Employment Discrimination and Former CIA operatives

Hey America, guess who?  Yeah, it's me.  Back for round...fifty...something er other...wow.  I can't believe I'm actually to the point where I've lost track!!  And I have the lot o' you to thank for it.  Oh, yeah.   Thanks!  To the lot of you.  You know who you are, surely.

Yesterday?  Quite the exciting day for me.  An editor for CNN followed me.  I was gushing with pride.  However, it's been said that good attention can also garner you attention you don't want as well.  Enter first thing this morning.

I gotta say, the day began just a bit creepy for me today.  First thing, right out of the gate, I got followed by a guy named Dan Gabriel.  The title wording on his profile says "Fmr. Central Intelligence Agency Officer"...this is quickly followed up by the phrase "Insurgencies:  Foreign and Domestic."  In case you hadn't guessed, "Fmr." would, to me anyway, indicate that this man is a FORMER CIA Officer.  This, though, is very little consolation to me, and doesn't do one little thing to make me feel better about him being "former" at all.  I mean, just because a boxer retires, and is then known as a "former boxer", he might very well not be in fights anymore, but it doesn't mean the guy can't still kick your butt, am I right?

One of my very smart sons said to me "I'm sure you'll be fine, really.  I mean, if the CIA was really trying to spy on you, they wouldn't follow you openly in Twitter."...and I agreed, quickly.  Then, after some thought, I said...(and he agreed that this made a sordid amount of sense), wait though, what genius!  Send out an officer, label him as a FORMER CIA officer, then have him follow me openly.  I'd never suspect that!  I'd laugh it off, thinking what my son said at first.  There's subterfuge at it's finest.  The best place to hide is right in front of your nose, where you wouldn't think they'd be, right?

If you'd like, you can look him up under my followers.  I put his picture at the top of this post.  Wave at him too will ya?  Make him feel right at home.  I'd like him to know that I'm not the only one over here.  See, when strange people attach themselves to you out of the blue, for no real logical reason that you can think of, it's always best to a.) call them out in a public place (I immediately tweeted this guy publicly and said "Excuse me!  Should I worried that you're following me?"), then b.) I posted that he was following me, in the main feed on Twitter, then c.) I posted that he was following me, as well, on my page in Facebook.  And finally, d.) I told both my sons about him, and talked to several other friends as well, making sure, of course, that everyone knows...you know, just in case of strange disappearances and the like.  Best of all, thank God, I'm annoying, loud, and overbearing.  I make a lot of noise, and I do it often.  If I were ever to be silenced, it wouldn't matter if all my material were erased in a cover-up, I would most certainly be immediately missed.  A rather wide gaping hole would become disturbingly apparent.  Yup, people would say I was finally nabbed.  Not just by followers either.  Friends, family, they'd know within 24 hours that something was rotton in Iowa.  It'd take millions in hush money to quiet that roar...so I'm not concerned on that note.

Now you may think I'm being a bit paranoid...but let's be honest here, the times, they are a changin', and stranger unexplained things have happened to less notable citizens than me and who I am, that were accused of spouting off things that were even more tame than the things I say even.  Let it be known that I will never be a statistic.  I am, however, OK with being a martyr, so if I really am being followed for dire purposes, and will be taken out with even the slightest of over-doing it in my posts, remember I said all this, America, and tell my story.  With every mouth silenced, two or more shall take my place.

I am going to immediately publish this, then write the real article for the day.  Instead of it being posted separately, however, I will simply update it.  So if you read all of this, then wonder where our real post is, it's coming.  Check back.  It wont be long after I post this, I promise.

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OK, now that we're finished with all that coo-coo voo-doo, let's get it ON, let's hash out each subject like it was my last (as it might just be!!).  Today's killer sin?  Employment Discrimination!!

Now this one is beginning to be felt by me in more than one way, and is covered as well in two other articles I wrote for this blog; and they are titled:  "Your Credit...as a condition of your employment?" and "Going to Work...if you're lucky."  These two, although pretty thorough on their respective subjects, just didn't really cover the entire scope of what I want to say about the matter.

So let's just say that this is a continuation, and place all of those other posts in the loving arms of this one as it's finale.  On we go then.

Another bullet point in the realm of employment discrimination, is age.  Then there's color.  Race.  Creed.  Sex.  Origin.  Religion...the possibilities are, of course, endless.  Granted, local, state and Federal regulations have done much to cut down on these and other ways a company (or individual, of course) could feasibly discriminate; either in the hiring of you, the working of you, and, of course, concerning the end of your career as well.  I do have to ask though, ultimately, what's the sense in any of what the law says is discrimination, and what can or can't be done to deter it?

Let's say you go for an interview, and, let's face it, you smell BAD.  I don't care if you have 20 years experience in what this company wants, if they don't like you because you smell bad, you won't get hired.  Is this discrimination, due to your orafactal offensiveness?  Well, yes.  Now, let's say there's a law that was just passed, and it clearly states, in no uncertain terms, that you cannot be discriminated against because of the odor you put off.  Let's go through that interview again.  Do you think this new law is going to make a single difference in the outcome of your interview, now that you can be fined or worse for it?  Hell no.  It doesn't mean a damn thing that there's a law against it.  The hiring process happens in your HR employees head, and only there.  Oh, you can SAY there was discrimination there...you may have proof that you smelled bad...you may even sue, using this very solid offense.  But when the person who was in charge of hiring you takes the stand?  That man/woman can say just about anything else about you was the reason you weren't hired.  The position you decided to assume in your chair when interviewed, your body language didn't agree with what you were putting out there.  Your socks didn't match.   You were wearing dressy casual shoes with a dress outfit.  You had your tonsils taken out.  The tooth that should be in postion Upper 22 is missing.  You used to steal paperclips from one of your bosses...hell, they can practically sell just about any story they can dream up.

The same applies to firing you.  If they can't cut your hours, or make you mad enough that you'll quit on your own?  They can make up just about any reason for it anymore.  More messed up are the sentences I call "A manager's best friend":  The vague reason.  Now, managers, etc, are now not ALLOWED to give out detailed reasons concerning your firing.  This is classic!  Sure, it protects you when others call in about you...these pre-drawn up phrases are there to protect your new employer from hearing say, that you smelled bad, and keep your former employer, who may be massively upset with you for some silly reason in whicch he could go on for days about...at which point, the new guy goes "Oh wow...OK, thank yo....THANK YOU!!...and any chance you had at getting the job?  OUT THE WINDOW.  So thank God for that legislation, right?

Hmm, I wonder.  See, that works real well for all that stuff up there.  But now, let's say, the new guy calls into Mr. Old Job, and he says this exact phrase...one of my favorites, by the way, "Well, he just wasn't a good fit."  This, under our new legislation concerning after job conversations, is all right to say.  Oh but wait, so really...now, instead of the new guy making up his own mind, regarding what the Old Job guys said, now we have 20 or so legal things we can say ONLY...so what then is to stop employers from putting out there, in whatever way they might, a cheat sheet, saying "Well, he wasn't a good fit = Whatever they might want it to mean???  What I'm trying to say here, America, is now we've given them what I'd like to refer to as "Code Sentences."  Since it can't be said that you're an asshole, who's been known to constantly comment on the absurd outfits your female customers wear, in accordance with what shoes, we have this little hiring booklet referal sheet, and something said by Mr. Old Job,  Hmm, lemme look that up...ohhh...yeah, that's #3, "Well, we didn't feel this employee was a good fit".  That means don't hire this guy, we was probably an asshole.  Yeah, we decided that at the last HR convention in New York last year."  Get what I'm saying here??

By passing that legislation...which by the way, I'm sure they had good reason to do, what with our sue-happy nature as Americans...they've made HR's job TONS easier!  They can decide to not hire you within seconds of calling of your first previous job listing's HR department, and save themselves the trouble of having to decide based on professional references, qualifications, or the GPA you had during the course of obtaining your BA.  Nice.  All with 20 little common phrases they have to say if Mr. Old Job is called by possible Mr. New Job.

So you see America, what I'm trying to say is, all this stuff that's supposedly protected against, in case you're interviewing for a job, working IN a job, or getting fired from one?  It's not protected, and you and I both know it to be fact.  If you've been working at Microsoft 18 years, and in 2 more you're going to get a benefits package drawn up by Bill himself that's going to set you for life?  Bill can drop an order to your manager and have you fired within seconds just about anytime he deems it necessary to save the company money, trust me.  "Say Joe, could you come to my office?"...and Joe goes in, just to hear "Claudia, the accounting supervisor in section 12-D says she came by your desk the other day and heard you telling Jerry, your neighbor, a sexual joke...and I'm afraid that's against our Harrassment policy.  I'm afraid we're gonna have to let you go"...and Presto Chango, we let Joe go, we don't have to pay him that god-awful high wage anymore, we don't have to give him retirement in a couple years, and we can hire Dan, that naive 20 yr. old we interviewed the other day at half the cost to us.  YIPPEE!!  See how it all comes down in the capitalist world America?  Until Manana mi Amigos