The Struggles of Eric Chavez

I'm clearly late to the "Eric Chavez is hurt and struggling" party. But the table below is an interesting look at this year compared to last for Chavez. Both lines are the ten-game rolling OPS for Chavez throughout the season. Last year, he started slow, got extremely hot in early June and then played decent ball the rest of the way, save a little untimely hiccup in early September.

This year, he started hot and has essentially gotten worse every day. July has been rock bottom. Chavez has to get healthy and return to something like his normal self if the A's are going to have any real shot at the postseason. None of this is new, but like I said, it's an interesting way to look at the data.

Damn You Marc!

Yesterday, Marc emailed me a link for Motherload. It's a fun little game that you can really sink some time into.

I played for a while last night, staying up well past the witching hour. I took a little screenshot of my progress before I called it quits:



I thought my score of 1.2mm was respectable, until marc emailed me his high score: 53 million! Good lord, that's dedication.

Great Experience with JetBlue

Over the last few years, I’ve flown JetBlue a lot - their direct flight from JFK to hometown Oakland has been a personal favorite of mine. I love the TVs, the service and the fact that they’re smart. They get it.

JetBlue used to board their planes from back to front. People sitting in the back rows would be called to board the plane before the people in front of them, etc. That always seemed to me like the most efficient way to board the plane. But instead of merely resting on their laurels, JetBlue actually tested that idea. In the last few months, JetBlue has changed - calling everyone to board the plane all at once.

The first time I saw this new method, I thought they had just screwed up. The second time, I thought they were losing their edge – that they didn’t care about their customers anymore. The third time, my wife and I asked a flight attendant what was going on. Turns out that JetBlue tested the two different boarding methods and the “Every Man for Himself” method of boarding the plane is actually faster.

Kudos, JetBlue, for working hard to make things better.

TBS - Good News or Bad News?

Fox, TBS lead baseball's new 7-year TV deal

"Turner Broadcasting System also will televise 26 regular-season Sunday games in 2008 while eventually cutting back on its nationwide Atlanta Braves coverage."

I've got the MLB extra innings package, which gives me access to just about all of the MLB games on TV. The exceptions are for Fox's national broadcasts. The current blackout rules say, "due to the national exclusivity of both FOX and ESPN, there are no games available for distribution via this package on Saturday day or Sunday night, respectively."

So, the question is - will TBS' Sunday games prevent us from enjoying the rest of the Sunday games? And if they eliminate yet another day of the week from the MLB Extra Innings package (going from 6 days each week to only 5), will they also cut the price of the package by 16%?

(Of course they won't, but a guy can dream.)

Pat on the Back from Robert Wilson

In Job Boards Worshiping False Gods, Robert Wilson reminds us that many jobs boards are really advertising publishers and points out that "there is a great deal of money to be made off the inefficiency of search – and very little motivation for advertising publishers to improve relevance." Good stuff, but not as good as this gem:

Thankfully, organizations like TheLadders, Jobster, and JobCentral are building successful businesses by improving the labor exchange. If you’re an employer or a jobseeker looking for a true ‘matchmaker’ in the labor exchange process, then these three organizations should be at the top of your list.

Thanks, Robert!

Spec Review with Bill Gates

Great post from Joel on Software: My First BillG Review

"Bill [Gates] doesn't really want to review your spec, he just wants to make sure you've got it under control. His standard M.O. is to ask harder and harder questions until you admit that you don't know, and then he can yell at you for being unprepared. Nobody was really sure what happens if you answer the hardest question he can come up with because it's never happened before."

Read the whole thing, it's an interesting look into Excel's weird date functions, Bill Gates and managing a software organization.

Better Job Search

In his post, Irrelevance of Job Boards, Robert Wilson complains that Indeed, SimplyHired and CareerBuilder send him totally irrelevant jobs in their Job Alerts/Scouts:

Below, you will find the top ten jobs emailed to me today by three scouts for ‘auto sales’ jobs in Boston, MA. Not one of the 30 is selling automobiles! Somehow, the job boards interpreted ‘auto sales’ to mean I’m looking for a job as an engineer, a mechanic, a pharmacy manager, a business analyst, a trainer, and a customer service rep.

As a curious guy, I wondered how we stacked up. So, I performed a quick search on SalesLadder for "Auto Sales" (login required). Here are the top three results:

Dealer Account Sales Rep
"...develop and support business relationships with both dealer and credit union clientele in the indirect auto financing industry..."

Sales Manager II
"...responsible for selling Progressive's Commercial Auto product..."

National Sales Representative
"...expand their US presence to such areas as large drug stores, 24 hour stores, office stores, auto parts stores and similar retail stores..."

Not bad, considering we're focused on jobs that pay $100k+. The top three results aren't really selling cars, but they are sales jobs related to the auto industry. Can't really complain about that. So, in this informal taste test, I'll give the edge to SalesLadder, where you'll find a better search for sales jobs.