The Man is sharpening the axe!
It was my day off yesterday. Or so I thought.
The S/S called me in, and for today too. Depending on how this works out, I'll either work for eight days straight, or fifteen days straight. Gah.
This will most likely interfere with a visit from my friend Tursi when he comes up here over Christmas. But I'll have a little time to hook up with him, although Gord knows what my fatigue level will be. :P
Someone was testing security at my site last night. There'd be a BANG and I (and the bike patrol guys, if they were nearby) would go zooming around the building trying to see what it was. Never found out, and never found who was doing it. I hope we impressed them with our response time. :P
And you remember all of the posts I've made recently about the extra food at work after major meetings? Well, there is the downside to it all. Even though last night was Chinese food. ;)
There was a weird feel to the night last night. The other guys remarked on it too. It was probably a combination of barometric pressure, the probes from the potential thief/thieves, and (for me) that many of the machines in the offices were on and running, some in standby, others not.
But when the first employees started coming in, you could tell something was wrong.
And that was this: that day people were being fired.
I'd heard rumours it was going to happen before, but I guess that the guy who has been unwittingly feeding me for a couple of weeks is the rep of the corporation that bought the site I work at. He's been there assessing, and finally submitted his findings.
Everybody got an email on Monday, saying that on Wednesday there'd be a meeting.
My company put on eight additional security offices, all in suits, and that's what we do when there's going to be a round of layoffs.
Last time it was just salespeople. I don't say "just" to indicate the disposability of them, just that I can understand the cyclical nature of what they do. So not having deep roots in a given company must not be unfamiliar to most of them.
But the people that are (rumoured to be) slated for termination are the long-term always-employed-because-they're-necessary type people. The ones who've worked there for 15+ years and do specialist work and have mortages and long-term planning that's based on the premise they'll have a job in the years to come.
And as the usual early ones came in this morning, they all mentioned what would be happening during the day, and how everybody is spooked (it showed, even later on when there were several hundred people there) and why they might be terminated, and why they really couldn't be because they figure that they're needed for whatever.
And I found myself unexpectedly moved for them.
Not that I'm normally an unemotionless beast, and it's not like I've never heard of a company going through a round of layoffs, especially after an acquisition... but their fear was so palpable I couldn't help but be affected by it.
And they'd had no notice! Just an email on Monday, and today was Wednesday! Lame.
When I go in tonight, I'll find out how many were let go, and how it generally went. And most likely, like last time, there will be people who are resentful and want to throw a rock at the windows to unleash some of their stress. Or something. And they'll be drunk. At least based on last time.
And since it's the Christmas season, with all the stress that entails, I can't even anticipate how people will react.
I hope they'll all be okay. The ones that I've got to know well enough by name and a few pleasantries in the morning all seem really nice.
-----------------------------------------------
Remember all that stuff about how it wasn't so bad to be a slave I posted earlier? Here's some more:
"Benjamin Rush, MD (17461813), signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dean of the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania and the "Father of American Psychiatry, "described Negroes as suffering from an affliction called Negritude, which was thought to be a mild form of leprosy. The only cure for the disorder was to become white. It is unclear as to how many cases of Negritude were successfully treated. The irony of Dr. Rush's medical observations was that he was a leading mental health reformer and co-founder of the first anti-slavery society in America. Dr. Rush's portrait still adorns the official seal of the American Psychiatric Association. However, Dr Rush's observation-"The Africans become insane, we are told, in some instances, soon after they enter upon the toils of perpetual slavery in the West Indies"-is not often cited in discussions of mental illness and African-Americans, how-ever valuable it might be in understanding the traumatic impact of enslavement and oppression on Africans and their descendants."
and my favourite:
"In1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a prominent Louisiana physician and one of the leading authorities in his time on the medical care of Negroes, identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves. Drapetomia, or the disease causing Negroes to run away, was noted as a condition, "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers. " Dr. Cartwright observed, "The cause in most cases, that induces the Negro to run 4 away from service, is such a disease of the mind as in any other species of alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. " Cartwright was so helpful as to identify preventive measures for dealing with potential cases of drapetomania. Slaves showing incipient drapetomania, reflected in sulky and dissatisfied behavior should be whipped-strictly as a therapeutic early intervention. Planter and overseers were encouraged to utilize whipping as the primary intervention once the disease had progressed to the stage of actually running away. Overall, Cartwright suggested that Negroes should be kept in a submissive state and treated like children, with "care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away. "
Dr. Cartwright also diagnosed Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or "hebetude of the mind and obtuse sensibility of the body-a disease peculiar to Negroes called by overseers-Rascality. " Dysethesia Aethiopica differed from other species of mental disease since physical signs and lesions accompanied it. The ever-resourceful Dr. Cartwright determined that whipping could also cure this disorder. Of course, one wonders if the whipping were not the cause of the "lesions" that confirmed the diagnosis. Not surprisingly, Dr. Cartwright was a leading thinker in the pro-slavery movement. Dr. Cartwright, in his article "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, " chided his anti-slavery colleagues by noting "The northern physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slave-holding south the least. The disease is the natural offspring of Negro liberty-the liberty to be idle, to wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks. "
Read the entire thing here: An Early History - African American Mental Health.
You know, I sometimes wonder if I'm too much like my dad was. I don't remember him being an awful parent, but he did strange things. He'd leave the windows open in the winter so we'd develop a resistance to cold. He paved over our yard, because he didn't want ants infesting the house. He wouldn't let us have yo-yos in the house, because the faint sound of the string winding and unwinding against the yo-yo's axle drove him crazy. A typical Sunday afternoon consisted of my brother and me helping Dad bundle up and drop off newspapers at the recycling center for cash. Then he'd drop us off at his buddy's supper club so we could guzzle chocolate milk and colour placemats while he went over the ground with his metal detector. I thought this was all perfectly normal until a girlfriend informed me otherwise.
Just kidding. ;)
And a quote I rather liked from a book I'm currently reading. I think it'll still stand up out of context, but we'll see. The quote is coming from a total science guy, the sort who'll forget about eating and sleeping when pursuing an interest, and who will drop his organic chemistry and focus exclusively on meteorology if he finds it interesting. Not one to catch a subtle joke though:
"But no. That was analogy rather than homology. What in the humanities they would call a heroic simile, if he understood the term, or a metaphor, or some other kind of literary analogy. And analogies were mostly meaningless - a matter of phenotype rather than genotype (to use another analogy). Most of poetry and literature, really all the humanities, not to mention the social sciences, were phenotypic as far as Sax could tell. They added up to a huge compendium of meaningless analogies, which did not help to explain things, but only distorted perception of them. A kind of continuous conceptual drunkenness, one might say. Sax himself much preferred exactitude and explanatory power, and why not? If it was 200 Kelvin outside why not say so, rather than talk about witches' tits and the like, hauling the whole great baggage of the ignorant past along to obscure every encounter with sensory reality? It was absurd."
I think that's great. :) I should add that with a very few exceptions, I find poetry to be incomprehensible to me. Not the language, but the emotional impact or whatever it is that people get out of it. Chemistry too, although it makes no sense for that to be so. I can follow along a ways in materials science, but that's about it.
I'm going to go eat something now.
The S/S called me in, and for today too. Depending on how this works out, I'll either work for eight days straight, or fifteen days straight. Gah.
This will most likely interfere with a visit from my friend Tursi when he comes up here over Christmas. But I'll have a little time to hook up with him, although Gord knows what my fatigue level will be. :P
Someone was testing security at my site last night. There'd be a BANG and I (and the bike patrol guys, if they were nearby) would go zooming around the building trying to see what it was. Never found out, and never found who was doing it. I hope we impressed them with our response time. :P
And you remember all of the posts I've made recently about the extra food at work after major meetings? Well, there is the downside to it all. Even though last night was Chinese food. ;)
There was a weird feel to the night last night. The other guys remarked on it too. It was probably a combination of barometric pressure, the probes from the potential thief/thieves, and (for me) that many of the machines in the offices were on and running, some in standby, others not.
But when the first employees started coming in, you could tell something was wrong.
And that was this: that day people were being fired.
I'd heard rumours it was going to happen before, but I guess that the guy who has been unwittingly feeding me for a couple of weeks is the rep of the corporation that bought the site I work at. He's been there assessing, and finally submitted his findings.
Everybody got an email on Monday, saying that on Wednesday there'd be a meeting.
My company put on eight additional security offices, all in suits, and that's what we do when there's going to be a round of layoffs.
Last time it was just salespeople. I don't say "just" to indicate the disposability of them, just that I can understand the cyclical nature of what they do. So not having deep roots in a given company must not be unfamiliar to most of them.
But the people that are (rumoured to be) slated for termination are the long-term always-employed-because-they're-necessary type people. The ones who've worked there for 15+ years and do specialist work and have mortages and long-term planning that's based on the premise they'll have a job in the years to come.
And as the usual early ones came in this morning, they all mentioned what would be happening during the day, and how everybody is spooked (it showed, even later on when there were several hundred people there) and why they might be terminated, and why they really couldn't be because they figure that they're needed for whatever.
And I found myself unexpectedly moved for them.
Not that I'm normally an unemotionless beast, and it's not like I've never heard of a company going through a round of layoffs, especially after an acquisition... but their fear was so palpable I couldn't help but be affected by it.
And they'd had no notice! Just an email on Monday, and today was Wednesday! Lame.
When I go in tonight, I'll find out how many were let go, and how it generally went. And most likely, like last time, there will be people who are resentful and want to throw a rock at the windows to unleash some of their stress. Or something. And they'll be drunk. At least based on last time.
And since it's the Christmas season, with all the stress that entails, I can't even anticipate how people will react.
I hope they'll all be okay. The ones that I've got to know well enough by name and a few pleasantries in the morning all seem really nice.
-----------------------------------------------
Remember all that stuff about how it wasn't so bad to be a slave I posted earlier? Here's some more:
"Benjamin Rush, MD (17461813), signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dean of the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania and the "Father of American Psychiatry, "described Negroes as suffering from an affliction called Negritude, which was thought to be a mild form of leprosy. The only cure for the disorder was to become white. It is unclear as to how many cases of Negritude were successfully treated. The irony of Dr. Rush's medical observations was that he was a leading mental health reformer and co-founder of the first anti-slavery society in America. Dr. Rush's portrait still adorns the official seal of the American Psychiatric Association. However, Dr Rush's observation-"The Africans become insane, we are told, in some instances, soon after they enter upon the toils of perpetual slavery in the West Indies"-is not often cited in discussions of mental illness and African-Americans, how-ever valuable it might be in understanding the traumatic impact of enslavement and oppression on Africans and their descendants."
and my favourite:
"In1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a prominent Louisiana physician and one of the leading authorities in his time on the medical care of Negroes, identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves. Drapetomia, or the disease causing Negroes to run away, was noted as a condition, "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers. " Dr. Cartwright observed, "The cause in most cases, that induces the Negro to run 4 away from service, is such a disease of the mind as in any other species of alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. " Cartwright was so helpful as to identify preventive measures for dealing with potential cases of drapetomania. Slaves showing incipient drapetomania, reflected in sulky and dissatisfied behavior should be whipped-strictly as a therapeutic early intervention. Planter and overseers were encouraged to utilize whipping as the primary intervention once the disease had progressed to the stage of actually running away. Overall, Cartwright suggested that Negroes should be kept in a submissive state and treated like children, with "care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away. "
Dr. Cartwright also diagnosed Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or "hebetude of the mind and obtuse sensibility of the body-a disease peculiar to Negroes called by overseers-Rascality. " Dysethesia Aethiopica differed from other species of mental disease since physical signs and lesions accompanied it. The ever-resourceful Dr. Cartwright determined that whipping could also cure this disorder. Of course, one wonders if the whipping were not the cause of the "lesions" that confirmed the diagnosis. Not surprisingly, Dr. Cartwright was a leading thinker in the pro-slavery movement. Dr. Cartwright, in his article "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, " chided his anti-slavery colleagues by noting "The northern physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slave-holding south the least. The disease is the natural offspring of Negro liberty-the liberty to be idle, to wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks. "
Read the entire thing here: An Early History - African American Mental Health.
You know, I sometimes wonder if I'm too much like my dad was. I don't remember him being an awful parent, but he did strange things. He'd leave the windows open in the winter so we'd develop a resistance to cold. He paved over our yard, because he didn't want ants infesting the house. He wouldn't let us have yo-yos in the house, because the faint sound of the string winding and unwinding against the yo-yo's axle drove him crazy. A typical Sunday afternoon consisted of my brother and me helping Dad bundle up and drop off newspapers at the recycling center for cash. Then he'd drop us off at his buddy's supper club so we could guzzle chocolate milk and colour placemats while he went over the ground with his metal detector. I thought this was all perfectly normal until a girlfriend informed me otherwise.
Just kidding. ;)
And a quote I rather liked from a book I'm currently reading. I think it'll still stand up out of context, but we'll see. The quote is coming from a total science guy, the sort who'll forget about eating and sleeping when pursuing an interest, and who will drop his organic chemistry and focus exclusively on meteorology if he finds it interesting. Not one to catch a subtle joke though:
"But no. That was analogy rather than homology. What in the humanities they would call a heroic simile, if he understood the term, or a metaphor, or some other kind of literary analogy. And analogies were mostly meaningless - a matter of phenotype rather than genotype (to use another analogy). Most of poetry and literature, really all the humanities, not to mention the social sciences, were phenotypic as far as Sax could tell. They added up to a huge compendium of meaningless analogies, which did not help to explain things, but only distorted perception of them. A kind of continuous conceptual drunkenness, one might say. Sax himself much preferred exactitude and explanatory power, and why not? If it was 200 Kelvin outside why not say so, rather than talk about witches' tits and the like, hauling the whole great baggage of the ignorant past along to obscure every encounter with sensory reality? It was absurd."
I think that's great. :) I should add that with a very few exceptions, I find poetry to be incomprehensible to me. Not the language, but the emotional impact or whatever it is that people get out of it. Chemistry too, although it makes no sense for that to be so. I can follow along a ways in materials science, but that's about it.
I'm going to go eat something now.
posted by Rimmy at 17:47
1 Comments:
Oops, usually I'd have posted that. My bad. :P
Green Mars is the book, followup to Red Mars, and precursor to Blue Mars. And the author is Kim Stanley Robinson. ISBN 0-553-57239-3.
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