Interesting. I too was on our high school news team but I also helped to make the program a reality in that I went to the school board and incouraged both them and my principle to get Channel One for my High School. We got it my senior year and we did daily programing of the announcements via the Televisions. It was a good time and made me feel like I made a difference in my early years!

It's not reassuring to see the strikes halfway down the runway instead of their normal home.

You clear that hillside in SBH by maybe 50 ft. And don't be long, or it's swim time in St Jean's bay.

No disagreement with your post. I co-habitate with a teacher who went through a contract "renegotiation" last year.

At the end of the day the rules are meant to protect the students and the integrity of the educational system. Do they do it at the sacrifice of teacher's workers rights? Perhaps. There's really no winner.

I think NY is the most progressively backwards state in the US. I find little to no redeeming quality to offset the tremendous amount of nonsense that comes with living here. So why am I trying to buy a house here? Because we both have really good jobs. And I really don't spend much time in NY.

Growing up in CLE has left me with mixed views on unions. In some ways I feel that they are outdated, though there are still a lot of workers who really get the shaft from their employers so I get why they seek help. This, however, was not the case when I experienced the unionization of my government agency during the early years of my career. The lifers just did not have a clue how good they really had it...

One great story - a coworker was caught sleeping at her cube. Loud snoring and all. She was reprimanded by her supervisors, which was over turned by labor relations as she had not been properly counseled that it was inappropriate to sleep at one's desk. I was like whiskey tango foxtrot? Our director asked me for my thoughts on the subject one day and I replied "I am going to bring a six pack of beer tomorrow and drink it at my desk. Guess what, you can't do a think about it now can you?" He paused, smiled, and chuckled knowing full well I was not offbase.

Second union story happened in NYC while doing trade shows. I quickly learned how going with the flow and carrying 20s made my life much, much easier. Too many people tried to catch flights right after the show and pitched fits when their crates took too long. I simply grabbed a beer and waited nicely, chuckling with fellow veterans and union guys milling the floor. One commented about the dude pitching a fit: "oh dont worry, the XXXXXXX brotherhood will piss all over his stuff before it ships. he went to management on them and raised holy hell..."

Given the size of the equipment used to/from SBH, I am sure they could pretty much land in a small parking lot...

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

I started to read "Good to Great" on the plane yesterday. I'm very worried though - two of the 11 "great" companies are Circuit City (gone) and Fannie Mae (disaster).

Not sure if this is worth reading now.

Still a good read IMO.

I just started reading Richard Branson's new book "Business Stripped Bare". Branson and Virgin have always intigued me, so it should be interesting to get some insight in to how they operate.

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

I'm writing a trivia competition for a local fundraiser. Format is to pick a subject, and then there are six questions. The first one is a lead question that must be answered correctly for any of the other five to count toward a final score. My question for The Box - and we're all on computers, no looking it up:

There are 27 people, places, things or events mentioned before the first chorus of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. Name 13 of them.

"What I've done since I've been here is I've been quiet and watched and I've listened and learned," he said. "I wouldn't go into any situation and expect the team to adapt to me or to respond to me. I'm joining a team and it's my job to fit them." - Brendan Shanahan

Proof positive that hockey is good for kids - you don't see football and basketball players being quoted like this.

It will be interesting to see if CO implements this type of system. It seems to make great sense:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122454090046151829.html

I refuse to set foot in the CLE convention center because I was physically threatened by the Teamsters there. The incident was witnessed by show management (unbeknownst to me and the aggressor teamsters) and a week after I returned to NY I got an email from the show management office stating that they were pulling out of CLE for that and all other associated shows because of the incident they witnessed and the complaints from other exhibitors.

The sad part of this story is the poor folks in CLE are the real losers. I can only imagine how much lost revenue the city has seen because I moved my own crate 2 hours after the deadline had passed for crate delivery and the teamsters had gone over their allotted break because their fried chicken delivery was late.

Pathetic.

Oh, and my crate. "Someone" drove a forklift through on the loading dock. It was actually great, because insurance paid for new equipment, which had to be replaced anyway.

Absolutely. But I'll go so far as to say the school boards and administrators have their heads so far in the sand around here that the students, the employees, and the taxpayers all lose. The excessiveness and waste that flows through the schools around here is egregious. But the schools are good, and no one wants to vote down referendums, so they continue to get their blank checks.

I want the best possible schools for a variety of reasons. But I also want accountability and proper management of my money.

That isn't a union issue that's a NY State "more is more" issue.

One of my coworkers was working on getting an office opened up here in NYC. Last night of the weekend prior to the office opening things were still going too slowly with the union guys. A brief conversation with the foreman and a $500 bar tab got them all out of the way and the folks from the company were able to finally get things done.

I also loved showing up each day on a construction site and trying to figure out which of the fiber runs had been cut overnight or how many computers had been stolen. Sadly, they realized that the cost to secure the building was more than the cost to just replace the 2-3 computers that were being stolen each night. :rolleyes: