Malletrivia

Effective performance review techniques

It's time for the annual performance review at the 'Soft, and I [and other managers, I assume] have been getting lots of email from the HR department with [supposedly] helpful tips about how to deliver "tough messages" to folks who "didn't meet expectations". Personally, I think this example of how to do it is much more useful than anything I've gotten from HR so far.

PS: Although, to be fully effective, Bogroll's "manager" should also have provided constructive feedback, maybe suggesting that Bogroll focus on emulating one of the darker-hued species of butterfly, possibly even a "cycloptic" moth like the Polyphemus moth.

[H/T to Notional Slurry for pointing me to PartiallyClips].

Onion brilliance, again.

More fun with Wikipedia.

Xander: year one

Today is Xander's first birthday. And it looks like he may be giving us a birthday present, instead of the other way around: finally sleeping through the night, which we've been trying to get him to do for the last 6 months. He's now done it two nights in a row, so maybe we're finally over that hump.

In any case, it's been great fun watching him change from a little blob capable of little except the most basic bodily functions to a little tornado with a big personality. He's now constantly in motion, and gets from point A to point B so quickly that you really do have to watch him every second. He's fascinated by lights, and will request, nay, demand, to be picked up and carried over to a switch so he can flip the lights on and off. In keeping with that, his first word is/was "Licht" [German for "light"], which he uses pretty indiscriminately to indicate anything that he thinks is cool. Like his dad, he loves real German pretzels, chocolate, and Haribo gummy bears, and will loudly register his displeasure should you happen to be eating any of these things and not give him any. Cables and wheels, or anything that spins, fascinate him -- he'll attempt to drag around anything that has a cable attached to it, including 6-foot floor lamps. And he's become quite the mimic as well, doing things like also trying to wipe off the table when he sees me cleaning up the messy aftermath of his meals.

The most important part, though, is that he's a healthy, happy little fellow.

Happy birthday, Xander ! You're all I could have wished for in a child, and I love you very, very much.

Signed,
a proud father.

A surfeit of cynicism

It's a sad commentary on the state of African politicians when your first reaction to reading the sentence

"Frederick Chiluba is accused of stealing $500,000 from the state coffers between 1991 to 2001, while he was president." (of Zambia)

is "That's it, that's all he stole ?"

"Hi, my name is Alex, and I have a drug problem"

... and this problem takes the form of a drug dealer that lives a block away from our new house, and does a brisk business. Strangely enough, he was not listed as a neighborhood convenience ["Only one block away from recreational drugs !"] in the sales ad for the house, and neither the sellers nor their real estate agent mentioned anything about him, even in response to direct questions of the form "What's the crime rate like around here ?". It took a neighbor to clue us in. Christina and I knew we were moving into a neighborhood "in transition", as the euphemism has it, but we figured "It's Seattle, how bad can it be ?" and didn't really bother to dig into crime stats etc for our new neighborhood.

In any case, said gentleman deals only pot [at least that's what I've been told], so it's not like we've got New Jack City going on, but it's still annoying. On the weekends and in the evenings, there's a steady stream of people parking next to our house, walking across the street to get their merchandise, and then driving away. Not the sort of thing I want Xander exposed to. I also fear that the man will be struck with a sudden case of ambition, and decide to diversify his business by expanding into selling other, harder, drugs. And then we'll have to deal with Pookie ...

We've talked to the cops, and they're aware of his activities, but they don't have enough on him to bust him, or search his place. We've been told that the best thing to do is keep calling 911 to report whenever we see somebody going to buy drugs, so that eventually the issue will get enough "hits" to merit putting more cops and narcotics agents on the case. In the mean time, we've also come up with some possible tactics of our own:

1. Influenced perhaps by a few too many episodes of "The Wire", we've offered to let the cops use our house for surveillance
2. We're thinking about putting up signs along our fence that say "No Drug-Buy Parking"
3.  In true capitalist fashion, we could start selling pot ourselves, but at lower prices, and with much better customer service ["Would you like a venti latte while we measure out your dime bag ?"], thereby forcing him out of business. Once he's out of business, we can also close up shop.

... or we could just become potheads and rejoice in the fact that to refill our stash, we just have to walk across the street.