Can't spell stupid without 'u'

You know, the older I get, the less tolerance I have for people who are stupid or think that I am stupid.

Doc-wife and I were talking about the subject this morning.

*****

As an example, I flipped on the computer last night after getting home from play rehearsal, and found that there’d been a big illegal worker raid at meatpacking plants across the country. Hmm…this sounds familiar…wasn’t there another raid on packing plants in the southeast before the last push for a wide-sweeping immigration amnesty last summer/early fall? Results of that raid? Lots of confirmed illegals rounded up…and then let go. Results of this raid? Ditto.

It’s all done for effect.

“We’re serious about enforcement (uh huh, okay…) so let’s just pardon all these lawbreakers so we can really focus on securing our borders. Oh, and funding for that 700-mile border fence we approved before the last election is going to be a bit of a sticky wicket. So how about we just shelve that and instead hire NICE Systems, you know the closed circuit camera company that has turned Chicago into the modern approximation of 1984, to put up cameras all along the border. That way, in addition to monitoring the flow of people over the border, we’ll also be able to make some cash by hitting up all those border jumpers for their “Welcome to the USA” photos conveniently posted at kiosks along popular human smuggling routes.

Note to Those In Power, who have apparently forgotten…or never knew…or think we’re stupid: Gestures do no equal accomplishment and a big show does not obviate the need for competence.

You insult me when you think I’m stupid enough to fall for this.

*****

I was also talking to a teacher acquaintance recently who was concerned his district might go on strike. It’s the usual problem in Ohio…the costs for employers to provide benefits to employees is skyrocketing, but as schools are funded primarily through property taxes, homeowners are reluctant to keep footing the bill.

The district has 4,400 students, just built a new high school (to consolidate two older schools) and plans other construction projects…all to be funded through taxpayer beneficence, of course. Apparently, the district has stubbornly maintained the need for a reduced level of benefits in the contract negotiations…which have proceeded to arbitration and are now considered to be deadlocked by the board.

He maintained the district was just being miserly, pointing out the books showed a $700,000 surplus in the last budget cycle.

I was polite, didn’t rant or rave, but pointed out that schools districts, just by maintaining current benefits levels, are effectively granting huge yearly raises to staffers. Costs for companies to insure their workers have risen by 87 percent since 2000. The benefits increase is also not taking into account the automatic salary hikes built into virtually all teaching contracts, and personnel costs typically eat up 85 percent or more of a district’s budget. That budget surplus is nothing in a school district the size of the one in which he teaches (he’s not a math teacher) and will likely be quickly eaten up in other projects.

*****

Doc-wife will be switching jobs in a couple months, going back to work for a company she worked for two years ago.

She repeatedly pointed out problems with her current company (with which she had a two-year contract), offered solutions for some growing pains and tried to improve things despite her lack of any official authority to do so. At a corporate contract renewal meeting, company reps dangled carrots, offered no concrete proposals, but did affirm their support for a fellow employee whose incompetence is a major roadblock to improvement. She came out to the car after the meeting and called her old company, a top-notch nationwide firm which “killed the fatted calf” at the idea of her return.

Since then, she’s had a non-stop parade of corporate lackeys dropping by seeking to stroke her ego. It’s back to my first entry again…gestures do not equal accomplishment and a big show does not obviate the need for competence. Her retention would have been easy…she was honest with you during her entire tenure and if the company had done its job with an interest toward improvement she’d have signed on the dotted line for an extension.

We have a dinner meeting tonight with the president of her current company and other assorted notables for doc-wife to (ostensibly) frankly detail the manner of their failing. I’m fully expecting the dinner to be a used-car-salesman-what’ll-it-take-for-you-to-go-out-the-door-with-this-lemon effort to get her back.

They’re either unbelievably stupid or think that she is…I’m not sure which is worse. My political correctness governor has been turned off for this meeting, thus giving my inner gremlin permission to be just as blunt and plain spoken as it likes.

Hehehe. Will update later.