Leaving Behind

I’m not really sure how far into this post I’ll get. This is something that has always bothered me, and there’s not really an answer that’ll make everything OK.

Have you ever heard people say “I wish it had been me”? That’s the bit that bothers me.

Death. Death can be very cruel. It yanks people away from us, sometimes in terrible ways, and leaves us floundering for meaning in life if that death happened too soon. Death is a natural part of life, one that is hard and jagged and unrelenting, but something that no one can escape. Those of us left behind mourn and weep and bargain, but nothing can be different. We trudge on in our pain and try to make sense of what has occurred, but ultimately are left with more questions than answers.

Would we really visit that torture on those who passed on? It’s easy to say “I wish it had been me” where death is concerned, but look at what you go through when you’re the one left behind. Are you really being the strong one by wishing that you had passed into nothingness, or into Heaven, or into wherever your religion sends you? I say that we look at this thing all wrong. Yes, a life cut short is a life that’s been cheated out of miraculous things, and a life removed from the glory that is this world, but wherever you end up, it’s still easier than being the one stuck here.

I say that to be strong, to shoulder the burden as we all want to do for those who pass…that’s what we do when we’re left here. We take up the yolk of Those Behind and trudge along into the future, being forced to live in a world where our loved one is no more.

“Life’s not a song.
Life isn’t bliss, life is just this, it’s living.
You’ll get along,
The pain that you feel, you only can heal by living.
You have to go on living.”

To honor those who have gone on we have to just keep going.  As has been said before, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

Men are happier people

From an email.

Men Are Just Happier People

NICKNAMES

· If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
· If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Dickhead and Shit for Brains.

EATING OUT

· When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it’s only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
· When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY

· A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
· A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need but it’s on sale.

BATHROOMS

· A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel.
· The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS

· A woman has the last word in any argument.
· Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE

· A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
· A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS

· A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
· A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE

· A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
· A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, but she does.

DRESSING UP

· A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
· A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL

· Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
· Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING

· Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
· A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

A married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing!

“In Solidarity”

Image via Wikipedia

This was written by Tracy Fuller, Executive Board President of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association.

February 16th, 2011:

I am going to make an effort to speak for myself, and every member of the Wisconsin State Patrol when I say this.

I value the Capital Police, and the UW Police. I value all of the police communications officers of all the agencies in our union, and the State Troopers, and the inspectors of the State Patrol. I value “all” of the support staff of all the agencies around the state. I don’t know how any of us could function without any of us around the state. We all need each other.

I value the Bureau of Field Services, field agents of Local Three, no less than any of the other members of the union. I am here for every member of this union and always thought I had been until this week.

I specifically regret the endorsement of the Wisconsin Trooper’s Association for Governor Scott Walker. I regret the governor’s decision to “endorse” the troopers and inspectors of the Wisconsin State Patrol. I regret being the recipient of any of the perceived benefits provided by the governor’s anointing.

I think everyone’s job and career is just as significant as the others. Everyone’s family is just as valuable as mine or any other person’s, especially mine. Everyone’s needs are just as valuable. We are all great people.

http://www.wlea.org/

Teacher’s Salaries

I didn’t write this. But I’m sharing it.

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 peryear. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children
X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

If you’re interested, the new Cosby show did a wonderful episode featuring Griffin as a teacher who was a superstar in his field and was paid as such. It’s worth looking up to watch.

People, respect your teachers and treat them right!

Relationships

Relationships have always puzzled me on some level. Relationships as portrayed on TV tend to be a kind of mental porn: it titillates but never really shows reality.

I understand them academically, as an outsider looking at something I can’t really get into. It’s always been rather easy for me to empathize with others, but only in a superficial way. Looking at body cues and going off how I see others react in similar situations is the best way for me to behave as I’m supposed to, but I’m never sure when to leave a conversation, when to physically contact others in serious situations, or when to respond back when someone addresses me.

Being online is freeing for me. Because it is so difficult to convey emotion or intent in the written word, it forces people to explain what they meant or risk being misunderstood by those reading. Everyone brings their own personal bias to the written word, and something read by a person having a bad day will have a much different meaning to a person who woke up in the best mood ever. This kind of interaction forces you to face people on a very basic level. If you are so sensitive that you can’t take probing questions into your motives behind saying a particular thing, then perhaps reflection upon your actual reasons is in order. I freely admit that when I’m questioned about certain things I have flashes of anger that sometimes shut me down emotionally and mentally, but if I go back to why I’m being asked, I usually find out that I’ve either been unclear or incorrect about what I said. In the cases where the questioner has their own motives behind their inquiry, I always learn something either about them or about the subject at hand.

This brings me back to relationships as a whole. There are people both in real life and on the internet that I grit my teeth and bear because the things they do make the short hairs on the back of my neck stand up in anger, however, on the internet, I have the ability to step back for a minute, analyze what exactly is going on, why this person rankles me so badly, and am able to correct my own behavior to keep from making a tense situation worse. Of course, this is best case scenario…my anger gets the better of me more times than I’d like to admit…but at least on the internet I have the option of behaving like a normal human being instead of a socially awkward Neanderthal who doesn’t know when to leave a room after a conversation is over. I never thought I’d thank Al Gore for anything, but his contributions to making the internet as we know it possible mean that I have to. So, thank you, Mr. Gore. I’m going to shower now.

Frustration

Sometimes I just don’t know what to do in a situation. I don’t want to offend people, but neither do I want to be a doormat.

I have some friends who I would do anything for; they only need ask, and it’s done. The only thing I’ve ever asked in return is friendship and keeping whatever promise they might make to me.

Over the last two years they’ve borrowed a lot of money, and I’ve willingly loaned it because they are practically family. It’s never been a huge point of contention because I knew they were in a bit of a tight spot financially and I wanted to do what I could to help. Recently, however, the promises of “I’ll pay you back as soon as I get paid Friday” have turned into “I’ll pay you back on Friday or whenever I decide to pay you, and I might not pay you back at all.” Honestly, I don’t have a problem if they can’t pay me back. They’re in a tight spot. Shit happens. Sometimes you can’t pay people back on time. My issue is that I keep getting assured that the money will be back as soon as possible or right after payday, and then I never hear anything else about it.

Case in point: I’ve got a payment due that they’ve promised to help me pay because of some extenuating circumstances where they are responsible for part of the payment through some of their actions. Over the two weeks before the payment was due, I reminded them several times about it coming up. “Hey, I’ve got to send that bill in on the first!” The answer I got back was always “Ok, no problem! We’ll have the money to you!” The first came and went, and along with no money changing hands, nothing was said about it. I waited a couple of days (having already sent the entire payment off and needing to be reimbursed for the part that wasn’t mine) before I said anything about it. I asked in person and was told “Yeah, no problem. I’ll have the money for you by the end of the day.” No money at the end of the day. I sent two Facebook messages to the girl who was ultimately responsible for the entire thing, and she ignored them. I sent at least three text messages about it, and they were ignored. Finally, in a state of frustration, I sent a Facebook private message to the girl responsible asking her “Why did you lie to me about the payment?” Now, that’s not the best way to handle things at all. I shouldn’t have accused her of lying. However, it served the purpose of making sure that no one ignored me about it anymore. The next morning I got a flurry of text message from the mother of this girl telling me what a horrible person I was for “damaging a relationship by sending a message like that” and “was it worth it??”

I’m having trouble with this. Aside from the in your face action of saying “why did you lie to me?”, I don’t feel I did anything wrong. I was being ignored about something that I had been promised in the past wouldn’t be a problem. I told the mother that the money wasn’t the issue, and if they couldn’t pay it back, then that was fine. I just needed to be kept in the loop and told what was going on so I could plan my own finances and whatnot out accordingly.

Since that flurry of text messages, I’ve been defriended and blocked by this woman on Facebook. I haven’t been inside her house since then because I don’t feel welcome.

I have to drop the kids off there tomorrow and don’t have the choice anymore about going in. I HAVE to go in because I have to make sure the kids are there and settled in before I leave. I trust this woman with my kids and probably always will, but I’ve lost faith in her that she’ll ever be able to keep her promises. I realize that her shoving the blame off on me was a way of deflecting her own issues and problems about being in such a tough financial state to begin with, but all I’ve ever asked is that I be kept in the loop. If you can’t pay me back, just tell me so. That isn’t going to stop me from loaning you money, but it’ll allow me to better plan for the future so that I can make sure I have enough money aside from the loan to take care of my own family. If I’m depending on you to pay back a loan by a certain date, I don’t think it’s asking too much that you hold up your end of the bargain.

So hearing what’s kept me so frustrated for the last couple of weeks, what do you guys think? How should I handle this situation? Am I in the wrong here? And know that when I ask that question, I’m not asking it to be spoon fed the answer you think I want to hear. I want to know what you really think. Have I acted inappropriately in this situation, and what should I do when I go over there tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that?

Chore list

Have you ever had one of those days when every little tiny thing just rubs you the wrong way, and you really don’t know why, and THAT pisses you off even more?

Today is that day for me.

I’m trying to be an adult at my house, which for me is like Shaq trying to be shorter, or Wee Man trying to get his beer off the top shelf where Steve-O put it as a joke.

I’ve created a Chore List. Let that sink in for a second. A CHORE LIST. Let it roll off your tongue like honey laced with napalm. C-H-O-R-E-L-I-S-T. A list of chores. That have to be done. By Me.

Don’t let my name fool you; I’m usually OCD about things that don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Cleaning isn’t my thing. My house tends to sit on the scale somewhere between Martha Stewart and Chernobyl, with shades of Kosovo thrown in for spice. Having two toddlers run around the house wreaking havoc like the dogs of war just makes it that much worse. If you couple that with my personality that shuts down when I’m confronted with TOO MUCH, and you’ve got a perfect storm of clutter suckage.

I sat down yesterday and resolved to stop being such a namby pamby about picking things up and broke the house down into easily digestible pieces that my brain doesn’t freak out about. Monday is Kitchen Day. Make sure the dishwasher is run, sweep and mop the floor, wipe down cabinets, declutter. Tuesday is Living Room Day. It has to be picked up, vacuumed, dusted, and straightened. Wednesday is Bathroom Day. Pick up, wipe down, sweep, mop, and clean the toilets. Also, Wednesday is Take Out The Trash Day because the truck runs on Thursdays. Thursday is Kids’ Room Day. Of course that means picking up the ever-present layer of toys on the floor, clothes, and general disorder, but it also means dusting, putting up anything that they might have dragged out of the closet, and vacuuming the carpet.

Then there’s Friday. Oh, blessed Friday. That’s when the Master Bedroom has to be cleaned. Now, let me explain a little of the background on this one. I’ve always had a messy room. When my sister and I shared a room there was a line down the middle where my part of the room ended and her part began. It was a definite line, mainly because her side was neat as a pin and my side was….n’t. Unfortunately, this is one of my cute little habits from childhood that I’ve carried over into adulthood, causing my room to be a tornado of clothes, clutter, fish tanks, and bedding that might have been on my bed at one time but is now swimming aimlessly along the floor in a migrating pile of fabric that threatens to envelope the entire house.

So it’s a bit of a task.

Guess what tomorrow is?

I don’t want to go home tonight. I think I’ll stay at my desk at work forever.

At least the weekly and monthly chores aren’t quite as daunting. If I can keep everything picked up and cleaned daily as my list is instructing me to do (in the voice of Darth Vader, because honestly, what other voice would a chore list have?), it shouldn’t be a bad thing to clean the fan blades, vacuum and wash the windows and window sills, and do a deep clean on the carpet in the living room.

We’ll see how this project goes. I’ll keep you updated on that and my fight to lose the weight that Mother Nature decided I needed on my hips. The bitch.

Miss Gretta

There is a woman who likes to come into my office to talk every night. She’s about 70 years old if she’s a day, she speaks in a whisper, and she talks in stream of consciousness. It’s very frustrating because she’s a nice lady, but half the time I feel like she’s been having a conversation that I just happened to stumble in on halfway through.

Right now she’s talking about working this weekend, and from cleaning bathroom she has gone on to talk about her allergies and her shoes. I’m not really sure how any of this is related, but she’s so very intent on making sure I know about every aspect of her weekend life.

She’s using a new word….”slooped.” In context I think it means “don’t feel good,” but I’ve never heard it used before.

Now we’re back to allergies and prescriptions, and the fact that she can be an ass.

She’s speaking in almost a whisper.  It’s hard to hear, but if I lean over the desk so I can understand her it’s like silent approval for her to continue to keep speaking until someone else comes into the office and runs her out.

She’s finally left, but it took a supervisor coming into the office and needing to ask me a question that Miss Gretta can’t be in on.

Miss Gretta is such a sweet old lady and she always includes me in her conversations and goes out of her way to say hello to me ever night. I hope to include her musings more often in this blog 🙂

Friendships

Friendships are amazing things.

Relationships built with people over time can encompass many things and are rarely static. They ebb and flow like the ocean, and like the ocean, are sometimes wild and hard to tame.

Recently I’ve dealt with some changes in my Facebook friends list that have hit me a lot harder than I thought they would, especially considering that most of these people I’ve never met in real life and are essentially pixels on my computer screen. They are pixels I care deeply about, however, and losing them has been a pretty significant blow. Each and every person has contributed to my growth both as a person and as an online commentator who can back up her statements. I treasure those with alternate points of view because if I can’t understand where the “other side” is coming from, I’ll never be able to 1)debate properly and 2)be a genuinely caring human being who can put herself into the shoes of others.

The loss of these friendships is difficult. I don’t want this to be the end of something that both sides have spent 2+ years developing. I realize that nothing stays the same, but for the moment, the change sucks.

Things your HR person desperately wishes you knew

Working in the Human Resources department has given me another perspective to work that you usually don’t get if you’re toiling in the trenches.

Here are some things your HR person desperately wishes you knew.

1. It’s not all about you

I have people in my office all the time complaining that the supervisor isn’t giving the kind one-on-one attention that is deserved. “I don’t get to go to the bathroom when I ask. I have to wait.” What you don’t always understand or appreciate is that your supervisor, especially a supervisor in a manufacturing environment, has anywhere from 10-100 employees working directly for him, and you’re probably the 20th person who has asked to use the bathroom since you all got back from break an hour ago.  If he doesn’t let people go in the order they ask, then he’s being unfair. This means you might have to wait five or ten minutes (sometimes a little longer).

2. Sometimes it’s all about you

When you’re in the personnel office because of something you’ve said or done, don’t worry about the people who work next to you. It is the kiss of death to employee relations when a supervisor is told “Well why don’t you write up [the guy next to me]?” You’re not privy to what other people are held accountable for and have no idea what kind of disciplinary action is in their file.  Just because you haven’t seen someone yanked off the line and frog-marched to the office doesn’t mean they weren’t written up before you guys came back from lunch. It’s none of your business, just like your business is none of anyone else’s. If there is a legitimate problem with a supervisor showing favoritism, that’s easy to suss out. Complaining to your HR person that “[so and so] isn’t EVER written up for ANYTHING!” is a good way to alienate someone who might help you in the future if you are legitimately being mistreated.

3. Sometimes you can’t see the entire picture

Yes, working in a manufacturing environment, or any environment where you’re a peon, sucks. It sucks majorly. However, within that suckage is nuance that you need to open your mind up to see. Your supervisor isn’t telling you to do the job that requires three people with only two just because he likes to see people miserable. Most of the time your supervisor is the last chain in a link of people who are concerned about the bottom line. If your supervisor is worth his salt he’ll fight for you to get the help you need, and your constant complaining (as opposed to helping) just makes him resent you as a person and NOT want to help you.

4. You are not the only employee with a file

I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve had someone come to my office and ask me to tell them details of their file off the top of my head. If your place of business is anything like a normal job, there are many, MANY people working there, and every one of them has a personnel file.  Your HR person can’t recall minute details off the top of his or her head when you ask for them. At the very least request the information be given to you as quickly as possible without demanding your HR person drop what they are doing to service your needs. More than likely, unless you’ve got stellar timing, your HR person is in the middle of doing something else that needs to be done in a timely manner. You needing to know how many attendance points you have can wait a few minutes.

5. You are not the only one with problems

It is my job as an HR person to make sure that my employees, all of them, are taken care of. This involves me listening to people when they have issues with supervisors, upper management, home life, fellow employees, and the drink machines down the hall that stole their money. I do my best to take a personal interest in every story told to me by my fellow employees because it’s important to me, and because it’s my job to make sure you’re taken care of. If it’s within my power to fix, I will fix it. However, I do have other responsibilities as an HR person that aren’t connected in any way to fixing employee problems and making sure that supervisors are treating their people right. If I seem a little distracted it’s not because your problems don’t matter. It’s more than likely because my boss has given me a project that requires a lot of attention to get it right, or because I’ve just had a major investigation involving one employee threatening or harassing another where I had to take statements from 15 people to make sure the entire story gets back to my boss, or because I’ve just been told by another employee that her father passed away that night and I’m trying to figure out how to approach the shift manager about sending this person home without a penalty to her attendance. I promise I will do my best for you, just please remember that I have to do my best for everyone else as well, and sometimes that can get a little overwhelming.

5. I can’t perform miracles

I want to help you in every way I can, but there is only so much I can do. I’m constrained by company policy, state law, and the desire to make sure everyone is dealt with fairly. If I do for one, I MUST do for all, otherwise I’m showing favoritism. Please understand that although I want to help you by sending you home early, that’s not up to me. All I can do is go to a supervisor and plead your case, and I can promise you I will do as much as I can to help you.

6. Help me help you

Tom Cruise reference aside, this is probably the most important thing on this list. I can’t do anything without the full story, even if you come off as an ass in the situation. You’re more likely NOT to get the help you need if in the course of an investigation I find out you were holding back details of an incident. Also, if you’re having problems with a supervisor, a lead, a superintendent, a coworker, or anyone else in the place of business, TELL ME. I can’t fix something I don’t know anything about. If you come to me with a problem, give me a chance to fix it and keep me updated on the particulars of your point of view after the fact. If you don’t come back to me with an update, I’m probably going to assume that everything is fixed. Don’t be afraid to come back and let me know it hasn’t improved or it’s gotten worse. Once again, I can’t fix a problem I don’t know about.

I’m sure there will be more added to this list as I go on, but these are the main things for now that your HR person wishes you knew. Feel free to email me or leave comments with suggestions for what I can add!