My State Of The Union? It Sucks!

One of the reasons I have been away from the blog is that I am intensely on the job hunt.
It has been seven months since I was unceremoniously asked to leave my last place of employment. I was not fired for anything but a company cutback and being the highest paid member of the staff after our branch manager.
I have been collecting unemployment during this time, but it is about to run out. In the meantime, I will probably have to resort to doing temp work, which is OK, but not wonderful.
So last night was the State of the Union speech by the Dear Leader, President Obama.
I admit, I did not watch the speech nor the official Republican response from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wa.). I did not watch any other response either.
For you see, none of them asked me how the state of the union is. In fact, none of them know the RVFTLC abode's state of the union is. So I will answer that if they really care.
IT SUCKS!
I noted that I have been on unemployment and did get a fairly decent severance package from my past employer. But even with that combined, I essentially took a seven dollar an hour pay cut. And I am fortunate that Mrs. RVFTLC is still employed. But that means a lot less coming in monthly and the bills, surprisingly, do not go away. Nor are they cutting back what is owed due to the present RVFTLC situation.
The last time my employment situation was this bad was in the mid 1990s. I had to work temp jobs for about three years before I gained a permanent position and spent the last 15 years in the same industry for two different companies.
The reality is that in that era, there did become a stronger job market in the late 1990s. Thus while I was on a temporary assignment, I impressed the branch manager enough to attain a permanent position. That was being in the right place at the right time.
But now, even temp assignments do not get one's foot in the door. More and more companies use temps and do not hire them. For having a long or very long-term temp still cuts down on a company's overall costs vs. hiring a temp. It is why many employees have little if any loyalty to their companies and vice-versa.
It is easy to say that it is government policies that is the cause of this stubbornly high unemployment. Only to a point is that true. A lot of it is that in many cases, companies are doing things that seem to fly in the face of such a goal as customer service.
That is the case in my previous company.
We did medical exams for people applying for life, health and or disability insurance. We would get an order to complete medical requirements, send a California state licensed phlebotimist to collect the information and usually a blood draw and urine sample collection. Occasionally an additional requirement would include an electrocardiogram or EKG. Sometimes due to the age and amount an applicant was applying for, we would have to coordinate with an actual MD.
So first, our company thought, say, why don't we set up a system in which a computer would contact the applicant and if it was during business hours connect the applicant to a live person to schedule the appointment. Surprisingly, most of the time people complained because they did not like a computer generated call. And also, when prompted to connect, why it would disconnect the applicant rather than connect. The bottom line is that most people felt that we were harassing them like a bill collector. And yet whenever this issue was brought up to management, it was totally downplayed and we were assured that oh no, most of our agents and applicants love the system. Sorry, but that was not true.
Then they came up with another customer service idea.
That was to "encourage" people we were scheduling appointments for to come to a local office to complete the exam. Now we had four branch offices in Southern California. Those offices could do anything. But we also had satellite offices which were limited to collecting the blood, urine and completing basic physical measurements. Again, most people did not find it convenient to come to one of our branch and or satellite offices. Why should they when almost all of the time they were told we will be sending someone to their home and or work? Again, it was pointed out to management how hard it was to meet our quota but well, if one office can do it, all of us can.
The point that I am making is that what we were really trying to do is save money. Nothing wrong with it. But the way it was being done took away the customer service aspect of our business. And that is why I think are having problems in this nation in a field that can and should be vastly improved.
Technology is a wonderful thing. Advances are wonderful as well. But to have great customer service, you can't depend on automation. A company cannot keep outsourcing customer service jobs to India and expect people to be happy when calling and getting the feeling that person really doesn't care about your situation.
I'm not a Luddite about this. But there needs to be a balance that corporate America cannot seem to wrap their head around. That people make customer service. Until that is recognized by corporate America, people will not feel loyal to use that company. The employees will not feel loyalty if they are not seen as assets but a warm body. And the very people depending on technology to somehow be the best customer service, corporate America, will cause more and more resentment.
Thus it is harder to attain that kind of job today. But mine is not the only industry facing such things. Many others are as well. And many in many different fields.
When there is a balance of such things, then jobs will be easier for most Americans to attain.
Until then, for me, my State of the Union just sucks!

Hey, Maybe Marco Should Have Pulled Out A 40-Ouncer

This really shows how depraved politics has become in the United States that I am writing about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and his taking a drink of water during the Republican response to the Dear Leader, President Obama's State of the Union speech this past Tuesday night.
It is not that I really want to write about it, but how can I let this opportunity go by? I mean, according to CNN, why Sen. Rubio may have had a career-ender by taking that swig of water, right? If you do not believe me, here it is

OK, now CNN is saying that the caption was a JK-online lingo for a joke.
Really? If that was all it was about, then why did the cable news networks, and yes it does include a more Rubio-friendly Fox News Channel, play the above scene 200 frickin' times Wednesday?
Again, all a joke right?
Well hey, let me get in on the joke.
I would like to know if Sen. Rubio pulled out an ice-cold 40-ouncer and guzzled it on television? and I don't mean a swig to hydrate. But a guzzling to get a quick buzz on. Well, I mean, isn't that something Hispanics do? Oh, really, it would have been awesome if he had a brown-bag with the 40.
Now if you are not sure what a 40-ouncer is and are too lazy to go to the link above, here is a photo of what a 40-ouncer is. And it is representative of the low-end of the beer chain.

And look! To the right is the brown-bag cover! Class, baby! Class!
So is that real funny to you?
Nah, I did not think so either.
But there you are.
The Obamawhore media not even discussing what Sen. Rubio had to say in his response to the Dear Leader, President Obama. Oh, if you want to see it in full and what Sen. Rubio actually said, here it is.

I'll just assume that the 40-ouncer guzzle water break is included in the link.
While the Dear Leader, President Obama, offered more of the same, big government, a decline of American influence around the world and mountainous debt our great-grandchildren will be paying off, Sen. Rubio offered a conservative vision of the United States. Here are a couple of highlights:

This opportunity – to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life – it isn’t bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business. And when they succeed, they hire more people, who in turn invest or spend the money they make, helping others start a business and create jobs.

For example, Obamacare was supposed to help middle class Americans afford health insurance. But now, some people are losing the health insurance they were happy with. And because Obamacare created expensive requirements for companies with more than 50 employees, now many of these businesses aren’t hiring. Not only that; they’re being forced to lay people off and switch from full-time employees to part-time workers.

But government’s role is wisely limited by the Constitution. And it can’t play its essential role when it ignores those limits.

There is so much more that Sen.. Rubio said in the Republican response.
But no, the Obamawhore media is more interested in marginalizing the junior senator from Florida because, because he took a sip of water during his response.
BTW, did the Dear Leader, President Obama, possibly take a swig of water while delivering the SOTU? Or maybe he whipped out a 40. I am sure that he did have some water. Is that not maybe awkward? Just askin'.
Saul Alinsky tactics are alive and well and perpetuated by a supposed down-the-middle "news media".
Not at all.
It is why I have coined them the Obamawhore media. Nothing he does can be wrong. Why he could have dragged a kid on the dais Tuesday night and shot him to death to prove something about gun violence. The media? They would have promoted that as brilliance. Performance art maybe.
But take a drink of water?
Why it is a career-ender doncha know.

There Was A State Of The Union Speech Tonight?

Why I kind of sorta forgot that there was the State of the Union speech tonight from the Dear Leader, President Obama, in the hallowed House chamber at the capitol building in Washington, D. C.
I mean, what was more painful to watch?
Crazy Chris Dorner burning up in a fiery cabin near Big Bear, California? Or the Dear Leader laying out an even more audacious socialist agenda?
Honestly, I did not watch the SOTU speech. And I sort of watched the coverage of Crazy Chris, hopefully, going up in flames.
But I am beginning to think that these addresses are a huge waste of time.
Think about it.
What was the most memorable speech given during George W. Bushs' presidency? None, thank you very much. One line after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Axis of Evil. But nothing more.
You know, before President Woodrow Wilson came around, the president never actually went to congress and gave a speech. Check that. Presidents George Washington and John Adams did speak to congress. But starting with President Thomas Jefferson and ending with President William Taft, a written  SOTU sufficed the constitutional requirement of a president. Oh, as an aside, one modern president reverted back to the written assessment of the SOTU. That is one Calvin Coolidge. Another reason to like that dude!
I mean, the highlights of the speech is basically this.
The Dear Leader wants to yet raise taxes again. He wants more government spending. He wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. He wants to pass gun control legislation. He even threw a bone to the environazis by bringing up the subject of  "climate change", aka Globaloney Warming.
And in the official Republican response, Sen. Marco Rubio refuted all of what the Dear Leader, President Obama, would like to do.
Yawn!
We already know that the Dear Leader, President Obama, is going to push for more government and higher taxes to pay for that.
A lot of what was said was to please the Democrat base. The Dear Leader, President Obama, knows that unless he compromises big time he will not get much of anything through a Republican House. And things might look dicey in the Democrat senate. His push for a so-called assault weapons ban already has enough Democrat opposition to kill it before it goes anywhere.
This is really about 2014. The mid-term elections. This is to see what base is more ready to fight, the Dems or the GOP.
History is not kind to second term presidents and their last mid-term elections. Just ask Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Messrs. Reagan and Bush 43 lost GOP control of the senate (in Mr. Reagan's case) or control of congress (in the case of Mr. Bush 43). And Mr. Clinton could not get back the Democrats in either House in his last mid-term. One can not help but think that the Dear Leader, President Obama, will suffer a similar fate.
So one really did not need to watch another SOTU speech tonight. There was actually a choice. Wall-to-wall coverage of a cop killer burning alive in a cabin in the mountains of So Cal or a Fidel Castro-like speech from the Dear Leader, President Obama.
And neither one was all that good.