Immigration

Immigration, such a volatile topic as of late with much controversy.  We have gone from a land of immigrants to putting walls up across our borders.  Are we really an exclusive people, is the showing of documents a violation of rights, should we allow immigrant workers … these are some of the things that i have been contemplating as of late.

Are we really an exclusive people?  Many have referred to the United States of America as the melting pot of the world; people from all races, religions, and geographical backgrounds and planted seed on US soil.  So you can’t really give any one group of people ancestral ownership of the land.  You could state the native Americans have it, but they immigrated here just like the rest of us, they just did it from Eurasia earlier.  If you ask most any American what their ancestry is, they will tell you where their family came from BEFORE moving to the US.  I have never met a family member that knew a family member that was born outside of the US, so i consider myself of American ancestry.  In reality, I view, at the least, people who were born of someone else that was born in the US, to be of America ancestry.  In other words, if both of your parents were born here and gave birth to you here, then why bother acknowledging yourself as something else?  I believe that America is the nation built on an “open source” concept.  Everyone added their own little bit, and now we have what we have, which is still being modded.  With all of this mind I would have to say that no, we are not an exclusive people, we are a melting pot.

Is the showing of documents a violation of rights?  I do not have a problem showing my documentation to an authority figure for any reason as I have nothing to hide.  I do not think that unfounded suspicion of being an illegal is grounds for requesting documentation.  Require document checks at any point of a public violation, no matter the severity, sure.  Do random documentation checkpoints where 100% of the people passing are checked, sure.  Randomly stating that someone looks like an illegal and requiring documentation, hell no.  If these fair checks are done and someone is not found to have documentation, go ahead and hold em, pending someone proving citizenship or importation.

Should we allow immigrant workers?  immigrant workers do the work that the majority of US citizens refuse to do and cheaper.  Go ahead and let them do this work for these wages, but make them pay taxes!  They should not have to pay as much tax as we do, as they do not qualify for many of the things that taxes provide to tax payers, but they do use our roads and rely on our public safety, while here.  Allow public schools to set enrollment fees for the workers who bring their children with them, but if the don’t pay into the school tax system, they should not benefit from the public schools that are funded with said taxes. 

My only problem with immigration is that we are unable to properly govern and care for the population of people who we have here now.  We need to find a way to stop and stabilize before we continue to try to push and expand further.  I truly believe that anyone should be able to apply for citizenship and become a legal citizen no matter who they are and where they come from, I welcome their contribution into our tax revenue.

Work Ethics

The longer I have been a member of the working class, the more I become aware of what people believe to be their role in the work place.  I was fortunate enough to be raised with a very strong work ethic.  My parents ground into me the fact that good work ethics are mandatory in the work place. 

I won’t lie and state that I have always had the best of work ethics; like most teens, I thought my parents were full of it.  So from when I entered the work force at 14 years old until my early 20s, I would say that i had mediocre work ethics.  During this time i was able to keep steady work, but was never able to last anywhere for any length of time and was not able to advance in the work place.  I drifted place to place in no skill, no education positions, as I had not graduated high school and had yet to go out and earn my GED.

Somewhere in my early 20s, I recognized that this was a pretty sour existence.  I had no career and nothing to my name.  Rather than entering the defeatist thought of waiting for someone to do something for me, i chose to start taking action on my own behalf.  First, I signed up for, took, and passed the GED test; this gave me a base line education on paper.  During this time, I stopped acting like an employee; I took responsibility to do the level of work that I believed would be expected of the next position up and I began following the dress code of the next position up.  These simple actions gave me my foot in the door, and that’s all i needed.

With my newfound work ethic and drive, I entered into entry-level leadership roles.  Becoming team and shift leads, at first.  Now that I had attained the next step, I looked another step forward and asked myself, “what is expected of the next person up?”  Once I identified that, i again began to dress and behave like the next person above me.  After a while, my work paid off and I earned my first supervisory position.  

I still had not maintained a position for any extended period of time and had no formal education, so I began to set tangible goals.  These four goals are not short-term goals that are to be met and then forgotten, these are four things that every career minded individual must constantly strive to meet.

First, continuous development.  No matter how much you think you know, you know nothing.  There is a world of knowledge out there.  Continuosly seek out new knowledge and skill sets.  Every piece of knowledge and every skill gives you an edge over the next person.  Caution though, you can end up like me who can build and repair computers, but i have nothing to proove it.  Shoot for getting about a quarter of your skills documented.  Simple things to do would be to look at your employer and see if they offer any employee developmebnt courses.  Recent employers of mine had a plethera of courses that i could take that went on my file, but they did not inform me about them, I had to look for them.  Also, google your various skill sets and see if there are certififications available.  Many times you have to take courses, but there are many skills certifications that you can test out of and recieve documentation of said skill.

Second, be an asset.  Become a person in your work place that produces something tangible for the company.  Meet goals, do work, and look at what you can do to make the company more money.  In general, what is good for the company is good for the worker.  I know which of my employees produce results and make the company money, and i know which employees make no attempt to justify what is paid to them.  I’m sure my boss knows the same of me and my peers.  The more you produce, the more you will be rewarded.

Third, be there.  It’s really one of the simplest of concepts, go to work every day, on time.  I once had to fire a young lady for being late and she was floored that she was being fired for being ten minutes late; I explained to her that after three tardees in no more than three months, I bumped her schedule back half an hour to accomodate, and she continued to be late.  I’ve seen people that give away all of their hours and take every opportunity not to be at work become suprised that they were released.  I was hired to fill a gap or hole, I need to be sure that i keep that gap or hole filled at all times.  For the last eight years, I have only taken about one or two sick days a year.

Fourth, don’t whine.  No one came to my door, begged me to work for them, asked my terms, and agreed to them.  “I applied for this job, terms were given, and I accepted them.”  This is what I remind myself whenever frustrated.  Whining about your job accomplishes absolutly nothing.  Don’t get me wrong, you may vent on occassion, away fro mthe working areas, but don’t let it get the best of you.  The more you whine and complain, the less happy you will become.  Suck it up and do the job, after a while, management notices those that follow this principle.

I am sure tht many people could list many more cores to being a good worker, but this is the list that has helped me succeed.  I encourage everyone to seek out new opportunities.  Look to the sky and change your stars!

When games were just games

Like many people, the world of gaming that I grew up to was an NES plugged into the bag of the TV.  No network, no clans, no achievements, or any of this crap.  We sat down and played video games.  Sometimes your friends would come over and you could play pass the paddle, but that’s really as multiplayer as it got.  Through most of my childhood into young adult, it remained this way.  Split screen multiplayer games pushed their way in, but nothing major.  We played video games for the sole purpose of something fun to do when it was raining outside.

I was not part of the break into LAN and internet play, so in my mind, it happened overnight.  Everyone plugged their computers into the world-wide web and started playing as a community; they would also haul their gigantic machines to each others houses and play that way.  This is what drew me to PC gaming, was the multiplayer community aspect of LANs.  So I built myself up a mid-grade rig as i was on a short budget, and I started playing with everyone.  Over time I got into the upgrade wave and started upgrading my computer every few months, but i have thankfully slowed down on that process a bit.  Getting away from the predictable AIs that were so prevalent in single player action games and now competing against unpredictable people was a refreshing change of pace.  For a time this was a good and happy way to play games and I was pleased. 

At some point the people who i gamed with became communities and then stronger entities/clans that requested membership.  I enjoyed gaming with these communities, so I joined them.  Playing with these communities was never a hassle, I enjoyed the social aspect of it very much as i truly am a social creature at heart.  I am also naturally drawn to leadership and decision making roles, so I started to move my way up the ranks of the communities that i was a part of, until I was the leader of a LAN organization and an internet clan.  This was all good until at some point people starting to bicker, with bickering came arguing, and with arguing came bad blood.  The entire time, I wondered to myself, “what is so critical in these games that we must fight about it?”  As far as being in the communities, my mindset was simple, “play with the community or move on.”  No hard feelings, this isn’t a spiteful thought, it’s merely a plainly simple thing to do; if I stopped playing with the people in my clan for an extended time, I would excuse myself and move on.  But alas, people do not enjoy the simple things, people must draw things out and argue over them. 

So rather than playing games, I feel that I am back at work, supervising people.  I gamed to escape work, and then gaming turned into work; I have completed the loop.  I do not wish to leave my role within the community that I am part of.  A few bridges have been burned in the process, but none of these bridges were with anyone I considered friends anyways.  I have even developed a one or two actual friendships in the process.  I hope noone takes offense to this, but at the end of the day, most of these online acquaintances get turned of the moment i turn of my computer.  I am going to make a point out of turning my corner of the gaming world more back towards gaming as opposed to eDrama and i hope that everyone else tries to do the same.

Going Paperless

I have, for as long as i can remember, been a bit of a tree hugger.  Most anything that could give me cause to ‘save the rain forest’ i would consider.  I have actively sought out paperless alternatives, I have taken steps in companies I work for to reduce paper cost, and I have been conscientious about recycling.  I have been wondering lately, what else can we and can’t we do.

A concept that probably won’t be accepted in my life time is the conversion from paper money to money cards.  Could we get rid of our paper and coin money in exchange for higher end credit cards?  Our Drivers License / State ID Cards could easily be upgraded to have a scanner strip used for monetary transactions.  Colleges do it now with college IDs.  The big questions for this one is who governs the money and how do we decided what everything’s worth when our monetary system takes the final jump to truly fictisious representation of value.  I personally have no real attachment to the paper and coin currency, but I see the attachment that some have to it.  You can hold a stack of money next to another stack of money and get a quantifiable difference in sums.  As far as the abstract nature of how many ‘credits’ or how much money someone has when it goes all digital, what’s so different from that and government issued money to begin with?

Newspapers something that has already dove into the digital realm.  News, especially, is one thing that really doesn’t need to be on paper.  I recieve all of my news from a variety of online sources.  I consider myself more knowledgable in regards to current events than someone who only reads the local paper.  This is because I can locate stories from multiple sources with multiple views on the subject and come to my own conclusion on a topic.  I believe that newspaper outlets need to strive to convert their publications to an online media and do away with the probably billions of sheets of newpaper that is discarded every day of the year. 

Flyers and advertisements are a little harder to do away with.  The ability to place something in another persons hand to look at is an invaluable asset; ask any face-to-face salesperson about the power of placing something in a persons hand and then discussing the item.  I do see things that are a little on the science fictiony side but actually plausable in the next decade.  With the expansion of data pads and data-centric cell phones, we have the ability to swap documents back and forth with ease.  The guy that wants to let people know about his bands upcoming gig can hang the same place that he would have passed out flyers and transfer promo sheets to peoples phones and data pads, if they’re willing to accept.  As far as all of the paper advertisements that are mailed to us on a daily basis, I hate it.  I hate junk paper mail more than i hate junk email.  junk email I may actually browse subject lines.  Junk papermail I refuse to even acknowledge and i toss it.

Bills and reciepts are a hard one to due away with.  A paper trail is important as a solid record of things that you can prove to have happened.  I personally do all of my business online and only recieve digital records of rather than paper bills.  Most anytime I have the option to prevent a paper reciept from being printed, i will do so, as i toss them as soon as i get home.  Bills and reciepts may be something that has to stay on paper as it’s one of the few ways to truly establish a record of events.

Literature and the Arts is an area where I concede that paper is just necessary.  Once a work of literature or a piece of art has been completed, it can be digitally rendered and distributed, but i agree that the original is just better in it’s current, paper form, or what ever media the individual has used.

There are many ways to reduce paper use in our lives, you simply have to make the choice.  i really believe that the world would be better for the change in the end.  According to the United States Department of Labor, there are approxamately 398,500 people employed in the Paper manufacturing industry.  This is, of course, a number that needs considering before we just do away with paper.  Switching to digital media will create more jobs, but they will be higher skilled jobs that require fewer people to accomplish tasks.  As we do with everything of this scale, we must find the balance and a way to utilize the work force that would be lost.

I hope we all take a moment to consider what we can do to reduce waste.  Paper is a good start, but what can you do, in general, to save.  More fuel efficient cars, car pooling, public transportation, andusing reusable bottles rather than disposable plastic water bottles are all things that we can do to do our part.

3/18/10 Blog: Worker’s Unions

I would like to start this blog by acknowledging that worker’s unions served a critical role in the advancement of worker’s rights; I acknowledge this as true. 

Today, I believe that worker’s unions have lost our country more than it has gained.  The union has turned into a business, rather than an advocate.  I have seen and heard of countless instances where a union has slowed production and reduces profitability of a company to the point that it’s rediculous. 

I have encountered training programs that could not allow live production as part of their training because it took work away from the union workers.  I have seen equipment sit on a job site in everyone’s way because the person who the union stated was the job holder of that equipment was at a different site, so none of the LICSENCED drivers were allowed to move it, because it took away from the other person’s work.  Currently, several teachers unions are blocking the educational stimulus money because it demands accountability.

How are these things beneficial to the American work force?!

Everyday, jobs are being shipped outside of our borders because the cost of doing business is lower elsewhere.  This is largely due to our labor unions and workers demanding to be compensated on a lev el that is so far higher than the rest of the world, that American made has led to only mean more expensive.  The worst thing about it is that all of the additional rights and compesations do not lead to a better, stronger worker and product bacuase we cannot hold the worker accountable bacause the unions won’t allow it!  At what point can we finally tell Joe Union that no, he’s not allowed to sit there, doing nothing, yes, he has to work!

Status quo says I should finish 13 units in eight hours; this does not mean you stop working five hours into your shift because you completed 13 units!  I have actual heard of union representatives correcting workers for doing too much work.  In what productive society is that acceptable. 

I understood the role of the union to be a mediator between the worker and the company.  If this is true, then shouldn’t they have both the worker and the companies best interest in mind.  Even if it’s not true.  Is the best thing for the worker to stop work and/or put their employer out of business because they can not financially meet the unions demands?

3/16 Journal/blog: Joining

I recently had an opportunity to engage in another great debate session with a good friend of mine; the subject was marriage and who should be allowed to get married.  My stance has always been that the term ‘Marriage’ was a term used to describe the union of a heterosexual couple; I still stand by this stance.  This stance is often confused with a stance of discrimination and/or hated, when it really is not.  I believe tht homosexual couples should have the right to enter into a union with all of the same legal rights as a heterosexual couple, it just need a different word.  This has nothing to do with classifying them as second class citizens, I do not believe that they are.  It is merely a definition.  Why do they need two or three words?  Why, in all their moves for equality, does the homosexual community still classify themselves as gay and lesbian couples as opposed to just couples, without the title before it?  That’s really all it comes down to for me, is the words.I believe that everyone should be able to join into a union with whom ever they want and it’s none of the governments business.

As far as the government is concerned, I have a slightly radical concept on the whole topic.  If I recall my history lessons correctly, the United States of America is supposed to have a separation between church and state.  If this is correct, then they have no business governing heterosexual or homosexual marriage in any way shape or form.  It was pointed out to me that there are several legal and tax benefits and ramifications that marriage has sway over.  I believe that, with a little work, we could replace these with civil contracts.

All in all, I truly believe that every person has the fundamental right to pursue their happiness with whomever.  I believe that it is not the governments place to control love.  I believe that there is no reason to hide what kind of love you are apart of.  I also believe that everyone should be proud to state and label their chosen path.