony's Catering & Deli, I have to think of what I want to order BEFOREHAND, which is something I hate doing. I like deciding what I want to eat after browsing the menu for an hour and then finally making a decision, much to the delight of the people standing in the line behind me, hoping I make a decision before their lunch hour is up.
The other two people always ask if I want the cheese, if I want the condiments put on the sandwich, and ask me if I want any additional items on the sandwich. Kind of like the questions you'd ask yourself when making a sandwich, which is what going to a sandwich shop should be like. I like their sandwiches a lot more. But I think that's largely due to the lack of a gag reflex when attempting to digest the white menace the other 2 put on the sandwich.
With Subway, it's always an adventure. I like my sandwiches with all of the vegetables. Although 99% of the time I order a meatball sub, it's always fun to try and watch the sandwich person try to wrap up the sandwich I make. The last time I ordered a sandwich from Subway, the first guy who tried to wrap my sub ended up ceading his position to another sandwich maker and took his spot. It took the other sandwich maker about a minute to clumsily wrap up the sandwich (and I think he did it mostly because there was a huge line behind me). I had to smile when that was going on. It gives me pride when my sandwiches give other people grief.
Thought #3
Dave Barry is hilarious. If you haven't read any of his newspaper articles or read any of his books (which are mostly his newspaper articles), then go read his stuff. It's side-splitting comedy. It'll be the most fun you've had in about a day, which would really depend on the day. But his stuff gets me laughing so hard that I start crying. It's that good. And while I'm a person who will laugh at just about anything, I have to say his stuff really gets the giggle glands going.
I was looking at some pictures on FaceBook and I saw some pictures for a Colored Student Conference. I got to thinking, "These groups are interesting..." I do believe in equal rights, minority representation, and all that, but the one thing I don't understand is how few "white" people there are in these groups. The last time I checked, white was a color too.
Scientifically speaking, white is the color that encompasses all colors. The color white is produced when all the colors of the spectrum go unreflected through the atmosphere and then reflect off of a surface into our eyes. Scientifically speaking, white is the most colorful color. Racially speaking, white is devoid of color. Somehow in the spectrum of things, white people in a "white-person's world" somehow lack color when other ethnic minorities have their own color. Now I'm not saying that ethnic minorities don't deserve some special recognition in the "white-person's world," but I'm just saying that the focus of these groups are to attract students of ethnic minorities while basically saying, "If you're white you can join if you want, but you're not our target audience." This brings that question, "When was white considered a non-color?" And speaking of that, "white" people were predjudiced when they came to America during the Industrial Revolution. Anybody who wasn't a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (known henceforth as WASPs) was persecuted by those who were. We have months, special festivals, and all of these sorts of things for "colored" minority groups while no special event (to my knowledge) is given to the people who came over to America and faced this kind of persecution. Now, I'm all for the special events dedicated to "colored" history (I love learning about other cultures), but I don't understand why they can't simply make a national culture month which takes into account all races, all religions, all ethnicities, and whatnot, and explain their contribution to our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-colored nation?
We students have enough problems not mobilizing politically and getting raped by older generations, looking at college tuitions going up, student services being cut, aide for education going down, social security disappearing, wars being fought in our name without our consent, and so much more that we don't need to focus on a "colored" student conference. Let's just have a Student Conference where anybody of any color can come in and speak for the collective good of everyone.
Thought #2:
Ordering sandwiches can be fun and aggrivating. The two big sandwich places I go to for lunch (other than home) are Subway and Toni's Catering & Deli. Now when I go to Toni's there's a couple of sandwiches that I choose from, although I swear I'm going to try new ones all the time, and depending on who I get as the sandwich maker depends on my experience. There are 4 people there who make the sandwiches on a regular basis and 2 are more pleasant while the other 2 are less pleasant. It has nothing to do with their personality, mind you, but the fact that 2 ask what you want on the sandwich and the other 2 assume what you want on the sandwich. The two who make assumptions usually frustrate me because there is a pretty high counter blocking the view of the sandwich-making process and I can't tell what they're doing, or what they're putting on the sandwich.
One time I ordered a French Dip, which I expected to be a roll with roast beef that contained a side of aus jus that I could dip the thing in (like Arby's does). When I opened the sandwich up after receiving it, I saw a roll, with roast beef, like expected, but then there were these two white, dairy-like products sitting between the bread and the beef. One of the two dairy-like products could only be identified by several experts (namely my ex-co-worker Amanda and myself) as Swiss Cheese. The other dairy-like substance was identified by the same experts as "something resembling mayonaisse." Regardless, in my opinion mayonaisse should never be allowed to come within a nauticle mile of aus jus. I decided I would be brave and after removing the cheese I attempted to eat the sandwich with the mayonaisse-ish substance with the aus jus. The result was extreme nausea. After finishing most of one half of the sandwich, I had to scrape the gunk off of the other half. But the moral of this paragraph is that when I order sandwiches at Tony's Catering & Deli, I have to think of what I want to order BEFOREHAND, which is something I hate doing. I like deciding what I want to eat after browsing the menu for an hour and then finally making a decision, much to the delight of the people standing in the line behind me, hoping I make a decision before their lunch hour is up.
The other two people always ask if I want the cheese, if I want the condiments put on the sandwich, and ask me if I want any additional items on the sandwich. Kind of like the questions you'd ask yourself when making a sandwich, which is what going to a sandwich shop should be like. I like their sandwiches a lot more. But I think that's largely due to the lack of a gag reflex when attempting to digest the white menace the other 2 put on the sandwich.
With Subway, it's always an adventure. I like my sandwiches with all of the vegetables. Although 99% of the time I order a meatball sub, it's always fun to try and watch the sandwich person try to wrap up the sandwich I make. The last time I ordered a sandwich from Subway, the first guy who tried to wrap my sub ended up ceading his position to another sandwich maker and took his spot. It took the other sandwich maker about a minute to clumsily wrap up the sandwich (and I think he did it mostly because there was a huge line behind me). I had to smile when that was going on. It gives me pride when my sandwiches give other people grief.
Thought #3
Dave Barry is hilarious. If you haven't read any of his newspaper articles or read any of his books (which are mostly his newspaper articles), then go read his stuff. It's side-splitting comedy. It'll be the most fun you've had in about a day, which would really depend on the day. But his stuff gets me laughing so hard that I start crying. It's that good. And while I'm a person who will laugh at just about anything, I have to say his stuff really gets the giggle glands going.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Politics
I think in this upcoming election we need to seriously take a look at our political state in this country.
When it comes to us younger Americans, we have a large responsibility for our future. At the current moment we are not only responsible for our own expenses within the government (education, roads, defense budget, social security, etc.), we're responsible for the previous generations' expenses too. Our generation has to face the reality that the previous generation (people who were born between 1960 through 1980) has not paid for any major governmental expense. They have grown up with the philosophy that bigger is better, more is better, excess is the best. This has resulted in their huge support for the "trickle down" theory of taxation, which is known as supply side economics.
This theory of economic policy basically states that when you put money into the hands of people who own businesses, lower corporate taxation, and keep taxes as low as possible that money will "trickle down" into the hands of the middle and lower class through the investment of business. The richest citizens will put money into stocks, do entrepreneurial investments, and invest in their own private businesses. Corporations will expand their operations, opening new stores, new warehouses, new production facilities, and whatnot. This will result in new jobs for the middle and lower classes and thus putting money into their hands, generating more taxation revenue, and allowing for greater demand for the nation's goods. There is a huge philosophical problem with this idea when it is combined with capitalistic philosophy.
The need of American corporations to maintain high profit margins and increase upon the previous year's profit shows that when corporations gain a tax benefit, they won't spend it building new facilities in the United States, they'll use the money to either contract out labor, manufacturing, or other aspects of their industry in the name of saving money and increasing profits. So with the reduced tax expense that corporations will be paying to the government they record record profits, all the while paying less money to a foreign nationality to produce the goods they sell here for several times the production price. The end result of this corporate cycle is the corporations make more money while paying less to the government, resulting in more outsourced American jobs, less money from the American middle and lower classes going into tax revenue and reducing revenue.
When rich people gain more money, what exactly do they do with it? If they really wanted to be productive with it, they would distribute it amongst the average, everyday people to spend it on items that would stimulate the economy. However, they buy a yacht, a new $20,000,000 house, and a new high-end car (probably manufactured in Europe). How in the hell does this benefit the American people? What can a rich person possibly do with another $2,000,000 that a group of middle-class or low-class citizens couldn't do? If you give a rich person $2,000,000 they won't know what to do with it. They already have bought everything they want. They won't invest in business when it seems to be a risky investment, especially if their current investments are generating a huge portion of their current income. If I got the tax refund that people like the Bushes, Cheney, Buffet, and Gates received, I would definitely be buying one of the houses that are on the market, buying some new items that I've been desirous to have for a while, and with what I could spend, I would distribute it amongst my family to help them buy what they needed. Although not all people would react in this same way, I'm sure there are enough people who would be willing to do a similar thing with the money they received.
So why did these people believe the hype of this economic philosophy? Really it was a massive lie propagated by the Republican Party of the United States saying that the middle and lower classes would receive the bulk of the tax breaks, and that any tax break passed would inevitably favor them, allowing them to purchase more, have more, and live better. I think we can examine the past several years and see that things amongst the middle and lower classes have not improved. As a matter of fact, many complain that they have gotten worse since the massive desire to outsource has come around. Jobs that would have been done in the United States in the 1970s are now being done almost everywhere except for the United States.
This blog was going to have a much clearer purpose, but I'm a bit tired and it started turning into gibberish and weaving in and out of argument. So I'll write more on this later.
When it comes to us younger Americans, we have a large responsibility for our future. At the current moment we are not only responsible for our own expenses within the government (education, roads, defense budget, social security, etc.), we're responsible for the previous generations' expenses too. Our generation has to face the reality that the previous generation (people who were born between 1960 through 1980) has not paid for any major governmental expense. They have grown up with the philosophy that bigger is better, more is better, excess is the best. This has resulted in their huge support for the "trickle down" theory of taxation, which is known as supply side economics.
This theory of economic policy basically states that when you put money into the hands of people who own businesses, lower corporate taxation, and keep taxes as low as possible that money will "trickle down" into the hands of the middle and lower class through the investment of business. The richest citizens will put money into stocks, do entrepreneurial investments, and invest in their own private businesses. Corporations will expand their operations, opening new stores, new warehouses, new production facilities, and whatnot. This will result in new jobs for the middle and lower classes and thus putting money into their hands, generating more taxation revenue, and allowing for greater demand for the nation's goods. There is a huge philosophical problem with this idea when it is combined with capitalistic philosophy.
The need of American corporations to maintain high profit margins and increase upon the previous year's profit shows that when corporations gain a tax benefit, they won't spend it building new facilities in the United States, they'll use the money to either contract out labor, manufacturing, or other aspects of their industry in the name of saving money and increasing profits. So with the reduced tax expense that corporations will be paying to the government they record record profits, all the while paying less money to a foreign nationality to produce the goods they sell here for several times the production price. The end result of this corporate cycle is the corporations make more money while paying less to the government, resulting in more outsourced American jobs, less money from the American middle and lower classes going into tax revenue and reducing revenue.
When rich people gain more money, what exactly do they do with it? If they really wanted to be productive with it, they would distribute it amongst the average, everyday people to spend it on items that would stimulate the economy. However, they buy a yacht, a new $20,000,000 house, and a new high-end car (probably manufactured in Europe). How in the hell does this benefit the American people? What can a rich person possibly do with another $2,000,000 that a group of middle-class or low-class citizens couldn't do? If you give a rich person $2,000,000 they won't know what to do with it. They already have bought everything they want. They won't invest in business when it seems to be a risky investment, especially if their current investments are generating a huge portion of their current income. If I got the tax refund that people like the Bushes, Cheney, Buffet, and Gates received, I would definitely be buying one of the houses that are on the market, buying some new items that I've been desirous to have for a while, and with what I could spend, I would distribute it amongst my family to help them buy what they needed. Although not all people would react in this same way, I'm sure there are enough people who would be willing to do a similar thing with the money they received.
So why did these people believe the hype of this economic philosophy? Really it was a massive lie propagated by the Republican Party of the United States saying that the middle and lower classes would receive the bulk of the tax breaks, and that any tax break passed would inevitably favor them, allowing them to purchase more, have more, and live better. I think we can examine the past several years and see that things amongst the middle and lower classes have not improved. As a matter of fact, many complain that they have gotten worse since the massive desire to outsource has come around. Jobs that would have been done in the United States in the 1970s are now being done almost everywhere except for the United States.
This blog was going to have a much clearer purpose, but I'm a bit tired and it started turning into gibberish and weaving in and out of argument. So I'll write more on this later.
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