Warriors & Weasels Blog

Doing Well In The Job Review

Over the years I have conducted dozens – maybe even hundreds – of yearly performance reviews of employees.  Typically when a review goes badly, it is because an employee makes one or more of the following mistakes:

1. Over-rate yourself.  On our reviews we utilize a 1 to 5 ranking system (5 being the best) for an employee to rank their performance over the previous year.  The employee does their self-ranking first – turns the review in to their manager – and the manager puts in their ranking.  Occasionally I will have an employee give themselves a perfect score – all fives.  I would not rate myself with all fives – and I have never had an employee perfect in every facet of their job. I would love to have someone like this working for me – and pray for the day that I get a solid fiver – but I suspect it may never happen.  The employee that gives themselves all fives is almost always a “soft three or four” on my ranking, and of course their inflated self-opinion always gives me great concern.  If they are deluded about their job performance it usually indicates even bigger issues.  We all have areas we can improve in – and identifying those areas with a plan for improvement will usually impress your boss and make the review go much better.

2. Whine without a solution. Often there are organizational barriers preventing an employee from doing the best job possible, and if this is the case I want to hear about it and hopefully correct the problem. But often in a review the employee will point out problems that the company has nothing to do with and I can’t impact.  Being late for work frequently because “you are just not a morning person” is not a valid excuse - unless your point is to acknowledge it as a past problem and present the solution you have developed so it never happens again. And “problems without solutions” in most cases are just whines.  If you see an issue that is negatively impacting your performance, it is much better to come to the review with a suggested solution rather than just the complaint.  Also, gossip, and general negativity against co-workers never helps you get a raise.

3. Ask for an unreasonable raise and/or promotion.  I like self-assured, aggressive people –  Warriors - and asking for a well-justified raise or promotion is fine.  But if you ask for a 20% raise “just because you think you deserve it” without any real justification or “attention to the bottom line”,  you are doing yourself a disservice. Research and document your request – make a good financial case for your raise.  And don’t base it on “I’ve been here a long time”.  While job tenure is important and certainly plays a role in the decision to grant a raise – performance is much more important.  Tenure gets you cost of living raises – great performance gets you the big money and promotions.   

Happy Birthday Spam!

Yesterday was the 30th birthday of that facinating plague of the internet, Spam.  "The digitally inclined" are notorious Monty Python fans, and Spam was named for a famous Monty Python song in which the lyrics primarily consist of "spam, spam, spam, spam".

Of course, we all have Spam to thank for our extrordinarily long penises, access to very inexpensive perscription drugs shipped direct from third world countries (primarily designed to keep our extroadinarily long penises erect), the Croatian spouses we met online thanks to Spam, and our enormous personal wealth handed down from fleeing Nigerian dicators.

Happy Birthday Spam! Here's wishing you not very many more!

How (And Why) To Buy Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs

To celebrate Earth Week, I am going to take a little break from my ranting about airlines, Weasel executives, poor service, bad money management, incarcerated action stars, and all of life’s other annoyances, to talk about something much more positive – CFL light bulbs.

Much to my friends and family’s dismay I am a bit of a fanatic about these wonderful energy efficient light bulbs. (Ah – does the fact that I am fanatical about light bulbs indicate a deeper problem in my life?)  They cut energy consumption by 75%, last five to ten times longer than a traditional light bulb, and are a great example of one of the little things we could all do that would add up to a big thing in the battle against global warming. 

I’ve been buying and experimenting with CFLs for a few years now, and am pleased to report that the quality and variety of available models has increased, and the price has come down.  You can now get dimmable CFLs, 3 Way, floods of every variety, specialty sizes, and with the new cold cathode technologies you can have CFLs that come on instantly, so they don’t have to warm up like older models.  Best of all, though they still cost two to three times more than normal bulbs, over the lifetime of the bulb you will save $35 to $75 PER BULB. And one CFL can result in a decrease of almost a half ton of C02 into the atmosphere!  Count the bulbs in your house – multiply by $50.00 – and the savings can be pretty enormous!  Here are a few shopping hints –

Pick the right color.  Light bulbs put off light of different colors – measured in kelvins.  Most people initially did not like CFLs because they were too white – making every room look like a hospital.  A bulb with a lower kelvin rating – typically around 2700 – provides a warmer light – much more pleasing in most rooms – and more like your standard bulbs.  Bulbs with higher kelvin ratings – 4000 to 5000 – burn very white and bright – which is more appropriate for more industrial and outdoor settings.  A CFL bulb usually comes in two or three kelvin ratings – so make sure you buy the kind of light you like.

Don’t put non-dimmable rated bulbs on dimmers.  Until just a few months ago, dimmable CFLs were very limited in availability and very expensive, and sometimes people would put non-dimmable models on dimmers and damage the bulbs.  Now, there is a wide variety of dimmable CFLs available.  Home Depot carries basic models, and online you can find all kinds of varieties.

Shop around.  While prices have been falling, some retailers are still charging the high prices of a year ago, so look around.  As covered above, Home Depot carries a good selection of the basics, and I even see sales on basic models in Rite Aid, Ace Hardware, and other chain stores at really good prices.  Amazon carries a reasonable selection, and I have done a few great deals on dimmable bulbs on Ebay.  Ikea carries a pretty good selection.  For specialty bulbs and a broad selection of dimmables I particularly like a site called www.1000bulbs.com (and right now until April 29th they are offering 10% off on CFLs to celebrate Earth Week).  www.Bulbs.com also has a good selection – though their prices are a bit high on some models in comparison, but they carry some good quality bulbs and interesting specialty bulbs.  There are definite differences in quality.  The big names in light bulbs like Sylvania and Philips make good CFLs.  I also like brands like Litetronics, TCP, and Microbrite – they cost a little more but are very good quality.  But there are many no-name brands that might be cheap but don’t hold up.

Save your receipt – and dispose of properly.  Many CFLs have a two year warranty, so make sure you save the receipt in case you have to send it back.  And when they do wear out – don’t throw them in the garbage.  CFLs contain a little bit of mercury, so you need to dispose of them properly.  I keep a box in my garage for old batteries and CFLs – and then periodically get rid of them through a sponsored “recycle day”.  Ikea has a recycling program, and 1000bulbs.com sells a “recycling kit” for CFLs and batteries.

Quality, price, and features continue to advance on an almost daily basis.  There is no reason that most of our homes shouldn’t be CFL-equipped.  Do yourself an economic service, and help the earth out a bit by installing a few.

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Free Wesley Snipes!

I think we can all sleep a little more soundly tonight knowing that criminal mastermind / action star Wesley Snipes will be going to jail!  Snipes, once on verge of tough guy superstardom in movies like New Jack City, Passenger 57, White Men Can’t Jump, Blade, and a host of others, was convicted of tax evasion yesterday.  Despite pleas for clemency from celebrities like Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson, and TV judges Joe Brown and Greg Mathis, the real judge decided to throw the book at him, sentencing him to the maximum of three years in prison (perhaps he should have had former co-star Sean Connery plead his case – I don’t think Woody Harrelson garners a lot of respect in the courtroom),

Anyway, since I pay my taxes, I think everyone else should pay theirs, including guys like Wesley Snipes, so in theory I don’t have a problem with him being punished.

Also, perhaps this should be a sign of encouraging progress on the “let all celebrities go free” trend of the last few years, but somehow it still seems a little odd that Wesley goes to jail while OJ and Robert Blake go golfing.

But perhaps more disturbing is the timing of Wesley’s conviction.  On the day the judge throws the book at him, the headline in USA Today was “60,000 Firms Owe 8 Billion in Taxes”.  Seems many of our major American corporations – including many that are fighting the Iraq War for us – are not paying their taxes.  In fact, the article sited one instance where a firm owing ten million in back taxes is still receiving checks for millions from the US Government.

Of course, reasonable and sane business people would not pay money to someone that owed them money, but I guess the current government is not controlled by reasonable and sane business people.

Perhaps we could collect a lot of that 8 billion in past due taxes if we started putting a few deadbeat Weasel CEOs in jail instead of just Wesley Snipes.  Or here’s an idea – let Wesley work off his jail sentence working as a collector for the IRS.  They might pay up if Blade showed up at their apartments at 3 am clad in black and carrying a bloody sword. It would seem a lot more productive use of his time than sitting in a jail cell.

Why Continental Airlines (And A Few Others) Should Go Bankrupt

Lets assume you are a budding entrepreneur, and you decide to open a lemonade stand.  You find a good recipe that people like, and you greet your customers with a smile and good service.  And business is good.  Perhaps because of global warming people are thirsty – but the fact is that you are busy.  And soon competitors open lemonade stands too – but there is plenty of business for all of you.  In fact, you are all so busy that you cannot keep up with demand.  People are lined up to buy everyone’s lemonade, and it is difficult for all of you to serve everyone.  You have more demand than capacity – and you don’t really want to expand capacity – so what do you do?

Well, business 101 would tell you to raise your prices.  Determine the price elasticity of your product.  What is the highest price you can charge while still selling the maximum amount of your product, while still maintaining the quality and customer service that has made your lemonade stand so popular?

Here is what you probably would not do unless you are insane or crave failure.  Lower your prices until you were losing money on every glass of lemonade you sell.  Your low prices bring in more money-losing business – and soon you have lines of dissatisfied, thirsty customers.  You begin to scream at them to “shut up and quit complaining” about the long lines.  Since you are losing money you change your recipe to lower costs and begin to use an inferior grade of lemonade mix that is manufactured in a Chinese factory with questionable hygienic practices. Instead of using good clean tap water to make your product, you make a deal with a local sewage treatment plant to buy “recycled water” at a discount. You implement a policy of charging customers separately for the cup that holds their lemonade.  A few customers get sick, many complain about your business practices, but instead of improving your process and addressing the complaints you initially blame the terrorist attacks of 9/11 for your business issues (“I just haven’t been able to concentrate on making good lemonade since those pesky terrorists came here”, you lament.) After a few years when that excuse runs thin, you blame the high cost of lemonade mix.  And then you go bankrupt.

OK – I realize running an airline is much more complicated than operating a lemonade stand, but they both do share the same business foundation; provide a good product at a price that allows you to make a profit while still in reach of your consumer, and offer customer service commensurate with your price and brand.

The last few weeks have been a tough time for many airlines.  Many smaller operators have gone bankrupt.  Several of the majors are bleeding money fast due to their lapsed maintenance policies. And the consumer continues to pay the price.

As a very frequent flyer (I hold Gold or Platinum status on five airlines, and have flown almost two million miles on Delta) I am perhaps not the most sympathetic one to the plight of the airlines.  The last few years have been miserable for flyers on most airlines.  Flights are packed.  Service is terrible.  The planes are often filthy and not properly maintained.  Airlines charge extra for substandard food.  And perhaps the worst aspect is the complete lack of customer service.  Since 9/11 airlines have plied on our sympathy, and frequently used the disaster as an excuse for their poor management.  Airline employees are often unabashed in their distaste for passengers and customer service.

Two weeks ago I witnessed three Continental employees joyfully abuse a passenger until she was in tears.  They lied about laws governing airline travel, refused to offer any reasonable level of service, and when I threatened to report one of the employees she took off her badge and hid it in her pocket in an attempt to withhold her identity.  When I later complained to Continental management, they offered a lame apology, but primarily offered inane excuses and quoted policy to avoid taking any responsibility.  It was clear to me that their obvious antagonism for their customers came from the top down.

None of this has made any sense.  With flights packed, how is it that airlines don’t make money?  I don’t know of any other business that operates at capacity and still fails.  Of course now they blame fuel costs.  But why not raise rates to reflect higher costs?

Most airlines miss the basic opportunity of business.  The very lowest price is not the only available market.  Not all of us eat every meal at McDonalds or stay at the Super 8.   Most frequent flyers would happily pay more for a better experience.  I am a big fan of Alaska Airlines, and will happily pay more to fly their airline if the schedule even remotely works for me.   I want a clean, roomy, well-maintained plane that lands on time, decent food, and my bags delivered in a timely fashion.  I want good customer service that recognizes my rights as a passenger and a human being.  I don’t really want to fly with a plane load of families heading to Disneyland that the airline is losing money on because they sold them tickets at 1/3rd what I paid.

Airlines have only themselves to blame for the price pressure they battle.  And when most of them opt to lose money to stay full, it impacts the really good airlines that attempt to maintain a brand but get sucked into a price war.  Perhaps these financial problems with the airlines will flush out some of the mediocrity, and make them operate smarter and with more regard for their customers.

Did Ronald Reagan Hate The Sun?

Ronald Reagan is widely heralded for tearing down the Berlin Wall, but did you also know he tore the solar panels off the White House roof?  Hmmm, that’s a part of the Reagan legacy that is seldom discussed.

His often maligned predecessor Jimmy Carter may not go down in history as one of our best Presidents, but Jimmy was way ahead of his time when it came to environmental concerns. In fact, I suspect that in another generation Jimmy Carter may garner much more respect as a visionary when Salt Lake City becomes a coastal city.  During his short administration he upped mileage requirements on autos, and until his efforts were derailed by later administrations, we were well on the way to 50 mpg cars as a standard as opposed to a dream.  He was also a huge proponent of solar power – enacting government programs that thirty years ago spurred a bit of a solar building boom – until it too was destroyed by the Gipper.  But most distressing is the fact that he actually outfitted the White House with solar (even including his inauguration booth), only to have the system ripped out as soon as President Reagan took office.

It is baffling to understand why someone would actually tear out a functioning clean power system.  However, rumor is that Reagan replaced the solar panels with an innovative geothermal system; he drilled a hole directly from the White House basement all the way to hell, and that’s where we got Dick Cheney.  OK – I made that last part up.  Dick Cheney is from Wyoming.   

What Does A Trillion Look Like?

We’ve all become pretty accustomed to big numbers.  When I was a kid, only millionaires lived in “million dollar house” houses.  But until very recently, if you mowed three or four lawns a week, CountryWide would loan you the money to move in next to the Clampetts. 

Millionaires are a dime a dozen, today’s ambitious young entrepreneurs want to be billionaires.  And our government, always the least fiscally responsible citizen on the block, increasingly talks in term of trillions. 

And suddenly I realized – “I have no idea how much a trillion is”.  Bottom line – a trillion has a lot of zeros.  Compare a trillion to to it’s little brothers.

$1,000,000               One Million
$1,000,000,000          One Billion
$1,000,000,000,000   One Trillion

It occurred to me that the government has pulled a “Vegas” on us where money is concerned.  In Las Vegas, you primarily use the local currency – poker chips – instead of cash.  Somehow this change in currency makes you forget the real value of money.  The same individual that will endure the indignities of shopping at Walmart to save $30 on their groceries will throw down $100 bets in Vegas with wild abandon because it’s “only a chip”.

So when our government talks “trillions” – I think they should print the zeros and put expenses into perspective against something we can all understand.  For instance, originally the President said the Iraq was would cost about three hundred billion, or:

$300,000,000

That’s a lot of money (especially as we will see a little later on), but now experts say it will cost at least three trillion, or:

$3,000,000,000,000

Since I am always the bargain seeker, I wondered how good a deal we were getting on this war.  Lets compare the cost of Iraq to a few other wars (in current day dollars) that we are pretty familiar with:

Iraq -           $3,000,000,000,000
Vietnam -        $635,000,000,000
Korea -           $445,000,000,000

So of course my initial reaction is that from a pure financial perspective we attacked the wrong crazy dictator.  It seems more cost efficient to fight in Korea (and I like the food better).  But wars are stupidly expensive in any case, so maybe it is more interesting to compare against what we could have spent our money on instead of blowing things up.

Budget for Iraq War                                                                 $3,000,000,000,000

Budget for Libraries                                                                           $208,000,000
Budget for Center for Disease Control to Fight Birth Defects                      $124,000,000
Budget for National Parks                                                                     $48,000,000
Budget for Consumer Product Safety Commission                                      $65,000,000
                                                                                                    

So the combined budgets of the above four important agencies are only about 1/7th the budget for the Iraq war.  In fact, the entire budget for The Department of Education is also less than 1/5th of what we will spend on Iraq.

From a pure investment perspective, I personally would have preferred safer food this year, more books for kids to read, healthier babies, and better schools to turn out educated kids that will understand how many zeros there are in a trillion – over mountains of rubble in an Arab desert.

The budget for Habitat for Humanity – which builds houses for people who could otherwise not afford homes - was about $170,000,000.  They seem to be pretty efficient with their money – and I can only wonder what would have happened if we have given them a couple hundred million to go build houses in Iraq.  For some reason it seems more economical to build houses as opposed to blowing them up. 

Smoking Is Good For You!

I think it is highly likely that in twenty or thirty years we will look back upon some of our day-to-day activities in amazement, and wonder “what were we thinking?”. Just consider all the once-popular activities and conventional wisdoms we ultimately abandoned as wrong; slavery, smoking, prohibition, poor houses, human sacrifice, lobotomies, the Vietnam War, Smoky and the Bandit movies, really big sideburns.  The list goes on and on.

Here are ten currently acceptable trends / activities / beliefs that I am quite confident future generations will find baffling, dangerous, silly, or just stupid.

1. Talking and texting on cell phones while driving.
2. Current airport security methods.
3. Annoying overly protective plastic packaging that cuts your hands when you open it and fills up our landfills for the next 80,000 years.
4. Debating the validity of global warming, evolution, whether as a nation we should be torturing people, or whether or not we are in a recession right now.
5. Religions that advocate killing the members of other religions in tribute to their Gods.
6. Being pro-life yet also in favor of the death penalty.
7. Putting people in jail for smoking pot.
8. The internal combustion engine.
9. Building cities with big waterfalls and golf courses in the middle of the desert.
10. Disposable plastic water bottles.

Would You Like Some Peanuts, Mr. President?

A couple weeks ago I was watching a Presidential news conference (actually, I thought I was watching a Tivo’d episode of Saturday Night Live when I realized – nope, that really is our President) when a reporter asked President Bush about the impact on the economy of four dollar a gallon gasoline.

Our leader was shocked and offended. “Are you predicting gas will go to four dollars a gallon”, he asked the reporter incredulously, as if the man had just asked Bush to comment on the Martian colony that had been established outside of Des Moines.

Today I paid $3.89 per gallon when I filled up my car, as oil approached $110 per barrel, so the prospect of four dollar gas does not seem unrealistic – perhaps even as soon as next week.  And it got me wondering, what planet does our President live on?

I think in this day and age it has become too easy for politicians to lose touch with the plight of their constituents. If I traveled everywhere in my own 747 and fleet of limousines, never picked up a check, and never set foot in a store, I too might be amazed at the little things the rest of us take for granted.  When the elder Bush was President, he went into a store to do some Christmas shopping and marveled to the press about the miracle of “bar code scanners”.  He had never seen such a thing, and thought they were just marvelous!

So here’s my idea.  As a requirement of office, all high-level politicians should be required to do all of the following at least once a year:

• Go through airport security (including undressing in front of the TSCs and getting wanded), and then fly coach on a domestic airline from coast to coast. (Sorry Mr. President – we no longer offer pillows on this airline.)
• Drive a four-year-old Ford Tempo for a week – including filling it and taking it to the car wash.
• Go shopping for a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four – with a budget of $120.
• Visit an inner city emergency room at 1 am and attempt to see a doctor.
• Complete your own tax return.

I suspect that if we forced our politicians to occasionally “live real”, we would soon see all kinds of interesting reforms.

Gilligan - Don't Bogart That Joint!

New York Governor Elliott Spitzer’s big night (perhaps I am behind the economic times a bit – but does a hooker really cost $4500?), and his subsequent resignation overshadowed a far more disturbing news story today.  Sure, I understand that the salacious and somewhat tragic fall of a politician makes for good headlines, but while we were all embroiled in the Guv’s sex life, an American icon was quietly sent off to jail.

Yes, Dawn Wells, or Mary Ann as we all know and love her (by far one of the two most attractive women on Gilligan’s Island), was convicted of DUI in Driggs, Idaho, and narrowly dodged a more serious drug possession charge.  The adorable 69 year-old cast-away was arrested while driving home from a surprise party.  When the officer noticed her driving erratically and pulled her over, reefer smoke apparently poured out of her auto (perhaps she was celebrating with Cheech and Chong?).  Mary Ann gave the very plausible explanation that she had just given a ride to a couple pot smoking hitchhikers and they had dropped joints in her car.  (It’s hard to come up with good lies when you’re toasted.)  The officer searched the car and found a couple more joints and some pretty good bud hidden in a film canister.

To avoid being shipped off to Guantanamo Bay (she now has a fear of islands), Dawn entered into a plea agreement admitting to reckless driving, and she is serving five days in jail, paying a fine, and has been put on probation (which means no more three hour cruises).

You can’t make this stuff up!  Well, you can embellish, but all the above facts are true!

If memory serves me, Gilligan was also a bit of a stoner, and also had run-ins with the law.  Makes you wonder what was really happening on that island.  Perhaps the Professor developed a killer strain of Gilligan Gold?