Kevin's Watch

Everyone at my workplace is freaking out because OS Card is coming to speak at our All Staff Training Day.
I seem to be in the minority that is excited a famous Sci-Fi author is coming to speak, rather than pissed that a flaming bigot is.
I didn't realize until I started working at a library that I'm more conservative than I thought...at least compared to some of my more intensely liberal co-workers.

And the pisser is, the last 5 ASTDs I've gone to have had reaaaaaly crappy speakers. Now we get a good one, and everyone is up at arms.

balon! wrote:Everyone at my workplace is freaking out because OS Card is coming to speak at our All Staff Training Day.
I seem to be in the minority that is excited a famous Sci-Fi author is coming to speak, rather than pissed that a flaming bigot is.
I didn't realize until I started working at a library that I'm more conservative than I thought...at least compared to some of my more intensely liberal co-workers.

And the pisser is, the last 5 ASTDs I've gone to have had reaaaaaly crappy speakers. Now we get a good one, and everyone is up at arms.

Hi Balon, can you give a context to this Speech and your Workplace? If your place of work is a Bookstore, WTF is wrong with them, even if they disagree with his personal views? If not, yea, I can imagine he may address unpopular opinions in his speech in some settings

Library's the place
That balon! says he works at;
Not bookstore, but close

Dread Poet Jethro wrote:Library's the place
That balon! says he works at;
Not bookstore, but close

OK, Library, yea, for them to "Poo-Poo" Orson, IMHO, is gross incompetence to their jobs. He's famous, has a rabid following, and therefore contributes to their employment, IMHO. I can't imagine they wouldn't want to hear his views on things other than their queasy spot of Bigotry. I'd look forward to seeing any famous Published Genre Author Speak, including Greg, Christopher and Dennis, the well known authors of Star Trek Series and Books (And other SF/F Series) who I trade posts with on TrekBBS daily/weekly.

I'll try to get some video of his speech, it should be good. My cellphone is little iffy but we'll see.

Essentially a large group of my fellow employees are having trouble separating their personal opinions from they're workplace attitude. Meh. I tell ya what, I'm gonna get my book signed!! Maybe a couple if the line is short...haha

sindatur wrote:OK, Library, yea, for them to "Poo-Poo" Orson, IMHO, is gross incompetence to their jobs. He's famous, has a rabid following, and therefore contributes to their employment, IMHO. I can't imagine they wouldn't want to hear his views on things other than their queasy spot of Bigotry. I'd look forward to seeing any famous Published Genre Author Speak, including Greg, Christopher and Dennis, the well known authors of Star Trek Series and Books (And other SF/F Series) who I trade posts with on TrekBBS daily/weekly.

Thanks man. I feel pretty much exactly that. It's weird behaviour, and seems a little bit mob-ish...

I have no idea who Orson Scott Card is.

balon! - are you saying Card is a bigot? or that your other speakers have been bigots.

it occurs that other than Julie (who has renounced membership here) I may be the person least interested and/or knowledged in a ton of fantasy/sci-fi stuff that everyone else here can use as a common language.

hell I haven't started the last Chronicles yet.

Card wrote the very famous and successful Ender's Game series, among others.

He's also well known for his personal opinions, having in the past supported bans on gay sex, gay marriage, and has expressed his beliefs that homosexuality is linked to rape and child abuse. His views on this don't seem to appear often in his fiction, but he did write a reimagining of Hamlet where all of Hamlet's problems were caused by his gay pedophile father...

He would definately be a controversial figure. Doesn't mean his early novels are suddenly not good, of course.

Anyway, in balon's situation I can understand questioning the decision to have him there, but when he actually appears professionalism is what's called for - talk about the books, not his views.

Our apprentice girl at work gets paid half the minnimum wage - £2.80 ($3.75ish) per hour. She works 40 hours doing the same job that other staff a year or two older but employed after she started get £5.80 per hour for. She works early shifts (6.15 am start) and late finishes (11.00pm) in 8 hour shifts five days a week.

The government benefits - they get to show a reduction in unemployment. The 'Job-Center' benefits - they get to show that they are shifting unemployed youngsters into work. The local college benefit - they get the money for overseeing her 'NVQ' qualification, they get to fill the useless great college built to take all the surplus youngsters off the streets and furnish them all with useless qualifications in 'retail services' (shelf-stacking and till work. ie unskilled labour) and most importantly they get to earn £40,000 a year going around watching the very kids they have duped into taking these phoney 'training schemes' that they themselves are dependant on. The employer benefits - he gets to employ a kid for shit, work them like a dog for twelve months and then spit them out and get another. The one person - the one person to whom none of this is of any benefit whatsoever is the central object of the whole corrupt scheme - the girl herself. The kid who is flogged like a dray horse to wring a level of work out of her that those people who contrived to get her into would run a mile if it was suggested that they do half so much themselves. Shame on them all - shame on the lot of them!

I'm Murrin wrote:Card wrote the very famous and successful Ender's Game series, among others.

He's also well known for his personal opinions, having in the past supported bans on gay sex, gay marriage, and has expressed his beliefs that homosexuality is linked to rape and child abuse.

Guess that makes me a flaming bigot too (although I can't go with the last part of the sentence). Maybe then, I'm just a bigot. At least I'm in good company.

*shakes fist at rapists and child abusers*

murrin - thanks. have never read Enders and doubt I ever will. had no idea of his views either. thank you for the recap.

I'm Murrin wrote:Anyway, in balon's situation I can understand questioning the decision to have him there, but when he actually appears professionalism is what's called for - talk about the books, not his views.

Pretty much how I feel. As long as he talks about books, the entire reason we hired him, I've got no problem.

deer of the dawn wrote:Guess that makes me a flaming bigot too (although I can't go with the last part of the sentence). Maybe then, I'm just a bigot. At least I'm in good company.

*shakes fist at rapists and child abusers*

Gah! Sorry deer, I should've been more clear. I don't have a problem with Card, and I sure as hell wouldn't refer to him as a bigot, not when all the "non-bigots" are so intent on wearing No-Hate buttons just to piss him off.



Thanks for letting me vent guys, it's been kinda crazy around here.

Why would "no-hate" buttons offend him? I don't hate anyone. I'm for traditional marriage but I love my close relative who is gay and will most likely never ever change. What would hating do?

deer of the dawn wrote:Why would "no-hate" buttons offend him? I don't hate anyone. I'm for traditional marriage but I love my close relative who is gay and will most likely never ever change. What would hating do?

Good point, I suppose he could assume it's just a WA Library-centric thing to do. My thought was that it would be obvious they were all wearing buttons for him. It's not something worn on a ussual basis...

:edit:

Here's what I posted to our staff intranet, no one replied.

I don't want to send out an all-staff email (heh) but I really wanted to get my thoughts heard, even (especially) if I'm in the minority.

Having a bunch of employees wear buttons specifically targeted at OSC is only going to harm the people of TRL who actually want Card to be here. Wearing 'No-Hate' buttons at ASTD isn't going to get gay marriage any closer to a reality, and isn’t going to get Card on “your side.” It is an attack, not an effort, and the result will only be embarrassment for me, and others, who aren’t participating. It doesn't seem like professional behaviour to me.

I don't alike his politics. But I still like his books.

--A

Avatar wrote:I don't alike his politics. But I still like his books.

I like his books and I'm really surprised to find that his personal views are so at odds with the fairly consistent theme of listening, understanding and accepting that are especially part of the concept of the Speaker for the Dead.

There's nowt as queer as folk! (Pun noted )

u.

I'll spare you the details.

Get off of my lawn! *grumble*Loud neighbors..*grumble*

I. M. Frustrated.
(note the incoherence.)

I'm trying to work out my tutoring schedule...
Trying to organize things so that stuff works out well for me. (reduce travel time, etc.... good business sense stuff, but sometimes FEELS like I'm doing something wrong even if I'm not.)

But then doing a bad job of communicating with students.
(I'm mailing people with last minute "hey can we change the time?" requests, and I'm saying I can do certain times when sometimes -I- -CAN'T-... actually really not-cool stuff.)

Also, when I start working on doing my communications with tutoring clients, I start get distracted and think of one after another things I should do, try, or investigate.

Kinda like the following literary character, except not having nearly as much fun:

So I decide to look at a few 'city breaks' for later in the year and type 'City Break' into Google. It prompts me with 'City Breaks from London' and I think "yeah - thats what I want" so I hit the prompt. It serves me up with 8 million hits of 'City Breaks to London'.

'To London' - 'From London'. 'Tooo London' - 'Froom London'. Get it? It's different! Bastards!