Tag: rant

What should they do with the company, Michael?

The company Michael Dell said should be sold off and the money given to its shareholders is kicking his butt:

Overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry is unchanged from a year ago at 74, but changes within the industry give Apple a commanding lead. The PC maker maintains big improvements from 2003 and 2004, holding at 81 for a second year. Apple’s sales are up 33%, net income has grown 300% and its stock price has nearly tripled over the past year. A slew of product innovations and an emphasis on digital technologies and customer service have been very successful for Apple with a high degree of customer loyalty as a result.

Dell is a different story. Based on a strategy of mass customization, the #1 PC maker worldwide has been a leader in customer satisfaction for several years. This quarter, it suffers a sharp drop in ACSI, down 6% to 74. Customer service in particular has become a problem, and service quality lags not only Apple but also the rest of the industry. Customer complaints are up significantly with long wait-times and difficulties with Dell’s call-center abound. Still, competitive pricing as a result of Dell’s direct-sales business model keeps overall customer satisfaction slightly above other competitors, with the exception of Apple. Whether Dell’s declining satisfaction will have a negative impact on the company’s stock performance remains to be seen; however, ACSI history has shown that changes in customer satisfaction often signal similar changes in future financial performance. Apple’s stock price is up 35% for the year-to-date, whereas Dell’s is flat.
[Via MacInTouch, emphasis in quoted text added. –R]

FedEx follies

I am attempting to return a product to a manufacturer. I have reviewed the product for publication, and the company would like it back. The company in question has graciously allowed me to ship the product back to them using their FedEx account. They asked I ship it ground, to minimize the expense. I have no problem with that. Then things got interesting.
I can’t simply ask FedEx for a pickup at my residence, because it seems they require the pickup to be from the account holder’s address, which in this case is in California. I’m in Texas. So you can see problem #1.
So I looked up the nearest FedEx Ground shipping locations from my home. Look at that, there’s about half a dozen in the Town of Flower Mound. After hitting about three of them, I learned this little tidbit: FedEx does not provide these third-party providers with airbills (ground bills?) for Ground shipping. To ship Ground from these third-party shippers, it has to be on their assigned FedEx account, for which they already have plenty of pre-printed bar-coded stickers, courtesy of FedEx. These shippers are not equipped to ship in the method I require, from me to the company, on the company’s dime. Now you can see problem #2.
This morning I had a doctor’s appointment on the other side of the city. No problemo, I pondered, I’ll bring the box with me, and I’ll stop by the main FedEx site on the grounds of DFW International. It’s on the way home. I arrived at 10:19 AM. Problem #3: The customer service desk doesn’t open until noon.
In the past, I’ve always been quite pleased with the level of customer service I’ve gotten from FedEx, but it is ridiculous how hard they’re making it to ship this product back to its manufacturer.
My wife is looking into getting a bill of lading for FedEx Ground from her company’s mail room. Should that fail, it means another drive out to the airport for me tomorrow. After noon, of course.

Pinkie D’s

Anyone else out there annoyed by the pinkie commercials being run by McDonald’s for their new “premium” chicken sandwiches? Does anyone actually eat sandwiches or burgers that way?

How, exactly, am I supposed to obtain experience if…?

Earlier today, I applied for an IT&S Manager position with a local hospital. Late this afternoon, I received a reply:

Christopher,

I appreciate your quick response. The hospital insists that all candidates have a healthcare background in a hospital setting.

I am sure that your experience and background will generate interest in the IT industry. Unfortunately, I am unable to assist you, being focused entirely in the healthcare industry.

Good luck,

Name removed
Now, this is for an IT position, mind you. So they want their IT people to have a background in the healthcare industry. I can understand that. It makes sense to a degree.
However, and someone correct me if they know of some cloning procedure to which the rest of us are not privy: people are not born with, nor enter the workforce, with any particular experience whatsoever. For me to obtain a “healthcare background,”it stands to reason that someone has to take a chance and give me a shot, does it not? It’s the age-old catch-22:
“We’re looking for someone with experience in this area.”
“How am I supposed to gain experience in this area unless someone gives me a chance at it?”
It’s not like I can up and start my own hospital tomorrow to gain a “healthcare background.”

Geldof and friends miss the mark

I am quite proud to say I did not watch a single second of the incredibly vapid, colossal waste of time and public airwaves that was Live 8. Rick Moran, on the other hand, did watch it, and gets what Geldof and crew do not:

The idea that “raising awareness” of Africa’s plight will save starving children is absurd. In order to save those children, you don’t have to snap your fingers, what you need is wholesale regime changes in 2 dozen or more countries where governments use starvation as the weapon of choice against rebelious populations. Africa’s problem is not lack of food. It is not a lack of arable land, or water resources, or agricultural know-how (they’ve been farming in Africa since before the Egyptians got themselves organized). At bottom, Africa’s problem is, well, Africans. Embracing the socialist doctrines of the old Soviet Union and Cuba during the 1970’s and 80’s, the grandiose schemes and huge development projects undertaken with some of the $220 billion in western aid that has gone to the continent since the 1960’s proved to be boondoggles of the first magnitude.

Dam building for electricity that nobody needs or can use is just one small example. What isn’t known and probably can never be calculated is the out and out theivery of aid funds by African leaders, their families, their extended families, their cronies, and the western companies who are forced into kickback schemes in order to win contracts with this human daisy chain of graft and corruption.

[…]

Which makes Live 8 about as relevant to helping solve Africa’s problems as the activities of the masked anarchists who are gleefully running around Edinburgh smashing windows and torching automobiles as if to prove the efficacy of corporal punishment denied them when they were children.
All something like Live 8 does is alleviate whatever guilt those who organize and participate may be feeling about the problem. Personally, I’m making a difference in Africa, one child at a time. His name is Emmanuel, he lives in Tanzania, and though he is five years older, he shares a birthday with my son.
I don’t share this to get a pat on the back; I share it to say you don’t need a bunch of celebs cavorting on stage, “raising awareness,” to personally make a difference. Not to mention that Geldof and crew would never tell you about Compassion, World Vision, the Barnabas Fund, Mercy Ships, or myriad other organizations which have been making a difference for years.
How many meals could be provided, through organizations already on the ground, by the multi-carat diamond necklace Madonna was wearing, if she weren’t so busy flipping off the world? Angelina Jolie aside, when was the last time any of these spoiled celebrity brats spent time helping in a refugee camp? They are the ones with the supposed influence, and certainly the funds, and the best they can come up with is a concert to “raise awareness”? Let’s see Geldof, Madonna, McCartney, and the rest put their money where their mouths are.
[A wave of the fin to Jeff for pointing to Rick’s post.]

About Lance

I am pretty ambivalent with regard to Lance Armstrong. Like a majority of Americans, I’m not a gearhead, unlike my pal Dan (who needs a new blog title). I did cheer for Armstrong when he battled back from cancer to win the Tour de France. I booed him over essentially choosing his career over his family. Like the large majority of professional athletes, Armstrong is nothing more than someone you can admire for his professional achievements, but should be avoided for pretty much anything else. Via the aforementioned Dan, an interview with the latest Armstrong biographer, Dan Coyle, confirms this:

VN: What is your personal take on Lance Armstrong?

DC: As his teammate Jonathan Vaughters once told me, there’s a pattern with Lance: he gets close to people, and inevitably something goes haywire. I must admit, the closer I got to him, the less I found myself admiring him. Now that I have distance again, I find myself admiring him more. Let me put it this way – he is a good hero for my 10-year old son, but I wouldn’t necessarily want him to date my daughter.

VN: One former teammate once described him as “one of the unhappiest men I’ve met.” Do you think Lance Armstrong is happy?

DC: He is more driven than happy. As Floyd Landis puts it in the book, “Lance doesn’t want to be hugged, he wants to kick everybody’s ass.”
Armstrong may not want to psychoanalyze himself, but I’d be happy to do so. From the myriad things I’ve read here and there about him, I would say Lance is a poster child for why involved fathers, or father-figures, mentors, are so important in a child’s life. In some ways, Lance is scared to love because he didn’t get that love only a father can provide. He has a void in his heart that he has only been able to fill with his desire to dominate and win in the sport of cycling.
Personally, I think I’d rather be around someone who’s happy.

When editing goes wrong

One of the local semi-independent stations is showing Ronin this evening. Now, being one of my favorite action movies, because it is a thinking-man’s action movie and not a mindless blood and gore fest, I figured I would keep it on while I languished away the hours working on my wife’s XP box. (Bad, XP, bad!) Those of you who haven’t seen the movie can skip the rest, because I’m going to talk about a specific plot point, and it contains kinda-sorta spoiler info.
I realize there’s a lot of editing that has to go in to a film like this, to put it on non-cable television during “family hours” on the weekend. In addition to filtering out the curse words, and especially bloody scenes, the broadcasters have to be concerned with a time factor as well, mostly so they can get enough advertising in to cover the cost of showing the movie. I can appreciate all of this.
But then they go and cut what I consider a central tenant of the movie. Maybe it’s because I am a fan of this film, and have seen it a few times. Maybe persons who have never seen it before won’t miss the scene because they don’t know to miss it.
The scene I’m referring to is at Jean-Pierre’s, where Vincent (Jean Reno) takes Sam (Robert De Niro) after the latter has been shot. While recovering, Sam watches as Jean-Pierre paints miniature samurai warriors for a diorama he has created. His hobby, as he explains to Sam. We see Jean-Pierre put the latest dry figure on to the diorama, and we cut to the next scene.
They completely cut out the rest of the scene with Jean-Pierre, who explains to Sam about the 47 Ronin, and what ronin were: masterless samurai. The 47 Ronin were despondent over failing their master, who was killed by a rival warlord. So, in time, they gave their lives in an attempt to kill the rival. The term ronin in the case of the movie is supposed to refer to agents who have left the fold of their respective agency, like Sam. I always thought this scene was rather important, as it goes a long way toward explaining the title of the film, even if not directly. It’s a shame it was cut for the television broadcast.

Shapiro’s latest

Ben Shapiro:

Social liberalism seeks to promote a “live and let live” society wherein all types of deviant behavior is tolerated and accepted. Those on the left have thrust their notion of a “civilized,” amoral society upon all of us. The fact of the matter is that “live and let live” directly contradicts the notion of communal society; we all have to abide by certain rules to live together. An amoral society minimizes the rules under which we live together; any change in those rules is bound to affect all of us.

And it has. By discarding traditional morality in favor of amoralism, we have catered to the lowest common denominator.

[…]

We have successfully defined deviancy down; the deviant is now considered normal. Meanwhile, we have defined deviancy up; the normal is now considered deviant. And the effects upon my generation — the porn generation — have been disastrous. We are apathetic about morality, and that apathy translates into nihilism and narcissism — and in the end, into generational self-destruction. Like it or not, the porn generation is the future of this country.

Do we really care?

It is a sad, sad, sad indictment of our American culture when the trial verdict of a washed-up has-been, who hasn’t put out a decent record in more than a decade, is the top news story of the day.

Reaction to offense: Muslim vs Christian

I’m sorry for another post from Best of the Web, but Taranto and company are simply on today:

Still, by way of comparison, recall that three years ago Palestinian Arab terrorists occupied the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Priests reported that “gunmen tore up Bibles for toilet paper,” according to the Daily Camera of Boulder, Colo. The Chicago Tribune noted after the siege that “altars had been turned into cooking and eating tables, a sacrilege to the religious faithful.”

Christians in the U.S. responded by declining to riot and refraining from killing anyone. They had the same response 15 or so years ago when the National Endowment for the Arts was subsidizing the scatological desecration of a crucifix and other Christian symbols. This should also put to rest the oft-heard calumny that America’s “religious right” is somehow a Christian equivalent of our jihadi enemies.
This goes hand-in-hand with what Jeff has been saying.