Thursday, May 18, 2017

P.S.


"We have a two-million-year-old brain that is not trained to be happy, but for survival." --Tony Robbins


Well, after my vent of the day before, I realized that negativity abounds, so if you look for it, you will find it.

If you expect it you can be fascinated. 

Addicting cat food? Ha ha ha. How did you do that? That is fascinating.

A business that treats their employees like crap?

That’s how they were trained.

Didn’t our first 12 years of school teach us to sit down and shut up? Wasn’t that under threat of punishment? Wow, being sent to the principal's office—that was a biggie.

When the bell rang we knew where we were supposed to be-- in our seats. No whispering either. No passing of notes.

The teacher had eyes in the back of her head.

But kids being kids--the moment the pressure was off they popped up like corks under water suddenly released. The teacher walked out of the room…Ha ha. Chaos.

If we are in business for ourselves and we don’t talk to people we won’t be in business for long.

If we keep holding ourselves under water we’ll drown.

Yesterday I almost sat down and shut up. My two-million-year-old brain had me. I was at the transition period of writing, as in childbirth, there is a time when you want to give up.

But your body wouldn’t let you, would it?

And a baby was born!

New life.

A new chance for the human race.

Someone will always muck up.

 You will muck up.

 I muck up.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I’m glad I’m not a brain surgeon.

Over and out,

Joyce

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

To Blog or Not to Blog?



I’m wondering if I should stop blogging.

You know that internal voice that chatters to us on a regular basis? Nine times out of ten it tells us we can’t do something. It points up our inadequacies. Chip Gaines of the HTTV show Fixer Upper,(with his wife Joanna Gaines), says his internal voice is the opposite. 

It tells him he can do it.

Even with a tummy that hangs over his belt, his voice tells him he looks great.

Mostly his voice steers him right, once in awhile it does him wrong like believing crashing through that wall won’t hurt his shoulder. Throughout his life, however, he has listened to that voice, and it has held him in good stead.

Me?

I’m listening to my voice too and wondering where to go from here.

I don’t want to abandon faithful readers.

I’m just wondering when to hold em, when to fold em, and when to walk away when to run.

I’m been blogging before the word was invented. Long ago I posted a little journal called The Frog’s Song, and I still hear about in once in awhile. Then it was unique, now blogs are more plentiful than fleas.

Maybe I should take a semantical. Stop for awhile.

I can still write whenever I feel like it, just not publish it. In a year I can choose the best content, maybe that way I will have a super blog.

Well, since I’m thinking of quitting, I can write any dumb thing I want—could anyway come to think of it. The dumb thing of the day is: what diabolical person invented canned cat food?

It has turned our two cats into monsters. Is canned cat food like cigarettes, there is something added that makes the cat want more and more?  Even our sweet little Obi with the soft voice that hardly ever spoke before has taken up mewing.  Zoom Zoom has developed a loud YOWL.

Zoom Zoom is getting old, and I noticed he was getting thin, so instead of just giving him dry food, I added canned food to his diet. Bad idea.

Even the dog lays in wait at the garage door, hoping for a chance to lick the bowls.

Here’s another gripe:  Daughter dear went for a job interview and there were eight people in the room. EIGHT.

Daughter dear has herself interviewed and hired people, and when she did, she tried to put them at ease. She wanted to find out who they were. With a formal questionnaire, you know the person is going to give you the answers they think you want, not the ones they believe.  Rather like teaching to the test.

Well, chances are the person being interviewed doesn’t really want a job—who can blame them, but they need to pay the bills, and with all the stringent testing that goes on before hiring, one would think the employees would be real go-getters. Some are. Others do the least amount of work they can get by with. (I saw that yesterday when a young man attempted to load something into the back of my pickup.)

And while I am on a rant. What about employers who insist that their employees be at their desk early to hit the computer key at the exact minute of their shift. If the employee is a minute late they get docked and threatened big-time, but they must take minutes out of their time to sit and wait. Our minutes are more important than your minutes.

And, there is always a threat hanging over their head. They aren’t fast enough, formal enough, they misspelled a word, mail is stacking up, we need overtime. And don’t talk to any person on the floor. You can during a break, that is if a person you want to talk with is also on a  break.  

And the employer says, “You are a team.”

You must answer emails within 8 minutes, starting with the oldest, even if it is long past solving whatever it was the writer asked. On top of that, there is no one higher up that can handle sensitive issues, you must wing it, (while someone critically checks what you have written). You must satisfy the customer, that is, get them to shut up.

And sitting there for 8 hours is murder on the body. Oh yes, there are breaks—right, 15 minutes, guess you can go to the bathroom.

This company worked on getting best employer of the Year and got it. Whoopee do.

And what about the Amish getting their egg delivery shut down because they weren’t mailing their eggs refrigerated.

Anyone with any know-how about eggs knows that eggs do not need to be refrigerated for about three weeks. That gives time to ship them. I wouldn’t expect the mail delivery to know that, but an egg an expert would. I bet the Amish people do, did anyone ask them?  People, think about how you are affecting little businesses.

Get a heart.

These are small things I’m talking about, yet, there are little irritants that sap the quality of life.

We can be all airy fairy and spout quotes, and motivational mumbo jumbo, and say we can be, do, or have anything we want, while people are suffering.

Suffering doesn’ have to be at the starvation level. It can be like the splinter in the finger. It’s small, but it hurts like hell, and it won’t leave you alone. It saps your energy and governs your outlook on life.

We have developed such a system that we can’t die without spending money on doing it.

And if you do, the government will swoop in and see what they can take.

#Seth Godin mentioned #Henry Ford in his blog this morning. Ford knew about wages. Every time Ford increased the productivity of car production (in one three-year period, he lowered labor costs by 66% per car), he also raised wages.

Smart move. People with more money spend more, even on cars.

People who do not feel strapped all the time have a more lightness of being.

What if Universities didn’t force parents into a limited lifestyle so they can educate their kids? What if universities were free or at least, financially tolerable, paid for by all of us?  People graduating with a ton of student loans is unconscionable.

And taxes…if everybody paid 10% would that supply our needs? And why make it so damn complicated?

It’s a cynical day.

 I’ll be better tomorrow.


 Maybe.