It's amazing how different two people's reactions can be to the exact same scenario. Even more fascinating is the consistency in differences between two types of people and their responses.
THIS WEEK: PEOPLE AND THEIR DIFFERENCES, WOAH!
Obviously we're talking about the workplace and the way things are handled (it's not like I have a social life to discuss). As I was saying, the most interesting difference I've noticed is the way parents and non-parents interact with other people in the workplace.
Parents seem to be able to deal with a much wider range of personalities and managing styles and are much less likely to make or listen to excuses of others. Frankfurt wrote a book about the difference between bullshit, lies, and simple ignorance. In my experience parents and cynics have an uncanny ability to sniff out the bullshit shoveled by other departments. Maybe people just aren't cynical enough anymore. Maybe. It might be the teacher in me, but I find myself having much more in common with my parental co-workers when it comes to social temperament and the competence level of the people I'm working with.
By contrast, people without kids or experience with them seem to be much more passive or at least willing to put up with the rationalization other people put forth. I'm not sure if I would describe this approach as soft or simply diplomatic but it drives me crazy. My two biggest points of contention occur when a.) people can't handle criticism or view it as some sort of personal attack when commenting on an idea or procedure or b.) some one's not doing their job and rather than hold that party responsible some excuse is made (or accepted) and the behavior is never corrected - the ringing bell in this Pavlovian example is the bullshit being proposed as some acceptable excuse and the salivating dog is the diplomat who wants nothing more than to believe that everyone is telling the truth and no one has any need for deception. There is no food here, the subject has already been properly conditioned.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
voices
You know what I hate? My conscience or maybe more accurately, my sub-conscious, or something. Not that I think I'd be better off without them/it, just that I wish it'd shut up every once in a while. Like when I'm walking through the store wondering how the hell I can manage to spend a hundred sixty dollars a month on groceries and I grab a bag of Doritos because they're on sale for $1.88 and that little voice goes, "THAT, THAT RIGHT THERE, THAT'S HOW YOU SPEND ALMOST TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH ON GROCERIES!"
"Geez, calm down, you don't have to yell at me, man I haven't had Doritos in forever and they finally go on sale and I get a lecture...I really don't need this. Oh crap, am I having a breakdown in the snack food aisle of Safeway? OH CRAP AM I SAYING ALL THIS OUT LOUD?!"
"Now, who's yelling? I needed to yell to be heard over that stupid iPod. What's your excuse?"
It's an awkward feeling watching security of Safeway approach you, nervously glancing at each other, hands hovering over what I can only assume are high-caliber hand canons needed to protect the grocery store from fat people in their Hoverounds and old ladies with their walkers.
"Geez, calm down, you don't have to yell at me, man I haven't had Doritos in forever and they finally go on sale and I get a lecture...I really don't need this. Oh crap, am I having a breakdown in the snack food aisle of Safeway? OH CRAP AM I SAYING ALL THIS OUT LOUD?!"
"Now, who's yelling? I needed to yell to be heard over that stupid iPod. What's your excuse?"
It's an awkward feeling watching security of Safeway approach you, nervously glancing at each other, hands hovering over what I can only assume are high-caliber hand canons needed to protect the grocery store from fat people in their Hoverounds and old ladies with their walkers.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
my moment
I think rituals and routines are very close cousins in the evolution of habits. They needn't be something we get sucked blindly into and continue doing by going through the motions. That morning cup of coffee used to be a nice morning ritual - walk through the park to get to the barista, slowly sip, give tongue second degree burns, soak in the rising sun and singing birds. And now it's become a chore? People ask where you're going and you angrily mumble something about caffeine and the intense need for everyone to shut the hell up. Take back your morning. Take back your ritual. Whether it's a morning cup of coffee, a walk at lunch, a cigarette after dinner, or watching the sun lower itself to bed on Wednesdays, don't let the ritual routinize.
Personally I have a moment. One moment everyday that alleviates my stress. One point where everything that has built up and grayed another dozen hairs gets released. It's a moment of pure freedom. I fight gravity and win, if only for a second, and in that moment I'm literally flying.
There's a small ramp where the bike path I take climbs to the sidewalk as the street goes over the I-10. It's the kind of spot with a wide line of sight and plenty of time to get up to cruising speed. Everyday I hit that ramp in top gear and go airborne. My moment lets me forget everything that's happened that day and everything that might happen that night and focus, ever so briefly, on not dying upon returning to earth.
My point is, it's important that we all have our moment, our ritual. Having that space that we can step into gives us the freedom to evaluate things from a different perspective. When I'm soaring, weightless, over the concrete I'm not concerned with the day that just occurred nor am I thinking about the approaching evening - my only thought is on sticking that landing, and maybe how you would describe the taste of cotton candy.
Personally I have a moment. One moment everyday that alleviates my stress. One point where everything that has built up and grayed another dozen hairs gets released. It's a moment of pure freedom. I fight gravity and win, if only for a second, and in that moment I'm literally flying.
There's a small ramp where the bike path I take climbs to the sidewalk as the street goes over the I-10. It's the kind of spot with a wide line of sight and plenty of time to get up to cruising speed. Everyday I hit that ramp in top gear and go airborne. My moment lets me forget everything that's happened that day and everything that might happen that night and focus, ever so briefly, on not dying upon returning to earth.
My point is, it's important that we all have our moment, our ritual. Having that space that we can step into gives us the freedom to evaluate things from a different perspective. When I'm soaring, weightless, over the concrete I'm not concerned with the day that just occurred nor am I thinking about the approaching evening - my only thought is on sticking that landing, and maybe how you would describe the taste of cotton candy.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
reality
So where did you think you would be twenty years ago? If your life is anywhere close to where you thought it would be, then congratulations you are either incredibly focused and single-minded or some kind of sorcerer. "Having a job" or "being happy" don't count, you don't get points for being a vague and smart-alecky preteen. Five years ago you probably had a better grasp on where you'd be standing today, maybe even ten years ago. But, unless you're over forty, twenty years ago is probably a stretch. Why? Because thinking in the abstract is hard. Especially for young minds where the ability to think abstractly about a solution or outcome are limited at best. (The prefrontal cortex doesn't really start developing until 15 or 16 and doesn't finish developing until 24 or 25 - yes, most of us have passed our cognitive prime. High-five you guys!)
And guess what - for some of us it's still nearly impossible. Look at me, I've talked about 'when this is finished then...' or 'once I've done this I will...' with virtually no detectable progress towards anything that can reasonably be called a goal. The thing is, time has a way of catching up to someone that's always putting stuff off and I think that moment for me might have been last weekend. It's so easy to talk about things when all your projects will take *years*, and suddenly those years have passed and the moment of The Next Step is upon us. I think Next Step's are a necessary part of growing up and experiencing life and accordingly each Step becomes harder and harder to make as networks are built, comfort levels discovered, and priorities get re...prioritized. Sometimes Steps can be put off for more school or a new job or a stable relationship, but school finishes, jobs get monotonous (unless it's a career, in which case you might be done with Steps!), and relationships end (or take their own Step).
In the end I think it's about priorities, what's important to a person will determine their next step. Whether it's career, family, travel, location, people, culture, or something else entirely, these are the things that make it hard to know where we'll be in five years and nearly impossible to know where we'll be in twenty. These are all the things that are affected by the abstraction of time that make life a pain. Oh, but also worth living. Den-what?!
And guess what - for some of us it's still nearly impossible. Look at me, I've talked about 'when this is finished then...' or 'once I've done this I will...' with virtually no detectable progress towards anything that can reasonably be called a goal. The thing is, time has a way of catching up to someone that's always putting stuff off and I think that moment for me might have been last weekend. It's so easy to talk about things when all your projects will take *years*, and suddenly those years have passed and the moment of The Next Step is upon us. I think Next Step's are a necessary part of growing up and experiencing life and accordingly each Step becomes harder and harder to make as networks are built, comfort levels discovered, and priorities get re...prioritized. Sometimes Steps can be put off for more school or a new job or a stable relationship, but school finishes, jobs get monotonous (unless it's a career, in which case you might be done with Steps!), and relationships end (or take their own Step).
In the end I think it's about priorities, what's important to a person will determine their next step. Whether it's career, family, travel, location, people, culture, or something else entirely, these are the things that make it hard to know where we'll be in five years and nearly impossible to know where we'll be in twenty. These are all the things that are affected by the abstraction of time that make life a pain. Oh, but also worth living. Den-what?!
Monday, August 31, 2009
truth
Anti-tobacco
Are there still people out there that don't understand smoking is bad for them? And if so, what legislation will possibly make people quit now? This "War on Smokers" has to be called on account of lunacy. The anti-smoking groups have been awarded billions, their commercials continue to ruin good TV, and I'm pretty sure they've succeeded in getting the word out - tobacco companies want their customers to keep smoking so they can continue making money. We get it. Feel free to stop with the self-righteous, antagonistic bullshit anytime now.
I have an idea. Let's look at some numbers, because, ya know, numbers don't lie! They say every cigarette takes 11 minutes off the smoker's life. Wanna know what that amounts to over a lifetime? At a pack a day, that's 55 days a year, over 40 years it's 6.1 years and over 50 years (smoking from 18-68, a pack/day mind you) 7.63 years. So with the modern world's current life expectancy around 75 or so, you get to start smoking a pack a day at 18 and die at 68 from your habit (on which you will have spent over $100,000). That is, figuring a rough average of $6/pack -- currently cigarettes are $9/pack here in Phoenix. Roughly 40% of that is taxes which means someone starting smoking today and smoking for 50 years will spend at least $164,250 of which $65,700 will go back to the state in the form of taxes. And that's just taxes from cigarettes, they'll also be paying income taxes (and potentially property taxes) to the state as well.
Also on The Truth site, you'll find such nuggets as, "In 2006, over 5 million people around the world died from tobacco products." and "Cigarettes kill over 50 people an hour." Oh no! That sounds terrible, and it is. But actually looking at the numbers reveals something else. First a note; the anti-smoking camp is very, very precise...until they start making stuff up. For example, they can tell you how much nicotine is in different smokeless tobaccos down to the hundredth of a milligram, but when we're talking about human lives it becomes "over 5 million" and "over 50". So what do those numbers add up to? Well cigarettes, at 50 deaths per day, cause 438,000 deaths over the course of a year. So other tobacco products account for 4,562,000. What other tobacco products cause that much death? That's a whole order of magnitude greater than the damage cigarettes do! If that's the case, then cigarettes seem to be the least lethal of all tobacco products!
Look, I understand that there aren't many people out there that enjoy the smell of smoke in the air or on clothes or on skin, but this is getting silly. Sticking $3 worth of taxes on every pack is a great way to increase the state's revenue stream(haha, you wacky smokers can't quit so we're going to bleed you dry!) but this holier-than-smoker attitude is only serving to ostracize and alienate a part of the population that already has trouble dealing with stress (or doesn't have trouble...I can't decide). In the end, if the "Truthers" actually gave a shit and wanted to help smokers, they would use some of the millions they were given and spend it on research for quitting aides or a cancer cure. But that's not their interest. Their interest is making "Big Tobacco" look bad and thinking of the children.
God help us if cancer ever overtakes heart disease as the leading cause of death. We'll never hear the end of it.
Are there still people out there that don't understand smoking is bad for them? And if so, what legislation will possibly make people quit now? This "War on Smokers" has to be called on account of lunacy. The anti-smoking groups have been awarded billions, their commercials continue to ruin good TV, and I'm pretty sure they've succeeded in getting the word out - tobacco companies want their customers to keep smoking so they can continue making money. We get it. Feel free to stop with the self-righteous, antagonistic bullshit anytime now.
I have an idea. Let's look at some numbers, because, ya know, numbers don't lie! They say every cigarette takes 11 minutes off the smoker's life. Wanna know what that amounts to over a lifetime? At a pack a day, that's 55 days a year, over 40 years it's 6.1 years and over 50 years (smoking from 18-68, a pack/day mind you) 7.63 years. So with the modern world's current life expectancy around 75 or so, you get to start smoking a pack a day at 18 and die at 68 from your habit (on which you will have spent over $100,000). That is, figuring a rough average of $6/pack -- currently cigarettes are $9/pack here in Phoenix. Roughly 40% of that is taxes which means someone starting smoking today and smoking for 50 years will spend at least $164,250 of which $65,700 will go back to the state in the form of taxes. And that's just taxes from cigarettes, they'll also be paying income taxes (and potentially property taxes) to the state as well.
Also on The Truth site, you'll find such nuggets as, "In 2006, over 5 million people around the world died from tobacco products." and "Cigarettes kill over 50 people an hour." Oh no! That sounds terrible, and it is. But actually looking at the numbers reveals something else. First a note; the anti-smoking camp is very, very precise...until they start making stuff up. For example, they can tell you how much nicotine is in different smokeless tobaccos down to the hundredth of a milligram, but when we're talking about human lives it becomes "over 5 million" and "over 50". So what do those numbers add up to? Well cigarettes, at 50 deaths per day, cause 438,000 deaths over the course of a year. So other tobacco products account for 4,562,000. What other tobacco products cause that much death? That's a whole order of magnitude greater than the damage cigarettes do! If that's the case, then cigarettes seem to be the least lethal of all tobacco products!
Look, I understand that there aren't many people out there that enjoy the smell of smoke in the air or on clothes or on skin, but this is getting silly. Sticking $3 worth of taxes on every pack is a great way to increase the state's revenue stream(haha, you wacky smokers can't quit so we're going to bleed you dry!) but this holier-than-smoker attitude is only serving to ostracize and alienate a part of the population that already has trouble dealing with stress (or doesn't have trouble...I can't decide). In the end, if the "Truthers" actually gave a shit and wanted to help smokers, they would use some of the millions they were given and spend it on research for quitting aides or a cancer cure. But that's not their interest. Their interest is making "Big Tobacco" look bad and thinking of the children.
God help us if cancer ever overtakes heart disease as the leading cause of death. We'll never hear the end of it.
Monday, August 24, 2009
apparel appeal
Ah, it's that time of the year again. Classes around the country are being called back into session. You can always spot the freshmen; they're the ones showing up to 7:40 am classes dressed like they're going to a movie premier. This will last MAYBE through the first week, after which they'll figure out they don't need to be half an hour early and that it's a lot harder to go to bed at a reasonable hour when you share 120 square feet with another human being that - TURN THAT GOD DAMN STEREO DOWN - is either a vampire or insomniac. Hell, after my first week I realized I didn't even need to GO to morning classes, much less get dressed before noon.
As I said, it is the beginning of classes and that means it is the beginning of the end. My final class. Ever. It's likely to be the hardest of my classes and I will likely have to do actual work, but after this I move to Denver so I'm willing to put in my time.
As I said, it is the beginning of classes and that means it is the beginning of the end. My final class. Ever. It's likely to be the hardest of my classes and I will likely have to do actual work, but after this I move to Denver so I'm willing to put in my time.
Monday, August 17, 2009
debriefing
First of all a big Thank You to the team that helped make Operation: Scott and Mary Go Skiing a success - or at least, phase ONE a success. Phase two is a little out of our hands. For those of you not privy to the finer details of the operation, allow me to elaborate.
Many years ago, as I was blissfully swishing, swooshing, and tumbling ski boots over goggles down the Alaskan slopes, it occurred to me it had been a long time since I had so thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the company I was fortunate enough to keep or the cranial hemorrhaging suffered from a complete lack of balance or my unusual proximity to the Arctic Circle, but I hadn't been skiing in several years and I realized just how much I missed the activity. My parents had spent their mid 20s as ski bums in Park City, Vail, and other parts of Colorado and Utah and, from the wistful tones of their voices and faraway looks in their eyes - well, let's just say, I totally ruined that, haha! That day though I had so much fun and, as a broke twenty year-old college undergrad I realized what I had to do. Riding an Alaskan lift back to the top for another run, I promised I would send my parents on one more ski trip. Someday.
There was more than one problem with this plan. You might remember, for example, that I was a broke college student with my only steady source of income being my parents and a student job that paid $6.25/hr. Not a problem; they still had a dog, a horse, and a seventeen year old daughter at home to tend to. I amended my promise to, "When they no longer have those responsibilities, I will send them on a ski trip" and the quiet, unspoken thought that followed was, "please let [my little sister] grow up in the next few years". Fast forward six years to early spring of 2009 - my sister still isn't grown up (really, very immature) but she's at least moved out to the east coast and is no longer a physical and mental burden on my poor parents, the horse is still around, but all he needs is a bale of hay and he's good for a day or two and we have neighbors that are happy to help, and the dog, the dog finally passed. At 17 years old she was deaf, blind, and suffered from vertigo - if you could ignore how sad it was, it was pretty funny watching her navigate around by bumping off the walls/furniture/strategically placed boots. She was still happy though and not in any noticeable pain, until one day she was, and the next day wasn't any better, and the third day they made the tough decision that no parents or pet owners ever want to make. And with that Tootsie was laid to rest. Seventeen years spent being the smallest pup of the litter. Seventeen years spent making parents and kids/teens/young adults laugh. Seventeen years of non-stop barking at shadows. And seventeen years of being the perfect height to jump up and nail Dad in the junk. Never fail. That dog would jump, extend both front legs with purpose, and drill the family jewels. And, never fail, Dad would collapse onto a chair muttering something about the dog (and his testes) not being long for this world.
Now that the dog had finally stopped fighting the good fight, I had to fulfill my promise. As luck would have it their anniversary was coming up in a little more than three months and I was no longer an unemployed college kid (now I'm a tech grunt with a steady source of income, limited expenses, and student loans sitting in deferment!) The plan was twofold; first, I emailed their brothers and sisters asking for volunteers and donations. The donations would go towards buying gift certificates towards airfare, hotel stay, rental car, and lift tickets. The volunteers entered in Part Two where I gathered pictures of my parents skiing from relatives and my Mom (under the guise of doing a web project), photoshopped them into one picture, which ended up looking like my Mom was running Dad off the mountain. Then I blew the picture up into an 6' x 3' poster, numbered all 24 pages of the poster, and mailed 3 or 4 pages to each of the volunteers who then sent the packet to my parents. So, during the week of their anniversary my parents received three or four seemingly random pages with no distinguishable features printed on the front and a random number on the back. Slowly they filled in the puzzle until at last they received the final pages from me with a Visa gift card and a voucher good on American Airlines.
Special thanks to Grandma for not ruining the surprise with your love of ruining surprises...I mean, your incessant talking...I mean, talking. And special thanks to my Mom for not buying a similar trip as a present for yourself. In the three months leading up to this there were no fewer than a dozen phone calls in which my mother excitedly discussed the prospect of skiing again. Nostalgically she would recount the time that her and Ellen had skied The Upper Rim or something or the time it snowed a whole lot and their car could barely make it to the parking lot ¡LOL! I developed a sneaking suspicion that she knew about the whole Operation and was just enjoying the sound of grinding teeth on the other end of the line. To her credit though she didn't purchase her own trip and I didn't have to remove my hair with my own hands and shout expletives into a pillow all while pretending to be happy to hear that they'd get to go skiing again. No, instead we get this:
full-size image
Yes, that is my Mom putting bunny ears on a picture of my Dad - and now we know where my sister gets her maturity.
Many years ago, as I was blissfully swishing, swooshing, and tumbling ski boots over goggles down the Alaskan slopes, it occurred to me it had been a long time since I had so thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the company I was fortunate enough to keep or the cranial hemorrhaging suffered from a complete lack of balance or my unusual proximity to the Arctic Circle, but I hadn't been skiing in several years and I realized just how much I missed the activity. My parents had spent their mid 20s as ski bums in Park City, Vail, and other parts of Colorado and Utah and, from the wistful tones of their voices and faraway looks in their eyes - well, let's just say, I totally ruined that, haha! That day though I had so much fun and, as a broke twenty year-old college undergrad I realized what I had to do. Riding an Alaskan lift back to the top for another run, I promised I would send my parents on one more ski trip. Someday.
There was more than one problem with this plan. You might remember, for example, that I was a broke college student with my only steady source of income being my parents and a student job that paid $6.25/hr. Not a problem; they still had a dog, a horse, and a seventeen year old daughter at home to tend to. I amended my promise to, "When they no longer have those responsibilities, I will send them on a ski trip" and the quiet, unspoken thought that followed was, "please let [my little sister] grow up in the next few years". Fast forward six years to early spring of 2009 - my sister still isn't grown up (really, very immature) but she's at least moved out to the east coast and is no longer a physical and mental burden on my poor parents, the horse is still around, but all he needs is a bale of hay and he's good for a day or two and we have neighbors that are happy to help, and the dog, the dog finally passed. At 17 years old she was deaf, blind, and suffered from vertigo - if you could ignore how sad it was, it was pretty funny watching her navigate around by bumping off the walls/furniture/strategically placed boots. She was still happy though and not in any noticeable pain, until one day she was, and the next day wasn't any better, and the third day they made the tough decision that no parents or pet owners ever want to make. And with that Tootsie was laid to rest. Seventeen years spent being the smallest pup of the litter. Seventeen years spent making parents and kids/teens/young adults laugh. Seventeen years of non-stop barking at shadows. And seventeen years of being the perfect height to jump up and nail Dad in the junk. Never fail. That dog would jump, extend both front legs with purpose, and drill the family jewels. And, never fail, Dad would collapse onto a chair muttering something about the dog (and his testes) not being long for this world.
Now that the dog had finally stopped fighting the good fight, I had to fulfill my promise. As luck would have it their anniversary was coming up in a little more than three months and I was no longer an unemployed college kid (now I'm a tech grunt with a steady source of income, limited expenses, and student loans sitting in deferment!) The plan was twofold; first, I emailed their brothers and sisters asking for volunteers and donations. The donations would go towards buying gift certificates towards airfare, hotel stay, rental car, and lift tickets. The volunteers entered in Part Two where I gathered pictures of my parents skiing from relatives and my Mom (under the guise of doing a web project), photoshopped them into one picture, which ended up looking like my Mom was running Dad off the mountain. Then I blew the picture up into an 6' x 3' poster, numbered all 24 pages of the poster, and mailed 3 or 4 pages to each of the volunteers who then sent the packet to my parents. So, during the week of their anniversary my parents received three or four seemingly random pages with no distinguishable features printed on the front and a random number on the back. Slowly they filled in the puzzle until at last they received the final pages from me with a Visa gift card and a voucher good on American Airlines.
Special thanks to Grandma for not ruining the surprise with your love of ruining surprises...I mean, your incessant talking...I mean, talking. And special thanks to my Mom for not buying a similar trip as a present for yourself. In the three months leading up to this there were no fewer than a dozen phone calls in which my mother excitedly discussed the prospect of skiing again. Nostalgically she would recount the time that her and Ellen had skied The Upper Rim or something or the time it snowed a whole lot and their car could barely make it to the parking lot ¡LOL! I developed a sneaking suspicion that she knew about the whole Operation and was just enjoying the sound of grinding teeth on the other end of the line. To her credit though she didn't purchase her own trip and I didn't have to remove my hair with my own hands and shout expletives into a pillow all while pretending to be happy to hear that they'd get to go skiing again. No, instead we get this:
full-size image
Yes, that is my Mom putting bunny ears on a picture of my Dad - and now we know where my sister gets her maturity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
