Great: Now I Might Have To Abandon Amazon

Amazon is being sued over labor practices. Thing is: this is something basically every company I've ever worked for has done/gotten away with. Well, at least every non-union job I've had (which is all but one).

So many employers more or less require you to be in before your shift starts. If you clock in right on time, you're effectively judged as being late. While law prevents employers in most states for penalizing you for being just on time or less than five minutes late, it is well known that you are expected to be at your station (desk, fry-o-lator, what have you) and working several minutes before the start of your shift.

Similarly, there is an expectation that you'll stay a few minutes past your shift to wrap things up. There's normally a culture that discourages employees from trying to claim their rightful quarter of an hour, even if the time ahead of shift and after shift add up to a full 15 minutes, let alone just fall into the amount that should be rounded up to the nearest quarter hour.

There's always been this imperfect balance between the worker and the employer. To a certain extent, failure to pay for all those extra minutes here and there seems reasonable, as settling little disputes over this amount of time would cause lost man hours and tons of frustration. But, at the same time, these employers are legally obligated to pay for the time and exert a silent coercion against their workers, with most employees having the feeling that haggling over a few hours of pay a year isn't worth killing their chances at advancement or a merit raise.

In all seriousness, my patronage of Amazon won't be effected. If they lose this case, they won't be the only company in America having to change how they handle this sort of payroll issue. You'll, also, have no end of fiscal conservative railing against the decision as the death knell of American business, especially the small variety.

Maybe There Is Hope For JSA After All...

From Bill Willingham's comments in his own blog up on Big Hollywood/Breitbart:

Full Metal, yes, I will be writing the JSA starting soon (I’m not entirely sure just at the moment which issue will be my first, and I’m too lazy to walk across the room and look it up), along with my frequent writing partner Matt Sturges. This will indeed be the first test to see if I can hold to my guns. And since JSA is a DC company owned series my only real weapon is the last resort kind. If they insist on imposing too many changes from above, ones that would corrupt my shiny new mission statement, then I’d have to reluctantly walk.

This is the first time I'm rooting for editorial interference.

The actual opinion put forth in the blog itself only strengthen my desire to see Willingham & Sturges off/never on JSA.

Now Michelle Obama Gets A Comic

Bluewater Productions is now coming out with a comic about Michelle Obama. As much as it is a cash-in, I'm kinda glad to see it happening.

Michelle Obama is already my favorite First Lady in my lifetime. She's a strong, secure and attractive woman who doesn't seem intent on trying to compete with the President because they seem like they're on the same page and comfortable with each others' success.

Michelle seems to have a stronger voice than Laura Bush, secure enough in herself to not feel the need to compete with her husband all the time like Hillary and easily the most attractive First Lady in my 33 years of life. Looks aren't important, really, but it's better to have them than have kids wondering why the President brings his mom everywhere instead of his wife (like Bush 41).

Web Comics Week: The Wang

Yesterday, I started off Web Comics Week with a look at Calamities of Nature. That strip came to my attention due to having advertised in the past. So, why abandon that method of picking strips to take a look at already?

THE WANG is quite a funny comic. It has a diverse cast, as well as subject matter. Unlike the turn that Calamities took with changing to the old standard layout, WANG has at least kept to giving you something more akin to the double-sized Sunday newspaper version. And why not, since it is delivered weekly rather than 2-3 times a week?


But where it really breaks from standards is in the subjects and language used. Our protagonist, Eugene Wang, constantly has the short term romantic hook up between his mother and his ex-girlfriend thrown in his face. They have his friend, George L. Gedaladapus, tricks a dimwitted friend of Eugene's into bed and into handing him a check for a bogus pyramid scheme (that might be a redundant phrase, come to think of it). The language used tends to be a little blue from time to time and has no qualms about employing sexual humor.


In addition to going politically incorrect or with shock humor, they tackle the more "middle of the road stuff" (like what a dog on a walk is thinking) and politics (like addressing some of the voter suppression tactics used).


Unfortunately, since the online version only goes back to February 2008, I can't really compare and contrast how the strip started versus how it is today. It existed in some form before that date and, I'm gathering, previous strips were pulled down once they were printed in a collection. From the start of this iteration, though, Stan Yan (the creator) was in full stride.


Every strip has a laugh, even when it is really meant to set up for a larger joke. Maybe Yan is more keen on this due to his weekly schedule. Readers are probably even more concerned with having a payoff in each strip when they only get it on Mondays. But whatever the reason, it consistently works.


The cast is extremely well-balanced. While Eugene's ex-girlfriend might not be able to carry the strip with cutesy observations about a dog being walked, there is rarely a case of feeling the strip is lacking by the absence of a particular character. Quite the opposite, it works when it's Eugene & George, George & Sueann, Eugene Jr & Eugene Sr or any other combo that graced Yan's WebComicNation page. That page apparently does contain some old work with the character, but not the beginning of the version you'll see under THE WANG.

I'd head on over and catch up on the last year of strips. I don't think you'll regret the time spent.