CyberCJH's Blog

I was going through 2 old shoe boxes full of receipts and other various scraps of paper last night. I put most of it through the shredder, but saved a few things that brought back some memories. So, in this series of posts called The Old Shoe Box, I will post pictures of those things and the short stories behind them.

Spirit Airlines Handwritten Boarding Pass – Even in today’s world of modern technology, nothing beats a pen and paper when the computer can’t or just won’t do what you want it to do. When I flew to Atlantic City, NJ from West Palm Beach, FL on Spirit Airlines on March 12, 2006, I was issued a handwritten boarding pass. Whether this was standard procedure at that time or not, I thought it was a pretty interesting event.

Northwest Airlines Baggage Tag – Ah, the trip from hell. On July 1, 2004, we were scheduled to fly from Newark, NJ to Detroit to Charleston, SC. Our flight leaving Newark departed about 2 hours late which means we missed our connection in Detroit. So, we had to spend the night at a Best Western which probably was a Best Western in 1965 but now was just an Old Western. The rate we paid for the hotel was listed as Passenger Distress which really summed up the evening nicely. The bathroom was so small, you had to stand in the tub if you wanted to shut the door. By the time we got to our room, it was going on midnight. The only place to get food was a gas station at the corner. So, we walked to the gas station, in the middle of the night, in Detroit. Soda and a donut was about all they had that could have been classified as edible. The next morning, we were put on a flight to Charleston with an ‘inoperable bathroom.’ Coming back to Newark the next day, our connection in Detroit was late again.

written by cybercjh

written by cybercjh

Take a gander at the picture currently being displayed on wamu.com’s home page. Maybe I’m the only one who sees the irony in this.

“Want to make saving easier?” asks the big silver pig with the blue Chase tattoo. Wow, Chase will help me save?! But, look a little closer.

The pig is fat, even comically so. It gorges itself because of its greedy, insatiable appetite for its customer’s money without concern of the consequences for its own long-term health. Instead of maintaining an ethical, healthy diet of fair interest rates and fees that could presumably go on forever, it would rather satisfy its current appetite by feasting on ever-increasing interest rates that exceed the definition of usury and outrageous fees even with the knowledge that at some point it’s going to end. And now, it is ending as the government works to pass Credit Card Reform legislation. Poor, poor pig. It guess he’ll have to go to rehab.

The pig has one huge completely open eye staring at you. Just stare at it for a moment. Creepy, right? It never blinks. It’s always watching you, waiting for you to screw up, waiting to pounce on you with the next fee to pacify its ugly habit.

The pig is standing tall with its ears forward, both traditional signs of dominance. The pig knows it’s in a strong position. It has …

• billions of dollars it can use to bribe the people writing the Credit Card Reform legislation aimed at protecting consumers,
• billions of dollars it has unfairly collected from those consumers as a result of its unethical business practices that the Credit Card Reform legislation is supposed to prevent
• and, billions of dollars the people writing the Credit Card Reform legislation borrowed against (and, presumably, on behalf of) the consumers the Credit Card Reform legislation is designed to protect to give to the pig in order to help the pig survive.

Simply put, the pig is too big and too important to die.

The pig has no mouth because it’s not interested in speaking. And why should it speak? Really, what would the pig say? “We’re sorry?” Hardly.

The pig is Chase.

written by cybercjh

written by cybercjh

The annual employee survey came out at work yesterday. At nearly every place I’ve worked at, I’ve been asked to complete one of these surveys each year. But, doing so always creates such a dilemma for me.

Should I be honest? Or, should I give them the answers they want to see?

On one hand, being honest is fraught with the knowledge that probably, in some way, your answers will be traced back to you and life at work will become even worse than it already is. I don’t believe the repeated assurances that our responses to the survey are completely confidential and no one will ever see an individuals survey. Being honest would hurt your prospects for advancement. If you submit an honest survey, you’ll forever be labeled as a trouble-maker who will never be happy in his job.

On the other hand, giving them the answers they want to see pretty much assures you that things will probably stay just the way they are. They certainly won’t get better, but they won’t get worse, either. It’s a call for inaction on the part of management. And, when it comes time for that raise or promotion, your boss will remember that you said you liked your job on the survey and you’re a happy employee.

Is giving them the answers they want to see the same as being dishonest? 

Since the first page of the survey told me there are no right or wrong answers, I’m going to go with no, it isn’t.

written by cybercjh