Over the past couple of decades, the National Hockey League has made several rules changes in efforts to make the game more appealing. While I think some of the changes have had a positive effect, I think there some changes that still could be made to improve the game and its appeal, especially to new fans.
This is my "if I were Commissioner" list of changes that I think would increase scoring, please fans, and make the game easier to understand. I guess this is really the list of things that annoy me most about the NHL right now. In no particular order:
1) Restore the crease back to a simple semicircle. Back in the 90s, the NHL instituted a new rule that made it illegal for an offensive player to enter the crease at all before the puck. Then the NHL decided that the violations were occurring too frequently, resulting in too many disallowed goals, so they made the crease smaller by chopping off the sides. So now the crease has this ridiculous squared-off semi-circle shape. But the crease violation rule was dropped years ago. The original semi-circle, which is still used everywhere else in the world, should be brought back to the NHL, if only to make it more consistent with international arenas. It would not effect the play, but it would make the NHL look less silly.
2) Remove the "trapezoid" behind the net. This rule was instituted several years ago to prevent goalies from clearing the puck out of the zone every time the offensive team tried the "dump and chase" tactic. In reality, I don't think this has made any real difference in the amount of offense. If anything, it slows down the play because instead of the goalie being able to make an up-ice pass from the corner, he is forced to wait for a teammate to skate all the way to the corner to retrieve the puck. The extra lines add more confusing lines to an already busy ice surface, and it's one more way the NHL differs from hockey everywhere else, including all levels of amateur hockey in the USA.
3) Restore icing calls on the penalty kill. I never understood this rule. Icing is called when the puck is shot from the defensive side of the center ice line all the way past the far goal line and no defending players have a chance to play the puck. But, if your team takes a penalty, you get the privilege of icing the puck at will with no recourse. In my opinion, a penalty is punishment, and the penalized team does not deserve any extra privileges. This would have several effects. It would increase power play scoring due to increased time in the offensive zone. It would speed up the game during power plays because there would be less of the advantaged team "re-grouping" behind their own net. It would eventually decrease the number of penalties, because when the power play effectiveness percentages rise from the current ~18% to 30% or more, players would have to learn to be more disciplined and take fewer penalties.
4) Restore O/T back to regular 5-on-5 play. The 4-on-4 overtime was an attempt to increase decided games. I don't think it necessarily has that effect, and it changes the entire complexion of the game. This means that the forwards have to play differently from how they normally play, and their teammates are not going to be where they might instinctively expect them to be. Also, this is one more idiosyncrasy of the game that requires extra explanation to casual audiences. The shootout already ensures there are no ties, so I don't think there is any reason to mess with the game in Overtime.
5) Go back to home whites. OK, this one doesn't really affect the game, but it sure would make a lot of long-time fans happy. The dark home/away white system has always seemed unnatural to me. And it has not transferred to any other league. I don't know why they made the change. I can only assume they thought it would somehow lead to more sales of jerseys or something, but I don't see how it really made anything better. Good guys wear white. Let the home team wear white.
Overall, the NHL needs to simplify rather than complicate. Every rule they make that adds another exception to an existing rule makes the game harder to understand for new fans. And new fans will be driven away by rules they don't understand. Simplify the ice layout, simplify the way rules are enforced, keep the game moving and keep scoring up. This is how to grow the game.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Kill The Ticker!
It's 2010. Just about everyone has internet access. Many have internet access on their phones. There is nearly unlimited access to timely information at hand everywhere you go. Yet, it seems that TV channels, and especially sport channels, still think we need a ticker-tape across the bottom of the screen giving us constant updates on scores or other news.
There are two main reasons why these tickers suck:
1) They use up valuable screen real estate that could be used to show more of the game we are trying to watch.
2) Sometimes I watch or record replays of games, and most channels have yet to figure out that when they replay a game, it is NOT a good idea to have the ticker at the bottom of the screen show the FINAL SCORE of the game we are watching!
This latter issue drives me insane. The other day, a friend told me I should watch the Penguins/Capitals hockey game from earlier that day because it was really exciting. I found it being replayed on the NHL Channel (at 2 AM that night) and set my DVR to record it. I watched it for about 5 minutes the next day before they flashed the final score of the game across the bottom of the screen! Thanks for ruining it for me! What's the point of showing the replay if you are going to spoil the end??
So far, only NESN, the Boston RSN that carries the Bruins, has shown enough forethought to avoid showing the final score of the game during a replay. They do waste screen area on other updates, but at least they don't spoil the ending of the game I'm watching. The NHL Channel doesn't get it. The NY MSG channels don't get it. Fox Sports channels don't get it. When I record a re-play of a game on one of these stupid channels, I have to set up a big box in front of the TV to block out the update ticker so I can actually enjoy the games. Yes, it is ridiculous that I have to do this.
File this under "D" for "duh."
There are two main reasons why these tickers suck:
1) They use up valuable screen real estate that could be used to show more of the game we are trying to watch.
2) Sometimes I watch or record replays of games, and most channels have yet to figure out that when they replay a game, it is NOT a good idea to have the ticker at the bottom of the screen show the FINAL SCORE of the game we are watching!
This latter issue drives me insane. The other day, a friend told me I should watch the Penguins/Capitals hockey game from earlier that day because it was really exciting. I found it being replayed on the NHL Channel (at 2 AM that night) and set my DVR to record it. I watched it for about 5 minutes the next day before they flashed the final score of the game across the bottom of the screen! Thanks for ruining it for me! What's the point of showing the replay if you are going to spoil the end??
So far, only NESN, the Boston RSN that carries the Bruins, has shown enough forethought to avoid showing the final score of the game during a replay. They do waste screen area on other updates, but at least they don't spoil the ending of the game I'm watching. The NHL Channel doesn't get it. The NY MSG channels don't get it. Fox Sports channels don't get it. When I record a re-play of a game on one of these stupid channels, I have to set up a big box in front of the TV to block out the update ticker so I can actually enjoy the games. Yes, it is ridiculous that I have to do this.
File this under "D" for "duh."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Big Move - 2001
In the summer of 2001, I was working as a consultant for Prudential when I was told that my contract would be ending several months earlier than expected. I had spent the previous month purchasing the townhouse that my wife and I had been living in for three years, and now it was three of us as my first son was coming up on his first birthday.
Prudential had offered me a permanent job, but it required relocation to a new office in Scottsdale, AZ, so I had emphatically turned it down. I was not a big fan of hot weather. I should mention that there is some irony in this, as I was specifically working for Prudential's relocation services business. So, I started looking for a job in vicinity of our home in Danbury, CT. The only suitable positions I could find were in Manhattan, and with a new child in the family, I was not ready to commit to spending 2 hours or more of every week day commuting to NYC. So, roughly 1 week after finally closing on the townhouse in Danbury, I accepted the job with Prudential and started planning the move to Arizona.
In September of 2001, we took a trip to Arizona and spent a week shopping for a new home. We found a place that was absolutely perfect for us, and managed to get a deal in place before we headed home.
Since I had waited until the last minute, I missed out on the relocation benefits that were originally offered with the job, so I had to fund the move myself. Being the cheapskate that I am, I shopped around for a long time to find the least expensive way to get our stuff from Connecticut to Arizona. I settled on a company based in New York City that seemed to be somewhat reputable.
When I set up the transportation for my belongings, they urged me to purchase moving insurance. It was about $500, and it would cover any damage to our property that might occur during the move. I finally agreed to purchase the insurance, and they billed my credit card for it. H0wever, a few days later I spoke to my insurance agent (who happened to work near me at the Prudential office) and he pointed out that I already had coverage through my regular homeowner's policy. I called the moving company back and canceled the insurance, and they agreed to refund the premium that I had paid.
The movers came and packed everything up and took it away at the beginning of October, 2001. Then I flew to Arizona to start my job and receive our furniture and belongings when it all arrived, while Amey and the baby went to her Mom's house. The plan was for them to meet me in Phoenix after all of our furniture was there and appliances were in place.
About 10 days after the movers took our stuff, I call the moving company to find out where it is. It was still sitting New York! I said it was supposed to be delivered within 12 days, and they insisted that it was just an estimate, and that it might be several more weeks before I would get it. I was obviously irritated, and I finally persuaded them to find a way to get my stuff on its way to Phoenix immediately.
The next call I got from the movers was several days later. They said "there was a problem with the truck." The truck had been in an accident. I ask "How bad of an accident? Was my stuff damaged?" They did not have details, but they confirmed that there was "some damage" to my property. They would still deliver it in a few days, and then I would need to assess the damage at home.
Obviously, I was pretty freaked out at this point. I had no idea what to expect. I figured it was a probably a small accident, and most of my stuff would be OK. The moving company did not seem too panicked about it, so I hoped for the best.
A week or so later, the movers finally showed up in Phoenix. At this point, I had been sleeping on a borrowed air mattress in my empty living room for 2 weeks waiting for the rest of our furniture.
The driver of the moving truck explained to me that the it was not just a small accident. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and the truck went off the road and tumbled into a ditch in Tennessee. The had to rent a replacement truck to cart the stuff back to me. And then they opened the truck door to reveal a mess of unrecognizable junk. Shards of plastic and wood, torn boxes, garbage bags full of who-knows-what. Apparently, a lot of stuff escaped the truck in the accident, so they picked up anything that was on the side of the road and returned it to me. We never found any trace of our Christmas tree ornaments, but we did gain some old beer cans and some other colorful rubbish.
As they unloaded it, I stood by in disbelief, sometimes laughing at the absurdity of it, sometimes furious. They unloaded a sofa that looked like someone had hit it with a giant hammer right in the middle. Our washer and dryer, nearly new top-of-the-line models, were squashed into parallelograms. We had a crib that seemed to have completely disappeared other than a few pieces of wood that looked like they might have been part of it at one time. Every single piece of furniture we owned was damaged or completely destroyed (mostly the latter). My new 3-car-garage was now completely filled with junk.
The driver said he had had some dental work one, so he was on painkillers, and the heat in the truck did not work, so he was very cold and just could not stay awake. His partner was sleeping on the floor of the cab at the time of the crash. Somehow both of them were unhurt. The driver seemed to be looking for sympathy from he. I assure you, he got none. I could not even feign it at this point.
This is the unfortunate driver.
This used to be a nice dresser.
The only good to come of all this was that my homeowner's insurance policy had a replacement-value rider, which meant that Prudential would be purchasing furniture to replace all of what we had lost. An adjuster would be coming in the next few days to assess the damages (a full day's work!). Meanwhile, I had not received the refund for the canceled moving insurance policy that I had purchased through the moving company. It was actually kind of fun telling them that if they did not issue the credit within 3 days, that I would make the damages claim against them, and they would be buying me an entire house full of furniture instead. I got my money back shortly after that call.
Phoenix has a bulk trash pickup program, where they will come around with a loader and a bigger truck and take large stuff that will not go in regular trash cans once every three months. Luckily for me, our street was due for such a pick-up a couple of weeks after this debacle occurred. I made a great first impression with my neighbors by completely filling my front yard with junk that week.
Amey and the baby showed up a few days later, and we started shopping for furniture and appliances for our new home. We used our Costco American Express card for all of the purchases, and rang up a very nice rebate at the end of the year. Prudential came through with generous valuations for our stuff and even paid us quickly after we filled out the forms for the claims. Unfortunately, Pru got out of the property insurance business a year or two later.
So that was the inauspicious beginning of our life in Phoenix. Fortunately, things have gone much better since then. I was even able to sell the townhouse in Danbury about 5 months after purchasing it at a profit of about 25%.
Prudential had offered me a permanent job, but it required relocation to a new office in Scottsdale, AZ, so I had emphatically turned it down. I was not a big fan of hot weather. I should mention that there is some irony in this, as I was specifically working for Prudential's relocation services business. So, I started looking for a job in vicinity of our home in Danbury, CT. The only suitable positions I could find were in Manhattan, and with a new child in the family, I was not ready to commit to spending 2 hours or more of every week day commuting to NYC. So, roughly 1 week after finally closing on the townhouse in Danbury, I accepted the job with Prudential and started planning the move to Arizona.
In September of 2001, we took a trip to Arizona and spent a week shopping for a new home. We found a place that was absolutely perfect for us, and managed to get a deal in place before we headed home.
Since I had waited until the last minute, I missed out on the relocation benefits that were originally offered with the job, so I had to fund the move myself. Being the cheapskate that I am, I shopped around for a long time to find the least expensive way to get our stuff from Connecticut to Arizona. I settled on a company based in New York City that seemed to be somewhat reputable.
When I set up the transportation for my belongings, they urged me to purchase moving insurance. It was about $500, and it would cover any damage to our property that might occur during the move. I finally agreed to purchase the insurance, and they billed my credit card for it. H0wever, a few days later I spoke to my insurance agent (who happened to work near me at the Prudential office) and he pointed out that I already had coverage through my regular homeowner's policy. I called the moving company back and canceled the insurance, and they agreed to refund the premium that I had paid.
The movers came and packed everything up and took it away at the beginning of October, 2001. Then I flew to Arizona to start my job and receive our furniture and belongings when it all arrived, while Amey and the baby went to her Mom's house. The plan was for them to meet me in Phoenix after all of our furniture was there and appliances were in place.
About 10 days after the movers took our stuff, I call the moving company to find out where it is. It was still sitting New York! I said it was supposed to be delivered within 12 days, and they insisted that it was just an estimate, and that it might be several more weeks before I would get it. I was obviously irritated, and I finally persuaded them to find a way to get my stuff on its way to Phoenix immediately.
The next call I got from the movers was several days later. They said "there was a problem with the truck." The truck had been in an accident. I ask "How bad of an accident? Was my stuff damaged?" They did not have details, but they confirmed that there was "some damage" to my property. They would still deliver it in a few days, and then I would need to assess the damage at home.
Obviously, I was pretty freaked out at this point. I had no idea what to expect. I figured it was a probably a small accident, and most of my stuff would be OK. The moving company did not seem too panicked about it, so I hoped for the best.
A week or so later, the movers finally showed up in Phoenix. At this point, I had been sleeping on a borrowed air mattress in my empty living room for 2 weeks waiting for the rest of our furniture.
The driver of the moving truck explained to me that the it was not just a small accident. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and the truck went off the road and tumbled into a ditch in Tennessee. The had to rent a replacement truck to cart the stuff back to me. And then they opened the truck door to reveal a mess of unrecognizable junk. Shards of plastic and wood, torn boxes, garbage bags full of who-knows-what. Apparently, a lot of stuff escaped the truck in the accident, so they picked up anything that was on the side of the road and returned it to me. We never found any trace of our Christmas tree ornaments, but we did gain some old beer cans and some other colorful rubbish.
As they unloaded it, I stood by in disbelief, sometimes laughing at the absurdity of it, sometimes furious. They unloaded a sofa that looked like someone had hit it with a giant hammer right in the middle. Our washer and dryer, nearly new top-of-the-line models, were squashed into parallelograms. We had a crib that seemed to have completely disappeared other than a few pieces of wood that looked like they might have been part of it at one time. Every single piece of furniture we owned was damaged or completely destroyed (mostly the latter). My new 3-car-garage was now completely filled with junk.
The driver said he had had some dental work one, so he was on painkillers, and the heat in the truck did not work, so he was very cold and just could not stay awake. His partner was sleeping on the floor of the cab at the time of the crash. Somehow both of them were unhurt. The driver seemed to be looking for sympathy from he. I assure you, he got none. I could not even feign it at this point.
This is the unfortunate driver.
This used to be a nice dresser.
The only good to come of all this was that my homeowner's insurance policy had a replacement-value rider, which meant that Prudential would be purchasing furniture to replace all of what we had lost. An adjuster would be coming in the next few days to assess the damages (a full day's work!). Meanwhile, I had not received the refund for the canceled moving insurance policy that I had purchased through the moving company. It was actually kind of fun telling them that if they did not issue the credit within 3 days, that I would make the damages claim against them, and they would be buying me an entire house full of furniture instead. I got my money back shortly after that call.
Phoenix has a bulk trash pickup program, where they will come around with a loader and a bigger truck and take large stuff that will not go in regular trash cans once every three months. Luckily for me, our street was due for such a pick-up a couple of weeks after this debacle occurred. I made a great first impression with my neighbors by completely filling my front yard with junk that week.
Amey and the baby showed up a few days later, and we started shopping for furniture and appliances for our new home. We used our Costco American Express card for all of the purchases, and rang up a very nice rebate at the end of the year. Prudential came through with generous valuations for our stuff and even paid us quickly after we filled out the forms for the claims. Unfortunately, Pru got out of the property insurance business a year or two later.
So that was the inauspicious beginning of our life in Phoenix. Fortunately, things have gone much better since then. I was even able to sell the townhouse in Danbury about 5 months after purchasing it at a profit of about 25%.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Marriage Equality
The topic of marriage laws came up in a Facebook discussion today, and I broke a months-long self-imposed abstinence from political discussions on Facebook to reply to it. I guess that means it is somehow relevant to me, so I figure it would be a good topic for my measly little blog here.
I take a pragmatic approach to marriage and how the government defines it. I see the legal recognition of marriage mainly as a financial concept. A state-recognized marriage allows the participants to:
As is the case with most religious arguments, each religion thinks it owns the "correct" definition. The problem is that in the United States, we are supposed to have religious freedom, but this particular aspect of religion has been commandeered by the government in a way that only supports one definition.
This argument comes to the forefront now because of the gay community's fight for equal rights, but I think it goes beyond that.
Let us look at the idea of a household, outside of the context of any particular religion. Let's say that two families, each consisting of a husband, a wife, and two children, decide that they could operate more efficiently by sharing a single building (which we will call a "house") and sharing responsibilities. One person will be a wage earner, because they will need cash to survive in this society. Everyone else will help out. They will save money on power, on appliances, home maintenance, meals - pretty much everything. Now, it comes time to do the tax returns for the one wage earner. Under current laws and tax codes, the earner is penalized with respect to other "families" because he/she can only declare the people in the household who are related through the concept of marriage as dependents. So he/she gets 3 dependent deductions, instead of 7, while he/she is actually supporting 8 individuals with the one paycheck.
Is there something evil about this arrangement? Is there something unnatural about it? I think one could argue that in the US, it would be "abnormal," but I don't think it would be inherently harmful to its participants or the society at large. In fact, with all of the energy and resource savings, one could argue that it would be better than if the two families resided separately.
I suggest that this type of arrangement should be just as acceptable in the eyes of our government as any other family, and it should receive the same benefits. I do not care if it is called a marriage or anything else. The point is that the government should not be in the business of defining how people define their basic living groups.
If two people who are unrelated decide to create a household together, the government should be capable of recognizing that without offending anyone. The way to do that is simply to avoid the use of the term marriage, which has certain religious connotations for many people. Leave marriage up to the religions, and be concerned instead with the concept of a household, or living unit.
The government already has mechanisms for creating entities that consist of groups of people. They are called corporations, or partnerships, or businesses. The is no reason why we could not have a "household partnership" that could be defined for any group of individuals who want to create one. You would expect that in the US, most of such partnerships would consist of married couples, but other groups would not be excluded. We achieve freedom of religion and equality all at once, and there is no real or perceived devaluation of the term marriage for anyone.
I take a pragmatic approach to marriage and how the government defines it. I see the legal recognition of marriage mainly as a financial concept. A state-recognized marriage allows the participants to:
- claim the other as a dependent on tax forms if only one works
- enjoy automatic transfer of possessions in case of death (depending on the state)
- cover the other with employer-provided health plan
- act on the other's behalf with automatic "power of attorney" in many situations
etc, etc.
As is the case with most religious arguments, each religion thinks it owns the "correct" definition. The problem is that in the United States, we are supposed to have religious freedom, but this particular aspect of religion has been commandeered by the government in a way that only supports one definition.
This argument comes to the forefront now because of the gay community's fight for equal rights, but I think it goes beyond that.
Let us look at the idea of a household, outside of the context of any particular religion. Let's say that two families, each consisting of a husband, a wife, and two children, decide that they could operate more efficiently by sharing a single building (which we will call a "house") and sharing responsibilities. One person will be a wage earner, because they will need cash to survive in this society. Everyone else will help out. They will save money on power, on appliances, home maintenance, meals - pretty much everything. Now, it comes time to do the tax returns for the one wage earner. Under current laws and tax codes, the earner is penalized with respect to other "families" because he/she can only declare the people in the household who are related through the concept of marriage as dependents. So he/she gets 3 dependent deductions, instead of 7, while he/she is actually supporting 8 individuals with the one paycheck.
Is there something evil about this arrangement? Is there something unnatural about it? I think one could argue that in the US, it would be "abnormal," but I don't think it would be inherently harmful to its participants or the society at large. In fact, with all of the energy and resource savings, one could argue that it would be better than if the two families resided separately.
I suggest that this type of arrangement should be just as acceptable in the eyes of our government as any other family, and it should receive the same benefits. I do not care if it is called a marriage or anything else. The point is that the government should not be in the business of defining how people define their basic living groups.
If two people who are unrelated decide to create a household together, the government should be capable of recognizing that without offending anyone. The way to do that is simply to avoid the use of the term marriage, which has certain religious connotations for many people. Leave marriage up to the religions, and be concerned instead with the concept of a household, or living unit.
The government already has mechanisms for creating entities that consist of groups of people. They are called corporations, or partnerships, or businesses. The is no reason why we could not have a "household partnership" that could be defined for any group of individuals who want to create one. You would expect that in the US, most of such partnerships would consist of married couples, but other groups would not be excluded. We achieve freedom of religion and equality all at once, and there is no real or perceived devaluation of the term marriage for anyone.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
I Hate Christmas
I am not a Grinch. I am not a Scrooge. I do not hate Christmas because it is a Christian holiday and I am agnostic. I hate Christmas because of the way it is celebrated in America today.
I spent most of my life as a Christian. My views on religion and the holidays are not based on some emotional rejection of beliefs that are different from mine. In fact, most of my distaste for the modern celebration of Christmas in America stems from a respect for the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament.
Today, Christmas (or "Giftmas," as it is sometimes known in our home) has become a hugely commercialized event. But I do not blame corporations for taking advantage of an opportunity to sell more stuff. This is what companies do, and they will never stop.
The fact that the opportunity exists is the real problem. Somewhere along the way, Christmas morphed from a celebration of giving to a celebration of receiving. It is enforced as soon as children are able to understand what is going on around them. It is called the "Season of Giving" but it has really become a season of getting. Our kids start making their lists on Thanksgiving or even earlier. All they know is that on one day in December, they will get stuff. And lots of stuff, too. Eventually, those who attend church will hear the stories behind the celebration, but it will always be about what they will get. Since there is no real relationship between being showered with wrapped presents and the birth of Christ, few will ever really understand the holiday before they are able to consider it in context as adults.
Let's consider what Jesus taught during his lifetime. Despite what some right-wingers may try to claim, Jesus's most common lessons were about compassion, tolerance, and the evils of greed. In fact, according to the Bible, Jesus taught the value of charity and tithing far more than he ever spoke about such hot topics as homosexuality or marriage. The one time he became angry it was about greed and money. He told his followers to reject their material belongings and live a life of austerity. He did not encourage people to get rich, and he did not suggest that they give each other presents. He suggested that people should care for (and about!) those who are less fortunate than they are. See, the "giving" is not supposed to be to each other; it is supposed to be to the poor.
Instead of thinking about the lessons of Jesus, Americans, most of whom would call themselves Christians, celebrate the anniversary of His birth with a day of excess, gluttony, and greed. Any true Christian should recognize this as the most obscene of insults. It is an example of extreme hypocrisy. And it is embarrassing. Even to this agnostic.
I spent most of my life as a Christian. My views on religion and the holidays are not based on some emotional rejection of beliefs that are different from mine. In fact, most of my distaste for the modern celebration of Christmas in America stems from a respect for the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament.
Today, Christmas (or "Giftmas," as it is sometimes known in our home) has become a hugely commercialized event. But I do not blame corporations for taking advantage of an opportunity to sell more stuff. This is what companies do, and they will never stop.
The fact that the opportunity exists is the real problem. Somewhere along the way, Christmas morphed from a celebration of giving to a celebration of receiving. It is enforced as soon as children are able to understand what is going on around them. It is called the "Season of Giving" but it has really become a season of getting. Our kids start making their lists on Thanksgiving or even earlier. All they know is that on one day in December, they will get stuff. And lots of stuff, too. Eventually, those who attend church will hear the stories behind the celebration, but it will always be about what they will get. Since there is no real relationship between being showered with wrapped presents and the birth of Christ, few will ever really understand the holiday before they are able to consider it in context as adults.
Let's consider what Jesus taught during his lifetime. Despite what some right-wingers may try to claim, Jesus's most common lessons were about compassion, tolerance, and the evils of greed. In fact, according to the Bible, Jesus taught the value of charity and tithing far more than he ever spoke about such hot topics as homosexuality or marriage. The one time he became angry it was about greed and money. He told his followers to reject their material belongings and live a life of austerity. He did not encourage people to get rich, and he did not suggest that they give each other presents. He suggested that people should care for (and about!) those who are less fortunate than they are. See, the "giving" is not supposed to be to each other; it is supposed to be to the poor.
Instead of thinking about the lessons of Jesus, Americans, most of whom would call themselves Christians, celebrate the anniversary of His birth with a day of excess, gluttony, and greed. Any true Christian should recognize this as the most obscene of insults. It is an example of extreme hypocrisy. And it is embarrassing. Even to this agnostic.
Monday, November 10, 2008
What Could Have Been...
This is the story of what was almost my third corporate job.
It was late 1996. I had been working for IBM Global Services as a Lotus Notes developer for about 8 months, and I had quickly become something of a star developer within my small team. I was very disappointed one day to learn that one of my teammates was working on a new project that I would have enjoyed - it was a Notes integration project for the National Hockey League. Being the huge hockey fan that I was (and still am), I thought it would have been nice to have been placed on that team.
But I got over it (not that I had much choice). My teammate who was on the NHL project knew how I felt about hockey, and she let me know one day that the NHL was actually looking to hire someone as a regular employee to work on their Notes infrastructure. This kind co-worker had spoken to the hiring manager at the NHL and got me his fax number so I could send my resume. I was obviously very excited about the idea of a job with the NHL. So I quickly updated my resume and sent it over. I had to add a cover page, and not being a man of many words (you'd never know it from this - haha), I just put my name and number, and "Hockey is my life!" in fairly large font. OK, so maybe this was a little immature, but I was excited, and I figured my resume would speak for itself. Also, I was confident that I would ace any interview, as I had done well in several interviews at other places before that and I felt like I had the hang of it.
So the next week I got on a train to Manhattan from the nearby Brewster, NY station to go to my interview.
Other than a pretty neat display case with hockey memorabilia including a full-size goal and some signed jerseys, the NHL headquarters office was more or less like any other corporate office. My first interview was with the IT guy for whom I would be working. I did OK, because it was somewhat technical. The next interview was with his boss, and I was told it was just for him to see if he was comfortable with me. After sitting with this gentleman for a few minutes, the manager comes back into the office where I was talking to the supervisor and shoves my fax cover sheet in front of me and says "Don't do this." I was stumped. I did not know if he was joking or if he was actually annoyed that I had tried to be lighthearted in a fax. It was just cover sheet, after all. I just grinned and said "OK" sheepishly. At that point my confidence was well shaken, but I pulled myself together enough to get out without completely embarrassing myself. I learned that the job would actually include going to the home offices of each of the teams in the NHL to install applications for them. I thought this could be very good.
Eventually, they did actually offer me the position, but the salary they were willing to pay was only about 20% more than I was making at IBM. This sounds good, but the fact that it would mean either moving closer to Manhattan or commuting for more than 2 hours per day, plus investing in real business attire (and the dry-cleaning bills to go along with that) made it a very poor financial deal for me. Add to that the lengths to which the manager went in order to convince me that the job would be no fun at all, and not related to hockey at all, and I finally had to turn them down. It was one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make.
I still think about what could have been, had I taken that job. But that's water under the bridge (or ice) now.
It was late 1996. I had been working for IBM Global Services as a Lotus Notes developer for about 8 months, and I had quickly become something of a star developer within my small team. I was very disappointed one day to learn that one of my teammates was working on a new project that I would have enjoyed - it was a Notes integration project for the National Hockey League. Being the huge hockey fan that I was (and still am), I thought it would have been nice to have been placed on that team.
But I got over it (not that I had much choice). My teammate who was on the NHL project knew how I felt about hockey, and she let me know one day that the NHL was actually looking to hire someone as a regular employee to work on their Notes infrastructure. This kind co-worker had spoken to the hiring manager at the NHL and got me his fax number so I could send my resume. I was obviously very excited about the idea of a job with the NHL. So I quickly updated my resume and sent it over. I had to add a cover page, and not being a man of many words (you'd never know it from this - haha), I just put my name and number, and "Hockey is my life!" in fairly large font. OK, so maybe this was a little immature, but I was excited, and I figured my resume would speak for itself. Also, I was confident that I would ace any interview, as I had done well in several interviews at other places before that and I felt like I had the hang of it.
So the next week I got on a train to Manhattan from the nearby Brewster, NY station to go to my interview.
Other than a pretty neat display case with hockey memorabilia including a full-size goal and some signed jerseys, the NHL headquarters office was more or less like any other corporate office. My first interview was with the IT guy for whom I would be working. I did OK, because it was somewhat technical. The next interview was with his boss, and I was told it was just for him to see if he was comfortable with me. After sitting with this gentleman for a few minutes, the manager comes back into the office where I was talking to the supervisor and shoves my fax cover sheet in front of me and says "Don't do this." I was stumped. I did not know if he was joking or if he was actually annoyed that I had tried to be lighthearted in a fax. It was just cover sheet, after all. I just grinned and said "OK" sheepishly. At that point my confidence was well shaken, but I pulled myself together enough to get out without completely embarrassing myself. I learned that the job would actually include going to the home offices of each of the teams in the NHL to install applications for them. I thought this could be very good.
Eventually, they did actually offer me the position, but the salary they were willing to pay was only about 20% more than I was making at IBM. This sounds good, but the fact that it would mean either moving closer to Manhattan or commuting for more than 2 hours per day, plus investing in real business attire (and the dry-cleaning bills to go along with that) made it a very poor financial deal for me. Add to that the lengths to which the manager went in order to convince me that the job would be no fun at all, and not related to hockey at all, and I finally had to turn them down. It was one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make.
I still think about what could have been, had I taken that job. But that's water under the bridge (or ice) now.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
My First Corporate Job - 1994
I graduated from RPI in June of 1993 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. After failing to receive any viable job offers with the undergraduate degree, I returned to RPI for an MBA in August of 1993.
Since I knew that having an MBA without any real work experience (not counting my summer job as a laborer and data-entry technician for my Grandparents irrigation business in the Hamptons) would probably make me less than marketable, I decided take a semester off of school to do a Co-op with a local company to get some real business experience. Since my intention was to get my MBA concentration in manufacturing (a good compliment to my engineering degree), I thought an engineering co-op would be a good choice. And, since most of the other applicants for those co-op jobs would be undergraduate students, I would have an advantage with a full engineering degree already on my resume.
I ended up vying for a position with a local manufacturer in the paper industry, Albany International. They are a multinational corporation, and the division for which I would be working made giant fabric loops that act as filters on paper-making machines. When I say giant, I mean giant - the fabrics were woven in continuous loops on looms that were as big as 60 feet across.
I was chosen to interview for the company, and I think they had selected only 3-4 candidates for the interviews. It turned out that one of the other candidates was one of my fraternity brothers from Acacia, and I felt kind of bad because he assumed (maybe correctly) that he had little chance of winning the position over me due to his status as an undergraduate student and mine as a holder of a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Of course, I did not feel bad enough to give up my quest for the job. This was for my future after all.
However, I began to have doubts about this job when I heard a rumor about the previous co-op student with this employer. Apparently, this previous student/employee, who was in my class at RPI but familiar to me, had actually been killed on the job a few months earlier. You see, these giant looms have lots of moving parts driven by very powerful hydraulics. Everyone who works on or near the machines is given a padlock to which only they have the key. If you are going to work on a loom, you would put your padlock on the main power switch for the unit, locking it in the off position while you worked. This young man had decided to take some measurements on an idle machine while the operator was on a break. But for some reason, he neglected to padlock the switch. The operator came back and started the machine, and the poor guy was crushed by huge metal arms that move about 4 feet in either direction with great speed and power. He lived for a few days in a coma, but never recovered.
To my surprise, the interviewer actually brought up the story and explained to me what had happened. He asked me if this scared me. I said it was unfortunate, but I have a "healthy respect" for large machinery. I had worked on concrete mobiles with my Dad when I about 12 years old, doing jobs that in retrospect were pretty scary, and a kid would probably never be let near the things today, but I learned to be careful, to understand the risks, and to keep myself out of trouble. Apparently, I impressed the interviewer enough to get the job. It did not pay much, but I was a student, so any income made me feel rich. It was more than I had made previously, and I had very little in the way of expenses.
The best thing was that the job was 7 AM to 3:30 PM five days a week. So not only was I making money, but I had no homework and afternoons, evenings, and weekends with no obligations.
The job itself turned out to be boring, at least at first. I was sent on a mission that I thought was futile - they wanted me, a rookie engineer, to take a whole bunch of measurements on these giant looms using slightly different settings to see if I could find a pattern in the effects of those settings on the overall quality of the output. Basically, this 100+ year old company thought that maybe I could somehow find a way to improve the quality of their products from 3% variation to 2% variation in a 6-month effort. Eventually, I tried explaining to my boss that if they really wanted to improve the quality, they needed to determine what was happening at the molecular level during the weaving process. They needed to do finite element analysis (FEA to us engineer). So he got me in touch with their R&D department, at which point I found out that of course they were in the process of obtaining computers capable of doing such modeling already. Meanwhile, I had already spent months gathering and analyzing data from my measurements (always taken with my padlock in its proper place). My results showed almost nothing of statistical importance in my opinion. A statistics expert from a local university was brought in and he confirmed this.
However unimportant my work turned out to be for the company, it was very important to me. This was 1994, so my analysis was all done on a PC with a 33MHz processor. Yes, that's 33, as in my current PC runs at 2,400 MHz. And despite my very early request for a "real" database program to use like MS Access 2.0, I was forced to do all of the analysis in Excel 4.0. Since I had already developed my policy of "anything I have to do more than twice should be automated," I spent a good deal of my time programming in Visual Basic to make it easier to enter and analyze the data I was collecting. This was actually requested by my boss, too, because he wanted to be able to continue the measurements after I left, but he wouldn't know how to get Excel to do the analysis. So, I needed to create an interface that he could use without me.
It turned out that I really enjoyed the programming part of the job, but I did not really get anything out of working with the machines (despite the thrill of defying death every day). So when I returned to my MBA program the following semester, I changed my focus from manufacturing to Management Information Systems (MIS).
Whatever was happening at work, my life outside of the job during that time (July - Dec 1994) was nothing short of fantastic. I was living in an apartment near the RPI campus with my best friend Lars and another guy named Eric who was a good friend of Lars. I was still involved with my fraternity, but I really had no responsibilities other than work.
So my schedule consisted of playing soccer with Lars and Eric on a local men's league team, and playing hockey in intramural leagues and pick-up games. Fortunately, I also chose this time to go on a diet. That combined with my schedule of rigorouse exercise resulted in me losing about 40 pounds and getting into what is still the best shape of my life.
My normal weekday went like this: 7-3:30 work at Albany International. Come home and eat a salad as a snack. Go to nearby RPI field to play in a pickup soccer game (the students from Europe and South America played every day, and they always wanted another goalie) until 5 or 6 PM. Come home and eat dinner - usually pasta and meat sauce. Rest for a while (browse the then-infant internet at 14.4kbs). Play 1-2 hours of ice hockey.
On the weekends I would also have league soccer games and and lost of strenuous partying at the fraternity.
It was the "Summer of Dan." That was until I played in my first hockey game in a full-checking league at RPI in the fall. I went for a puck in the corner, and some overzealous player on the other team cross-checked me from behind. I went into the boards hard and got up slowly. When I got to the bench I realized my shoulder was sore, but I finished the game. The next morning when I woke up to go to work, my shoulder had become so sore that I could barely move. I struggled to roll out of bed and I literally crawled to the phone. I called my boss and told him I wouldn't be coming in. I got to the infirmary somehow (not sure if Lars took me there or what). It turned out that I had a separated shoulder. My arm was in a sling and would be so for the next 4-6 weeks. It was like an eternity for me. I went from extremely active to inactive overnight. I was not happy. I did recover and eventually played a few games in that checking league (after buying better shoulder pads for myself), but that would be my only season of full-contact hockey. It just wasn't that much better to make it worth the extra risk of injury.
So I completed my co-op assignment in December, 1994, and prepared to go back to school, now a semester behind all of the people with whom I had started the MBA program. I was also armed with some real corporate experience, more confidence (due to the experience and my new slimmer physique), and a new focus on information technology.
I'll end with this little quip that was the funniest moment I had on the job: My boss was named Richard, but his co-workers called him Dick. One day a co-worker was talking to someone near Dick's desk and wanted to write something down. So he looked over and said "Hey, you got a pencil, Dick."
"My wife seems to think so," was the immediate reply. I guess it's not that funny now, but it was my first exposure to off-color humor in an otherwise stuffy workplace, so I almost fell over laughing.
Since I knew that having an MBA without any real work experience (not counting my summer job as a laborer and data-entry technician for my Grandparents irrigation business in the Hamptons) would probably make me less than marketable, I decided take a semester off of school to do a Co-op with a local company to get some real business experience. Since my intention was to get my MBA concentration in manufacturing (a good compliment to my engineering degree), I thought an engineering co-op would be a good choice. And, since most of the other applicants for those co-op jobs would be undergraduate students, I would have an advantage with a full engineering degree already on my resume.
I ended up vying for a position with a local manufacturer in the paper industry, Albany International. They are a multinational corporation, and the division for which I would be working made giant fabric loops that act as filters on paper-making machines. When I say giant, I mean giant - the fabrics were woven in continuous loops on looms that were as big as 60 feet across.
I was chosen to interview for the company, and I think they had selected only 3-4 candidates for the interviews. It turned out that one of the other candidates was one of my fraternity brothers from Acacia, and I felt kind of bad because he assumed (maybe correctly) that he had little chance of winning the position over me due to his status as an undergraduate student and mine as a holder of a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Of course, I did not feel bad enough to give up my quest for the job. This was for my future after all.
However, I began to have doubts about this job when I heard a rumor about the previous co-op student with this employer. Apparently, this previous student/employee, who was in my class at RPI but familiar to me, had actually been killed on the job a few months earlier. You see, these giant looms have lots of moving parts driven by very powerful hydraulics. Everyone who works on or near the machines is given a padlock to which only they have the key. If you are going to work on a loom, you would put your padlock on the main power switch for the unit, locking it in the off position while you worked. This young man had decided to take some measurements on an idle machine while the operator was on a break. But for some reason, he neglected to padlock the switch. The operator came back and started the machine, and the poor guy was crushed by huge metal arms that move about 4 feet in either direction with great speed and power. He lived for a few days in a coma, but never recovered.
To my surprise, the interviewer actually brought up the story and explained to me what had happened. He asked me if this scared me. I said it was unfortunate, but I have a "healthy respect" for large machinery. I had worked on concrete mobiles with my Dad when I about 12 years old, doing jobs that in retrospect were pretty scary, and a kid would probably never be let near the things today, but I learned to be careful, to understand the risks, and to keep myself out of trouble. Apparently, I impressed the interviewer enough to get the job. It did not pay much, but I was a student, so any income made me feel rich. It was more than I had made previously, and I had very little in the way of expenses.
The best thing was that the job was 7 AM to 3:30 PM five days a week. So not only was I making money, but I had no homework and afternoons, evenings, and weekends with no obligations.
The job itself turned out to be boring, at least at first. I was sent on a mission that I thought was futile - they wanted me, a rookie engineer, to take a whole bunch of measurements on these giant looms using slightly different settings to see if I could find a pattern in the effects of those settings on the overall quality of the output. Basically, this 100+ year old company thought that maybe I could somehow find a way to improve the quality of their products from 3% variation to 2% variation in a 6-month effort. Eventually, I tried explaining to my boss that if they really wanted to improve the quality, they needed to determine what was happening at the molecular level during the weaving process. They needed to do finite element analysis (FEA to us engineer). So he got me in touch with their R&D department, at which point I found out that of course they were in the process of obtaining computers capable of doing such modeling already. Meanwhile, I had already spent months gathering and analyzing data from my measurements (always taken with my padlock in its proper place). My results showed almost nothing of statistical importance in my opinion. A statistics expert from a local university was brought in and he confirmed this.
However unimportant my work turned out to be for the company, it was very important to me. This was 1994, so my analysis was all done on a PC with a 33MHz processor. Yes, that's 33, as in my current PC runs at 2,400 MHz. And despite my very early request for a "real" database program to use like MS Access 2.0, I was forced to do all of the analysis in Excel 4.0. Since I had already developed my policy of "anything I have to do more than twice should be automated," I spent a good deal of my time programming in Visual Basic to make it easier to enter and analyze the data I was collecting. This was actually requested by my boss, too, because he wanted to be able to continue the measurements after I left, but he wouldn't know how to get Excel to do the analysis. So, I needed to create an interface that he could use without me.
It turned out that I really enjoyed the programming part of the job, but I did not really get anything out of working with the machines (despite the thrill of defying death every day). So when I returned to my MBA program the following semester, I changed my focus from manufacturing to Management Information Systems (MIS).
Whatever was happening at work, my life outside of the job during that time (July - Dec 1994) was nothing short of fantastic. I was living in an apartment near the RPI campus with my best friend Lars and another guy named Eric who was a good friend of Lars. I was still involved with my fraternity, but I really had no responsibilities other than work.
So my schedule consisted of playing soccer with Lars and Eric on a local men's league team, and playing hockey in intramural leagues and pick-up games. Fortunately, I also chose this time to go on a diet. That combined with my schedule of rigorouse exercise resulted in me losing about 40 pounds and getting into what is still the best shape of my life.
My normal weekday went like this: 7-3:30 work at Albany International. Come home and eat a salad as a snack. Go to nearby RPI field to play in a pickup soccer game (the students from Europe and South America played every day, and they always wanted another goalie) until 5 or 6 PM. Come home and eat dinner - usually pasta and meat sauce. Rest for a while (browse the then-infant internet at 14.4kbs). Play 1-2 hours of ice hockey.
On the weekends I would also have league soccer games and and lost of strenuous partying at the fraternity.
It was the "Summer of Dan." That was until I played in my first hockey game in a full-checking league at RPI in the fall. I went for a puck in the corner, and some overzealous player on the other team cross-checked me from behind. I went into the boards hard and got up slowly. When I got to the bench I realized my shoulder was sore, but I finished the game. The next morning when I woke up to go to work, my shoulder had become so sore that I could barely move. I struggled to roll out of bed and I literally crawled to the phone. I called my boss and told him I wouldn't be coming in. I got to the infirmary somehow (not sure if Lars took me there or what). It turned out that I had a separated shoulder. My arm was in a sling and would be so for the next 4-6 weeks. It was like an eternity for me. I went from extremely active to inactive overnight. I was not happy. I did recover and eventually played a few games in that checking league (after buying better shoulder pads for myself), but that would be my only season of full-contact hockey. It just wasn't that much better to make it worth the extra risk of injury.
So I completed my co-op assignment in December, 1994, and prepared to go back to school, now a semester behind all of the people with whom I had started the MBA program. I was also armed with some real corporate experience, more confidence (due to the experience and my new slimmer physique), and a new focus on information technology.
I'll end with this little quip that was the funniest moment I had on the job: My boss was named Richard, but his co-workers called him Dick. One day a co-worker was talking to someone near Dick's desk and wanted to write something down. So he looked over and said "Hey, you got a pencil, Dick."
"My wife seems to think so," was the immediate reply. I guess it's not that funny now, but it was my first exposure to off-color humor in an otherwise stuffy workplace, so I almost fell over laughing.
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