Page 11
Friday, September 1.2(XH)
□)
THE BATTALION
And the crowd goes silent
Texas' Dell Computer Corp. strikes out with unreasottahleemployee policy
■A But long ago, Round Rock such a big favor by paying the them. And what can those employees do? J
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MARK
PASS WAT ERS
N ot long ago.
Round Rock-
based Dell Com
puter Corp. was an at
tractive employer
because of the way it
treated its employees.
In a remarkably short
Span of time. Dell’s im
age has changed. Dell is
becoming a name to avoid in the Austin
employment scene. Frustrated employees
say Dell now expects 60-hour work weeks
from its sales staff and requires mandatory
overtime for its technical support employ
ees. Dell’s infringements on its employees'
personal time does not stop there, however;
Dell has decided that it holds authority
over the ballpark as well.
Round Rock is the home of the Round
Rock Express baseball club, the AA affili
ate of the Houston Astros. The Express, de-
| spite being only one year old. has devel
oped a loyal fan base. In fact, the Express
has drawn more than 600,000 fans to its
home games, which are played at the Dell
Diamond. What should be an enjoyable
time at a baseball game for Dell employees
has become an exercise in frustration due
to Dell’s ludicrous desire to micromanage
its employees' lives, even at the expense of
their personal freedoms.
Dell informed its employees in a mass
email that it has instituted a behavior poli
cy that all employees must follow at Ex
press games. Claiming that “the behavior
| of Dell employees reflects upon the credi
bility, reputation, and integrity of the com
pany,” Dell has decided to restrict its em
ployees' actions at the Dell Diamond. As
one employee said, “Even when we're re
laxing, we’re at work.”
Included in this absurd treatise on how
grown-ups should act are the following:
“Employees are expected to comply with
the Code of Conduct and all applicable
Dell policies and practices while at EApress
games.” What does that mean? It means
“avoiding behavior or language that, is dis
ruptive, unprofessional, offensive, or po
tentially slanderous and offensive,” and
“acting responsibly with respect to con
sumption of alcohol.”
In other words, Mr. and Ms. Dell Em
ployee, shut up and do not drink. There are
a few dozen flaws and unrealistic expecta
tions in Dell's policy, including a person’s
vantage point, enforcement, and those
small things called Constitutional free
doms. Dell seems to think that, since it did
Round Rock such a big favor by paying the
Express a sum of money to have its name
plastered on the stadium, it can tell people
how to act in their free time.
When Dell employees leave the “Round
Rock Campus” for the day, they are off
duty. They are free to do as they choose, as
long as they do not break any laws. Appar
ently, the pantheon of bureaucratic gods at
1 Dell Way has forgotten this. It also seems
to have forgotten how difficult it would be
for a Dell employee to be caught violating
its policies. Unless Dell has collaborated
with Intel to implant a chip in all of its em
ployees to monitor their activities, how will
Dell know if its employees got their drink
on at an Express game?
Dell's administrators are relying on
snitching. They expect another Dell em
ployee to come to work and tell manage
ment what a fool Jimmy Joe made of him
self last night at the game. Those driven by
moral obligations but also personal desires
now wield a potentially powerful weapon
over their co-workers. After all, the quick
est way to make it to the top is to step on
people, and this policy gives Dell employ
ees a grand opportunity to do just that.
This behavior policy also intends to
limit something as time honored in base
ball as the seventh inning stretch: heck
ling. Booing shortstop David Matranga for
throwing a ball into the dugout could be
considered by some — his parents, pri
marily — to be offensive. Dell’s policy
discourages such conduct because booing
players might somehow stop someone
from buying a Dell computer. After all,
Matranga was merely “fielding impaired.”
And, what if a Dell employee were to get
on first baseman Aaron McNeal’s case for
chasing a curveball? This is also bad
form; it is not nice to insult someone who
is “contact challenged.”
Telling a third-base coach to get back in
the coaches’ box? How disruptive! Scan
dal! Fire that man!
If Dell’s policies on heckling take ef
fect, Dell employees will watch baseball
games the same way they would meetings
of the old Soviet communist party con
gress: Sitting silently and applauding po
litely.
Dell’s policy on alcohol is a reiteration
of common sense. Nobody should get
drunk at a baseball game, regardless of that
person’s employer. But what qualifies as
too much? Someone sitting near Dell em
ployees might decide that they violated the
Code of Conduct after two beers and report
them. And what can those employees do?
It is their word against that of a supposed
“good Samaritan.”
Really, all of this should be moot. Dell
needs to be reminded that it does not own
the stadium. The city of Round Rock and
the Express own the stadium, so Dell's
rules should be unenforceable. The fact
that this company has arbitrarily decided
that its “good name” is more important
than its employees’ rights as people in their
time off is disgraceful. It is also disconcert
ing. If Dell is allowed to have its Code of
Conduct in effect at Express games, then
the rights of individuals will be eclipsed by
a company's desires.
Dell would be well suited to step back
and reassess its strategy toward its employ
ees' going to Round Rock Express games.
Its current policy is far too ambiguous and
walks all over the rights of its employees.
What should Dell tell its employees when
they go to Express games? How about,
“have a nice time”?
Mark Passivaters is a senior electrical
engineering major.
Play ball Little League experience harmless
W ithin the
Houston
city limits,
there is a suburb
called Bellaire. With
in the city of Bellaire
there is a little league
baseball team known as
the Bellaire Bruisers.
Last week, these
12-year-olds turned in their Bruiser jer
seys for new ones with “South” branded
on the fronts, after becoming the South
ern Little League Champions. Their
families and friends then traveled to
Pennsylvania as these little boys.partici-
pated in a once-in-a-lifetime experi
ence: playing in the Little League
World Series.
Despite all the excitement, parents
stand divided on whether this experi
ence was good for these children. There
is great concern about the pressure be
ing put on these boys. Some people say
too much emphasis is placed on what
should be a game.
The critics of these activities say
there is too much pressure on the chil
dren involved and that they are losing
part of their childhood Such arguments
neglect to consider all the benefits that
can come from participating in sports.
The kids are learning lessons about ig
noring the pressure to perform for the
sake of others, and about setting and
reaching huge goals.
Maybe they were tired at times and
felt like going home, but that does not
mean that the players were pressured to
perform or work beyond their capacity.
Baseball is still a game to them. They
are not professionals playing for a liv
ing; they are little boys playing their fa
vorite game with their neighborhood
pals. They are really no different from
any other group of little leaguers, except
these boys are good. They are so good
that their talent won them a spot in the
54th Little League World Series, where
they were defeated by a team from
Venezuela.
Yes, they were defeated, but they
did not necessarily leave with broken
hearts. These boys had the opportunity
to play in a game many could only
dream about.
Their coach, Terry McConn, said he
will remember “just watching the kids
and how they focused when there’s a lot
of distractions out there with the media.”
These kids did not care about the media.
They were not playing to impress people
that they did not know who happened to
tune into their game. They were playing
for each other and for their parents, who
cheered for them from the sidelines.
Now it is all over, but these boys are
not devastated. They are ready to get
their lives back to normal. They can ap
preciate the experience but they are con
tent to go back to playing in the streets
of Bellaire. Alex Atherton, Bellaire's
first baseman and pitcher, told the me
dia, “We’re going to get a lot of recogni
tion from different people and lots of
homework.”
Who could deny that one of the best
things about this whole experience to
these 12-year-olds is that, as they kept
winning, they kept being excused horn
school?
In a recent article. Bill ^laschke of
The Los Angeles Times expressed his
opinion that “the dangerous chemistry
of youth baseball — the mixing of adult
egos with childhood insecurities — is
tough enough without having the culmi
nation placed before a camera.”
That sentence completely depicts the
way many people who are not closely
involved with these children have over
analyzed the entire situation. It is doubt
ful that these 12-year-olds have egos any
different from other kids their age. And
any spotlight that may be shining on
them will fade by this time next week.
“Little League is for play, for fun, for
neighborhoods, but with increased pub
licity and exposure, there is a risk of
transforming it into a game that kids are
playing for adults’ gratification,” said
Dr. Marc Shatz, a Beverly Hills psychol
ogist and former University of Califor-
nia/Los Angeles (UCLA) sports psy
chologist. “TV makes everything larger
than life for kids. It distorts their reality.
They don't get a chance to be them
selves, to experience developmentally
what they need to experience.”
If these kids have anything on their
minds other than their favorite sport, it is
due to people, like Dr. Shatz, who have
planted those ideas. If everyone just let
them play their game for their trophies,
then there would be no problem with
egos, pressures and other ideas that sim
ply are not true.
These boys have so much to be excit
ed about. Each came home with memo
ries that will last them a lifetime.
“At first we were disappointed,” Bel
laire catcher Terrence McConn said.
“But we figured we were the U.S.
Champs, and then we were fine.”
As Brian Thaggart of The Houston
Chronicle explained, “The finality of a
season that ended with a rare loss was
tough to swallow at first for Bellaire, but
less than an hour after the game, the
players were back at their residence halls
signing autographs and mugging for tele
vision cameras.”
Back home in Bellaire, coach Mc
Conn said, “They’re already back to
normal and having fun, they fell a little
short, but they’re still champs. We had a
heck of a ride.”
The players from Bellaire may have
been once known as the Bruisers, but
despite the efforts of outsiders, they re
turned home with their bodies and child
hood free of scars.
Melissa Bedsole is a
junior psychology major.
Bush’s military stance just one
brick in the road ahead for him
W hen Republican
presidential
hopeful George
W. Bush made his accep
tance speech at the Repub
lican National Convention
on Aug. 3, many people
waited in anticipation for
the announcement of his
platform. To their surprise,
listeners also received a critique on the United
States’ military preparedness.
“If called on by the commander-in-chief
today, two entire divisions of the Army would
have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir,’ ”
Bush said. This statement has led to many ar
guments about its truth and who specifically
was to blame for the reductions in the mili
tary. As the story unfolded, it was discovered
that military reductions started with Bush’s
father. More importantly, cutbacks were im
plemented when Bush’s running mate Dick
Cheney was the secretary of defense under
President Bush. This lack of knowledge
about the military reductions could possibly
hurt Bush’s presidential aspirations.
Mistakes like this one will not help Bush’s
chances in the presidential race. Other politi
cians have fallen out favor with the press and
political pundits with mistakes similar to this
one. After President Jimmy Carter quoted his
discussions about nuclear conflicts with his
young daughter Amy, the media failed to take
him seriously.
Along the same lines, when Bush an
nounced his desire to run for president, many
people were skeptical about his lack of politi
cal experience. Critics cited the fact that the
only public office he has held is governor of
Texas. As the campaign swung into motion,
however, some of these doubts subsided. But
now, after showing his lack of knowledge of
the origins of the military reductions, he is
once again not being seen as credible.
When politicians attack the policies of
their opponents, having the facts in order is
a must. It seems that someone on Bush’s
staff dropped the ball. Both Bush and Ch
eney have acknowledged that it was the Re
publican administration of Bush’s father that
began these reductions, but they state that
the Clinton administration reduced the mili
tary more. On CBS's “Face the Nation,” Ch
eney said that “the Clinton administration
had taken those reductions ‘far beyond what
was originally envisioned in terms of our
build-down.’ ”
Secretary of Defense William Cohen — a
Republican — supports the Clinton-Gore de
fense reductions and says that this year’s de
fense spending is back up to $60 billion. Co
hen said last week that the United States has
“the finest fighting force in the history of the
world,” according to CNN. The Bush-Ch-
eney campaign is deeply rooted in the idea
that the U.S. military is in need of a buildup.
According to Bush’s acceptance speech, the
military is “low on parts, pay and morale.”
Yet, many government officials, including
Cohen, believe that the military is ready
when it is needed.
Whether the military is ready is not the
central issue. The issue is the credibility of
Bush’s statements on the campaign trail. This
mistake could shift the race toward Gore,
which is something many Republicans fear.
As a presidential hopeful who has not al
ways been taken seriously, a problem such as
this one can destroy the credibility that Bush
has worked hard to increase after a similar
problem in the early days of the race.
When Bush was quizzed by members of
the press about current international leaders, he
was not able to answer all the questions. By
working to rectify the damage, Bush needs
once again to prove to the American public
that he knows what is going on and he has his
facts straight.
If he continues to rely on his record as gov
ernor of Texas and does not show his knowl
edge American and world issues, his political
future may not be very bright.
Brieanne Porter is a sophomore chemical
engineering major.
ADRIAN CALCANEO/The Battalion