Workscape Grey

I've seen a lot of news programs recently that tout the beginning of the end of this recession. Can't say that I believe them, investors might be buying cheap property but your average Joe is still hurting for hours.

Its funny how no one likes to talk about the Great Depression, especially since the similarities in unemployment rates between now and then beg for comparison. Despite having a bear of a time finding work when I graduated from college last summer I recently caught a glimpse of how deep the need is out there.

We're currently working on the schools up in Snowflake, AZ. Their plumbing has more or less rot out and its a complete remodel. Well, its funny how you go from not enough work to way too much, but we did and needed to get another plumber. I tried to get the posting up on Craigslist under the free gig posting but they kicked me off of there, not temporary enough.

25 dollars and a few sentences later and the ad was up looking for applicants at 10:15 PM on a Tuesday. This is it:

Looking for a plumber with 10+ years experience for 4-5 40 hr weeks of work in Snowflake re piping Highland Elementary. We will provide food and housing in a resort house rented out for the job.Wages offered are $15-18 an hour depending on demonstrated ability and references.

We are looking to hire immediately, reply to this ad with references/
resume and we will schedule an interview. A positive review upon job
completion may lead to more permanent employment
in the Phoenix area.

Seventh Generation Plumbing

Now, understand that the average pay for a plumber like this in
Phoenix is usually $23-28 an hour with unionplumbers making
closer to $35. The problem with that is we can't afford that,
we'd like to pay it and I know the gentleman we hired is worth it,
but we just can't run the margin that thin right now.

The ad was up and by 3:00 PM the next day, less than 24 hours later,
we had 27 responses. Of those at least 10 weren't qualified but the
vast majority were. My partner grimly commented that there still
would have been good qualified applicants if we had offered $10 an
hour and that one applicant was in tears when he was told that he
wasn't hired.

It feels wonderful to be able to offer a decent guy a job, but it makes
you heartsick to have to pick one out of a crowd. If anything, to
anyone reading this, pay attention and hone your skills. Who can
guess how much competition you'll have at your next interview?

Effectively Announcing New Communication

So, I decided to jump in head first with the social networking. Problem is I don't want to send out that lame email that says, "Hey, come sign up on this website and look at what I put there" or some such thing. Easiest way to go about it would be to add some nice image or link at the end of my emails and people that talked to me would be gently reminded, every time we talked, that I have a blog, twit, facebook page, etc...

Well, I use Gmail because its the best platform that I have used and I wasn't about to stop using it just because we now have a web site and can receive emails that way. People rave about Outlook but then you're tied to the computer or have to log in remotely, anyway, I digress.

However, in Gmail you can't easily write HTML code into the emails, what you need to do to be able to have hot links/images as part of your signature. Not that I can write code anyway, so the programs or hacks that require you to do that I can't easily manage either.

After some poking around I found a free Firefox add on that you can just cut and paste into, how nice is that!

Here is what mine looks like:



Colin A Watley
CEO Seventh Generation Plumbing

Office: 602.710.7759 Fax: 602.626.8987 Cell: 602.918.2178

Visit our website by clicking Here

Get Linked in, become friends, read our blog, and/or twit by clicking on the links below.

And then there is supposed to be images with the linkedin, facebook, etc links. Works on the Gmail but it didn't come over with the html to here.

And here it is, if you would like to use the same thing I used the second option: Social Media Stamping Tools

Malls R Us

I went and saw a movie last night, Malls R Us, here in Phoenix at Modified Arts.

Official site of the movie, there is a good clip on the right hand side here

The venue's site here

DeadMalls.com

Check it out? What did you think? I was well impressed, the experience itself was pretty wild. I've never paid to watch a movie in an art gallery before and felt very cultured.

The concept of the documentary was great, it started with the concept that the mall has become a sacred space where we:
1. lose ourselves in a religious sense
2. Create our own identities through purchases
3. Find community as we speak the common language of commerce

From there it went on to talk to a peppy old man hoping to build the largest mall in the world, outside Montreal, with whatever means necessary. Turns out that being Eco-conscious is attractive to consumers, so even though he doesn't get it, by golly this is going to be an Eco-sensitive project! He had the best lines between laughing with incredulity that they actually made biodegradable shopping bags and showing deep concern with the plight of the polar bear at a Cabala's here in Phoenix. Hilarious, the line, said in front of a stuffed polar bear, was "Look at this majestic animal, there has to be a way to preserve them."

Then the focus turns to malls as community centers, a place to feel included and together. Ray Bradbury speaks some and they make some very valid points, the architect he was with was very honest in that he didn't think or care what the stores were selling, he just wanted to work with all the space between them.

That goes on to examine the expansions of ultra-luxury malls in Japan and Dubai and then the development of malls in India. There, thousands of small shop owners are facing closure as the malls campaign to have the market areas shut down under the pretense of public safety.

It would be easy to walk away with the simple conclusion that malls are bad, bad, bad.
They kill a city's downtown and hurt small store owners with the larger chain's buying power. Many of the companies in them have lobbyists and therefore make their will felt through political machinations. They take the profits of the goods generated out of the community-at some point to cheap manufacturing countries like Mexico and Vietnam where our American quality of life is supported by Cents an Hour wages. The environmental impact of the traffic and cement is huge and adds greatly to a city's heat island effect, wildlife is displaced and water flow is affected.

But...and this is the big but...people need community.

People have been trained in this country to work their brains out so they do, and because they do too often they fail to become fully actualized people. They've spent such extraordinary amounts of time and effort to earn these tickets all they want to do when they're not earning tickets is spending tickets. Its hard to think of any period of time when you're conscious but not either earning or spending money. And so malls are the new markets of old mixed in with very effective persuasive communication, centers where people can come meet and communicate themselves with the products they surround themselves in and what they're shopping for.

The problems aren't the malls themselves, they just evolved out of the desires of the populace. If the culture of a people was inundated with sports (performing, not watching), and that pursuit was seen as an end in itself, we would have huge parks and stadiums where malls now stand. Much like the ancient Greeks did.

So, until there is a paradigm shift in our culture and people want to do something more than make and spend money, there will be a great demand for commercial centers. The best we can do is to spend our money locally, on local products, and spend less money overall.

After a pretty low bar it doesn't make you happy anyway, not really.

Greenwashing King of the Hill

Bland, middle of the road, familiar, homey...

King of the Hill is far from edgy stuff but I still like it, it reminds me of people I knew growing up in Nebraska and of characteristics I see in myself and my family.

Now you know something is in the public's consciousness when it finally trickles down into mainstream entertainment, and in this last week's episode it was unreal how closely it tied into our industry. You couldn't get more red state with the characters in the show, and their perspectives on life but they tackled the hard hitting issue of corporate responsibility and greenwashing.

I'm not nearly as entertaining as the writers for the show so I'd recommend you watch it for yourself, this link will be good for at least a week: The Full Episode.

Overall I thought it was well done, it encourages us to be green but more in the vein of being responsible and using common sense. People get too caught up in being eco-friendly because its fashionable but its so much more important than that. Once you really change the way you look at what you buy and how you use what you have, being green will become a holistic way to live your life. Its not what we have that makes us happy, its how we think about it.

Thanks for reading and have a good day,
Colin A Watley
SeventhGenerationPlumbing.com

Getting Going

Just checking out all this seemingly unnecessary social media. Oh well, I'd rather build a relationship with someone personally but I can see the need for a level of communication between talking to someone and just thinking about it.

So I say, yes, come read and be reassured we're decent people. We'll be happy to have you as customers when you're ready.