Nancy Campbell Really Doesn't Have a Clue How Normal Society Functions

In the October 2013 issue of "Above Rubies," Nancy Campbell's magazine to "...encourage women in their high calling as wives, mothers, and homemakers," Nancy reveals that she really doesn't know how normal society - read: the rest of us - interact with each other.

It's quite obvious that she thinks we're all selfish nincompoops, disregarding family, hating children, and sitting around in front of television screens, watching pornography. If this describes you, then Campbell is correct. But I'll gander a guess that, while partaking in any one of the above activities I listed doesn't make you a naughty person at all, you don't live your life by every one of the above definitions all the time.

Nancy introduces this month's issue by talking about her gardening and how big her farm is. She lets the readers know that there are always children on her property. She's a grandmother, after all, with a lot of grandkids. But, as you read, you begin to get the innate sense that Nancy Campbell is talking down to the rest of humanity:

It is amazing that you can have so many young people come together without sending out invitations... We constantly enjoy celebrations and gatherings at our home. No need for organization. Just call the families and we have a huge crowd with loads of fun, antics, and fellowship.

While, to the untrained eye, one not well-versed in the language of a fundamentalist us vs. them superiority complex, this may look like normal conversation, a woman glowing about how great her life is - like a Facebook status. But it isn't. With fundamentalists, it never is.

See, Nancy thinks we don't know families with kids. She thinks that in order for us to have a house full of people, we need to send out invitations months ahead of time, order the inflatable jumping houses, buy oodles of pre-prepared foods from the deli, notify the city of the need for additional parking permits for the non-parking zone, and square off an area of the property for the kids, to rid us adults of their snot-nosed peskishness.

Also, we don't talk. We must just sit around on our phones, ignoring one another, with nothing better to do than write stupid and pointless blog posts like this one.

So, to all my friends that come to my house, to all my neighbors that eat all of my food, drink all of my beer, use all of my diapers, flush all of my toilets, use up all of my lawnmower gas, and make sure your methamphetamine customers don't walk on my lawn. To all of my enemies that still come around. To all of my kids that have birthday parties with adults and sometimes just kids - disorganized for adults, yet a blast for the kids. Yes, to all of you.

I'm sorry for being such a prudish bore.

Software 101: What I have learned through the school of hard knocks

As many of you know, I'm (unfortunately) not a full time writer.  One day, maybe, but my day job is a software developer.  I write software for a small joint in the great state of Minnesota.  We are the best company in our niche market, growing at a pace upwards of 20% a year, and, well, I could go on and tell you all the wonderful things about who we are and how we function, but that's not really the point of this post.

On May 11, 2013, I will have worked at this company for four years.  I came here directly out of college, having gone back to school for Computer Science after spending almost a decade in sales.  I needed to have a good career to support my burgeoning family and, quite frankly, I loved writing code - especially if I saw it affect people in a wonderful way.

As I learned on the job in the first few years, I became intimately aware of a fundamental principle of incremental improvements in a piece of software. 

Do not change anything that will affect the current settings of current users!  And if this is not possible, due to necessary and critical issues like security, make sure you cogently and coherently delineate all manner of changes and how it affects the customer immediately (and preferably prior to distribution) upon construction of the new feature set.

I have failed at this rule a few times and have paid dearly for it.  Over time, if you repeatedly fall on your face in this manner, you lose the best currency for creating a sticky customer - trust.  Although, I must point out, if you provide excellent customer service or have a niche product that a customer is reasonably forced to continue with, despite your failings, they may grumble and stay with you out of necessity.  But good luck keeping them around when a competitor inevitably rears their angelic head.

Exhibit A for how NOT to follow this rule is the venerable social networking site, Facebook.  And no, I'm not talking about their Timeline feature or adding a Cover picture, or other items that they copiously advertised in the marketplace.  I'm speaking of their security settings.

Yes!  Security settings!  You don't mess with those - ever.  If a customer desires to not have another user view certain elements of the system, that should be honored at all costs.

More than once, I have noticed strange things happening on my Facebook account and went into my security settings, only to notice that it had all been completely revamped and everything was turned to "publicly viewable" or even the exact opposite, changing all my posts to "private or exclusive".  This is not good, especially for those people who desire to keep their private lives, well...private.  Or those who have online stalkers or abusers.  Facebook, with the nature of their international status, has to be more concerned about the dangers of changing user settings than me - a two bit programmer that affects about 2000 clients.

One of these days, someone is going to be severely negatively affected by these errors and Facebook programmers will be at fault.  It causes my mind to wander to the software development contractor who created a bug in an ambulatory oxygen system, causing the red light to not illuminate, notifying the operators that the oxygen tank needed to be changed.  The patient died.

Yes.  This is that important.

Facebook....get better at what you do.  Just because you own the space does not mean you are immune to the consequences your changes inflict on others' lives.

Parents Spying on Their Adult(ish) Children

This post is going to be a bit different from what I have done in the past.  I’m going to write my thoughts, and then open it up to my readers to give their input.  Please don’t hesitate to chime in, even if you disagree with what I have to say.  I want all different perspectives.  Thanks in advance!

*****

The Chauvinistic Authority Doctrine (CAD) requires a father to monitor and control their children’s every movement and even their every thought.  If their nose hairs so much as twitch out of line, this doctrine states that there is rebellion in the son’s or daughter’s soul.  This also goes for that man’s wife.   Nothing does, nor should it, escape his careful and searching eye.  In the isolated instance that something does, that individual or inanimate object must come clean immediately in order to continue in the good graces of the god man.

Sometimes, a CAD man will spy on his young adult and adult “children” through hacking into social media that they use.  By spying, we are not talking about viewing their profiles and posts.  Rather, it is the act of hacking into their accounts and viewing their private chats and messages.  

Frankly, unless the parent has initially told the child that they will be doing this, I don’t know that I would EVER condone this practice.   That is none of the parent's business.  This is an adult we’re talking about here – the parent's peer.  Would the parent’s co-workers appreciate it if it was discovered that he was hacking into whatever electronic medium they were using to communicate with others, just to keep tabs on them, having not been informed of this potentiality in the Employee Handbook?  If it WAS in the Handbook, go to town!

But, let’s look at the child psychology that is at play here and then we’ll check in on the parent’s, later on.

If I was a teen or young adult, living in a CAD dad’s house (or even not living there…) and was informed that I was going to be hacked or spied on, every second of every day, it would take a Forrest Gump-like psyche to actually leave electronic tracks that could incriminate me ANYWHERE on the cyberwaves.  And I mean ANYWHERE!  I would do my darndest to hide anything and everything from my overbearing old man.  If he ever caught up with me, I would deny, deny, deny.  He wouldn’t get a shred of truth out of me.  And, if he did happen to beat or squeeze it forth (sadly, a CAD adherer will do this to their “children” of any age…I know…I’m living proof), I would learn my lesson so well that it would take Houdini and six of his relatives to even catch a scent of what I was continuing to cook.  It’s that simple.

Now, here is my take on the parent.  CAD dad, if you have to hack into your adult children’s social media to keep your hyper-religious, uber-obligatory tabs on them, you’ve failed buddy.  Big time!  If you’re adult children need your guiding hand at that level here’s a simple news flash (I’ll put it in caps so it’s easier for you to read):

THEY WILL NOT MAKE IT AS ADULTS NOW OR EVER!!!

How do I know this?  Well, it’s quite simple, actually.  If you have held your children’s hands throughout their life so much so that they cannot get breakfast on their own without your permission, where they cannot so much as even take a piss without your say-so, where they can’t even go out on the town for a night without worrying about what you are thinking WHILE they party and what you will think WHEN they return, you’ve failed to rear forward thinking, self-sufficient, successful offspring.  In short, you lost.  Get over it. 

But there’s more at stake here.  Especially for adult children – Why, as a parent, do we want them to be protected from everything?  As an adult who has been on your own for years, you don’t have someone holding your hand, every step of the way, shielding you from impending – many times, imagined – danger.  Why can’t a CAD parent allow his teen, young adult, and adult children to fail?  To fall?  To hit rock bottom?  To get Crispy Creamed?

The fact is, if negative things DO happen to them, the last thing they will do is come crawling home to dear old dad for solace because, after all, they failed him.  If they had only done what he told them to do at every point in their lives, nothing bad would have happened to them.  Thus, the bad thing that caused them to fail was only due to not allowing the guiding hand to do all the work.  What’s worse, what if the bad thing happened WHILE the guiding hand was doing all the work?  Who to go to then?

I want to be waiting to lick the wounds of my children if they ever come crawling back home.  I want them to want to come to me for my advice.  Not out of expectation, but because I’m an insecure loser of a father and I am easily flattered.  They don’t even need to need it.  Just fake it once in a while.  But most importantly, I want to have taught them all the foundational lessons that I think they’ll need when they jump from the nest and fly away – hoping beyond all hope, that they won’t be as much a screw-up as their dear old daddy was.

With all that desire, more than likely, they’ll end up asking their mommy instead.

*****

So, what do you think?  Did I miss something?  Am I way off base?  My oldest is only nine.  Am I in for a surprise?  Do tell!