Sometimes, when I have a blogging lull, it's because there's not much that I want to talk about. Recently, the opposite has been true. There's a number of things going on that I want to talk about, but I'm not sure what exactly I want to say about them. So rather than sound insipid or downright wrong, I've been keeping my mouth shut.
Here's an example. 11,000 people applied for the 400 jobs at a soon-to-open Wal-Mart in Oakland. It was front-page news in the SF Chronicle yesterday.
I had to run some errands around town last night, so I got to listen to two different KGO talk radio hosts opine on the subject. And since this is the Bay Area, it was pretty easy to predict what people were going to say about the whole thing: "Our economy sucks! Wal-Mart is evil! This is terrible!". All of which happened as expected. Although it was funny listening to one host try to defend the concept that any time you have a willing buyer and a willing seller, the result is a "good job" no matter how crappy the wages and benefits are. I was tempted to call in and ask if that extended to things like murder for hire, but I figured that might not get past the screener.
So here's some of what I think. On the one hand, although those job numbers sound bad at first, when you break it down, that's about 27 applicants per position. Competitive, but from where I sit, not horribly so. Not after hearing stories of hiring managers getting flooded with hundreds of resumes for one job posting on Craigslist. Now, not being a tech hiring manager myself, I don't know if those stories are still true, or if that was only in the immediate post-bust timeframe. Maybe I'm wrong and these days, getting 27 applicants per job is really bad. Or maybe it's not that bad after all. Bottom line is, I don't really know, and therefore have a hard time taking a firm stand either way.
Something else I thought about, but have been hesitate to talk about, is the intersection of race and class and hiring here -- note this photograph of the new Wal-Mart employees. But frankly, as relatively privileged member of society, I don't feel comfortable making a lot of points about race and class and employment. It's not my area of expertise, and I run the risk of sounding clichéd, banal or clueless, or (god forbid) a combination of all three.
And yes, Wal-Mart has some terrible business practices. But that's not exactly news if you've been paying attention.
Perhaps after two years of blogging, I'm coming to a place where I feel less like just venting off my emotions and opinions, and instead trying to have some solid ground under my feet when I post. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious -- it's not like I've got a horde of trolls ready to attack me if I say something wrong; I'm lucky to get any comments at all here. Or maybe I'm just being lazy. *grin*
Next, I'll consider whether or not to say anything about Gaza.
