Why Are You Still on Facebook?

Facebook is like a jail. You sit around, waste time, have a profile picture, write on walls and get poked by guys you don’t really know.

SearchQuotes

I’ve never had a Facebook account - never understood the appeal and always thought it was a colossal time-suck. Believe it or not there are other ways to contact your friends. Phone, text and email work just fine for me. If I want to share photos I send a Dropbox link. Facebook is something I could never buy into.

Clearly most of the world doesn’t agree with me. It’s estimated that over 2 billion people use Facebook on a monthly basis. But, how do you feel now that 50 million Facebook users had their data harvested and passed on to a UK political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, accused of using that data to target US voters during the 2016 US election campaign?

This may come as a shock to you but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to Facebook; it was warned about app permissions back in 2011 and guess what they did about it? NOTHING! And why is that? MONEY! You are a valuable commodity to Facebook. Have you downloaded a copy of your Facebook data yet? You may be shocked and appalled to know that Facebook probably has your entire address book in addition to metadata about your SMS messages and phone calls. While Google and Twitter profile you based on the sites that you visit, Facebook knows your name, where you live, your birthday and so much more – a virtual goldmine in data. In fact researchers estimate that Facebook will generate $21 billion in ad revenue this year, up almost 17% from 2017. 

How many people will actually delete Facebook as a result of this breach of trust? In reality, probably not many; people are too insecure to leave Facebook. They’re afraid they’ll be left behind by their so-called “friends”. If that’s the case I would strongly encourage you to make and cultivate your friends in the real world. Talk on the phone, meet for coffee/lunch/dinner/drinks, go shopping together, take in a show… There’s a wonderful world out there to share with real friends. You don’t need Facebook; Facebook needs you.

So thankful for Facebook! I would have to call 563 people every morning to let them know that I just ate breakfast.

Dumpaday

Make someone smile today.

Geri

The Recruitment Industry is Broken

3 phone interviews, 2 Skype meetings, 7 face-to-face interviews. Sorry we’re changing the role slightly.

Ed Hunter

The recruitment industry is broken and no one wants to fix it. With each passing year it gets worse, although I didn’t believe that was humanly possible. The operative word here is humanly. The humanity has disappeared from the recruitment industry and it’s been overrun by computer algorithms and automated email messages. Sadly, recruiters who understand the jobs they’re looking to fill and the candidates who are good fits for those jobs are a dying breed. Recruiters are now nothing more than order takers who depend on a computer algorithm to select their candidates.

As someone who works on contract, going through the recruitment process on a regular basis is a necessary evil. The number of imbecilic people I have to deal with in order to secure employment makes the mind reel! It’s a wonder that anyone finds works these days. And professional courtesy is dead! After I have one or more face-to-face interviews I expect a phone call to tell me that I did or did not get the job. But sadly that’s not the way it works anymore. If you get the job you’ll get a phone call. If you don’t get the job you’ll get a tacky form email like this:

Dear (insert candidate’s name),

Thank you for taking the time to apply to the role of (insert role). Your submission was reviewed and evaluated against this position's overall candidate pool. Unfortunately, we will not be moving forward with your application at this time. Please know we will keep your profile in our system and that a Recruiter may reach out to you in the future if they have a role that matches your skills and experience.

Thank you for your interest…

Doesn’t it make you wonder how many excellent candidates have never been considered for jobs they were a perfect fit for because of a computer algorithm and an ineffective recruiter? And conversely, how many bad hires have been made for the same reason? Perhaps it's time to turn recruiting over to Artificial Intelligence. At least there would be some form of intelligence and we would no longer have an expectation of humanity.

We’re looking for someone with the wisdom of a 50-year old, the experience of a 40-year old, the drive of a 30-year old and the pay scale of a 20-year old.

RecruitingBlogs

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Geri

Why Am I Paying Handling Fees When Nothing’s Being Handled?

The charges are correct. The airline now charges for emotional baggage as well.

Unknown

Once upon a time, in the olden days, when we purchased tickets to the theatre, we called the theatre, made the purchase over the phone and gave the reservationist our credit card number. Those tickets then had to be printed and mailed. They were actually handled and there were fees involved, which of course were passed along to the consumer.

Now we live in a culture of self-serve. We buy the tickets online with no live intervention. The tickets are emailed to us. We can either print out our tickets or just bring them up on our phones at the theatre for scanning. Then why are we still paying the same handling charge as we used to when tickets were handled?

I recently bought tickets for a play at Stratford. Each ticket included a $2 facility improvement charge and a $4.75 handling charge. This boggles my mind! I’ve never heard of a facility improvement charge and I’d like any normal human being to justify a $4.75 handling charge when I’m the only one doing the handling. In essence they’ve charged me $4.75 for sending me an email. Isn’t that a nice way to gouge the public?

I love Stratford and I understand that they’re a not-for-profit organization, but I hate getting screwed by anyone. Raise the ticket prices if you have to by $4.75 but don’t charge me a handling fee of $4.75 for self-service. It’s the same sort of BS as the banks charging you to use an ATM to access your own money.

We’ve created a self-serve society and I have no objection to that. What I do object to is being charged for service that isn’t being performed.

Shoutout to ATM fees for making me buy my own money.

Unknown

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Why Do You Have to Pay to Use Your Own Parking Pad in Toronto?

The way humans hunt for parking and the way animals hunt for food are not as different as you might think. 
Tom Vanderbilt

Parking spaces are worth more than gold in Toronto and parking pads are now an endangered species. The city apparently doesn’t want to allow any new parking pads; I couldn’t even begin to understand their logic… Torontonians who have no parking have to shell out approximately $200/year for a parking permit. This allows them to park on their street, near their homes (hopefully). If the parking permit allotment for their street is already at capacity they will get a permit for parking on a nearby street, and still pay the same amount of money (even though they’re being inconvenienced).

The biggest money grab of all is the coveted parking pad. Homeowners pay upwards of $20,000 to build a parking pad. A friend of mine has one such parking pad. It’s quite large and can accommodate two cars quite comfortably. For this pleasure she has to pay the city of Toronto $400 annually. Yes, she has to pay the city of Toronto for the use of her own parking pad that is on her property and was privately paid for with no contribution or subsidy from the city. She recently was paid a visit by a city employee who inspects parking pads (and is probably being incredibly overpaid for this idiotic job that requires no skill). He informed her that she was not permitted to park more than one car on HER PARKING PAD. In fact he was coming back to inspect and if there were two cars parked, he was going to have one towed away.

This is draconian! A homeowner builds a parking pad on their own property (with proper permissions and permits) at their own considerable expense  and then effectively has to lease it annually from the city of Toronto who arbitrarily has the unmitigated gall to tell them how they can or cannot use it! This boggles the mind. Unfortunately, you really can’t fight city hall and when it comes to parking, we’re all being royally screwed!

He parks in the far corner of the lot, explaining that it is more logical to do this and then walk for fifteen seconds than it is to spend fifteen minutes looking for a closer space. 
Neal Stephenson

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Geri

Credit Card Annual Fees Are a Rip-off!

Stores are never nice to people. They're nice to credit cards.

J.F. Lawton

I recently made a rare, in-person visit to my financial institution and they were promoting some new credit cards. There was a big sign saying that if you signed up today, they would wave the annual fee for one year. Quite frankly, the whole concept of an annual fee offends me; it’s just another way to rip off consumers.

Credit card companies are already gouging you. They’ve made an art of collecting fees:

Merchant fees: When merchants accept a payment via credit card they have to pay a percentage of the transaction amount as a fee to the credit card company.

Consumer fees: Annual fees for the pleasure of using your credit card, outrageous interest fees for not paying your balance in full every month, cash advance fees, balance transfer fees…

Sale of customer data: Yes, some credit card actually companies sell their customers’ data to other businesses. This data is a goldmine of consumer spending habits.

Why on earth would I pay an annual fee to use a credit card? The credit card companies should pay me to use their cards. I have a MasterCard and a Visa with no annual fees that suit me just fine. Waving an annual fee for one year so that you can rip me off annually after that, is not in my future. How many credit cards are you paying an annual fee for? And why exactly are you doing that?

Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.

Robert Orben

Make someone smile today.

Geri