King County may ask us to OK a sales tax hike to pay for public safety. It’s always interesting that we’re never asked to pay more taxes to keep county office assistants, public relations departments or other miscellaneous staff on the payroll in tough times. It’s always public safety.
I had three interviews last week. All for the same position. One over the phone; one with the contracting agency; one with the client. For a Web Producer role in which I’d be publishing web pages all day long.
It was, in a word, my very vision of perfection. No sooner than I got off the phone with the recruiter than I began dreaming about a clean, quiet cubicle space in Kirkland – one with a little sunshine, a spot for a plant and a photo of my husband.
It has the makings of an Old Guard meltdown.
Last week, we were treated to the news of Maple Valley Councilwoman Linda Johnson walking out of a meeting to protest what she believed to be illegal acts committed by the city manager and the council. But a closer look at the issue doesn’t appear to support her accusations, and the very act she is opposed to may have saved this city many millions of dollars.
So today I thought I would interview myself, because A) few of you wonderful folks have sent me job-hunting related questions, B) I’m up against my deadline and C) I just finished watching “Interview with the Vampire” and the dialogue seemed scarily apt.
The new state budget has finally been worked out, and as expected, taxes are going up. It’s going to cost you more to drink beer, chew gum, smoke or buy water in a bottle. It’ll also cost you more to get your hair done, visit the doctor, sue somebody or get your taxes done.
It is refreshing to finally see some reduced spending in addition to the tax increases.
Teenagers aren’t supposed to die.
They’re especially not supposed to die like this.
Phoebe Prince only had two strikes against her, and if you were a normal person, they were not strikes at all.
OK, so the aggressive panhandling ordinance passed in Covington last year didn’t completely work. The icky people are still out there on the street corners, so maybe now we need a passive panhandling ordinance, right?
I use the term “icky people” with tongue firmly in cheek, but that does represent the views of some citizens, which you can read in the online comments on this paper’s Web site. Most of them think that the handouts only go towards drugs and alcohol, but that’s not completely accurate. Even hardcore junkies have to eat every now and then, and most of them can’t stand still that long.
This Legislative session seemed like mostly bad news – tax increases, budget woes and a rough economy were overwhelming. However, it is a mistake to miss that this was the best public safety session in decades
I was reading a news article a couple of days ago about a Périgord truffle known as the Black Diamond. These are not the chocolate candies, but the precious truffles that cost a million dollars to fry up and plop on your toasted cheese sandwich made with Wonder bread and Velveeta.
Things to do when you’re unemployed.
• Sleep.
• Get up.
• Go to the kitchen to make coffee.
• Remind yourself that the cereal goes in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard.
Sometimes I wish that we scrutinized our politicians as much as we do our retailers.
For example, occasionally I’ll get a call from a customer who is furious because the item she ordered yesterday hasn’t arrived yet (at 10 in the morning). Or maybe another one is annoyed because the shipping charge is $8.95, but three years ago it was only $6.95.
But if you ask these same people to take the time to scrutinize where their thousands of property tax dollars are going, they don’t have a response. I know this because I’m crazy enough to ask.
It is no secret that Google ranks among the most innovative companies in the world. (Just type “Google + innovations” in their search engine and you get more than eight million hits right away.) One would assume that they have assembled one of the smartest and most creative workforces anywhere. The few Google employees I have personally met were smart all right, but they didn’t strike me as supernaturally gifted. All those willing to talk to me about working for Google (not all are inclined to do so) said they enjoyed being with the company, primarily because they felt appreciated there.
As the 2010 State Legislative Special Session ensues, the fear of higher taxes is weighing heavy on the minds of many Washingtonians.
Business owners, families and prospective employers are watching and waiting to see whether spending will be curbed or taxes will be raised.
After a year of fierce debate and wrangling, Congress has finally done something that many of the people who cover politics for a living in New York and Washington, D.C. have been telling the country had little chance of happening: it sent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act to President Obama’s desk to be signed into law.
The legislation, which ultimately passed without a single Republican vote, is designed to gradually provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and better protection for those who already have insurance.
On a recent afternoon, five of my friends came over for an evening of Risk, beer and chick flicks. I don’t play Risk, and I don’t drink beer; but the boys of the group had decided it was time for an evening of world domination, so the girls of the group decided we needed movies that didn’t have to be heard over the yelling.
I recently attended a fundraiser for a local organization, and it reminded me of why I usually try to avoid those kinds of things. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the presentation, and just like in figure skating it contained the required technical elements, while the extra points for style had to be earned.
Tuesday afternoon I went to a job fair at the Seattle Center. Even though I ‘pre-registered’ two weeks ago, it wasn’t until that morning, while rewriting my resume for the third time, that I decided to go. On the one hand, it didn’t seem like the place to find the kind of jobs I was looking for. On the other hand, it didn’t seem like my online application strategy was finding me any jobs at all.
About the only local political issues worth talking about these days are the massive new developments planned by YarrowBay in Black Diamond and Maple Valley. Sorry, employee non-salary benefit review; you’re just not sexy enough for the front page.
For much of our state’s recent political history, colorful and exciting top-of-the-ticket races have been a staple of the electoral landscape. Consider the Slade Gorton/Maria Cantwell battle of 2000, the epic Christine Gregoire/Dino Rossi slugfests in 2004 and 2008, George Nethercutt’s challenge to Patty Murray in 2004, or Mike McGavick’s attempt to unseat Maria Cantwell in 2006.
I’m not sure what I expected when I walked into Workforce Renton Tuesday afternoon. Actually, that’s a lie. Considering the description of the class I was attending ended with a thorough explanation of their first-come, first-serve policy, with no seating allowed five minutes before the start and a strong recommendation for being at least one hour early, I did have a vague mental picture involving Department of Motor Vehicle-proportion lines full of zombies just waiting to snap me into a pair of shackles and a shredded checkered fleece.