The pension issue.

It seems to me that one of the biggest barriers to a fair resolution to the pension issue, is many pensioners themselves.

When I've talked to them, they're like, "I worked, I put my years in, I don't care, I want my money."

In a way, they're not wrong that there was a deal, but they just don't realize how they look and sound.

First off, who can find a job that's even like half of what they had, nowadays?

It really is a stretch to think that people in much shittier jobs would be happy to pay retirements for others when they don't have one themselves.

Second off, the whole selfishness thing of some pensioners makes it easier to bust them.

If they go selfish and it's all about the money, then it's easier for people without pensions to go selfish and be all about the money and be like, "F*ck these people."

Really, the best situation would be if these old unioners had been or were acting in solidarity for other people's job improvements.  That way, there's a sense of community and pitching in and a bit of sacrifice for others, that would allow others to see paying their pensions as mutuality.

Instead, it's a "me myself and I" schtick that does no-one any favors.

As a politician, though, you can't acknowledge it, instead the most you could maybe do is combo pension legislation with labor law improvements to pass both together.

Overall, I am so happy that the face of modern-day trade unionism is "Fight for Fifteen," and not these retirees...  The "Fight for Fifteen" is worth its weight in gold as a substantive PR move for unionized workers, since it really is about general uplift and it comes from established national unions who usually don't do that.

A realization about hair stylists:

They're mostly precarious workers, who rent out a spot from the salon or work for commission.

So, they have high income volatility, and probably experience that same damn "independent contractor" bullshit like everyone else nowadays.

Like a friend of mine who's a hair stylist said, "There's a reason that you don't see many women in their forties on up in that line of work."

(That is, they burn out, including through having to stand all day like right in the same space.)

It was interesting, too, to talk to my friend who's a hair stylist, since she's thinking of changing her line of work.

"I really feel weird saying this," she was like, "But I'm worth more."

She said that a new guy came into the salon to work, and he was telling her how good she was... 

I also wonder if it's the general labor stuff that's been floating around, that she's encountered and absorbed.

Two people on the subway:

1) A(n older) (black) guy with a water bottle full of rocks and a bucket he drums on, beginning to sing, "Ain't no sunshine/ when she's gone..."

2) A (younger) (black) guy huddled over and watching TV on his phone, the volume turned up to the same volume like if you had your TV on loud-ish at home.

Academic bullying.

As I found out after I finished my degree, people should know about the existence of workplace and academic bullying, as well as the existence of a healthy literature on it.

Something "clicked" after I graduated, and somehow I recalled a vague and passing reference to the phenomenon, and then I googled and the more I found out, the more I realized that the last year-and-a-half of my doctoral program was a textbook case of an extended bullying situation, and scattered moments and experiences prior to that were, too.

As I've spoken to people about this, it's interesting how a lot of academics recognize the phenomenon, but can't call it "bullying."

And, it's also interesting that one guy I spoke to agreed on everything, and he said he'd once noticed someone trained at my program engaging in similar behaviors with students at another degree program he was at; as he described it, they'd neglect students, then interact with them only to hostilely criticize everything they did and humiliate them.

As I understand that social phenomenon, "It's catching."

How sick.

A sad part is, if you actually look at what an academic bully says, a lot of it doesn't even really make that much sense, even though they self-describe what they say as profound and deep.

And, they get away with that behavior since they're tenured, just like sexual harasser does.

Me, recognizable.

It's very interesting to see how people relate to me when they find out that I wasn't born and raised in the district, a lot of which has neighborhoods that are very tight-knit.

In my materials, I put front and center that my family comes from a similar city with a similar working class with similar ethnic backgrounds.

And, a lot of people relate to that.

For example, when I mentioned to one (older) (retired) (union) (white) woman the name of the steel plant that one of my (Polish) relatives worked at, she was like, "Yeah, I've heard of that."

That same woman asked me about the nuns on my flier, too, and she even knew the order of my great aunt.

. . .

(Success.)

Am unclear if my facetime strategy in bars is working.

I'm unclear if my one facetime strategy for local bars is working well.

What I do is "bar crawl" through local bars whenever I'm out canvassing in a particular part of my district, and through that I've met bartenders and some people.

I also make an effort to try to pop into local bars near my house, if I feel like it when I get off of work late at night.

The other week when I was out canvassing, then, I hear someone call out, and it's a(n older) (skinny) (ponytailed) (white) guy in a leather jacket who I know from a local bar, whose door I had left some lit in after no response to my ringing the doorbell.

First off, he apologizes for not answering the door, since he was busy with his dog when I stopped by, and he says he actually has to go back to his apartment very soon to go get his dog ready in order to go out for a walk.

Second off, after we talk about my running for city council, he says something about seeing me around the neighborhood to talk more after he reads through my lit, if we don't see each other at the bar we go to before then.

I made sure to tell him the major parts of my campaign bio, too, after saying something like "I know we don't talk about this stuff when we've chatted at the bar, but I've actually done this and this and that."

He seemed to like it.

In contrast, people say that they never see my opponent out and about in the neighborhood.

"It's weird," one bar owner I know told me.

It's my philosophy, it's everything you can do to shave enough support off the edges.

Professionalism in academia.

I think that now being outside of academia, I realize how messed up the professionalism is, where people obstruct projects or want projects to go in the way opposite direction, way after the time for that feedback to have been given or in a disconnect from any thoughtful evaluation, and how often that happens, too.

As my one (straight) friend who's into BDSM remarked to me years ago but I never really absorbed, "That just doesn't happen in other jobs!".

Part of it is that in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the projects really don't matter, or all the people who can obstruct the few projects that do matter don't necessarily realize they matter, so there's no pressure on them to do things in a commonsense way.

I think that was part of my frustration with academia, too.  My work does matter, and instead of development, I just got hindrances, time and again, a lot of it in personal reaction to my work and how it intimidated or challenged people or made them uncomfortable, a few people who have read it have told me.

One of my biggest pet peeves is wasted time, too, and at least for me and my work, academia was increasingly proving an obstacle and not a help.

It really is a sad place, since it has so much potential to contribute to society, but so often it simply doesn't.   When you look into it - and only someone who's been in it a while knows the upsides and the downsides and can really lay them out for people - you really have to wonder why society tolerates funding it, in its present state.

It just doesn't make sense, and the bulk of it is just a waste of time and money.