HOUSE ON FIRE: ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!

It was pure coincidence that I launched "House On Fire" on St. Patrick's Day last year, but maybe the luck of the Irish is with this budding blog.

Why? Well, several reasons. I had no experience at all with blogs but I was tired of shaking my head and shouting at the walls of my apartment about the state of things. I wanted to have a voice and say what I really believe. Even a tiny voice. Fire it out into cyberspace like Timothy Leary's ashes being shot toward the heavens. And if anyone noted what I was saying, great!

As my first blog post on March 17, 2010, noted, I was finally compelled to start writing because my employer at the time, Harrah's Entertainment (now Caesars Entertainment, hmm), treated its employees with greater disdain and disregard than I've ever seen an employer do so in my four-decades as a working person. So I fired my little pea-shooter across their bow and gave them a minor pain in the butt. But it was the start of something.

Now, exactly one year later, "House On Fire" has over 80 followers who've signed on (a gradual process) and just three days ago topped 20,000 pageviews. Which makes me feel very lucky . A few months back, 20K was my target but it became increasingly unlikely. Things were sluggish around 17K. But then I found time to blog again and then vroooom... traffic shot up again.

There are so many things that come into play with Web traffic. In the case of this blog, it has a lot with what I decide to write about, what's going on in the news, and how hard I promote a piece by link dropping etc. But I am proud to note that the first 10,000 pageviews came in the first 8 months. It took only half that time to get the next 10,000. Who knows, maybe I'm on to something here.

But I'm not so concerned with the numbers as a "badge" as I am with what they represent, in terms of what I'm trying to do with this blog.

What I hope I'm onto is a decent Internet megaphone to get basic and important truths out to as many people as I can. Everyday things and big-picture things. Micro and Macro. Personal and societal. But all pertinent things that funnel down to the same primary goal: to lend a little more weight and force to fight for fundamental institutional change, and to thereby make the world a better place for all people.

So I want to thank every person who has looked at "House on Fire." Everyone who has read any of it; thought about any of it; commented. And above all, I want to sincerely thank those who have then taken action after reading something here -- talked to a friend, signed an online petition, called a politician's office, joined an activist group.

This is still a rather humble little blog, I know. Nevertheless, it's a blog that really wants to be for everyone. FOR everyone. You have helped grease the wheels for that long journey. You are the engine. YOU are the blog.

Thank you so very much. For caring. (And a special thanks to my fiancee Shelley, who was my first "follower" and has been my staunchest supporter.)

Never give up! And Happy St. Patrick's Day,
Adrian
IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING, you might like to take a look at IT ALL STARTED WITH A SPARK.

DID YOU ENJOY YOUR ELECTION DANCE?

Election Horrors: They're gonna make you watch it.

Daylight Saving just ended but it seems our politicians are always turning the clock back on us anyway.

Let's look at the just-passed mid-term elections. Ah yes, it was just like yesteryear... again.

Money was thrown around, begged for and blown, and the ads just kept on comin'. Yep, even recipients of last year's big bailout gave political donations. Does anybody else think that's kind of sick?

They (e.g. GM) even gave it to pols who were anti-bailout (e.g. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell). So why would you trust anything the vast majority of the Capitol Hill monkeys ever say?

There were great rallies and speeches and the prez town-hopped like he was touring with the Stones. Nothing like a good show with lots of little flags being waved to get to the heart of the country's problems.


A Bad Right Turn

The mid-terms also saw the continuation of a dangerous shift to the right -- something that feeds into people's emotions in tough times. The so-called Tea Party (Do they get caps or not? No journo seems sure); candidate henchmen stomping on activists' heads; and real gems like Sharron Angle (Nevada) who tried to grab Harry Reid's Senate seat and went close.

Angle did a heavy duty profiling job on Hispanics in broad-stroke, illegal-immigrant fear ads that would have made Goebbel's proud.

But she's not finished with Harry.

Angle has filed a voter intimidation complaint with the Justice Department alleging that Reid and gambling giant Harrah's Entertainment Inc. did a little negotiating whereby Harrah's would make it pretty clear to its employees who they should vote for.

Yep, business as usual in Nevada. And everywhere else. Need a shower yet?


Party on the Plaza

Jon Stewart (of The Daily Show) had a big rally in D.C. It was a positive but didn't exactly inspire the poor to go out and get fitted for new suits.

To me, the main weaknesses were these: 1/ The whole thing lacked a certain depth. For example, Stewart's summation speech made some good points but didn't address the age-old question of "What now?"; 2/ Because that question wasn't addressed, it was a case of Opportunity Lost. We all love rallies and to feel invigorated. Problem is, without direction to go with that fleeting motivation, most folks just leave feeling better about themselves and go home and flip on the tube and do nothing.

To some degree, it was showbiz as usual. But that's politics U.S.A. And while I'll take any change I can get, Stewart doesn't really talk about anything nearly radical enough to improve the lot of the poor or save us from being strangled by factory emissions. Let's give him a C- for at least doing something.


The Bottom Line

The Repubs grabbed the House and that is likely bad news at the perimeter of things. But anyone who thinks choosing between the two same, cynical parties -- the "two arms of the Business Party" -- again and again is going to one day deliver The Big Fix must be living in a bunker.

It's the system that's broke!

George Carlin the comedian -- a smart guy and good soul -- used to boast that he didn't vote. He wasn't going to support any of the clowns. I'd be all for that if it could be a movement of tens of millions. Otherwise, the lesser of two evils is probably our best, marginal move within this marginal game we're presented. And yes, there are some decent people in Washington -- like independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The media were awful as usual. Focusing on the wrong stuff, spinning things for their own agenda, giving us fluff rather than facts.

But all is not lost. Grassroots activism is what all those D.C. money grabbers fear. Let's work together for campaign finance reform, grassroots candidates, alternative parties, outstanding people like Green Party dynamo Jill Stein of Massachusetts, and just keep networking and networking and networking until we create a din that cannot be ignored.

That's when things will get interesting.


A DAYLIGHT SAVING TALE

A light note to finish off. As Daylight Saving ended last night, my fiancee Shelley scampered round her house adjusting her clocks before going to bed.

The Lovely Lady of Clockland.

By the time she was done, it was almost time to put the clocks forward again. She has so many clocks it's like they're breeding in front of your eyes. You can face just about direction in any room and see a clock.

She's actually sort of painted herself into a corner because there is no way she can ever use the excuse "I lost track of the time" with anyone.

It's really kind of cute and I hope time is always on her side.

Take care,
Adrian Zupp
IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING you might like to take a look at EDMUND BURKE'S ETERNAL TRUISM.

NEWS FLASH: MCDONALD'S IS PROUD TO LET GAYS EAT ITS CRAPPY FOOD

There's a media/Internet swirl going on about the new McDonald's commercial in France that has a gay theme.

I'm for complete and unequivocal acceptance of all nationalities, creeds, faiths, genders, sexual orientations etc. But I am very leery when corporations start making a buck off of it.

First it was green washing, now it is "gay washing."

If the ads help promote acceptance then I am happy for that as an unintended outcome. But it wasn't McDonald's goal. The company where I work, Harrah's Entertainment, is on the same bandwagon. There's something unashamedly cynical about it all, if you ask me.

Of course, a certain Fox talking head (I hate using his name) couldn't wait to jump all over this. More ratings for him. Better chance of getting a fatter contract next time for spewing his bilious nonsense.

He wondered on air, to millions or people who have nothing better to do than watch his personality disorders on the tube every evening, whether McDonald's might go one step further and air an Al Qaeda commercial. I posted the following response on a Care2 message board (see URL below). It sums up my thoughts on the TV "commentator" in question and the McDonald's ad.

By the way, although I am more than happy to denigrate the right wing hatemongers who clog the airwaves, we should always regard them as dangerous. Until our society is more broadly skeptical and analytical, we cannot dismiss these jerks lightly. These snakes know how to slither into any cracks.

Here's what I wrote:

"O'Reilly is such a spotlight pig he is usually best ignored. An undercurrent here that worries me is that corporations are 'gay washing.' They care about money, not people. Everybody should feel comfortable everywhere. But if McDonald's ran a cost-benefit analysis and found that homophobic commercials brought in more cash, they'd be looking for a 'tasteful' way to do that. I want acceptance of everyone. But we shouldn't take it on any terms."

We're all in this world together. The things we have in common are what matter. Our differences just make things more interesting.

Take care,
Adrian Zupp

*Care2 URL for McDonald's advert:
http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-rights/blog/bill-oreilly-gay-mcdonalds-ads-whats-next-ads-for-al-qaeda/

ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

My plan with this blog was to use my personal experiences, up to a point, to springboard to larger issues.

Well, it's starting to get too much like a personal diary. So let me clue you in on what transpired when I went to work today, and then next time write Part 2 of my blog on Gallipoli/war.

Today's events are indeed instructive, otherwise I certainly wouldn't bother recording them here.

When I logged onto my computer this morning there was an invitation to a 2pm meeting with the executive who told me yesterday that I would be terminated if I didn't sign that certain piece of paper (see yesterday's blog entry), and the main guy from HR. This was the meeting where the ultimatums about the blog and the piece of paper would be laid out again, I'd say no, be immediately fired, and drive home.

Only I didn't get fired.

And the HR guy wanted to make that clear. He repeated it several times. Of course I know what I heard the day before but, just like something out of Orwell, those words were now expunged from history and I was never in any way fired and a pox on the house of anyone who says I was. Okay, cool.

I also didn't have to sign the piece of paper with the plans for my vocational rehabilitation. Weird.

In fact, the HR guy wasn't even prepared to say I couldn't blog about Harrah's or that there'd be any trouble in the future if I did. Each "incident" will be looked at in isolation, he told me. Alrighty.

The most interesting moment was when the HR fella told me that Harrah's primary concern was that my blog might "hurt my co-workers." This, of course, was nonsense intended to cause me feelings of guilt and I called him on it. I explained that my blog is all about helping people like my co-workers, not hurting them. But he knew that and so does his "superiors."

If Harrah's is so concerned with my co-workers, it might want to consider giving their sick leave back. (Harrah's cut out sick leave for us in early 2009.) Or seeing to it that we aren't worked excessively. Or being more honest with us. And on and on.

The only "co-workers" that my blog has called out are the ones who are lackeys of the brass and, in being such, actually help with the hurting. So, while they're essentially pawns themselves, they are complicit in the systemic exploitation of those "under" them and deserve criticism. They're motives are generally selfish and have been noted as such by those they've affected.

There was more dialogue to this meeting, of course. (Though the exec never uttered a word but made copious notes because that would surely shake me up.) And at the end I made a little speech and toddled off.

But I shouldn't make too light of it because, as I said, there is something significant here.

What I believe this illustrates is... the little guy doesn't necessarily always lose. Now that's a pretty important message considering how overwhelmed/intimidated we generally feel by our "superiors" at work, the IRS, the preposterously expensive legal system, Homeland Security, etc etc.

My sense of what took place is that somebody at Harrah's did the math and realized that firing me over a small-time blog that doesn't get a lot of notice, might well give the small-time blog considerable notice. They may have guessed that I'd be crazy enough to go to the ACLU, file suit, wave the First Amendment and work the media like a demon. If this was their guess, they guessed right. I may not be rich or beautiful but I fight as hard as anybody.

So it was easier to just damp it all down and make it semi go away.

It reminds me of something I learned once when I went to an activist camp back East. The instructor asked how you beat a giant. Nobody knew. She said: "You stand on their toe and gradually apply more and more pressure until they'd prefer to get rid of you than put up with it any longer." In a sense, I think that's what I did.

If nothing else, it gave me renewed hope. A bit of a boost. I don't really despise the honchos at Harrah's. They're people too. But they're people either unseeing or uncaring. My concern is for the masses who struggle and deserve a better life and a better work situation. I have no personal vendetta -- it's a commitment of conscience.

Okay, that's enough stuff starring me. I'm breaking for a few days, then I'll be back with LEST WE FORGET, PART 2.

Take care,
Adrian Zupp

WE INTERRUPT OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM...

Today the brass at Harrah's fired me because of this blog and my criticism of the company.

Then they unfired me because they'd rather threaten to fire me in the event that I continue with this blog. It was all very confusing and involved a piece of paper that explained what corporate Freemasonry I was breaching and what I needed to do to cleanse myself and avoid being fired. Which apparently has not happened, after all. Yet.

I refused to sign the piece of paper. What fool would? By doing so, and agreeing to go through internal channels with any "grievances" about Harrah's, I'd be admitting that I'm fool enough to believe that the corporation will police itself in things like, oh, treating its employees fairly.

Now, I'm not sure if I've got it all straight, but it's entirely possible that by writing what I have here, rather than signing the solemn piece of paper, I will be fired tomorrow.

In my mind, this could be a bit like trying to put out the fire with gasoline, for Harrah's. Go ahead, give me better fuel to publicize this thing! My previous career in the media might come in handy too.

For the record: I have no intention of being censored by my place of work even if we employees all agreed to love and abide by the sacred Employee Handbook so that we could pay rent and eat. If corporations are allowed to shut us up and act however they want, then we deserve the dim future we get.

Incidentally, my family back home is behind me 100%. This is because they taught me to have some sense of morality and the courage of my convictions. If my father could get shot up defending his beliefs, I think I can take what these cowards can dish out. I owe my Dad that much at least. I may end up temporarily unemployed but I will still have my integrity. That will take me a lot farther than a few bucks here and there.

As for the corporate honchos and their underlings who tried to reel me in: Shame on you! Where is your sense of decency? One day you may feel the need to speak up in the face of "authority" because somebody you care about is being hurt.

When that time comes, will you sign away that right?

Take care,
Adrian Zupp

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL GETS ONE RIGHT

You have to love it when the bible of Corporate America, The Wall Street Journal, actually runs something that sticks the knife pretty much where it belongs for a change.

I'm referring to an article that I saw on Yahoo this morning and that the WSJ ran on April 11. It's titled "Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews" and it was adapted from "Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing -- and Focus on What Really Matters," by Samuel A. Culbert with Lawrence Rout. (Published by Business Plus, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.)

Culbert (pictured above) is an interesting fella. Not exactly a blood-spitting radical, he is a professor in UCLA's Anderson School of Management. (For his full bio, see below.) The good prof looks at management practices and cuts away a lot of the BS. Of course, while there are several nice nuggets of truth and fairness in what he writes, one must remember that he's still supporting a world view in which a relatively small number of people have their hands on the levers and the vast majority do the grunt work. He's a capitalist with some slightly different and interesting ideas. But sight should not be lost of the fact that he's hardly trying to turn the world into one big caring and sharing co-op.

The thrust of Culbert's article is that performance reviews are demeaning hogwash and should, as he says, finally be put out of their misery.

He makes the point that evaluations should be dictated by need, not a date on the calendar -- a pretty common sense point.

But most tellingly, he says: "Performance reviews instill feelings of being dominated." That's the point: It's just another way that corporations get people to toe their line. And this doesn't mean that every manager and supervisor is "in on it." Most of those folks are far removed from the real avarice and just believe they're doing their job by carrying out these reviews.

Harrah's Entertainment, where I work, loves performance reviews with more passion than Julius had for Cleopatra. We have monthly reviews, half yearly reviews, annual reviews, and "360s," which involve your colleagues anonymously reviewing you as well. Needless to say, the latter turn into a kind of open season of denigration from the safety of the shadows. More meaningless "information." I've been reviewed a bunch of times in my 15 months here and it hasn't made a flake of difference. In fact, the way they are done, they do seem artificial and stupid.

That's why it was so refreshing to see Culbert's article so prominently placed on the Internet. And even though he's essentially a corporatist, he does say: "[Performance reviews] send employees the message that the boss's opinion of their performance is the key determinant of pay, assignment, and career progress. And while that opinion pretends to be objective, it is no such thing. Think about it: If performance reviews are so objective, why is it that so many people get totally different ratings simply by switching bosses?"

Culbert goes on to talk about the "damage done" to the individual and the time and energy squandered by the company. And he makes decent recommendations for improving the appraisal system -- within the current capitalist work paradigm.

Sadly, the Culbert piece didn't stay on the Yahoo home page for long. Too many good stories about dancing cats and reality show "stars" trademarking the names of their body parts.

Still, I did manage to disseminate the URL to everyone in The Studio here at Harrah's Corporate before the story folded into history. It seemed the least I could do.

Til next time: Keep reading, keep thinking, keep talking, keep agitating. It's your world, after all.

Adrian Zupp

SAMUEL A. CULBERT BIO

Samuel A. Culbert is an award winning author, researcher and full-time, tenured professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. His laboratory is the world of work where he puts conventional managerial assumptions under a microscope to uncover and replace dysfunctional practices. He holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Culbert has developed a blunt yet sensitive way of framing situations that allows for all parties to engage in open, non-judgmental discussions. He believes that only by laying bare ALL the forces that drive people's opinions and actions -- including subjective, self-interested and political biases -- is it possible to have an explicit, honest, yet matter-of-fact conversation. He has spent a career perfecting the skills and style that illicit such straight-talk.

Widely recognized as a candid speaking expert and theoretician, he is author of the recently published Beyond Bullsh*t a probing inquiry that reveals how bullsh*t became the etiquette of choice in corporate communications, and how to develop the conditions required for straight-talk. SmartMoney Magazine named this book to its 2008 list of ten top reads. Dr. Culbert is winner of a McKinsey Award for an article published in the Harvard Business Review, is a frequent contributor to management journals and has authored numerous chapters in leading management-related books. More about this and some of the other books he has authored is available at the www.straighttalkatwork.com website. In press is a book titled Get Rid of the Performance Review: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing - and Focus on the Results That Really Matter. This book, written with Larry Rout, builds on his media grabbing Wall Street Journal article of the same name and is awaiting April 2010 publication. His other authored and co-authored books include The Organization Trap, The Invisible War: The Pursuit of Self-Interests at Work, Radical Management, Mind-Set Management and Don't Kill the Bosses!.

Throughout his career Professor Culbert has creatively welded together three activities: consulting, teaching, and writing. Consulting is where he encounters work effectiveness problems in their contemporary forms, demystifies the basic elements, and formulates alternative modes of functioning. Teaching provides a forum for extrapolating from problems to issues requiring his investigation. Writing is where he packages his understanding for public consumption. His clients include a diverse representation of the private and public sectors: small companies and members of Fortune's 500, international and U.S. governmental agencies, privately funded and not-for-profit organizations. In short, Culbert has been around and gets what's happening. His unconventional views have received a good deal of press, both in the U.S. and overseas.
IF YOU FOUND THIS POST INTERESTING you might also want to take a look at THE GROSS MISCONDUCT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE MASS MURDERERS OF WASHINGTON D.C.

LIVING IN A STOPWATCH WORLD

I hope by now I'm succeeding in using my "Little World" experiences to amplify my thoughts on the "Big World" problems we are all facing together. That's the plan, anyway.

As fate and the gods of workday drudgery would have it, this is an opportune time to slip back to the micro level after a couple of more theoretical blog entries.

I work in the creative department of Harrah's Corporate in Las Vegas. It's called Studio One. We produce countless posters, billboard designs, slot toppers, ads, radio bites and on and on for our various casinos all in the name of converting more people to gambling and making sure the ones already sucked in stay for a long ride. This is not the noblest vocation to which I've applied my writing skills. But I think I've made that clear before.

Putting aside, for one moment, the ends to which our work is applied, Studio One (or, simply, The Studio) produces some fine stuff. We're also asked to do a lot of cheesy, crass and exploitive stuff.

For most of us, it's just a job and we dream of using our creative skills in more rewarding pursuits. However, Harrah's, like most big corporations, seems hell bent (yes, that would definitely be the phrase!), on turning The Studio into some kind of production line/sweatshop.

Why do I say this? Because, just as in the cult comedy "Office Space," Harrah's has "brought in the Bobs" (see movie still above). "The Bobs," for those of you who haven't seen the movie, (I insist that you do! :-), is slang for consultants.

Now, every place I have worked where consultants have been brought in, two things have happened as a result: 1/ There were staff cuts; 2/ People mysteriously ended up working harder. (Oh, and there's usually some musical chairs between positions accompanied by a bunch of meaningless title changes.) Why has Harrah's brought in consultants (some nasty outfit called Kaizen)? Well, in the name of "efficiency" of course.

"Efficiency" is corporatespeak for cutting costs to the bone and working people like mules. For squeezing the blood out of everyone. For placing unreasonable demands on folks. For jackhammering the profit margin just a little bit wider.

So these wizards came in and lassoed our sorry group of supervisors (mostly yes men/women) and brainwashed them with wonderful tales of "hard data" and enticed them to play serious executive development games with blocks (no kidding) and all that good stuff. The usual quasi-psychobabble these quarterwits come up with. (Incidentally I know what went on because, surprise surprise, there are very few secrets in Office Land. People always spill their guts sooner or later.)

Next, The Studio's fearless leader (we'll call him Tom -- not his real name. His real name is Chris) reported back from one his serious sessions with The Bobs, dragging behind him the largest, most incomprehensible (that's never an accident!), pair of workflow charts I have ever seen. Santa Loveman's elves had been busy indeed. I'll spare you the details of the nonsense explanations that went on when these Picasso-vomit nightmares were presented to the whole Studio.

More at the nut of all this is the "hard data" thing. You see, consultants deal in numbers: dollars, seconds, widgets churned out, "excess" personnel. They're like mathematician wannabes with a perverse fascist streak. Most of them are dorks -- but their vocation is actually very dangerous for the average worker and they should not be dismissed out of hand. They are dorks who can make a mess of people's lives.

The Kaizen dorks' pursuit of numbers, of "hard data," led to them having some of our people follow their colleagues around with stopwatches and clipboards, noting down everything they did. I won't say "Hey, you can't make this stuff up" because you could: if you were twisted and boring enough. But this, to many of us, was an inappropriate, insulting, and rather dehumanizing state of affairs. Nobody has come near me with a stopwatch yet and if they do it may be their last act on this mortal coil.

So the question presents itself: Where is the acknowledgment of the "soft" data? The human factor? The stress? The mental wear and tear? For the message I'm inferring from "The Bobs" is loud and clear: We will work out the formula by which you work hardest, produce the most (what about quality? Oops, not quantifiable), and get the big boys the max dollars. It's already started: People are disappearing and our hours are lengthening -- and the hardcore Bob Plan isn't even in place yet.

Clearly this will all lead to low morale and burnout. (That's happening already too.) But in an employers' market (technically, it's virtually always an employers' market) it's easy to push us hard, burn us out, let us go, and replace us with some college grads who will work for peanuts.

As thinking and creative beings, we, like so many others in so many places, are being shoveled into the furnace of devolution. And the fundamental notion of respect for one's fellow humans gets tossed right in there with it.

Unions are almost extinct and the 40-hour week has gone with them. Workers in the Information Age are becoming regarded less as people, arguably, than any time since the Industrial Revolution. (Okay, that would take some explaining but I think there's a very good case to be made.)

It reminds me of that well-known line from the film "Network," when Peter Finch, playing the mad newscaster who comes clean, screams out: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Of course that was only a movie. But something in my skull tells me that the day when the "average person" is fed up, en masse, is fast approaching. And they will not love Big Brother.

Gone over my limit. Apologies, apologies.

Adrian Zupp
PS: A quote I once saw: "A consultant is someone you pay for their opinion." 'Nuff said.

WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOUR COMPANY? -- PART 2

Let’s climb back into this saddle for a bit.

I left off in Part 1 talking about how disingenuous the leaders of corporations can be. How they sing a song of unity with the workers but have little in common with them and show little real care for them.

It seems to me that, especially in tough times, the calls for those lower down the totem pole to tighten their belts is, well, diametrically wrong.

How about this: How about they pay us more and we work less? How about they slash their salaries to something nearer to a sane level and put the money back into the salary kitty for us all to divide up?

Can’t you just hear them howling foul? Because when leading execs say “We must tighten our belts,” what they’re really saying is “You must tighten your belts.” The word “We” is not really in the Fat Cat Lexicon.

And I can give you an example that’s really close to home. In 2009, Gary Loveman, the president and CEO of Harrah’s, made 666 times more than I did. (I know that the 666 sounds like a gimmick, but that’s what the calculator came up with.) Now, I may not throw my heart and soul into my job, but I have to think that Mr. Loveman, Harvard pedigree and all, is not working 666 times harder than me.

I know the arguments: He's a wonderboy specialist; he’s supremely skilled; he has connections on Capitol Hill; he works 100 hours a week; he knows God personally. Yes, I got it. Let me repeat: 666 times what I make! Personally, I don’t care if he’s laying golden eggs, that’s just plain obscene.

Of course, Mr. Loveman did speak to we corporate peons at the Christmas party in the ballroom at the Rio in Vegas. He even brought slides of his family because, y’know, he’s just a family man like us. Except that he flies around on a private jet and doesn’t have to worry about medical bills, rent, heat or paying for his kids' top-drawer college educations. His smarmy speech reminded me of the title of a Warren Zevon (pictured) song: Even a dog can shake hands.

When I look at people like Loveman, and even middle managers and lower ranking "yes men/women," I wonder how their brains work. What is it they’re striving for? If they bust their humps for the corporation do they think they’ll achieve some kind of capitalist or personal nirvana? To me, there seems to be no meaningful end for all the means applied. As they say, there’s no “there” there. On my deathbed I hope to be able to reflect on something a little deeper than how many rungs up the corporate ladder to nowhere I climbed. And let’s face it: Corporations don’t really do much good for anybody. They're profit machines. Period.

So that’s the gloom. Where’s it leave us?

Well it’s easier to pontificate on this stuff than to solve it. And most people need to work regardless of what they’re doing: razing rainforests, crunching numbers for insurance companies, or coming up with ways to get people to gamble. It’s easy to feel hopeless and just not think about it.

But that’s the biggest mistake we can make. If you want a better life for your children, if you want a better world, it’s going to take a bit of suffering. The good news is that the dividends are much more gratifying than those you get suffering for a corporation.

I suggest talking to colleagues. Reading up on corporations and the history of the labor movement. Writing down on a piece of paper, in priority order, the things in your life that are most important to you and why. If there’s a union available to you, join it. If there’s not, think about how you might bring one into your workplace – though, admittedly, that’s a very tough undertaking.

You can speak up more to your boss. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets oiled; sometimes it gets fired. You’ll have to weigh that up.

Consider going into the non-profit sector and working for a worthwhile organization and helping to fight the good fight.

But even if you can’t readily change your work situation directly, there are many things you can do outside of work to try and change the economy and the culture of greed. Join groups (even if they're online groups), sign petitions (again, even if they're online), contact your local politicians about issues, make your voice heard any way you can.

Let me give you a very concrete starting point that might fire up your own thinking on the subject. Go to the website of Corporate Accountability International (http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/) and look around. If you pull on that thread, you’ll soon be starting on your own tapestry.

My final point: The day will have to come when we don't just change certain issues or particular workplaces, but we change the very institutions that shape our society, our economy and our thinking. That is the Big Task. But it is attainable. As this blog goes on, I'll talk more about how we can do some serious world changing.

Til next time, keep smiling,
Adrian Zupp
PS: I've emailed Gary Loveman a couple of times asking when Harrah's employees might expect to have their sick leave benefit reinstated. So far, no word from the big man.

MAYBE IT’S JUST ME… BUT I DOUBT IT VERY MUCH

A short digression from my two-part piece on the company-individual relationship – but one that is entirely apropos.

As I stated previously, I work for the world’s largest gambling company, Harrah's Inc. This is not something I’m proud of but, like most people, I need a job. I don’t plan to stay long.

Here’s the thing. During the current depression, the lords of Harrah’s have been crying poor. Telling their workforce that they’ll have to tighten their belts, cutting out all sick leave (and doing a thimble-and-pea trick with “PTO” or paid time off), freezing raises, laying people off, and so on and so forth. The usual “belt tightening” that generally applies to the belts of the many who can least afford it and not so much to the fat cats with the longest belts.

Pretty much standard operating procedure for most companies who are experiencing "tough times" – which doesn’t make it right, of course. Although I must say, that of all the companies I’ve worked for, Harrah’s is the most ruthless.

For all the talk from phonies like president Gary Loveman (pictured) about pulling together, being a family, care for the workers (the usual BS that they must be teaching in MBA programs), I’ve seen a lot of suffering and meanness at Harrah’s.

I’ll cover more of this ground in Part 2 of WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOUR COMPANY?, but a recent turn of events at Harrah’s warranted special mention. You see, for all their cutting back and laying off and lying and propagandizing, the struggling Harrah’s recently found enough coin in the coffers to purchase the 2,500-room Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino: a prime Las Vegas Strip property.

As miracles go, this must surely rank right up there with “Take up thy mat and walk.”

Maximum-profit-driven companies like Harrah’s often seem to enjoy adding insult to injury. There have been many insults doled out by this paragon of greed. They have insulted their workers’ rights, dignity, dependents and more.

But perhaps the greatest insult is that the elitists with their hands on the levers believe that their more than 80,000 employees* are nothing better than a bunch of simpletons.

*FOOTNOTE: This passage is verbatim Harrah’s corporation propaganda from the About Us section of the company website:

“Our Employees
At Harrah´s Entertainment, over 80,000 employees each make a unique contribution to your experiences, and to our ultimate success. From nurturing a sense of team with co-workers ... to improving the quality of life in their communities, Harrah's Entertainment sets the standard of excellence in the gaming industry with employees who are devoted to delivering truly great service. Our employees are critical to our success.

Our company truly is distinguished by its talented and dedicated employees. We recognize and reward superior contributions and outstanding achievements.”


Take care,
Adrian Zupp

WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOUR COMPANY? -- PART 1

I had an interesting meeting with a middle management exec at Harrah’s corporate recently.

I asked for the meeting. I wanted to know a bit more about the company, the department I worked in, what the future might hold for the department, and while I was at it I thought I’d throw a few ideological questions up and see if they got volleyed. After all, this was an intelligent, decent person who is completely sold on corporate life.

The most telling part of the discussion related to work hours – and at one point it got into Abbott and Costello’s Who’s-on-first territory. But it did bear fruit.

The dichotomy at the heart of the issue is the divide between what are fair and reasonable working hours (and compensation) on the one hand, and what many companies have come to expect on the other. At this point, it’s useful to mention one of the handy tools that corporations use to prevent debate about these opposing forces: the notion of hourly or wage employment versus salaried employment.

I am not certain why we even need two ways of paying people (although the corporations obviously have their reasons) but the way it boils down is this: hourly people are generally severely underpaid but, big wow, can claim compensation for overtime; salaried employees get a fixed annual level of pay that is generally significantly higher than wage employees, but they may be called on to work any number of hours in a given week.

So, frankly, whichever rubric you fall under, you’re probably being screwed. (I’m only talking within the context of a pseudo-capitalist economy here. If we were to consider competing systems of wealth distribution then we would see that capitalism hinges on screwing the vast majority of the population.) If you’re hourly, your budget is likely very tight. If you’re salaried, your budget may or may not still be tight but there’s every chance you’re being worked to borderline exhaustion – at the very least the potential for that exists.

So, the executive and I bounced all this around for a while and we agreed that the implicit flexibility of the salaried life – work back when work needs to be done, go early when things are slow – was a preferable way to live. Good for getting to doctor’s appointments, your kid’s school play, or just taking it easy when you need to. In other words, having some kind of a life.

But that’s as close as we got to agreement. For as I listened to the executive, I realized that her math was skewed. She was all for people having flexibility, but she clearly thought that, all up, they should be working more than 40 hours per week. (e.g. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone taking 1 ½ hours for lunch twice a week to go to the gym, as long as they spend the other three lunches at their desk.”)

I don’t know what they call that in the world of corporate doublespeak but it sounds like exploitation to me.

Many people fought very hard and very long for things like the 40 hour week and the right to unionize. The right to have a safe work environment and the opportunity to have a life outside of work. But we’re going backwards.

Approximately 12 percent of Americans are in a union. Now, unions have their problems too, and certainly a different global economic structure based on egalitarianism is the ideal. But let’s work with what we have right now. What we’ve got is 88 percent of the American workforce basically going it alone. Going it alone against the might of a corporation, or any organization for that matter, is pretty daunting. So most people, myself included, end up working longer hours, feeling unfulfilled, and choking on the voodoo math of career executives.

And the working person’s mantra in this time of depression (nobody can convince me this is merely a recession) is “At least I have a job.” And there you have it. The hook the private sector has through our collars. This is called “negative motivation.” It works okay on certain levels but it’s hell on morale, marriages, physical and mental health and a bunch of other things that most of us little people think are, well, kind of important.

This thing is getting too long and I worked til almost 9:30 tonight (yeah, case in point). Let me get back to this tomorrow.

Take care,

Adrian Zupp

IT ALL STARTED WITH A SPARK

I work for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. -- the largest gaming corporation in the world. The Harrah's brass prefer the word "gaming" to "gambling" because it's innocuous and potential-customer friendly.

Today was an interesting day in a somewhat awful way. We had a human resources flack -- complete with soften-the-blow cheese humor and whiteboard markers -- come into our department (The Studio -- where much of Harrah's advertising materials are developed) to explain the mysterious "9-Point Grid" to us.

I battened down for the usual stream of BS and promised myself I'd gnaw my hand off before I dared to speak and get myself into more trouble as a rabble rouser... or whatever the current term is for someone who speaks up in the face of nonsense.

The Grid, it would seem, is a cute little "calculation device" for assessing and describing our performance as employees. This was good to know because we wouldn't want to slack off and see less-than-maximum shekels going to the rich white men who run the show. That just wouldn't do. No no. Besides, GE uses the Grid and we all know what a bunch of good guys they are.

The presentation was the usual horse-and-pony show you get when businesses do this kind of thing, and the Q&A that followed was, well, the usual softball game you get when businesses do this kind of thing. The presenter confessed, at one point, that, no, the grid wasn't "totally scientific" (the gods of MIT can rest easy -- their jobs are safe) and yes, a certain aspect of it could be "taken with a grain of salt."

At this point I had to raise my hand. You know that feeling, right? All the blood has rushed to your head and you just can't have your intelligence treated like a dog's favorite fire hydrant anymore.

"You said this wasn't completely scientific," I said. "Well, that is correct. If a scientist has a paradigm, and the paradigm has a component that you can take with a grain of salt, the scientist will dismiss the entire paradigm as useless."

This went on for a while, as you can guess. He parried with some bad jokes and patronizing filler ("Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion") but basically I won on points.

But you never win these things when you work for a corporation -- you just begin something that you hope someone else will tune into. Most (not all) people accept the thimble-and-pea trick they're being sold, and you can't really blame them.It's easier to buy into it and hope life won't get more difficult.

My larger point is this: This is one small example of how corporations control their employees. Clearly, the "9-Point Grid" could do nothing more than a supervisor's hand-written appraisal could do. It's facility did not really lie in its purported use. What things like the Grid do is throw people off balance: What does it mean? How will it affect my performance reviews? My raises? How high do I have to leap to get through the highest square on the grid?

People get nervous; scared even. You can see it. They're confused. All they can glean is that they are being asked to work hard ("Your personal objectives will be constantly raised as you progress"), then harder and harder. And of course the message is clear that if you don't excel like a good little Harrah's employee, well you just might end up in one of those bottom squares that the presenter drolly implied were for, um, the losers among us.

The moral here is pretty much what your best teachers in school and college taught you: Question everything. Don't take guff like the Grid on face value. Corporations aren't your friends and the rich guys who run them aren't really out to be your best buddies.

But I'll say more on that tomorrow.

WHAT I HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH THIS BLOG

The truth is, the world is in bad shape. I am not the doomsayer type. I like to have fun and occasionally shop at the forbidden fruit market. But the overwhelming body of scientific evidence tells us that the next half century might see us out. Whether it be environmental degradation or nuclear disaster (intended OR accidental). I have felt the need to join the discourse on the need for radical social change to try and reverse the ominous trends we're faced with. But, to my shame, I have put it off and put it off, choosing instead to read, discuss and donate some money here and there. Well, for some reason the events at work today that I described above took me beyond critical mass. So I've decided to start here with a daily blog, and then move on to building my own website. I'll expand on these things at a later date.

For now, I would like to invite you to visit my blog regularly. Much of what I will have to say is the result of many years of study and interviewing (I have worked as a journalist in the past). It is also the result of just plain thinking these things through over the years. At times I will tap some connections I have out in the world: very smart people whom you may well have heard of. I'll try to keep things a little lively but entirely meaningful. This is serious stuff and unlike most of the Washington speechmakers, many of us do really care what kind of world our children, and their children, will inherit.

Thanks for reading!
Adrian Zupp