Fired On Sick List Update

[mjk]

Some people like to be bitter. We have one of those at crew skd.

Just one??? You're being far too kind!!!

 

[BillLumbergh]

Ummm, Liveinahotel and others, if we see additional personal assaults on one another, rest assured that you're going to get a nice week or so off from the boards.

You've been warned.

 

[LiveInAHotel]

Oh yeah.........thanks for Charlie Ward. We've needed a backup PG ever since Speedy left.

No problem, let me know if you need anyone else. Maybe the Spurs can get the "old man" Ewing out of retirement to replace Robinson!!

 

[mjk]

Hey hotel........there's a post further back with your name on it.

You gonna answer any of my questions?

Inquiring minds wanna know.

 

[kirkpatrick]

Do you even know where the Kool-Aid analogy comes from?

I've never seen the Kool-Aid analogy correctly used. For those old enough to remember, drinking poisoned Kool-Aid is how Jim Jones' followers took their own lives in the mass suicide at Jonestown. The Kool-Aid didn't make them crazy or force them to believe anything; they had already reached that point when they drank the stuff.

MK

 

[Garfield1966]

I think majority of the employees are ready to get a long with management. The problem is they're not ready to get a long with us. How can you trust this company when they lied to all of us and got their hands caught in the cookie jar?


Next time I have an SAT layover I will take you up on that offer! But, we must wait until the Knicks are in town!

Oh my god. Management of a large corporation lies to it’s honest wholesome hard working employees? Say it ain’t so MJK. Hurry, someone call Rippley’s (sp?). I think the will want to hear about this one.

 

[Garfield1966]

I've never seen the Kool-Aid analogy correctly used. For those old enough to remember, drinking poisoned Kool-Aid is how Jim Jones' followers took their own lives in the mass suicide at Jonestown. The Kool-Aid didn't make them crazy or force them to believe anything; they had already reached that point when they drank the stuff.

MK

Geez Kirk, I was having so much fun seeing them write stuff showing their ignorance. Now you went and ruined the whole thing and you’re going to make them come up with something else to prove how smart they really are.

Thanks Kirk, You’re off my X-mass list.

 

[skyangelnflight]

I've never seen the Kool-Aid analogy correctly used. For those old enough to remember, drinking poisoned Kool-Aid is how Jim Jones' followers took their own lives in the mass suicide at Jonestown. The Kool-Aid didn't make them crazy or force them to believe anything; they had already reached that point when they drank the stuff.

MK

I think it goes farther back than that. Timothy Leary and kool-aid with acid in it. Drinking the kool-aid "opened your mind" and you could see the flowers. . .

I don't remember all the details, (before my time and I got this 3rd hand you know h34r: ) but it was a party of somekind and political leaders (or some mukity-mukes) were there and the punch was laced with LSD.

Then the herb-baked brownies followed. . .

Anyone with out-ragious ideas was labeled as having been drinking the "kool-aid"

Of course Jones punched the kool-aid up a peg or two didn't he. . .
or should I say, "he took it to a new low"

 

[upsilon]

No way Tim Leary would ever have degraded his psychedelic potions with anything like the tast of Kool-Aid. Bah!! Ugh!!! Spit!!!!

Until Jones, Kool-Aid was a children's drink. Even when some of his followers knew it was laced with poison, they drank it. Thus I'm sure the Jones event is the basis for the frequent charge that some will swallow the Union flavor and others willingly drink that of Management.

Very reliable sources from my younger days assure me that no one would have dropped acid in Kool-Aid!

 

[kirkpatrick]

[Thanks Kirk, You’re off my X-mass list.

Shucks. Now I'll have to call off sick!

MK

 

[kirkpatrick]

No way Tim Leary would ever have degraded his psychedelic potions with anything like the tast of Kool-Aid. Bah!! Ugh!!! Spit!!!!

As a college student in those years (1967-1971) I tend to agree. I never heard of acid being taken in that manner; it was usually a small tablet. I've heard of a drop of it in a sugar cube as well, but never Kool-Aid.

Anything is possible, however.

MK

 

[upsilon]

In view of the posts above about unions, jobs and the Democratic party, this is an interesting read:

AFL-CIO Motto: Kick Me Again

 

[skyangelnflight]

No way Tim Leary would ever have degraded his psychedelic potions with anything like the tast of Kool-Aid. Bah!! Ugh!!! Spit!!!!

As a college student in those years (1967-1971) I tend to agree. I never heard of acid being taken in that manner; it was usually a small tablet. I've heard of a drop of it in a sugar cube as well, but never Kool-Aid.

Anything is possible, however.

MK

The answer is never the answer. Whats really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer - they think that they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer. - Ken Kesey

Well, I wasn't there. . . .but I did stay in a Holiday Inn one time. . ..

I got my information from a book I read many moons ago:

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. So since it had been a long time
since I read the book, I did a search, and here are two sources I found on the
topic:

In Palo Alto, Ken Kesey met a graduate psychology student who was participating in L.S.D. experiments at a veterans hospital. These L.S.D. experiments were sponsored by the C.I.A. and the U.S. Army. Mr. Kesey was probably first attracted by the $75 per session that the volunteer subjects were paid. Ken Kesey afterward brought this new found experience into the public realm at the fabled acid tests in and around La Honda, California. The acid tests were big parties with strobe lights, music and participants drinking L.S.D. laced Kool-Aid. These parties, along with other experimentation in New York by Harvard University professor Timothy Leary, were the starting point of a cultural revolution. Psychedelic art, drug experimentation, 1960's intellectualism as well as music by acid rock groups such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane had roots in the Kesey acid tests. Mr. Kesey's acid tests were for everyman while Dr. Leary's experiments attracted a more intellectual crowd.

Tom Wolfe documented these activities in his book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test".

and from this link: Etymology of koolaid-drinking

According to the Jargon File, the term originates with the People's Temple cult headed by Jim Jones in the late 70's. Those guys drank a bunch of a fruity beverage laced with cyanade and followed Mr. Jones straight into the Great Beyond. What they found there is questionable, to say the least.

I think the Jargon File is wrong on this one, though. First off, the cult members drank Flavor-Aide, which is a cheapo knockoff of Kool-Aid and most definitely not the real thing. Secondly, the source of this gives the term an undeserved negative connotation. After all, who wants to buy into a concept where the eventual outcome is death?

In the computer world, I've generally come to look at koolaid-drinking as a generally positive thing, something that describes someone who's Seen the Light WRT some new technology. It's an expression of enlightenment, not brainwashing (of course, one man's nirvana is another man's instrument of control -- but that's beside the point for now). In this context, I think the term is referrering not to Jim Jones and his psycho-deathcult, but to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

As a historical aside in case you haven't read Tom Wolfe's The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, Ken Kesey was the leader of a hippie commune called the Merry Pranksters who hung out in San Francisco during the 60's. Periodically, they'd throw these things called "Acid Tests", which were big parties with lots of psychedelic music and lightshows and whatnot (basically, the precursors to the rave scene of the late 90's). At these events, they'd bring out big buckets of "Electric Kool-Aid" -- which was laced with quite a bit of some mind-altering substances. People who had partaken of the so-called electric kool-aid unknowningly usually left the event thinking a little bit differently. People who drank too much kool-aid usually ended up hanging out with Ken, driving around in a hippie bus and talking about enlightenment with Timothy Leary.

There's no definitive answer as to what that unknown person was actually referring to when he/she/it first coined the phrase. I'd be very interested to find out, though. Alas, I'm afraid that this topic will remain the subject of much water-cooler debate in software companies around the world for the forseeable future...

 

[upsilon]

skyangelnflight: Great research job!

I too read Tom Wolfe's book; but it was 1968 when it was first published in hardcover. I have read all of his books since then.

I also was aware of Ken Kesey even before the Wolfe book, being a regular reader of Paul Krassner’s publication, The Realist. BTW, I wish I had saved my collection of the publication, which featured early cartoons of Robert Crumb. They fetch great prices today.

But I never heard the "kool-aid" expression now regularly used in discussions of labor union and labor relations matters until after the "followers" of Jones drank some flavored liquid, resulting in their death. Thus I believe when so used it refers to a worker "following" a union leader or employer management to an "unfavorable end".

Even if Ken Kesey and Tim Leary did drop acid in Kool-Aid, I don't believe that is the analogy in use on threads on this board involving labor union matters.

But it was nice to bring back memories of those 1960s days.