What to write? Oh yes back agian. So much has happened. A new year 2007! Maybe some positive changes this year. Lets see, still employed, just working more hours to compete. Competition may not be as good as it seems. Have to put in more time for less compensation. No time to think about much but survival.
Did see an old sneaker on the highway. A reminder to post a boring tidbit on a blog. Also there was a box of stuffed animals and some very flat stuff around it. A possible toys for tots wreck left over from December.
War in Iraq slowly moving to the back of the news. Soon to go with Afganistan and Bin Laden. I hear we are bombing in Somalia now. So the more things change the more.....
The una-bomber Kazinsky(sp) was in the news. Brought back old times when we kept mindless violence inside our borders. Altho the guy did write a manifesto and target CEO's.
Like American CEO's could actually pose a danger to our country. That was one crazy terrorist. Wonder how hard it was for his brother to convince the FBI he knew who the una-bomber was?

Another exciting day at work. I lost my firefox browser access. I dont know what happend but I suspect work wants me to work more and surf the net less. I think it took quite a while to reload the browser and now to find those links of my favorites. I better find a good way to back those up. Of course I always say that after my PC crashes. Then once I get it rebuilt I happily go on my way down the virtul lane re-grabbing all my old links as best as my memory can recall.

Work is not too busy now, what with my job going to India and me documenting my duites to turn over to a replacement. I got a nifty color coded list of my turnover schedule. They sent in a new person to do that. Always room for one more management person. Color coding the list makes it more like a comic than a dreary old work report. Maybe a happy face drawn on there might cheer me up.

Back to writing my resume for that next oppurtunity. A door closes a window opens kinda cosmic logic. Sheesh a window opens around here and someone may jump out. Better close the windows for now.
It looks like oppurtunities in the computer industry are getting scarce. An educated, motivated work force overseas stands ready. Oh and the work wages are a lot less than mine, in the good ole U.S. of A.

The market forces and world competition will make some serious economic changes. I will have to scale back a bit. No more new cars for a while. Eating out is a something a coupon should accompany. I can do it. Just have to re-think some things. Maybe a motorcycle instead of a car.

Just like my CEO I gotta cut back on costs. Use less, reduce my fuel, food and the like.
Perfect time for a diet ! See this job loss thing can be a good thing. Turn that frown upside down. I may have time to start the great american novel.

Maybe back to school! I can re-train for the hot jobs comming up. Now if I can figure out what are the hot jobs that I can do. Are there any greeting cards for outsourcing ?

Immigration man, can I cross the line today ? The hot topic this week. I do have a concern. Why now?
After decades of people crossing borders without playing the paperwork game why is it so important now ? Has the US begun a serious anti-mexican campaign? Have we solved our major problems and this is the next item on the list ?

Lets see, a vote in Afganistan took place, the opium poppy fields are back in bloom, no more front page coverage on the violence in Kabul, so cross that off the list. Bin Laden still on the lam the press never mentions that on page one. Iraq, whats the presidents plan? To win a land war in asia to make up for the last asian war he skipped.
The devastation of Katrina is being treated as well as the devastation of hurricane Andrew in 2004. Pretty much forgotton by those not affected.
Fuel prices steadily rising with Exxon-Mobils bottom line, at least we have some consistency there. Haliburton, spinning off Kellog Brown $ Root so war profits are doing well. India's job boom fueled by american jobs going stronger than a riot in Kashmir.
WalMart still driving the chinese economy faster than a presidential staffer can quit. Health care rules for the elderly simple enough to be explained in three hours with a nap or two thrown in while waiting for common sense answers.

Medicare and Social Security zipped up nicely in a congressional pay raise session. Education standards rising as fast as we can lower standardized test questions. College tuition exceeding the bull market of the Dow Jones.


I guess imigration is next up. Maybe America's ills are caused by yard maintainence men and maids not speaking proper english. Of course only a C average leader inventing new words like 'DECIDER' could determine that. We should only speak english here. Except for words like Texas which dont originate from the Queens English but some other language.

Maybe that will solve our problems and then my wages can keep up with the price of gas or at least inflation.

Yes of course it will. Then we can go down that list further. Maybe the decider will figure out how homeland securtiy missed all 22 fake bombs sent on the airlines to test the safety of air traffic in the US. That list must have some order I am not familar with.

Maybe we should help more and send in another list. A list of just ten items the people would like to be considered first. I wonder if the people could agree on only ten things to send D.C.?

If you could what would be on your list ?

Another day another commute to work. I saw two, count em, two sneakers on the highway. Looked to be a pair. Just lying 20 feet apart along the side of the road. I guess they must have fallen off or been thrown out. Hard to know. They looked usable. It was an odd sighting for me as I usually only seem to see one.
It must be a sign. Yes it must have some meaning.

As arrive at office it had a different air. Obviously the two sneaker sighting was an omen. An unscheduled meeting of urgency was proclaimed, not a good sign.
Well the axe has dropped. The IT account will be shipped to India. Time to pack. Our computer programming jobs have finally fallen prey to Corporate cost cutting. You know, everyone else is doing it. Well who can really fault that logic. I know the CEO had a tuff time making that decision.

We need to roll with the punches and re-tool our skills. then we can be re-deployed in the work force.
Redeployed? Did I miss some other corporate meeting? Are we in the military now ? Good greif who comes up with this corporate speak ? Whats next ?
If you complain about outsourceing you are siding with the terrorists?

But it does get better. In order to transition our work smoothly to our fellow global partners, please document everything you do to assist the transition.
So I have to train my replacement prior to un-employment ? Hmmm? how will they motivate us in that regard ?

Good news the former CEO will recieve $300,000 on his 401k. Apparently he left it in the fund after 9 years of hard work to avoid any tax burden. Hmm? He left several years ago and is now on the board of yet another fortune 500 company.

The limit is supposed to be $12,000 for our 401 k, you know to stay competative.
So, you are telling me after I work 9 years and still dont have near $300,000 in my 401k I could only get $12K ? Yet a guy who hasn't worked here in 4 years gets a bit more ?

Then again my pension plan did convert to a new cash balance plan , again to help the company stay competitive. Which results in a loss of about 33%, if I stay with them another 20 years. Which obviously is not going to happen. So I may lose out even more.

Interesting note, the prior CEO ruled when the pension was fully funded, self sufficient and sustained all future obligations. As in me getting the pension promised. But the company had some losses, a few misteps by the leadership perhaps? Just an unpredictable economy? Guess we all need to take one for the gipper as any loyal worker would do. After all we need to save the company to keep our jobs. I guess I should not be selfish and help out my employer in time of need.

Then there is the health care issue, yep the previous CEO fully funded, me and my co-workers not so fully funded.

I would love to tell you the name of this great American company, but free speech is rather expensive of late. I still need my paycheck while I create the training manuals. The ones that never existed, just OTJT, had when I started.

But do not cry for me Argentina. I have met those who have gone before me.
One in Home Depot, who took the job temporarily after being laid off. You know the type, wont take un-employment got some pride. Still able to work. Yeah he has had that job for over two years while sending out resumes. I was
shocked. He had some newer skills than I.

As an old mainframe-r I knew my time was short. For the last 10 years I ws told COBOL was dead and to learn something new. The new language Pascal . And then after that is was AIDA. Then C, no wait Turbo C, no C++ and then JAVA ! I never got to learn them as they seemed to be replaced before the time and training budget got approved.

I still had to work and 'keep the lights on' at the old data center programming in COBOL. COBOL the dead language like Latin. No new skills for this boy.
Boy? I just turned 50, a boy no longer. The past 10 years? Come to think of it it has been 25 years.

Time to really learn the new skill set. But to do that I have to reduce my income a bit. My CEO likes the lower wage of workers who will share an apartment with three other workers. Four guys sharing one car or taxi to work. Four people who will pool there income to survive in America. Only to lose out to that job going off shore. Even green card holders are not safe from offshoring!!!

Even new skills may not get me as much as I earn now.

Time to start over for me. Relearn and re-earn my salary, pension, health benefits. Another 25 years should do it. That would be 9 CEO years, kinda like dog years to humans. I think there is hope, Home Depot is full but Walmart is hiring.

Now thats a global company going somewhere. China and Walmart the new economic power house of the world! Only in America could they come together and be so successful.
But I have too much prie to shop at Walmart,,, well that and too little money. I shope the 99 cent store now.

After work I will be crusing the highways looking for some new shoes.

Pardon my absence! My one reader has asked I try a little harder to keep up with this. Not much has happend that would not bore a reader of this blog. Just the usual grind go to work go home, help train my replacement from India. Yikes !! I guess that is a bit unusual, but it looks to be the way of the global economy. Who can blame a business leader for trying to save a little bit and cut cost ? I mean everyone else is doing it. I just love that rationale. Of course when its your job its a little personal and it causes a bit of stress.
So its time to brainstorm and come up with a job that can't be outsourced !!

Maybe an assitant historian to a government official. Thats all the humor I can stand today.

Another day in Paradise. Wow, mother nature is really on a tear with all this severe weather and earthquakes. Its kinda spooky wondering what will happen next. Maybe, just maybe there is a message here. Could it be 'Hey puny humans on a killing spree! Let mother nature show you how its done.'
If we could only hear that message and settle down. Maybe try some recovery efforts instead of destructive ones. Oh well, man will continue to imitate the destructive force of nature but still fall short.

It is a sobering thought to look at the carnage of the earthquake in Pakistan. I wonder if the Tsunami survivors have gotten back to normal yet? If they ever will. With all the pictures it is still difficult to understand the extent of that damage. Some of the eye witness use the words indescribable.

Here in America the hurricane Katrina took center stage. A truly massive storm wreaking havoc. In the U.S. ,with all our resources, it may take years to re-build New Orleans and the other cities destroyed.
I wonder if the cities in Guatemala will rebuild or relocate ?

Pakistan losing so many people at one time. Time to plan a new city. Maybe make it better.
The news has so many stories today. I just noted they seem to tell me mother nature is one bad mad lady. Dont try to duplicate her. You wont even come close.

I will write my politicians and ask if they can convert from war machines to recovery vehicles. It looks like a better return on investment.

Here it is a shameless plug of another blog http://thethoughtsofdoug.blogspot.com
Of course I prefer it to be a highlighted value in the text. I have to keep up with the Jones's here or Bloggers as the case may be. I have yet to ask for direct help and actually started to read a book on HTML. Ugh!
A bold step for me entering the computer world on the web side. I feel like Homer in the Simpsons asking his daughter advice on setting up his web page. I am sure this appears just as a novice. I will try not to ask help.
Of course if I did I would be done by now and off to something else. But first I will try this on my own.
Anyway Doug's blog is humorous, a nice break during the work day. Dare I give him my blog address ? Right now... I think not.