News Sensationalism … again

The anarchists are here!!!

The anarchists are here!!!

Well, it’s actually just a band from Europe that decided to get a better view of the city from an old abandoned school building on Polish Hill. Granted, the decision was after a party held in their honor, so I’m sure the decision making process of the band members was slightly under full capacity.

Even taking that into consideration …

Andrew Stocky of the famed WTAE news, decided they were G-20 anarchists scouting out training sites.  Albeit untrue and fictional, as any professional would do – Andrew held to his story.

Thankfully the City Paper had enough sense to shed a little light on the truth as seen here.  It’s amazing that the free magazine initially seen as a Pittsburgh smut rag, is the one sporting legitimate news, and the professionals are … well … selling out.

Well, keep with the smut rags, and occasionally us bloggers (we may do things to get hits, but we at least hold on to one or two sentences of truth in a posting) … and you may find actual news.

-SWB

PS – Yup, mainstream news makes shows like TMZ seem legit.

Kudos to The City Paper for keeping up good reporting.

Results of an “instant” society

Our of respect for the families, we’re not going to go into too much detail nor finger pointing in this post, since the issues is too fresh. We’ll let the professional news media do that, since they really have no ethics or morals anyway …

If you are not familiar, there was a shooting at a fitness center in Collier Township last night. A distraught man that had just been dumped by his girlfriend (and probably rightly so), shot of 50 rounds, killed 4 people, and injured about 9. You can read the details from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the link above.

The man that did that was in the industry I just got out of (not by my choice – but thankfully I’m out of it) – Information Technology. It’s ironic that right after I do post on “Office Space” being a documentary about the Information Technology life, a slightly “crazy” (lot’s of sarcasm there) decides to show the other extreme result of my industry. I’ve spent years watching coworkers health deteriorate to the point of having heart attacks and strokes, observed their marriages and families be destroyed, and on a daily basis have seen the evolution of a wonderful person turn into someone that could possibly kill without remorse.

All because we want to make sure that internet or web service can return our info faster than we can possibly read or comprehend it.

Beside the fact that the I.T. industry is full of college grads with no actual experience managing everything cluelessly (stressing out everyone below them with actual working knowledge) – everyone in that industry is expected to push themselves was farther mentally than most military special forces personnel can even endure. They are expected to blow off their families and become one with the machine – or else. The else is usually the export of your job to someone tat does it for 75% less n a developing country.

Yup – I’m thinking (although the guy that did the shooting was probably allot “off” in the first place), the industry I just spent the last 25 years in probably had 70% influence in his decision to hate and kill women. The breakup from his girlfriends was just the pin that let out te pent up frustrations.

I thank God every day I’m not doing that for my career anymore, and I feel sorry for the people that have too.

Maybe if we would be willing to wait that extra day for the latest Britney Spears CD to arrive in the mail, instead of pushing workers past their breaking points by working then 24 hours a day … we would have slightly better society?

-SWB

PS – Welcome to the “new world” – simply because nobody wants to lift a finger to change it. Maybe Apple can create a “change world” app for the iPhone.

“Office Space” as a documentary

If you are not familiar with it, Office Space is the defacto standard comedy about office life (or more specifically, life in Information Technology).

Well, try living it.

Although the company I worked for didn’t burn down, I was let go due to lack of work. Basically I am now helping work on an addition to a house, doing odds and ends technical work, and enjoying the outside – which is where I am mostly working. Just like “Office Space“.

Does not being in a cube every day waiting for at least four people to tell me I did something wrong make me happier?

You Bet!

… and yes, TPS Reports do exist for real! They may look different at your office, but one thing is the same across all the versions – once you spend all the time filling them out … nobody ever reads them. Go figure.

So the “career change” has commenced a little sooner than I expected, but for the better. With everyone hosed up in cubes or over 10 hours day now, it’s amazing that people even have to wonder why vitamin D deficiency and life threatening stress is an issue. It’s also amazing any families still exist.

So, “Office Space” to me is now a documentary, not a comedy poking fun at life. It’s amazing how a movie made years ago so accurately predicts how life has evolved to current times.

-SWB

PS – You forgot to fill out your TPS Report.