Lost Wages

I had the opportunity to attend a management seminar this past weekend in that most decadent of American cities-Las Vegas. Departing from Charlotte Douglas airport on Thursday, I left my wife and my cat to fend for themselves for a few days while I cavorted. Well, cavorting may be a bit of a bold statement for a 51-year-old who doesn't gamble. Actually, I was a good boy. No shows, no nudies or call girls, no gambling. I was there strictly for the seminar and no more. While the seminar focused on new strategies for the e-generation and managing "outside the box" (I despise that term), I took away several ideas that should improve my grasp of the fine art of managing human resources. For example, imagine your office space without a human being in attendance...nothing but expensive, fancy paperweights and a chair that serves no purpose. Elementary, sure. Often overlooked by upper management? Too often! In this throwaway world of ours, humans are often the last resource that a company throws resources at. You can requsition new hardware and software, all the office supplies that you need, fancy phone banks, networking systems...companies don't even blink an eye. Want to add a person to the mix? Whoa Nellie! Now we're talking about training costs, insurance and benefits packages, 401K administration fees, etc. When a company downsizes, it hits the human quotient first. It doesn't look at other ways of creating revenue (which takes people to do), it only looks for short-term savings by getting rid of said people and saving the company money. Silly, I think. I say invest in your people, train them to be revenue generators, allow those that excel the space to do their jobs and provide oversight and feedback to those who are struggling. The only way to grow a company is to provide the proper fertilizer...and bullshit has never been a good fertilizer.
During my downtime I walked around and checked out the sights, ate a couple of good meals and scoped out the myriad of shows that blanket the strip. After a couple of bums approached me for money I decided to head back to the air-conditioned room and check out the local tv scene. The best idea I had the entire trip was going to the room and catching sleep. What a restful few days!
The weather in Vegas was hot, the atmosphere was dry as dust, the tourists were thick as thieves and the thieves were as thick as tourists. Thank goodness for seminars...otherwise I would have never had the desire to visit this sinful city. As it is, I now know that I don't need to go back there. For me, nothing to see here...move along.

Breaking Away

I spent the early part of this morning watching (for about the tenth time) the excellent little movie, Breaking Away .

BA appeals to me on a couple of levels. First, the plot centers around kids growing up in an area both economically and psychologically depressed by the closure of a local granite quarry. That scenario should sound familiar to those of us, especially the humble authors of this blog, that came of age just as the mills began to close.

The Cutters of Breaking Away remind me very much of the kids of the displaced mill workers of whom we saw many. The sense of loss devastated many folks who simply knew no other way. Life stopped for some, but not all.

I think I can say with some accuracy that your humble authors knew that life on the hill was finished; that the glory days of village life were in their twi-light. Other paths would need to be followed; other trails would need to be blazed and so they were. We were cutters of a sort. Our dreams and aspirations would flourish, but far from the quaint, close-nit life of the hill. But the heart still remains there. Maybe this blog is an indication of that.

I also like Breaking Away on a secondary level. It's a bicycle movie. I spent about fifteen years in the saddle, spinning the back roads of South Carolina. I still have some of the aches and pains to prove it.

Breaking Away: A funny, touching movie, well worth watching if you haven't seen it.

Chocolate syrup on that there cone:

Columbia is getting better all the time.

Fried chicken maybe...but can they make a cholesterol raising, artery clogging, stroke inducing cheeseburger such as is found up-country way? In the Upstate there's a church or a Pete's/Clock on every corner.

We do love our grease.

Update: Hey, I've been to Zestos...

And to answer my own question, yes they do make a burger that could ultimately result in the requirement of one of these.

Computer: "hail no"; Jim Beam: "pleezesir".

I heard from Lester Cogwell today. It appears he hasn't taken too well to all the gadgetry we laid on him when we invited him to share his unique observations on all things mill village. He told me very frankly that "I could have thet dayum kuntraption back; but keep braingin' the Jim Beam, it helps me concentrate".

So, old Lester will be "braingin' " me his astute ruminations ripped from a spiral bound notebook decorated with, in all likelihood, Jim Beam stains and cigarette burns. Lester tends to smoke his Viceroys right down to the filter and he gets a little sloppy the drunker he gets. Should be interesting.

Expect a missive concerning the "skatin rink" very soon. " A lotta crap went down when Donehue wutn't watchin". So sayeth the bard.