CEO's need to stop offering advice!

At this point I think most everyone has heard the news and resultant uproar about Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer and the whole not being able to work from home thing.  Now there's a new book coming out from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg that's all about how women need to seize their opportunities and how they should strive to achieve success while maintaining a good life balance with their family as well.  (CNN: The myth of balancing motherhood and a successful career)  I've had gripes with the Yahoo decision for a while and this latest news has prompted a nice little blog rant.

I'm not going to touch on the actual topics of what these two women are espousing.  I happen to think telecommuting, remote working or whatever you want to call it can be a great option and should be something offered at many levels across different careers.  I think working in the office doesn't inherently provide a better or worse product simply because you can see someone.  But as I'm not an insider at Yahoo, I can't speak to Mayer's decision.  This could very well be the thing that Yahoo needs to become a relevant company again and congrats to them if it is.  I mean hell, does anyone remember the last time they seriously used Yahoo for anything?  I sure haven't and don't see myself doing so anytime soon.

I also happen to agree with Sandberg's idea and view that women should strive to achieve all they can in the workplace and out of it.  I fully agree with the idea that there should be more female leaders of both countries and companies.  Women are a valuable resource in all respects and the glass ceiling bullshit of the past needs to go, the quicker the better.  (I both truly believe this and am shamelessly trying to pander to my female readership, if there are any.)

The big issue I have with both of these recent developments is the same issue I've had for a long time now.  I'm sick of hearing various different arguments and thoughts from people out of touch with the reality of most common American people.  It's stupid, unhelpful and fucking insulting to those of us that struggle to live in the new America.  It exemplifies the entire reason why our country is in the shitter and why nothing is changing despite the various crises the country finds itself in.

I don't have a family yet but I already know it's going to be a struggle when I do between all the costs and stress and work.  While the dream of winning the lotto is still present, I'm nowhere near making millions of dollars a year.  So you'll forgive me if I call bullshit on an out of touch CEO who cancels work from home initiatives because she has the money and clout to have a fucking nursery center put in next to her new office.  I can guaran-damn-tee that if she were making that same decision, but making it from mine or any other normal worker's perspective, that there would still be remote options at Yahoo right now.  But for her it's an easy solution because she doesn't have to worry about what that might entail.  Struggling to pay for childcare or staying home isn't something she needs to worry about.

Sandberg is much the same, arguing that women should stop avoiding advancement in the career simply because of concerns over the family.  Easy enough to tell people that when you're making crap tons of cash and can afford to "balance" your home life by throwing money at it.  Not such a simple decision to make when you're trying to make ends meet while still maintaining some presence in your child's life and advancing your career.

To be clear, I understand that I have it better than a good chunk of people in this country because I have a job and a roof over my head and I'm grateful for what I have.  However I'm also aware that for those who don't have it as good as I do, I shouldn't expect them to be able to make the same decisions that I could simply because that seems to be the "right" choice for me with my circumstances.

These CEO's, and most in general from everything I've read/seen lately, are so far out of touch with reality it's scary.  It's already been established that most CEO's are psychos (Forbes: Why (Some) Psychopaths Make Great CEOs) so it should come as no surprise at this vast level of disconnect.  But it is fucking irritating and disheartening because no one seems able to call them on their bullshit.  And it's left to the minions (aka you and me) to deal with the repercussions of their decisions and policies.

A Good Day to Die Hard (although good might be a bit generous)

Let's go ahead and kick off what will (hopefully) be a regular feature on the ol' blog here, movie reviews!  Although maybe I should have waited and started with something a bit more promising...

Went to the movies this weekend and saw the latest Die Hard installment for my brother's birthday.  I was fairly excited to give John McClane another chance even given the generally negative reviews the movie has been attracting so far.  The fourth film was entertaining as hell and I thoroughly enjoyed it so I had at least decent hopes for this one.

Entertaining was about all that can be said for this movie and that's still stretching it a little bit.  I'm glad we had a gift card to throw this on and for those of you yet to see it, if you can't see it for cheap then either wait for the Netflix/Redbox rental or the cable debut.

If you haven't seen any info on this you probably don't have a TV or the Internet so I'm kinda surprised you're able to read this at all.  Anywhoo to sum up, John McClane travels to Moscow to help his son who's been arrested and is being sentenced to some horrible gulag for who-cares how long.  (What he expects to be able to do in a foreign country to help his son beat a murder rap is a bit of a mystery but that's by far the most plausible part of the movie, which can only tell you where it goes from there.)  After the initial breakout it becomes one action set piece after another, with some random conversation sprinkled in for flavor, that sees father and son argue, bond, and then kill waves of faceless bad guys.  This culminates in a climactic gun battle in (I-shit-you-not) Chernobyl where the McClane boys stop the terrorists while realizing their family bond is stronger than they first thought.

So having read that description I'm sure you're all already thinking "Oscars 2014 baby!".  But even with all that, the movie was fairly fun.  Bruce turns in his usual McClane performance and you can't help but have fun watching it.  The much needed return to the R-rating for this one allows him to toss out as much foul-mouthed and fun lines as you remember from the earlier entries.  Jai Courtney as the younger Jack McClane is pretty good, although given the action vehicle he's in and his pseudo-supporting role to Willis, you don't get much of a chance to really see what he's got.  Still he holds his own and doesn't drag the film down at all.  The chemistry between the two isn't the strongest but they seem to at least be inhabiting the same film and space, you get the impression that there's some give and take between the two.

Really where the film fails the most is the overall story and direction which of course falls to the director (not even gonna bother looking him up cause I know I wouldn't recognize him or care to).  There's almost no plotting whatsoever, you're left to figure out who's trying to kill whom via brief breaks in the gunshots and explosions.  Still given it's a Die Hard flick, I'm not gonna begrudge it that much.  What really lowered the bar was the utter insanity of what they decided to put on the screen.  Had I known how powerful a Mercedes SUV was, I'd have been recommending them to anyone shopping for a new car for years.  This thing plows off a bridge onto the top of a semi trailer stuck in stopped traffic.  From there is proceeds, Sherman tank style, to drive over all of the stopped cars in front of it crushing roofs and generally treating them like a set of bumps in the road.  Then after it gets back onto the road and into the chase, it somehow manages to ram off another bridge a fully armored APC-like vehicle before crashing.  Yet it leaves McClane with barely a scratch to show for it.  This is but one example of the kinds of crazy this movie just seems to toss out there.

Now I'm normally the first to defend a movie when it comes to the suspension of disbelief, especially to the missus when we're watching an arguably shitty movie that I enjoy.  So these initial eyebrow raising moments are a bit much and it's ok so far.  But even I had to repeatedly roll my eyes at the end of the movie in Chernobyl.  Hazmatted baddies are stalking the perimeter but the McClanes are invincible enough to stride into the irradiated buildings with nothing more than a leather coat and tactical vest respectively?  Are you fucking kidding me?!  I'd have actually been happier if no one had the suits on cause then at least you could have explained it away with something like "Well the radiation has dropped to acceptable levels" or "We sprayed all that radiation neutralizing mist over everything so it's safe now".  (Yeah they actually had a mist gun thing that sprayed out some magic chemical that made it safe to walk around in the buildings.  Guess the Russian government just hasn't got off its lazy ass to take care of that themselves yet.)  But nope, there's clearly a fallout risk here but the McClanes are just such American badasses who only care about stopping the bad guy that they're not too concerned about a little cancer.

So I'll admit there's a decent amount of griping above because this is one of those movies where it's easy to find the flaws, but overall I'd reiterate that for what it's worth the movie was a fun time.  This is the type of film you just shut your mind off, cheer on the good guys, and enjoy the carnage.  For the Die Hard fan it probably falls right around Die Hard 2 levels of quality but it certainly scratches that itch.  And at 97 minutes it's just the right amount of mindless fun.  Just make sure you aren't paying full price for it though.