melted down

Well, today wasn't one of my shining moments.  Sorry, that wasn't fair to me.  I am on day two of what seems to be a stress meltdown.  It all started... well, I'm not sure.  All I know is that Wednesday was an EXTREMELY stressful day.  And Thursday morning, I found that every little thing made me want to cry.  I advised my boss and my floor boss, "Today is the day I'm finally gonna snap," and I was right.  I didn't let it out much... not to people around me, anyway.  Even made friends with our new plant manager (who starts Tuesday).  But at the end of my 9 hours I told my boss about it, and she said, "You should have said it was that bad, I'd have let you out early."  But I didn't want that.  Why on earth would I go home just because I want to cry?

Why indeed?

It's not the work per se.  A talk with my son- who is so much like me- pretty much told the tale.  We are both conscientious, dependable workers passionate about getting a job done.  Which ends up with us being put in key positions upon which most of the people in the plant depend on you.  But what is happening- and I'm not going to look at business mistakes, etc. as the cause here- is that we are at a "boy, we're swamped" point.  Less delicately, a "boy we're screwed" point.  And you can work as hard as possible and not even see the edge of the hole we're in.  Or, as I put it to the new Plant Mgr, "I can't dig us out, I can only rearrange the dirt around the hole and make it look neat."

And they realize that.  But the problem is, I think, I can't get my brain to accept it, and that it's okay.  All it sees is the hole and the shovels throwing dirt on top of me.  And they are doing something about it, but it's not working.  At Wednesday morning meeting, my boss said of our efforts, "We've added three and a half hours of cutting time (between my nine, another girl working my lunch, and a trainee working two hours after I leave), and it's not enough."  I think that was the trigger.  Three days of triple size orders, no apparent relief from the things I have been pointing out- in some cases, for months- that are slowing things down.  Hell, I begged for a new ink cartridge for my paperwork printer for a week and a half before I got one!

I took a sleeping pill Thursday night and went to bed at 8:30 yet again.  (Note:  Tuesday I missed my first new episode of Deadliest Catch in FOUR YEARS.)  I thought maybe solid, extra sleep would help.

Laurie could hear it in my voice this morning that it hadn't.  As soon as I got there, the battle began anew.  AND THINGS WEREN'T EVEN THAT BAD, relatively.  But nonetheless, it was back again, and worse.  Then at 8:10 (three hours into my Martin Saving Time shift), my floor boss came over and told me that several items- which I had proof that I had cut, and she had proof they had sewed- suddenly had no proof they shipped, were nowhere to be found, and would need recut.

And that was the end of me.  I pretty much broke down to her.  With tears hammering their way out, I told her everything, including that I felt like I was moving through mud, things that I should have been able to do in my sleep took precious seconds of thought, and my focus was on a sharp decline.  "I even tried to scan two orders at the same time!"  I laughed without feeling it.  She brought out our boss.

"Are you all right?"  She asked.

"No.  I think I've popped my cap and need to go somewhere and fizz out," I said tearing and smiling at the same time.

Moments later, I was on my way home for the weekend.

And I drove home, talking on the phone to Laurie the whole way.  Two naps, one walk, and a good talk with my son later...  I'm still moving through mud, and I still feel like Bruce Banner with the Hulk rattling around inside.  After nap #1, I read my Bible and the day's meditation from Chambers' My Utmost For His Highest.  See what he had to say today...

" 'Take no thought...' (Matt. 6:25) don't take the pressure of forethought upon yourself... Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world...  I will not trust where I cannot see, that is where infidelity (Meaning infidelity to trusting all things to Him) begins... The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon. (His emphasis.)



So there you have it.  This weekend, I get to be the basket case, as I rebuild the wall between me and what I cannot do, a wall that failed me the last two days.  Hugs and prayers are appreciated.

Time Machine week 5

It's May 23rd, 1972.  Richard Nixon is one day into a historic visit to the Soviet Union, where he...uh, signed some environmental treaty with a Russian big shot you never heard of.  And Ceylon was one day into being Sri Lanka, which either means "Sacred Island" in Sanskrit or "pass me the arrack" in Dutch.

And a ginger beer chaser, please?

Welcome to this week's Time Machine- the week in which Luther Ingram's If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right, Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose's Too Late To Turn Back Now, and the Eagles' Take It Easy (yup, their first single!) first hit the charts.  Oh, and there's another one that makes it's first chart appearance this week, and I would be remiss as a Guess Who fan not to share...





Also this week, at last a new #1, a look at the foreign charts, a 45 at 45 and the interesting life of Mike Brant (?)  You be the red king, I'll be the other pawn, and let's go!


I guess the appropriate starting point would be those nifty foreign #1s, and what's been up since we were here last?  Well, after a couple native -language one shots, France has at #1 a song called Qui Saura (Who Knows) by our mystery man Mike Brant.  Born Mike Brand in Nicosia, Cyprus, he was the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, and papa Fishel was a resistance fighter before his capture.  They became immigrants to Israel in 1947, settling in a kibbutz near Haifa, but Mike found his fortune in France as a pop star.  Sadly, he had developed chronic depression from something called Second Generation Syndrome that hits the children of survivors.  After one attempted suicide, he cut back his heavy touring schedule, and even managed to record again.  But the demon wouldn't die, and his second attempt at jumping to his death was successful on April 25th, 1975. (Listening as I type, a pretty, melancholy song.)

In Germany, Daniel Boone's Beautiful Sunday pushes its way to the top for the first of a 4-week-out-of-five run.  In the Netherlands, a group called Earth And Fire (No, not those guys without the wind) hits with a tune called Memories.  This band was led by brothers Chris (guitar) and Gerald (keyboards) Koerts, and fronted by another beauty contest possibility named Jerney Kaagman.

 

These guys built a name touring with Golden Earring back in the day.  Again, listening to the song (and watching, I think I'm in love again!)  If you enjoyed Shocking Blue and Venus, I think you'll like this:




And just when I thought the New Colony Six had the "song I wouldn't know except for Time Machine" locked up...

AHEM, back to the show.  Canada was a bit slow on the uptake this week- they have The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face in its second week at the top, and will keep it there into next month.  Ireland has, believe it or not, Johnny Cash at the top with his #2 C&W hit A Thing Called Love; and the Royal Scots Dragoons have been knocked off the UK top by T-Rex with their last big hit, Metal Guru.  Let's hear from band leader and writer Marc Bolan:

"Is a festival of life song. I relate 'Metal Guru' to all Gods around. I believe in a God, but I have no religion. With 'Metal Guru', it's like someone special, it must be a Godhead. I thought how God would be, he'd be all alone without a telephone. I don't answer the phone any more. I have codes where people ring me at certain times."

Uh-huh.  Australia, though, picks up the slack for the Scotsmen, as Amazing Grace is in the midst of a five-week run there; and New Zealand has just discovered Nilsson's Without You.  Everyone else, either has the same #1 as when we last saw them, or something I cannot pronounce.

 

 

Time for the 45 at 45, and it's nifty new logo!  For the newbies, "45 at 45" is the 45 rpm record at #45 on the Cashbox charts 45 years ago this week.  And this week lands in the New Colony Six, who were a huge name in the Chicago area in the late sixties.  Unfortunately, they got more airplay in Canada than they did in the rest of the US of A.  Their song on the hot seat was called I Could Never Lie To You, a song that was reaching it's peak.  The band, which wiki claims performed in Colonial uniforms like Paul Revere and the Raiders (though about half the pictures I saw had them without), hit the top 40 twice here and three times in Canada, with the biggest hit coming the year before (AKA 1968) with Things I'd Like To Say, which topped out at #16 here and top tenned its way to #6 up north.  And would have been our "song I didn't know" this week... save for Jerney Kaagman.

 

 

 

 

Our You Peaked list this week has four songs on it.  One, surprisingly was David Bowie's Changes, which began tumbling after stopping at a mere 59 (it reached 41 on Billboard).  Isaac Hayes' Lay-Away drops after climbing to 36; The Soul Children and Hearsay topped off at 22 and fall to 33; and Suavecito by Malo stopped at 12 and falls this week to 14.

 

 

Turn and face the strain...



Our top forty newbies start with Billy Preston's Outa-Space up nine to #40; Neil Young climbs 8 to #39 with Old Man; CCR hits at #36, up seven, with Someday Never Comes.  At 35, we have a song called Ask Me What You Want by Millie Jackson, singer and comedienne, who would hit #42 in a few years with the song Luther Ingram takes into the hot 100 this week, If Loving You Is Wrong, etc.  Bread reaches the top 40 yet again with the song Diary, climbing 7 pages... er, notches, to #34 for this week's high debut.

Three new top tens, so three fall out.  Dropping are Baby Blue (9 to 37), Betcha By Golly Wow (6 to 25), and A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done (7 to 17).


And now, for a change, the top ten in correct order!

Our first debut is the redoubtable Mr. Ringo Starr with Back Off Boogaloo, up a quartet to #10.

Number two debut is the J5 with Little Bitty Pretty One, up seven big to #9.

Third and final debut belongs to Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen with Hot Rod Lincoln, up nine to #8.

Paul Simon and his friend Julio are up to #7 this week, climbing three.

Joe Tex finally starts slipping, down a notch to #6 with I Gotcha.

And so does Michael Jackson and Rockin' Robin, down 3 to #5.

Jumping a big 4 to #4, the Chi-Lites and Oh, Girl.

Al Green slides into the 3-hole, up a spot with Look What You've Done For Me.

The First Time in a while we've seen Roberta Flack's Face out of the top spot, she falls back to #2.

And our new top dog(s)....

...the Staple Singers with I'll Take You There!


That's a wrap on another show, kids, see you next week!

The Hump'n'dump was rockin'!

Two days of 8+ dogs at the bark park, and Scrappy is whupped.  I didn't get pictures the first day, but I did get some last night.

Scrappy, I think Roscoe, a little washrag of a girl I never heard the name of, and the head of Mighty Georgia.

Walks right in the way of Scrappy.

Trouble A and Trouble B.

The big black guy is Adler.

He came out like a demon dog here, but really wasn't.  He was a 170-lb catastrophe waiting to happen, and nearly knocked down every human in the place at one point or another.  When he did it to his mistress, she said, "Adler. I'm drunk, and I'm not enjoying this."  For the record he had a good 60 lbs on her.

That's all for today, since I have to get to work on Time Machine soon.  But if you think Scrappy got short changed in the picture department...

Here's one testing the camera a few days ago.

May 2014

That's what it said on the calendar, and it gave me a feeling of... I wasn't sure what.  I thought about it a bit, and then it dawned on the history buff- we are just a few short weeks from the 100th anniversary of World War One- the Great War, the "war to end all wars."  And I thought it would be nice (for me, anyway) to do some run-up posts before the day that changed the world so much. 

But to do it justice, you have to know the backstory.  Now, I know that you can get it from any history book if you so desire, but I'd like to try to put my take to it.  That would require a post the size of a small novel if I really get going, and NONE of us want that.  So let me try to give you the abridged version.

To do the story justice, we have to go back to Napoleon Bonaparte.  Not his whole story, just the concept that he fundamentally changed Europe.  Before him, alliances between nations were ephemeral and easily broken.  After him, the powers that be- England, France, Russia, Prussia (think "the north of what we now call Germany"), and Austria (think " a big blob containing what are now Austria, Hungary, the Czech Rep, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, and chunks of Romania, Italy, and Poland")- decided to meet with each other to solve the continent's problems.  This was called "the Concert of Europe", and this concert was a few strings and woodwinds short of a quorum.  Still, the basic idea of the big five solving things together lasted about 40 years, until a little dust up called the Crimean War.

This war, besides making the charge of the Light Brigade famous, was the result of Russia trying to protect the Christians in the Ottoman Empire (their story) or Russia trying to seize Constantinople so they could have a year round warm water port (everyone else's story).  The result was not as significant as the fact that it shattered the Concert:  England and France (along with a backwater called Sardinia-Piedmont which was trying to grow up to become Italy) opposed Russia, Prussia stayed neutral, and Austria waited for the excuse to join the fight they hoped would NOT come.  The "unity" of Europe was broken apart.  And this gave one man and one nation a fantastic opportunity.

The man was Otto Von Bismark, and the nation was Germany.  At this point, Germany was a congloberation (Hah, I was right, that ISN'T a word!) of about 36 independent flyspecks and dirtclods arranged around Austria and Prussia.  And their were two schools of thought as to putting the pieces together.  "The "Big German" solution included and would be dominated by Austria.  The "Small German" solution would exclude Austria and be ran by Prussia.  Bismark, the Prussian leader known as the "Iron Chancellor" had a vision and a plan to create the Small plan.  It involved step one, pick a fight with little bitty Denmark over two piddly duchies, Schleswig and Holstein (yep, where the cows come from.)  Step two, pick a fight with Austria over who gets to run the two flyspeck properties.  This came in 1866, the Seven Weeks War (only the logistics of the day and the peace negotiations made it THAT long), in which the Austrian army was clobbered in one big battle.

The result of that was that Germany was divided at the Main River.  To the north side, anyone who had supported Austria was gobbled up by Prussia, and everyone else "joined" the North German Confederation- AKA,"you keep your king/duke/mayor of the palace, we'll run your economy and foreign affairs."  To the south, you had four independent Kingdoms- Hesse-Darmstadt, Wittenburg, Baden, and Bavaria- depending on the imagined threat of Austria and France to keep from getting gobbled as well.

That lasted just long enough for Bismark to purposefully piss off France, now being run by Napoleon's grand nephew Louis Napoleon.  France went to war outgunned, out-generalled, and outfought.  The little four flocked to Prussia's arms for fear of france; and when France fell so quickly, they ran there for fear of Prussia.  In the Hall of Mirrors in the very palace Louis XIV ruled over western Europe just over 150 years before, Bismark proclaimed the new German Empire.

Now things might well have stayed peaceful for a while this way.  Bismark's Germany not only dominated Europe, but had an alliance (called the Emperor's League) with Russia and Austria.  Italy had just finally united itself, and France was resigned to nervously licking it's wounds alone- and those wounds included the loss of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine ( The pointy part of France sticking Germany in the last map).

But then the Emperor, Wilhelm I, died, and his son soon after, leaving German in the hands of his Grandson, Wilhelm II.  The new Kaiser was a boob among men.  He fired Bismark so he could run things HIS way.  And his way included letting the alliance with Russia slip; Russia then checked Craigslist and found France was seeking SWN (single white nation), and suddenly it was Russia and France vs Germany and Austria.  Oh, and Italy; but seeings as there was a little matter of three Italian provinces still in the possession of Austria, this was far from a happy marriage.  But they still had the numbers, until Willy decided he wanted a navy to match England's; that pissed them off, and after some messy colonial dealings with Russia and France were worked out, it was three against three.

Wilhelm II; not the brightest guy in the palace.

Singlehandedly Willy changed a situation which he had by the handle (keep in mind, Willy, Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and England's Queen Victoria were all cousins) into a Europe divided into two teams, "living in a powderkeg and givin' off sparks" as Bonnie Tyler sang.  And for the next 3 months or so, everybody involved decided to look for a lighter.  From here, I figure I'll do a short "this week in WWI" post once a week until things start getting hot.  Hope you will follow along and learn how what would come will impact the world we live in now.

Now you see me...

...because I've been writing ahead.  See, after hearing me say that we were digging ourselves a hole for the last two months, my work has decided that the way to deal with it is to have me come in an hour earlier (their version of Martin Saving Time, I guess), and to have the lady that trained me run the cutter any of the time I'm not on it, and two hours after I escape, as well as trading lunches so the cutter rolls on.  So now, instead of getting up at 5 AM to work at 6, I'm getting up at 4 AM to work at 5.  Also, they've hired another lady with an eye to starting a split 1st-2nd shift on the cutter.  Which I'm not sure how that is going to go because the lady I trained last year for that very job is still around, and I think wondering why they haven't asked her.  The new lady is supposed to "shadow" me- eventually- but today she was stuck at the box-stitcher until right before I left, when she seemed to be helping the first lady at her station.  As long as they let me go at the end of my shift (which my poor befuddled boss almost didn't do because the concept of my starting at 5 just wouldn't come to her), I don't really care.


I was looking around at some blog ideas, which I was dry of tonight, and remembered a scam e-mail I was sitting on.  It wasn't anything new; but it was so well-written and professionally done, far far beyond the typical missive from Nigeria, I was going to give John Azikiwe, Esq., kudos for a good job- until I learned that Azikiwe, Esq., was not from Nigeria at all, but Togliatti, Russia.  Pretty bad when a Nigerian scam isn't even really Nigerian anymore.

I also saw, in casing out the stats page of this blog, that somehow it was reached by someone searching, "çok eski ihtiyar grandpa blog pornosu"- which apparently is Turkish for, "Very old old grandpa porn blog."  Perhaps it was yesterday's video of the elderly couple from the UK and their nude trespasser that lined that one up, I don't know.

Finally, I saw that I was just 678 pageviews away from 100,000! Am I excited?

Well, am I?

Anyway, let's adorn the end of this with some pictures starring- Scrappy!

 

I am Lord Beasley... and that is NOT a pussycat swallowtail!

 

A refreshing wade at the Spot.

Who let that idiot in there?

Martin World News- Naked Olympics edition

Hey, don't look at me... this is the most I EVER wear...

Well the weekly search for idiocy was a bit slow for a change... but I did find, on a site called Guyism.com, 25 things one shouldn't do naked.  One of them was our old friend Jermaine Jones, who rode naked around his complex's parking lot on a tricycle.  It came in at #23.  As for the twenty-four others, many of them fell into convenient groups.

I- At retail establishments

For an example, we have 20-y-o Daylen Holloman, who called policemen at a 7-11 at Palm Coast, FL.  When they arrived, he seemed confused as to why he called, but tried to explain it away by asserting, " he only knew he was a monkey".  When police tried to explain to him he was a human because "monkeys don't wear clothes", he began to strip.

Another convenience store incident involved a woman who was disappointed over an anticipated sexual encounter (a theme that will appear again at the end of the feature).  Heather Hayes of Upstate NY decided she'd had enough of her boyfriend's playing of Xbox with his buddies and wanted some... he did not, and she tripped out.  As she dismantled the bedroom, he high tailed it to the corner store to call 911.  Hayes, still thinking she was going to get some out of the deal, followed him naked from the waist down into the store.  When apprehended by the police, she didn't remember inflicting the bite marks on his arms, and said she hadn't thrown on her pants before pursuing him because... well, she still thought she was gonna get some.


A final example in this category gives us Kevin Hughes, 36, of Tega Cay, SC, who "has a drug problem", and "accidentally" took meth instead of his preferred ecstasy, and thus doesn't remember walking around the neighborhood Wal Mart cruising the electronic section in nothing but black shoes. (This was their #1, BTW.)

II- Just hanging (it) out

Here we have examples such as:  John David Kinder, 25, of St. Lucie, accused of dancing naked in the road in front of a neighbor's house; Anthony Johnson, 54, AKA "City Pimp", a homeless man eating Wendys with his pants down in front of a West Palm Beach Walgreens (Notice how many of these stories are coming from the SAME area?); Marty Parrish, 52, of Ormond Beach, strolling the boardwalk in his altogether; Anthony Hedger, 24, and his baby, walking down a Greenville, NC, highway, fleeing into a woods to escape police, and biting the baby's shoulder when police tried to take the child; Osmar Hernandez, 33, of New Orleans, who was strolling through town, naked from the waist down, holding his shorts (because they kept falling off, he said), masturbating and singing (the tune was not recognized by arresting officers);  and Mark Mertz, a 44-y-o teacher who was humping his mailbox in his driveway.

III- Things better done elsewhere

How about visiting your husband in jail?

Maura Fussell, a 26-y-o from Reston, VA, who decided the best way to visit hubby in jail was naked and drunk.  Or, on the other side of the fence, how about:

 

Meet Michael Long, whom the police in Arab, AL, found 40 feet up a pine tree, with the intention of living in it.  Or maybe it's just a cultural thing in Kentucky when Deharra Waters was busted for running through the bingo hall with his pants down, shouting, "BINGO!!!"  While it was clear that he was drunk, it was not clear whether he had actually hit a bingo or not.

19-y-o Joseph Hall found himself drunk and naked in Knoxville TN and did what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances- steal a Bobcat from a local nursery and attempt to drive it home.  42-y-o Sean Flaherty of Iowa City was caught nude and breaking the tail lights out of parked cars, because "red means danger to the republic."

Who wouldn't want to wake up at two in the morning and find a naked lady in their bathtub?

 

25-y-o Sara Soto took off her black dress and climbed through a doggie door, entering the home "to use the phone".  Which totally explains why she was in the tub.  At least she wasn't like the unidentified woman from Phelan, CA, who tried to run over her equally naked fiancée in their car.  Or Konstantine Khazin, a 25-y-o Ukrainian from San Diego who claimed he heard a noise in the neighbor ladies' home, so he broke in, found nothing, and just to prove that he hadn't done it to steal anything (his story), took off his clothes and sat on her bed until she got home.  Or the two partiers from Novi MI, one of which was found passed out on a trail barely breathing and the other stripped naked, cut through a screen door, and wandered into a neighbor's house.  Both apparently "on bad acid trips."  Or 41-y-o Chad Forber, found by Rock Island IL police walking naked down the street, carrying his shorts and a can of Crisco, in which he was slathered, "looking for a party".


IV: Performance art

Here we have the strange case of Carnegie-Mellon University student Katherine O'Connor, 19, who dressed up as the Pope from the waist up, sporting only her pubic hair shaved into a cross from the waist down.  University President Jered Cohon is pressing misdemeanor indecent exposure charges against her and two compatriots in the incident.  Not on this list, but of a similar vein (so to speak) is Russian protester Petr Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the cobbles of Red Square to protest Russia's growing into a police state.  I'm sure Putin will be greatly moved..


And for the grand finale-

V:  Caught on video

In a story from the UK, an elderly couple are telling a TV reporter the story of a tree that smashed their home, when Nathaniel Koba, 22 and higher than a kite, stumbles onto the scene:







And wrapping things up (again, so to speak)-  remember me mentioning sexual trysts gone wrong?  Well, yet another citizen of the Sunshine State, 41-y-o Sandra Suarez wanted to get it on in the parking lot of a St Petersburg McDonalds with a worker, who declined.  So she came in clad only in her panties and DESTROYED the restaurant.  I won't post the video here, but it is viral on YouTube, is somewhat entertaining, and you can watch it  here.

Fox on the run

She walked through the corn leading down to the river.
Her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun.
She took all the love that a poor boy could give her
And left me to die like the fox on the run.
Like the fox (like the fox, like the fox) on the run.

Okay, so I like the song, but we did see one Friday.

The last picture is Scrappy pulling me at breakneck speed once we hit where the fox WAS and AFTER it had disappeared into the river woods, and TOWARDS where I had first seen her appear.  Once again, no wildlife was injured in the taking of these pictures. 


Or these:

Saturday we started with a clear blue sky, and the woods was greening up fine.

See the little dot in the middle of the bridge?

It was a squirrel!

1.25 what?  Miles?  Yards?  Parsecs? Pounds?

By the time we crossed the bridge into IPFW, the clear sky was not so much...

Lots of goslings out (Just wait...)

See what I mean?

It was kinda cool for turtles, but nonetheless...

Today I didn't get any pics, but we did see Grandpa Groundhog (after a long walk with neither of us having the energy to care.


---------------------------------------------------

I wanted to bring up one other thing I saw today.  The leftist wingnuts and union people in Switzerland, much like the ones on our left coast, are wanting to raise the minimum wage.  Not grasping the concept that McDonalds was never intended to be a job you raise a family on, the Swiss version of this huggy-feely group wanted at first to pass a law that would require that the highest wage earner in a company (i.e. the owner) could not make more in a month than the lowest guy made in a year.  This was overwhelmingly shot down.  So they tried again.  Now bear in mind that the AVERAGE wage per month in Switzerland is $4,990 a month, compared to $3,167 here as of last year.  The agitators put out a referendum to create Switzerland's first minimum wage, and to set it at 89% of the national average.  This would work out in actual dollars as $25/hr; or as a per cent of OUR average wage, $18.27.  So the guy sitting in the guard shack reading porn and the guy at the manufacturing plant and the guy flipping burgers were suddenly going to make the same- and $4.75 MORE than the average US wage.


Guess what, out of just under 3 million votes, the proposal got less than 670,000 votes.  Lost 72% to 23%, even worse in the two cantons that already had some form of local minimum.

It would seem at least the Swiss grasp the concept that higher wages need to attach to better jobs.  That a person working a dead end job with no skills doesn't rate the same wage as a skilled artisan.  Perhaps if they only had more Starbucks...