Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 49
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What reasonable advice can you give?
[Read the article: I can't get home to see my mom before she dies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How can you advise someone who finds themselves in an outrageous situation?
Some of the readers of this letter will understand the position the letter writer is in, others will (and a few already have) found it so outside their experience as to be incomprehensible.
We live in a world where economic insecurity has been raised into a weapon, primarily against the struggling middle and working classes -- few of the non-struggling can know what it means to have no rights and not enough money in the bank to pay the rent without a top up from the paycheck, to have a "temp" job which means that you can be let go for no reason, with no severance -- and that you are employed to deal with what is perceived as an immediate short term need, to be supplied by an agency that pays maybe minimum wage, but marks up your rate by 200% and in the event that you have a chance at a permanent position, looks for 1/3 of a years paycheck from the company.
A point to make, I also am in a position of economic insecurity, with unpredictable income, dependent on who buys my time -- but my insecurity is fair -- since I can sell an hour of my time for . . . well let's say a large two-three digit multiple of the minimum wage; so I have the insecurity, but the payoff is only stress over my tax liability, my mortgage (and the slow painful death I want to inflict on a few builders), and obviously looking for business (it finds me mostly.) And a few weeks ago my Grandmother died, and there was no issue about my going to her funeral, because, well, my services are valuable enough for people to accommodate me. I hope this is not taken as boasting -- what I am trying to say is that the "temping" approach is flat out wrong unless it pays a lot more than a permanent salaried job. I would never confuse my situation with that of a temp, paid $6-12 per hour.
We do not employ anyone other than student interns on a temp basis, and we make a point of paying them well -- indeed usually more than they expect -- god knows we do well enough. But I know that many well off people see the world differently. For example, what I do, and personal arrangements, force me to to travel a lot -- and frequently I am out of town for a week to a fortnight. I employ a housekeeper, a very nice lady, who comes in twice a week to my home and once a week to our office, for which I pay her and my firm pays her. When I travel away, she gets paid -- not her fault I am out of town and not making a mess . . . I have actually been "given-out-to" by people much wealthier than I am for paying her "to do nothing" when I am out of town -- "lets the side down" and "why should you" (and shades of "and then every housekeeper and maid will expect the same.") And why the f*ck not, why shouldn't they .. how can anyone reasonably expect to work with someone and still treat them like sh!t. How can people who are successful and well off justify behaving like this?
Years ago I was somewhat in a precarious position, my managing partner was a sh!theal, who stiffed me on agreed bonuses, forcing me to use an inheritance to pay tax liabilities -- years later his firm (indeed his new firm) thought they might get work from me -- well isn't karma a b!tch. But it might not have gone that way - but I will always judge him by what he did when he could (and by the way, this is a guy many people would go out of their way to screw, which is why he is now changing firms as often as he changes underwear.)
I suppose the above rambles a little, but really, I cannot get over how many people see no need for a society to be humane and decent, and to not use the threat of homelessness and financial precariousness as a weapon, and how many of them are well off. I just wish that people who have the money to make small choices to be decent would do so, and not self congratulate and take the view that "market makes it that way" and "it's not my fault."
Anyway, not much help I suppose, just a rambling rant. To the letter writer I cannot give any advice, except for f*ck's sake don't vote Republican, they think what is happening to you "is just dandy."
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Safety Risks at Airports
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, Goldenboy, excuse me for treating you like an idiot, I am just to tired and weary to make the effort not to, and yes, it requires effort and substantial imagination.
In fact there is a major security hole in Airports and it is now being discussed in Europe -- in the UK Parliament and indeed in the London Independent. It has been observed that terrorists are learning tactics from the Iraq fiasco, and it is being pointed out that the paranoia advanced by you and your ilk is now making passengers vulnerable to terrorist suicide bombers. How you ask?
The lines, numbnuts! Yes, it appears that security experts and pointing out that the overdone searches of passengers and the huge mob like queues it engenders -- 100s to 1'000s of passengers waiting in crocodile lines to pass security makes all those passengers vulnerable to a single or multiple bomber. Indeed it has been suggegsed that the objective in Glasgow (had the brain surgeons been able to measure the door and realize it was narrower than a Jeep) was to drive the car into the security queue.
So here is the funny thing Goldenboy - you are trying to make us less safe -- are you perhaps Al Queda's lurker on the board?