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I guess someone’s copies weren’t done right

scaredpoet

kinkos-smash

As an ex-kinkoid, I take a perverse pleasure in seeing my old hell—er, place of work, getting destroyed. From what we know of the details of this mess, someone (possibly an angry customer?) drove their car into the front of a Fedex Kinko’s somewhere in Florida, leaving the store a mostly-demolished mess.

More pics can be found here.

The source is Kinko’s Workers Unite, a website developed to encourage Fedex Kinko’s employees to organize under the labor movement and demand better training, better staffing, better pay and better equipment.

I must say, as someone who is skeptical of what unions have become today, I’ve also seen Kinko’s go from bad to worse, both in working conditions and the general skill level of the workers. Kinko’s used to be an okay place to work, until the Founder of Kinko’s got filthy rich and retired. He then sold the company off to an investment firm, who then brought in a CEO who ended all technical training, laid off the IT, graphic design and training staffs, turned employees into “team members,” and sought to McDonaldize the entire company. Ultimately the company was sold to FedEx who then completed the McDonaldization.

If anyone needs a union, it’s Fedex Kinko’s employees.

Well THAT’S intrusive!

scaredpoet

Governator

I guess people in California put up with this sort of thing because, well, he IS the Governator. But, I have a feeling that in most other states, the last thing anyone would put up with while trying to peacefully eat their lunch is have a politician barge in unannounced and start peddling his agenda like a twisted political ad-in-an-eatery:

SAN DIEGO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger waded into a lunchtime crowd Sunday to kick off a final full week of campaigning for his four state ballot initiatives, telling customers waiting on shrimp salad and clam chowder that lawmakers have failed them.

Schwarzenegger emerged quietly, without introduction, from the kitchen of Point Loma Seafoods. For 45 minutes, he shook hands, handed out campaign booklets, signed autographs and posed for photos. There were no speeches, no loudspeakers and – unlike many of his appearances – no protests.

“Remember one thing: the Legislature couldn’t do it, so the people have to do it,” he told one customer.

“The people have done a better job than the Legislature,” he told another, his voice barely carrying in the noisy crowd.

Ugh. Redgardless of the candidates’ party affiliation, I’d be thoroughly disgusted.

Is this the Blackberry’s Death Knell?

scaredpoet

Well, it seems like the US supply of Crackberries may actually be threatened, for real this time. The US Supreme Court has declined to hear RIM‘s appeal to the ongoing patent suit against it, in which an order has been handed down to cease the sale of Blackberry devices in the US.

With the appeals being declined, the case must now press on. While that happens, RIM may be forced to halt all new Blackberry sales. All that remains now is for the ruling court to decide when that will happen, and RIM’s foe in the case wants that to be sooner rather than later:

NTP, based in Arlington, Va., had filed arguments with the Supreme Court earlier Wednesday, accusing RIM of trying to drag the case out.

”RIM intends to take as much time as possible, seek as many extensions as possible, and defer consideration of its [appeal] until after the present Supreme Court term ends next year,” NTP’s filing said.