Formal Frosty

This weekend our area got its first significant snow. I received 3.5" at my house. I did something I hadn't done in years. I made a snowman. I used to really hate snow, but this snow was very pretty, the roads were fine to drive, and it was relatively warm- right at 32 (that fact that I now own a 4 wheel drive doesn't hurt either). Here's the finished product.

I'm very thankful for my neighbors who provided the carrot nose and tie. One of them had younger brothers, so she knew how to tie it too. With his tie, I felt his name should be Formal Frosty.

Here's To Historically Accurate Nativity Scenes

Every year I set up my nativity set like this

This is a different look than most nativity depictions you've seen. Some of you already understand the reason mine is this way. For those of you who don't, here's why: the wise men weren't there the night Jesus was born. They didn't arrive until some time later. Here's the story from the NIV version of Matthew 2. Pay special attention to verse 11.

The Magi Visit the Messiah

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi^[a] from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

³ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶ “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’^[b]”

⁷ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

⁹ After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹ On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

They found Jesus at the house, not the stable. Thus, I set up my wise men so they are literally coming from the east.

I tend to think this is something everyone knows, but I was reminded this week that it's not. My boss, who attends Mass every week, didn't know it. So there's your Christmas fun fact for today.

We don't always see ourselves as others see us

Recently someone at my mom's company was fired for theft. This has been a long-standing problem with this employee, and it finally reached the point where termination occurred. Someone saw the firee recently and asked her how she was doing. Her response "I was treated like a common criminal. I was escorted to my locker and then escorted out of the building"

Um, YES. Theft is a crime. You are a theif.

As my parents always told us "We don't always see ourselves as others see us."

Mystery Solved

For the past week or so I've been hearing an intermittent beeping in my apartment. It's faint, so I only noticed it when everything was off, such as when I was reading or lying in bed. After a while, it finally dawned on me that it was the "chirp" of a low smoke detector battery. However, it was too low in volume to be mine. Well, one morning this week I heard a loud "chirp" and realized one of my WAS beeping. I took care of it. Since all of my detectors were installed at the same time, I put new batteries in all the others ones too. (Safety note: if your smoke detectors are 10 years old or older or you don't know how old they are, replace them immediately. There is a 50 percent failure rates for smoke detectors a decade old).

My detectors all had fresh batteries, but the chirping continued. I checked with my upstairs neighbor. He said the chirping wasn't come from his place, nor had he heard it. Next I consulted with the neighbors upstairs & across from me. Same thing. Finally I asked the last tenant in my building, my next door neighbor who's also part owner of the complex. He told me the chirping wasn't in his apartment, but that it might be coming from the basement. The BASEMENT. I hadn't thought of that. The basement is not finished. It houses the water heaters for all the apartments, and the owners use the rest of it as storage. He promptly went and checked it. BINGO. Problem solved. Thank goodness. It was driving me batty.

Be open to the wisdom of others

Until last year, I always hauled my Christmas tree in my car. In case anyone ever asks you, yes, you can fit a Christmas tree in the trunk of a sports car. It just sticks out some, and you have to tie the trunk shut.

With the addition of the Tracker to my fleet last year, it became the designated Christmas tree transport vehicle. I tied the tree on top and brought it home. This worked better than the trunk of my car, but the Tracker is a soft top, so it was sort of precarious to get it to stay put during travel. I was talking to a guy this week about getting my tree. He owns are Tracker too (he copied off me and bought one. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery you know). He suggested loading it in the passenger door and standing the top through the fold back sunroof.

I took his advice today. It worked GREAT. It fit in easily and no tying was required. Here are the Tracker and tree once we'd arrived home:

Be open to the wisdom of others. It just might make your life easier.


Additional fun fact to this story: I wouldn't let the guy at Lowe's trim the bottom of my tree with the chainsaw until he went and got some safety glasses. There were none in the area where the chainsaw was. While he was getting them, I was talking with another employee. He said "you made me get safety glasses last year." I thought he looked familiar. He was the one who trimmed my tree last year when I bought it. Everyone took it in good spirits and I told the person thank you for humoring me. I just couldn't let them use them chainsaw without them. If I had and something would have happened to their eyes, the guilt would be overwhelming.

Sometimes it's worth more to spend more

I am cheap by nature. I love a good deal. However, as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that sometimes paying more is the wiser thing to do.

Example #1- Eating out

I love eating out, and I would not be sad if I never cooked again. Although I'm cheap, I hardly ever eat fast food. The quality in most cases is just not that good. I'd rather pay a little bit more and have better food.

Example #2- Athletic shoes

Walking is my preferred form of exercise during the non summer months. Previously I had a threshold for what I'd pay for athletic shoes. The problem I've had in the past few years is I cannot find shoes that fit my feet well. I finally gave in and went to a specialty running store. For the first time in a long time, shoes that were comfortable. Were they more? LOTS more. But as my mom says "You only have one pair of feet."

Example 3- Paper Towels

Recently I purchased some paper towels are Dollar Tree. Oh my goodness, they are so cheap. I normally buy the store brand at the grocery store, and those are luxury compared to these flimsy things. I'll be glad when they're gone, which won't be long based on how wimpy they are.

I always like to to watch my spending closely, but sometimes the best value is actually found in spending a little more.

Those who fail to learn from history

I watched with horror, sadness, and anger when I saw the story of the Bangladesh clothing factory fire. Horror and sadness at the tragic way in which so many perished. Anger with the fact the so many people died due a lack of extremely basic facility design/emergency planning.

This was an eight story building. Reportedly the company only had building permission for 3 floors. There was one exit in the entire facility. It was an open stairwell design which funneled the fire like a chimney up through the building.

The U.S. itself had a tragic garment factory in 1911- the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. You'll notice quite a few parallels between the two events. Out of this tragedy came a focus on and codes for worker safety as related to fires. It makes me absolutely irate that people are still dying unnecessarily a century later for lack of adherence to knowledge that has been common for so long. As Winston Churchill said "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." He is tragically right in this case.

Two Tales of Thankfulness

Thankfulness is something we should strive to practice yearlong, not just at Thanksgiving. We are better people we are grateful people.

I wanted to share two recent events with you that caused me to be thankful.

Event #1
Shortly before I went to Seattle last month, one of my coworkers (I still don't know the person's identity) placed a small picture on my desk. It's a silhouette of a women in a hammock on the beach. My love of the beach is well known,  and I said that's what made it so appropriate.  I was commenting on how great the ocean is was when one of our temporary associates said something like "I hope to find out someday." This person is an adult with kids in their late teens. I couldn't believe what I had heard. I had to clarify. I asked "You've never been to the beach?". She said "No." I was telling a coworker about this, and she mentioned that some people just don't like to travel. I stated that I was pretty sure that wasn't this reason, I was pretty sure it was financial.

Now, I had been kind of bummed about not finding cheap airfare that would allow me to go to the beach for the second time this year. I was pretty ashamed. Oh Lord, what an ungrateful wretch am I.

Event #2
We celebrated my sister's birthday two weeks ago by going out to dinner as a family, then going to her house later for cake. As I was driving to her house, I was struck by how blessed my family is. We were able to go out to dinner for her birthday. We're all employed and healthy. I was thankful.

There you have it, two tales of thankfulness. Obviously I'm much prouder to tell about the second one, but I was very thankful in each one.

Another Reason I Don't "Like" Facebook

My lack of enthusiasm for Facebook is something that is no secret among those who know me well. There are several reasons, but last week I added yet another.

We had an incident involving Associate X. Later in the week, one of my neighbors asked me "What happened to Associate X?" Now, my neighbor knows X and I had the same employer and that I work in HR. I told my neighbor I couldn't go into it. He pressed, I repeated my answer.

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: "Why don't you ask X?"
Neighbor: "Because then I'd have to talk to him"
Me: "Then how did you find out"
(Me thinking it at the same time as he said it) Neighbor: "Facebook"

It seems X's wife had posted enough about the situation to make people ask questions.

Really? Who would do this? I asked a couple of people, and they told me they could totally see this happening, if for nothing else than to generate sympathy.

Yet another reason I don't like Facebook: it puts information in the hands of people who otherwise wouldn't have it and makes my life more difficult.

Stress can make you a mess

I mentioned how glad I was when my "sort of boss" got canned a couple weeks ago. This week it dawned on me how good it's been for my health. My stress level had been quite high having to put up with him and some other work situations. I had frequent headaches at work, my face was starting to break out, and even my hair didn't look as good as it normally does.

After over a week off for vacation and two weeks of him being gone, let me tell you how much better I feel. Headaches? Gone. Face? Skin is soft and smooth. Hair? Back to its nice normal self.

I know I had a mild case of stress effects. I can see how stress could really make a person a mess.

Choice Wins Again

I've written previously about how giving people choices can often lead to your getting your desired outcome with less headaches. I saw this in action again this week.

We celebrated my sister's birthday on Tuesday. I asked my 3 year old niece if she wanted to be in a picture I was taking of her uncles (my brother & brother-in-law). She said "No". I said "ok" and let it go. When I went to take the picture, guess whose smiling little self was standing right next to my brother-in-law?

I could have insisted she be in the picture to start. However, that would have probably led to lots of screaming from her and no fun for anyone involved. It was her choice though, so she decided to do it. Like her aunt, I can tell she much prefers to choose to do things than have others tell her what to do.

The XYZ 20

New hires at my company (XYZ) tend to gain weight. We even have a name for it- the XYZ 20, sort of like the freshman 15. We warn people about it. It's not inevitable, but they will have to make a concerted effort not to become more girthy (one of my coworker's words. I love it.)

Two recent examples of the XYZ 20 in action:

Example #1
Associate A was hired in early September. At the beginning of last month he stated he's gained 10 pounds. I helpfully informed him he was halfway there.

Example #2
Associate B started in mid-June. Two weeks ago a coworker came to my desk and said "I think B's already gained the ILA 20". Now mind you, B's desk is less than 20 feet from mine, he was there at the time, and the person didn't exactly whisper it to me.

The XYZ 20: it's real, and we notice when you find it.

I told you so

Remember when we hired the guy who brought his girlfriend to the interview? What I didn't say then is that this person was going to be my new sort-of boss. My boss is theoretically nearing retirement (he keeps saying "in a couple of years"), and so this person was to train with him to be ready when the day finally did come. In the interim the newbie would be the day-to-day supervisor of my coworker and I in theory. Let's just say my initial judgement of him was not far off. I can get along with most people, but I've never meshed with him. In fact, having to see him was the thing I most dreaded about going back to work today after my over week of vacation.

Well, it turned out to be a great day back today because HE RESIGNED last week.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was so happy I actually came home and danced.

I thought I'd hidden my dislike of him, but obviously not as several people commented about how happy they knew I'd be. My coworker said someone had mentioned to her how happy I seemed to be and she said "there is no love lost". A huge understatement to say the least. I asked my coworker "Is it wrong if I want to sing the Hallelujah chorus?"

Now, yes, I do have to take my tiara back temporarily. However, I've made it very clear that this is interim only until we get someone hired, and I've already told my boss I need a raise to even to do that. I'd rather have this than have to deal with the now ex-supervisor.

And best of all, I get to say "I told you so!"

What a Cartoon Character Can Teach You About Work

If you've ever watched the cartoon "DuckTales", you know one of Scrooge McDuck's favorite sayings was "work smarter, not harder". Though he's a cartoon duck, he's still wise. There are times when only more time and/or effort will get something done, but there are very often things we can do to improve the situation so it can be achieved in an easier way.

An example from my company: When I started there 12 years ago, the presentations for our monthly management review meetings were done on transparencies. Yes, you read that right. This meeting routinely had over 100 pages of presentations. No only was this expensive (we went thought boxes of transparencies like crazy!), it was incredibly wasteful. The charts all had to be redone every month, so each transparency was used once and thrown away. If there was a typo on a transparency, it was trashed and a new one made. I and others actively campaigned for a digital projector. Once it was purchased, guess which was the first team to use PowerPoint for their presentation? Oh my goodness, so much less wasteful and faster.

This is a small example, but things like this are common in both our personal and professional lives. We'd all be well advised to be like Scrooge McDuck and stay on the lookout for ways to "work smarter, not harder".

What Your Choices Say About Your Priorities

We make lots of choices every day. Some are big, and some are small. These choices can often reveal much about our priorities. I'd like to illustrate this with two stories.

Story #1
My brother works at an auto parts store. He said that people will take the absolute cheapest route to fix their daily drivers, i.e. the cars that get them to their jobs so they can make money. When it comes to their weekend cars, though, they'll spend all kinds of money. It drives my brother crazy.

Story #2
A lady got a job for a company that makes home deliveries. For this job, she needs to use her own car. When she was hired, they told her she'd have to repair the crack in her windshield. They were generous and gave her some time to get this done. A few days later she comes in wearing flip flops, a dress code no no. Why? Because she got a new tattoo on her foot and couldn't wear other shoes. That's right, she didn't have the money to spend on getting her windshield fixed, but she did have the money to spend on a tattoo and to cover not getting paid since she wasn't allowed to work in flip flops.

As you can see, our actions can prove insightful about the value we place on certain things in our lives.

Skils that should be required before you're allowed to drive

I wrote recently about the driving test that someone I know had to pass before her dad would let her drive. While perhaps a bit extreme, there are some skills that I think should be required to be demonstrated before a license is issued:

1. How to check the air in your tires
2. How to figure out how much air should be in your tires
3. How to check the oil
4. How to add oil when needed
5. How to change a tire
6. How to jump start a car

None of these are difficult, but they could all come in very handy. If you have a person in your life getting ready to get his/her license, make sure this person knows how to do all these. If you already have your license and don't know how to do one or more of these things, have someone show you. You'll be a more prepared driver for it.

Boundaries: They are good thing

I looked up boundary on dictionary.com. Here's what is says:

"something that indicates bounds or limits; a limiting or bounding line."

The key to me is limits. This applies to much of life. We as a society seem to have forgotten that limits have their place. No one needs (or frankly cares) to know every single little thing about you. There are also some large things that people really don't need to know either.

I was reminded of this at work on Friday. I was talking to one of his vendors. He stated that his wife is 27 weeks pregnant and in the hospital due to contractions (they had gotten them stopped). I asked if this had happened with her previous pregnancies, and he said no. And then the boundary was breached: "She had a LEEP procedure done because she had HPV, and they think that might have caused it."

If you aren't familiar with HPV, here's some info on it from the CDC. Yes, he just told me his wife had an STD. That's just something you shouldn't be telling people from whom it isn't need to know, and I certainly didn't need, much less want, to know that. Of course, the thought then follows: well, did she get it from him? I didn't know what a LEEP procedure was until about 5 minutes ago. Here's the data. Again, didn't need or want to know that. I will say though, that after reading it, I'm pretty sure one of my friend had this procedure done. And no, I don't know why, and I'm not asking.

Boundaries: They are a good thing.

An investment of a different type

Today my coworker told me the latest in the saga of his ex-wife (they've been divorced for a couple of years). He knew I'd love it. The ex recently received $8000 from his 401(k) as part of their divorce settlement (yes, your 401(k) is also your spouse's unless your prenup says otherwise). Now, what is she doing with this? You might think she is rolling it into an IRA to save for her future and not have to pay penalty or tax on it. Perhaps it is worth paying the penalty and tax to apply it to a really high interest debt. Nope. It's even better than that. She's getting a boob job. Their 14 year old son informed my coworker of this last night. Even the son told the mom he thought there were better things she could spend it on.

Now you are perhaps pondering how this qualifies as an investment. I think she's trolling for a newer, more wealthy man than her current boyfriend. When one is fishing, one needs a good lure to enhance the odds of success right?

A real driving test

If you're like me, your driving test wasn't that big of a deal. In my state, if you passed a driver's ed class, there wasn't even a driving component. You just had to pass the written test. Recently someone told me about a real driving test her friend had to take.

The friend's dad took the friend out into a field. He then put her car in a ditch and removed one of the tires. He told her if she wanted to drive she would get the car out of the ditch herself. He wanted to know that if she ever got into a bad situation that she could handle it. Now that's a real driving test.

P.S. She passed.

P is for Planning

The construction at my company is finally drawing to a close, hopefully. We are having a big event on the 10th of next month, so everything is supposed to be wrapped up then. One of the things that has struck me in this process has been the lack of planning. This expansion had been talked about for over a decade, but the planning was compressed into a couple of months and not everyone was invited to participate. As you can imagine, this has led to issues.

Some examples:
1. Our janitorial storage space was cut in half. No one thought about what to do with all the items for which there was no longer any room until a couple weeks ago.
2. The room where we stored our drum label printer and associated supplies was removed. No one made a plan for where to put all this
3. My personal favorite: For nearly two months, there was ONE phone in our new 100,000+ sqaure foot building. Why? Our IT Manager, never known for his planning skills, didn't get that done. It's been 2.5 months now, and they still don't have all the phones installed in this area yet.

P is for planning (and also for phones).

Buyer's remorse

How often do you have buyer's remorse? You get something new, and soon after (but usually past the time you can return it) you discover you wish you hadn't purchased it. I wish I had all the money I've spent over the years on shoes and clothes that I wasn't that into. On the converse side, how often do you not buy something and wish you had? I can only think of one thing in my adult life that I really wish I'd purchased but didn't. When I bought my kitchen table, there was an optional bench seat you could procure that allowed you to seat 4 instead of 6. For reasons I can't recall, I elected not to purchase it. To this day, over 10 years later, I really wish I'd have bought it.

I guess the moral of the story is- when in doubt, don't buy. The odds are highly in your favor that this is the right choice.

Common denominator

One of our departments has had a real problem with turnover. In the last year, 3 people have left, none under the best of terms. The first was an employee of several years. The other two were gone within 6 months of their hire date. This department is 6 people when fully staffed. Yes, you are seeing a problem. As my dad used to say "What's the common denominator?" It's the management. If one employee or two had left, you'd think maybe it was coincidence, but not 3 in this short of time. The person is charge is either a bad manager, a bad selector of new employees, or both.

We recently extended an offer to someone to take over one of the vacant positions in this department. Someone asked me how long I thought the new person would stay. I said "not long if she's smart".

Free Museum Day

Museums across the country are participating in Free Museum Day on Saturday, September 29. This link allows you to select a museum from your area and print tickets. Enjoy!

Quite a conversation piece

When I went out to walk on Labor Day, I noticed that my rear passenger tire was on the rim. I thought maybe it was just really low and that I could air it up until I could take it in for service on Tuesday. When I put the tire gauge on it, it didn't even register. I know how to change a tire, but I also pay for AAA so I don't have to. Help quickly arrived, and the spare was put on. I saw what appeared to be a staple in the top of the tire, so I figured that was the problem.

When I took my car in yesterday after work, this is what they pulled out of the tire

Yes, a nearly THREE INCH piece of metal. As you may have guessed, I am now the owner of a new tire. Whatever this was that was in my tire, it's quite a conversation piece if I do say so myself.

More rainbows

In August of last year I wrote this post about the rainbow photos I took on my way home on Saturday when I just happened to have my camera in the car. Well, this Saturday evening I drove most of my way home seeing a rainbow. I ran in the house, got my camera, and captured these shots before it faded away.

I was struck by how these two occurrences were almost exactly a year apart.

Quote of the Day

"I'll make it really simple: if you loot, you get an orange suit,"
- New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Redneck office furnishings

On Friday of last week they starting to deliver the first of our new offices furniture. There are two pieces I am especially proud of.

First, our blinds

Yes, it's sheets of plastic. Perhaps it might have made sense to install the permanent blinds BEFORE all the furniture. I'm just saying, it would've probably been a lot easier.

And now, the desks

You guessed it- PLYWOOD. It seems this portion of all the desks got damaged in shipment. Rather than wait and put it all together at one, we got plywood.

Do you think Jeff Foxworthy would be proud?

File that under "N" for Not My Problem

Background:
Last week we announced we were getting rid of one of our company refrigerators since we've purchased a new one. I sent out an e-mail on Tuesday telling people they needed to get anything they  wanted to keep out of the old fridge by 4 PM on Friday and that everything that remained after that would be thrown in the trash.

Here's a conversation I had today.
DC= disgruntled coworker
M= me

DC "What happened to everything that was in the other refrigerator?"
M "It's in the trash"
DC "I just bought some ice cream sandwiches, and I forgot on Friday. Did they throw that away?"
M "Yes" 
DC "What about my tupperware?"
M "It's in the trash" (noticing a trend here?)

She was mad, but the only person she had to be mad at was herself. As my coworker say "Sounds like a personal problem to me." It's sure not my problem.

This guy is not the one- UPDATE

We offered the job to this guy. I'm appalled.

This guy is not the one

The following candidate gave us something to talk about today. The story was told to me by my boss, who heard it from someone on the interview team

It started with the candidate griping about how hard it was to find his way around (we're under construction, and our facility is a maze. Even we spend a lot of time figuring out how to get from point A to point B). He was carrying his tie and coffee upon arrival (more than one person saw him come in carrying the tie. I'm sad I didn't get to witness this myself).

He entered the interview room and took off his coat. He then proceeded to put it not on his chair, but on the chair next to him. He placed his cell phone on the table (hello, that thing should be in your CAR). It rang during the interview. He apologized, but took the time to look & see who was calling. Apparently he didn't turn it off, because later in the interview it started vibrating. Again, he took the time to look and see who was calling (my coworker said "he didn't want to miss a call from his next job".)

Obviously, this guy isn't getting the job. But here's the thing: I don't think he wanted it. As I told a couple of people today, an interview is an interview for both parties. The company is seeing if it likes the candidate, and the candidate is seeing if he/she likes the company. I think his initial impression put him off, and he was done. I get it because I went through something similar myself recently, but I handled it with a bit more grace than this guy did. But, hey, he gave us something to laugh about, so it works for me.

Now that's irony

On Thursday our building was scheduled to have no water for at least 4 hours while a tie in related to our construction was done. I of course took off as I don't do port-a-potties. Here's how it went for those who remained, as explained in an e-mail by the person from our company in charge of this project:

The water shut off will not happen today.
(Water company) can't seem to find the right shut off valve.

Irony: You are the water company, and you can't figure out how to turn off the water

Rainbow

A week ago Friday, it started raining after I got home. I looked outside, and the sun was also shining. This meant prime conditions for rainbows. Sure enough, I went out on my porch, and I saw a gorgeous double rainbow. I went back in the house and grabbed my camera. Though the double had faded from view, I still got this great shot of the main rainbow. It had some of the most vivid colors I'd ever seen.

A little time spent, a lot of money saved

I've been with my car insurance company for a very long time, probably nearly a decade. They have always treated me well, and the rates have always been competitive. Imagine my shock when I got my most recent bill and saw it had went up 13.7%! There's nothing on my end that's made it higher, so it was time to do some shopping.

My first quote 26% LESS than my current insurer. Oh yes, this was time well spent. I spent about an hour making calls, and the best quote was 36.8% under my carrier's premium. I called my current insurer to see if they could do any better. They said no, they'd had an across the board rate increase. I thus switched.

My hour's work was very financially rewarding. It saved me in the 3 figure range for the next six months. Competition can indeed be good for the consumer.

Fun fact: I own shares in my new insurer's parent company. That earn me a discount. How awesome is that?

Proofing matters

Last week there was a want ad for a local company in the newspaper. I was reading it as the company is just down the street from mine, and the position is one we hire for from time to time. It was standard verbiage until the part where they preferred the candidate to have experience with an "anal boom lift". Yes, you read that correctly. I believe they meant an "aerial boom lift". I e-mailed the person who placed the ad to let her know, but I bet she'd already heard.

I truly believe that proofreading is a lost art. I am amazed how often I find typos. I found one last week in a best selling novel, and I saw one today on a website for a huge insurance provider. Spell check is a good first step, but it won't catch instances where a real word is used incorrectly for another one, as happened in the ad above. I've said before that one of my side businesses is going to be proofreading (another one is how to interview). It's a direly needed.

One of the down sides of HR

Every job has its down sides. One of the big ones in HR is knowledge. You get information that you wish you never had. You know when people are getting terminated, and you for some reason also tend to find out about people's personal drama (finances, relationships, health). There are many times I obtain information that I deeply desire to unlearn. Unfortunately, knowledge is a one way street. Once you get it, there's no giving it back.

I bet you feel really dumb right about now

My state recently passed a no smoking law. The only real impacts it has on my company are 1.no smoking within 8 feet on an entrance, so no more stepping just outside the door onto the patio to smoke and 2. signage must be posted regarding #1.

To comply, I printed approved signs from the state's website and laminated them. I posted the ones for our common spaces, and I gave the appropriate supervisors the ones for their areas. An e-mail was sent to all our managers and supervisors notifying them of the contents of the law and their responsibility to see that it is enforced.

Yesterday I went to a different part of our building. While there, one of the associates informed me that last week a manager had taken down all the signs for their area. Was it this area's manager? No. Did the manager ask if he could take them down? Of course not. I immediately went back and sent a professional e-mail stating that signs had been posted by my request. I asked the sign remover to let me know why he took them down. I of course copied my boss. The manager replied that he felt the signs give permission to just walk 8 feet out the door and smoke rather than limiting smoking to just our designated areas. So he couldn't have talked to someone about this? Instead he takes it upon himself to remove the signs and not tell anyone? I forward the manager's response to my boss and said "FYI. This has to be posted". He then sent a message to the manager, stating "It's the law. Please put them back up." He of course copies this manager's boss, the boss's boss, and several other managers.

This morning I get a call from the manager in question. He asked "Do you have a copy of those signs that I wasn't supposed to take down?" I told him I would send him a link and immediately did so. I bet he feels dumb right now. No only did he act like a little kid by doing something he shouldn't have done in a really weaselly way, he got called out about it in front of a whole lot of management.

We pay you a WHOLE lot of money to be a manager. Grow up and act like one.

Life is hard sometimes

Today we had some visitors at our plant. There were three people from our parent company, one of whom had worked at our facility for 5 years before he returned to Japan for his new assignment. With them were 3 people from a software consulting firm. About 10 I got a call from the person who'd worked at our plant. He said they needed to make arrangements for lunch. I asked if they needed reservations. He said no. He was sort of cagey, not really coming out and saying what he did want. Finally he said there was a large group, and they would need to take 2 cars. He asked if I could go to lunch. I said "I can go if you need me to." He did.

After we hung up, I told my boss "I just got invited to lunch. Instead of my winsome personality, I think they want my American driver's license". Indeed they did. That was fine. We were able to fit everyone in one of our company minivans. Once we got seated at the restaurant, I discovered the other reason I was invited. The server asked how many checks and we said "one". When asked who got the check, eyes were on me. At my company, the rule is normally "senior person pays." Thus, I was the last person who should have paid. But I said "I can pay and the company will reimburse me. " That was heartily accepted.

It was a very good meal. Upon arriving back at work, I told my boss "It's like we tell you. They invited me along to drive and pay." We often tell my boss that's why we take him places.

To recap: I got a nice lunch for free, spent time with a very enjoyable group of people, got paid overtime (working lunch), and I was gone from work for 2 hours. Life is hard sometimes.

More HRspeak

Recently the University of Louisville's Law School uncovered a small problem. It seems they promised more money in scholarships to students than they had in the budget. To the tune of $2.4 million. Oops. You can read more about it here. My favorite part of the article is about the resignation of the school's assistant dean of admissions:

Hebert also confirmed that Brandon Hamilton, the school's assistant dean for admissions, had resigned the day before. Hebert declined to say if the university had demanded his resignation.

Translation: He was either fired or resigned because they were getting ready to fire him. Had he voluntarily resigned, the answer would have been something like "The university did not ask Brandon to resign, but he felt it was necessary for the good of the program that he do so. We appreicate the great work he's done for the univeristy."

Further confirmation of the translation is contained in the next sentence:

"All we can say is that he resigned and we are looking into it," Hebert said. "At this time, we do not know of any criminal conduct, but we are reviewing the entire matter and seeing where it takes us." 

Anything that begins with "all we can say" means "this is all the lawyers will let us say".

And there is your bit of HRspeak for the day.

First impressions matter

Monday I got a job lead from a recruiter I know. I read through the job description, and it's a great fit for me. Even better, it's in a small town less than 10 miles from me, and the route there has no traffic. I applied Monday night through the company's online system, which was great. Tuesday night the regional HR guy called and did a brief phone interview. He then asked if I could come in today for interviews with him and the plant manager (who would be my boss). I of course said yes. This process gave me a great first impression of the company.

However, my first in person impression of the company was not so good. I pull into the parking lot, and it's in HORRIBLE shape. Big holes, cracks, etc. It's needs to be jackhammered up and completely repaired. What does this company do? They make CONCRETE. Not good.

I proceed into the lobby. I contact the HR person via phone, and he says he'll be down shortly (I had  arrived early of course). I thought to myself "this place is a disaster". The clock didn't work. The end tables were all scratched and very dusty. Several of the ceiling tiles were missing, and more than one lightbulb needed replaced. Something green had dripped from one of the pipes in the exposed ceiling to the floor. Tiles were missing at the threshold of the entrance, and one of the door closers was broken. "Bad" was written on one of the electrical outlets. They had a phone list posted that visitors use to contact their desired person as there's no receptionist. The list was out of date as the person whom I would be replacing was still on there.

Now, had the hr person apologized about the condition of the building saying that repairs were pending, I'd have felt better. After all, my building is missing the ceiling and floors in many places due to our ongoing renovation, but we make a point to tell people that upfront. But not a mention was made of the poor repair of the area at this company. That tells me it always looks like this. I'd be embarrassed to bring a customer or potential employee into this area.

I was already pretty put off by this point. My interview went well with the HR guy, but based on the condition of the building and some things about the position, I knew it wasn't for me (even though the pay was very competitve). I went through the motions with the plant manager, if for no other reason as I hadn't interviewed in over a decade and thought the practice would be good. I obviously did well because the hr person had left me a message at home less than half an hour after I left. I called him back after I got home, and he wanted to know if I could come back again tomorrow. I nicely expressed that the position wasn't a good fit for me and asked to be removed from consideration. When he asked why I said "I'm trying to find a tactful way to say this. I found the condition of the building to be a bit offputting." He said he understood and appreciated my honesty. I told him between that and some of the details of the job I knew it wasn't for me. After this conversation, I still went ahead and sent a thank you e-mail to him and the plant manager for their time. Good manners are always necessary.

Had the parking lot and lobby been in better shape, might my view of the organization been better? Probably. The sad thing is the lobby could have been whipped into shape with a couple hundred bucks of supplies and a couple hours of time. The next time you go to work, look at your facility with a fresh eye. Even better, ask someone else to do the same. Then fix what's wrong. First impressions matter.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

During one of my spates of cleaning and organizing this year, I came across a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that sounded great. I made it on Sunday. Here's the result:

They were great. I love them, and I received strong compliments from others who tried them.

Fun facts about these cookies
1. There are more chocolate chips than floor in them. Yum.
2. They are some BIG cookies. The recipe called for using a quarter cup of dough per cookie. Again, yum.
3. This batch is egg free. The recipe called for 2 eggs, but I was out of eggs and didn't feel like going to the store. I found a substitution using flax , which I did have. They turned out great. A side bonus: this was the first time I'd eaten cookie dough in probably 2 decades. I'm paranoid about salmonella, but without eggs, I could enjoy the dough worry free.

You have not because you ask not

I've written before about our team's motto at work. Today was yet another example of how true it is.

Our local paper has recently had an extreme rate hike. My price went up 292%. Yes, you read that correctly. I decided that it's just not worth it. I called them today to cancel. There is a competing smaller paper that is cheaper for 6 day a week delivery than what I was paying just the Sunday edition of the larger paper.

When the person asked why I was canceling, I told her it was the price. She talked to me briefly, then put me on hold. She asked me if they reduced the rate by 1/3 for the next six months if I would keep my subscription. I said I would. I hung up happy.

Everyone won in this scenario. I got a reduced rate for 6 months. I'll call them again in 6 months to renegotiate. They kept an existing customer which is much cheaper than finding a new one.

The key: I was nice and went in with an open mind. I know that places will often give you a deal to keep you. If they hadn't, I'd have cancelled. Either way, I was saving money.

I'm handing over my tiara

If you've read my blog for a little bit, you've probably gathered that part of my job is safety management for my company. For the last year and a half, I've desperately been trying to get away from doing this, either by pawning it off on someone else (I was told there's no one else) or by finding a new job entirely (I've been very actively looking). The reasons why aren't important for this post, but they were very strong, trust me. Well, low and behold, my reign as the Safety Queen is OVER! We recently hired a new person on our team for another reason. My boss knew I was trying to quit since I'd told him SEVERAL times how unhappy I was. Guess what the new guy got as part of the team realignment? SAFETY. YES, it's time for a HAPPY DANCE. I'm not sure what else I'm getting, but I am THRILLED to be free from safety. I'm training the new guy now, and I am hoping for a complete hand off soon. I'm still supposed to be his backup when he's traveling, on vacation, etc. but that is an easily bared burden. Am I still looking for a new job? Yes, but more passively now. I'm ready to do something different, but my current gig suddenly became much more tolerable in the interim.

Thankful for the small things

I try to be a thankful person. I don't always succeed, but I make it a point to incorporate gratitude into my life. I had a moment yesterday that reminded me to be thankful even for the small things. Last evening I sat outside at Dairy Queen enjoying a candy shop blizzard. First of all, this was the first evening in what seemed like forever that was beautiful AND cool enough to be outside without the imminent danger of heat stroke. Secondly, this blizzard is amazing. You need to try it. Finally, I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to do this. Blizzards aren't that expensive, but they are certainly not a necessity, even though I dearly love them. For some people, they simply can't afford one. I was so thankful as I sat there and considered how very blessed I am.

How can you be this dumb?

The following story happened at the company where someone my boss knows works.

Employee D (for dumb), a guy in his early 20s, had a picture of his wife on his company issued cell phone. She was either totally or completely naked from the waist up. Yep, you probably already know this isn't going to end well. He sends the picture to one of his buddies at work. who of course also forwards it on to more people. Employee D also left his phone at work one day, and someone else used it to forward the picture onto others. Another employee (who didn't know who the person in the picture was) showed Employee D the picture. He got mad and went to complain. Um,  probably not the brightest move. The company is in the process of investigating the incident, but Employee D has already been canned.

It turns out there is even more potential trouble for the company. Someone tried to show the picture to another guy, a married guy in his 40s. In a clear illustration of old and wiser, he told the person to put it up, that he was not interested in seeing it. What did this display of good sense get him? His desk got moved from an air conditioned room with all his coworkers into an unairconditioned area in their distribution center. In HR-speak this is known as retaliation, which is a BIG problem.

Are you feeling smart by comparison right now?

Mango Sweet Chili Shrimp

I hadn't cooked any real food since well before I went on vacation last month. Today it was time to end that streak. I had some shrimp in the freezer I'd purchased several months ago. I thawed, peeled, and deveined it. I put some oil olive in a pan, added the shrimp, and threw in some steak seasoning (great on shrimp if you've never tried it). Once the shrimp had partially cooked, I added some defrosted mango pieces and some sweet chili sauce. I simmered everything until the shrimp was thoroughly cooked, and then I poured the mixture over couscous. Here is the final outcome:

It was delicious.

4th of July Food

For my family's 4th of July gathering, I made chocolate covered stawberries and chocolate pizza.

Around Valentine's Day one year, I was shocked to see chocolate covered strawberries sold in the grocery store for almost $10 for a 6 pack. CRAZY. If you can operate a microwave, you can make them for a fraction of the cost in just a few minutes. What you see is about a pound and a half of strawberries, $0.99/pound at Aldi. I bought the dipping chocolate some time ago, but I paid no more than $3, probably more like $2. So, at most I had $4.50 in the whole tray. A tip for making them: the strawberries need to be completely dry so the chocolate won't clump when you're dipping them. The easiest way to do this is put them on a towel or pan and leave them overnight. Make sure you flip them once so all sides will be dry. You could of course wash them and dry each one right before you dip them, but who wants to do that?

Give it a try some time. The presentation is beautiful, and it tastes amazing.

Attention kettle: the pot is calling you black

Earlier this week a group of people from work went out for lunch to celebrate one of their birthdays. When my coworker asked one of the attendees how it went, she got an unhappy response. My coworker asked if it was the food. The attendee (we'll call her associate A) said no, it was watching coworkers B and C (both married, to other people of course) flirt and otherwise interact with one another.

I said "She's really one to talk". Two weeks ago I had to suffer through a business dinner watching her (unmarried) flirt and otherwise interact with coworker D (married). In addition, she wore a totally cleaveage-inappropriate dress. Let's just say the girls were for sure on display. Now, I'm not a hater. There's a time and a place for the amount of cleavage she had on display. But that place is a club, not a white tablecloth business dinner.

The pot was certainly calling the kettle black in this instance. Or perhaps as the saying goes "it takes one to know one".

Happy Birthday

Please join me in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to my car!
Happy birthday to you!

Yes, today is my car's birthday. And not just any birthday. It is now ten years old. It's hard for me to believe that 10 years ago today I drove it new off the dealer lot. I had always wanted a sports car, and now I finally had it. I'd wanted a convertible too, but my budget only allowed for a convertible or the bigger engine. My dad always said choose the biggest engine available, and I did. It was the right choice. Thanks dad!

I've been very blessed with this car. I've only had one nonroutine repair in a decade, and it was only about $150. It's completely reliable, and I love driving it. I still get compliments on it, and I've had people tell me that if I ever sell it, they want to buy it. Happy birthday to one sweet ride.

It shouldn't come to this

Imagine yourself in this scenario:

You are a sales manager. Your boss comes to you and says you are not keeping your company car clean enough.

What do you do? Apologize profusely, run out at lunch/after work that day (whichever is sooner) and get it cleaned, then make a appointment on your calendar to get it cleaned say every week or two? That seems logical to me. After all, you get reimbursed for having it cleaned, so you're just out a bit of time, and your boss has made it clear that this is important to him.

Not one of our managers. Apparently his boss has had this conversatiom with him more than once to no avail. Now the guy's car is nearing 100K miles, the normal trade in point for our company. It was determined last week that the guy is getting a formal letter stating that if his car isn't kept up to snuff, his company car will be taken away. Instead he will get a car allowance and have to furnish his own wheels.

I can't imagine not getting this. Your boss tell you to clean it up, DO IT. It wasn't an idle suggestion. We'll see how this works out.

That's just stupid

This morning I did a contractor safety orientation. I normally don't do these anymore, but the person who normally does was busy, so I stepped in. The guys were really nice. They asked after viewing the video if they need to tie off in a scissor lift. I told them yes as it's our facility rule (this is not an OSHA requirement. Anyone who tells you that is WRONG.) At the end they asked if they'd see me again. I said if they need me to ask and someone would find me. I also told them that if they saw me involuntarily it wouldn't be pleasant.

Later in the morning, I took some cardboard out into the plant for recycling. While I was out there I felt like I needed to do a safety walk through. I've learned to trust these feelings. I got back to where the contractors were working, and what do I see? One of the guys has his lanyard hooked to his harness. Yeah, that does NO good. I asked him what he was hooked to. He grabbed his lanyard and followed it to the end where it was connected to his harness. Let me tell you, he knew good and well it wasn't hooked to anything. I did not hatch out of my egg last night. His buddy in the lift starts laughing because he knows the guy's in trouble.

I told guy #1 he had to tie off. What's he do? Ties the lanyard back on itself around the railing of the lift. No and no. You can only tie specially made lanyards back on themselves. This wasn't one of them. You can't tie off to the railing as they aren't rated to take the kind of force a fall would generate. I told him to look on the floor for tie offs. They are marked as such. He found one but the hook on his lanyard wouldn't fit. That's because it wasn't a tie off point. Grr. I told them to lower the lift so I could look at it and point out the proper anchor points. When they do, I notice that guy #2 (who'd been laughing at his friend for getting busted) wasn't tied off either. Double grr. At this point I was majorly not happy. I said "Didn't we just discuss this?". I then said "If I see this again, you're ejected from the job site". I also included "I told you if I saw you involuntarily it wouldn't be pleasant." I of course then e-mailed a summary of this incident to the appropriate internal people. The person whose contractor this is will also be contacting the company to tell them about it.

I went back and told my coworker (and backup safety person) about this. I told her how dumb this was. She said it wasn't dumb. "Dumb is like ignorant. You can fix it. This is just stupid." I have to concur.

This is a set up

I want you to put on your HR hat for a moment. What does it look like? Well, it's a crown as any HR practitioner would tell you. The specific design is up to you.

Why would you hire a candidate with the following characteristics?

1. Brings his girlfriend to the interview
2. One of his degrees is from a known diploma mill (per our background screening firm)
3. Called back to tell us the phone number on his resume is out of date

I'd also like to add, this guy is an HR person. And yes, we are hiring him. In normal circumstances, any one of these should be an enormous red flag. Taken together, the klaxons are blaring.

The answer came to me. The hiring manager (the company HR manager) WANTS this guy to fail. He didn't want to hire someone for this position.  He was made to by senior management. His go-to strategy is being passive aggressive. In fact, he recently told us that it's HR's job to be passive aggressive. It dawned on me (I'm claiming divine guidance) that the guy is being set up to fail so that the manager (my boss) can say "I told you so". The candidate starts tomorrow, and my boss has conveniently arranged to be out of town for 3 days. He's left us no instructions on what to tell the new guy when he's not undergoing company orientation. This should be fun. 

Sound like a set up to you?

Interview garb

A recent post on Ask A Manager's website featured an awesome graphic from Get Hired about interview garb. We had a lady yesterday who should have read this. She came to an interview in a tank top. No, not a nice sleeveless blouse, a ribbed cotton tank top. Oh my. Several people not in the interview noticed it, and let me assure you the hiring supervisor did too and mentioned that he was not impressed. Yes, it was a warehouse job, but this is still not have you show up to interview. My goodness.

This link will take you to the rest of the Get Hired list. It's very good reading for anyone who's interviewing. It's also quite entertaining.

You aren't that good

Recently we received a 13 page resume from a candidate. Yes, 13. If you didn't already know, there is no one, I repeat no one, whose career warrants a resume that long. Most people's should be not more than 2 pages, 3 at the max. This guy's was nothing special, so 1.5 pages would have been plenty.

No-knead foccacia tiles

During one of my recent spates of cleaning and organizing, I came across this recipe that I'd copied from an issue of Better Homes and Gardens over 2 years ago. I decided to make it last week. It was SO easy. Almost no effort at all really. Behold the finished product:

Toppings are (clockwise from upper right): blue cheese, parmesan cheese, pepperoni, roasted red peppers, green olives, and limes. Yum yum. I'd recommend pizza or spaghetti sauce for dipping. I think the tiles would also be great cut into smaller strips as an accompaniment for soup.

You can't make this stuff up

Recently my friend's coworker, Y.U., sent me two posts from this blog via my friend. Y.U. thought I'd like them. She was right. I now share them with you, along with my thoughts.

Story #1
1. LOVE the peep picture that accompanies the story. How awesome is that?
2. I have a purple glitter pen. It's great. I wouldn't use it on a job application personally, but I wouldn't get too bent out of shape if someone else did.
3. How on earth do you spell your own name wrong, TWICE?
4. My teammate's favorite part was the person can't work weekends "cuz" she's hung over. Nice command of the English language. (also note the person referred to Friday and Saturday as weekends. Last time I checked weekends were Saturday and Sunday.)
4. Can you imagine watching the fake nail fly off and hit the person in the eye? It would be hilarious as long as you weren't the recipient.
5. My  teammate asked what job this person would be qualified for. "I'm serious" she said. I think probably one similar to that illustrated in the peep photo.

Story #2
1. Completely agree with the concluding sentence. I'd also add "your spouse, significant other, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc.". Unless you are so sick you can't make the call yourself, no one but you needs to be having work related conversations with your boss. Period.
2. Does this lady not get that part of the reason he's the way he is could stare her in the mirror every day? Hello.
3. If he'd driving you crazy, kick him out. It's your house. He's an adult. Tell him it's time to figure it out.
4. A point about discrimination: people oftentimes fail to understand this term. Discriminate means to differentiate. If you don't believe me, google it. We all discriminate every day.  I discriminate when I stop at the red light and go when it turns green. You can do the same with people. For example, you can say "I'm not hiring anyone under 30". That is not illegal. However, you can't say "I'm not hiring anyone over 30." That is an illegal form of discrimination- age. Note that it only applies to people 40 and over. Crazy, yes, but true.

I hope you enjoyed these stories as much as I did. Thanks to Y.U. for sending them to me. As I told my mom and one of the commenters noted, you can't make this stuff up. Before I would worked in HR, I would never have believed these stories were true. I do now.

A bonus story from today: A person being interviewed spent most of the time tell his prospective boss the things she should be doing. This made one of other attendees so nervous she later said she felt like she was having a panic attack. Finally the manager got so mad she said "I'm the X Manager. You don't need to tell me how to do my job". With that, she got up and walked out of the room.

Elves and Pixies

Today I overhead our IT manager (we'll call him I) tell our electrical contractor "if you have to use elves and pixies to get it done". This company is installing the data cables for our office, which is being entirely relocated on Friday. I is not known for his planning and organization skills, and I've pegged him as the most likely one to have a nervous breakdown during the move.  He didn't look happy today, and I told someone I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown just then. The contractor didn't look happy either based on the body language I saw. I also heard them say "We are just building to scope" meaning what our design is.

If I had to guess where the fault lies here, I'll go with I. Three days before the move is probably not the time to be addressing whatever this issue is. This all should have been confirmed quite some time ago. Someone asked a member of the move team if they had tested the phone lines, etc. in our new office space (which is still not done yet by the way). The answer was "No, we are just going to hope everything works". NICE. Let's just say that Tuesday morning could prove very interesting.

Oh no he didn't

Today a woman came to the front window and said "Is there a restroom I can use? I'm waiting for someone". I told her yes and how to find it. I then looked at my teammate, and we both started laughing. We had both figured out that she was waiting in the car for someone who was interviewing. Now, I shouldn't have to tell you NOT to bring people to your job interview with you, whether you leave them in the car or not. I later saw her sitting in our cafeteria. Did she ask anyone if she could hang out? Not that I know of. Not a good impression at all.

Here's the best part though. Was the person interviewing for an entry level position where one somehow might not know how poor etiquette this is? Nope. He was interviewing to be the Assistant HR director for our $100 million+ company. As my teammate said "Oh no he didn't. Yes he did."

And you have HOW much of my money?

Two weeks ago my coworker, the benefits queen, was on vacation. In her absence, my boss forwarded me a voicemail he'd received from our 401(k) provider. One of our associates was in the process of rolling over her 401(k) from her last job into our plan. All that was needed was my boss's signature as plan administrator. I looked for the form in the two places I could think of, but I was unable to find it. I contacted the provider, and the person said she'd e-mail me the form. She did, but she sent me a BLANK FORM. Not so helpful.

I called back. After briefly searching, this person was able to find the completed form. She e-mailed me the page required, I had my boss sign it, then I sent it back to her. Not long after that, a third person from the company e-mailed and said all they had was page 1 and that we needed to fill out the rest of the form. Um, no. The page my boss signed was page 4, so obviously they had more than page 1. Person #2 had found the entire form and said we only needed page 4 signed. I told person #3 this.

Fast forward a few days. I get a voicemail from person #2 stating she'd never received the form. I e-mailed it to her AGAIN, and I left her a voicemail asking her to call and confirm that everything was fine. It's been over a week, and I've heard nothing.

This process has not left me with a warm fuzzy. This is one of the largest 401(k) plan providers in the country, and they are completely unorganized. They have over a decade's worth of 401(k) contributions I've made. This is no small sum. Whenever I leave this job, I am rolling it over into an IRA for sure.

Jerry Spring LIVE from my front porch

This afternoon I was sitting out on my porch reading.  All of a sudden, I hear some noise and see a young guy carrying a tree limb. Behind him is a young lady, followed by a middle aged guy. And they are running after each other into and down the alley. At first I thought they were joking around, but it soon dawned on me they weren't. I then thought "Do I need to call 9-1-1?". I considered it, but I couldn't hear them after a bit and figured maybe it had calmed down. Guess what I hear about a minute or so later? Yep, the police (I live just a few blocks from the police station). Another neighbor had indeed called.

I got the scoop soon after from some of the neighbors. It seems baby daddy (young guy) and baby momma (young lady) had gotten into it over a cell phone. Yes, a cell phone. She either slipped or was pushed (depending on who was telling the story) in the altercation and ended up with a huge abrasion down her side. Her dad (aka middle aged guy or baby grandpa) was the other person in the pursuit. And of course, it seems the actual baby was there for most or all of this. Nice. Somehow no one went to jail, and when all was said and done I watched baby daddy ride away on his bike. And by bike I mean bicycle.

How great is it that I don't even have to look for things to put on this blog? I can just sit on my very own porch and the stories come to me. As I've been telling people, it was like watching a live episode of Jerry Springer.

Crazy in action

Today my coworker and I were talking to one of the contractors (we'll call him X) who's been working on our facility expansion. He said they're about done with their portion of the work. I asked if he knew where his next job would be. He said he didn't, but that he hoped it was close to home. He lives 1.5 hours from our site, and he and another guy from his company (who happens to be his boss and his dad) are renting an apartment to stay in during the week. I mentioned that his coworker C (for Crazy, you'll understand soon) had an even farther drive, but C had dogs and he had to take care of them. I said I'd find someone to watch those dogs for me. At this point X says that C could have his wife do that. I didn't know that C was married. He's never mentioned it, and I talk to him on a "hi, how are you" basis quite frequently. X said "well, last thing I knew they were still married." He indicated the relationship has been complicated. Then he dropped the bomb "She shot him once". WHAT?!?! He then told us the story.

It seems C was working a job site away from home, and he had a girlfriend at this location. The wife found out about it, drove there, and at the end of lunch break SHOT HIM IN THE STOMACH. Yikes. He, of course, had to go to the hospital. X said he's pretty sure charges were never filed. Then he added "She's a stripper. That's how C met her." He also stated that for several years a picture of her decorated the inside of the crew's job box. That came to an end when employees at a company where they were working complained. I said she must not have had on regular clothes or no one would have complained. X said "She was on the pole". Classy. I gave X a piece of advice "Learn what C's wife looks like, and if you see her on a job site, run away as fast as you can".

Think C for crazy is appropriate?  

Fast Shrimp Bisque

The March 2012 edition of Better Homes and Gardens featured this recipe for fast shrimp bisque. Fast & shrimp happen to be two of my favorite words when it comes to cooking, so I decided to try it. I made the soup on Sunday (minus the anchovies), and here's how it turned out:

It was very easy to make, and it tastes great. I just read the online version, and the spicy curry variation sounds tasty too. I might have to try that next time. I'd recommend giving this recipe a whirl if "fast" and "shrimp" happen to be two of your favorite cooking works as well.

Brothers Can Come In Handy

Friday my Tracker started acting funny. When I started it after work, it was shaking horribly at idle. I drove it home, and I didn't drive it again until today as it's my "daily driver". When I started it this morning, the same awful shaking. As I drove, I noticed it also had almost no acceleration. It has less than 100 horsepower, so it's never all that swift, but it acted like the gerbils were just worn out. I googled the symptoms, and it looked like the most likely culprits were things that were fairly inexpensive, somewhat of a relief.

When I got home, it was time to contact my car consultant, aka my brother. He knows lots about vehicles, and he even has a degree on the subject. He said it could be several things, but he'd have to have the vehicle with him to be sure (he lives an hour away). I asked him if I should drive it. He said not until I figured out what was wrong with it. I inquired if there was anything I could check myself, he said I could check the spark plug wires. I popped the hood, then asked which wires they were. He described them to me. I selected what I thought was them, and they looked fine. I quickly realized I was looking at the wrong thing. I should have been able to figure out where the spark plugs were fairly readily as not too long ago I'd helped my brother put new ones in my other car (helped= watched him do it).

I checked the plugs and they were connected to the block just fine. My brother also asked me to check the other end of the wires. When I found where they went I asked "Could one being completely unhooked be the problem?" He said "yes". I reconnected it, then tightened two others that were about to come loose. Now for the moment of truth. I started it up, and no more death rattle. Yea little bro!

The technical explanation is this: one of the spark plugs had come unconnected from the distributor cap (I asked my brother so I'd get it correct on my blog post). When I asked him why, he said they're probably just old. He recommended I replace them and the plugs since we have no idea the last time that was done, if ever. He said parts will be less than $30. I'm going to have him do that later this month just as good preventative maintenance. If it ever happens again though, I know just what to do.

I'm so thankful my brother was able to talk me through this. I told him he'll have to tell his friends and coworkers (he works at an auto parts store) that he did his first car repair via conference call. Brothers can indeed come in very handy.

Pardon me, but your incompetence is showing

This post is courtesy of my friend and former co-worker. Wednesday she forwarded me an e-mail exchange featuring one of her not-so-bright co-workers. She then asked me if she'd told me the Tijuana story. She hadn't but I could tell it would a good one. She called me to relay the story, and it was indeed quite entertaining.

We'll call her annoying co-worker Associate I for incompetent. Associate I's job is to book travel for team members at the company. She booked a trip for 2 team members to visit a facility near Tijuana. First, she had them fly into California. Now, the last time I checked, Tijuana was in Mexico. They then rent a car and drive into Mexico. I told my friend that we don't let our people drive in Mexico. She said it's against their policy too. Oopsy. Next, their company insurance, like ours, doesn't cover rental vehicles outside the U.S. and Canada. Did she have them purchase insurance from the rental car agency? No. She didn't even know the car wasn't covered, though my friend who is only a back up to Associate I did. Then the two members got lost, and they were driving around Tijuana for quite some time. Great. Two obvious foreigners driving around Mexico in a brand new Toyota Camry. They are lucky they weren't carjacked, kidnapped for ransom, or worse.

One thing for sure, I don't want Associate I booking any travel for me.

A Squirrel of a Different Color

This week I was explaining the purple squirrel concept to our IT intern. He grasped it quickly. I was telling him we have to settle for maroon squirrels when my boss chimed in "but a lot of times we get "mo-ron" squirrels". I loved it. My boss doesn't normally come up with things like that, but it was hilarious AND true.

Great New Quote

Last weekend I was watching Storage Wars at my Mom's house. Dave Hester said the following, and I loved it :"There's no strategy with crazy". Oh my goodness, how true is that? I knew I'd have to share it with my coworker as we frequently talk about and deal with tons of crazy in our job. She loved it too. Now whenever an applicable situation arises, we'll look at the other and say "there's no strategy". I'll bet you can use this one a lot in your daily life too.

And a pair of underwear too

Yesterday our Maintenance team was moving out old uniform lockers. We're getting all new ones to go in our newly remodeled locker rooms. It's been announced for a week that people needed to empty their lockers before today. Did everyone comply? Of course not. The Maintenance Team was not happy, and I don't blame them. They threw all items they found on the floor and left them there. One of the guys told me "If I find a pair of underwear, I'm going home." Less than five minutes later, he came across a pair of tighty-whiteys. AHAHAHAH. The lockers are labeled, so we know whose they were. They didn't join the pile of uniforms on the floor. The maintenance guy grabbed a piece of conduit probably at least six feet long and used the end to remove the undies and place them in the trash can in our cafeteria. I'm not sure if anyone else saw them in there or not. But believe me, I'm sure by now everyone in the building knows about this.

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Planning is a good thing- UPDATE

Today one of my friends asked if I was still using my old computer or my new one. I got the new one back, and it's about 95% functional. Printers were added so I can print from virtual machine. After two upgrades (since our version was SO old), our HR software  will now run on Windows 7 (we're still not running the current version, of course). A fix was found so I can use Outlook 2007 for almost all of the mailboxes that I monitor. This is good as I couldn't open attachments in virtual machine mode. I'd have to save them to my desktop, then open. That was a pain in the rear for sure. The only lingering problem is I can't open 2 of the mailboxes. I can, however, open the calendars for those resources. IT is stumped. For now I have to use Outlook in virtual machine mode to open those mailboxes. So, are we there yet? Not quite. But it is getting better.

P.S. The HR software upgrade was done Friday while my coworker was off. She came in Monday and of course couldn't use the program. She asked the two senior IT people about it. I told her they wouldn't be able to do it, and she figured that's what would happen. They told her they'd look at it. Later that day they asked her if she could wait until today while the most junior person on the team got back from funeral leave. Nothing like cross team capability is there? 

Norwegian Chocolate Pizza

I recently came across this recipe on the website of one of my favorite authors. It seemed tempting and easy to make, so I gave it a try last week. Here's the end result.

Wow, is it ever tasty. The crust is oats, butter, and brown sugar. The "sauce" is peanut butter and chocolate chips. The "cheese" is shredded coconut, and I used Reese's Pieces for the pepperoni. As the site warns, it is addictive. Even one of my super finicky coworkers really liked it.

It was indeed very easy to make too. I'd highly recommend you give it a try.

Planning is a good thing

Friday I got a new computer at work. I'll be there 12 years next month, and this is my 3rd computer. Let's just say the process did not go as hoped. First, there were no printers installed. Oops. IT came back and fixed that. Next I noticed our HR software wasn't there. Oops again. It gets better though. The version of our HR software that we are running (MANY versions behind the current version) is not compatible with Windows 7. There is also a problem running Outlook 2007 when you have multiple e-mail addresses. I have close to 10 other accounts I check for resumes, meeting room reservations, etc. When you switch for 1 account to the next, it can take minutes for it to open. Not good. To work around the issues for the last two, they gave me virtual machine access to the latter two programs. I don't really know what that means, but it worked.

Come Monday, I found out that I couldn't print in the virtual machine mode. That simply won't do as I have to print items from those two programs. I ended up getting my old computer back. At least it can run all my programs without crazy work arounds.

What gets me in all this is most if not all of these issues should have been foreseen. Again, this is my 3rd computer. Somewhere there should be profile showing what printers, programs, etc. I have. This should have been referenced when my new unit was set up. That's the purpose of having this documentation. Planning is as natural as breathing to me. It's almost as useful too.

I could have told you this was a bad idea

Today my coworker was telling me about a lady who donated a kidney to her boss, then got fired. Later I ran across the story online. I could have told you this donation was going to be bad news. You need to have boundaries at work, and this doesn't just cross them, it shatters through them and keeps going. It was nice of the lady to try to help, but she should not have volunteered a body part in the process.

P.S. Good luck getting that kidney back. I don't think they have a return policy on organs.

What's on your screen saver?

Your screen saver can say a lot about you. Does your show pictures of your family and friends? Perhaps you use a quote that you really like. Maybe you are very low key and your monitor just turns off. My home computer shows pictures of the day I got my 2nd car. My computer at work displays the following: "Where are the lions when you need them?" I got the idea from this passage in 2nd Kings 17.

²⁴ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. ²⁵ When they first lived there, they did not worship the LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people.


I loved the idea of lions eating people who aren't doing what they are supposed to do. Thus, it had to go on my screen saver at work. As you might have guessed, my screen saver shows that I am a disgruntled employee.