Thursday, March 29, 2007

Signs And Portents Part II

First it was buzzards on the roof at work. Next a giant freaking snapping turtle stuck in the middle of the road on the way home.
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I stopped and gave him a hand crossing the street.
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Two hands actually. His shell was about 12 inches in diameter and he weighted between 15 and 20 lbs. His claws were as big as a medium size dog's and his head was nearly the size of my fist He would easily take a grown man's hand off at the wrist with one bite if given the chance.

Remember kids: Nature is cute, but not cuddly. Handle with care.
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W...T...F!?!

So I am sitting in Starbuck's, fixing bugs. Not that I don't have an office, it's just that the Starbuck's internet connection is as reliable as the one in my office, the coffee is better, and there are fewer harbingers of doom perched on the roof.

The computers in Germany, France, and Phoenix that I am talking to don't care where I sit while we chat and, because we are in "test and fix" today, actual people are only allowed to talk to my through the bug tracking system anyway.

Anyhoo ... I look up from bug ticket #263 and theres an old dude at the counter wearing a red tee-shirt with a black monochrome of Ronald Reagan on the front. The image is eerily familiar. Remarkably similar to another famous shirt actualy:

I was hoping that I was seeing a connection where none existed, but google quickly dashed my hopes to pieces. Advertised as "...the conservative answer to all those hipster "rebels" in the trendy Che shirts" I give you :

I wonder, if I special order one with Che on the front and Ronnie on the back do I have to pay extra for the double shot of irony?

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Life During Wartime - Part I : The Rules

A long time ago, in a sleepy little collage town, a major retailer payed me to bring back the things that walked out of their doors. For a year I did what I could to catch the people who stole from my employer. To aid me in the retrieval of their property my employer provided me with the following :
A cheap walkie-talkie with an ear piece.
A pair of binoculars.
A pair of handcuffs.
A bright shiny badge to wear around my neck.
My employer paid me to catch the people who stoled from them, not to stop people from stealing from them. The distinction is an important one. Even in the worst cases all you have to do to stop someone from shoplifting is walk up to them and say
"Dude. What are you doing."
90% of the time you didn't need go that far. Just looking at then will work.

But the game wasn't stopping theft; stopping theft was only temporary. The person could and often would come back and try again later. Catching people stealing was considered a permanent solution. You pressed charges, you tooke picture, and when the police arrive you issued a Criminal Trespass Warning. From then on you could detain and prosecute the person every time they walk through your door.

The thing is, catching people stealing is much harder than stopping them from stealing. If you are in the "catching people" game then these are the rules you have to play by:
1) You have to be certain they have concealed store merchandise. This means you either see them conceal the merchandise, or you check every place the merchandise might have been left (in a dressing room, behind a rack, etc.).
2) You have to have your eyes on them the entire time they have the merchandise concealed.
3) You have to let them walk out the door.

For it to be theft, the merchandise had to leave the store and they pay you to catch the thieves.

If have ever seen an unmarked door in a department store fly open and a man come charging out with such a look of determination on his face that you wondered if maybe God himself was behind that door saying "go", then you have seen what The Rules dictate. It's not fear of gods or devils that made that man bolt through the store, knocking over racks and sales clerks and leaping over children. It is rule number 3 and the absolute certainty that a pair of $34.00 Levi's just walk out the door.

Someone pays that man to catch the people who steal from them and bring back their merchandise. I know because someone used to pay me $5.50 an hour to bring back those Levi's.

For $5.50 and hour I sat in a dark booth and I watched you for hours. I learned how to tell when someone wanted to steal. I chased people across busy streets. I got in fights. I handcuffed people. I scared people. More than once I rushed headlong into a situation where I could have been killed.

I know, we're not their yet. You don't see it. You can't fathom the motivation. You think its crazy and you're right, but this isn't about making sense. It's about what the rules you live or work by can do to you. How changing the rules changes your experience, sometimes radically, and about how that affects you.

Signs And Portents

Generally this is not the first thing you want to see in the morning as you are walking into work.
What are they waiting for?
Just saying.

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