3/02/2007

"The rest of the story"

It seems that Switzerland accidently invaded neighboring Liechtenstein

The funny thing to me however, (and it didn't get reported in the news), is that upon hearing the news, France immediately surrendered!

Pyro

Accountability

With all the news about top officials going down in flames over the Walter Reed Scandal it causes me to wonder.

How many times over the last 10 or 15 years have these same problems been pointed out by lower level personnel? How many times have the grunts been told to "shut up" and quit complaining? How many times has someone had the idea to fix up the place or maintain things better only to be shut down or ignored? I see it happen all the time, whether it be in the military, a para-military organization (like fire departments or police departments), or regular corporate America.

The problem is simple, GOOD IDEAS HAVE RANK. If you aren't high enough in rank or seniority, your idea isn't good, it's whinning or making waves. If you are high enough in rank or seniority, all of your ideas are good, even the really really dumb ones!!

Now of course I'm being slightly sarcastic. There are good organizations all over the place. The thing they have in common is that they value everyone in the organization and recognize that the genesis of many good ideas is not from the top down but instead, from the bottom up.

Too bad the folks in the Army and at Walter Reed didn't see fit to do something about an obviously unsatisfactory condition until they got caught. I don't praise the news media very often, and Lord knows they will be circling this story like a bunch of vultures, but the Army deserves two black eyes over this one.

Pyro,

2/25/2007

Reason #74,368,746,798,421,957,694,375,096 that labor unions are still necessary

Teacher’s Trial Begins TodayBy Rusty Garrett
TIMES RECORD •
RGARRETT@SWTIMES.COMA lawsuit over whether teachers should be paid for time spent monitoring students outside the classroom will go to trial today in Crawford County Circuit Court.Judge Mike Medlock will preside over the case filed by former Coleman Junior High School civics teacher Steve Jones against the Van Buren School District.The suit, originally filed in 2003, claims Jones and other teachers were not paid for non-instructional duty time that they were required to work. It has been certified as a class-action suit.A 2003 law requires teachers be paid additional compensation if they work more than 60 minutes of non-instructional time in a week. Lemley said there is a dispute over whether passing periods — the three to seven minutes between classes — and before and after school duty and lunch duty are noninstructional time.After the Van Buren School Board voted to fire Jones in 2006, the suit was amended to include a wrongful termination claim. Jones was fired for missing a meeting in 2005 and leaving a meeting early in 2006.The termination issue will be tried at a later date.Attempts between Jones’ attorney Brian Meadors and Kevin Lemley, the lawyer representing the school district, to negotiate a settlement ended Feb. 13 when the school board voted 6-0 against accepting an offer that would have involved a $400,000 payment by the district.Lemley told board members the plaintiffs have contended a decision in their favor could cost the district more than $2 million.The trial will begin at 9 a.m. in the new circuit courtroom in the remodeled county courthouse annex on Fourth Street.

I'm no huge fan of public school teacher unions but.... it sounds as if this school administration thinks it's o.k. to not pay workers for required hours of labor (meetings, training, whatever you want to call it). I'll bet all the salary employees claim "comp time" for these meetings and take extra 3 day weekends once they've banked enough!

Pyro

The Reason labor unions are their own worst enemy #1,992,883,575,884,888,548,848,584

A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack in North London in January, perhaps assisted by a delay in responding by the London Ambulance Service. According to The Sun, the nearest crew could not be called because European Union labor rules prevent disturbing the crew for any reason during the first 20 minutes of their half-hour break. [The Sun (London), 1-6-07]

How much ya wanna bet this rule is already changed?
How much ya wanna bet there are people arguing that what happened wasn't wrong?

Pyro