He'll Never Know

At a previous job, I served as an IT manager, and I was pretty good at it.  After only a year, I received a promotion that doubled the size of my team.  With the expanded team, I inherited a problematic employee.  He was good at his job, but he had poor people skills, he wasn't really interested in expanding his skill set, and he groused about working outside of his scheduled shift.  (That last item is problematic in the IT field.)  One of my tasks was getting this guy to improve as an employee or move on.  From a manager's perspective, the guy was chaos incarnate.  He had an endless series of emergencies that required people to carry his load.  I gave him opportunities to shine and he consistently shot himself in the foot.

I was kind of desperate to help him succeed, so I sent him to help set up a new office.  The job was incredibly simple.  All he had to do was set up and test all of the new computers and phones.  A high school kid could do it.  He still failed.  During the setup, he got into an argument with another employee, who was tasked with physically setting up the cubes.  The argument was over the phone, and my guy got hostile with the other dude and hung up on him.  The other guy reported him to his supervisor, who reported it to me.

Furthermore, he failed to set up all of the workstations.  The reason he failed the setup is because there was a shortage of monitors.  However, he was scheduled to be there long enough that if he'd have simply counted what was needed vs. what was on hand on day one, I could have ordered what was missing and had it there before the office was opened.  Instead, he just let it go, and I didn't find out until the new office manager told me that we had an incomplete setup.  I had to fly to that office personally to fix the technical issues and politically smooth things over.  As you can imagine, I was ready to write the guy up.  A day or two after I returned, but before I wrote him up, he called me, saying he needed a few days off because he was being evicted from his house.

Later that day, I had a meeting with my boss, and told her about his failures, and she instructed me to fire him.  I refused and told her that he'd just been evicted from his home.  She stood firm.  While I acknowledged that his behavior and work (or lack thereof) were worthy of termination, I'm a human being before I'm a manager.  I told my boss that regardless of performance, firing someone immediately after being evicted was inhumane, and that I wouldn't be a part of it.  She agreed to "settle" for me writing him up, with the stipulation that I expressly state that any further infractions would result in termination.  When I wrote him up, I never told him that I saved his job.  I didn't want to throw my boss under the boss, and I didn't want to be seen as his savior.

At the end of the year, when it was time for annual reviews and raises, I rated him as a marginal employee and recommended a minimal raise.  I was again overridden and told that he would receive zero raise.  The thing is, I used all of my goodwill leverage saving this guy's job.  However, since I had no choice in the matter, I did not feel obligated to shield my boss, so I did inform him that I requested a raise and was overridden.  (It was actually my boss's boss who made the no raise decision, and I shared that.)  I said that I fought the good fight, and that I believed he would likely not progress past his current position at this company. 

He got the hint and within a month or two, he had landed a new job.  We're connected on LinkedIn, and he seems to be doing well at his new job.  I'm happy for him, and I wish him nothing but success.  But to this day, he doesn't know that I traded all of the political clout I'd built up just to save his job... meaning that I allowed him to leave on his timeline instead of getting fired when his life was already in a shambles.  I didn't do this because he was a great employee.  He wasn't.  I did it because he's human, and like I said earlier, to fire him right after losing his house would have been inhumane.

New Dictionary Word

I had a phone call with my mother a couple of days ago, and as usual, it was VERY one-sided, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.  The event prompted me to create a new word.

Momologue: (noun)  A conversation with your mother, where she does all of the talking. 

Spoiled Little Princess

I mentioned last month that I had to put down my faithful canine companion, Gilmour.  What I did not discuss in that post was my concern how his "sister" Lainie would adjust.

I adopted Lainie from the Humane Society about nine years ago.  She's my fourth dog as an adult, and they were all pound puppies.  Lainie was a little different though.  The first three dogs all came to me as puppies, and Lainie was about two years old when she chose me.

When I brought her home, she was very timid.  I didn't hear her bark for the first couple of months.  She was also very protective of her food.  Shortly after bringing her home, I gave Gilmour and Lainie each a rawhide dog bone.  Somewhere along the line, she started to walk away from the rawhide, so Gilmour moved in and tried to take it.  She went after him as if she was rabid.  Fortunately, because she was still new to the house, I had been keeping a close eye on her and I was able to quickly break up the fight.  Fun fact:  Neither dog has touched a rawhide since that day.

The next morning, wifey was worried that the dogs would get into a fight and asked me to separate the dogs while were at work, so I put her in the guest bedroom.  (Lainie, not my wife.)  While we were at work, she got a case of isolation anxiety and destroyed the bedroom, shredding carpet, pulling down curtains, chewing window frames, and eventually busting through the hollow-core bedroom door.  (Again, Lainie, not my wife.)  When I got home, she and Gilmour were contentedly laying on the couch together as if they were litter mates.  From that time, until I put Gilmour down, Lainie had never been alone for more than a few minutes at a time.  She and Gilmour were attached at the hip (much to Gilmour's occasional annoyance.)

Lainie has always been deferential to Gilmour.  She let him eat first.  She let him exit and enter the house first when it was time to go outside.  She always walked a couple of paces behind him.  She adored him and followed him everywhere.  With this in mind, I made sure she was present when we put him down.  I firmly believe that dogs know when someone in their pack dies if they can sniff the body.  When he breathed his last, she laid down across from him and put her front paws on his, and sniffed his face.  It was almost like she was holding his hands as he passed away.  It chokes me up thinking about it.

I work from home, so I was not incredibly worried about her being by herself all day, but my wife and I do lead reasonably active lifestyles.  This means that Lainie would be left alone for an hour or two at a time.  I was a bit nervous about that the first time, but my fear proved unfounded.  When I returned, she was calmly laying by the door, wagging her tail as I walked in.  The dog hair on my bed revealed that she was laying on the bed while I was gone.  She's not allowed on the bed, but that's not the hill I'm gonna die on.  If that keeps her calm when she's alone, I'm okay with it.

My nerves kicked in again when wifey and I had to drop everything and go to see my older daughter.  My son-in-law came by to check on her a couple of times daily, making sure to stay and play, but for the most part, she was alone for about four days, and this was within a couple of weeks of putting Gilmour down.  Lainie was a trooper though, and she's proven all of my concerns unfounded.

Now that I'm back home, Lainie and I have essentially been constant companions.  She's incredibly mellow without Gilmour around.  She constantly lays at my feet when I'm seated, and dutifully follows me around when I get up.  She consistently lays on my side of the bed, and she lights up when I take a quick break from whatever I'm doing to give her a bit of attention.  She's incredibly well-behaved when we go on our walks.  For the most part, she walks next to me off leash. I only put on the leash when people or other dogs approach, and even that's primarily because it's socially expected.  She's become the spoiled little princess that I always knew she could be. 

Kids These Days

I believe I've mentioned more than once that I'm a Marine Corps veteran.  (Doesn't every Marine do that?)  I only served six years, but that period of my life has an outsized impact on who I am, even now.  I'm not here to brag about my service though.  I'm here to talk about how I'm fortunate to serve the Marine Corps today.

It all started with the 2024 Marine Corps Ball.  After years of trying, we finally convinced a local recruiter to attend the local Ball that my Marine Corps League detachment hosts each year.  During the event, I thanked the recruiter for attending, and told him how we'd been trying for years to forge a relationship with the office, with no success.  I asked how we can help with his mission, suggesting that my detachment Marines could come in and share some of their war stories and experiences.

As a result of that conversation, I now engage in weekly PT sessions with Marine Corps Poolees.  (PT is the acronym for "physical training," AKA weekly workouts.  Poolees are people on delayed entry, meaning they have signed the enlistment paperwork, but have not yet gone to boot camp.)  When I say "engage," this means that I'm serving in a hybrid role.

At the beginning, I was kind of a glorified poolee, meaning that I would go through the workouts as if I were a poolee myself.  Over time, I earned the trust and respect of the recruiters, and my role has evolved.  I am now more of an advocate, ambassador, and role model.  While I do still work out with these kids, I have been granted the freedom to correct poolees when they do something wrong, such as incorrectly standing at the position of attention.  Instead of just participating in the PT, I sort of lead it, with a focus on providing more one-on-one guidance and encouragement to poolees who are struggling with physical fitness.  I run the monthly physical fitness test right alongside of them.

These kids consistently fill me with a unique combination of dismay and pride.  It's crazy how many can't do a single pull-up when they walk in the door.  Well over 50% of the time, I can do more pull-ups, plank longer AND run faster than a new poolee.  There have been many cases where I could outperform these kids in at least one of these events up to the day they shipped off to boot camp.  With a handful of exceptions, I am triple the age of these future Marines.  Imagine how humbling it must be for them to be beaten by someone old enough to be their grandfather!

The recruiters use this to their advantage, of course. They tell the poolees that I am the minimum standard for physical performance.  It gives the kids something concrete to strive for, and it's awesome to see their sense of accomplishment when they can outperform me in any area.  At the same time, they motivate me to continually give them my best as well.

I would like to clarify that I am in this role at the pleasure of the local recruiters.They are always present (or at least nearby.)  I do not interact with the poolees outside of the recruiting office.  My official reason for being there is to serve as an ambassador for the Marine Corps League.  I'm planting the seed now, with the hope that it grows into future membership when the leave the Marine Corps.  In reality though, that's only a small piece.  I consider the recruiters my friends, and I want them to succeed.  I am invested in the well-being of these future Marines.  It brings me a great deal of joy to see them after they've graduated boot camp.  It also saddens me to see the occasional washout, such as the young man who got booted from the pool because he got a DUI after attending a high school graduation party.

I suspect the phrase "kids these days" is as old as society itself.  It's a dismissive quip that allows old farts like me to summarily dismiss and deride aspects of youth culture that I don't understand or don't respect, just like my parents and grandparents did when I was a kid.  Yes, it's true that kids today are soft, entitled and addicted to their technology.  But they're more than that.  They're still idealistic, eager to learn, and willing to serve.  They just need a bit of guidance and a solid opportunity to do so.  I'm fortunate to be in a position that allows me to provide some of that guidance and help them maximize the opportunity they're seizing.  It's a unique privilege, and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate.

Valentine's Day is Complicated

 Today's Post is inspired by Sunny...

I have a complicated relationship with Valentine's Day.  For the most part, I don't like this made-up holiday that tries to pressure me into doing something for that special someone.  Funk dat!  Let me do something nice because I want to, not because of an artificially created event that serves no purpose other than pressuring me into lining the pockets of Corporate America.

Going way back to my childhood, I remember being expected to participate in elementary school, and being required to give everyone in my class a valentine, including boys, and including people I didn't even like.  I remember my mom and I going to pick up a box of Valentine's Day cards, and never having the exact right amount at the end.  I remember trying to sort the cards so that my male friends got "cool" cards, the best cards went to the cutest girls, and the rest went to the people I didn't like.  I vaguely recall this evil tradition ending in middle school.

Middle school and early high school were the awkward years, and boy was I awkward.  Since I was toward the bottom end of the social ladder during that time, there was zero chance that I was going to be the dork who gave my crush a card, only to have her turn around and humiliate me by publicly rejecting me and loudly proclaiming "Hey everyone, Evan gave me a Valentine!  Like that loser would have a chance with me," followed by derisive laughter from everyone in the school.  Nope.  Not gonna take that risk.

During my junior and senior year of high school, I came to grips with the fact that I'd never be part of the in crowd, and I was fine with that.  I saw the social hierarchy of high school for what it was... a shallow popularity contest that I had no chance of winning... so I didn't play.  The best way to describe me is a unique and slightly bizarre combination of John Bender, Brian Johnson and Allison Reynolds from Breakfast Club.  I was boisterous and rebellious like Bender.  I was nerdy like Brian.  I was a nonconformist like Reynolds.  I recall this generally working for me, because I never got stuffed into lockers, but I also didn't allow myself to get really close to a lot of people.  I ran in virtually all of the cliques, but didn't exactly fit into any of them.  So yeah, Valentine's Day wasn't a thing at that point.

The first time Valentine's Day really mattered to me, that $h!+ blew up in my face... big time.  I was dating the woman who would become wife 1.0.  I pulled out all the stops. I took her to a really fancy, expensive restaurant with an ocean view.  I spent a $h!+ ton of money trying to demonstrate that I really liked this woman.  I think I spent a full paycheck, but my memory is a bit fuzzy after 3+ decades.  What I do recall is that she seemed a bit... under-appreciative... of the work I put into the date.

But wait, there's more!  After a couple of weeks, she came to me, announcing that she was pregnant... and she wasn't sure the kid was mine.  I was fooking crushed!  She gave me some lame excuse that we 'hadn't discussed exclusive dating.'  At that point, I had a choice... I could commit, or I could see her for what she was and run for the hills.  I chose to commit, on the condition that she committed too.  I very distinctly recall saying that she needed to $h!+ or get off the pot.  We got married shortly thereafter.

At this point, I need to divert a bit and share that wife 1.0 was high maintenance and demanding.  The entire world revolved around her.  To this day, my girls say the same thing... as far as she's concerned, it's her world, and we're privileged to live in it.  The entire time we were together, she expected fancy events and expensive stuff for Valentine's Day (and Mother's Day, and her birthday, and Christmas, and our anniversary,) because dammit, she was worth it... never realizing that her expectations wore a hole in my soul by forcing me to relive that first Valentine's Day.  (By the way, the kid is mine.)  As you can imagine, by the time we split up I outright resented Valentine's Day.

Fast forward several years... I had just started dating the woman who would become wife 2.2.  Everything was exciting and new.  We'd been dating a short time, but man, there was something about her!  I invited her to my house for a Valentine's Day dinner and a quiet evening in.  I was freaking giddy over this girl!  I made her a mix tape of sappy music.  (It was actually a CD, but you get the idea.)  I made spaghetti from scratch (the sauce, not the noodles) and garlic bread.  I served us some low-end red wine in the only two wine glasses I owned.  My divorce was still in process and I was still broke, but I wanted to do something special.

It was the first Valentine's Day since 1.0 and I had split, but none of that mattered.  It was just us.  In a bizarre coincidence, future 2.2 and I decided that we were going to pursue this budding relationship.  Now, here we are, 20+ years later and I love her as much as -- no, more than -- I did on that Valentine's Day so many years ago.

After all that time, I still have a complicated relationship with Valentine's Day.  It's not because of 1.0, but that is a factor.  It's primarily because I dislike the social expectations that accompany this commercialized pseudo-holiday.  I really despise the idea that I should be expected to profess my devotion on a specific day each year, and the socially-expected manner of expression is by purchasing expensive flowers with a short shelf life and overpriced chocolate in a heart-shaped box.

I love my wife dearly.  She knows it, and I know it.  I express that love by sitting on the couch with her and taking turns with the remote to the only TV in the house.  I demonstrate my feelings by holding her hand, kissing her, and hugging her each day we're together.  I show that devotion by getting her flowers for no reason at all.  I exhibit endearment by tackling all of the stereotypical male chores around the house while simultaneously sharing traditional wifely duties such as cooking, cleaning and laundry.

I will admit that we usually do something for Valentine's Day, but it's not the typical romantic dinner, chocolate, and dozen roses.  It's usually not on Valentine's Day.  We generally do something during the week because we get the sentiment behind the commercialism.  As for my relationship with the holiday?  Well, it's still complicated. 

Best Kraut Ever!

Preparing and sharing food  is one of the ways I show love to close friends and family.  I firmly believe that cooking is one of the things that helped me seal the deal with my wonderful wife (2.2).  I've prepared the Thanksgiving turkey for over 20 years.  What started out of necessity evolved into an enjoyable pastime.

When I say I started out of necessity, I'm not joking.  When wife 1.0 and I split up, I was quite literally living hand to mouth.  I needed to feed myself and my daughters, and going out to eat was absolutely out of the question.  I frequently had meat once per week, and the only food items I could readily afford were rice, potatoes, canned tuna and frozen vegetables.  This meant that I had a choice between eating the same exact thing day after day, or getting creative with meal prep.  I chose the latter.

My preferred type of cooking initially revolved around feeding my family.  I started out with the stupid easy stuff like mac-n-cheese (Kraft), hamburger helper and similar stuff.  From there, I expanded into easy recipes like spaghetti and casseroles, eventually moving to more traditional meals with a meat dish, some starch, and vegetables.  I also enjoy doing simple but hearty meals that can give me leftovers for a few days, such as pot roast in the crock pot.  My forte is foraging around the house and preparing a meal based on what's on hand.  It's a great combination of creativity and practicality.

My repertoire of meals has greatly expanded over the years.  For example, I don't consider myself a baker, but I can work some serious magic with sourdough.  I make a mean jalapeno and cheese sourdough, and I've created a couple of unique variations such as dill pickle sourdough and a red wine/craisin sourdough.

A couple of years back, I expanded into pickling and preserving food.  I've got a couple of pickle recipes my family absolutely loves, and my friends light up when I give them a jar of my black raspberry jam.  (This jam is a once-a-year treat, because I forage the black raspberries.  I spend about a month gathering the berries and a week preparing the jam.  It's definitely a labor of love.)

I didn't like sauerkraut growing up and didn't really develop a taste for it until a few years ago.  Yeah, I'm late to the party, but I eventually arrived.  Once I started eating it, it didn't take long for me to learn to make it.  I no longer buy sauerkraut; I make it.  It takes a long time to ferment, but the actual process of making it is stupid easy.  It's also ridiculously simple to tweak the basic recipe with add-ins such as caraway or mustard seed.  NOTE: When it comes to add-in spices, a little bit goes a long way.

I just finished a batch of kraut that I'm deeming best kraut ever!  The recipe is simple... just add some shredded apple and shredded carrot to the cabbage.  (I used white cabbage, but you can absolutely use purple if you prefer.  The end result provides an extra touch of sweetness, but that tiny change adds a ton of complexity to the flavor.  You still add salt based on the total weight of cabbage+carrot+apple, using the same salting ratio.

AI is a Lie

Have you noticed that every AI company leader says that [insert big technology break here] is just over the horizon?  Have you noticed how long they've been saying it?  That's because AI is a lie.

Have you noticed how frequently AI returns results that are wildly incorrect (hallucinations) or overly flattering (sycophantic)?  That's because AI is a lie.

You might think that I'm engaging in a bit of hyperbole, but I am not.  Indeed, the concept of Artificial Intelligence, at least as it stands today, is the genuine hyperbole.  To illustrate my point, I'd like to fall back on a couple of definitions. 1) Intelligence:  The ability to learn, understand, reason, solve problems, and adapt to new situations, using capacities like logic, abstract thinking, and using knowledge effectively for survival and success in diverse environments.  2) Hyperbole:  Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.  Until Artificial Intelligence can adapt to new situations and apply abstract thinking, AI is hyperbole because it's not actually intelligent.

I'd also like to clarify that Artificial Intelligence has two distinct and separate aspects: 1) Large Language Model (LLM) is the the technology that allows a computer to present information in a manner that appears conversational.  2) Machine Learning (ML) is the technology that allows computers to identify patterns and make predictions.  Neither of these aspects of AI are truly intelligence; rather, they are incredibly complex computer programs that work because of an unfathomable amount of available data, and a phenomenal amount of human oversight and error correction.  To paraphrase an IT Security friend and colleague of mine, AI is basically fancy Google.  You ask the question, and you receive a response which may or may not be factual and practical.

AI can do a few things with tremendous efficiency.  For example, it can paraphrase or summarize an existing article, paper or piece of literary work based on a massive database of dictionary definitions and a meticulously-defined set of linguistic rules.  This is how LLM AI works.  It can also make predictions based on historical data.  That's how Machine Learning works.  AI is great for performing mundane, repetitive tasks that require no creativity or abstract thinking.  However, I do not envision a world where computers independently and spontaneously create the next great invention, such as the automobile, or the computer.  (See what I did there??)

Let me use automated manufacturing as a lousy analogy.  In my example, a set of robotic arms is designed to weld two pieces of metal together.  Without explicit training, these robotic arms will not know if the weld is accurate and strong. These arms would not know they're out of flux without sensors and programming.  These robotic arms would not innately know that trying to weld two pieces of wood together would not work.  By extension, LLM AI cannot spontaneously write the next great novel, and Generative AI cannot create an intricate piece of art without being fed some sort of parameters.

As I mentioned earlier, two of the greatest shortcomings of AI are hallucinations and sycophancy.  Both of these deficiencies are based on limits that cannot be easily overcome.  In a well-known example, someone once asked AI how to keep cheese from sliding off of a slice of pizza, and the AI chatbot said to use glue.  From my understanding, this answer came from a Reddit post, where someone humorously used this advice for a similar question.  It's factually correct of course, but it's a hallucination because the AI bot didn't understand that glue is inedible.  Sycophancy is a result of the human inability to recognize and agree on basic facts.  (Human stupidity trumps artificial intelligence every time.)

The root problem is that Artificial Intelligence has been marketed as a panacea, and society has eagerly bought into that lie.  AI still has great potential, but we need to acknowledge the limits of the technology.  Until that happens, AI is a lie.