It was bound to happen, my comments on the verdict.

I have been asked by some to give my views on this Zimmerman verdict through this blog.  I have initially resisted giving my views publically, as I’d rather let the hot emotions from others cool.  I would like to make this clear up front:  I’m dismayed that an issue of right and wrong has been turned into an issue of race.  On the topic of race, I need to get this on the table: 

Al  Sharpton, Jesse  Jackson, and Ben Jealous are not leaders of the Black community.  I never got that ballot in my mail to elect our race’s leader, and neither did any other Black friend or family member I have.  These are people that have been designated leaders by media outlets that are NOT run by any Black person. Think about that.  No Black people I know of under 65 belongs to the NAACP!  No Black people I know see Jackson and Sharpton as any more than obsolete has-beens and publicity hounds.  Sorry it’s true.  Cats like Jackson and Sharpton haven’t been relevant since the 70s, and they serve only the interest of ignorant racists who need to put a face on Black America that feeds into their stereotypes as Blacks as a bunch of whiney, super-liberal, selective alarmists who don’t really care for the interests of people outside of our own.  These guys lost credibility with me and many other educated and younger Blacks when we discovered they have done NOTHING to address the thousands of Black men and boys killed by other Black men and boys each year in this country, but magically want to protest and bitch the moment a Black man or boy is killed by a person who is not Black.  These men did great things for civil rights in the 60s, but their time has passed.  Again, they serve only the interests of bigots, and political and economic opportunists looking to score political or economic gains off of racial shit-stirring.    

Back to the Zimmerman case.  To me, this was not an issue of race, nor was it of “stand your ground.”  This was an issue of right and wrong and awful decision making that lead to a 17 year olds death.  I hold a concealed carry permit and sometimes carry a handgun in public.  According to the state I reside, there are things I legally cannot do, and then there are things that I simply should not do.  For example, I cannot legally bring a weapon into an establishment that serves booze then consume that booze while armed.   Though not illegal according to state law, it’s highly frowned upon, according to the NRA sanctioned concealed carry safety courses, to follow a stranger while armed.  Why is obvious: It puts you into a dangerous situation where you face civil or possible criminal prosecution if you following and confronting a stranger leads to you using your weapon (For example, the guy you are following has a gun, he sees you as a threat, a firefight breaks out, and a bystander gets hit).  Secondly, it puts you in a situation where your weapon can be used against you.  He, the adult armed with a firearm, unwisely chose to leave his vehicle and not wait for the police to follow a total stranger, who turned out to be an unarmed 17 year old .  At this point, he’s wrong, period.   Anything after that (who attacked who first, who was screaming for help, for example) is irrelevant as Zimmerman has not only disobeyed a police dispatcher, but has also disobeyed something that is taught on day one of any firearms safety course:  DO NOT bring a firearm into a potentially dangerous situation.  Unfortunately, in the court of law, you can’t necessarily go to jail for terrible decision making even if someone gets killed, so the verdict did not shock me.  All the defense had to do was prove reasonable doubt, and they did.  And right, wrong, or indifferent, a jury following the guidelines had little choice but to not ignore that reasonable doubt.   At the same time, this same state put a woman in prison for 20 years for firing a warning shot around her abusive husband, and acquitted another woman that killed her kids.  So who knows, even if it was harder to prove reasonable doubt would the verdict would be any different.

Another issue this case should have generated discussion on instead of race, is class and connections, and how the criminal justice system is far from blind.  Zimmerman in my view never should have had a concealed carry permit to begin with.  He had been arrested for domestic violence and assaulting a police officer.  None of which led to convictions, in my view due to the fact his father is a retired judge.  But we don’t need to just take my word for it on how connections or money can allow you skirt the criminal justice system, look no further than celebrities like Lindsey Lohan who routinely get busted for breaking the law, skips court dates, avoids court ordered rehab, violates probation, and rarely (or never) sees the inside of a prison.  Dante Stallworth, a football player, strikes and kills a pedestrian while driving drunk.  He not goes to jail for only 24 days, but is back playing football the next year.  Middle class Joe Shmoe with no such connections to people in high places, a smaller checking account, with the inability to afford 500 dollar an hour defense attorneys would not be as fortunate and likely be in prison for years.  I also wonder what the outcome of this verdict has been if Martin, regardless of color, was from a politically connected or well to do family, and Zimmerman did not have a father as a retired judge.  My money is Zimmerman would have been arrested on site and convicted with little fanfare.   The prosecution fumbled in my opinion, by not taking the opportunity to put the county that issued Zimmerman his concealed carry on trial.  They did not draw the connection at all between Zimmerman’s father and George’s past arrests.  They never even questioned why two arrests for a violent crime got tossed out of court.  Why did the police officer who was in an altercation with Zimmerman that led to his arrest fail to press charges?  I’m not going to bore anyone with anymore “what ifs” and “whys”, but my point is, you are less likely to face serious consequences of criminal behavior if you are well connected and/or well paid verses not having those same connections or deep pockets.  The national discussion about this has been oddly omitted following this case.   What do we tell our children?  “Always do the right thing?”  Even when the daily news if full of stories about people doing the opposite of which and getting away with it?  Should we be instead telling our kids, "do the right thing, but if you get caught doing otherwise, make sure you know the right people and have the money to pay good defense team”?

In closing, Zimmerman though acquitted, through is foolish and idiotic actions, not only killed a 17 year old boy, gave fuel for the closeted and not-so closeted racists in this country (of all colors), but also did a disservice for law abiding gun owners who choose to do the right thing by carrying a weapon for self-defense, not playing a game of cops and robbers and putting the lives of others in danger just because you couldn’t cut it as a real police officer.  To any wanna-be Zimmerman’s out there:  Mind your own damn business and let the police do what they are paid to do.  If you feel the need to troll your neighborhood with a gun, you need to get up and fucking move or seek professional help.  Yes, you have every right to protect yourself, and my son has every right to walk down the street without being following and approached by some shithead playing cop.  I don’t presume to know, nor care what actually happened in the final seconds of this confrontation other than someone ended up dead.  What I do know is that George, through his awful decision making, and piss-poor judgment, will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, unable to work, likely living in poverty once the legal bills have been paid and the inevitable civil suits run their course.  And frankly, I don’t feel sorry for him.                    

Jobs. Getting them and keeping them.

In my last blog I focused on communication skills. Well, I thought I would expand on that by posting about what has helped me find jobs and keep them. In today’s job market, the doom and gloom seems to be unlimited supply. “The economy is adding jobs very slowly.” “ Salaries have decreased.” Unemployment rate ticks up”, etc, etc. The reality is this, the only thing keeping many people from getting the jobs that are out there (despite the aforementioned doom and gloom, there are plenty of jobs out there not being filled) is people themselves being too complacent and not thinking ahead.

Here are four things that have helped me in this tough job market, in no particular order:

1. Networking. Getting a decent job nowadays is about who you know, not how many job applications you fill out. Degrees, even MBA's, are a dime a dozen in some areas. On top of networking to find a job, companies are relying more on in-house talent to promote the company and add to developing new business. So, once you get that job, a good company knows your social skills can add more reliable talent to their ranks while relying less on human resources, and adding to their bottom line in more ways than one. Individuals moving into management positions at a good company are expected to have good people and social skills. So, what is networking? It can be something as simple as going to a local cigar shop (seriously, I can't count the number of times were people got hooked up with good jobs just by chatting and burning a stogie). I wouldn't waste too much time at job fairs, because the only networking you'll find is with recruiters, who often don't know about the jobs they are trying to fill, and other people also out of work. Job fairs are really more about cheap advertisement for businesses and less about actually hiring people. Understand this, networking IS NOT social media. Linkedin comes close when it comes to career networking in the cyber-world, but it’s a far cry from old-fashioned, old-school, face to face interaction. If you think that getting and keeping a job these days is only about experience, education, and the numbers of applications and resumes submitted online, your mind-set is obsolete. It’s time to brush up on those social skills.

2. Get specialized experience through volunteer work. Very few organizations will turn down free labor. Think the weekend. This way, you get the hands-on experience and the networking opportunities. The latter of which, helps facilitate number 1.

3. Be willing to move. If you don't want too far away from where you grew up to find work, you are limiting yourself. There are places in this country, albeit not the most happening places, that have good paying jobs going un-filled because people won't move. I understand that it’s hard to move yourself, or especially your family, possibly somewhere distant, to find work. But the reality is, moving is a better pill to swallow than being poor and out of work, or at best, at a dead end menial job that barely takes care of the basic needs.

4. If your job can be done by a computer, robot, or someone overseas for a fraction of your salary, you need to consider making huge changes in your current career path. In other words, if your job is “easy” (See: anyone can do it) be concerned. This is a matter of being forward thinking. Hypothetically, if your job may be replaced by a machine, learn how to repair, program, and run the machine before you are replaced by that machine. This is the type of mentality you need. If your job can be done in Southeast Asia for less than minimum wage money, start looking into careers where your job can’t be done outside of the country. As an employee, you have to think like a ruthless businessman. Ask yourself “I need to shrink the company and reduce spending to increase profits, which jobs are expendable?” If you think yours is, guess what? Look into the jobs that are much less expendable before the pink slips start rolling out. For example, I learned early in my career that a windows desktop support specialist/windows system administrator was a job with shrinking prospects and shrinking salaries. Why? Because even most entry level cubicle jockeys are expected to know how to perform basic to intermediate windows troubleshooting long before they pick up a phone to contact the help-desk. The decreased cost and increased reliability of IT hardware also plays a role. It’s very often cheaper these days to purchase then replace malfunctioning hardware than have someone on staff paid to fix it. 10-15 years ago, an IT support shop in a medium sized company may have had dozens of people. Now, you may have 1-3 people doing that same work. And that’s if that work isn’t done remotely out of state or overseas. Anyway, as you can see, doing a little research about your current career and the future of it now, it can save you heartbreak and distress later on down the line.

From my own experience, after leaving the army right at the economic downturn, I've been fortunate. Despite having a history degree, I've gotten good paying jobs in engineering and IT, due to years of hands on experience, volunteering, being willing to move a few times, and being proactive by networking. I'm not the brightest person in the world, nor do I have an advanced technical degree, so if I can survive this economy, anyone can with the right amount of effort and forward thinking.

Communicate and socialize, or starve.

In today’s competitive job market, many are asking; what is the “silver bullet” for competing on the job market?  My view on this is simple:  Work on your social skills, or face a hard life.  You can't make it in today's workplace without social and communication skills, period, no matter how impressive your resume is, how much education you have, or even how well you interview.  And no, being able to interview well doesn't equate to having good social skills.  There are very few jobs today, even in the tech and engineering fields; where anti-social and introverted people can earn a living hiding in a corner somewhere working. 

  

I disagree with those who call the "who you know" thing unfair because the "best" candidates are not chosen.  A great resume and work experience doesn't guarantee the "best" employee much less the best fit for a company anyway.  It's very simple:  Get to know someone in the company or field you want to work in, or if you are really in a bind, anyone who is employed at all (a common mistake is that people out of work form bonds with other people who are also out of work).  Chat with people in settings outside of job fairs (which I find a waste of time frankly) and online job search sites.  Learn the ancient art of face to face conversation.  Trust me, it pays. Why is this?  It's been my experience that employees make MUCH better talent scouts than recruiters, who are often less than the best, because they can't get much past word matching with a resume with the job opening.  Hell, some of the recruiters who spend hours looking at hundreds of resumes are themselves socially challenged. 

Plus, who wants someone with a bunch of education and certifications that can't get along with their coworkers?  I work for a consulting/tech company and we have had guys with impressive resumes and work experience at our company that some of our clients barely knew existed, because they didn't bother building any sort of bonds with them (or their coworkers).  They just did their jobs well, did the bare minimum of communication, and called it a day.  What do you think happens to those people who can't build relationships with the people they work with (or for) when the belt has to be tightened?

If someone is savvy enough to use friends or acquaintances to get a job, obviously, they can think on their feet and figure out how to build relationships with other strangers to make the company money.  This is much more than having "happy shining people" holding hands at the workplace, but more-so the bottom line.  Say your company wants to expand its portfolio and move into other unfamiliar markets.  Are they going to send the socially awkward "smartest guy in the room" to potential clients, partners, and subsidiaries, or are they going to send someone who knows how to have conversations with complete strangers?  From a historical context, companies like IBM a long time ago found out the hard way by focusing only on resumes and education to staff their workforce; they had a company that full of brilliant, hard working, but inflexible and socially awkward people and managers that were ill prepared for a changing tech market.  What's worse, the few employees that they did have social skills bolted to microsoft, google, and apple.  As such, the latter companies ate IBM’s lunch.  Eventually, IBM diversified into other markets, but the damage had been done.    

In other words, stop whining about cronyism and nepotism, and work on polishing your social and communication skills. It will not only help you get a job, but it will help you keep your job, and push you up the ladder.      

What does the future look like?

I just answered a question that had been posted online.  It asked, what does the future look like according to you?  Since the beginning of time, I could imagine that man often pondered this question.  From the Mayans to the cold war era “The Jetsons” view of the future, it’s a fascinating subject.  I’m not one to believe in the “doom and gloom” versions of the future, people have been predicting “the end” for quite some time, and history has shown they are batting at .000.  

My view of the future is based on some pretty obvious stuff:  The population will grow as people will live longer and the life expectancies in currently developing countries will be much longer.  The need for resources for this growing population will drive innovation.  Energy will play a huge role in the future.  An important x-factor will be transportation.  In less than 100 years, humans went from wood and canvas flying machines to supersonic jets, rockets, and space shuttles.  The next 100 years will see transportation technology that will make the current means human travel seem ancient.            

So what exactly would I see in the future?  I would look into the future and see the end of institutional religion as we know them.  I’m personally not an atheist or agnostic, but a large amount of people on this planet are simply not mature and rational enough to see religion as a means of peace and education, not a means to hate others for not agreeing with your religion.  Therefore, moderate and rational people will place less time, passion, and effort into these religions, and they will eventually lose influences over the masses, and then die off as a result.  Once the power of institutional religion is gone, we will see a future of unprecedented scientific, social, and technological progress.  The future man will be a spiritual person, not a religious one, as he had in the past. 

I see a future where most humans will be racially ambiguous due to generations of mixing of different races.  A mixture of dominant genes from several races will dictate the physical appearance of future humans.  As mentioned, scientific and medical advances will take place and people will ultimately live longer; A lot longer.  This means the living population on earth will ultimately expand even more.  First, technology will allow humans, who at some point will have exhausted most of the space on “suitable” land; to figure out how to live comfortably in deserts and arctic areas.  Then humans; since 2/3s of the planet is under water, will build self-contained and self sufficient cities under water; first in bays or off shore, then in the middle of the oceans.  Eventually, humans will colonize habitable planets within the our galaxy or possibly solar system, facilitated by spacecraft using advanced propulsion technology able to travel at sub-light speeds, will be able to send groups of people to the edges of our solar system within months. 

The struggle for energy will be a thing of the past.  Tesla’s theories of electric currents in the atmosphere and in space, and the safe transfer of wireless energy, will eventually be proven true, and wireless energy will be collected from space to be used to power man’s machines and cities on the earth.  There will be no need for power plants, fossil fuels, generators, or even nuclear reactors.  Automobiles will largely be electric and with the perfection of safe, wireless electric transmission; expensive, heavy, and toxic batteries will go away.  Water will be a sought after resource, and therefore desalination technology of the future will facilitate supplying not only a large population with potable drinking water, but irrigation for agriculture in places where there were not previously agriculture helping to feed this larger population. 

Advances in communication will also be dramatic.  Gone will be the days of laptops, computers, keyboards, computer mice, and even smart phones.  Small, button-less, screen-less, voice (or fingerprint) activated electronic devices, little bigger than a modern credit card will be able to act as a phone, a TV, a radio, an internet browser, a book reader, a navigation system, a computer, and a house key.  It will be used to stream in holographic images of TV shows, the news, movies, the internet, and make video calls from anywhere without the need for impractical and expensive audio/visual equipment or even an internal power source. 

The military of the future will also be a different place as civilization will grow weary of casualties in conflict.  However, a few will still conduct war.  In the future, unmanned fighter craft and bombers will eventually replace humans in the cockpits.  Naval warships will also be notably absent of human sailors.   Advances in robotics will also lead to more ground armies made up of autonomous or remote controlled machines capable of moving on all known land terrain, without the logistical needs required for a human foot soldier.  It may be very feasible that in the future, the outcome of wars will be decided on whose machines inflict the most damage on the on their opponents machines without a single human war casualty.  Conventional weapons technology of the future will also be so devastating and frightening, that most countries will rarely conduct warfare at all. 

This is what I would expect to see in the future based not simply of me guessing, but based on the past innovations that started in the industrial revolution and the historically constant needs of humans.  Very few people 150 years ago could have predicted how life would be today.  So I don’t think my predictions are really that far out there.