Waste Not

I have been watching videos on what to do with an item that you would normally throw away. They show everything from food scraps to egg shells to clothes being put to use in a different way. It is amazing to see the beautiful projects that garbage can produce. There are so many, that if I followed the tutorial I would have a house filled with junk, until I turned them into gold. I am trying to remember the best transformations and will try them for myself.

Micro Managing

I am a micro manager in work and at home. I do not do it to help you, I do it to help myself. If I do not oversee everyone else's responsibilities they will eventually turn into mine. When I make the mistake of loosening up the reigns, things get more out of hand. I learn my lesson and take back control. I have the misguided illusion that people can think for themselves and I am proven wrong time and time again. Maybe I just hang out with stupid people.

Management

I have been the manager of my office for almost 16 years. I still keep in touch with most of my employees. The reason is that I am a manager who understands situations and acts accordingly. Before I make a decision or pass a comment, I think of how my employee will feel. Yesterday one of my receptionists told me that her mother surprised her with a ticket to Miami for her birthday. She would need to be off 2 days. One day I will have a replacement the other I will not. She said she was so sorry that her mother did that because now it effects the office. I had 2 choices when answering. One was to reprimand her for leaving the office without help when her family knows her schedule. The other was to be excited for her and tell her to have a great time. I chose the latter. She is a great worker, has a future with my office and is very reliable. I was making an investment in her by being kind. She was so happy that I reacted as I did and said that she would never leave us short staffed again and would be available to help out anyone else on her days off. My rationale was that she had a plane ticket and she was going no matter what. Why ruin it for her?

Guilt

Sometimes we forget that putting ourselves first is not selfish. It is necessary. I see from how many of my patients react, that many times family and friends want them to act a certain way that might not be easy to do or even right for them. If they do not agree and do what is best for themselves, they are called selfish and made to feel guilty. The worst type of guilt is the kind that is placed on you unnecessarily. I have realized that if I do what is right for me, there will never be any guilt attached to it, even if it happens to be wrong for you.

Sechel

There is a Yiddish word "Sechel". It means common sense and using your brain. There was an incident in work this weekend where sechel would have come in handy. After a new receptionist is there a few weeks, I give her the key to the office and the alarm code and verbal instructions on how to lock up. My boss called me yesterday to ask who left the office open all weekend. When her private cleaner came Sunday morning, the door was not locked. I asked the Saturday receptionist if she walked out without locking the door. She said yes. I asked why. She said that someone else told her that a cleaning crew comes in after hours to clean the office so there was no need to lock up since they would only be opening up later on. I asked her if that made sense. If she left the door open, anyone in the building could come in and steal equipment from us. There could be a time span of hours from when she left and the cleaners arrived. She said she never thought about it because she was listening to someone who was there longer than her. Upon asking the other receptionist, I was told the same thing. How dumb were these two girls to leave a doctor's office open for anyone to pilfer? From now on, I guess I have to talk to people like they are idiots.

Full Mailbox

How many messages does it take to fill your telephone voicemail? I do not know the exact number but I do know how annoying it is. I would think that there has to be at least 20 messages before no more can be let in. I always feel that a full voicemail is like a messy house. It is a clutter of words.

Priorities

The words busy and priorities go hand in hand. If someone is too busy to help you out, it just shows where you fall on their list of priorities. I see this with children of elderly parents. My sister and I do everything in our power to make our father the number one priority in our lives. Nothing is too hard or too time consuming to do if it helps him out. Since my mother got sick, we have never once said no to anything that was asked of us. Truth be told, we volunteered to do even more than was asked. We do it with a full heart and a smile on our faces. In comparison, I have a friend whose elderly mother lives with her. She has a sister who always seems too busy to help out in even the smallest of ways. She has a "ne'er do well" husband who agrees with her selfish ways. The other day, I heard my friend tell her mother that her sister should rot in hell. If her sister had her priorities straight, those words would have never been uttered.