NOTE: I started writing this earlier this year when I was fired from my first new job in four years after four months. I just got the to the point where I didn't care to tell the tale any more, but now, some months later and more depressed than ever, I wanted to post what I'd written, just to get it out there. I'm no angel. I'm nowhere near perfect. I make mistakes and sometimes I've been fired because it was the right thing to do, but not this time. This is simply a matter of a rich asshole who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips can treat people like shit and it will never touch him. Something similar happened in France a while ago. That didn't end well. -TCR

On July 14th of this year, I will turn 50. That's quite the milestone for anyone. I never felt that I wouldn't make it to the half Century mark, but it feels somewhat surreal now that I'm here. One thing that being 50 doesn't often involve, however, is the level of humiliation I was forced to undergo with a recent employer. Out of a sense of honor, I won't reveal any identifying details, but I feel it is necessary for me to get this out of my system. First, though, some context...

I've been writing professionally for about 20 years now. The breakdown is simple; over 100 books as technical editor or revisor. One book as the author. Two more as co-author. Since contract writing is all about the ebb and flow, I also consulted, personally and for other consultancies. I wrote documentation for myself and the small businesses I worked with. After the computer book publishing world dried up for tenured authors like myself, I went into corporate work where I did high-level consulting and traditional employment. I wrote documentation for all of those companies. In short, I'd say I have experience.

2008 was a bad year for me, though. When contracts started dropping like flies from one consultancy I was working for, I was laid off along with half of the staff. I worked a number of contract jobs for a couple of years for a sizable discount. Money was "tight", apparently. The Recession illustrated to corporate types they could bring in the same revenue with fewer employees when those remaining felt the constant fear of being made redundant. HR departments also decided that work experience was shit and everyone needed an advanced degree to jobs cleaning toilets. Since I never received a degree, as I am not a traditional learner, I was left out in the cold. My advancing age and experience didn't help, either.

To summarize, I did end up getting a real job in 2011, which lasted about 9 months. The new drought brought me to 2013 where I got a promising contracting gig, but corporate politics well over my head nixed that. I would have to wait until just after the New Year of 2018 to even be offered something, so I took it.

Just four short months later, that would turn out to be a costly mistake.

So, the overview is easy. Small company. They've been in business for seven years, develop an application, and sell it to a tight, vertical market. Since it works on top of existing systems to add features that don't exist in the core market players, it's not really competition. The company charges a not-insignificant monthly fee for these small businesses to use their software. I was hired to perform a job and that job was to fix their documentation, both internally and for the customers.

I can say, in all honesty, that after four years of unemployment and two and a half years of rideshare driving, I was both elated and rusty. I worked with it, anyway. I was honest with them in my interview, and was told that I was hired, in part, because of that honesty. I'm old, have too much experience, and don't have a degree. I also have sleep apnea (treated with a CPAP) and mild narcolepsy, so I doze off during the day at times, usually when I'm not engaged in a conversation. I didn't hide anything (well, maybe a few things, but none of that shit's their business.)

I migrated nearly 300 articles from their old knowledge base system to the new one. Manually. With my colleague, I developed a half dozen methodologies for updating, modifying, extending, and simplifying the documentation, all of which were shot down. I found a friend in my colleague, as we shared frustration over the casual dismissal of what would be landmark improvements to the company. I was even asked to research and provide information for Single Source documentation systems, which I did, and was told weeks later that we weren't going to do such a ridiculously logical thing.

Wow.

I marshalled on, weathering the weirdness and coming to accept that the smart thing was just not going to happen. We weren't in charge. We didn't have the money. We weren't rich. We were peons. Then some things started to change. I was brought into meetings to go over new features that I was expected to document. Nothing weird there. I dutifully took notes, asked questions, and did my best to add these projects to my plate. I inquired about priority, but was never given a straight answer, so I did my best, assuming that these new projects would take precendence. It's sometimes necessary to assume when your direct queries don't result in clear answers.

One of these projects turned out to be rather dear to the owner. I figured that since the owner was the lead (and sole) programmer and kept the entire thing in his head (and some random folders on his machine) that the entire thing was dear to him. Boy, was I mistaken. This one project caused a lot of problems. It wasn't a complex thing. In fact, it was rather straightforward, but the owner had his own way to describing it, and I didn't pick up any hints that, regardless of all the work I had done to normalize documentation and apply a standardized style guide, I was expected to deliver documentation in an obnoxiously specific way.

I was expected to write like the owner.

Needless to say, the owner doesn't speak anything but Programmatic Nerdish. Combine this with the fact that English isn't his first language and you get what would appear to be a surmountable oddity. Surely, without much convincing, the owner would recognize the need to have consistency in documentation and angle the content neatly towards the customers, right? I can hear the choruses of "No" in your head, and you'd be correct.

First draft was returned with notes.

Second draft was returned, but without notes.

Another meeting to go over the software again, By this time, it had all changed, a bad habit the owner had. I didn't take notes because he just had a few points, one of which just happened to be that "I made stuff up."

Yes. In essence, he called me a liar.

Now, this beggars belief, because there isn't one place I've worked on the documentation where I was called a liar because I didn't quite understand something. One thing that writers do with non-fiction work is to interpret the information and make it lean toward the expected audience. That's why we draft work and vet it with Subject Matter Experts (SME). I've done this so many times with so many people, I can't even guess at how many. Hundreds. Thousands. I get the notes back and make the requested changes.

Nope. I was effectively called a liar and was given a Word document that was written by the owner which I would insert into my document to "make it better". I was also told that I could edit the English, which made sense because the owner wasn't a writer and didn't learn English as a child.

Here's where I stopped writing and never came back to it. Long story short, and I realize that's too little too late, I started cleaning up some extraneous stuff from my computer, so they locked me out. At the time, I didn't connect the two things, so it looked like they fired me. The never came to talk to me, so I just walked out. Fuck 'em. They're inept imbeciles anyway. Being able to program doesn't make anyone a genius, the same way that knowing more than one language doesn't make you a genius. (Much like the structure of that sentence doesn't make ME a genius!)

So, that's it. The guys with way too much money and far too little sense get to keep what they have, and I lose nearly everything. Again. To an old guy who buys porsche on a whim and a kid who thinks his M-B C63 is just a "regular" car, I won't beg. I won't demean myself because you think that's your right as my employer. I won't and I didn't.

I realize, too, that this is a bit of a disjointed narrative. It's been a few months now since this all happened, and I just no longer have enough fucks to give.

If I manage to make my family moderately comfortable, I will have achieved a personal victory, but I won't do that at the expense of my values or someone elses right to exist in a dignified manner.

I am a human being, Alec. You may have more money, but that just makes you richer, not superior.

I'm just going to write something directly out of my head, so we'll see how it goes. -TCR

I've always liked the name Larry. It feels old without being stuffy, and there's an inherent jocularity about it. When you hear that you'll be meeting with some dude named Larry it instills in you the idea that the interaction won't be dark or heavy. When I walked into the room to meet my particular Larry, however, things didn't go as expected.

My Larry was a woman and anything but jovial.

"Sit," she said, not looking up from her tablet. I sat.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me," I said as I settled into the uncomfortable straight-back chair. I noted that her chair was a large, stuffed leather affair, but pushed away the envy. Without looking up, she extended her index finger in the international sign for "shut up and wait". A few moments passed and she placed the tablet on the table and looked across the table into my eyes.

"So, how long have you known Rodrigo," she asked, not blinking.

"At last fifteen years, I think. We've been good frien..."

"Just answer my questions," she interrupted. I sat there stunned.

"Just who is this Larry woman and why didn't Rod tell me about her," I thought to myself.

I shook my head clear and responded, "Fifteen years."

"Do you now or have you ever worked for the LAPD, any of its affiliates, suppliers, or any law enforcement agency, or any organization that has a contract with the LAPD?"

"No."

"Have you ever held a position in any political party organization, been elected to any seat, or appointed to any role by a government official, either within the State of California or with the Federal Government?"

"No."

"Have you ever been incarcerated? Have you ever been arrested? Are you parents still alive? Are you familiar with game theory? Do you drink liquor? Do you sleep on your side, back, or stomach?"

"No. No. My mother. Moderately. A few times a week. Stomach."

"What, then, do you do?"

"I am an industrial robot repair technician, first class."

"Will you consent to a background check?"

"Of course," I said, sensing some positive flow to this brief and weird meeting for once.

She leaned deeper into the leather padded chair and stared at me. I'm pretty sure she hadn't blinked once, but she might have blinked when I did. The odds of that happening must be astronomical. 

She reached out with her hand, curled her fingers into a fist, and rapped hard on the table three times, the sharp sound ringing loudly in the mostly empty room with no wall decorations. The door opened immediately and an old man walked in.

"There will be no need for the background check. I already ran one," She said to me. To the man she said, "Take Mr. Chalmers to HR and have him fill out the paperwork." The old man bowed deeply, backed out of the room and waited in the hallway. Surprised at how quickly the situation had pivoted, I just sat there agape.

"He'll be joining us as head of MOBot development starting today," she said to me with those unblinking eyes, and smiled.

I never wanted to see that smile again.

So, next on the pervert docket we have legendary serious news journalist Charlie Rose...

Wait, what?

So, let's take the list of people called out for being predatory assholes so far: Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, John Besh (supposedly famous chef), Louis C.K., Hadrian Belove and Shadie Einashai (rich assholes with movie theaters), Richard Dreyfuss, Gary Goddard, Andy Henry, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Knepper, Andrew Kreisberg, Jeremy Piven, Brett Ratner, Steven Segal, Tom Sizemore, Jeffrey Tambor, James Toback, Senator Al Franken, and now Charlie Rose. But wait, there's more! Yeah. I mean there's a longer list, but I'm not going to type out any more names. If you want to see the mostly complete list, look here. 

So, I let this sit for a day, and what do we have now? John Lasseter. Yes, the John Lasseter that was key in evolving Pixar into the animated feature film studio it became. The John Lasseter that took over Disney Animation in 2006 and paved the way to enormous hits like Frozen, Wreck It Ralph, Inside Out, and the upcoming Coco. The John Lasseter who was instrumental in working with Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki to bring English-language releases of their beloved animated films to the West, movies like Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo. The John Lasseter who apparently has a maneuver named after him where women angle to keep him from touching their legs. 

Most men on these lists are pigs. It's easy to see. Weinstein is obnoxious. Spacey is outspoken and overconfident. Louis CK is brash and loud. Jeremy Piven seems to play himself in Entourage. Tom Sizemore has a history of violence against women. Steven Segal is a self-important asshole. But then there are the people whom we've come to trust. Al Franken. Charlie Rose. Now John Lasseter. 

So, what's going on? 

The simplest answer is that we are finally seeing the intersection of women's rights, sexual repression advocacy, and destructive male empowerment ideologies, though that's far from a simple answer. Women are human and, therefore, have human rights. Women must be afforded the same respect and dignity that men demand. Women are not animals or property. To treat women (and I also mean girls, in case you're looking for a loophole) as livestock or store products is wrong. So, stop it. 

Sexual repression has been going on for ages, ever since the first person was embarrassed to see people having sex right in front of them and they weren't getting any. Various forms of religion have long advocated control through abstinence. Religion works best as a method of human cattle management because it focuses on the core aspects of being human (i.e., sex, behavior, food, etc) and engages emotional touchstones (i.e., fear, joy, desire to belong, love). 

Then, last but far from least, we have what most people would call Rape Culture, but is deeply rooted in male empowerment, masculinity development, and patriarchy. Men are the top. Men are bosses. Men can do stuff that weak women can't do. Women are good for making lunch and babies and looking pretty and shutting up and that's it. Men are smarter, faster, stronger, large and in charge. Men aren't crybabies, need their mommies, or have doubts or fears, and if you have any of those needs, you're a sissy and need to man up or go die in a dark alley somewhere. 

How could that kind of hyperbolic assholery ever go wrong!

Well, here's an example:

So, "rape" used to mean something, yes? Now it just means women dissatisfied with the sex they had with potent and skilled men? Invite some girls to your frat party, get them so drunk they can hardly stand, take them upstairs, and give them what should be the time of their life, and you're shocked when they get mad? Hell, they consented to getting drunk, right? They have women bodies that I can see with my man eyeballs, right? How is that rape? 

With women running around like they own the place, religious policies that have quashed the normal human sex drive creating people who have a pathological understanding of what sex actually is, combined with men who have been taught that they must take what they want and all things are subservient to them, is a combination that is just primed for a tipping point, and it seems that we might have reached it. Like gay marriage or unlike gun control.

What we need is a healthy understanding of what human sexuality really is and that has to be taught in school, to all kids. Repression and extreme control methods need to be canned. Kids who are free and encouraged to experiment will come to understand it better, earlier, and develop a core sense of responsibility regarding sex. Our current ideals regarding sex, drugs and alcohol, work, and responsibiliity are skewed badly in ways that do not favor the development of kids who understand what life is really like, and that's one of the things that is holding us back, causing all manner of problems, and won't get better unless we really work for change. 

Humans have evolved over millions of years and sex becomes viable with the onset of puberty. To deny this simple, biological fact, as we have for all of recorded history, is to try to push back against the impossible weight of millions of years of evolution. 

That kind of strategy just can't win. Period. 

“It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money.... Let me give you a tip on men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the...bell of an approaching looter.” -Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was special, and not in a good way. She was a caustic, belligerent herald of the apocalypse that is raw, uncontrolled capitalism. And yet, Rand was simply a product of her time. [Keep in mind that this is not supposed to be an exhaustive analysis of the rise of Randian concepts, but just a loose overview of some of the things that led to the development of her ideas, so don’t troll me for being somewhat inaccurate, nerds. -TC]

Following the American Civil War, people from the North migrated to the South to run for political office in order to foster change in the form of civil rights, economic growth, and found public school systems, though some did go to capitalize on the reconstruction boom. Hundreds of white women moved South to teach, while white men opened banks and offered high interest loans to those who sought to start businesses. It was an odd mix of capitalist and socialist drives.

Following World War I (also known as The Great War and The War To End All Wars), America entered the Roarin’ Twenties, a period of strong economic, industrial, and cultural growth and change. Women gained the right to vote in many States. Air travel became a thing. The money was flowing. Ayn Rand left Russia to the United States in 1926, just three years before The Crash of 1929. She left what, at the time, was a dying Czarist Russia facing a growing revolutionary force living in crushing poverty, only to see the explosive crash of the American economy in 1929.

After World War II there was another explosive period of economic growth and expansion. What the people saw, and not what was actually happening, was the government swoop in to take people and resources to get killed and destroyed, and that the private sector would swoop in afterwards and fix things up, make new things, give people jobs and money, and build entire communities through the apparent power and benevolence of Capitalism. Of course, we know that isn’t the accurate truth. Many of the companies that built the roads and dams and office buildings that towered into the sky were supported by plans devised and funded by the efforts of the US Government (think New Deal and PWA). But that’s not what people saw in their home towns.

For her part, Rand saw capitalism, integrated with what she would call "objectivism", as the only way out for a truly free society. It was Capitalism that swarmed over the American landscape, transforming the troubled cities and towns into a gleaming series of metropolitan meccas, glittering with wealth and power and influence whilst ignoring the vast number of people that worked their asses off to make it happen, often to the sole benefit of a small number of people. Sort of like what we have today.

Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person's rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goals. [SOURCE: The Atlas Society]

What you won’t often hear these days, however, is that objectivists give no fucks for the so-called undeserving, and that’s a really important flaw in Objectivism. Rand gives all credit to the solitary, strong, rational capitalist who does what he wants, when he wants, and however he achieves that is good as long as it is all in the name on his happiness. This ideology enshrines selfishness and puts selflessness in the corner, facing the wall, wearing a dunce cap, which likely has you asking, “What about all of the backs upon which these powerful individuals have lifted themselves up?”

Jon Donne wrote in 1624 in his work entitled Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

It was written in old English, but its message is clear. No man is an island. If a stone is washed away from the shore, that land is the lesser for it. Donne wrote of a fact that we have known for many, many centuries; that we all make our experience here on this spinning rock in space, and Rand’s ideas that rugged individualism where selfishness is countenanced as vital is just piffle. I’d like to see John Galt build a bridge or cure cancer by himself.

We’re All In This Together, Whether We Like It Or Not

Aside from the despicable fact that Rand’s objectivism promotes the idea that only “producers” deserve to exist and all others should be allowed to fall away, the simple idea that money is a viable foundation for all things is just ridiculous. If it isn’t clear by now, money is a horrible influence on society. Money makes people hate each other, creates an environment where sanctioned and illegal theft and corruption is rampant, and ruins good people who have only ever done good by their fellow humans. Money is destructive and stifles the advancement of humanity as a whole.

[No, I’m not ignoring the influences of religion and political ideologies, but this piece is about money. -TC]

The only problem is that it’s everywhere. Currency is so deeply ingrained into our social fabric that we can’t just rip it out and cast it aside, and that’s a problem because we need to. If we don’t, the future of humanity will remain in the hands of those who are unscrupulous enough to steal it from everyone else. It is the Oroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. Money feeds the most depraved aspects of humanity which, in turn, makes money for those who engage in these deleterious behaviors. Money is a stand-in for power, and as we all know, "might makes right". So, if money is so important, how do you get rid of it?

You use money to kill money.

Yes, that sounds a tad cryptic, but bear with me. It’s a lot easier that you might think. It is, however, critical that you understand that what I’m about to discuss isn’t a step-by-step plan of action, but an idea to force money out of society and create a new form of society that just works, embraces equality and civil rights and abhors oppression, hate, fear, and disenfranchisement.

• First, freeze prices on everything, like bullet time in The Matrix. Jail time for price gouging. There needs to be a "No Scumbag" provision to shut down corruption at its root. Besides, as you’ll see, there will be no effective value in raising prices or cheating.
• Second, flood the economy with an unlimited amount of money. Mint a fuckton of those trillion dollar coins and jam them into circulation.
• Third, doing this works because it doesn’t fundamentally change how society works, it just levels the playing field at which everyone plays. “When everyone is special, no one is special.” -The Incredibles.

Now, everyone is rich. With prices frozen, anyone can buy what they want and what they need. Housing will be built for the homeless, hunger will be eliminated, money will be spent on research of all kinds, goods and services will be distributed all around the world. The list of things that can get done is far too long for me to get right. Infrastructure, public transit, space exploration, development of renewable energy sources, the end of slavery, the drug trade, piracy, dictatorships, religious and ideological oppression, the expansion of education, the increase in workplace happiness as people move to the jobs they want instead of the ones they have to take just to keep their families afloat.

While some will go hog wild and do some rather insane things, most people will get along with the business of life. People will follow their hearts. That’s because you can’t significantly change the nature of human behavior just by making everyone rich. Money will effectively become a method of tracking transactions, and slowly, over time, money will be replaced with processes, and lose all value. It will be replaced with the value that is inherent to all humans, to share and live and love and create and invent and do amazing things that we all know we can.

We’ll all just be people, all working towards enriching humanity and preserving our existence for, hopefully, many thousands of years to come.

Welcome to the brave new world of DESIGN OVER FUNCTION that Jonny Johnnee Jony Ive guy has crafted at Post Jobs Apple where a glass sandwich costs you $1,000 and you must pay for the privilege of using your purchased media in their walled garden. During Apple's unveiling of "One more thing" in the shiny new Steve Jobs Theater on the shiny new Cupertino campus, Craig Federighi tried to use Face ID to unlock the demo phone. It didn't work. Today in The Guardian, there's a convenient PR piece explaining why. 

Apparently, Apple peeps kept fingering the phone before the demo which locked out the Face ID because, well, it's supposed to. 

I don't have an issue with Face ID. What I do have an issue with is the wanton removal of effective, consistent, reliable features that everyone uses. I blame Steve Jobs and, to a greater degree, that annoying twat, Ive. First of all, when Steve came back to help (and then replace) Gil Amelio, he started cleaning house by closing down all of the projects Apple was developing, including my beloved Newton. Then Steve removed the floppy drive from the iMac. Removing old technologies in a smart manner was Steve's thing. In many cases it was brilliant. Now that Steve is dead, though, Ive is left to his own devices, and being the snob he is, he's been removing features that he shouldn't, in the belief that he's just carrying on Steve's vision of a feature-free future. 

So, now we get no headphone jack and no touch sensor, and everything is more complicated and annoying for it. 

Removing the floppy drive in the age of CD media was a no-brainer, at least in retrospect. What Apple is doing now is annoying people, forcing users to adapt to Apple's vision. Didn't anyone at Apple notice that people hold their phones WITH THEIR HANDS?!!?? And what comes on hands, but fingers, and those fingers have prints, and we have technology that can read those prints, and it functions quite well. I can pick up my phone and unlock it with my thumb in less than a second. No swiping. No holding the phone in a particular way. 

There is a critical point at which a form-factor reaches its lowest possible simplification point. For the smartphone, that is what we see in the OnePlus 5, Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S8. They are thin and amazing and fast. They all have touch sensors. They all have headphone jacks. People love them. They buy millions of them. They also don't (quite) cost a grand for the cheap one (and the OnePlus is less than $500!!). 

This isn't all that Apple has done, or in some cases not done. The latest innovation in laptops is that stupid touchbar thing they added to the MacBook line. Yeah. Apple has also resisted potential growth areas inconsistently. Phablets became popular so they rolled out the iPhone 6 and 6s, but when they rolled out the iPad Pro to compete with Microsoft's Surface line, they saddled it with sad, little iOS. Don't even get me started about iTunes. What the hell is 2010 still doing on my desktop, Apple!!??

So, in the end, Apple has jumped the shark, lost the thread, screwed the pooch (an awful saying, btw), and Tim Cook has simply handed the keys to a guy obsessed with design and nothing more. The only time we ever see Jonathan Ive is in videos. He's never there, lovingly walking us through his craft, passing on that passion. He "phones" it in. We don't know Ive as a person, but a idea. A concept. Even his Wikipedia entry is void of much detail after a certain point. 

I'm not disparaging Sir Jonathan Ive as a person, but it's clear that he's nothing without Steve Jobs at his side, guiding Ive's hand, moderating his extreme design impulses, and that's when Apple just breaks down and becomes another premium marquee with ho-hum product. 

Why'd you have to go and die, man. I get the news this morning from Rima via Telegram. I can't believe it, but it's true. So many people have passed in the last few years, it brings mortality into sharp, unpleasant focus. Since it would be ridiculous for me to suggest that you haven't heard Steely Dan, go ahead and have a fresh listen to an old friend, the Dan's Gaucho, my personal favorite (if you deem valuations based on tenths of a degree valid, otherwise ALL Dan records are my favorite). 

Steely Dan was really two bands. One was the studio iteration where Becker and Fagen crafted their amazingly textured albums, staffed with a never-ending assemblage of guest artists from all walks of music. The other was the band they ran for live shows. It would be easy to misunderstand that the two are not one in the same. I guess you could say that the live band played covers of their own music. I don't mean that as an insult. The albums are individual works of musical art, impossible to replicate live, even for Becker and Fagen. 

I am near tears as I write this, but my very first album ever was Can't Buy A Thrill and I have loved, adored, and revered Steely Dan every day of my life ever since. 

Much love to you for all you have ever given me, Walter.