An Open Letter to the Striking Students at LA Unified

Shut the fuck up and get back to class

So, you want to strike to prevent Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off teachers. Really? Which one of you mensas decided this? Are you sure it wasn’t just an excuse to get a four day weekend?

Lets work through some numbers (I doubt you did this) and see if your ’strike’ makes any sense…
But before we do that, how about we start with a basic understanding of how our economy works.

The people establish a government, so keep things running smoothly and to provide services to the masses that an individual, on his/her own, could not do for themselves. These services are funded by those being supported paying for the services rendered. These payments are called ‘taxes.’ In some cases, some people benefit from these services without paying their complete share. In the context of this ’strike’ those people are YOU.

Of course you can’t pay your complete share, you don’t have a full-time jobs, you are students, and we (the rest of the country) understand this; we don’t expect you to pay the same amount in taxes as your parents. If you were not students, many people would call you ‘scammers,’ and ‘cheaters‘ for not paying your own way.

Well, it turns out that some (many) of your parents are greedy people and are not paying their own way either. If you had taken time to read the newspaper instead of sitting behind your (insert game console or crack pipe reference here), you might have heard about something called ‘The Economy.’ The Economy is in the shitter now because many of your parents decided to buy homes that they could not afford, buy cars, boats, Travertine countertops, and toys for you. They did this by inflating being irresponsible with their finances (take a look at http://housingpanic.blogspot.com for more info). During the ride UP in so-called value, government entities were able to spend more money and provide more services to those whom it served. Since the gains in value were really an illusion, the government now no longer has the funds to provide these ramped up services.

The result of this: LA Unified cannot afford to pay the teachers it needs to have on board to teach YOU, the non-paying freeloader, because of your parents (the greedy bastards).

Are you striking against the right people? Hell no! You should be on strike against your parents. Of course, that would not get you a day off so you can pretend that you are doing something for the greater good.

Oh, did you know that the school district receives money for every day a student in IN CLASS? This is called Average Daily Attendance (ADA), and is the primary way that schools get funded by the state. Each day that each one of you is not in class, the school district looses money.

Other things that cost money:

• Police Protection (City, County, and LA Unified)
• Street Maintenance
• Public Transportation
• Private transportation

Back to the topic at hand….

No Taxes = no funds for services (for everyone, including freeloading students)
Strikes do not magically create funds
Strikes by students reduce the funds available by the school district to PAY FOR TEACHERS by reducing ADA and increasing costs for security and student protection.

A working strike needs to have sacrifice, size, and publicity to work. You have none of these on your side. Why?

You are ’striking’ on a Friday before a three-day weekend. What great sacrifice; you get a four day weekend for not showing up to class. Why not do this during a teacher in-session day WHEN CLASS IS NOT IN SESSION and you use your already free time (sacrifice), could get more students (size) and better publicity? Who is paying attention to the news on the start of a three-day weekend? Nobody.

Kids, seriously, if you want to play in the big league, you need to think big league.

In the meantime, shut the fuck up you free-loading kids and get back to class.

Grand Circuit 2009 Plans On Hold

I suppose that this kind of thing happens when you work in a small company, but it is the first time in my 20 years working with startups that it has happened to ME.

The time authorized (vacation time) for this trip, approved over a month ago, has just been canceled by my company’s CEO. Turns out that he wants to go on an overseas trip with his family during the same time that was approved for my event. Since this is a small company and we both can’t be gone at the same time, his time off is more important than mine.

The result of this? The established schedule for the Grand Circuit trip has been scrapped, with the very high chance that the trip is completely canceled, as I spent over a month balancing projects to simply get this time free of large installations; there are no other two-week windows this year.

I apologize to the all of the people that I have worked with on location scheduling, media coordination, and the multiple sponsors for the trip. Each of you will contacted shortly with detailed information regarding the status of this event. Sponsors will receive all of their contributions back and I will attempt to provide donations to the charities involved.

-greg

Just a rumor, but….

Microsoft may be in the process of purchasing Cisco.

From list of things to NOT do at work.

Don’t do this. Really.

New colleague’s first day at work, and you’re the only person in the office, so YOU get the first few words with the newbie.

It’s all fine and dandy to make small talk, but don’t do this:

You: … and this is where you get your office supplies. just one more question, what is your blood type?

Newbie: What?

You: I just need that information in case something goes wrong with your first-day training. Sometimes, there are some complications with new staff who are not ‘of the body.’ I just need to check the fridge to see if we have a few bottles of your type available.

Newbie: WHAT?

You: Don’t worry, we haven’t had to do any emergency transfusions for the last few months. I’m sure your first day will go just fine, just fine..

Newbie: You’re joking, right?

You: Oh yea, I’m just joking. By the way, the fridge is back here, please don’t use the bottles that have the red liquid in them.

And with that, the boss walks in and takes over the rest of the first day duties. The bottle in the fridge? Just my Crystal Light cranberry mix (I’m on a diet).

Again, Don’t do this. Trust me, it sounds funny (and it was), but it can leave everlasting scars (at least that’s what her lawyer told me).