What do you do?
I knew you were going to ask that, but I’m weird about being associated with what I do. We all label people based on that, so what I do is, I’m a human living life, just like you are.
But how do you pay rent?
Vocationally, I’m a fashion stylist and an artist and I’m multifaceted. And then I also work at Jeffrey in their women’s designer section. I’m in a space with four walls and other people, and it’s been very challenging to wrap my brain around that.
(Emphasis mine).
I’ve been thinking along similar lines. Pretty sweet.
I think his response was so right on. He seems to think he disrespected both his mother and his constituents. I happen to think his reaction is just what happens when you screw with a real New Yorker.
After I saw this, I reflected how little news is actually made when Putin confirms a long running rumor and how much people actually want to read about “Tweens”:
Then I saw this, and thought, “Man, Columbia doesn’t have an army at all!”
I’m a big fan of management practices where management understands they only earn their money because of the employees under them.
McLaren Mercedes was recently punished by the Federation Internationale d’Automobile (FIA) for improperly handling documents containing Ferrari secrets. The penalty was stripping McLaren of all its constructor championship points they earned this season, awarding Ferrari the win in that competition, and fining the team $100 million. (In real terms, McLaren screwed itself out of a lot of money).
The interesting news: It was reported by the commentators of Speed during today’s Chinese Grand Prix that McLaren Mercedes management will still pay their employees the promised bonus based on the number of constructor points they would have had come season end. In that move, I see a company that recognizes the importance of its employees and cares about keeping the good people that created a potentially award-winning car.
Companies have a hidden incentive in treating its workers well. Sure, it’s hard to identify exactly how much benefit any given employee has on the bottom line, but it’s important to foster an environment that strives for results. Most people will only accomplish that by chasing after the carrot in front of them; one day, the carrot has to be caught for them to continue to the next one.
While I don’t know anything else about the working conditions at the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team, I applaud its management for this decision.
The New York Times published an article, “Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers” which describes several initiatives to pay teachers based on the improvement of their students.
I find myself disagreeing with those who believe teachers should be paid this way. In thinking about all of the best teachers in my life, those who actually made a difference, whether they were teaching exactly what they were supposed to or not, probably would not have benefitted from having me or many of my peers in a class. What they offered us was definitely not anything measurable by standardized tests. They offered us knowledge and wisdom that was most certainly beyond the scope of any curriculum that any state committee could develop.
I highly disagree with using standardized tests in general. While I have tended to score fairly well on many of them, I realize that so many people who did not are denied opportunities they might have had without this movement toward standardization (a topic of a future rant, perhaps). Let measurement play a role in areas where measurement is legitimate and accurate; don’t force it into areas that it does not apply. Passion and enthusiasm cannot be expressed as a number. Keep standardized tests away from killing off the good teachers. They are the some of the only people that make people like me want to be educated.
I think these state legislatures should instead toy with killing off or heavily reducing tenure for any teacher below higher education. I’ve always found competition is a great motivator for success.
