Wrong Message

Last night I was watching television and received a text message. It said 4 tuna, 4 salmon, 4 kani. Almost immediately I got a second message that said, "Wrong person, so sorry!". It was from one of my doctors. He was done with work and wanted to order sushi to take home for dinner. My name was one above the word sushi and I guess he did not double check who he was texting. I thought it was very funny and responded that I now was in the mood for sushi. Imagine if it was a personal message that no one else but the intended recipient was to see. That is the danger of texting. We do it so fast that most of us never spend a moment to double check to whom and what we are sending.

The Right To Pay

Yesterday my boss came running into the office upset about her personal credit card account. It seems it was overdue even though she thought she paid it. She called in a payment and the call got cut off at the very end but she assumed the payment went through. She gave me the bill to call in the payment. I called Citibank and explained what happened. I told them that I wanted to pay her bill in full. They said that they needed her to get on the phone to authorize the payment. She was with a patient and I did not want to interrupt. Then I asked the representative a question. If I pay with the automated system, how does it know who I am? She had no answer. I was not taking money out of the account, I was paying it off. If I could do this over the phone without a live person, why couldn't I do it with a representative? The rules are the rules and I am not here to give a Citibank worker a hard time, so I interrupted the doctor to have her get on the phone to say it was ok for me to speak. They never asked any other security questions. Now, I would like to know how they really knew it was her.

No Radio

I know it is holiday season. I know that by the holiday music. My favorite station will play only holiday music until December 26. I feel like part of my drive to work is being stripped of it's happiness. I will no longer have my favorite songs to sing along to. Bing Crosby just does not cut it for me.

The Return

My computer ran out of ink yesterday so I replaced it with a new one that was Staples brand. It would not work. The ink's metal circuit board was damaged so the printer could not recognize it. I had bought the ink a while back and no longer had the receipt. I went to Staples and asked for an exchange. I showed the associate the missing circuits on the ink. He then started to do the return. The numbers would not go through their system. It had been an online purchase and they could not figure out how to do an online return in the store. Since it was their brand there was no mistaking that I bought it from them. One associate tried, then the next, then the manager. They were stymied. They then called the Staples online help line and were walked through it. This had taken 45 minutes so far. Once they had the numbers to enter, their own computers froze. I was taken to three different registers until one finally worked. I was amazed that a store that sells computers could not get theirs to work. Finally, one hour later the transaction was complete.

Repairs

If you know how to do it yourself, you can save a lot of money. My upstairs bathroom faucet has not been working well. The water flow is thin and no hot water seems to be coming up like it used to. Most people would call a plumber. We never call for outside help until we have exhausted all other methods. Last night we bought a filter for a few dollars. Voila. The faucet is fixed.

Origami

I have decided to make my office staff holiday gifts this year instead of buying them. Each person will get a flower pot filled with origami butterflies and flowers. I might even throw in a bird. I have been watching You Tube videos to learn how to fold the paper to make the beautiful origami. I am amazed how just folding a paper a few times can transform something plain into something intricate. I guess it parodies life. Take what you are given and make it into something that you can be proud of.

Memory

I am at the age where I am glad I can remember my own things. Please do not ask me to remember yours. Yesterday I got a text message from my boss asking how she paid an employee a settlement 5 years ago. First of all, I am not the bookkeeper. Second of all, why is this my problem? I keep records of everything I do. If you don't, tough luck. I am not responsible for your bad memory or poor recordkeeping.

National Days

Each day of the year has a "holiday" attached to it. There is National Sweater Day, National Smile Day and so on. I want to have a National Fend For Yourself Day. It would be a day where no one enlists the help of another person to do what they themselves should do. The alternate name for this day would be National Thank You For Giving Me A Day Of Rest Day.

Turning The Corner

I think the corner might be turned. After a week of suffering the pain is subsiding. Who knows why things change from moment to moment? I have my own theory but it could be totally wrong. As long as improvements are made, the reason behind them has no bearing.

Horoscope

How true are horoscopes? This morning I got up to read the following Yahoo horoscope, "Your no-nonsense approach to solving problems empowers you to help a loved one over a speed bump on the road of life." Nothing can be truer. My husband had a rough day yesterday. We had to have a test done to make sure that he did not have a blood clot in his leg. After working all day, I took him to the radiologist and by the time we got home it was after 6pm. I do not coddle him. I am no nonsense and realistic. Since the doctor told him that sometimes things hurt after surgery and it will pass, I think he will feel better and start to rebound.

The Cog

Human beings are very much like cogs. All parts need to be in working order to move along correctly. My husband is a broken cog since last Tuesday. His surgery went well but now other body parts are hurting.We have no idea if it is residual pain of if fixing one part of the body infringed upon another. Day by day he feels worse. We are waiting for him to "turn the corner" but his GPS seems to not know the way. It is sad to watch someone in pain.

Baby Steps

Every person recovers at their own rate and their own mindset. It has been a painful week for my husband. He thought he would be up and about after a few days which was delusional. He is moving along slowly but not understanding that it is a process. Today I am planning to take him out for a short time to walk around Home Depot. He needs light bulbs, so we have a reason to be there. I am sure it will be a bit painful going in and out of the car but that is part of healing. We shall see how it goes.

Heat

This morning I woke up to the unmistakable first sign of winter. I smelled heat. When I got out of bed, the smell of my heating system was in the air. The first time it is used it smells this way as if it is saying that it has woken up from it's summer rest. I never turned the thermostat up. The temperature outside hit 37 degrees and the boiler decided that I needed to be warmed up.

Fake It

There is an expression, "Fake it until you make it". I am trying that with one of my receptionists. She is a smart girl that has potential to work her way up to management. I really like her so I am helping train her. Whether or not she remains with my office, I want to train her to be management anywhere. I have instructed her to always say yes when she is asked if she knows how to do something by my boss. Then she should call me so I can tell her how to do it. The system is working well because I see that she is beginning to learn things without asking me. She is smart enough to figure some things out for herself. My boss called her yesterday to tell her that she wants to hear how she talks to potential new patients when they call for information. She has never done that so she called me to ask what to do. Monday, I will teach her all of the necessary informational points that she will need to "role play" with my boss next week. I am glad that I am at the age where I am not in fear of someone taking over my job. In fact, I welcome it.

Code Red

How many signals does a person need to have before they find themselves in trouble? I always say that most problems are self inflicted and yesterday I was proved right again. One of our doctors was late to work. When he came in he explained why. He ran out of gas in his car. He drove about 1/2 mile away from home when his car died. He had to walk back home, get his lawn mover, turn it upside down, pour gas into a milk container, walk back to his car, pour it in and drive to a gas station. My first question for him was whether or not his gas gauge was broken. He said it worked fine. He said that he had been driving in the red area of the gauge and thought he could get a few more miles out of it. Obviously he had done this before. Where was his judgement? This is a man with a PhD degree. All of that effort to fix a problem that did not need to happen.

D or G

One letter makes a difference. It can drastically change the meaning of a sentence. I found that out yesterday. My sister has always been against texting. She believes that if you have something to say, pick up the phone and make a call. After my husband's surgery yesterday, I had so many people to notify. I was in a room full of other patient's families when the doctor came to speak to me and making calls would have been annoying to the other people. I started to text family first. My older son got the first text, as I never do group texts. I wrote "Dad is done. He is in recovery. We should be going home in a few hours". Either I or Google made a spelling or auto correct error. The message came through as "Dad is gone". Good thing that my son is sensible and read the entire message and figured out what the true meaning was.

Stressful Day

We are getting ready to go to the hospital for my husband to have spinal surgery. I am sure it will go well but do not know what the aftermath will be. How quickly will he recover? Will I be able to go to work tomorrow and leave him alone? He thinks that he will be up and about in two days and I hope that is true. I do not like the unknown.

First Time Around

It is better to do something on the first request than trying to catch up on the second one. This happened to my husband the other day. He made an eBay purchase and while the item came in as expected, he found out that the price was not fair. He ordered an item that he thought was hard to find and when he received it in the mail it came from Walmart online. He never thought that Walmart would have this item. The seller bumped up the price by almost 100% when he sold it. If the item had been sent from the seller it would have been okay, but to have it come from Walmart directly was like rubbing salt into a wound. He wrote the seller and asked for a small refund and said that if he did not get it, he would leave a negative feedback explaining what happened. The seller said that he would not give back any money. A negative feedback was left only saying that my husband asked for a small refund due to a problem, but the buyer refused. He never said what happened specifically. The next day the seller wrote that he would give the refund if the negative feedback would be removed. My husband agreed. The money was refunded and my husband went on eBay to remove the negative feedback. It could not be removed or changed. It seems that eBay limits the amending of feedback and the seller already had the maximum amended. My husband's negative feedback would remain. He wrote to the seller saying he tried but eBay would not allow changes. If the seller had done the right thing the first time around he would not be stuck with a bad review now.

Happy Birthday Barbara

It's here! Your 70th birthday is today. The number looks strange on paper when compared to the person that you are. You are 70 in years but 20 in spirit. We met forty years ago but it seems like I know you forever. As I get older, I find that birthdays mean more in some ways but less in other ways. It is not the number of years you are, but the accomplishments you achieved within those years that really matter. On the scale of accomplishments your are over 100.You have a husband that is devoted and loving. You have two beautiful daughters that anyone would be proud to call their own. You have a son in law that was meant to be in our family. You have friends that have been there for you since kindergarten. Whenever my family gets together with you we are guaranteed "lots of laughs". That is a lot to pack into only 70 years. You are not only my family, you are my friend. I wish you the best birthday ever and many more to come.

eTroubles

This morning I wanted to do an online task. I chose my option, personalized it and began the checkout process. The site asked for a password, but the last time I used it had been so long ago I did not remember it. I tried to do a password reset. I waited and waited for the reset email to arrive and one hour later it was still not here. Maybe it is stuck in internet traffic. I then decided to just open a new account with an alternate email address. I put in my information and the site froze. I x'd out and tried again to no avail. I was now sitting here for 45 minutes to do something that should have taken five. I closed out the site entirely and chose another company. I finished what I needed to do in a few minutes, but it was not what I really wanted.

Musical Loop

My mind has been in a musical loop since yesterday. I was driving home from work and heard a beautiful song that I had only heard once before. My car has a replay option and I put the song on replay. It played continuously for 21 minutes until I arrived home. I then played it on my phone. The words were very touching and for some reason I just needed to hear them over and over again. All through the night, the song played in my mind and when I got up this morning it was still there. It is like a limerick. The first line of the song says, "If you say my eyes are beautiful, it's because I'm looking at you". How could a song with that line not be touching?

The Ladder

We all know the expression, "Watch who you step on, on the ladder going up, because you may see them on the ladder going down". I think I paraphrased the saying but the thought is the same. Sometimes the trip down the ladder comes faster than you think. This is happening at my husband's old job. One of the supervisors very recently trained a new hire. The new guy was young and without much experience but he did have a college degree in science. People referred to him as "the kid". The supervisor gave him a hard time and did not make the training period easy. The kid started his job as a technician a few months ago. Last week the top supervisor decided to leave for a better job and guess who was hired to replace him? The kid. Now the kid is a supervisor over the man who trained him. No one saw this coming. The moral of the story is to be nice to everyone or suffer the consequences.

Thank You

Sometimes all you need to say is "Thank you". Whether the other person is right or wrong, as long as they meant well thank you covers it all. I will give you an example of where those two words, left alone,  could have avoided a confrontation. As I left work yesterday, people said, "Have a happy New Year" to me and I wished it back to them. I am not in work today and neither are the people that said that to me since it is Yom Kippur. A person in the waiting room, who is not Jewish, said they wished us all a happy day with our families. We responded by saying thank you. That is when another person in the waiting room piped in. They told the well wisher that today is a sad day and she should not have wished us a happy day. The well wisher said that she is not Jewish and had no idea about the holiday and now felt bad about what she said. Other people chimed in that the woman meant well and nothing should have been said to criticize her good wishes. All of that needless conversation because an ignorant person could not just leave the words "Thank You" alone.

Yet

Every situation has a "yet". A yet can be positive or negative. The statement that I have not won the lottery, yet, gives me hope for the future. Another statement, I did not get test results back, yet, can be concerning. A person waiting for a relationship, has not met the right person, yet. It is the same thing for someone looking for a job. They have not found one, yet.  The three letter word, "yet" holds a lot of power in our lives because it looks towards the future and has not decided if it will point to the positive or negative.

Videos

Yesterday I downloaded a few videos of my parents. It took over a year to be able to watch them. When I did , it seemed like my mother is still here. I have a memory lapse and the part where she died is missing. It feels like the video was just taken and that she went back to Florida for the winter. It feels so good to have my mind tricked for a short time. It is as if I was injected with a serum of joy and happiness.

Going Green

What is the matter with a green drink? When you see someone drinking a shake or a clear bottle with a colored drink, they all look good. Pink, white, light brown, orange and even blue look appealing to the palate. Why is green the villain? You would never go up to someone having a pink drink and say, "Ich". You would never make a rude comment and compare their drink to something disgusting. Where has the anti green drink movement come from? If we eat green salads and green vegetables and are commended for them, why are we ostracized for a green drink? I am a new member of the green drink brigade and proud of it.

Survey

If you want my opinion, you need to go about it in the right way. If a survey comes in the mail, give me a postage paid return envelope. I do not have to pay to give you my opinion. If you call me for my opinion, don't. I never answer questions from people I do not know. If I call your company and you ask me to take a short survey at the end of the call, my wait time had better be less than one minute. If I have to hold for 45 minutes to get my questions answered, do you think I want to continue to be on the call for even one more minute for your benefit? I am not sure whether my opinion really matters or counts. If it did, things would be different.

Common Sense

Yesterday I had to verify a common sense decision. There was no reason to do that. The original decision was cut and dry. If someone doesn't show up to work and has no idea how to do the job after 5 weeks, they get the boot. One of my administrators wanted to delve into the abyss of analyzing that decision. She is so afraid of being politically correct that she looks insane. She asked me to call our HR department who is paid to only consult and tell them what is going on and ask their advice. I called and told them what was happening and they said, "Kick her out". Even the employee must have known she was getting fired as her phone went to voicemail. She texted me last night but I did not respond. I only fire people in my office setting. That way I have witnesses.

Drama Free

I run a drama free office. If you bring drama in, I will show you the way out. Today I will fire the woman I hired a month ago. She was hired for 2 days a week. Am I wrong to be upset when she only shows up one day a week? I asked her to come in for more training since she has no idea how to do the job. Am I wrong to be upset that she has never come in additional hours, not to mention the hours she was hired for? I do not like people upsetting my wonderful office staff. Am I wrong to fire a woman who spent the evening being so nasty to my evening receptionist, that the receptionist texted me to ask if she could leave early? She was given a pleasant warning last week and nothing has changed. People are their own worst enemies.

One Ingredient

One ingredient does matter. Yesterday I wanted to make a new soup recipe. It was a Thai Curry Soup. I read a few recipes and wrote a shopping list. I went to the store and was able to get every ingredient except one. The store did not sell fish sauce. The soup only needed one teaspoon, so I decided to skip the fish sauce and make the soup without it. The soup tasted good but not the way it does in a restaurant. It was lacking something, the fish sauce. That one missing teaspoon made the difference. I will track it down this week and start all over again.

Personal Assistant

I spent the first three hours in work yesterday doing personal things for my boss. She needed medical records for herself and a membership updated. There was no reason why she could not do these two tasks herself. One of them I made easy by opening an online account for her. She lost the password so I had to redo it and that took time as there was a glitch in the laboratory system. My rule is that I am in her office until 2pm and as long as I get my salary, I will do what she asks. The only other rule I have for myself is that I do not have to finish all of my office work that day. If her decision is that personal things are more important than work things, she has to realize that work things will get pushed off until the next day.