Christmas Gifts Only The Weirdest Could Love

I'm sure all of your friends would just LOVE a nose
warmer that looks like a spider! 

The Huffington Post recently put up an article that is sure to bring joy, or pain to every holiday shopper out there.

It's a comprehensive list of some of the more, um, novel Christmas gifts you can share this year.

I'll let you read the whole story, but I will cherry pick some of my favorites from this list.

One of these special Christmas gifts is a Trump bottle opener, which has the sound of Trump ranting. One of the messages spouts off about fake news when you use it. Frankly, I hope my nice cold bottle of beer is not fake news when I open it, so I'll pass on this one.

Ugly Christmas sweaters are all the rage in recent years, and I think I found the worst yet. It depicts Santa, sitting on a chimney, pants down, taking a dump down the chimney into somebody's fireplace. I think that qualifies as worse than getting a lump of coal in your stocking.

Here's the sales pitch from the company that sells this thing. "Ugly Christmas sweater has a whole new meaning when you rock up wearing something that literally takes a dump all over the Christmas season. He delivers to every boy and girl in one night, folks - when you gotta go, you gotta go."

I don't think this sweater is turning into a hit. At last check it was on sale - meaning they're trying to unload this, um, mess. The price keeps going down. It started at $84.95, went down to $78.95 and at last check was a low, low $59.95.

Still too pricy for me. Even so, you might want to continue on with this shitty Christmas idea. You can combine the above gift with the book "We Wish You A Poopy Christmas."

Honestly, the sales pitch for this book is even worse than the one for the poopy Christmas sweater:

The worst possible ugly
Christmas sweater.

"Curl up by the fire with some steaming hot chocolate and listen to Fudgy the Poopman offer his unique take on your favorite Christmas tales. You're probably familiar with Rudolph and his red nose, but in this book, you hear how Christmas was saved by Rupert, whose case of IBS has left him with shining red spot on the opposite end of the reindeer body."

I'm not sure why our nation's recent infantile obsession with poop is so rampant, but this Christmas stuff proves it's jumped the shark and must end now.

Moving on, the Christmas season is often chilly, especially for us northerners. We wear coats, hats, mittens, and even ear muffs. But what if your nose gets cold?  Well, of course there's a Christmas gift solution!

Keep your schnoz warm with a Spider Nose Warmer. I just love how the marketers of this thing in their sales pitch have absolutely no command of the English language. I'll quote it verbatim, with no editorial corrections:

"Nose warmer pom pom Christmast gadget. Funny nose gift nose heath Vegan friendly, Nose cozy winter heater. Your noise never been worn, it's made just for you....A unique practical way to keep your nose warm. Sure to be a hit with all. Fun and useful, great for everyone. Loops on each side of the Nose Warmer hook behind the ears, stretchy easy and comfortable to wear. And feets all."

Feets all? I thought it was a nose warmer. No thanks, I'll pass. They say a cold nose is a sign your dog is healthy. I'll just assume that if my nose is cold, I'm healthy.

I haven't finished my holiday shopping yet. I'm a last-minute kinda guy. But rest assured, family and friends! You're not getting any of the items listed above. If that disappoints you, buy 'em yourself!

Some Employers Still Nickel And Diming Employees In Wage Theft Moves

A Hormel plant in Wisconsin. A judge
there ruled, reasonably, if you
must put on protective gear to do your
job at Hormel, they must pay you
for the time it takes to put that stuff on.  

Hormel is the latest company caught trying to rip off its owner workers in a nickel and dime fashion.

In this case, many workers at Hormel's large plant in Wisconsin have to put on sanitary clothing, hairnets, and ear and eye protection before they can hit the factory floor.

Hormel contended it didn't have to pay workers for the time it took to do this, because it really wasn't part of their job. As if the workers were putting on this federally required gear just to get their jollies, I don't know.

True, it probably takes only five or six minutes or so to take the stuff on and off, but that amounts to about 24 hours a year for each worker, according to the Associated Press. When you're not making much money, every little bit helps.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-2 decision, said no, Hormel has to pay its workers to get in gear to do their jobs.

According to the AP:

"Cleanliness and food safety are 'intrinsic elements' of preparing and canning food at the Hormel canning facility,' Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote for the majority. 'The clothing and equipment is intergral and indeispensable to the performance of the employees' job function....of preparing canned food.'"

More than 300 workers were awarded a total of $195,000 in back wages.

Hormel said in a statement, "While we are disappointed the decision was not in our favor, we value our employees and respect the court's decision."

No, if you respected your employees you would pay them for all the work they do for you, not just the majority of it.

As Gawker pointed out, it's a bit shocking that swaths of corporate America think it is controversial to pay its workers for all the hours they put on the job.

As Gawker editorialized:

"We are talking about multibillion dollar corporations adding to their profit margins by taking money directly out of workers' paychecks. In some cases, legally! 

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court (with Scalia, may he rest in peace) rules that Amazon did not have to pay its workers for the time they spent standing in line waiting to be checked by corporate security guards to make sure they didn't steal anything from Amazon. 

That half-hour of time, which was not optional, the company got for free."

The line between work and leisure is more blurred than ever. People do regularly check their work email from home often. I did so today, even though the company I work for discourages it. They're one company that does not want its employees to work unless they're on the clock and getting paid.

But most people, like me, don't mind taking a few minutes every now and again to check in with work. We do want to do a good job, after all.

However, the tricks by Hormel and Amazon were so blatant you wonder if these companies think that workers should work for free.  

The editor at the Huffington Post UK says paying writers
 for their work would make their words "inauthentic."

That's true in the gig economy, too. Huffington Post recently took a lot of deserved grief.

They generally don't pay their writers, and especially not their bloggers, under the theory that the "exposure" of people seeing their words in the Huffington Post would lead to some sort of benefit.

Last mont, Stephen Hull, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post UK, was asked in an interview why he doesn't pay his writers.

Hull responded: "If I was paying someone to write something because I want to get advertising, that's not a real authentic way of presenting copy. When somebody writes something for us, we know it's real, we know they want to write it. It's not been forced or paid for. I think that's something to be proud of."

Oh, so no writer should try to make a living at it? Or by Hull's logic nobody should work for money, because doing so is "inauthentic."

I trust that Hull collects no salary and does his duties as Huffington Post UK's editor-in-chief because that would make the end product inauthentic. How could I possibly trust anything I read in the Huffington Post if somebody is paid to edit the copy?

Or, as New Statesman editorialized, Hull's life must be very difficult if he's forced to live by his rules of authenticity:

"Presumably, he can't go out to eat at restaurants, because the food the (paid) chefs cook him is inauthentic. And when he's ill, he must have to research his symptons online instead of visiting a GP, because their salaries mean the diagnoses they give aren't real. He must have to walk to work because of all those pesky salaried workers driving tube trains and buses, ruining the authenticity of daily commutes."

There have always been people who want something for nothing.  Do some cheap employers think that most everyone wants to toil 40, 50, 60 or more hours a week for no benefit, just the joy of making some rich guy or gal richer?

Almost everybody wants to do a great job at work. But a well completed task has value. If you want something of value, you have to buy it, pay for it.

So pay your damn workers!!!

Will Wheaton's Warning To Not Write For Free Makes Him My New Best Friend.

Wil Wheaton Vs. Huffington Post. I'd say Wheaton won. 

Wil Wheaton caused a big stir this week and it has me totally cheering for him.

For the uninitiated, Wil Wheaton was a child actor in the movie "Stand  By Me," has since been in the series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and has had a recurring role in TV's "The Big Bang Theory."

He's also a very popular blogger, gamer, tech geek and pretty much a Renaissance guy.

Anyway, in his blog, he said this week that Huffington Post offered to publish an earlier Wheaton blog post about the seven things he did to reboot his life.

Very nice. But when Wheaton asked Huffington Post how much he would be paid for the Huffington's Post publication of the blog post, the Huffington Post said nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

An editor wrote, (insultingly in my opinion, but Wheaton was professional and nice about it) that Wheaton and other would-be bloggers should contribute for free, because the "exposure" Huffington Post will give to the writer.

Wheaton Tweeted about this to his three million or so followers (Disclosure: Including me). One of his posts said "If you write something that an editor thinks is worth being published, you are worth being paid for it. Period."

Wheaton also nicely expounded on this topic through his blog. 

This had me cheering wildly for Wheaton.

There are dissents. Salon reported that Internet entrepreneur Damon Brown says that people beginning their careers sometimes need to work for free, and you're not being cheated if you volunteer work at some charitable organization.

Which is totally true.

But writers, photographers, graphic designers, musicians and others who do need to get their names out there also need to make a living.

Says Salon:

"They constantly, in a digital age that has already destabilized their earnings, are asked to do it for free. For a brand. For a friend. For any number of reasons, but often, the hustle is that the gratis work will serve as 'free advertising' for work someone else is supposed to pay them to do, somewhere down the road."

In other words, the gratis work is a scammy merry go round in which everybody expects free work from writers and artists and such. So how are they actually supposed to make a living?

I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but I won't work for free, unless it's for charity or you really, really want to help a friend. If I ever need to promote myself I'll do so through blogs, social media,  a web site, maybe good old fashioned advertising.

Besides, if you're that good and need exposure, you'll get it through people citing your great work, like Wheaton's blog.