Pawprints From Space

Someone needs to tell the media that their job is to report the news and to do so with objectivity. Not keep hammering away at an incident, track anyone within 10 miles of said incident and then play video tape over and over again that is far from newsworthy. I am speaking of course of the incident at Virginia Tech. Yes it was horrible. Yes there are interesting questions about that two hour or so gap between the first shooting and the massacre that followed. Of course people want to know why. And oh yeah there will be lawsuits to follow I am certain. But as a family is frantic wanting to know if their child is all right. As the parents and family of the criminal are horrified that one of their own could do such a thing. As people begin to grieve... What they do not need is 24/7 in-your-face-twits of media people crawling all over the town and the campus, sticking a microphone in the face of whomever they meet. They do not need to see a madman ranting over and over on TV. As a person ...

They say one should not drink and drive but what about drinking blogging? I do not think that they are laws governing that. If so, I would be in trouble tonight. But despite the fact that my fingers can not find the keys I am compelled to write. I have a friend who has had to quit his job because the people he works for are beyond stupid, beyond compassionate, beyond having the ability to think of others besides themselves and the kicker is that they are the board of directors of a nonprofit organization who should know better because they are goaled with the mission of helping those most in need. They approved his vacation time when his was hired because he was honest and told them that he had tickets to an expensive, exclusive event. And yet after he took said time they docked his pay because (get this) another person in the office also took time during the same week. And well, she has worked there longer - despite the fact that his time was on the docket first or that he followed th...

Doing the right then, being conscientious gets you nowhere... it only brings more frustration, anxiety and grief. Case in point. Trying to do the right thing by my volunteers, tying up loose ends and such before departure. Had a thing all arranged (or so I thought) for a staff member to speak at an important event next week. Find out today she double-booked herself and won't be there after all. Now since I can't be two places at once, volunteers are counting on us and we have a shaky situation in that community to begin with I am livid. I express these concerns and get told "thanks for your concern, we'll handle it". Basically don't worry your little head about it, you don't need to be concerned any longer you resigned. Well yes I did but I set this thing up over a month and a half ago and I'm not leaving for another 24 days so guess what jerks? It is still my responsibility. You want to screw things up after I leave that's one thing but you do no...

Oh this ought to be fun. Met with the person who is going to babysit my events through the end of this fiscal year today. She'll do fine. Interesting thing though is that while we were meeting a co-worker called. All of a sudden there is a hiring freeze. So the boss can't replace me with a new person who actually lives in this part of the region. The one who is covering for the next few months was a "floater" and that's what she wanted to be, she didn't want the job I had but now she's stuck with it. They didn't give her the opportunity to refuse it, told her "no". Kinda like when they told me I had to take the event from hell. This person has a two hour drive to get to that particular event. The volunteers especially one particular major donor are going to flip out when they discover there is NO ONE local any longer. They were already annoyed that the office had closed but I was still here so they had a point of contact. So much for the mone...

A weight has lifted. In less than a month I will be out of an extremely stressful job and beginning a new one. I can hardly believe it. It's been four and a half years and three and a half of them have been sheer hell. From office politics that resembled the Spanish Inquisition, to narrowly avoiding being down-sized (first I was, then I wasn't, then I could have this job, no wait the budget can't support that), to being micromanaged from afar this organization pretty much shattered my desire to work for the public good. I might still volunteer but if I do I can always walk away without penalties (like loss of a paycheck) if they get too demanding. For all its flaws the private sector has been much better to me over the years than the nonprofit world. And I do not mean merely in compensation. I will be working with other MBA grads and lawyers. Imagine being able to have a conversation about current events, being able to use what my mother used to call $3 words and not get bl...

Ye Ha! I have been offered and have accepted another position! I will be leaving the insane nonprofit world and going back into the private sector. So yes, as previously posted: the end is not only in sight but has come into focus and all that is left are the departure details. A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It has been a good day: Mom's surgery went well, got this great job offer, will be graduating with a MBA in four short weeks (counting this week) and so far the 4.0 GPA remains intact. Now if it would just stop snowing.....

Okay so I bought some pansies and some violas (they have a stronger scent) today and we had record temps. Now it is raining, a cold front is en route and we may have snow tomorrow. No one said "boo" about snow. Rain yes, colder yes but snow? Nope. Nothing. Not one word. Nevertheless the little perky flowers are all in pots and yes I did have to move them all onto the sunporch but I don't give a damn. I feel so much better looking at their little faces you can not imagine. There is something extremely theraputic about planting colorful flowers with smiling faces. I feel better for hours afterwards. Never mind the dirt under the fingernails (even with gloves somehow), the cats you have to chase away from eating the flowers or the inevitable rain. I just feel so much better about life, the universe and everything. So my advice is: whenever life throws crap at you - what the hell, plant pansies!

Okay so just did the taxes, used software of course, and with all the calculations and deductions and depreciations I'm still getting less back this year than last. So... home office hoo-ha? Big whoop. It wasn't enough of a deduction to really impact the bottom line. So all this frustration. All this aggrivation. And really not much of anything to show for it all. Well then, if this other job comes through all the more reason to walk away from the telecommuting situation. It simply is not worth it and now I have tangible proof. Sigh!

Recently received a questionnaire from my first grad school and suddenly realized how long it had been since I graduated - 19 years. The school is celebrating its 150th this year and wants to put together an alumni newsletter around the fact so they are asking alumni who their favorite professor was, fondest memory that sort of thing. Had to dig through the textbooks to find the guy's last name. I thought I had it, wasn't 100% sure but voila! I was right. Now I am five weeks away from a second graduate degree. So what is this? Every 20 years or so I go back to school, spend scary amounts of money and make myself even more unemployable? Works for me. Happy 150th Birthday Illinois State University!

Hmmm.... Could it be true? Could this travail finally be coming to an end? Well it is possible. I am still in the running for a job I had a great interview for over a month ago. Talked to the guy yesterday (gee I only left a message a week for four weeks what kept ya?) and he has a research question (think mini-paper) that he wants me to answer for him. Kind of a test. Seems they got burned in the last couple of hires and want to make sure I can do research. Can fish swim? Duh! So... if this pans out and they make an offer in the next couple of weeks my summer could look a whole lot better. Heck, I might even be able to - oh I don't know - have a life! Save some money! Work in the garden! Fix the bathroom floor even! Of course he was supposed to call today with the question and to set up a time.... he didn't

Well the project for the Class From Hell is done and safely emailed away to the Professor From Hell. Thank God that's over! All that is left is the presentation in class tomorrow night. Nothing should be this hard, cause this much stress or otherwise destroy every sinlge bit of free time you thought you had. The worrisome thing of the moment now is... what are we facing in the next class? This is the last class after all. Normally by now we have a syllabus and textbooks. We got nada. That in and of itself is unnerving. As is the fact that the cat just stole my seat on the couch, the big jerk.

It is Saturday. The sun is shining and it is a cold 30-ish degrees with a wind chill of something like 15. And yet it is probably the best day that this town has had for a St Patrick's Day parade in about 20 years. We were cold at 9:00 a.m. decorating the "float". We were cold at 10:30 a.m. lining up along the parade route. We were cold at 12:00 p.m. when the parade actually started. By 1:00 p.m. it was over we had no feeling in noses, toes and fingers but we had at least had fun. Cold fun to be sure. But fun. Now it is back to the homework - the final project for a class that has been nothing short of hell. No one can explain to me why on earth we need to know upper level calculus in order to understand economics from a managerial standpoint in business. Hello! There is software for this sort of thing thank you very flippin' much. But no we somehow have a physicist teaching managerial economics in the MBA program. A man who does not understand that a nonprofit is not...

Sheesh! I've been away from this longer than I thought. Of course I'm going to blame work - saw that one coming did you? - and it would be an accurate statement. Suffice it to say that I am fed up, burned out, had enough, want out. As in "I want outta here yesterday". Only 7 more weeks of classes and then the MBA will be in hand. Okay it will be once the school mails the diploma to me. Apparently even if you have paid all your bills (thank you student loans) you don't get the piece of paper until they are good and ready. Back to the work thing. I did not sign up for a job that involved sales - cold calling sales. I wanted out of a bad micro-managing situation and now thanks to all the nervous nellies at division since the reorganization I am right back in a micro-managing situation. This has got to stop. I have no nerves left. Huge project due on Monday. Haven't started yet. Had meetings almost every night this week. Have started sending out the resumes but it...

One needs to set limits. On the time one spends doing stuff (who needs to clean every seam in the floor with a toothbrush after all?), on the effort put into things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things (if there is a grand scheme but that's a whole other topic), and on the way work intrudes into what passes for a life. You know, I've said it before I don't really have a life thanks to work and well, work. But it has gotten out of hand. Working from home does not mean that folks can call me 24/7 or drop by outside of office hours to discuss well, work. And yet they do. Most will tell you that I am high-strung, intense, even fierce in my emotions. Everything is right there, what you see is what you get. So as you might imagine I am all tied up in knots since I spent a full 8 hour day yesterday at a training session and then have spent a huge chunk of today dealing with the fallout because somebody didn't like something they heard at the thing. This i...

While the rest of the county had "snow days" yesterday and today we who work from home are not so lucky. The phones still need to be answered, email replied to and whatever else you can manage to get accomplished when you can't get out of the driveway. Oh yeah, and shoveling said driveway. Can't snuggle up with a good book and ignore the phone and emails. When your office is in your home you can never get away from it. I don't know about you but I had had enough of the media hoopla surrounding Ms. Smith following the birth of the baby and the death of her son. The poor thing led her life in the tabloid press. Leave the woman alone. No one gave her any peace to grieve her son or rejoyce in her daughter. Now she's gone. Sure it was a weird life, she was someone who was famous for being famous and not for any real talent or achievement - unless you can call knowing where the cameras are at all times a talent. But enough already. The vultures are circling, the bab...

When you workfor a service organization that depends on volunteers for its daily ability to function you are going to have a lot of headaches, experience a high level of burnout and come to understand why some species really do kill their young. When you're in graduate school you are also going to have headaches, come in contact with people who could not evenly remotely function in the real world and come to understand why there is such a thing as justifiable homicide. I am trying to survive both. At the moment... I am losing the battle, considering quitting the job and buying a gun. To quote one of my favorite songs: Send lawyers guns and money the s**t has hit the fan

This is funny. In a town in Texas it is illegal to rent an apartment to an undocumented immigrant. I suppose that is an attempt to discourage illegal immigration. But get this: they can outwit those landlords and buy a house. Yup you read that right. There are lenders out there who will grant a mortgage without you having to cough up a social security number. Heck, in deference to Hispanic culture they'll even put as many as four people on the mortgage (you see it is an insult to your parents in Hispanic culture if you move out of their home before you get married so why not buy that house with mom and dad?). Interesting huh?... you may not be able to rent that two bedroom apartment but you can buy that two bedroom house down the street. And do so legally. Go figure. I just heard this on NPR's Marketplace program but of course when I went to the web site I couldn't locate the story so I have no link to give you. It's just oddball enough though to spark ranting by vario...

Saw in the paper today in the "Random Kinds of Factness" section (I know, goofy name) that Union General John Sedgwick's last words before being felled by a Confederate sharpshooter were: " What! Men dodging for single bullets? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!" And then there is the master of understatement Alexander Hamilton who after being shot by Burr in that famous duel said: "This is a mortal wound, doctor" There is some really good stuff on GeoCities Famous Last Words page: http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/6537/index.htm But Sedgwick definitely takes the cake.

Okay, I am confused. As we all know whenever the "n" word is used to refer to a person of African American persuasion all hell breaks loose. There is outrage, general pandemonium in the press and assorted brawling. And frankly I do not blame anyone for getting upset. The word long ago (say around the early 1800s) lost any claim to its original dictionary definition of any lazy person and became the premiere derogatory term for the African American population. So why is it that while Christmas shopping while standing in the shoe department I heard someone on the phone use the word? Not just anyone mind you but a tall, good-looking African American man all decked out in expensive faux ghetto wear (you know the over priced leather jacket with major brand logos on it, the $200 sneakers, jeans that were impeccable, a microseude shirt and a leather ballcap turned backwards of course). He was speaking into a high-tech cell phone and was apparently discussing his Christmas shopping m...

Recently our local paper had a funny bit on new business terms. Apparently the writer had spent some time online and came across some great new words. Of course he had the time to spend online while at work because he is also the paper's editor. Be that as it may - and it does conjure up some interesting arguments over why the boss gets to surf while at work and the staff doesn't these are pretty darned good. To whit: Blamestorming - a meeting to discuss failures and find a scapegoat Assmosia - the apparent absorption of success that comes from sucking up (aka kissing a**) Deja moo - (my personal favorite) the feeling that you've heard this bunch of bull before Mouse potato - a close cousin to the coach potato this is a person who spends hours and hours in front of a computer Percussive maintenance - the common practice of 'fixing' something by banging on it repeatedly Photox - improving the look of one's face in a photo through the use of graphic software Dope-...