569 karma · joined September 12, 2015
It's also illegal for them to make decisions based off these. I have no idea how you would know if they did or not but that's what they say.
They haven't had "cheap" fares for a while nor have their staff had the quirky friendliness I had seen on flights when I started flying with them some 15 years ago.
The US domestic airline industry a patient that's always on life-support and pretty much upheld by government bailouts and bankruptcies at this point. I've probably mentioned it here before but the first chapter of David Dayen's "Monopolized" covers some of the sources of the issues going on there. It's a bad mix for something that has become important infrastructure, especially since we have no redundancy on the ground with something like rail traffic.
Also, if you're in the US, it might seem futile, but you do have elected officials and a massive government bureaucracy that tracks all this. Include them on the email if it necessitates it. Every email or letter has to be recorded, by law, so, if it's ever needed as evidence in something, it exists.
"Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey" - James Hollis
"What Matters Most" - James Hollis
"Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" by Gordon Livingston. I've been finding his other books equally good or better. "The Thing You Think You Cannot Do" covers fear and courage, like the courage to lead the life you want.
If you have Netflix, there's a new documentary called "Stutz" where the therapist discusses some of the tools he teaches. It's 90 minutes long and might be even more digestible than those books.
Give those a chance. See this as an opportunity to get to know yourself better. Try not to be too hard on yourself (easier to say than do - my therapist still gets onto me after three years together when that part of me comes out).
I wonder if it's because some of those at the mid-to-level making these decisions are under the same market pressures as the rest of us to show they've actually 'done sometime' - so they can slap this on a resume and prepare it for an interview when they roll out of the org in a year or two after implementation. This seemed to be the history in the IT department at the hospital I worked out where they had a decade of zombie projects that sorta worked because they were implemented, barely supported, and the persons that made the decision had bounced to something else, leaving IT holding the bag.
Hasn't it always been this way at organizations, tech or not? Not even suck ups but people that don't cause a stir, keep their heads down, yes men to whatever the manager asks, etc.
Personally, I've seen it in action in a workplace where everyone "loves" so and so. That person would put on a good face and tell them how "amazing" everything was in every interaction. Behind their backs, that definitely wouldn't be the dialogue.
>You can easily buy a suck-up offering graduates a six-figure salary.
Or less. A name brand, prestige title, or industry. When I worked in visual effects, it's enough to get your name at the end of a movie to justify working 80-90 hour weeks. Video game peeps had it worse and you don't even see their names on a big screen.
>It's like VPs are building their own personal armies not to get ousted by the other feudal lords.
This is pretty visible in transitions right? New manager comes in, people loyal to old ones start melting away to different groups or leave to either join old manager or go somewhere else. The new manager brings in people they know and trust.
It's how we all benefit from weak ties.
When I was part of a mass lay-off, it was big enough to trigger CA state law where they had to detail everything. You could clearly see that it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level).
>The 'righting' came because of shitty financial decisions made from top-down. The top should be fired first and foremost. The company wouldn't be in the position its in if management were doing their fucking jobs.
Should but rarely, if ever, happens. Some even get a larger bonus when meeting next quarter targets or some other short-term indicator.
- What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life - Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey
Usually it takes something bad happening.
I also don't think a lot of the changes people want will be coming to US cities as quickly as they hope. I've worked in the architecture/urban planning world and despite the people doing that work knowing what's best for a city, it's the engineers, politicians, and people with money that end up making the decisions unless there is some very vocal asks. There's also a ton of red tape that stands in the way, especially in CA, of anything being built in a timely, cost-efficient manner.
One can hope though. Small stabs at progress are being made.
So about the same or better than the non-tech world. I've been around the block for 20+ years in a variety of industries and, in most, you might get a warning or review. Given that in the US you can typically let go anyone for any reason, a year of reprieve is quite amazing.
Can you explain why you go this route instead of something like Stripe?
Curious what this involves for you. Are you in an urban, rural, exurb, etc area? What are you growing?
The $24 is still the 50% off price. I didn't have any issues dropping that amount on it despite being unemployed because I already knew you from your newsletter and as a guest on Last Week in AWS / Screaming in the Cloud. For someone outside of tech, whose not used to those prices for an ebook, it might be prohibitive. Especially when they'll want to spend $40 on a course by Adrian Cantrill (I would warn them away from ACG) then the $150 for exams.
Brand new Kindle books go for $14.99 typically then settle to around $9.99 and can go lower depending on what publishers want to do.
It seems things are going well at your price point though and that's something for anyone doing self-publishing to consider. It's ok to still throw out an opinion that at face value it 'seems' expensive. :)
I'm glad so many people are getting traction out of it. I look forward to diving in further myself over the course of the next year. The thing about the tech world I appreciate are all the efforts of people to give back, including yours.
- Try graphic novel versions that intro you to philosophers / concepts. At LAPL, we have the "Introducing..." series[1].
- The "Very Short Introduction" series are indeed short and cover the basics[2]
- Don't look down on "For Dummies". I thought "Existentialism For Dummies" was a good overview. You can skim them pretty quickly too since within a chapter they may repeat the same theme over a few times from different angles / examples.
- Ask yourself what it is you're interested in. Is it something specific about philosophy? "Does life have meaning?" "How can I be a good person?" etc or do you only want a general overview (which some of the courses mentioned in other posts may cover)
[1] https://lapl.overdrive.com/search/series?query=Introducing.....
[2] https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/browse?t0=VSIO_SUBJEC...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204142
Bedknobs and Broomsticks got you too... ;-)
Most US states have at-will employment, so an employee can be fired for any reason, at any time, effective immediately.
For an employee, the implied social contract is to give two weeks notice.
I had a great manager at my last company. Very good people person, would read on his own time to try and improve himself, etc. He had also been in our department the longest - upper management was always coming and going every 2-3 years. I asked him one time why he didn't want to go for one of those higher level positions and would rather stay at this sort of stressful one after a decade. He said he didn't want to deal with all the headaches at that level (more meetings with C-level people). He just wanted to keep his head down, take care of his team, and go home (a 1-2 hr commute each way).
Given the precarity of much existence in the US, and the ability to be fired on a whim, it's no wonder the 'drone' mentality, of not bucking the system, is pretty normal. Suck up the BS until you can retire. I guess at least these days most of us don't have to deal with hot tar.
If anyone wants to delete their data and ACG account: https://help.acloud.guru/hc/en-us/articles/360004379235-How-...