My Fantasy President's March 2020 Speech on COVID-19

My Fellow Americans,

I stand before you today to tell you that America is under attack, and I need each and every one of you to stand up and do your part to protect your fellow Americans and our great nation.

The enemy attacking us is not a foreign power, but rather a virus.  The virus is invisible to the naked eye.  The virus is carried by humans and attacks through close human contact.  Scientists are calling the virus COVID-19.   The World Health Organization has designated COVID-19 a pandemic because it has spread quickly throughout the world.

We do not have a lot of information on COVID-19, but what we do know is that it is four times more deadly than the flu.  Hospitals and emergency rooms in the United States do not have the capacity to admit and treat the number of critically ill people with COVID-19.   That means large numbers will be turned away and will die.

But you can help stop that from happening.   I need each and every one of you to follow these steps:

1.  Keep a distance of six feet from other people.
2.  Avoid all events and occasions where large groups of people gather (e.g. sporting events, concerts, even church)
3. If you must venture out, wear a face mask.  Your local police and fire departments will pass out face masks.

I know this is a sacrifice, but think of the larger, greater sacrifices so many have made for America before you.  Many have given their lives for their country.  Many have endured great hardships.  I know you can do these three small things.

Now let me explain the steps I am taking as your president:

First, I have met with the CDC and empowered them to do two things:

• fund multiple scientific labs and enterprises to develop a vaccine.
• fund multiple scientific research organizations to characterize the vaccine and report on all its anomalies.

Secondly, I have asked the WHO to provide test kits and guidance to testing labs in the U.S. so that Americans who have been exposed to the virus can be tested and quarantined, if appropriate.

Third,  I have directed the U.S. Army to provision ventilators, personal protective equipment, and N95 masks for healthcare staff to protect them,  The Army will work with the governors and hospital administrators to determine priorities and allocations and to identify shortfalls.

Fourth, I am exercising my emergency powers as president to direct ten U,S. manufacturing companies to immediately enter into production of the equipment identified as in short supply.  These companies will be compensated for producing the required equipment.

Fifth, since many businesses will close down and many working Americans will not have paychecks, I have requested that Congress enact legislation to pay every American over 18 years of age $1,000 per month for the next three months.   This will assist every American in paying for food, rent, medicine, and other necessities.

Sixth, I have asked the Justice Department to work with local law enforcement to determine the best ways to assure compliance with the guidelines and to report back on their recommendations.  If someone fails to follow the rules, that individual risks the lives of their fellow Americans and must face the consequences.

I know that Americans are kind, conscientious, civic-minded people, and can rise to the occasion in a crisis.  The crisis is here.  I am counting on you to make this small sacrifice and do the right thing.  

Stand and deliver.

God bless you and God bless America.

I know how to paint. Yes. Really.

Today I applied a coat of primer to an ugly 4' x 3' board near the front entrance of my house at the top of a steep hill  (In case you do not know this, primer is a kind of paint that "primes" the surface to more readily absorb the next coat of paint in the target color.)

PG&E mounted its electric meter on this ugly board, and  refuses to reinstall it with something less ugly.  That's why I decided to paint it.

Since humans do not read meters anymore, PG&E could have installed the meter close to the ground in a small container.  The meter provides the homeowner's electricity usage data when a truck drives by and "wirelessly" scans  the meter.   But getting PG&E to do anything is to rage against the machine (not the band by the same name, but rather, to put energy into pointless attempts of reformation of cultural imperialism).  It is just easier to paint, and ultimately camouflage, the unsightly, poor workmanship of PG&E.

I put on my painting clothes.  I gathered up old newspapers, about six clean rags, the one gallon can of primer, a screw driver, a stirring stick, a paint rolling pan, and a brush.  The paint rolling pan was not strictly necessary because I was not using a roller (the surface was way too uneven), but I did not have a more appropriate small container for the primer.  So why use a paint rolling pan -- why not put the brush directly into the can of primer?  Several reasons:   (1)  I am painting outside and there's a breeze, so little bits of debris could blow into the can of primer and contaminate it.  (2)  I am painting at the top of a rugged hill and one misstep would tip the can of primer over and depending how fast I am, something like half of the primer would now be soaked in the ground.   So the trick is to pour just enough primer into the paint rolling pan, so that I would have enough primer to cover the ugly board, and be out of paint when I had finished priming.  That way, no paint is wasted, and I do not have to make an extra trip to refill the paint rolling pan with more primer.  I estimated this perfectly; when I finished priming I had about a teaspoon of paint left in the paint rolling pan.

While I was applying primer, my husband came to the front door and called out "You need a roller."  I ignored him.  My husband knows nothing about painting.  My husband grew up in Southern California, where, if something needed to be painted in your house, you either moved, or you hired Mexican day laborers that you met outside the hardware store.  They know how to do painting.

My painting disturbs my husband because I am a middle-aged white lady, and he thinks it is a job for Mexican day laborers.  Also, every time we have decided something needs painting, he volunteers to pick out the color.  He returns from the paint store with one quart of the color he selected for a 12' x 12' room.  I go back to the store to buy two gallons in the color he selected and a gallon of primer.

But then another thing happened while I was applying primer on the PG&E ugly board.  The young man who lives next door came by and looked at me with grave concern, "Do you want me to handle that for you?" he asks.  "Well," I reply, "I have all my painting clothes on and I am in the middle of it, so it is probably best for me to just finish."  I think about saying "I know how to paint.  Really."  The young man chats about landscaping and then he leaves. 

Yes I am a middle aged white lady and yes I know how to paint.

The fine ladies of Queen Nails -- I miss you

I am missing the manicurists at Queen Nails.

I miss seeing their pretty dark eyes, dark hair, and little bodies as they work under florescent lights in a small store front at a shopping center.   Each one has a credential certifying expertise with emery boards, nail cutters, basins, towels, and the various accoutrements of nail hygiene.

Their Vietnamese chatter fills the air with sounds so foreign to my ears, until they all start giggling.

One will put her hands over her face, embarrassed by what the others said.   I understand.  They are in their 20's and mostly not married.  They must be giggling about boyfriends or sex.   When one wiggles her pinky finger and the rest explode in laughter, I believe it must be about male anatomy.

I go to Queen Nails for a pedicure, but not now, thanks to COVID-19.  I love partially reclining in a huge, stuffed leather chair, with my feet soaking in hot perfumed water.  It is heavenly.

Queen Nails has a television,  always tuned in to Guy Fieri from the Food Network.  It seems Guy perpetually, enthusiastically describes the barbecued ribs he samples in some part of the South.  Guy is a kind of beefy guy.  The patrons of the barbecue restaurant are large human beings.

But all the Queen Nails manicurists are petite --  quite tiny.  Each one has the body of a ten-year-old boy.  I wonder what they eat?  Surely they are not eating barbecue.   I wonder what kind of body ten-year-old boys have in Vietnam?

I have so many questions, but I do not speak Vietnamese.  So I can only wonder and guess about what goes on around me at Queen Nails.

I am going to learn how to say "I completely disagree with you"  in Vietnamese:

Tôi hoàn toàn đồng ý với bạn.

I have heard the audio of the pronunciation.  I practiced it.    When I get to return to Queen Nails, I will wait for a pause in the manicurists' conversation.  Then I will say this.  They will look at me puzzled or bewildered,  as if they cannot believe what they heard from a middle-aged white lady.  Then I will repeat it.  Then they will repeat it.  Then they will get very excited and start laughing.  Then, finally, I will be able to laugh with them.

San Franciso St. Patrick's Day

Letter to the American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA:

By now you know that we did not attend today's (March 16 at 2 pm) performance. Our seats were Orchestra C6 and C8.   We tried awfully hard to get there.  We left Santa Cruz at 11:15 am.  We were on the 6th Street Exit from 101 into San Francisco by 12:30 pm.  We were heading for the recommended parking garage at 325 Mason Street.

But guess what happened?  We spent 30 minute on the ramp, and then another 45 minutes on 6th between Folsom and Howard Streets.  Finally, we saw that the street was barricaded and no one could proceed on 6th.  

We checked Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps and they all said to keep going the way we were going.  Finally, my husband looked up events in San Francisco, and he found that a huge area around Union Square was blocked off because of the St. Patrick's Day parade, which started at 11:00 a.m. and would be ending at 1:30 pm in Union Square.

But guess what?  There were no signs on the freeway, no signs on the off ramp, there was nothing that stated "Area Closed:  St. Patrick's Day Parade"  or "Union Square area closed.  Take detour."  

I checked the pre-show email, and there was no mention of this.

We were less than 7/10ths of a mile from your theatre for more than an hour and we could not get there!  We are not that familiar with the city, so we were not sure where to go.  When we finally were far enough away from the blocked off area  to find a parking garage, we parked, and then realized, that walking to the theatre would take at least 30 minutes, and we would arrive by 2:25, and miss the beginning of the show.

So we gave up.   We spent five hours in difficult traffic,  round trip 150 miles, used a tank of gas, and wasted two tickets worth $90.  Basically five hours wasted.

Now ... St Patrick's Day is TOMORROW, not today, so why the parade?  And the people at the barricades were not police, but rather individuals in orange and yellow vests.  The barricades did not have San Francisco printed on them.  So what was up with that?  

If we had some warning, we could have gone to the Millbrae BART station and taken that in, but we had no idea.

Our friends Joel & Nancy gave us the tickets as they were unable to attend; what are we supposed to tell them?

Perhaps in the future you could let your audience know in advance about major events that will impair their ability to attend a performance, and recommend alternatives for getting to the performance on time.

Why can't Sir Francis Drake report to me?

Sir Francis Drake set sail to explore the new world in November 1577.  His voyage was financed by Queen Elizabeth.  His mission was to return with treasure..  He returned in September 1580 and apologized to the Queen for being late. Queen Elizabeth's half-share of the treasure surpassed the rest of the Crown's income for the year.  In other words,  Sir Francis Drake, with zero supervision, wildly surpassed his goal for the year. 

Why can't I have staff like Sir Francis Drake?

Top Ten Reasons InterWorking Labs is a Superior Company Compared to Apple

#1  When a customer calls us about a repair, we listen to what she says about how she diagnosed the problem, and actually interact with her and give consideration to her findings.

#2  When we replace a defective unit, we do not provide a replacement unit with an obsolete version of the operating system.  We upgrade the replacement product to the latest version of our software. 

#3  When we replace a defective unit, we do not provide a replacement with an EARLIER serial number, meaning an older product, than the customer's product that needs repair.  Instead we provide an equivalent or later product.

#4  Most Apple employees could never get a job at InterWorking Labs because our standards are much higher.  Below is the equivalency table:

Apple Technical Guru (unstaffed) = InterWorking Labs senior engineer
Apple Genius Bar Worker = InterWorking Labs average employee
Apple Average Employee = would never be hired at InterWorking Labs

#5  Our employees do not use cutesy names for standard products; they never call a USB connector a "camera kit".

#6  Our employees know what a USB connector is.

#7  We do not make our customers who are covered by warranty, sign a document that describes the cost of the repair outside of the warranty period or service agreement coverage.  We are grateful for our customers and their business.  We believe our customers who are covered by warranty or a service agreement already understand the value of the warranty or service agreement and that's why they have it.  We fix or replace the product and return it to the customer without any editorial comments.

#8  When InterWorking Labs customers contact us with a product problem, we do not tell them that they can only communicate with us in a "positive" manner.  InterWorking Labs does not dictate the emotional tone of our customers' communications.

#9  When InterWorking Labs customers return a product for repair, we do not examine all the connector openings with an otoscope to see if there is water damage.  We do not believe our customers would use a network emulator or protocol tester in the shower or the bath tub.

#10  When a customer tells us that he needs to speak with someone with deeper technical knowledge to get questions answered, we find the appropriate staff engineer and arrange the communication.  We do not take our lack of deep technical knowledge personally and we do not tell the customer "you are not a very nice person".  

In spite of all of the above, I continue to use my replacement iPad.  

How to Fix Wells Fargo Bank

By now everyone has heard about the “fake accounts” scandal at Wells Fargo. To recap, Wells Fargo employees opened sham accounts, forged customer signatures and sent out unsolicited credit cards. Why did the Wells Fargo employees engage in this unethical behavior? Because they were forced to meet aggressive sales goals with limited products and services to sell. The incentive compensation structure encouraged them to do so. And until just recently, there was no oversight or audits to make sure that Wells Fargo customers actually requested the product or service provided.

So while this mess winds its way through various congressional hearings, investigations, lawsuits, and so on, what can Wells Fargo do now to regroup and refocus?

The answer is that Wells Fargo can invest in expert systems. Specifically, Wells Fargo can construct an automated system to replace the decision making ability of expensive expert humans – in particular CPAs and accountants. Wells Fargo would then package this as a service to sell its customers.

I run a small tech company. I’ve been a client of Wells Fargo for more than ten years. Wells Fargo is our third bank, after the first two proved inadequate. Wells Fargo dazzled us with excellent back-end processes and systems, well-trained staff, and prompt error correction.

Occasionally, I interact with the Wells Fargo sales team, but:

(1) The sales team tries to sell me services I do not need – typically, a new service to replace an existing service for a tiny savings.

(2) The sales team never asks me the key questions they should ask:

• What is the biggest challenge for your company related to your banking and financial activity?
• What would it mean to your business if we could solve that problem for you?
• What do you estimate that would save you in terms of time and expense?

If Wells Fargo posed these questions to its small and medium sized businesses, a pattern would emerge; all of us spend far too much time on accounting and tax matters. Yes we have bookkeepers and accountants and CPAs, but we are still dragged into these matters far more than we should be.

Our Company is not unique; Wells Fargo has 100% of our financial data – all of our bank accounts and all of our company credit cards. So …

• Why do we have to transfer that data out of Wells Fargo’s system and into our accounting system?
• Why do we have to massage the accounting system to classify the transactions and enter other details?
• Why do we have to spend time answering questions from the bookkeeper, the accountant and the CPA?

Why can’t Wells Fargo just take that data, slice it, dice it, and package it up for our CPA and our investors?

They can. They should. This would be a new service that the Wells Fargo sales people could sell with confidence and enthusiasm. Just imagine how gratifying it is to sell a product that really helps people. What a great morale booster this could be!

Wells Fargo can take advantage of its unique position of possessing all its business clients’ financial data to prepare preliminary financial reports, that the CPA could easily review and use to prepare the tax filings required of small and medium corporations.

How would this be done?

Wells Fargo could create an expert system to analyze and interpret all of the financial data along with chat bots (or software wizards) to get answers to questions for financial processing.

For example, let’s suppose that the business owner purchased a set of office cubicles and related furniture for $15,000 to go into a new office area. She may have purchased via check or credit card. Ideally, the memo field on the paper check would state “Office Furniture” as a description of the purchase. When the check is presented to Wells Fargo for payment, the Wells Fargo expert system would transfer funds appropriately, read the entry in the memo field, and either classify the purchase as:

1420 – Furniture & Fixtures, a Fixed Asset, or
6552 – Office Expense, an Expense

Well, which would it be? It depends on the “Fixed Asset threshold”. At our company, purchases over $1,000 meet the Fixed Asset threshold. The Wells Fargo expert system would check this and then classify the purchase as 1420 – Furniture & Fixtures, a Fixed Asset.

Some areas, with extra complexity, would require CPA review. Fixed asset depreciation, for example, could use multiple methods, spanning multiple years. Pre-paid expenses spanning multiple years would also require CPA input. But so what? Just flag those areas for CPA review and let the Wells Fargo’ expert system handle the bulk of the accounting.

The office cubicles example is just one of hundreds of different types of accounting issues that businesses must track and record. Each one of these little nuisances results in the energy-sucking, time-sucking drag of accounting on small and medium businesses.

Occasionally, the system’s “chat bot” or software wizard would ask whether or not any fixed assets had been disposed of in the previous month (it needs to know this for the annual Business Property Report required by some government jurisdictions). The business owner or the office manager would think about this for ten seconds and then answer the question. No fuss. No muss.

The point is that the expert system is handling 90% of the work previously done by the business owner/office manager, bookkeeper, accountants, and CPA. Additionally, the expert system could produce a standardized report in a format easily scanned by a CPA for accuracy.

What would it take to implement this?

The project requires tax and accounting experts and software developers. Initial design and development could be accelerated by using expert system and machine learning technology.

The service would require extensive BETA testing. It would require frequent updates as tax and accounting laws change. In addition, Wells Fargo would need to address regulatory hurdles and liability issues.

Will the new Wells Fargo service eliminate bookkeepers, accountants and CPAs?

The service removes the drudgery aspects of the work, allowing financial professionals to contribute more value to the corporation by providing business advice like tax mitigation strategies and consultation about other business areas. The bookkeeper can negotiate better deals with current and new suppliers.

So what are we waiting for? Wells Fargo needs to engage with its customers, use technology to find solutions to customer problems, package solutions as services and deploy the services to its customers. And, Wells Fargo can start immediately on this expert system!