Bible thumping on Facebook

Yesterday I concluded my blog post with “Who knows, I could be sitting here a millionaire”.  To Alex, who wondered how the Lotto went I can say .... lightly stick tongue between lips and say prrrrrrr.  Translation ... I’m as poor today as I was yesterday.  So I guess it’s back to work for me on Monday.

How long have I been playing Lotto?  Years.  I always play with the same numbers, birthdays in combination with car number of NASCAR drivers.  The positive side of always playing with the same number is that I don’t have to think about them, I know them by heart.  The negative side is, should I ever skip a week of playing and my numbers come up, I’m going to kick myself from here to kingdom come.

Speaking of kingdom come ... had some aggravation on Facebook today.  Dawn K posted the following message ...

To all the girls who are in a hurry to have a boyfriend or get married, a piece of Biblical advice: "Ruth patiently waited for her mate Boaz." While you are waiting on YOUR Boaz, don't settle for any of his relatives; Broke-az, Po-az, Lyin-az, Cheating-az, Dumb-az, Drunk-az, Cheap-az, Lockedup-az, , Goodfornothingaz, Lazyaz, and especially his third cousin Beatinyouaz. Wait on your Boaz and make sure he respects Yoaz.

If you ask me, Dawn is not exactly in touch with current affairs.  If she was she would know that girls are not nearly as much in a hurry to get married as they used to be.  These days girls use their head and live with the guy first to see how things work.  You could say they’re taking their boyfriends for a test drive.
All things considered a smart move.  Would you buy a car without taking it for a drive first? 

Dawn didn’t like my comment.  I didn’t see anything wrong with it, especially since she listed all the mistakes a girl can make. 

All in all I don’t like people, and it’s usually women, who make religious postings.  There’s a time and a place for everything and Facebook is not the place to preach.  I used to have a friend who was a reverend and never in all the years that I knew him did we talk about religion.  He researched and wrote his sermons in his study; he preached in his church; he gave guidance to those who sought it; but he never pushed his religion on anyone.

Dawn K along with her Bible thumping, pillar biting women could learn a thing or two from him.

TGIF ?

 

What a day, what a day, what a day!!!  People generally looked forward to Friday, but today was the worst day of my week. 

It started this morning when my alarm clock didn’t go off and I overslept by half an hour.  I checked the alarm clock of course, set for 5:45 a.m., but it was now 6:15 and the clock hadn’t made a peep.  My lazy morning routine suddenly changed into a rush job

Not that rushing did me any good, because when I arrived at the station I heard the announcement that due to a situation earlier at McCowen station, trains experienced a delay.  During peak hour there usually is a train every 3 – 5 minutes, but this morning the waiting time had increased to 8 minutes.

When a train eventually did roll in he was so packed with people that no new passengers fitted in.  More and more people arrived at the platform, and again we waited for about 8 minutes.  When a second train arrived only a few people managed to get on, but I wasn’t one of them.

When the third train arrived I thought – like Elvis before me – “It’s now or never”.   I pushed a little, a squeezed a bit, but I managed to get in.  It was the typical sardine in a can situation, but if it got me to work on time, a sardine I would be.

At work things didn’t improve.  I honestly think that my boss, let’s call her Catherine (not her real name), has no idea what I’m doing.  Since she didn’t have any work for me today, she went and announced to others that if anyone needed help I would be able to lend a hand.  I nearly had an attack as I do a number of things that don’t involve her.  Things such as making payments, ordering stationery, handling incoming mail, scanning documents, answering emails, etc.  True as Bob, someone needed help ... copying minute books.  This took me the better part of the afternoon.  By the time I was done, my back felt like he was going to break and my legs and feet were burning.

If this is Friday, give me a Monday any day.  Following this posting I’m going to check my Lotto numbers.  Who  knows, I might be sitting here a millionaire. 

Take two Aspirin and call me in the morning

Why is it that some people have these nice cushy jobs?  They can treat their work the way they drive a car.  They ease into first gear, change smoothly to second gear, move on to third and eventually end up in fourth.  If they ever make it to fourth that is, some folks shift into second gear and stay there.  Or as a friend of mine once said ... “Second gear?  I feel like I’m in reverse!”

When I started this new job last week, I thought I had found a cushy job.  Sure there was a lot to learn, but there wasn’t any pressure.  One task smoothly followed another and from what I could tell it was a case of ... whatever doesn’t get done today, gets done tomorrow.

However, that all changed yesterday.  My boss, who had been out of town last week, was back in the office and that made all the difference.  She has me on my toes from the moment I walk in, until the time I leave for the night.  I can’t smoothly shift from first, to second, to third and then fourth, I’m in fourth gear from the moment I get to my desk.

Yesterday I even went into overdrive.  She came to me at 4:30, asking if I was expected home or could stay for a while.  Of course I could stay, refusing to finish a job isn’t in my nature.  It was only an hour, but that extra hour really finished me off.  By the time I left I had a headache, my eyes were burning, my stomach was rumbling, my legs felt like two pieces of lead and my feet were killing me.

Today wasn’t much better.  I barely had my computer up and running when I was presented with a memo that needed to be typed.  Not an easy task considering that my boss’ handwriting is chicken scratch.  She tries to write nicely, I could see that from the beginning of the memo, but as her inspiration kicked in, so her nice handwriting went out the window until only a clairvoyant could make out what she meant.

 

Fortunately I have lots of practice deciphering bad handwriting.  You should have seen my dad’s.  He had a doctor’s handwriting.  At times it was so bad, even he couldn’t make out what he had written.

The good thing is, I’m no longer troubled by insomnia.  Where I used to go to bed and lay staring at the ceiling, I’m now asleep the moment my head hits the pillow.  So for all of you who have trouble sleeping ... get a job, you’ll be counting zzzzzz’s in no time.

Employment ... It's all about fitting in

Today's guest blog post comes from Diane Quinn.  Diane is a freelance writer who lives in Las Vegas and writes about anything and everything.  Check out her full bio and sample some of her articles at http://www.helium.com/users/212149

True lessons learned the hard way during employment

Each job in my life gained me more than just a paycheck-they brought me many lessons, and most were learned the hard way. Isn't that way always the best teacher?

When I was 22 years old, graduated from business school and, newly married to my husband who had just returned from Viet Nam, we moved south so that he could go to college on the G.I. Bill. Moving from Pennsylvania to Eastern Tennessee back in the late "60's" and early "70's" was the equivalent of moving to another country. Even with my diplomas and a couple of year's experience, to my dismay, I could not obtain a secretarial job.

 

We were running out of money when I went to my final job interview after three long months of hunting. The man who would become my boss appeared to be a typical charming, southern man, and he could easily see that I was qualified for the job. When we went through the usual interview dialog, he asked me if I knew why I had not been successful in getting hired. Naive that I was, I told him I had no idea. He smiled that charming smile and laughed! My eyes popped wide with surprise, not sharing his joke. He quickly added that he was willing to give me a chance, but first I had to agree to one condition. If I promised to adopt a southern accent as soon as possible, I could have the job. Because, you see, he would have "a hell of a time explaining why he hired a Yankee". No Yankee voice could answer the telephone or greet clients as they walked in the door. "Honey", he drawled. "This is the South and everyone who lives here still remembers that we lost the Civil War. 

It still makes us mad." Stunned beyond belief, I managed to keep my wits about myself and quickly agreed. When I showed up for work a few days later, I did exactly what was asked of me. In fact, my "twang" was so authentic that my family back in Pennsylvania grew quite annoyed with me.

What did I learn from this experience? I learned that when money is running out, sometimes we have to do things that we might feel are beneath our dignity. Sometimes we have to lower our standards and do-what-we-have-to-do, at least until we can figure out something better. Sometimes we have to "fake it" in order to "fit in". 

Sometimes, circumstances dictate that we have to compromise. Believe me, I did not enjoy pretending to be someone I was not.

Worse, I didn't like experiencing discrimination and prejudice for the very first time in my WASP life. By stepping over the Mason-Dixon Line, I had instantly become a minority, other than just being a woman. It was sobering. The two years that I lived and worked there my maturity grew in light years. My eyes were opened to the reality of life for other minorities and my social conscience began to evolve. I did not understand "southern" segregation. Seeing "white only" signs on water fountains and bathrooms made me uncomfortable and then angry.

I worked with some very nice people in our office. But I learned that there were some issues where boundaries could not be crossed if you wanted to maintain a good working relationship. I learned that some people are not open-minded to anything that goes against what they have been brought up to believe is correct. Bluntly stated, I learned to keep my mouth shut in the office even if I wanted to scream over the injustices that surrounded me.

There were more jobs and more years after that one in the South, but I don't think that I learned as much in such a short time as I did working in that culturally and socially challenging environment. I went there a girl, even though I was 22 and married. But, when we finally moved away, I had become a woman sensitive to the realities of the world around her.

A few bumps in the road

All beginnings are difficult and my first day of ‘flying’ solo was no different.

For starters I couldn’t get into my computer this morning.  I didn’t have a user name and I didn’t have a password.  I got on the phone and spoke to some I.T. dude who gave me what I needed.

From there I thought it was all systems go, but ahead there was another bump in the road.  When I tried to open my email, I needed a name and a password for that too.  Again I picked up the phone and called the help desk, but this time they couldn’t help me.  However, they would send a specialist to have a look at the problem.  He would be there within the hour.  If you saw a specialist, so did I.

In the meantime yet another problem presented itself ... my computer wasn’t hooked up to any printers.  Under normal circumstances selecting and installing a printer is child’s play, but not in this case.  There were hundreds of printers to choose from and all of them had mysterious codes.

For the third time I called the helpdesk and they promised that the specialist, who was on his way, would be able to help me with the printer problem too.  I waited and waited, but apparently the specialist was needed elsewhere.

As if that wasn’t enough, a fourth problem crept up ... literally ... a spider.  True, it was only a baby spider, but it was pitch black and creepy looking.  I tried to kill it (I didn’t need a specialist for that), but I missed and the tiny spider fell on the floor.  For the next fifteen minutes I was hand my hands and knees, looking for the beast, but it had disappeared. 

A short time later there was another baby spider.  That one I managed to kill, but I freaked out.  If there were two baby spiders, and a spider is known to lay a lot of eggs, how many more spiders were there?  And more importantly, if these were baby spiders ... where was mama spider?

What did I do?  You guessed it, I got on the phone again.  This time I called housekeeping and insisted they come and deal with the problem.  The lady I spoke to was quite honest, she told me it was too late in the day to deal with this problem now, but someone would show up tomorrow morning.   

They better show up and they better do something about it, because I don’t want the company of spiders.

Let’s hope the bumps in the road will be ironed tomorrow.  Let’s hope that I get hooked up with email, with a printer and that mama spider goes and raises her family elsewhere.