Real Kato Blog: Hello Ken

My name is Ken and I'm a weekly blogger. (Hello, Ken.)

Last night I had a dream that my web site was blank because it'd been so long since I'd written anything.

I'm going to stop apologizing for not blogging so often. I'll still feel bad about it, but there's only so many ways I can say "Gee, it's been a while since I've posted." So you can just assume that's what I'm thinking from now on.

In wedding preparation news, we've sent out invitations. Some of you out there will be getting one. For those who didn't make the invitation list, I'm sorry. Really. Let me tell you, culling down the guest list to keep under our budget was very, very difficult. It's not that we don't like all our friends; we just can't fit everyone. I factored in things like, "how often have I talked to this person in the last five years?" and "did I get invited to this person's wedding?" and "how much free beer is this person likely to drink?"

Given the fact that our wedding is during the holidays, I imagine lots of people won't be able to attend. So we might send out more invitations later. But how do you explain to someone that they were on the "B-list", and that's why they only have seven days to RSVP?

We were going to get a non-denominational minister to perform the ceremony, but the place that's arranging our wedding could only get a Lutheran minister. Seeing as how neither Amy or I are Lutheran, and that our wedding will pretty much be the antithesis of all things Lutheran, this will be interesting. Of course, there's still always the chance that we can convince Javi to become a licensed minister so he can perform the wedding for us. Or William Shatner. If someone can get Shatner to perform our wedding, consider that the best wedding present in the history of mankind.

So we've got the groomswomen's dresses squared away, and flowers, and the cake. I made a wedding website (email me for a link if you're interested), registered for gifts, and got most of our wedding favors. We still have to arrange for my tuxedo (shouldn't be hard, right?), write wedding vows, plan out music and talk to the DJ about it (how much fast-dancing is appropriate?), find clothes for Amy's bridesmen, put together wedding programs, and I'm sure there are a thousand things that I'm forgetting.

Somehow it'll all come together.

Finally, I want to sneak in a little comment about work, breaking the "thou shalt not blog about work" rule. But I have to talk about this.

We've got some budget issues at our company this year. I'm sure this is common for a lot of companies, and we've faced this before. Sometimes we've had layoffs, sometimes we've had restrictions on travel and equipment spending, etc. But this time, they've cut our salaries by 5%. The pay cut is "temporary", they say, but there's no indication of when the pay will come back. So it's temporary in the same way that Tom Cruise is temporarily insane.

Now, if we had stock options, or partial ownership of our company, we might understand the need for shared sacrifice to get through a tough time. If we had a guarantee that the company would make things up to us, that'd be different. But most of us do not have any ownership stake in the company: we are simply employees, and we expect to get paid market prices for our services. And no one is making us any guarantees about make-up pay. So to say that this whole thing has been demotivating is an enormous understatement.

I think business executives lose sight of the importance of having happy employees. A happy employee will do the equivalent work of three disgruntled employees. I think all executives should have to read five business maxims that have got to go, and then five more.

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