Lewiston Mayor Gets It Wrong (This Time)

A few months ago I discussed the words that Lewiston Maine Mayor Robert Macdonald commenting on Somalians living in the city. At that point, I agreed with what he said.

Now the mayor has criticized the welfare system by wanting to start his own crusade against anybody on welfare. He claims that if you are on welfare then don’t come to live in his city.

While this is a bold more, it is also a very dumb one at that now that he wants to alienate anyone on welfare. While I will agree that there is plenty of fraud to go around, there are certainly enough people who get on the roll by being a young (under 25 years) woman who is either expecting a child or has a child with no husband. Or maybe they are a foreigner that just arrived in the United States and want help; they too get into the system.

However people like myself, a guy with no children and have money in the bank has no chance whatsoever of getting on the system. I know people who purposely have children and remain unmarried just to get the benefits.

If the mayor wants to end the problem, I would recommend that he become an agent of the Department of Human Services and stop the fraud at the source rather than make sweeping statements offending everyone whether they are on welfare or not.

But then again isn’t Maine’s new slogan “The Way Life Shouldn’t Be”. It fits perfectly to me. Don’t you agree?

Another Newsweek Response–Just Keeps Getting Sillier

Today I received yet another response from Newsweek.  Here it is exactly as I received it:

Dear Louis Brown,

I do apolgozie for the inconveince. I have forwarded your comments for further review of the account. Thank you for your patients.

As you can see from the above, it has 2 spelling errors and 1 incorrect word.  Can this company even be trusted to deliver news if they can’t even write a simple 2 sentence email.  My answer is I doubt it.  So this saga goes on…

Finally, Another Newsweek Response

After nearly 3 weeks without a response from Newsweek, I finally received the following response today:

Dear Louis Brown,

I apologize for the previous response. A review of your account shows that your subscription was to expire with the March 08, 2013 issue. If you were to cancel your subscription a refund would not be issued. If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.

Thank you for subscribing to Newsweek.

It appears that the company PURPOSELY waited until my subscription was over to contact me about it that way they would not have to issue me any kind of refund.  However, as mentioned previously, they had extended my subscription by 2 months, so it seems that I should still be entitled to something. 

I have sent them one last final email telling them how angry I was and that I was reporting all of this to my blogs.  My advice to anyone wanting to subscribe to Newsweek:  DON’T BOTHER – It is just not worth it no matter what.

Why Raising Maine’s Minimum Wage to $8.50 is a BAD IDEA

When I was thinking about what to write today, I saw this breaking news item: Maine wants to raise the minimum wage from its current $7.50/hr. to $8.50/hr.

Now, of course, some may be saying “big deal”. However, this little cost could add as much as a few hundred dollars every week to payrolls that are already stressed in this weak economy. Doesn’t anybody think that this will lead to more cutbacks in jobs and possibly higher unemployment?

Another downside to this is that some employees who have been with a company for a while will see absolutely NO change in their wages so those workers will have less of a pay gap from their fellow employees.

I saw this happen during my time at both Woolworth and Staples. It seemed that new employees and recent hires were aggressively getting more money than I was. Not that they surpassed me, but their gains were much more accelerated and it was troubling that they should get increases when I didn’t.

This brings me to my point: With so many companies like penny-pinching losers like Staples give out raises that are usually under 25 cents, why would they ever want to see an increase of a $1 to their part-time employees and their remaining new full-time employees?

Also consider wait staff at restaurants. These people would also see a boost in their minimums just to make it to that level if they don’t get the money in tips. I see the strong possibility that food prices at restaurants will go up substantially to compensate for the difference, as if things like Obamacare won’t cost companies more than companies can afford.

Overall, I am all for the increase, but it is a business killer and may force some companies to not hire new employees. This is just another excuse for companies to keep huge profits and screw the employees just like Staples does.

When Health and Company Policy Collides

Last week, it was reported that an 87 year old woman in Bakersfield, California died because the nurse who called 911 refused to give CPR to a woman who needed it. According to the nurse, she could not provide that service as she was not allowed to do so because she was prohibited in doing so. Sadly, the woman died on the way to the hospital because of the fact she didn’t get the assistance she needed.

What’s worse in all this is that the woman’s daughter was satisfied with the care that the elderly woman received from the senior living center she resided at. It seems so wrong that a daughter would be satisfied with a policy that would allow a person to die rather than get the help that was required of them!

Now, of course, you may wonder what this has to do with Staples in any form whatsoever. Well, fellow reader, Staples actually put me in a position where policy collided with the health of not only me but the well-being of other employees and customers shopping in the store.

So here is the scenario:

Around my sixth year of employment with Staples, the store manager Terence was a fairly deaf and downright stupid manager. This plays into the context of exactly into what happened.

On one particular night, one of the security deactivation pads mounted underneath one of the cash register stations decided to go ballistic. The pad decided to make constant “Thumping” sounds at a rate of one every 5 seconds. These were not low volume sounds, but loud annoying sounds that began to give me a headache. After about a 1 ½ of putting up with this pulsing problem, I decided to disconnect the wire to the unit under the counter. Thumping stopped and sanity was restored. That was until deaf Terence realized what I had done. Since this register was the furthest one from me, it was rarely used and I felt not concerned that it would be an issue of what I had done.

Terence thought otherwise. Ironically, about a year or so earlier, I received the ok from the then-manager that it was perfectly acceptable to disconnect a non-functioning unit, which at that time was doing the exact same thing.

The next day, Terence made it a point that he write me up for my ignorance of the equipment and disobeying “store policy”. The irony was that 2 different managers would have 2 different attitudes regarding what I did. To make matters worse, as I later researched, there was NO company policy regarding what I did despite Terence’s anger at me.

Of course, a couple of weeks later, the same piece of equipment were acting up again so I did the same thing. Once again, I got written up and given a warning of termination if I did this again I mentioned to this idiot manager that I disconnected the item for the sanity and health of myself and others. He didn’t buy that and I told him to stand in one spot for hours listening to that sound and see how he felt. He didn’t like my attitude on that, but he pushed me way too far.

About a week later, a technician came into the store to fix the defective pad (replacing it, actually) and I asked if I did the right thing by disconnecting. His response was that I DID do the right thing and actually saved the equipment from doing permanent damage to itself. Unfortunately, Terence stood firm on what he did by writing me up and that stayed in my permanent record for the rest of my employment with the company.

Sadly, years later, this incidence would come back to haunt me when I had my grievance against the company when it would be used against me in my claim against the company. I will have more details about that in a future post.

So overall, the nurse and I took completely opposite directions in dealing with “policy”. I stand behind the fact that what I did was to save my health, the nurse decided to not help an elderly woman to save her job. This all comes down to the question: Is the health of someone worth the price of violating “policy”? I say it is and I would do it over and over again if ever given the chance.

Would I ever recommend anybody else doing the same thing I did? Most definitely and I would let anybody know that NO such policy exists otherwise. I bet the dead elderly lady thinks that there is no policy that realistically the nurse would not have saved her life.

I always believe that health should trump policy no matter what, real or as in Staples’ case every time create lies and deception. Then again isn’t that what this blog is all about in the first place.