Quote of the Week

"One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils."
- Woodrow Wilson



Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Everybody's the Next Hitler

Seems like shortly after I started paying more attention to politics, two annoying trends have started. One is the press putting forth an effort to publish pictures of politicians speaking in mid sentence, so they have a weird or goofy look on their face.

Back when the media still had a shred of degnity and professionalism, those images would be discarded in search for a good shot of the candidate. Now they do the opposite so they can make the person look bad.

The other more annoying and even more childish trend is done more by politically active, narrow minded people.  That's saying a political figure you don't like is the next Hitler.

George W. Bush, next Hitler. Barrack Obama, next Hitler. Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump; Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, and of course Hitler.

Apparently now that we're seven decades removed from the Second World War; the sheer magnitude of that war and political scene of the time has been lost. The volume of human life lost and the amount of resources wasted. Entire cities leveled. A countless number of people whose lives  were impacted.

A countless number of people who would take the very worst political leader of today's world over Hitler in a heartbeat. Like the 16 million Jews who were treated and slaughtered like cattle in concentration camps and millions more who nearly died as slave labor. Or the millions or other political prisoners and prisoners of war forced into slave labor.

Or all the people across Europe whose homes, places of business and worship were leveled by bombing runs and artillery barrages. People on all sides who were drafted into a war. A war that would kill more soldiers in a typical week than the last decade and a half of the war on terror.

For me, anyone who compares any politician to Hitler loses all credibility. Both on political topics and has a rational human being in general.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Challenge of Carpooling

I switched jobs about a year ago. I finally gave up on the company that was only five miles from home but was going no where, to going back to a company that I enjoyed working at that was 65 miles away.

By chance another engineer I've worked with before who lives near me also works there. So the good thing is since we work in the same department and have the same schedule, we carpool and I save hundred plus dollars a month.

Unfortunately the bad thing is the guy not only is always late, he thinks it's funny. Besides this being unprofessional, I find his nonchalant attitude about his poor habits is extremely disrespectful to all around him.

Especially disrespectful to the guy who puts forth the effort to manage his time so he's at the appointed meeting place each morning on time or a little early, only to  wait for him for ten to twenty minutes past our agreed leave time every morning. Not to mention making sure he's ready to go at the end of the day, only to wait for a host of revolving excuses due to a whole day of poor time management.

Between waiting to go to and leave work an average of 20 minutes a day (yes I've kept track) for a rough total of one hour and forty minutes a week; I also can't commit to meetings right after work since I have no idea how long I'll have to wait for my ride share to power down his laptop to bring home and not use until he brings it back to work the next day. Not to mention the rage I need to suppress daily. That can't be good for me.

There are roughly 16,380 reasons why a overly punctual guy like me tolerates this. Each mile I don't put on my vehicle per year commuting because I carpool. But I'm really wondering $1,300 or so spent on gas & oil and the added wear on my vehicle is really worth it. My time and patience has a price too.

I know I should be a responsible professional adult and tolerant the fact that my car pooling partner is not a responsible professional adult. Day by day the time wasted waiting makes that a more and more difficult task.




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