The Idiots are Running the Asylum

Father doesn't know best, court rules in girl's fight to get grounding overruled

First, the father banned his 12-year-old daughter from going online after she posted photos of herself on a dating site. Then she allegedly had a row with her stepmother, so the father said his girl couldn't go on a school trip.

I think between a father, stepmother and mother there is more to this case than meets the eye. Even so, I can't believe that the judge even agreed to hear this case. Isn't the court system overloaded enough with out this frivolity?

Your Call is Important to Us Part 2

Lining up at the Trough

Businesses such as Connect North America do not come to places such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia out of the goodness of their hearts: They are here to make a buck, but not only that, they came here because the provincial governments shelled out and continue to shell out copious amounts of money to bring and keep them here. Furthermore, the powers that be don’t seem to be terribly particular to whom they grant this largesse: The late lamented Connect North America alone received $470,000 in the form of grants and wage reimbursements. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for that refund, by the by). Also lining up at the trough are companies like TeleTech, currently under class action lawsuits in three states for unfair labour practices.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that companies like Teletech et al are perhaps not the most worthy investment of taxpayer dollars or for that matter, one that can be trusted to treat their employees in a fair and equitable manner. However, I am not entirely certain whether the latter condition enters into consideration on any level at all.

These companies, of whom I will refer to as “fly by night” call centers in honour of Connect North America that literally disappeared overnight receive copious amounts of money from the provincial governments in the form of tax breaks, wage reimbursements, grants and my all time favourite: training bonuses. It is a little known fact that some companies are paid for the number of people they train, not for the number of people they actually retain for the positions they for which they are trained. That being the case, if an employee quits or is terminated and is consequently rehired, this employee, who is already trained mind you, is trained again, and the government is billed twice. This process has been known to happen 3 and 4 times with the same person. Can you say “double dipping”? I knew you could.

As I have stated previously, one of the main draws touted by the provinces in bringing these call centers here is an educated workforce that will work for relative peanuts. Low wages are one thing, however when the local civic government stabs their citizens in the back it becomes outrageous. Two years ago a call center opened in the town of A______, and held a “hiring fair” to seek out potential employees. The wife of an acquaintance of mine applied for a position and was quoted the starting wages for the position. The lady made it past the hiring fair to an interview, and the starting wage was substantially lower than the original quote. Her question as to how this came to be went unanswered. Her husband came across the local MP, where he was kissing hands and shaking babies at an event in his riding and asked the same question. The MP duly pointed the man in the direction of the office of the local provincial MLA for answers. He called the office, asked his question and this is a verbatim quote of the answer he received: “You can thank your Mayor for that one”. It seems that His Worship in a meeting with the call center minions told them that they didn’t have to pay people in his town the original wage offered because they would work for less.

Bend over; your government is behind you.

It is highly ironic that these same governments have the nerve to wonder why the workforce is leaving their respective provinces in droves for greener pastures in the West. Further, it clearly escapes them as to why these same people are not burning up the TransCanada in their rush to return home, regardless how may the “Come to Life” billboards dot Fort McMurray. Let’s face it, when the labour laws offer less protection than the SPCA, and the local government sells you into indentured servitude at subsistence wages, no one in their right mind would be in a rush to come back. But, I digress.

The days of the “fly by night” call centers owned by are rapidly coming to an end in these provinces. As I write the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar for the first time in decades, and we have gained 8% on the Euro. Therefore, while the wages of the average call center peon have not increased one iota, and the cost of living gone has not gone down, the cost of these paying these wages has risen dramatically. Now, since these call centers are kept here by two things: massive injections of government money in various forms, and the low wages. If either one of these incentives disappears, the center and the jobs it provides will be gone faster than you can say “Hydrabad.” Connect North America, I feel was only the first of what will be many that will pull up stakes and vanish when the gravy train slows down. Incidentally, Connect North America is still very much in business, just off to another place of slave wages with the vague promise of returning at sometime in the future, meaning when the dollar drops. I know I speak for many of us when I say “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass.”

Now, in principle, I think that the government investing money in job creation for is a good thing. However, as a taxpayer and a call center employee, I have to question the wisdom in pumping massive amounts of money into these modern day equivalents of carpet baggers: Call centers run by huge conglomerates with centers anywhere the wages are low, that have never put down roots in the communities in which they reside, have no loyalty to the provinces from whence the handouts flow, and less to the people who work for them. The analogy of call centers being the coalmines of the 21 century is just a bit flawed: in order for a coalmine to exist, it must be near coal. A call center is an ephemeral creation that can exist anywhere that it is deemed to be profitable for it to exist. Quite literally, these centers can be here today and halfway around the world the next.

When Frank McKenna wooed the call centers here, he was banking on New Brunswick remaining the “Mexico of the North”. Without a doubt, his courtship brought in a lot of jobs, however as the dollar has been rising steadily these last few years, it should have been obvious that this was a relationship that could not last. The first of the rats have fled the ship, others will follow, and then we can watch the workforce migrate ever westward. Can we hope that the last person will turn out the lights?

Your Call is Important to Us - Part I

Welcome to The Coal Mines

Some months ago, I heard briefly on the provincial news that the province of New Brunswick was planning on putting a goodly sum of money towards “improving the image of working in call centers”. I kid you not. I heard on CBC radio news – twice. Then the story disappeared, and I have not been able to find any mention of it again. I suspect it was shoved firmly somewhere under the broadloom when the howls of laughter erupted.

The province of New Brunswick has, over the last decade, been promoting itself as a leader in the call center industry and they are all over the province. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been pumping vast amounts of dollars into wooing the companies that own these call centers into their respective provinces and they have much to offer: fewer statutory holidays, an educated workforce, lower wages, and labour laws that might fall into the category of a religious experience because they are so holey. Oh, and did I say lower wages?

Now, I don’t have anything against call centers, particularly since I work in one myself. For the most part, though the job is high stress as all jobs in call centers are, I like my job: the pay, while not stellar, is not bad, I have a great benefits package, and of course, there are bonuses. My co-workers are a great bunch of people, and there is great camaraderie all being in the same boat as it were. I have hours that suit me, since I am not a 9 – 5 person by nature. Most importantly, the management is pretty decent and we are treated like people, not just “bums in seats”. The surroundings are pleasant, and the coffee is good. I could do without the up-sell aspect of it, but you can’t have everything.

However, I also don’t kid myself: Call Centers are the coalmines of the 21^st century, and not all of them are created equally. Generally, one stands a chance of better treatment in an “inbound” (support) center, than an outbound one (sales). Also, there is an exponentially better chance of job stability if the center is actually owned by the company for which it provides the services, rather than one that lives from contract to contract from any number of businesses.

I freely admit that as far as call centers go, I am far more fortunate than many of my counterparts in other call centers. For example, a lot of them will offer good benefits packages; however, I suspect that they offer those packages knowing that there will be very few of their employees that will ever benefit from them. They will never benefit from them because the working conditions are so abysmal that no one ever stays long enough to collect them. Or the company won’t be around long enough for anyone to collect. For example, I have heard of one place that you are only paid for the time when you are on the phone/ready to take a call. If per chance you have to take 2 minutes outside of your regular break to run to the bathroom for a pee, it is docked from your pay. Heaven help you if you have that extra cup of coffee in the morning or a very weak bladder.

Can companies get away with this? Yup. In New Brunswick, they can

Now, as I have said, not all call centers are created equally: There are those who do in house sales/support for the company that owns them, like say UPS. While I cannot speak to the working conditions in most of them, one thing is certain, when you leave work one day, you can be pretty well assured that your job will be there the next day, barring, of course, being fired. This is not the case with certain call centers that live from contract to contract. Case in point: one day fine day in August, 375 people were at work, up-selling, cross-selling, working for their wages and bonuses, just an average day toiling in the mines. Then, without a word of warning to anyone, Connect North America folded up its tents and disappeared into the night. The next day, these same people arrived at their place of employ ready as much as they could be for another day, and the building was locked, dark, and silent. The only information was a sign taped to the door saying they had all been laid off, and would be contacted.

When last I did hear, the former employees received the wages that they were due, however no severance.

Can businesses do that? Yup. In New Brunswick, they can. Thanks to a loophole in the labour laws big enough to sail a Tall Ship through, Connect North America could give their employees no notice of any impending layoff and no severance. To add insult to injury, the company did not even have the courtesy to have the separation slips ready for the people who were unceremoniously disconnected from their jobs. As bad as New Brunswick is for labour protection, Nova Scotia, home of the Michelin Law, is even worse.

My Summer Haitus is Over

After a glorious summer of pottering in my garden, I am back. The days are shorter, the nights are cooler and the mosquito population has taken a dive. So I am back with my odd tidbits of news, and occasional rant. So to begin, the kids are back in school:

Black Market for Junk Food at Winnipeg School

Kelvin High School has removed pop, chocolate bars and cinnamon buns from its cafeteria and vending machines as part of a new Winnipeg School Division nutrition plan.

George And The Meaning of Life

It seems in the twilight of his presidency George Bush is pondering the meaning of Life, the Universe, and everything. According to this article He has started to invite authors, historians, philosophers, theologians, and other luminaries for discussions at the White house. One can only imagine the topics discussed:

Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?

To this I would add "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?"

When I read the above article, I was struck by the similarity between George Bush and his luminaries and William Lyon MacKenzie King who held seances to speak to his late mother and his dead dog: Neither of them were looking for true guidance, all they were looking for was reassurances that they were doing a good job. The difference is that MacKenzie King, however quirky, was an intelligent man and competent Prime Minister.

The article bounces back and forth at painting a picture of a man who is calm, serene and completely oblivious:

"You don't get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker," said Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who was part of one group of scholars who met with Bush. "This is either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."

I would suggest a third option: He is extraordinarily self confident because he is out of touch with reality. Of course George Bush is calm and serene, he lacks the intellect and imagination to even begin to understand the disaster he has wrought both at home and abroad. Any time I have ever seen Dubya on television, he always seems to have an expression that I can only describe as someone who knows that some very important is happening but when it comes to understanding it, has just missed the boat. In other words, George has the tranquility to which only the truly stupid can aspire.

The article goes on and on, in a jaw dropping attempt to present Bush as a "spiritual, thoughtful man" and the facts just are not in evidence. George, over the years, has such a great deal out of being "anti intellectual" that article just does not ring true. Instead, perhaps unintentionally, it paints a picture of a man who has pretty much isolated himself, surrounded himself with "yes men" and fears to step beyond his little circle for fear that reality will leap up and sink its fangs into his ass.

I don't know about you, but this, perhaps, is the most frightening of all:

Much of the discussion focused on the nature of good and evil, a perennial theme for Bush, who casts the struggle against Islamic extremists in black-and-white terms. Michael Novak, a theologian who participated, said it was clear that Bush weathers his difficulties because he sees himself as doing the Lord's work.

Well, Well, George sees himself as doing the lord's work. It must also be pointed out that so do the suicide bombers.

You are Entitled to Any Opinion as Long as It's Ours.

It seems that “Reefer Madness” is playing in Wawota, Saskatchewan, and I am not talking about the musical. It all started one find day in May when the school showed a supposedly “educational” video about the evils of the Demon Weed. One of young people who watched this presentation just didn’t buy it. It is not that Kieran King was in anyway advocating the use of marijuana, but rather that the alleged “facts” used in the video were wildly inaccurate. Read the whole story here:

Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.

I find it to be extremely disheartening to find that the school system in Saskatchewan has not changed in any remarkable way in the 30 odd years since I last graced their classrooms. My recollection of my high school is that for the most part, it was a hotbed of apathy beginning with the teachers and flowing down to the student the student body. With few exceptions, the teachers often displayed less maturity than the students they were entrusted to teach.

In this one situation we have a remarkably bright young man who did something most of his peers could not be bothered to do - research and think. As a result, he came to some conclusions that the Powers That Be did not want him to know and certainly not share. At that point, the principal of the school, Susan Wilson, crapped her pants in fear of intellectual curiosity and made an Everest out of a proverbial mole hill.

Thank you, Susan Wilson, I am sure that the town of Wawota is utterly thrilled that you have made it a national laughingstock.

You have to work at it.

Atv rider struck, killed by train

Ok, Anonymous commenter

I will rewrite my blog post with what I do know as reflected in the article above:

The man in the article above was riding his atv on railway tracks, where he was hit by a train.

This act of thoughtlessness resulted in his death, and left behind friends and family who mourn his loss and one engineer who will have to live with a tragedy not of his making for the rest of his life.

Moral of the story: Tons of train cannot stop on a dime and atvs do not belong on railway tracks.