April 27, 2005
Bring Your Kid to Work Day

Gah, it is almost upon us again. Tomorrow is "Bring Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day", something that often makes the office unpleasant. There's an insightful piece in the WSJ [this link is a pdf on my site]today on this very subject, but it misses my major annoyance with the issue.

It mentions the boredom of the children, but for me, as the coworker of the parent, this is the main problem. When a kid shows up at the office with mom or dad, it's interesting for about five minutes. After the new environment wears off, they are bored silly. Worse, many schools discourage the kids taking off for this day so parents bring toddlers, the kids with the very shortest attention spans.

They drive the parent nuts, then the parent gives up, and soon the kids are running around in the halls making noise. This is totally non-conducive to work for me AND for the parent. I've come in to the office, but I can't get anything done. Neither can they, and yet I didn't get the benefit of having the day off and neither have they.

Now, when I was middle-school age, I did go to work with my dad on a Saturday. I was plonked in front of a computer, and I had a great time playing Unix games, especially Colossal Cave Adventure, but the only reason this worked is because no one else was around. Also, most people don't have a spare computer for the kids to bang on all day.

The article gives good coverage to why this isn't so hot for the kid, if you're interested in that side of the argument.

Posted by nicole at 11:57 AM

April 20, 2005
Something I Saw on the Dulles Tollroad

I have no pictures to support this entry. I couldn't get my camera out because I was driving.

I saw a nice red pick-em-up-truck with one of those magnet signs on the door that said "Get the Flock Out" and indicated that they do goose removal as a business.

For those of you who don't frequent the suburbs, this might seem a bit weird. As it turns out, many of these sprawling corporate campuses in the 'burbs feature a pond surrounded by tall grass and zeroscaping stuff. The geese have figured out that there is no reason to return to Canada when one can live the easy life with no natural predators. The result of this is that the geese shit *everywhere*, and where they nest, will chase people away from the vicinity of the nest, even if that vicinity contains your car, a sidewalk, a golf cart or your golf ball that has just arrived "in the rough."

This seems like a good business to me. I thought, since this is Northern VA, one of the most wired places on earth, that there would be a website. No go on that. Of course, it could be a CIA front for an agent that is assigned to sneaking around in the hedges and grasses looking for Al Quedas.

Posted by nicole at 07:49 AM

April 16, 2005
Disgustingly Sexist Advertising

I hope I'm not alone in thinking that advertising that stereotypes and denigrates men also stereotypes women and makes them look worse than the men they are trying (often ham-handedly) to criticize.

I'm prompted to write on this particular subject because of this website: puppyordog.com, a "promotion" for Victoria's Secret and has something (vaguely) to do with spring break.

Clearly, they do not understand how the whole canine thing works. In reality, A Puppy is crazy with energy, easily distracted and shits on the carpet. If you do the job right, A DOG is a reliable companion who knows how to behave, shits outside and holds still for you to wipe mud off his feet. All that aside, this site is openly about manipulating men because, clearly, most of them are badly behaved. When men are stereotyped in this way, it makes women look small, petty and bitchy. This has the effect of demeaning *women* and victimizing the men. How is this funny again?

I do not understand women who want a man they can push around. I do not understand why anyone would find strong, competent alpha-male and then try to *train* him to behave in a subservient fashion. Clearly, these marketeers are convinced that alpha-males are actually big babies inside.

I guess that women are hoping to find a cute one and then completely alter his personality. While we all know this will not work, this certainly indicates that any woman who would follow this advice is a total pain in the ass. I'm not saying that *I'm* not a pain in the ass -- I have it on good authority that I am, but I'm not a pain in the ass in this particular way.

The more I think about it, the more I think a man came up with this thing.

If I thought it would have *any* result, I'd write to the company, but I have no confidence that anyone would even read my nastygram. Because of that, I'm complaining about it here hoping that it will be eternally visible in Google. Tino has also blogged about this, concentrating on the "stomp on his foot with your heel if he doesn't behave" thing. The more google hits the better, I say.

Posted by nicole at 01:29 PM