Friday, June 01, 2012

Mayor Nuts

Mayor Bloomberg has invaded the personal liberty of NYC with his proposed ban on soft drinks larger than 16 oz. This ban appears aimed directly at 7-11 which provides slurpees and big gulps. The soft drinks are especially needed in the summer durring a heat wave.

While Bloomberg is admirable in many respects, he does go way too far with his draconian public health initiatives. Rather than directly address the issue of personal liberty, his aides dance around the issue.
Soda consumption is on the decline and blaming obesity on any single factor is a stretch.

In the lean mean workplace there have been changes. We are expected to do the job with almost no staff. We have less than half of the officers of two years ago. All that remain are working the way I was used to. A really great coworker said "Beaks how do you keep your energy after the third interview to number 8".
I pointed to the bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. I gave him one and now we have three people using Dew as a leveler to provide cafine and water at the same time.

I have not had a lunch break since this new program started. I have resorted to grazing and others have adopted the tactic. Grazing is when workers have a break they eat quickly for five minutes. This tactic allows for a bite or two from a sandwich or a bag of chips. Even on a review day I am dumped calander cases and have to junk lunch or eat everything in five minutes.

Basically, the union is largely correct when they describe the current mode as the new plantation. We are in essence working ten hours and getting paid for eight. The system of work measurement is arbitrary and capricious and designed to punish rather than gain productivity or quality. We spend all day counting things three times when once is sufficient. My boss chided me Beaks you are 6 under draft a sheet. This information was gleaned by looking at another report. Why I simply don't copy that report I don't know.

Of course speculating on why people are obese is not resolved by cup sizes at 7-11. The world we live in has changed.  We don't get home cooked meals. Workers don't get formal lunch breaks and are harried by impossible standards and are exausted. Of course the new work place includes the brutal days worked by the 1%.

3 comments:

Ducky's here said...

Why did New Yorkers vote in this petty tyrant?

Always On Watch said...

The world we live in has changed. We don't get home cooked meals. Workers don't get formal lunch breaks and are harried by impossible standards and are exausted.

Good points!

One of my employers wouldn't allow us lunch breaks. I gained over 10 pounds during that school term because the best I could do for lunch was grab junk food and wolf it down.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Ducky, the answer to your question is simple. Bloomberg got in by riding on the coattails and reputation of New York's greatest mayor of all time, indeed, America's Mayor-Rudy Giuliani.