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Officials Say "Capes For the Unemployed" Plan Not Super
After what must have been an epic marketing meeting, a Florida unemployment agency decided to give 6,000 red capes to the jobless as part of its "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" public relations campaign. The capes cost $14,000 (not a bad price for 6k capes actually) and featured a cartoon character named "Dr. Evil Unemployment." As one might imagine, officials are calling for an investigation to be launched. It's a good thing there are an abundance of caped do-gooders without jobs in the area who should be able to help.
a Florida unemployment agency decided to give 6,000 red capes to the jobless
To simplify the task of acquiring targets to point and laugh at? This is as brilliant as having children at school that can't afford lunch stand in a line to get lunch tickets/vouchers so the other kids know who the poor ones are to ridicule.
I'd be opposed to it for another totally obvious reason: The cape manufacturer probably is either a committee member's brother-in-law, or bribed the committee to spend public money on their company's stupid product.
Although I guess the cape could help the unemployed stay warm and dry when they're thrown out onto the street.
I am officially gone from
You're opposed to it because you perceive it to be demeaning.
I perceive it to be fun, and a little empowering. It doesn't lift you up with someone else's happy talk, it gives you a few moments of thinking of yourself as someone with power, instead of someone powerlessly dependent on the will of would be employers. And it let's you take yourself, and your problems, a little less seriously.
I've been unemployed and gone to Workforce centers. Depressing places. Given the chance, I would have taken a cape. If it was generally encouraged, I might have worn it in their offices. It would have set a more positive tone for the place, and a feeling of camaraderie.
I think it's fun. Personally, I find the usual motivational happy talk dishonest, condescending, and demeaning. People are empowered and motivated in different ways.
What the hell are you talking about? Its harder to get a job today because companies are sitting on their cash rather than reinvesting it in themselves or other ventures. US corporations are sitting on about 10 trillion dollars worth of cash that can be spent. Meanwhile CEO's are getting record breaking bonuses. They effectively are using the tax incentives to get richer rather than to create more jobs as was intended. Futhermore, who says Im not motivated to get a job? Im as or more motivated than anyone in throughout 1960's to today, Im educated in the top 8 percent of US citizens since I have a MS in Applied Mathematics, and I have 4 years work experience in IT and scientific research. Why shouldn't I be able to get a job after applying to over 100? Its just that it was WAY EASIER TO GET A GOOD PAYING JOB IN THE 1960's WITH LESS EXPERIENCE that old farts think the younger generation is so lazy.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Crazy as that state is, there had to be at least *one* sane person in the room when that was pitched. Surely to god, there had to be one person there who saw the disaster coming. My question is "What kind of environment was so toxic that he wouldn't or couldn't speak up and challenge such an obviously FUCKING INSANE idea?" How beaten down and scared do you have to be before you let something like that slide by without comment? How crazy does a boss have to be before his subordinates are so tired that no one even bothers to say "I think this might be a bad idea."?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You seem to be making an assumption here. I have actually been the only sane person in a room - and, when I walked out, that left no sane people. Now, when you get a group of nutcases together, without any oversight at all - shit just happens. Take a look at both the Republican convention, and the Democratic convention. Go on - tell me that any of that crap makes sense to a sane person. I mean, ANY sane person - male, female, gay, bi, old, young, healthy, decrepit - even a sane retard would barf on anything that comes out of either of those conventions.
So, yes, I can easily imagine a bunch of crazies buying capes for the unemployed just as soon as the last sane person has walked out of the room.
What I'm really wondering is, how many of the unemployed actually wore the capes to fill out an application, or to an interview? And, how many of them got the job? Most likely, those capes were used for wiping rags, unless some Suzy Homemaker type used them to make something for her kids.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Sometimes people don't want to hear things or don't put a lot of value on underling opinions.
Was in a meeting when a client wanted a website called "Busted Moms" for a financial thing and just couldn't get the porn reference. The site got designed, published and everything, THEN taken down after all the work got done.
http://www.adrants.com/2009/03/sears-appeals-to-techie-moms-with-new.php
Why haven't you been working with professors at your university? Why haven't you done internships with people working in the areas you want to work?
You can't possibly tell me that in 10 years of study, with "well above average performance" you haven't found a single person who was looking for, or willing to take, a student/intern. Well, you can tell me that, but I won't believe it.
If a person has even an iota of initiative and drive, they will not leave university without at least 2 years worth of internships under their belt and quite a few contacts with people who can help them in their chosen field. ESPECIALLY if it's something within academia.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
The conservative preference for letting private agencies compete to provide such services is such because that way idiotic contractors like this bunch can get thrown out, and the contracting agency can choose from others that will compete to show they're more serious about how they put taxpayers' money to work. If this had been a government agency, the people in it couldn't be fired, and would have little to no incentive for doing a better job.
Except that in practice, that doesn't happen - governments are consistently really bad at choosing competent private contractors, signing sensible contracts with them, holding them to account when they screw up, and kicking them out to replace them with a more competent contractor when it turns out the original couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. Conservative governments are if anything slightly worse at this. Meanwhile, actual government employees are often far more competent.