Just say 'no' to companies that fail us

It's New Year's Eve Eve and many publications and websites are taking a look back at 2021 while making predictions about 2022. Just as with new year's resolutions, most of the predictions will never happen or certainly never become trends that last. 

But readers love them, partially because of the opportunity to argue with conclusions. Predictions are the extended logic of "cause and effect." If we can correctly predict the effect of whatever cause/event has recently occurred, we can make money or look smart or be prepared. 

Mostly we just foul things up, however, since there are rarely straight lines that connect simple causes and simple effects. 

You might have thought that Jan. 6 would produce some clear effect, perhaps with Americans coming together to set some boundaries to political action and speech -- stopping just before the "violence line," for instance -- but that didn't happen for a giant percentage (though still a minority) of the population.

You might have thought that the availability of vaccines and masks and experience might decrease the reach of the pandemic. You would have been wrong, and not by just a bit. 

Due to the large number of unvaccinated people across the globe, the pandemic will be entering its third year with a roar. I have friends who have been fully vaccinated (i.e. including a booster shot) and who mask up in public come down with uncomfortable Covid cases. None of those friends have been hospitalized, which is one of the predicted effects of being properly vaccinated. 

"Cause and effect" essays are quite common forms of argument since they promise some sort of progress or change. A problem is that it is much easier to work backwards from an effect and find causes that might have been obscured in the past.

I was thinking of the ongoing airline crisis of cancellations and delays and what the causes might be. Finding the causes is important if society hopes to avoid future flying chaos. Lack of transparency and the nation's fragmented health systems mean we may not know for some time just how important airline employee illness and absences have been, as opposed to weather issues (ice in Seattle, as an example). 

Digging a bit deeper leads us to the early days of the pandemic, when most airlines quickly encouraged employees to retire or simply move to another occupation. Airlines were able to get more efficiencies from their employees, with larger planes, fewer (but fuller) flights, and reductions in standby crews in case of emergencies. Executives bragged about how they were fattening profits while reducing staff by 10 percent or more. The federal government propped the airlines up with many millions of dollars in support.

So the true cause of the most recent spate of cancellations might really be simple human greed, and that is certainly one cause that never changes much.

Greed will likely also prompt whatever the fix might be for the problem, since no business enjoys the very bad publicity of not being able to deliver on whatever customers pay for. Customers eventually stop paying.

My family's experience with Alaska Airlines this past week (and continuing through Sunday at least) leads me to vow to never fly that airline in the future. I made a similar vow regarding Frontier some years ago after some similar let downs and disappointments (and horrible customer service). 

I have not noticed any negatives in my traveling life stemming from that decision. 

At some point, I may run out of airlines to boycott, but there's a little satisfaction in the simple act of saying "no" to a company or product. 

Nature reminds us that it always wins in the end

One week ago our Seattle family was scheduled to fly to Denver to celebrate Christmas with us, the first time in two years.

Little did anyone know that the five day, four night visit would double in length, at least. Yep, they got caught in the omicron/weather foul up that has affected thousands of travelers. Their initial Alaska Airlines flight was cancelled last Wednesday but they were able to get on a late flight that arrived in Denver about midnight.

Alaska Air claimed the cancellation was due to weather, but we all suspect that crew shortages were the real culprit at that points. That late flight was a hassle but other than not getting to bed until 2 a.m. last Thursday, crisis averted. Well, delayed.

Last Saturday came Seattle snow and cold, quite unusual and quite paralyzing for the Puget Sound area. Sara, Barry and the boys spent about seven hours in limbo on Monday in DIA, hoping their 1 p.m. flight would take off... though it was eventually delayed until 5:45. After all that teasing, the airline ended up cancelling the flight altogether, sending me back to the airport to pick them up and bring them back to Highlands Ranch.

The good news is that they have our house to stay in and we have space and food, etc. Plus there are no weather problems around here (though it might snow a bit on Friday), so we can get around.

The grandsons are 11 and 9 and need to get out and run and generally NOT hang around their grandparents' house. So there's that. The omicron/delta crisis means that some indoor activities that could be fun for them are not good options. Maybe some swimming (after going to Target for suits). Maybe a movie, if the theater is not crowded.

The good news: Barry's construction/home repair business is on autopilot, so to speak, since most customers can't leave home in Seattle -- few plows, steep, slippery hills, holidays, etc. -- and they have a renter who can watch the house and the dog they are dog-sitting (another concern). Sara loaded up her Seattle Times work to a server, worried that they might end up quarantined due to Covid while here. That turned out to work well for the worse-than-expected Seattle storm, as she is just finishing her section for the Sunday paper online.

Right now they are booked on a Sunday flight on the last four seats available -- all first class. That is not in the budget but what can they do? On the other hand, no one would be surprised to see THAT flight cancelled.

Alaska Airlines is clearly not covering itself with glory here, and their entire customer service system has melted down. No one knows anything. No one shares anything. No one is going to help customers who might be stuck away from home for a number of extra days. "Act of God" is the excuse, but we know that human incompetence is also at work here.

So their quick visit now extends into the new year. I have a couple bottles of sparkling wine in the frig and our only weather event coming is a chance of light snow Friday. 

Our guests are understandably anxious (not to mention hopeful that their vehicle battery will turn over after being parked at SEATAC for 10 days or more in record breaking cold).

Kathleen and I weren't going anywhere so we are now in the acceptance stage of the situation. Maybe this whole debacle will eventually become family lore, complete with heroes and villains and fun moments.

As several in the family have said, "It could be worse."

That may become America's new motto as we trudge, weary, into 2022.

Too many choices are an effective form of paralysis

Today's daily blog post from Seth Godin contrasted choice vs. convenience. Convenience tends to limit choices while choice is almost infinite (if you are willing to spend the time, money, or power to get what you want).

Financial convenience pushes most of us to invest in the short term, for example, so most people opt for something cheaper even if there are much better long-term options. Intellectual convenience encourages NOT taking risks or making even simple changes.

This is the time of year where I spend some time idly wondering about changes in what I teach and how I teach, in texts and sites that might connect better with students, and with entirely new lesson strategies. After all, there is no one way to teach or grade or motivate. There is no "cookbook recipe" to rely upon for success.

Today I am thinking about the proper balance between offering opportunities and mandating opportunities for online college students -- now my only regular teaching situation. Another way to think of this is juggling extrinsic motivation with intrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation is the ultimate goal for most education. It shouldn't take some ghostly presence somewhere south of Denver to get students writing clearly and stylishly. Producing strong prose can be its own reward and receiving a grade or rating on our writing shouldn't make a big difference in what we create.

But it does... for the vast majority of people and certainly college students. 

I am trying to incorporate some new essays into the Composing Arguments course I teach for Metro State, drawn from some open access textbooks recommended by a study committee at the university. They would complement the many essays and memoirs and reports I have gathered over the years that function as models of good writing and thinking.

When teaching an online course, some level of trust between instructor and student must be present. I will never converse with any of my online students in person, never sit down and engage in a back-and-forth conversation. I will never really know if a student read the text or watched the video or listened to the podcast.

As far as checking for understanding (in education talk), my only recourse is to require/mandate some sort of quiz or reaction to a specific paragraph or claim or figure of speech. Those checks must come with some sort of extrinsic "reward" -- like points -- or we are back simply hoping that students find the time to do the reading and thinking we believe will be helpful.

At some point I will need to decide how extensive my checks for understanding must be (a quick and superficial quiz or an in-depth analysis or something in between). 

But what slows me down is making choices about what to require. After all, it is much more convenient (for me) to stick with articles and essays that I have used before. I am "expert" in those, and the documents are already formatted. 

There are countless potential models of good writing and thinking I could share. No one can be expert in them all.

In the next couple weeks I will be sorting readily available choices and devising checks for understanding that add information (as opposed to drain the students of all motivation). 

If you happen to be a Metro student this spring in my section, you will get to be the judge of how it works out. 

Feeling a little blue after Christmas

The Monday after Christmas is bound to be a bit sad. A trip to the airport to drop off family at least keeps your mind off missing everyone, but Covid and weather and who the heck knows what else has caused two of the three Alaska Air flights to be cancelled. Our daughter's family is still at the airport, hoping that the flight they are on, the one still scheduled, takes off.

About five hours late.

As with a certain percentage of life's challenges, there is nothing to be done. The systems are too complex and the decisions of large corporations are too opaque. I am home cleaning a bit and putting some decorations away and feeling a bit guilty that I am home while family members are stuck in America's purgatory: a large, impersonal airport.

New Year's celebrations are on the horizon but you would need to be quite fatalistic about the virus to seriously contemplate some sort of crowded party, filled with wine and dance and laughter and germs.

Yet millions likely will put themselves and others at risk this weekend, though not us. No going out to a restaurant, though we may order a nice takeout meal. No going to the theater to see "West Side Story" or any other intriguing film, though there are plenty of great options from our many streaming services. 

The new year is likely going to begin just like the old year in terms of the country and the world finding some sort of  "normal," which is depressing. But perhaps this omicron variant will burn through the population quite quickly and February could see some respite. 

One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel albums includes the song, "Old Friends." It contains this memorable line: "How terribly strange to be seventy."

Seventy-one is just as strange.

Kathleen and I don't need to go to work and we happen to live in a sane corner of a rather insane county, so we are as confident as we can be that we will be OK.

At this point in history, that is as much as we can ask.

Omicron is at the wheel of a nation without clear defenses

In the chaos of family at our house I missed posting yesterday, but I am giving myself absolution. Everyone needs some grace from time to time.

There was some angst a couple days ago when our Seattle daughter found out that their scheduled flight on Wednesday had been cancelled. She toyed with cancelling the whole thing, but eventually got a night flight to Denver and they arrived about midnight. 

Her worries now are split between Covid and cancelled flights (they are scheduled to fly back to SEATAC on Monday, one of the busiest travel days of the year). And today I see that airlines have cancelled at least 3,000 flights today and tomorrow (Christmas). I am avoiding bringing this up in conversation but assume she knows.

I think I overheard her this morning asking her husband if he could rearrange his schedule in case of a cancelled or delayed flight, so she is already planning her options.

She and family got stuck last time they were here for Christmas, in 2019, due to a snowstorm, and they ended up staying an extra day. This year we are expecting highs in the 50s for Christmas and we haven't had much precipitation around here since September (and none in sight). 

This year's uncertainty stems from lots of airline employees being sick or quarantined due to the rapidly spreading virus and the newish omicron strain. The good news is that this newest variation doesn't seem as nasty as some earlier variations, with the tradeoff being that it spreads WAY faster.

The new year promises to bring more chaos in staffing and hospital overcrowding and general worry and despair... though we may be on to the next crisis by later January (if the experience of South Africa is any indicator). The faster the virus spreads, the faster it burns out (or moves on to a new mutation).

As far as airline disruption is concerned, there are some weather challenges this week but the key factor appears to be staffing. We certainly don't want people who are not feeling well to be welcoming us onto crowded flights or (maybe more crucial) piloting complex planes.

Hospitals and nursing homes are experiencing the same phenomenon, leaving patients with non-Covid needs to hold off procedures and away from normal testing and preventive care. Is there any doubt that we will see all sorts of teachers come down with (I hope) at least mild cases of Covid once kids return to classrooms in another week or so? 

It's one thing to have a few students miss some class (and perhaps get some online help). It's another thing to have the teachers unable to function normally.

And still the country argues about, well, everything. 

"Elf" is loved by most Americans, right? Let's hope such small shared agreements can expand in 2022.

The four grandchildren and their parents will join Kathleen and me in watching that movie this afternoon. It should be fun.

And it is Christmas Eve, after all. Maybe this weekend will be a short truce in the ongoing culture wars.

Wouldn't THAT be a miracle?

Turns out, you CAN tell me what to do

I have often used the term "leverage" in discussing how a persuasive writer can effect changes in readers, and perhaps that term seems a bit cold and clinical. A bit more human term that may be a bit friendlier is "incentive." Leverage may imply finding some weak spot or perhaps applying physical force, while incentive connotes something motivational to the person we are trying to persuade.

We could also go with "nudge," which is even friendlier, since it is gentler and does not include force. A friend might nudge us when something is said that prompts a fun or silly memory. Some social scientists believe that nudges are more effective in changing behaviors since there is no confrontation and the actions are often hardly noticed.

In economic theory, a nudge must be easy and cheap. Nudges are not mandates. Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not. No options are forbidden and no economic incentives are affected.

Nudges are clearly too subtle for today's health crisis.

I read a column in today's New York Times by two doctors working in an east coast hospital that boiled down to research showing people NOT responding clearly to MORE data. For instance, you would expect that the children of doctors would be more likely to have been vaccinated against chicken pox. But the actual data shows very little difference between children of doctors and everyone else's children.

There are mountains of data out there about how various vaccines (including the Covid shots) benefit the population, the economy, mental health, etc., but piling on more data is clearly NOT making a significant changes in behavior among people who now "believe" that vaccines are harmful or even evil.

So what do those two doctors recommend? Not surprisingly, they support vaccine mandates (and I have favored them in past posts, just to be clear). 

Vaccine mandates bring "negative incentives," since they always include some sort of sanction for those ignoring the mandates. You could lose your job. You could be denied entry into a sporting event or restaurant. You could pay more for health insurance. You could be banned from the big family reunion.

There are certainly positive incentives, such as remaining healthy, unhospitalized, and alive, but a lack of something is not a clear penalty.

Grades are an interesting situation in this regard. Most educators would say that grades are intended to help learners (and parents) know how they are doing (positive) but they are also often negative, as in cases where students are simply trying to avoid failing (or even earning something less than an A).

School assignments are rarely optional. Teachers mandate completion and failure to complete earns a failing mark on that assignment. Some students still fail due to not doing the work and their reasons can be quite complicated.

That's how mandates work. Effects of ignoring the mandate hurt the person doing the ignoring. Otherwise, what's the point? 

We live in a world where many argue against penalties and instead look for positive incentives. Those positives do encourage longer lasting behavioral change.

But when we want fast change? 

Mandates and related negative incentives are our best bet.

Most persuasive writing relies on finding effective leverage

One of the "light" news items from the past few days is a report on a Tennessee college professor who hid a $50 bill in a locker at the beginning of the fall semester. He included the location and the locker combination in the middle of the syllabus for a class he was teaching and even hinted that there were lots of good reasons to check out the syllabus when he began the course.

No one grabbed that $50 bill.

Since the semester is now ended, the story reminded me of how difficult it is to clearly communicate information to people. It also reminded me that college students don't read their course syllabus very carefully, in the same way most of us click quickly through product information online before finalizing our orders. 

A "trick" that can work is to require students to write a summary or simply answer some simple questions that can only be found in the syllabus... and give them points. 

It would be nice if syllabi were written more clearly and concisely, but finding the right leverage to induce more careful reading is likely to produce better results. Leverage is always the key in persuasive writing, which is the broader point here.

I saw a news report on Sarah Palin (yes, she is still around) saying she would get the vaccine "over my dead body." Classic and perhaps ironic, if the universe decides her hubris is worth punishing.

I saw another report that the former president told a rally crowd in Dallas last weekend that he had not only been fully vaccinated but had received the booster shot. And he encourage everyone to get vaccinated. After all, his administration got the ball rolling on the rapid research that gave us effective vaccines. 

And the crowd booed.

That's the thing about leverage. You would have thought that the Cult of Trump would hang on his every word and follow his directions, but it turns out that at least some percentage of the population has moved to even more extreme positions than their fearless leader.

What do those in authority do when the levers they count on simply don't work anymore?

Mandates are often the favored reaction. The "lever" is a fine or not being allowed to enter a restaurant if unvaccinated. Or paying more each month for insurance coverage. Or being dismissed from your job.

As far as college syllabi go, if we really want students to read them, we have to mandate that... and we have to check for their understanding. In a sense, giving a syllabus quiz is just the academic version of a mandate. Students can still opt to NOT read it or not take the quiz, but there is a clear sanction in the form of points lost. That still might not be enough incentive but for any student "on the fence," that is likely enough.

I am guilty of providing all sorts of readings in my online courses that I never really discuss later or ask students to respond to. I consider many readings as models and "extra" support to reinforce concepts. But if I consider a reading to be essential, I have to require some sort of quiz or essay or discussion post.

We all need some sort of nudge.