The Latest Undercover Boss and Coby Brooks, CEO of Hooters .

   This evening  I watched the new reality show, Undercover Boss.  Undercover Boss is a show where the idea is to take the head of a large company and place them in entry level positions within the company. This is supposed to show the corporate big wigs exactly what is going on, and how hard it is to be on the front lines of these businesses.
    When I first tuned into tonights episode I thought that maybe it was possible that Coby Brooks was really trying to find out how to make Hooters a better organization, that maybe he wanted to make the women that work for him have an easier, less degrading position in the company.  After all, in the beginning of the show he talked about expanding his market, and attracting a broader customer base.
     By the end of the show , however, it was fairly clear that Coby Brooks has no interest in changing much of anything.  Even the horrendous manager who made the "girls" line up and be inspected, then eat beans from a plate like dogs, was only mildly reprimanded.  I would have had only two words for that man if Hooters were my company, "your fired".  Coby Brooks made it very clear that he would not want his daughters to work for this man, though he didn't have a problem with them becoming Hooters girls, as long as they worked for someone else.  Im sure that they will never have to do such a degrading job though.
    In conclusion Coby Brooks revealed himself to his employees, gave the female manager of one of his stores a trip with  her two daughters, gave the ex marine that manages his largest store a $50,000 donation to Operation Home Front, made the degrading manager apologize to the "girls", and offered a job in PR to the two young women that handed out hot wings with him on a street corner .  He, however, did not feel the need to modify the outfits that the "girls" have to wear, even though women told him how demeaning and degrading it is for the girls to wear such tight and revealing uniforms.
    It does not seem that Coby Brooks wanted to make any real changes in Hooters, even though Hooters does not seem to be doing nearly as well as it once was.  Maybe, it is time for him to rethink making changes.  I hear they have good food, I wouldn't mind trying it. Maybe, there are others like me who would love to try the food if the degrading uniforms were changed.  Maybe , its time to make money from honestly good food, and service, instead of from a tacky gimmick that alienates a good percetage of the population.  But then again maybe they should stay just they way they are.  I mean everyone knows what Hooters is, obviously someone enjoys eating there.

Is the New Facebook Way Too Confusing?

   Facebook rolled out its new look recently.  The new look sports a "better" navigation system.  Facebook claims that you can now get to the most commonly used features from the top and left menus much easier.   In the top menu, you will now find your new notifications, messages, and requests.  The Home, Profile, and Account info is now up in the right hand corner.  The left side navigation is supposed to make it easier to communicate with your friends on Facebook, and even shows you a partial list of who is online, the complete list is still at the bottom of your screen. Facebook Applications and Games are now shown in the left side menu, and counters appear on your games so that you won't miss an action you need to take.
   Is this new Facebook navigation system better than the old one? Maybe. Maybe not.  The bottom line is that no one (at least no one I have heard from) likes it.  Many of my friends were very upset to find that they couldn't find status updates.  The status updates are in the left menu, but you have to click on friends first.  I don't think that is a very logical place, but that is just me.
   After much fussing and fuming, we all found our status updates.  All was well once again on Facebook, well mostly.  People still don't seem to like it.  Maybe, it is truly a bad design and Facbook will see the error of their ways.  It is also possible that Facebook users, like all other human beings, just don't like change very much.  When we have once again located all the things that are important to us, the grumbling will probably stop, just like it did the last time Facebook made changes.
   How do you feel about the new Facebook?  Do you like it? Or hate it? 

What games are your kids playing? Which games are ok for them to play?

           My kids have things, and have access to things that I never dreamed of.  They have Wii, Playstation, Xbox, not to mention Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter (whatever that is).  It is hard as a parent to keep up with what our kids are doing, watching, and playing every second of the day.

        Raising kids today is hard. Maybe it has always been hard, and now it’s just a different kind of hard.  But no matter how you look at it, raising kids in the world today is incredibly challenging.  A parent has to know not only where your kids are and what they are doing, but understand what they are doing as well.

         If you don’t actually play the games that your kids are playing you don’t have any idea what kind of violence, gore, profanity, or even worse stuff might be involved.  Console games currently come with an ESRB Rating, if they have been rated.  These ratings don’t always tell very much about what is actually in the game.  They are a good place to start though. Check out the ESRB website for more information on their rating system.

www.esrb.org

       As parents we often need someone to tell us exactly what is in these games and let us decide whether to let our children play them.  Check out this next site if you want a more in depth review of the games.

www.whattheyplay.com 

      Whattheyplay.com is a great website, it has great reviews, tells you what games are rated and why. It also shows you which games are hot in the different rating categories.  This is definitely a great free resource for keeping track of what your kids are playing.

      We worry immensely about the effect of all of this technology on our children as they grow into young adults.  www.mediafamily.org does a good job of breaking down the statistics, and addressing the effect that our media saturated culture has on our kids.

      If you are looking for a Christian perspective on family appropriate video games you might want to check out this website.

www.plaingames.com

Plaingames.com has an alternative rating system to the ESRB that is based on Christian values.

         We can’t watch everything our kids do. We don’t always see what we should, and we don’t always do everything right.  All we can do is the best we can do, but these great free websites do give you a heads.  Check them out and see what games your kids are really playing.