A.G.E's Joint

Good morning and welcome to Orange Inc.  My name is Joe Task and I started this company. Most people compare us to that other fruit company.  The one that makes computers.  People think they are so great and they changed the world with their "innovative" products, like phones and media players and junk.  But in reality, it's my company that began the nightmare. We manufacture Buzzwords.  We took the normal things in offices and homes from around the world and using our patented fraction distillation grammatical methodology (patent pending) and renamed them.  Our words serve to make people seem more businesslike and "professional".  Yes, we invented the "Forward Thinking Manager".  We turned a simple letter into a "Personal Communications Statement." And turned mass layoffs into "Right Sizing and Redeploying Our Human Capital".  All this to support a "Lean Environment", which allows for "Revenue Supluses" to...

As most of you know, I am currently looking for a job.  And at 54, that is not an easy proposition.  One of the tools of that can be used in the modern era is the social network LinkedIn.com.  It operates on the theory of Six Degrees of Separation, where by using six links you can connect to anyone int he world. In LinkedIn's case, they use only three. And by referring and being referred, theoretically employee and employer are matched to their positions more effectively than the older methods of cold calling and newspaper ads.  It can also be used to scare up sales leads and other types of business activities. The first level connections are supposed to be your personal acquaintances and business associates.  People you have directly done business with and have some idea how they work.  Then they have associates, who are second level and then from there it goes to the third level.  To illustrate how strong the separation theory is; I currently have ...

I was working on a poem for this week's entry and I decided to stop.  I may finish it later and put it up, but it occurred to me that the whole point of the topic is tossing an arrogant insult to someone in power.  The whole quote "Stand a little out of my sun ." is Diogenes adroitly telling Alexander the Great he wasn't so great and that he would bow to him.  How many times have you wanted to say that to your boss?  To your significant other?  That I don't have to be the subservient one? Most jobs are like a Bronc busting event anyway.  The conditions are constantly shifting while you hang on for dear life.  And there is always an audience of screaming baboons there wishing for your fall. The best you can hope for is to be a Troubadour and a Troublemaker.   Part of you hypnotizing the crowd with your voice while the other part throws the obstacles back at the monkeys and politicians in your way.  Off the top of my head, I remain An...