Once Again Off Not by Choice

Unfortunately it happened yet again. I took an unexpected week off. This time I put the blame on a couple different things that happened. The big thing that happened was that my internet connection was interrupted because after receiving a postcard from Time Warner Cable stating that I would have to pay a $3.95 rental charge for my modem effective on the first of November, I decided to go out and purchase my own modem to avoid such charges. This was the smartest move I ever made since the modem I purchased is actually faster than the modem that it replaced. I highly recommend that anybody who has TWC Internet service get their own modem and chances are that the speed will improve for you as well.

The second problem was that the service that I received from TWC has suffered severely in the last week or so as the signal to my neighborhood has been going on and off. Sadly, the only thing that the automated phone line says “we are working on the problem no need to let us know of the problem”. How long does it take to fix a service problem anyway? It has been nearly 3 weeks with this same message.

Finally, third and most importantly, Microsoft released a couple of updates for Windows 7 that created havoc on my primary computer, which made the machine want to boot endlessly and wanted to update itself with the same updates over and over again. Apparently, Microsoft knew this was an issue and released a fix for it, but a new bug update has appeared with the release of Windows 8 to make older operating systems able to communicate with machines with the new Windows.

Overall, it seems that TWC and Microsoft hate me by adding new fees and updates that don’t work. Hopefully, I will be back with a new post either tomorrow or next week, depending on what other weird things happen next. Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Polls and Statistics - Twins of Evil Data Collecting

It seems as though every five minutes some group releases a new political poll in recent weeks. It has gone so bad that as many as a dozen or more different polls are released every day.

In each poll, one person is sometimes substantially ahead of their opponent and in another poll, the numbers favor the other person.

Of course every poll is skewed toward the group that produces the poll. For example, if a Democrat group takes a poll a Democratic candidate gets the better percentage. This is not by accident. It is done to purposely make people think that their candidate is the better person.

It is the number of people who are polled that is the important part of any poll. This sample size has to be large enough to represent the group it is supposed to represent, but not so large as to alter the results. This margin of error should be small enough to make the poll truthful and not favoring any particular result.

So at this point, you may be asking how does this relate to Staples?

Its simple. Staples used all of the customers to determine the amount of rewards cards that employee takes in during their shift. As the day goes on, the lower the percentage becomes. Early in the day and the percentage of customers with cards is high, at night customers rarely had the rewards cards.

So if Staples only took a random sample throughout the day of rewards cards, the numbers would be much more realistic as far as percentage of customers who actually had the cards. But like a crooked poll, Staples believes in the “poll everything” approach, which unfortunately gives an unfair advantage to those who worked later in the day like myself.

As we get closer to Election Day, everybody should pay close attention to the number of people polled and who does the polling. Chances are that the poll is as crooked as the group performing the polling. Just like Staples does everyday with every employee.

When Store Policy and Morals Clash

A little over a week ago, I got a post in my Facebook newsfeed that caught my interest.  The posting dealt with a customer at Walmart who was short of funds and the cashier used her own personal charge card to pay the roughly $8 remaining balance for the customer.

What was so interesting about this post is that many people said “God Bless” this employee or “Kudos to the employee”.  However, there were people like me who were realists that stated that the employee would get fired immediately for her actions.  Ironically, it was only a small handful of people, including myself, who threw the gasoline on this good deed.

But as they say, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”.  This must have been stated by a head of a retail company because many times moral values clash with store policy.  Most stores have the policy that employees cannot carry any money or charge cards on the sales floor.  If they did they would be reprimanded accordingly including up to termination.

However, over my 20+ years in retail, I saw this sort of thing happen 3 times.  There were some major similarities in all 3 instances:

• All 3 were done by females.
• All 3 were in some sort of management position.
• All 3 regretted their decision after performing the action even going as far as saying “Don’t ever do what I just did”.

Ironically, 2 of these were done at Staples and those women were more nervous than the one who performed the action at Woolworth.  Maybe its because Staples has no morals and doesn’t care about the customer.

What this brings me to is that over the nearly 13 years I worked at Staples, I performed several things that I felt were morally justified even though they went against Staples store policy.  I always believe that if something is in the best interest of oneself or a customer then it should be done.  Simply put, store policies should be a guideline, but common sense and good judgment (and good morals) should triumph in every case no exceptions ever.

Lewiston Mayor Gets It Right

It would almost seem that Lewiston Maine mayor Robert Macdonald is cut from the same cloth as the state's governor.  His recent remarks regarding Somalian people might be harsh, but I believe that they are truly justified.  It's bad to think that somebody though would actually say it publicly.  I believe that a lot of people probably feel the same way.

Let's face the reality.  We didn't invite these people into our country nor did we force them to come here.  This state along with other states got screwed into taking these people whether they like it or not.  The mayor is probably angry at the fact that these people are taking many city resources without giving anything back to the community.  It costs money to educate their children and to make matters worse to teach these people English as a second language.  Many probably don't care to learn the language and wish to rely on translators instead.  Again, this is an abuse to the system.

I remember going to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) a couple of years ago to try to get on the MaineCare system.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get on because I had no kids and they were no longer accepting any new people to the program.  Unless of course you consider that the majority of the people there in the lobby were foreigners who didn't speak English and wish to get on some sort of state aid.  Why should they get onto a program when they have never worked in this country when somebody like me who needed it couldn't get it?  Certainly our system is messed up and the Lewiston mayor is probably fed up with them.  I feel that what he said was certainly not out of place nor do I feel it was wrong.  If these people are offended, I say too bad.

Consider also that if we went to visit their country, women would be required to where their garbs and dress accordingly.  Why they can't comply to our customs is beyond me?  After all, it is a two-way street.  Unfortunately, these people are all take and no give.  

Feel angry is you ever felt like you lost a job to one of them -- guaranteed it will happen if it hasn't happened already.  The U.S. needs to get serious on immigration reform and stop the flow of people into this country.  This is causing more problems than any other problem in our economy.  Why is nobody addressing this problem?  Are they afraid of offending anybody..certainly the Lewiston mayor wasn't at all?  Kudos to him...this country needs more people like that in politics.