Tuesday, December 15, 2015

America is no longer America anymore...

I may have mentioned a little of my history here...  If not, a small recap.

I am a fourth generation Japanese American.  My grandfather was born and raised in America in the early 1900s.

When World War II started.  My grandfather, his family and even his parents were displaced from their homes in Los Angeles due to the attack at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, for fear that they were all loyal to the Emperor of Japan and would rise up to cause harm to the US.  This displacement was to one of many interment camps in the middle of America.

My grandfather, among many other Japanese Americans men, volunteered to be part of the 442nd RCT, mostly to prove their loyalty to America and were discriminated both on the battlefield and back at home after the war because, sadly enough, they were Japanese.

It took literally almost 50 years before America apologize for this.

Something to note...  The year is now 2015...  Almost 2016.  A presidential election is coming up and of late, the thing that I have seen happen is the following...

One, our fear about muslims is at an all time high.  Since September 11th, 2001, we have steadily been focusing about the middle east, but more in particular, about the muslim faith.  In the last 3 years alone, we have escalated our fear about the religion and sadly, we have even getting closer and closer to the point that we are mirroring our own media.

In this case, I am beginning to liken this to 'The Siege'...  A movie that was put out in 1998...  And beginning to see some disturbing trends that will come to be.

First, while it is rightly so that Islam and the Muslim faith has text that references some deplorable things...  I might want to point out something, being a non-practicing Christian, that faith has always been used as an excuse for deplorable things and has been 'warped' to fit a man's view of how things were to be.

Remember, Christianity was based on Judeaism, its roots are from Jewish traditions and changed a little to say not all things were to be adhered to like it was in the Jewish faith.  At the same time, men who followed the faith of Christianity has also used it to 'convert' people to their interpretation or even made various branches of the Christian faith.  Catholicism, Protestant, Mormonism, and so forth.  Even the cult leaders such as David Koresh and Jim Jones...

What does this have to do with my concerns?

Right now, we are doing exactly what happened to Japanese Americans...  We are blanket accusing a group of people based on the actions of another group.  Not everyone of the Muslim faith will follow all the edicts.  Just as not all Christians are following the purest sense of Christianity because each group sees it done one way or another, but the principle is there.

I will also remind that while the history of Islamic Faith has been that of a conqueror, we also cannot ignore what has been done in the name of the Christian Faith in Europe and also in the Americas by many Europeans such as the Inquisition.  This is against what was intended by the originator of Christianity, or at least, to my belief the intention.

We also ignore the other situation of the fact of what some religions do to encourage ways to continue the faith, such as some old testament text referencing surrogacy.  Or ignoring the fact it is perfectly alright for men to stone other men for using the Lord's name in vain back then, yet we do not do that now.

One other thing I will note...  Is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry3NzkAOo3s

Brigitte Gabriel quotes several interesting numbers...  The fact that it is a small group of people who drove the violent agenda and responsible for millions of death.

What is interesting is something else to note...

The Germans, as a whole, were not blamed for the horrors inflicted upon the Jews and many others who have died over the period of time that the Nazis.  The ones who were blamed, as a whole, were those who were responsible for it.

She ignored the fact that the 'minority' of the Japanese Americans, feared by Americans as being the 'internal threat', were apologized by the United States fifty years later, an ethnic group singled out unlike German Americans or Italian Americans, which, strangely enough some German Americans did answer 'The Call' from the Fatherland...

It is easy to paint a picture of hate and fear and ignoring other things.  The McCarthy Era for the fear of Communism, while the threat was credible, at the same time, many were bullied and accused or threatened because of being 'associated' with it and we also consider those times 'dark' and questionable.

The saddest thing of it all, is near the end of the video, the words she ask to the person she 'lectured'...

"Are you an American?"

I am a patriot...  But I am becoming ashamed to being an American.  My grand father fought in Europe, survived the persecution of being a Japanese American were people did not trust you...  My grand father has even told me, time and time again...  Never to forget.

And right now, I have not forgotten what he has said to me...  And it is sad to see the America is so driven by fear that I am beginning to see the shades of his concerns brought about once again where we have people asking this question...  And making a statement that focuses on all we fear and hate to another group.

We haven't learned from our history...  And while I am not a fan of 'political correctness'...  I am no fan of broad sweeping arguments that does nothing more than promote the worst kind of scenario of human kind.

Some perspective from a Lawyer about 'Donglegate'

http://codebetter.com/johnvpetersen/2013/03/22/donglegate-a-legal-perspective-and-some-social-commentary/

So I read this commentary...  And I have to say, I sort of agree with what this man says.

On another site:

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/03/29/social-media-fallout-adria-richards-and-donglegate/

The previous link was listed, and I followed and read it.

The insights do ping on some things I do want to speak of, and again harping earlier comments with regards to the Sexual Harassment.

One is the pointing out of the First Amendment right.  I will note, that in most cases, citing First Amendment rights has been the most abused excuse for people when they complain about a posting on a private site's forum getting taken down.  I am no lawyer, I will admit this.  However, one of the things I do want to point out is that the First Amendment right is more of the situation of the right to air grievances to the government without the fear of imprisonment or sedition from the government in return.

The reason I point this out, is the fact that many people use the argument of First Amendment as 'their right to be heard'.  The most common problem with this right belief is that the level of 'right' is to everything at the highest level.  I believe also the most common problem is that when people try to exercise these rights, they forget that the right to free speech is there so long as it doesn't violate the rights of others.  So in the case of this situation, the 'rights' of the guys there was to a degree, but at the same time, to make another person uncomfortable, there is a limit.  However, two wrongs do not make a right either.  What Adria Richards did was also violated their rights as well to the basics of benefit of the doubt.  This would be similar to me pointing a finger at someone and calling them a child molester just on my impression or feelings of what was said.

One of the things that people have forgotten, is that the internet is currently similar to the wild west.  And Wild West Justice tended to sometimes resort of 'mob rules', in this case, Lynch Mob rules.  In this case, one man lost his job because of one person stating he was harassing her in a convention.  There is no benefit of the doubt given, it was a direct accusation that had been investigated and ruled as an offense for the company.  What more, the public nature of the accusation left the company with little to no recourse but to fire said person because of the potential legal concerns on their end as this person was literally pointed out as a problem in public.

Here is where I see the law coming into place that justifies the firing of Adria Richards.  In the situation of the reporting sexual harassment, the person being reported is suppose to be 'confidential' to allow a proper and due course of investigation.  When you publically report a person without the proper due course, you stigmatize the accused and already set a biased situation against the person and invite the retaliation situation.  It was not simply the bowing to trolls, but also how the president pointed out why it was the decision.  A person who takes offense of a developer's bad taste in jokes and reporting it in such a public fashion, regardless of the intention, still violates the dealing of Sexual Harassment or Harassment in general.

No group can deny that if I were to take a picture of Adria, stating I found some of her jokes referencing pedophilia highly offending, just on my impression as 'questionable' or even more so, not something to report as a blog or tweet.  But then again, we are asked not to have 'double standards'.  People want to be treated fairly and have the expectation of fairness.  The problem I have with a lot of people who feel Adria should be supported are using a double standard to justify it.

The thing is, there is NOTHING out there that justify how to report harassment in a public way.  Again as I point out, the internet itself is full of people who hide behind the mask of anonymity, liking themselves to our Masked Superheros, and will do the wrong things for the 'right' reasons.  And if we haven't learned the fallout of Richard Jewell, 10 year stigma of being tried by the Media as the Olympic Bomber for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics...  Is that trial by media is often colored by those who want things viewed their particular way without all the facts.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Tips to Supervisors

Another thing I should post about is about Supervisors...

At the place I work at now, there was a position I applied for, it was a supervisor position and unfortunately, I didn't get it.

To me, wasn't a big deal...  I was told I why and had no hard feelings about it.

The person who was hired, was my supervisor.  I was asked if there were hard feelings about it.  I told the person, no.

However...  This supervisor did a few things that I think a Supervisor should know when they take a position over people, and again, this sadly follows the same venue I noticed with my earlier rants about one of my managers before.

**1** - Get the lay of the land

This is a #1 in my book...  Get an understanding of what you are getting into and the people you are working with.

My supervisor, unfortunately, didn't bother doing this.  First thing the supervisor did was displace the people working under him, shoved them into a room.  Made a few of us unhappy because that was their first order of business when they started.

The second order of business was not only to get a questionnaire answered but establish "dominance", as one coworker seem to make it out to be.  Making sure people 'knew their place' with him.  Case in point, said co-worker was literally brought into a meeting with one higher up and ambushed him about how he was doing work and it was fairly much a rant fest towards him.

Also, given where I am working now...  He wanted to make broad changes, getting frustrated at us when we informed him some changes may not happen due to the way the place work...  Namely, different groups had different IT departments and different standards and we had to try and interface with them but no way to get 'standards' across the board due to this.

**2** - Treat your subordinates with respect and humility

Now yes, we all know that we "peons" need to support you as our manager and not be insubordinate or uppity.  But at the same time, when you treat your subordinates as "peons"...  Yelling at them, making their mistakes as personal upfronts against you...  You aren't going to make us any more productive.

As the joke goes, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." is exactly what this is... 

When I approached my supervisor about his attitude towards us...  He told me that he had made others flourish under this method...  That being 'nice' often lead to people taking advantage of that niceness.

Thing is...  I was considering, several times, looking for another job because his attitude towards us and how he did things was more detrimental than it was 'helpful' or 'motivating'.

Also, when I speak of humility...  Humility is about being a bit more empathetic to your subordinates.

The thing that also set off a lot of alarms for me was how often he would say, "I know you are technically superior to me..."  This is not humility...  This is a passive aggressive way of saying, "Don't patronize me."  When people pull this card, it puts me on the defensive because I try not to act arrogant about something, but when someone harps something, I have to make sure they understand what they are wanting me to do that I don't feel is in the best interests of our group.

3 - Don't make it personal

My supervisor also had a bad tendency to make things 'personal'.

Case in point.  One time, a mistake was made, we tried to handle it as best we could.

Our supervisor sent us an email while we were dealing with it, berating us about the fact that we fouled it up.

Once the supervisor was in the office, verbally berating us about how he had to micromanage us and the fact that we screwed up.  It made him look bad on performance, telling us that "If I fail... YOU Fail".

Another time, giving us tasks with no real direction and expecting us to 'do it', but when we had no idea and were waiting for it to be explained, yelled at once again for 'ignoring the task' and shouldn't have micromanage us.

All of this, each time, the supervisor made it out like it was a personal attack on them and needed to yell at us for not doing it.

And also something you supervisors should know...  Yelling is 'verbal abuse' in the work place.  And abuse in the work place is a no-no...

4 - Manage proper expectations

As above...  The supervisor had this expectation that we should 'ask about something we don't know'.  To be honest, any task you give a person, you need to make sure you explain what the expectation is.

This supervisor believed in people being self-motivating and pick up without direction.  Problem is, this expectation was never really relayed to the group and also ignores the 'lay of the land' part.

Again, his argument was not wanting to 'micromanage' people.  Problem is, as a supervisor, you do have to 'manage' some things and when providing a task, knowing whether or not they know how to do it is part of 'managing' people.

If they don't know it, you help them out or if you don't know it either, see if they can figure it out for you but be honest...

5 - Have a better understanding of your 'customers'.

Like my manager from earlier...  My supervisor didn't exactly have a 'grasp' of who his customers were.  To better put it, the argument he made in one of his rants to us was "Who is your #1 customer here?"  We listed off other people, but his response is, "Your #1 customer is ME (Again, making it personal)"

While it is true we need to impress our boss or our manager, to be fair, impressing a boss or manager does not make you "our customer".  Because you are not your own customer either.  Our #1 customer, as a tech group, is the people we have to support.  As our boss or manager, not only are you a person we have to support, we have to rely on you to back us up, more than anything, so we can do the job we were tasked for.

At the same time, YOU have to be wary of how you treat other customers.  Case in point, I was assisting a user in their office.  My supervisor barged into the user's office and told me I needed to help him with another user because they were a VIP, not even bothering to knock or be polite to the user I was assisting at the time.

When the issue was resolved and I went back to the other user...  The other user was pretty annoyed with my supervisor, despite the fact the user understood the importance.  The reason?  My supervisor barging into their office and pulling me away without knocking or being polite about it annoyed the user.  I literally had to be the one apologizing for it, but the user said that it wasn't my fault.

6 - Respect your subordinate's space

This was one thing that annoyed me as well.  My supervisor seemed to try and be 'chummy' with us, even though it takes time for some of us to warm up.

Standing over us, looking into our areas, isn't respecting our space.

One time, he even 'friended' us on Facebook.

This is a no-no...

While we can deny the friend request, this is crossing a line when you don't ask us in person.

In the end...

The supervisor didn't last very long.  But I had to pass this along for future supervisors.

Retorting back to the retort about "All Lives Matter".

It has been a while, but recently, I have to say something about this malarkey about the retort about "All Lives Matter" some people have been scoffing at.

While some will say it is like that Dad (White people) being sarcastic to the kid (Black people) about "their fair share"...  The problem here is...  That is still the 'racist' view from the other side.

The "All Lives Matter" isn't just about whites.  It also means Asians, be they Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai or otherwise...  Or the Hispanics...  Or even people from the Middle East.

The "Black Lives Matter" "crusade" is exactly what it is.  Just as for the call for "killing white people and cops".

Where does it end?  When one extremist calls for the death of whites and cops because they feel persecuted and tormented by those.  I mean, does this mean cops who are of Asian decent or even Hispanic or even of Middle Eastern also deserve to die?  Cause that is the implication.

Does this mean the 5 to 15 year old white boys and girls also deserve to die?

If the answer is "yes"...  Then it is time to say this is the death of America.  The America that was suppose to be the land of the free has now become the land of hatred and misanthropy.

Let me point out something people have to understand.  This is all about hate.  White Supremacy is about hate...  The call to kill White People is about hate...  The call to kill cops...  IS ABOUT HATE.

Are all cops bad?
Are all black people bad?
Are all white people bad?

If you truly believe the answer is whole heartedly 'Yes' to ANY of those three questions...  You will have to stop and think...  Are you the problem?  And when you look back to how you answered the above question, if any of them are "YES"...  Then the answer is "Yes...  I am the problem."

Seems extreme?  Sadly, this is the legacy of hate.  It is about the fact that when you "deal in absolutes", to quote the fictional Obi-wan...  Leads to the fact that we are heading down a dark path.

I will say, I am a hot head...  I hate certain things...  But the one thing I will say, no matter how much I hate...  Whether it be a bad boss...  Or the jerk who cut me off.  I try to hold myself from trying to go that one extra step in killing.

What needs to stop is the hate mongering.  Killing or even calling for the death of someone does not do more than create the vicious cycle.

People want cops to stop disrespecting people.  That's fine.  Killing them to get respect or flat out just acting like a complete ass to them isn't going to make them 'be better'.  Yes, we want them to be held to a higher standard, but do you think you would be 'better' if you were disrespected and insulted or threatened to be killed by some random person or even a person who hates you?

And before some of you think I like cops, I want you to understand something.  This isn't about the love for cops or being some cop fan or what not.  It is about how we treat those who get treated horribly just being who they are and NOT because it is some jerk or jackass who give them a bad name.  It is like saying any person who is Asian or Hispanic that are in a gang that all Asians or Hispanics are hoodlums and criminals.  Just like many black people don't want to be considered that as well because of others.

And again...  Not all cops are white.  Not all of them are bad.  Yet demanding them to die or treating them all as 'scum' just shows that it is a hypocrisy to say "Black Lives Matter" and demanding cops and whites should be killed.

If you truly feel this is a war against whites/cops versus black...  Again, I fear that America has finally died and this is now the United States of Hate.