In 2009, I'll be 59 years old and will have had this dream job for 17 years. When I signed my new contract, I felt that the timing was right to plan for my successor and there is no one more qualified than Conan.Update:
-- Jay Leno, host of NBC's "The Tonight Show"
You know who you are. You stop by the website, checking things out, but you never let me know you're here. You take and take and take. You might say it feels like a vacuum cleaner.
But that's okay. I'm not disappointed in you. Instead, I want to give you an opportunity to get off the Mooch List and reveal yourself. A few ways to do this:
This past week my wife, my daughter, and I have been ill with colds. It just shows that although anyone can take as many precautions as they can to stay well, illness can still be as common as, um, the cold (*grin*).
On Monday we thought our daughter had an onset of chicken pox, but fortunately, it was just a case of bug bites from rolling around in the grass last weekend instead. Still, we had to go to the doctor's office for a check-up. I had to call off work in order to do that.
My wife Jennie has been feeling the worst our of all of us. She's lost her voice these past three days, and she hasn't been to work since Monday night. Tuesday night was her regularly scheduled night off. She had someone else who works part-time work for her on Wednesday and Thursday nights. She would like to call in sick tonight.
I don't claim to understand everything about her company's sick policy. She supposedly has close to 40 hours of sick leave available, but someone in management is saying that she's not allowed to use it.
Since her job is to care for elderly and others who cannot take care of themselves, it does not make sense to require someone who is feeling ill to come to work.
At my job it's different. I'm an hourly part-timer for a fast-food restaurant - one of the largest in the world. I have no vacation or sick leave; if I don't work, I don't get paid. This fact is evident in my most recent paycheck, which is a lot less than what I usually get paid.
I know that sometimes people call in sick when they are not really sick at all. That's why, for example, my employer requires me to bring a doctor's note to show that I was, in fact, sick. It reminds me of school (excused absences and whatnot).
Nevertheless, I would rather not work around someone who is sick; it would be better for that person to stay home and get well.
Remember Aesop's fable about the goose who laid the golden eggs? It feels as though companies that ignore their employees in this way are setting themselves up for failure.
crossposted to Get That Job!
Dave, a fellow blogger from Dayton, talks about his recent, unfortunate encounter with a slug. His story reminds me of the occasion I met a slug. I posted my comments to his blog, but I'll add them here, too:I noticed the slugs outside our home a couple years ago myself.
I had just walked our garbage containers to the curb so that they could be emptied by whomever in the City of Dayton has hired to do it (honestly I can't remember).
After I had done this, I noticed that there was a slug on the handle! I'm glad I'd used a different part of the handle to cart the cans to the curb.
I went inside and returned with the salt shaker. I doused the slug, and it had melted into oblivion by morning.
This past weekend, I saw this on a markerboard at a local recreation center:
Don't count down the days; make the days count.This especially encouraged me because this time of year I tend to get depressed about the summer ending and whatnot.
One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a sign by his feet and a sign that read: "I am blind, please help".Seize the day! Make the days count! Change your strategy when things don't go your way. Have faith that every change will be for the best.
A creative publicist was walking by him and stopped to observe he only had a few coins in his hat. He dropped a few more coins in his hat and, without asking for his
permission, took the sign, turned it around, and wrote another announcement. He placed the sign by the blind man's feet and left.
That afternoon the creative publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had re-written his sign. He wanted to know what he wrote on it?
The publicist responded: "Nothing that was not true. I just rewrote your sign differently". He smiled and went on his way.
The blind man never knew but his new sign read:TODAY IS SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT.
At the main branch of the Dayton Metro Library. Things have been rearranged down here since I was here the last time.
The library's internet system doesn't appear to "like" GMail. When I get to the home screen, the login form doesn't display. For it to be viewed, their sysadmins probably need to tweak some kind of setting.
Anyhow, thought I'd drop by for a hello.
Everyone needs encouragement, and this website provides it. Click the link, and, when prompted, type your name.
Now all someone needs to do is have the voice of HAL 9000 (the computer from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey") say the nice words. That would be a nice upgrade, huh?
Our home PC is behaving badly again. Same old stuff, different day I guess.
Keisha and I are at the library. She's doing homework while I'm doing some job search stuff. Between helping her with that and trying to get a plan for my job hunt, I haven't gotten much done so far.
The lady next to me is trying to get her allotment set up with the armed forces; her husband is in active duty serving right now.
Keisha gets frustrated easily with her math. They've been doing addition and subtraction this session. It seems so easy to me, but I've been doing it for much longer than she has. Jennie and I are striving to encourage her not to give up so easily.
Perseverance is such a big thing for all of us. One great thing about having a daughter is that I'm able to understand God's role as a parent by being one myself. I recognize the very weaknesses in my daughter in myself as well.
For example, yesterday we caught the bus to go to church. We need to transfer to another bus downtown. The busses on Sundays only come around about once per hour, so if we miss one we have to wait.
When the bus arrived downtown, Keisha needed to go to the bathroom, so we went. As we emerged, we saw our connecting bus take off. Jennie and I thought we could catch another bus that would put us in the general area so that we could then make the connection or walk to where church was.
The only problem with that, we found, after arriving at this alternate destination, is that the bus we were expecting doesn't come to where we were on Sundays. Frustrated, we decided to walk.
I had some choice words for our Lord. I also told him that my heart was bad, and that I knew I was wrong. I just needed to vent. All the things related to church, the fellowship, our transportation circumstances, just blew up.
Before long we realized that we were really far from where church was. We could chose to return to the Kettering Meijer or move forward to the Kroger. We opted for the Kroger, so that we could at least use the restroom and get a drink of water. Jennie also knew of a bus route that would take us back into downtown.
By the time that we were done at Kroger, church service was done. We went to the 17 bus stop and waited. It never came. Angry, hot, frustrated, bored (Keisha), we decided to walk one more block to Far Hills (Main St) to catch the 5, 14, or 11. At least we had a 1 in 3 chance of getting picked up.
We finally got home after 2 PM -- we'd been on the road since 7 AM. All this to go to a two-hour service that we never made it to.
Now something appears to be wrong with our telephone. You call us, and it rings only once; no one can leave a message therefore. At least we have the caller ID to let us know who called.
I can see how Jennie and I have withdrawn from our friends at church. They might call, but, like others - mostly creditors - we don't care to return the calls.
Work -- ugh! Maybe I should post this at GTJ.
Therapist and psychiatrist appointments this Wednesday. Lots to talk about, I suppose.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License
by Daniel Johnson, Jr. & Jazzmania Productions
Keeping the 'fun' in dysfunctional
Everything written here is my personal opinion and not that of any employer, past or present.
