Barrow Journal

“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde

I’m about to sound like a curmudgeon here, but I have a problem with what smart phones, constant access to video/phone games and over indulgent and/or inattentive parents have done to a good portion of our under-30-year-old work force. Too many of them have been raised (or neglected into) thinking that it’s all about them and so all that matters is if they are having a good time.

The net result is a bunch of workers who spend as much time on their smart phones checking their e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and texts as they do accomplishing the tasks at hand at work. And to an older worker – one who leaves her cell phone in the car and doesn’t believe in checking personal e-mail at work — this all is quite annoying.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying ALL under-30’s workers are useless — far from it. There are plenty of hard-working Generation Y-ers (as they are called – the children of us Baby Boomers) who are solid contributors to society. It’s just that it is so annoying to watch the rest of their generation — the smart phoning, texting, Facebooking Twitterers at work. [Full Story »] 

“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” — Dolly Parton

Thanks to former Gov. Sonny Perdue, I just ate a piece of Dolly Parton’s homemade peanut butter fudge and it was delicious. This had nothing to do with me being in Dollywood and everything to do with the package of tax incentives Gov. Perdue initiated to bring major motion picture studios to Georgia a few years ago; and, those incentives really worked.

In addition to keeping my son-in-law (a Winder boy turned union camera man – Local 600, International Cinematrographers Guild) and his Atlanta-based film buddies well employed, those incentives have created jobs for about 25,000 other Georgians each year since big studios started making movies here. [Full Story »]