Next Up: Supplemental Watercooler

I was watching some television programing and a commercial for Aflac came on. Everyone knows I love ducks, so I was hooked in for the full fifteen seconds. This particular ad was touting Aflac for business. One of the main selling points was that I could provide Aflac for my employees "at no direct cost" to my company. I am somewhat familiar with the health insurance field, so I know that in the employer-provided insurance world, there are generally only two payers, the employer and/or the employee. It seemed as if Aflac was encouraging me to provide my employees with the benefits of supplemental insurance by making them pay for it themselves. Since the words "benefit," "provide," and "pay for it yourself" are not naturally found in the same sentence, I thought I'd check out the website.

I first learned that adding Aflac benefits was a great way to attract and retain quality employees. Seems reasonable. Lord knows that if any other union offered me supplemental insurance, I'd drop the GTFF like yesterday's hush puppies.

The second thing I learned was that I could do this at no cost to my company. This was, of course, what we were here for. How could I attract top-notch employees without paying a dime for it? Here's how:

Aflac’s policies are 100% employee-paid and are purchased on a voluntary basis. Many companies choose to make Aflac policies available as a cost-effective solution to help employees with the rising cost of out-of-pocket health care expenses.

Sweet Jeebus! Apparently, I can not only attract super-duper employees with the promise of teh deluxe in supplemental insurance, but I can get my employees to pay for it themselves, and...and...I am being lead to realize...that I can stop paying those burdensome health insurance costs once I have provided my employees with the opportunity to buy their own supplemental insurance! I might have to maintain some sort of minimum coverage, but still, combine these savings with the increased profits I'll be making with my A-1 workforce, and I'll be able to finally start living the small businessman's dream. Unlimited coke and hookers, here I come!

Our thunder. Stolen.

First they rip off the name of our beloved GTFF newsletter.

Then they post content which, in a just world, would first appear on our blog.

Jerks.

She Said It Would Never Happen

Full Members = 1049
Total Bargaining Unit = 1311
Membership Percentage = 80.02%

The Oregon Model

From the Eugene Weekly's I Saw You section:

Let's Chat More...

Saw you at the Spring GTFF GMM. We chatted about department politics. You: smart guy in jeans, cool t-shirt. Me: Blonde, vivacious, wanting to know more. See you at the keg on Oct. 3rd?

When: Thursday, April 10, 2008

Where: GTFF GMM

I saw a: Man

I am a: Woman

Date posted: Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Oblique Bragging

Ginger and I once had a debate centering on the situation where I am, inexplicably, hanging with the urban rap artists that I listen to these days and I drop the word "hundo" to mean 100. She asserted that they would not deem this appropriate slang and alien to their culture, thus rendering me somehow different, outside and otherized from the group. I argued that, while "hundo" might not be a word that they would ever use or may not even have heard, it is recognizable as legitimate slang and therefore they would accept the usage without comment, perhaps even adopting the word into their everyday argot.

I do know that if I was hanging with Lil Wayne, Trick Daddy and/or Lil Jon, and they asked me how many membership cards the GTFF collected yesterday, we'd have occasion to settle this debate once and for all.

The Oregon Model

Last night was a hot night for the GTFF, my union, at the Villard Street Pub Trivia Night. Just about every table as filled with GTFs, generally divided into groups based on department. There was the poli sci table, the geology guys, the philosophy group, the comp lit table, and the biology table. Generally at these things I make the rounds during the break, chatting it up, but not about work or the union, unless someone else brings it up. Apparently though, not everyone follows this procedure, as it was reported to me that the biology table was repeatedly queried by other members about their lack of involvement in the union. Word on the street is that we got a steward and a few more cards out of them.

There's your organizing model right there.

Analogalicious

bumped, because there's absolutely no reason you should have to read my lame joke before this masterpiece - wobs

I had a wonderful working weekend at the Oregon Coast last weekend. I would gladly put AFT 3544 up for "Most Kick-Ass Union: All-Around" if such a competition existed. 16 people working together in harmony and good spirit, willing to do whatever is necessary to make the union better. Love.

The point of this post, however, is to recount two very special people who went above and beyond the call of union brotherhood and entered themselves into a a more special category which has no name. Okay the name is "men," but it would be sexist if I said so.

Our little retreat faced one crisis, namely that there was an Oregon Duck football game happening in the middle of the retreat. It was originally supposed that the game could easily be recorded and viewed when the business portion of the retreat had ended and the more important socializing began. What better way to socialize than over some good clean college football? Kidding, of course. It might surprise you to learn that, in the general, graduate employees are not big fans of the college athletics, believing, instead, that scarce resources might be better used to pay them.

Unfortunately, VCRs have gone the way of American labor unions -- once ubiquitous and useful, but now largely seen as antiquated and annoyingly analog. (BOOM!) There was a VCR on site (we rent a large house), but the remote had long been replaced with a universal remote, which is fine, unless you have a standard video tape, which is good for 2 hours, unless you use the remote to adjust the recording setting from "Standard" to "Extended Long Play." So we were faced with a (potentially) four hour game and a two hour tape. Now, a lot of grad unions would have packed it in right there, devolving into an acrimonious debate about the futility of "taping" anything. Not the GTFF. It was calmly suggested that I purchase another tape when I drove into Waldport to to pick up more wine and beer. Brilliant.

Football watching crisis number two happened when the grocery store in Waldport didn't have blank tapes. And, when you think about it, why the hell would they? The 17 year-old who I asked practically laughed at me. Then he said the words that will haunt my sleep for some time, "I can't think of any place that would have them in this town." I should mention that the game had already started and I was under a tight deadline. But before I mention that, you might find it interesting to know that my sleep was actually haunted last night by a dream wherein I had to stop a suicidally depressed Keith Appleby (no relation) from shooting himself in the head. With a gun. It was pretty intense. Somehow this dream later morphed into me stopping Sarah Palin from shooting herself in the head. Less intense.

Anyway, I was on a deadline and beginning to start my mind whirring about alternatives, if I was unable to secure a second tape. I was driving a short distance down Highway 101 when I noticed a drug store. I hoped that mixed in with the notions and pills might be a dusty old video tape. I should stop here to mention that all of my interactions regarding the video tape were complicated by the fact that I now pronounce the word "video" as "vidja" after Hank Hill in a family-beloved episode of King of the Hill. The fine service industry employees from Waldport suffered repeated queries about the possibility of me purchasing a "vidja tape" from them. As I was walking into the drug store I had a stoke of genius. Failing to secure a regulation video tape, I could attempt to purchase an old video tape from one of the many, many junk antique stores that make their home on the Walport shopping strip and tape over the tabs and use it to record the game. For some reason I was picturing the movie being Curly Sue.

The drug store "used to have" video tapes, but I could tell by the woman's reaction to my question that the "used to" was sometime in the '90s. She did, however, suggest that I check out the Radio Shack. She asked me if I knew where it was, god bless her sweet little heart. After getting directions, I started out. On the the half-mile journey to the Shack, I passed a video store, a grocery store larger than the one I had patronized earlier, and an ACE-brand hardware store. All potential tape-purchasing resources. Lesson here? Do not trust 17-year-olds in Waldport to help you find technology that was being phased out when they were born.

The Shack had two options for me, the regular "6 hour" tape or the super "9 hour" tape. The "9 hour" tape -- really a three hour tape without the ELP -- would come in handy if the game went into OT, but it was $5.99 as opposed to $1.99 for the regular tape. I made the snap decision to save the four bucks and go standard.

All went smoothly as far as swapping the tapes out. It happened to be halftime when I went downstairs where the tv was playing the game -- I loudly sang the UO fight song in case the announcers were talking about how awesome Oregon was looking and kept my eyes lowered, unnecessarily as it turned out. Those paying attention might notice that having one tape completed at half time means that we are pushing it for getting the whole game in, but I wasn't worried as it was the end of the halftime break and I figured the game got a late start. Those really paying attention will note that I don't know if "half time" is one word or two.

Around 3:30 pm the retreat had concluded business for the day, but the tape still had an hour to run. No problem. We could just let the tape run until it was done and watch the game at 4:30 pm. Unless...unless the game went into overtime. Then we risked missing the crucial last plays of the game. Yes, we could catch the 11:00 pm replay of the game, or more to the point, wake ourselves up at approximately 3:30 am to catch the last few minutes, but this seemed extreme. I might mention here that by this point it had become pretty clear that only two people at the retreat actually cared about the game, myself and the aforementioned Appleby, who later that night would go on to become my "wine stain" buddy, as we managed to slob all over ourselves.

That is one Glenn "GMo" Morris stepped up to the plate, offering to check to see if the game was indeed going to finish before the tape did. His first report to us was that there would be no problem. This was a relief. Appleby and I even briefly contemplated a trip to the beach with the intention of watching the game whenever we got back. While we schemed, Glenn reported to me that he had earlier been mistaken and there were indeed thirteen minutes left in the game. We had approximately 20 minutes of tape. Given that all football games are legally required to stop the clock every forty-five seconds to give Americans a chance to weigh their purchasing options, we knew we were in trouble.

That is when a second "man" stepped up to the proverbial plate and offered to stop the tape during the commercial breaks, so that the tape didn't run out. Wes Shirley is his name, becoming my hero is his game. Not only did he perform this vital function, he also got up and pushed the fast forward button through all the commercials for us during the game.

Now, it may have a occurred to many of you that Glenn's earlier "mistake" about the time was an indication that the game went into overtime. You are better than me. Or more sober. And less likely to underestimate Glenn's knowledge of football.

In addition to these two awesome men, who never ever once let on that the game went into overtime, let alone who won, the entire house, save me and Appleby (and maybe Katie, I can't remember), knew who won the game and they never let on in the least, even as we were punching things, cursing the fates, and then running around the house in jubilation.

These truly are brothers and sisters. I love them. Again, I will put these people up against any union in the country. Bring them on. We'll tape it.

The Times, They Are A'Changin'

We have GTF in the office rocking the pink polo with the popped collar, over-sized sunglasses on the head, scruffy beard. He's from Buffalo.

General Membership Meeting: A Triptych

A Friendly Note

Unless your checks have carbon copies, writing "Insurance" (or anything else) on the "memo" line of your checks isn't going to do you any good. It's kind of a waste of time. Plus, if you can't remember what you wrote a check to the "GTFF Trust" for, then you have larger problems than figuring out why you paid the GTFF Trust $221.80.

Forgive Me If I Go Astray

I had a dream last night wherein Wobs, Lex, Malone, and I were drinking beers in a bar on campus (I think it was the now-defunct Busters) talking over the state of politics in Oregon when we hit on a brilliant solution that would solve all our problems. We decided to head back to the GTFF office to work on it.

Despite the fact that it was a Saturday night at 7 pm, there was a crowd waiting outside the door of the office. Knowing GTFs as well as I do, I immediately resigned myself to helping them with their health insurance needs and did not even bother pointing out that it was Saturday. Night. One of the people waiting on the stairs was a UO administrator who was giving a set of parents a tour of campus. They wanted to sign their son up for health insurance.

As I let everyone into the office and sat down to fire up my computer, the first person to sit at my desk was a Japanese GTF wearing one of the newer GTF shirts. She informed me that when she joined the GTFF as a full member, I had promised her a surprise/gift/present (I don't remember the exact word) and she wanted it right then. Given that she already had a shirt, I began casting around for what I could give her. I finally suggested a hat, but she already had one. I was at a loss and I was desperately trying not to point out that it was Saturday at 7 pm and it was a bit unreasonable of her to expect me to just produce a surprise of some sort, but I also knew that she had only joined to get the prize (ah, the organizing model as practiced by Dave) and she would withdraw her membership if I didn't come up with something. Then it hit me. This is what I gave her:

Make yourself a tuna fish sandwich. Then make an egg wash by lightly beating one egg with a tablespoon of water. Brush the egg wash on the bread. Lightly sprinkle the sandwich with bread crumbs (I assumed she'd use panko), but get the sandwich thoroughly covered, including the sides. Chill the sandwich for at least an hour to let it firm up. Then place the sandwich in a deep fat fryer for 2 minutes.

Voila! The deep-fried tuna fish sandwich. I had invented a delicious taste treat for her.

As you can imagine, I woke up at this point, as I had blown my own mind while I slept.

I have to take off on a camping expedition. If anyone wants to try to make the sandwich and let us know how it went, I'd be obliged if you'd make a note of it in the comments.