Necesssary Skills, Russia, Sedition, Pixies and Newton Minow

The Schloss-Blog is looking at the 20 skills absolutely necessary on your resume, or so says a Fast Company contributor.

Be flexible. 

• Hey, I do yoga.

Be a problem-solver. 

• Uh, I was actually a problem creator, complaining about the slackers and non-flexible people.

Have hard skills. 

• I'm not gonna' touch that.

Be a critical thinker. 

• How about, just be a thinker?

Communicate well. 

• I always knew when to tell my boss to shove it.

Be a team player. 

• I am, except too many slackers always find their way to my team.

Be creative. 

• Hah! I have the testimonials from ex-girlfriends to prove it.

No, wait - that was a bit too much critical thinking, wasn't it?

These "necessary skills" think pieces bore me. They always leave out one thing: work ethic, which my parents instilled in me at a very early age.

I once worked someplace where I always made deadline, in fact, I was always ahead of deadline, every edition. All that earned me was 'the privilege' of getting asked by my boss to help out slackers who always missed deadline.

I learned my lesson. From there on, I still finished my work ahead of deadline, but didn't turn it in until deadline and that way avoided helping out slackers while getting a jump start on my next deadline. Our next deadline.

To 'protect' the leadI'd established, I'd take a vacation day, or a sick day or maybe even be lucky enough to arrange a business trip out of town to avoid being asked to pick up after the slackers.

You can call that unethical and not being a team player. I call it having my own back, because nobody else did.

***

Hey, did you hear the one about Russia always being considered to have the second-best army in the world.

Now it's considered to have the second-best army in Ukraine.

***

While @CNN and @MSNBC were reporting exclusively on the multiple verdicts handed down on Thursday in the Proud Boys Seditious Conspiracy trial relative to the Jan. 6 insurrection, @FoxNews was talking about Joe Biden's age and mental acuity.

Why they're allowed to call themselves 'News' is a mystery.

***

Are you a fan of the band the Pixies? And do you have a Google phone?

According to Morning Brew, the Pixies, because they use a spoken “stop!” at the beginning of the song, “Where Is My Mind?” they've been shutting off alarms on Google phones. 

What happened? Well, Google Pixel phones allows users to turn their alarms off by saying “stop” or “snooze.” It doesn't happen though when one of those words is played with music beneath it.

Hey, don't stop believin'.

***

Newton Minow, the former FCC Commissioner and visionary, once said of watching television straight through all day:

"I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending."

Minow died yesterday at 97. If you're watching television straight through, whether it's over-the-air, cable, satellite or streaming, that's pretty accurate to this day.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabacsh. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More Sunday night on my Radio /Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Biltmore Courts 2 and Camelback Health & Racquet Club pickleballers, I salute you and have a special set of music for you tonight.