Self-Worth at Work

It’s important to note the only reason Cinderella had a dress worthy of going to the ball in (as far as Walt Disney is concerned) is that Cinderella’s birds and mice fixed it up for her while she was off working.

As part of the rallying cry to get the job done, Jaq laments: “Cinderelly not go to the ball. You’ll see. They fix her. Work, work, work. She’ll never get her dress done.”

Does Cinderella have a “pleaser” personality? Or is she letting her work define her? Maybe that’s what the allegorical nonsense is all about.

What’s not nonsense is what Derek Thompson writes in The Atlantic about the religion of work.

As I read Thompson’s essay, parts of it rang true as I consider my own attitudes toward the Work=Fulfilment Complex. This is almost me, for example:

Some workists, moreover, seem deeply fulfilled. These happy few tend to be intrinsically motivated; they don’t need to share daily evidence of their accomplishments. But maintaining the purity of internal motivations is harder in a world where social media and mass media are so adamant about externalizing all markers of success. There’s Forbes’ list of this, and Fortune’s list of that; and every Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn profile is conspicuously marked with the metrics of accomplishment—followers, friends, viewers, retweets—that inject all communication with the features of competition. It may be getting harder each year for purely motivated and sincerely happy workers to opt out of the tournament of labor swirling around them.

I’m not sure I worship my work. I mean, I’m happy where I am. Much happier than when I was a journalist and was proved incompetent. I do what I do and I enjoy it and I’m good at it. And because we need the extra money, when I’m done with the full-time job I go home to the part-time job, and am just about as happy doing that as I am doing the full-time job.

I have hobbies. I don’t think much about the full-time job when I’m home. And I look at my interactions on social media and while I may occasionally feel a twinge of professional jealousy when I see friends who have turned a hobby (creative writing) into a published endeavor, for the most part I enjoy the time I spend on social media.

I suppose I’m lucky in my contentedness. I could be of the Millennial generation, of which Thompson says:

There is something slyly dystopian about an economic system that has convinced the most indebted generation in American history to put purpose over paycheck. Indeed, if you were designing a Black Mirror* labor force that encouraged overwork without higher wages, what might you do? Perhaps you’d persuade educated young people that income comes second; that no job is just a job; and that the only real reward from work is the ineffable glow of purpose. It is a diabolical game that creates a prize so tantalizing yet rare that almost nobody wins, but everybody feels obligated to play forever.

I’ll admit on the surface I appear to be beholden to sloth and laziness. That’s only partially true. I’m a great believer in the Peter Principle, which says workers tend to rise to their level of incompetency, then rise no more.

I did that as a journalist. Have not yet done that as a technical writer nor as an online English instructor. So I have little incentive to want to progress up those ladders, particularly as their combined length seems to be getting me where I’d like to be.

I’d like to reach my level of incompetence as a fiction writer. Need to get back to Doleful Creatures. Or is this a sign I’m already at my level of incompetence in this arena?

Still, it’s good to have these little reality checks. And even better to know that my identity and worth are not tied exclusively to what I produce. Because most of what I produce literally goes down the toilet.

*Never seen the show. Have not even heard of it before this.

Taxes . . . Taxes . . .

First of all, yes, this is a prelude to a post about taxes.

But more important: Pat Buttram, Andy Devine, and John Fiedler in the SAME FREAKING SCENE. Hearing those three unique voices in the same scene is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than anything I can say about taxes.

The presence of this video here is a deflection because as I begin this blog post about taxes, I have to confess of the four individuals who appear in this little clip, you’re going to think I’m most like the Sheriff of Nottingham.

No, I’m not taking the last farthing out of The Poor Box, prompting Friar Tuck to pull the Friar Tuck Face. But in relation to taxes, some of you probably will think I am taking from the poor.

Here’s why: Although I paid federal taxes through payroll deduction, I’m getting it all back. Every penny. I’m the Amazon of Matchpoint Drive, in that technically for 2018, I ended up paying no federal income taxes at all, once all the paperwork is processed.

How is that done?

Well, we have three dependents. Though only two of them qualify as full dependents as far as the IRS goes, we still get tax credits because of them. Add to that a one-time tax credit thanks to our installation of solar panels on the house last year, we’ve effectively paid no taxes at all.

Oh, we will next year. And we actually ended up owing tax money to the state. But the last few years, that’s always been the case.

I’ve seen on Facebook recently people railing about corporations not paying taxes. Or corporations buying back their own stock and making the “investor class” more wealthy.

And I have to hide a little bit because, hey, I am part of the investor class, pinning my hopes on real estate and the stock market so someday I can retire before my heart explodes or other body parts give out.



(It’s an important lesson that often when we’re railing about OTHERS, sometimes that net catches, you know, me.) Because here I am paying no taxes and earning money off the stock market and I’m probably part of the problem and other people want me dead.

My answer to that:

Speaking of Rat Dogs . . .

NOTE: I'm calling this a found poem. It was a Facebook post this morning.

Four degrees this morning, so I took the youngest to school.

The dogs also came.

They wanted the window down on the way home.

Four degrees this morning.

The dogs REALLY wanted the window down on the way home.

To reach the window, they both have to sit on my lap.

But the window is not down. It's four degrees this morning.

There's a problem because

1. The window is not down, because it's four degrees this morning.

2. I basically have 22 pounds of weenie dog in my lap to act as an ersatz airbag if I crash on these icy roads.

3. The window is not down.

4. Sitting in the other seat is not an option because

a. Without a lap to sit on, the dogs cannot see out the window.
b. Driving from the passenger seat is really awkward.

5. THE WINDOW IS NOT DOWN.

6. Crisis barking ensues.

So I put the window down and the crisis is over.

Except it's four degrees this morning.

Rat Dogs

Rat Dog No. 1. Daisy. She does not mind the snow.

Rat Dog. No. 2. Dottie. Technically our first dog. Tolerates the snow, but likes beds better.

Daisy again. Note the snow.

RADIATION SCARY!!!1!!11!!!!1!!

Corners of the internet were aglow last night and this morning after reports surfaced screaming about uranium ore stored at a museum at Grand Canyon National Park.

As with 99.9% of the stories about uranium and radiation, ignorance and fear were the common denominator.

By far, CNN(!) has had the best mass consumer coverage on the situation from a scientific point of view. None of the reporting I’ve seen, however, has any concrete numbers showing how serious the threat was.

This is what CNN has to say:

Anna Erickson, associate professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at Georgia Tech, said the uranium exposure at the museum is unlikely to have been hazardous to visitors.

"Uranium ore contains natural (unenriched) uranium which emits relatively low amounts of radiation," Erickson said. "Given the extremely low reading (zero above background) 5 feet away from the bucket, I'm skeptical there could be any health hazards associated with visiting the exhibit."
In other words, all you folks who are congratulating yourself for cancelling or foregoing vacations to the Grand Canyon and this museum in particular are congratulating yourself for avoiding a risk that simply doesn’t exist.

Elston Stephenson, the park’s safety, health, and wellness manager, is right to be concerned about chronic exposure to the uranium by park staff. Maybe. The lack of any numbers showing how much radiation was being emitted within that 5-foot circle makes it difficult to determine the chronic risk to workers who may have lingered for a long time within five feet of the buckets.

The Verge, however, is doing the public a lot better with their story, as is The Arizona Republic with a  story of its own.

The Verge interviewed Kathryn Higley, head of the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Oregon State University, who said in part:

Without knowing exactly how it was stored, looking at some of the measurements that were taken, the radiation readings certainly are above what you’d consider the normal background. But the likelihood of people receiving serious radiation exposures is extremely unlikely. People work around uranium in the process of manufacturing fuel, for example. But also I’m looking here on the radiation levels taken by some park personnel, and it says five feet from the bucket is basically a zero reading.

So you see the dose rate drops off really, really quickly as you move away from the source. It’s a combination of dose rate and the length of time that they would’ve been exposed to it. And they’re not going to be hugging this thing and lugging it around for extended periods of time. I’m not seeing a health risk. I’m seeing people being sloppy and did some things that they really shouldn’t have done. And they’re probably going to get a nasty note from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, like “Why do you have this in a closet? What are you doing with it?”

The Arizona Republic found other experts, who basically say the same thing. (Although the AR article contains a glaring error – noting that gamma radiation can be stopped by a person’s skin or a sheet of paper; that’s absolutely not true, and that gamma radiation is the principal radiation coming from the ore, but is rather properties of alpha radiation, which is principally what uranium ore emits.

Clearly, the authors of the AR article should have said the uranium is emitting alpha radiation, not gamma.

More damage done there by incorrect reporting than by the radioactive ore itself.

To me, the most frightening thing about this story is the continued ignorance of the real dangers of radiation, and the lack of hard numbers in reporting on incidents such as this.

Truth is, you’re sucking in all sorts of radioactivity all the time. Behold.

I’m not saying I’d want to camp out sitting on buckets of uranium ore – without moving – for 20 years. But the risk of getting cancer from these buckets of ore is unbelievably small.

The Best Part, 2019-2

"Monstrous Regiment," by Terry Pratchett

Jackrum softened his voice a little when he saw their expressions. “Lads, this is war, understand? He was a soldier, there were soldiers, you are soldiers . . . more or less. No soldier will see grub or good boots go to waste. Bury ‘em decent and say what prayers you can remember, and hope they’ve gotne where there’s no fighting.” He raised his voice back to the normal bellow. “Perks, round up the others! Igor, cover the fire, try to make it look like we were never here! We are moving out in number ten minutes! Can make a few miles before full daylight! That’s right, eh, Lieutenant?”

Blouse was still transfixed, but seemed to wake up now.

“What? Oh. Yes. Right. Yes, indeed. Er . . . yes. Carry on, Sergeant.”

The fire gleamed off Jackrum’s triumphal face. In the red glow, his little dark eyes were like holes in space, his grinning mouth the gateway to a Hell, his bulk some monster from the Abyss.

He let it happen, Pollly knew. He obeyed orders. He didn’t’ do anything wrong. But he would have sent Maladict and Jade to help us, instead of Wazzer and Igorina, who aren’t quick with weapons. He sent the others away. He had the bow ready. He played a game with us as pieces, and won . . .

Poor old soldier! her father and his friends had sung while frost formed on the window panes. Poor old soldier! If ever I ‘list for a solider again . . . the Devil shall be my sergeant!

In the firelight, the grin of Sergeant Jackrum was a crescent of blood, his coat the color of a battlefield sky.

“You are my little lads,” he roared. “Aid I will look after you.”

One of John Steinbeck’s rules of writing goes like this:

Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice.

Another rule follows right after:

But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.

Here, Terry Pratchett breaks the second part of the rule. He throws his hooptedoodle in with the story. But just enough. Just enough hooptedoodle to help us see, for a moment, Private Perk’s Sergeant jackrum turn into the Devil from her father’s old song. The hooptedoodle slows the action down, but just for a moment. Just for that delicious moment when Perks realizes while Jackrum may play the fool from time to time, he is, at the fundament, no fool at all – and is in fact, devilish.

This represents the perfect balance of story and hooptedoodle. We slow down just long enough, at the end of the scene, to sweep ourselves deeper into Jackrum as a character.

So I need to do this with my characters as well. This is why you read lots of books, folks. So you see how others do it. And so you see how long it took them for it to become natural.

Spoopy? Spoopy.

Apparently, this short from Sesame Street scared a lot of little kids when it aired in 1975:



Though from a certain point of view it’s understandable why this might scare little kids. It’s hard to look at it now and be scared. And even harking back to my childhood, it’s hard to think of this being scary. I saw creatures and patterns galore in the plaster on various bedroom ceilings, and on the light fixtures in said bedrooms. One bedroom in particular was a joy – with the bed positioned just right, you could see Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner.

But scared of this? Not hardly.

Now this. This scared me silly as a kid:



I still get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach watching it now. So I can understand how the Crack Master and his ilk might have been scary. Still: seeing patterns in cracks and in plaster feels a lot more common to me than operatic oranges . . . .

Then there’s this. THIS, oh my gosh this. SCARED THE BELOVED BEJEEBERS OUT OF ME. Damn train barreling RIGHT OUT OF THE FRICKIN’ TV SCREEN RIGHT AT ME. Right, boys, dismantle that tunnel quick!



Trains barreling out of two-piece puzzles have got to be even more rare than operatic oranges. Still. Brr. NOTE: The “Trains approaching” warning and the warning to stay behind the yellow line did not appear in the original. And I, being a country bumpkin from flyover country, had only experience with distant freight trains to help fill in the gaps in expectations.

Brains Trusting, the Pappy O’Dan’l Way

A few weeks ago, students began circulating a petition at our kids’ high school, asking for a day off.

Their reasoning? Surrounding school districts were cancelling school because a virulent flu bug swarming the area had caused more than 20% of the districts’ students to be absent from school.

Other schools were cancelling due to bad weather and closed roads.

Nevermind that absenteeism due to illness in our district wasn’t anywhere near the levels of the other districts – which are in many cases small enough fewer than 100 absent students could mean an absence of 20% of the student body. Nor did it matter that the only difficulties related to road conditions were in the foothills where buses were struggling on one route to pick up and drop off students. Students at our kids’ high school wanted a day off.

Direct democracy, some said, should be applauded. Power to the people. And a pox – in this case, literally – on a deaf administration not listening to the needs and wants of its constituency.

Of course, the petition at its foundation was stupid. Direct democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the wants and needs are reasonable or unlaughable.

And yes, representative democracy – or republics – have their own problems. But reading this article in Wired magazine today got me to thinking that if we jump on any populist or direct democracy bandwagon, we ought to do a lot of due diligence to find out who’s paying for the wagon, the oxen hauling it, and who has got the wagon-master in his or her pocket.

What played out in the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” played out in Italy not long afterward: Politically-motivated individuals latched themselves to the star (or five stars) of a popular entertainer and turned the world upside down in the process, while paddlin’ a little Italian behind in the process.



Pappy O’Daniel, in Italy, turned out to be a techno-utopian guru named Gianroberto Casaleggio.

He probably would have signed the high schoolers’ petition. And then taken over the movement to promote his own schemes.

Please stop reading this and read the article linked above. It’s an education on the pitfalls of direct democracy, and the democratization of a lot of things thanks to the Internet. It’s a story of how easily we are influenced by those behind the scenes who want to take populist movements and steer them in the direction they want them to go, often against the wishes or ideals of the movement in the first place.

We’re kinda seeing this firsthand with our own governance. Italy’s showing us what it’s like when that direct democracy is controlled by the same kinds of special interests that are controlling state or party or media or what have you.

A striking line from the article:

“[T]his was Casaleggio Associates’ modus operandi when it came to online votes: Provide a ‘cosmetic’ appearance of choice while pushing for a particular option.”

And it all reminds me of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

"Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!" 

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away. 

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously. 

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I don’t know what the solution is.

Probably internet-directed direct democracy can work. But as rules are being set by such movements, rules also ought to be set by those considering joining them:

1. Find out who is pulling the strings.

2. Be wary of any popular entertainer or guru or any other corporeal entity suddenly spouting politics. Because popularity in one area doesn’t equate to adequacy – or even mediocrity – in other areas. I’m looking at you, Scott Adams.

3. Watch for leadership. I’ve been wary of “leaderless” missions since Occupy Wall Street, where spokespeople didn’t exist because everyone was their own spokesman. I’m seeing this in France’s gilets jaunes, and it’s not helping them in any way. Even direct democracies need leadership.

4. Find out who’s got the money.

5. Don’t ignore traditional politics’ or media warnings. Sure, they may very well be working with their own interests in mind. But a wary mind is an open mind, willing to listen to detractors.

I realize by doing this I have taken a tiny goose-step into, well, something. But nothing will come of it because I’m a nobody in a sea of nobodies. I’m pulling my own string and wishing I could start a petition to get a day off of work. I have no ace of spades up my sleeve.

Anyway, beware the cognitive surplus.

The Best Part, 2019-1

"Men at Arms," by Terry Pratchett.

“[G]ive me some more coffee. Black as midnight on a moonless night.”

Harga looked surprised. That wasn’t like Vimes.

“How black’s that, then?”

“Oh, pretty damn black, I should think.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What?”

“You get more stars on a moonless night. Stands to reason. They show up more. It can be quite bright on a moonless night.”

Vimes sighed.

“An overcast moonless night?” he said.

Harga looked carefully at his coffee pot.

“Cumulus or cirro-nimbus?”

“I’m sorry? What did you say?”

“You gets city lights reflected off cumulus, because it’s low lying, see. Mind you, you can get high-altitude scatter off the ice crystals in – “

“A moonless night,” said Vimes, in a hollow voice, “that is as black as that coffee.”

“Right!”

“And a doughnut.” Vimes grabbed Harga’s stained vest and pulled him until they were nose to nose. “A doughnut as doughnutty as a doughnut made of flour, water, one large egg, sugar, a pinch of yeast, cinnamon to taste and a jam, jelly, or rat filling depending on national or species preference, OK? Not as doughnutty as something in any way metaphorical. Just a doughnut. One doughnut.”

“A doughnut.”

“Yes.”

“You only had to say.”

Harga brushed off his vest, gave Vimes a hurt look, and went back into the kitchen.

Pratchett is at heart a writer’s writer, who often explores odd little tropes of writing with enough exaggeration to point out how most of the rest of us are mucking things up.

Don't Know What Worked, But I Gotta Keep it Up

I often share this video with my students as I’m grading their papers:



It’s a fun way – I think at least – to share a bit of myself with them, and to get them laughing even just a little bit about the grading process. Which, face it, isn’t always a fun thing.

This semester, though.

Typically, I’ve got a good-vs-bad paper curve that looks a bit like this (forgive the purple paper):

I’ve seen this semester after semester. There are about a half to a third of the students who get the concept and turn in a good paper, with about the other half or two-thirds falling in mostly the bad paper category. Sometimes the ratio of good-to-bad is about 1:1, but most of the time is about 2:1, so that’s what I expect.

This semester – and in both classes, no less – the good-vs-bad paper curve looks like this:

And it is NOT that I have lowered my standards. I’m grading the same way as compared to past semesters.

I can think of only three things that may have caused this. Okay, four:

1. I sent out a pre-course “English 101 Survival Guide” email in which I outlined, in detail, what the argumentative synthesis paper is supposed to look like.

2. I’ve provided my own example of what the paper should look like. Speaking of which, I really need to finish my Part Two.

3. The students enrolled in both of my classes are just generally better writers than what I’ve had in the past.

4. It’s a fluke that will not be repeated next semester.

I am as stunned at the ratio of good papers – I’m going to say the good/bad ratio is close to 7:1 this semester, in both sections – as Miss Shileds was as she read Ralphie’s perfect sentence:

“Listen to this sentence: ‘A Red-Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.’ Poetry. Sheer poetry! Ralph, an A plus!”

Note two of the possibilities involve something extra I did this semester. Given my generally pessimistic outlook on life, I have to discount their impact. But barring numbers 3 and 4, these things are the ONLY things I’ve done differently this semester than in semesters past.

There’s only one thing to do: See if the fluke repeats next semester, while offering the same helps my students got this semester.

Also, I’ve really gotta finish writing Part Two.

And I should definitely get a hat like Miss Shields. Maybe that’s the only thing missing to get those few bad and mediocre papers over that good paper bar.