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!

Why We Are In The Mess We Are In

Living deep in Blue California is sometimes mind-numbing because of the way so many people think.
Consider this.
A group of far-left Democrats are not happy with the Democrat congressman that represents my town of Pasadena, Adam Schiff.
They made their feelings known in a protest outside Congressman Schiff's Pasadena office yesterday.
FTR, Congressman Schiff did vote for the debt-ceiling plan just passed in Congress and signed by the Dear Leader, President Obama.
But these "progressives" are not happy that Congressman Schiff voted for the plan.
For these people think that this is awful. Just awful. That there will potentially be necessary budget cuts to bring about a balance of the federal budget books.
Here is what Paul Krehbiel, an organizer of the protest had to say:

“We’re really upset our Congressional representatives, including Schiff, did not find new areas of revenue creation in this debt-ceiling agreement. We’re concerned cuts mandated by the deal will be devastating, especially to people who are already suffering.”

Get the euphemism Mr. Krehbiel uses for taxes. "Revenue creation". Ooh boy! These lefties love to use private-sector buzz terms to make it seem like they are not promoting tax hikes.
Look, when the federal government is talking "revenue creation" there are only one of two options. A slew of fees and or taxes.
I do agree that many people are hurting. The many able-bodied, mind clear Americans that have no job and or no hope for a job. There are about 5,000,000 Americans that are out of work and have given up looking for work.
Ahh, but another bright light offers a solution to that problem.
Here is Linnea Warren, 56, of Pasadena. Do you know her solution to the unemployment problem in the United States? Well, here it is:

“We didn’t get out of the Depression by cutting spending, but by creating government jobs.”

Yes, there were a lot of make-work projects under a slew of alphabet agencies, but one of the most famous or infamous known as the Works Project Administration or WPA.
Now yes, people were working creating a slew of make work projects. Many are still around today. But did it solve the problem of high unemployment?
Hell no.
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March. 1933, the unemployment rate was a staggering 24.75%. Until 1940, unemployment never went below 14% of the workforce.
So Linnea, how did those government jobs work out? Not well at all when it took getting into a war to eventually bring the unemployment rate down.
The problem with so-called progressives is that they really have no clue as to how the private economy works.
They really believe that people making $250,000 a year in gross income is the filthy, degenerate rich. The problem with that is that could be a married couple, say a doctor and a lawyer, whose combined income meets that magic wealth figure. Never mind that the doc may be in private practice, employing office staff and or nurses. Or the same for the lawyer. Maybe that lawyer has hung their shingle rather than work for a firm. Guess what? That lawyer needs support staff. There! Many potentially long-term jobs are created.
If one looks at the WPA program so touted by the "progressives", it was at best a temporary program to alleviate long-term unemployment. It was in fact the stated aim of the WPA that it was a stop-gap until the economy recovered. Remember, unemployment never went below 14% at the height of the WPA program.
Yet people really believe that make-work government jobs is the path to prosperity.
Before the Great Depression, there was a depression in 1920-21. Yet the solution was not massive government, but tax cuts and lessening the government's role in the private economy. In fact, at the beginning of the 1920-21 depression, unemployment was at 5.2% of the workforce. By the height of the depression, it was at either 8.7% or 11.7%. By 1923 during the Roaring 20s, unemployment was at either 4.8% or 2.4%. In fact, supply-side economics worked. The tax rate was lowered and expanded and the government had more money coming in. And during this period, there were time when there was no federal budget deficits and the surplus money was going to pay off the national debt.
Another aspect is the entitlement culture that "progressive" policies have made.
Take this protester, Suzanne O’Shea, 50, of Altadena. She was there for her mom. Her mom, according to her, relies totally on her social security check and Medicaid for her healthcare. From Miss O'Shea's mouth:

“She’ll have issues if these government social programs are cut as will millions of American seniors. It’s unfortunate to take money from government programs in this kind of an economy.”

I would like to ask a question to Miss O'Shea. What is she doing to help her mother out? Does she help with her mom's foodstuffs? Does she help with any of her mom's basic bills like the electric and gas? If the intrepid reporter asked those questions, there might have been a little clarity.
I am not heartless. There are people in our society that do need a hand up, not a hand out. But what "progressive" government has done is taken family responsibility out of the picture. Parents helping children. Children helping their parents. Neighbor helping neighbor. In this case, the mom is given a false sense of security with government assistance. The daughter thinks that the government should provide the money and healthcare for her mom. It is a mindset.
With this mindset, that the government can solve all, it is why we are in the mess we are in. Economically, socially, politically and yes, spiritually.
And there is no short-term fix for any of it. And it will be fraught with painful choices. But I am an optimist. I think that this is a time to restore our nation to a time of helping each other out and self-reliance. Other wise, this mess continues.