NOT SO FAST TWINKIE-LOVERS!...IT'S NOT OVER YET!

I have great news for all Hostess cake lovers and really bad news for those of you trying to cash in on Hostess's misfortune! It looks like Hostess, the maker of Twinkies, Ho-Ho's, Cup Cakes, Devil Dogs, Yodels, Coffee Cakes, etc., may not be gone for good just yet! It turns out; Hostess and its striking bakers union have an agreed to mediation to avoid a plant shutdown that would have put 18,500 workers on the unemployment line….Like we needed anymore on there. 

Anyway, a bankruptcy judge demanded that the two parties enter a mediation session at a hearing this past Monday. My guess? The judge loves Twinkies and doesn't want to see the company go under, contrary to what he really says.  Okay, Judge Robert Drain claims, "My desire to do this is prompted primarily by the potential loss of over 18,000 jobs as well as my belief that there is a possibility to resolve this matter." Judge Drain will preside over the mediation today.

Hostess announced on Friday that it would be going out of business due to bankruptcy and a labor strike. By Friday night, every food shelf in America was sold out of Twinkies. Trust me, I know! I went on a hunt for them. By Saturday, even the Hostess outlets were sold out of Twinkies. Knowing that we live in a greedy country, I had to see what the going rate for a box of Twinkies was on eBay. My jaw dropped when I saw a box being sold for $200,000. Other hostess products were in the $50 to $75 range. To me it seems, Hostess is either really going out of business or evil marketing geniuses! Personally, I think whoever sold their box of Twinkies for $200,000, should hand the money over to Hostess to help them get back on their feet. Yeah, right! Who am I kidding? 

 Bakers union rep Jeffrey Freund of Bredhoff and Kaiser said he's "hopeful" about the mediation and so is Hostess. Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn says, "We're happy for any result that can be achieved and will put the people back to work and get the company bankruptcy!" The case has been adjourned until 11 AM on Wednesday to make time for today's 1PM mediation. Keep those fingers crossed Twinkie-heads! We might not be losing Twinkie after all! And to all of you who stocked up on Twinkies, you're lucky the holiday is coming!

OUTSOURCING AMERICA

I need to apologize in advance for this tirade. I know that I've been writing about news stories, and the basis of this blog is just mindless ramblings of me. So here is one for you; one of our big problems today is our unemployment rate. Could the problem be blamed on the fact that our companies are outsourcing? Meaning, are they hiring in India to handle all of their customer service needs and paying them a lot less than the average American will make in that department? For example, I recently called Comcast because there was something wrong with our Internet. At first, I had to deal with an automated system, which is a whole other story. Then, when the automated system couldn't help me, I had to hold for the next available representative. Are you kidding me?

I finally get a representative, and the guy could not even speak English! The gentleman was clearly Hindu Indian. If he was Chinese or something, I would have been shocked! So, he was clearly Indian, and it's no secret they have strong accents. Why would you hire someone for customer service that the majority of your customers simply won't understand? I just don't get it. Customer service is about serving the customer, and not aggravating them because they can't understand a word they are saying. Then when you outsmart them, which I try not to do but I need because they are so cocky, they start stuttering and stammering. This is not someone that you want handling your customer service! Companies need to smarten up and hire unemployed Americans because trust me, you can get them cheap now too! At least, you can understand Americans, and it you screen them right, you can even find the smart ones. 

The automated operators are the worst too! Companies, I am sure, are spending top dollar to replace human reps with computerized ones. Is that right? I can't count how many times I got angry because I couldn't speak to a human. I've even caught myself saying, "What? Nobody wants to work anymore?" In some cases that may be true, but when you really need to talk to somebody they're never there anymore more because the automation has taken over. I mean, if you're checking your bank account or something, automation is fine, but when you’re calling about a service? Oh, my God! 

I guess what I'm saying, America, is that you have a high unemployment rate here at home. Quit the outsourcing and hire Americans to handle your phone customer service. The keyword here is "customer". If the customer is not happy, you will lose them and your front line of defense is your customer service, so I would think that would be most important! Just a thought!

I'm off to Argentina, so blogs may be scarce next week or you may get a blog everyday, almost like a diary of my trip! We'll see what kind of Internet service they have!

GIVING UP YOUR FACEBOOK PASSWORDS FOR A JOB? NO WAY!

If a company asked you for your Facebook password because it was a requirement during their hiring process, would you give it to them? As desperate as I am to find work right now, I don't think that I could do it. That's an invasion of privacy and no better than the company asking for the password to your email accounts.

When a New York statistician named Justin Bassett recently interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So, he was a little taken back when the interviewer asked him for his Facebook username and password. That's right! Bassett had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook, which was set to a private profile, she turned to him and asked him to hand over his login info. He refused and withdrew his application, saying that he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. Who would? This is not a Communist Country....yet! There's no reason for a company to ask for private information like this, but as the job market, which is said to be steadily improving, other job candidates are confronting the same questions from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

Why are these companies taking advantage of the unemployed like this? They are treating the unemployed like that have them by the balls, by asking questions like this. So, basically, if I was to not give my username and password to a company, I couldn't work there? How is that fair at all? Its equivalent to a prospective employer asking you for your house keys because they'd like to take a look around your house to see how you live. Its privacy violation, and the fact that this is happening to people, like me, who are desperately seeking work, makes me sick to my stomach!

Questions have been raised about the legality of this practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks. It's no secret that since the rise of social media, it's become common for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and other sites to learn more about job candidates, but many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks. Here's a good idea! In the age of Smartphones, instead of the interviewer asking for login information, what if they just asked to be temporarily 'friended' so that they can see their profiles. This way it can be done right there on your phone, and you can delete them once they're done snooping around.

Companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps, such as asking for applicants to friend human resource managers or to log in to a company computer during an interview. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign non-disparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media. Well, that would be dumb to talk negatively about your job on a public forum, wouldn't it? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for companies doing background checks on prospective employees because technically, you want to make sure you're hiring a stand-up person, but to ask for login information, I feel that is just uncalled for and to not hire someone because they refused to give you that information is just ludicrous! What do you think?