Safe Sex For Your Pets

If the Nashville Zoo has any openings, they should consider hiring my favorite KNS commenter, Billie, to take care of their rhinoceroses, birds, and other prisoners.  She will get it straightened out.

i think if you had different kinds of pets you have to keep them in different rooms from having sex. that is what can happen in a zoo. It can happen like in a jail. They should only have sex with the same animal.

Try as I may–and believe me, I try–I can’t write anything that touches this.

A Great Place to Work?

As a former employee, I was interested in the article the KNS ran today about Denso Manufacturing Tennessee’s expansion. It was about what I would expect from a local paper writing about a local company expanding–lots of talk about new jobs, complimentary remarks about the people of the region, and a few standard corporate-type comments from top management–nothing really remarkable or controversial. The comments posted by readers, however, are very interesting. Some comments came from employees and former employees who actually know what it’s like to work there, while others commented only on what they’ve heard.

So what’s it really like to work there? Well…

Decision--To Denso or Not to DensoThe comments from current and former employees are not that far off. But to be fair, I suspect Denso is not much different than any other large corporations in many respects. I’d say that it’s better in some ways and worse in others, but all-in-all the good and bad average out for most of their employees. Sure, there are people there who think it’s really bad, but it always seemed to me that the real reason they don’t like their jobs is that they feel stuck there. Some probably feel stuck because they have been dead ended in their career by the powers that be and can’t move up, while others feel stuck in that they don’t have the skills (or at least don’t think they had the skills) to move out. Others may not even realize that they are stuck by their own comfort and fear of change. I’m sure some feel stuck for a combination of these reasons.

There are people who love working at Denso, and they have their reasons as well. It’s been a very stable company traditionally, and for someone who is worried about layoffs or job shortages it’s a very compelling reason for working there. In my mind, that sort of falls into the fear (real or imagined) that they don’t have the skill set to go elsewhere. But hey, if you’re happy I’m happy, right? There are others who are basically coasting, but I think that’s probably common at most big companies as well.

For me, the good outweighed the bad for most of the time I was there. Were there things I didn’t like? Most definitely. For instance, you can forget about anything like this ever happening there. They (whoever “they” are) would never allow it. The performance evaluation system is a mirage for the most part, and I doubt that will ever change. But I really enjoyed the work I was doing, and I hated leaving my co-workers. Loving what you do and liking the people you spend your days with is not something you can find just anywhere, and it kept me around for a long time. However, I was ultimately placed in a situation that was going to make my relationship with the company much more lopsided than I was comfortable with. I’m not one to stay around and complain, especially knowing that change, if it does come, is slow for Denso. I’m no victim either, and besides, I have confidence in my skills. The only immediate way to resolve the problem was with compensation. How did that discussion go? Well, I’m a former employee. 🙂

I always found it a little ironic that Denso spends a great amount of resources trying to figure out how to recruit engineers out of college but doesn’t seem to find much value in retention of engineers and technical staff. HR held regular meetings with engineers on how to recruit from colleges, and they usually ended in engineers expressing that exact sentiment. It may be that Denso has a reputation on campuses as the type of company that isn’t attractive to today’s college students. Is that reputation based on what they hear from Denso employees and on the web? Does it come from fellow students who do co-ops at Denso? I can’t say for sure.

I don’t know the numbers or stats, but it seems like replacing good people would be much more expensive than retaining them. However, they make billions, and I make not-billions, so who am I to second guess them? Maybe they’ve calculated all the factors and decided that paying competitive salaries for years of experience would put them in a situation where no one would ever leave. Would zero turnover be as bad as high turnover? Dunno.

So the point of this post–is Denso a great place to work? I guess it depends on what you want from a job. It was great for me for a long time. As I said before, I enjoyed the work I did at Denso and the people I worked with, although I must say there were very few jobs or departments there I would have enjoyed as much as I enjoyed mine. Jobs that provide opportunities to develop skills that are universally marketable are somewhat limited there. If stability is a major factor for you, then by all means it is a great place to work. As with almost everything else, you’ll probably have to compromise a few things that you’d like to have in exchange for this stability, but it’s worth it for a lot of people.

A Little Editing Wouldn’t Hurt

Note to Commissioner Paul Pinkston, who released a taped conversation with Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale to the New Sentinel:

Audacity is free and easy to use.

Although I’d rather not hear the toilet flush, I’m at least thankful that you waited until you were “done” to start the tape.

One may wonder why the KNS didn’t edit that out themselves. I’m sure journalistic integrity had a little something to do with it–leaving the recording in tact as they received it. But the toilet flush is probably what will make this thing go viral…it’s just good marketing. Somebody over there knows what they’re doing!

A Great Story Opportunity

A while back, I wrote a post about a few advantages newspapers have in the market and how they could use them to remain relevant. Using these assets–excellent writing, investigative journalism, and local marketplace branding–newspapers can give us something no one else can.

Today in the KNS, at least on their web site, there is a relatively short piece from the AP about a man who escaped prison 46 years ago and has been apprehended. This is the exact type of story I’d love to see local newspapers tackle. It’s the perfect opportunity for them to give me something no one else can give me.

Leroy Albert Morgan’s crimes occurred in Hamilton County, he escaped from a Nashville prison, and he was caught in East Tennessee, so it is of local interest. Using great writing and investigative journalism, why not tell us this story? Take us beyond, “he escaped in 1961, he’s been using an alias, and he was arrested this week.”

Tell us the story.

How did he escape prison, and how was he able to avoid authorities for so long? Has he been in Tennessee the entire time? Was he assisted by friends and family–how many people were in on it? What has he done in the time since the escape? What did the State do immediately following the escape to try to catch him, and why did these efforts fail? What (exactly) have they done since? How did they eventually track him down, how long did it take to find him, and how long have they known his whereabouts?

Seriously…this is the stuff movies (or at least made for TV movies) are made of. A good great writer can do some investigative journalism and tell us a great story from so many angles–the escapee, his friends and family, the penal system. And again, most bloggers don’t have the time and resources available to cover something like this.

Racist Graffiti And A Paper Noose

This not only appears on the KNS, it’s on the AP Wire.

The Sumner County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a possible hate crime after racist graffiti defaming a black school administrator were found with a paper-towel noose.

Graffiti in a restroom?  *gasp*

A noose made out of paper towells? *oh no!*

Congratulations news outlets.  The juvenile morons who did this just got way more attention than they could’ve ever hoped.  This is nothing more than some immature, ignorant kids expressing their ignorance and stupidity while they take a dump.

We may not like the fact that they are immature and ignorant, but a hate crime?  Let’s hope these dangerous criminals are apprehended before Halloween.  If not they may graduate to stealing pumpkins or maybe even TPing a yard or two.

Finch Addresses County Commission

Hat tip to mbradley for pointing us to the video of Wednesday’s meeting.  If you aren’t local, this is hilarious.  If you are, it’s truly sad.

[youtube SK3vPgawsfU]

WARNING:  multiple instances here of the pot calling the kettle…uh…cookware.

You can just feel/smell the love here, can’t you?

Story in the KNS.

Can You Define Conflict of Interests Again?

From the KNS:

Cynthia Finch, Knox County’s senior director of Community Services, will give up control of the county’s grants programs so she can continue serving on the boards of nonprofits that receive grant funding, the mayor’s office announced today.

The remarkable thing about this story is that she actually had to be told by her superiors that it was inappropriate to represent entities seeking funds while having control or influence over the funds they were seeking!

A memo sent Friday notified Finch and her subordinates in the Community Development Department they would no longer be allowed to serve on the boards of nonprofits that seek federal or locally funded grants issued by the county.

The new policy comes in the aftermath of a U.S. Housing and Urban Development report that found the county distributed $840,000 in “questionable” federal grants to nonprofits with connections to Finch and other county grants officials.

Only in Louisiana Knoxville.  What would happen at your job if you did that?  Hell, my company canned a guy (rightfully so) a couple of years ago for taking a $125 Best Buy gift card from a supplier.  I guess they could have just given him less work and let him keep his salary along with the gift card as punishment, but what kind of message would that have sent?

Hopefully some of that investigative reporting I posted about earlier today is in the works.

Ready For The Majors?

Political operatives employed in public positions, no-bid contracts awarded to friends, e-mail theft, nepotism and cronyism (the KNS is full of links on this), renaming of positions to stay on the payroll, lobster for lunch, trips paid for with misdirected funds, secret meetings to determine public policy, providing funds to apparently fake entities, strongarming the citizens to vote for one tax to avoid another, etc.

Who says government isn’t efficient?  Knox County was able to accomplish all of this (and who knows what else)  in just a few years!

My question is, what are these guys doing messing around in little ol’ Knox County?  They should skip over state level gov’ment and head straight to the Federal level where they can do some real damage.  I haven’t commented on this in a while, but geesh…will it ever end?

Red Light Cameras — The Real Enemy

From the KNS

Knoxville police arrested a man Sunday morning for allegedly shooting a traffic light camera several times at the intersection of Broadway and Interstate 640.

Surely I’m not the only one snickering at this.  How can the police find the guy who allegedly shot a traffic light camera three times at 2 a.m. in Knoxville Tennessee, but still don’t know who shot Tupac on the Las Vegas strip in front of countless witnesses?  There really is no justice in the world.

Before any of the anti-gun nuts start asking for bans on .30-06 rifles, let’s remember…

Guns don’t take photos of your car and send you expensive traffic tickets in the mail…RED LIGHT CAMERAS DO.

How Sad Is It That This Makes Me Happy?

The KNS reports that Scott Moore would like to repeal the $30 wheel tax in Knox County.

“In times of a slow economy, we ought to be able to help our citizens and put some money back in their pockets,” Moore said this morning as commission’s Intergovernmental and Finance committees began meeting.

It is also wise to put money back in the citizens’ pockets when their county government is a mess and they have little faith in it.

Regardless, I’m can’t help but be happy when our overlords graciously offer to return money to the people who earned it.