So the brilliant executive minds at Verizon Information Services finally decided on a plan for its IT personnel, and made said plan known to all of us yesterday at an 8 AM meeting: layoffs, or in corporate jargon, a RIF (Reduction In Force). On the one hand, I can respect this decision, as I believe it better for the company than the other major proposal that was looked at, which was outsourcing IT personnel under AMDOCS, our main contractor, and provider of much of the core server software the business runs on. Only everyone pretty much hates AMDOCS; their code is sloppy, as the Toad can well attest, and they're arrogant to boot, with a "we know better than you" attitude toward even the most techincally competent among the Verizon IT staff (most of whom are more technically competent than said AMDOCS personnel). The only reason this scenario didn't play out was because Verizon couldn't get AMDOCS to swallow a lot of salary and benefits issues that would have taken better care of Verizon employees who were outsourced. So my team lost three people yesterday, and I was one of them. I'm still on the payroll until 24 October, and the severance package looks pretty good. So potential employers, I'm a Mac geek with a decade of experience in computer support, with a little HTML knowledge I'd like to expand on. I need to stay in the Dallas area, and I'm open to contract, contract-to-hire, or, best of all, permanent positions.

So while the gloom of layoffs settled over the IT groups at VIS for the better part of a year, Chuck Lee, the former GTE CEO who sold us out to Bell Atlantic, is still picking up the perks: bq. Verizon Communication's former chairman and co-CEO, Charles Lee, became a "consultant" for the firm when he retired last year. In addition to the standard goodies, like office space, a staff, and use of an aircraft, he's receiving a consulting fee of $250,000 per month. (That's not a typo.) You'd think after getting paid $4 to $5 million in salary plus bonus over the past few years, and $27 million in options in 2002 alone, he'd have enough to retire on. Guess not. So I may lose my job, but heaven forbid that Chuck Lee not get to ride around in the corporate jet while he "consults" on where the company can make cuts...

I know the Toad has to be ticked off at the latest antics of one of our beloved Congresscritters, People's Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. She insists that the names assigned to hurricanes by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are too "lily white," and they should use African-American names as well. She even offered a few examples; none of which are African in origin, and some of which have been completely made up by black Americans. This reader's response puts it all in perspective: bq. "You can be sure if there were too many 'black' names assigned to hurricanes, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee would instead be complaining that this practice unfairly stereotypes blacks as violent. Let's hope this silly storm blows over!" And to think that this is our most pressing problem with racism and discrimination...

Steven offers Frank discussion on why some "artists" don't want to participate in the iTunes Music Store.

Is the demise of the album format, if it even happens, a bad thing? What about the good things might pop up in its place? What advantages come from embracing the tides of change?

[...]

Or maybe, as the market shifts towards being merit-based, there will be a renewed interest in actually making higher quality individual tracks rather than a lot of filler. Wouldn't that be awful? Maybe songs would have melodies again, or musicians might learn how to play more than one instrument. It's even possible that lyrics might stray from the tried-and-true "man, my middle-class white male life here in America sure sucks". It would be catastrophic.

For you, I mean. Not us, the consumers.

Knowing the company I work for, the n3rdling thought I would be interested in this article. Yes, the Yellow Pages business is a cash cow. One of the reasons Bell Atlantic wanted to buy out GTE was that our Yellow Pages business was a major revenue generator; our last year prior to the "merger," GTE Directories accounted for 20% of all the revenue for all of GTE. I haven't heard any numbers in the past two years regarding VZ Directories' contribution to the overall revenue structure, but I'm sure it's not as high a percentage. In addition to the economic downturn, we've got the former Bell Atlantic books dragging us down...

Our workgroup maintains a central server for others in the company to access important information re: our projects, software to install, etc. As part of all of this, our sysadmin recently created a report that shows all of the current "advertisements" going out to our users, reminding them they need to upgrade Application X or what have you. Our great and wise sysadmin then puts a link to this report directly on the front page of our server, easy to find, easy to click on, easy to download. So then my boss decides that this isn't good enough, and that the report has to be emailed to our opposite numbers on the eastern seaboard. Now the opposite numbers have the exact same access to the aforementioned web page as we do. They can just as easily go fetch this report as any of us can. But now I have to email them a copy of it every week! <sigh> Anyone want to hire a Mac-head with some basic web design skills? As long as you're in Dallas and you've got killer health insurance, I'm flexible on other stuff...

1. Verizon Wireless rants, raves, and whines about how the FCC regulation for wireless local number portability--letting you keep your same phone number, even when you change providers--is going to cost billions and billions of dollars. Despite the fact that the FCC regulation has been in place for years and wireless providers have chosen to ignore it, since the FCC has failed to enforce it.
2. Take the FCC to court over the issue!
3. After the court rules against you, give in and announce that you're going to lead the industry and everyone should copy you, because by Zeus, you're doing what's best for the customer. (But only after being forced to...)

As to the truths contained in Hillary's ghost-written tome, consider this: On April 29, 1997, Hillary told CNN's Larry King that she would never run for public office. Two years later...

So my lovely bride and I have this relatively new tradition (3 years old now) of going for a 4-day weekend the week of our anniversary. This year, our trip took us to San Diego. We took in Seaworld, saw Shamu. My favorite had to be the dolphin show (with a couple of pilot whales). What can I say, I'm partial to dolphins. Kel really enjoyed the sea lion show, which was an outstanding comedy. The next day was spent at the world-famous San Diego Zoo. While we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, there were many times when we wondered, what's the big deal? There are other zoos with better exhibits/enclosures, and far better layouts (Audubon Zoo in New Orleans springs to mind). SDZ does deserve its reputation, however, because of its fantastic research programs; it outspends and outperforms any other zoo in the country; pretty much the world. Our last full day was spent driving up the 101, aka SH 21, alongside the coastline. Let me say, this was a profound disappointment. While lunch in La Jolla (say La Hoya) was nice, overlooking Scripps Park and the Cove, we only saw the ocean three or four other times, and only briefly as we drove past. Much different than the drive south from San Francisco to Carmel, where you're hugging the ocean--albeit a few dozen feet up a cliff--nearly every mile. And California road signage sucks. Sucks. I'm talking enormous, Oreck/Kirby/Hoover suckage. We ended up at the south gate of Camp Pendleton, turned back through the Oceanside Marina, then popped over to I-5 back to downtown San Diego. We roomed at Prava, a three year-old hotel and spa, converted from a time-share property. (They still maintain a relationship with time-share companies, which is how we stayed there.) Located in the heart of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, we had plenty of great places to eat within walking distance. Prava makes the Retrophisch Recommends(tm) list of places to stay.

You certainly can't blame the Israelis for decimating the Palestinian female ranks:

Each year, dozens and probably hundreds of brutal "honor killings" of Palestinian women and girls--most of whom are virtually blameless--go unreported, according to an anthropologist's recent study.

The story is scheduled for an issue of The World & I magazine.

There is a story from the NY Times talking about a growing segment of the American population doing exactly that. Of note:

"People use the unemployment rate as some kind of gauge of the health of the economy," said Robert H. Topel, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. But because of the number of people now outside of the labor force, he said, "the unemployment rate does not give you the same kind of information it did in the 1970's or 1960's."

(A little disappointed in the Times--you do not put an apostrophe-s after a year to state a decade; just put the s after the year, as in, 1970s.) The real gem, though, has to be this:

"I've been trying to find a conventional job for two years," Ms. Leftridge said. "Finally, I'm thinking about doing a home-based business. I don't see it as giving up. I see it as expanding my search. I ought to be able to make some money this way, and start building back my savings, in a situation where I'm not hostage to any company's budget, to any budget."

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking if I get laid off. Better to be the hostage-taker than the hostage. Or something like that.