Monthly Archives: April 2012

Z: How Do I Love Thee?

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Z is for a very special business that sounds like an amazing place to work. It is called Zappos. It is an online clothing store that started as an online shoe store. No I have never purchased anything from zappos.com. Nor do I have any sort of personal connection to the company. But, from what I know about it, I really admire the CEO, Tony Hsieh. He has written a book to explain his leadership style called Delivering Happiness. From that alone it is easy to infer that this guy runs his business with a much different philosophy than you usually find out there in the world of work.

He sold his first business for $265 million at the age of 24 and then invested in a small online shoe business and helped grow the company to profits of over $1 billion. In 2009, Zappos (named after zapatos – the Spanish word for shoes) was acquired by Amazon at the cost of $1.2 billion. Pretty amazing isn’t it?

Money aside, what really impresses me about this guy is his philosophy. It’s simple – deliver happiness. And he has written a book to help deliver the message. In fact, it is much more than that, he has started a movement. Here is a brief review of the book as posted on fuschiawoman.

“I think American businesses would be putting more people back to work if they adhered to the philosophy of this book—the importance of corporate culture and WOW customer service. The importance of a higher purpose than just profits (OMG that’s sacrilegious in the business world!) The importance of employees fostering a family spirit. The importance of having FUN at work. The importance of valuing creativity, honesty, and humbleness.”

Happy, cooperative employees? Incredible!

I think I love this so much because it gives me hope. In a competitive, greedy, dog-eat-dog world it is refreshing to know that there exists another way. Another way to run business, another way to treat people and another way to make sure people know they are valued.

In 1936, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. When his principles are applied in a sincere, non-contrived manner, when people start to see that there is another way to lead, another way to work and another way to be, I do believe it could change the world. And Tony Hsieh and zappos dot come are living proof.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” – Dale Carnegie

“Everyone matters. Treat them accordingly.” - Me :)

*And so ends the a to z challenge. It was the best of times…..it was the worst of times…..hahaha! Thanks to all who kept up with me, commenting and encouraging me onward. You can not even imagine how much I appreciated it. :)

 

York Downs and Long Ago Memories

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Down to the wire in the a to z blogging challenge. I was given the topic of York Downs for today’s post. This is a golf and country club in Unionville.

It was in the kitchen of this wonderful establishment that I first met Sandy – or sandyrara as she is known on this blog. We had some very good laughs together while working in the formal dining room as waitresses. It was the only waitressing job I have ever held. To diners out there, that is probably a good thing. I don’t think I was very good at it.

There’s not too much to say about this part-time job I held 25 years ago. We had a very cool boss named Audrey who, as I recall, was fair and friendly – two qualities that I have grown to realize are not easy to find when it comes to bosses. The chef was a good guy but, stereotypically, was short-tempered and demanding. I also remember that we were allowed to smoke in a very small room just off the dining room that had no windows. I can’t even believe that this is the same world we live in today. I bet you are not even allowed to smoke outside the place now.

There is another rather vivid memory that I wish I didn’t recall if the truth be told. I have not been victim to too many pranks in my life but a co-worker (was it you Sandy?) played a practical joke on me once at York Downs. There were plastic bibs that patrons would use when eating lobster.

Someone told me that as the waitress I had to actually put these bibs on the customer rather than just handing them over. The old NHL player, Frank Mahovlich, was a member at York Downs and was at one of my tables this particular night. So over I went with the bib in hand and died with embarrassment when I could not fasten the bib around his neck (he was quite a big guy). He also got frustrated with me and well, to this day, I am still mortified at the memory.

So, Mr. Mahovlich, If you should ever happen to read this blog (ya right!) I would like to humbly apologize for being such a buffoon.

Xanax and My Inner Hypocrisies

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I am in favour of drugs. Not as in I happily snort cocaine and inject heroin. I am talking about the legal stuff. I have never related to people who won’t take a pill for their cold symptoms or a headache or heartburn. Bottom line, I am a big fan of over the counter drugs. In the right circumstances, I am also a fan of legally injected drugs (when someone else is doing the injecting of course.) For example, when having a baby I have no problem with women who order the epidural the minute they feel any pain. Hell, you wouldn’t go get a tooth pulled with no drugs, why give birth that way? Ditto for many other procedures such as a getting stitches or having a colonoscopy (ouch!).

Curiously though, my eager pro-drug attitude does not extend to pills taken for a person’s mood. This brings me to the topic of my x post – xanax. Xanax is one of a plethora of drugs available today to fight anxiety and depression.

Sometimes I wonder if the general joe has come to rely a little too much on chemicals to balance their state of affairs. Pills to make you happy if you’re down. A pill to counter the anxiety caused by the pill taken to make you happy. Then a pill to bring you down from the chemically induced elation from the pill that made you a little too happy. It all seems a bit much, don’t you think?  After a while a person just becomes a walking, talking cocktail of mood-altering medication.

PLEASE NOTE: I realize this makes me a bit of a hypocrite -  pro-drug in some cases and so anti-drug in others. What can I say? Oh and also, before someone gets angry (like when I wrote about the yumalite) I would like to state unequivocally that I realize there are real mental illnesses out there that require drugs and medical intervention. If you read carefully, you will see that is not what this post is about.

Now, with that out of the way, I am off to pop a Tylenol and crack open a cold beer. :)

 

What the $%!?

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As my legions of fans the readers of this blog know, I don’t usually use the real ‘f’ word when I write. This is highly unusual because in person I swear like a trucker. Maybe I have just written one too many formal essays in my life. Or maybe it’s because I think using the f-bomb in my writing would make my mother roll over in her grave. Regardless of why, I usually use the word fark instead. In many ways I like it better. But I may have another alternative thanks to a friend of mine.

You know those funny (as in unusual) little things that happen in life like socks disappearing in the dryer? Well the other day at work someone was commenting that all the forks had disappeared from our staff kitchen. This is a bit odd, no? Why not the spoons? How about the knives? What makes the forks so popular? Someone suggested we write it on the whiteboard – WHERE ARE ALL THE FORKS? PLEASE BRING THEM BACK. My friend turned to me and said “What the fork?” I’m still laughing about it!

What the fork?

I think this phrase is perfect for incidents at work that make no sense. Feel free to share if you have had any “what the fork?” moments yourself. :)

V for Vacation (I need one)

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I have good memories of vacations as a kid. My mom and dad would pack me and my three brothers into the station wagon and cart us down to Florida. This was no easy feat and I think back on it now and wonder how they did it. Our vacations were always in July or August and given the wagon had no air conditioning it can’t have been the most comfortable situation. Not to mention the fact my brothers and I would argue. Or more correctly my older brother would bug the shitra out of one of us causing screaming and crying. My mom was a yeller herself so she’d scream on occasion. My dad was a softie overall but we did push him to his limits on these trips. I will never forget the look on his face as he’d turn around from the front seat, his right hand in position to give one of us a good backhand slap. He never carried through though. So this just became something for my brothers and I to laugh about.

Six people in here?!

One particular vacation sticks out in my mind. We went to Florida and stayed with my cousins for almost three weeks. I recall playing “Marco Polo” in their pool everyday, celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks, my cousins teaching me how to play some new songs on the piano and learning a dance to “Locomotion”. Having three brothers it was such a treat to visit my cousins – one boy and four girls in that family. It was heaven. We camped for a few days at St. Augustine where I managed to get sunburned so bad I had blisters on my shoulders. Those were different times. My mom just threw a t-shirt on me and sent me back into the waves.

Ouch.

Now my husband and I take our family down south and still spend time with my cousins. Except we’re the parents now. How did that happen? It seems it changed in the blink of an eye. My cousin and faithful reader, Joey, gave me this topic. We do certainly love our vacations. My family will meet with his again this summer. It’s a great tradition we started a few years ago. The beach, the sun and cold beer. I can’t wait.

But even before that I am looking forward to a more imminent vacation. Namely a vacation from blogging. :)

 How about you? What were your vacations like as a kid?

The Universe

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Ever contemplated the size of our surroundings? In truth, it is almost impossible to grasp on a cognitive level. To say it is huge is an understatement. Here are some facts. See if you can even imagine it.

First off, the common unit of measurement while discussing the universe is “billions”. Do you really know how many one billion is? Sure! you say, it is 1000 millions. If you started counting right now at one number per second, and you never stopped, not even to sleep, it would take you over 31 years to count to one billion.

In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are 200 to 400 billion stars. Our closest star is the sun. Light is the fastest anything can travel in the universe (at least as far as scientists know). Even at that speed it takes over 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth.

Travelling at the speed of a space shuttle it would take 100 000 years to reach our nearest star (outside of the sun).

The entire Milky Way is only one of between 100 to 200 billion galaxies. In the words of Russell Peters, that is mind-blasting.

Don’t you love people who think they have the answer to everything? Oh ya buddy, in this vast arena of existence, somehow you are the one who has all the answers. Please.

Carl Sagan said it best. According to The Planetary Society, Sagan asked astronauts aboard the Voyager 1 to turn and look back at our planet and take a picture. Here is that picture taken from 6 billion kilometres away. Have a look at our planet from that perspective and listen to what Carl Sagan has to say. It is, indeed, a humbling experience.

Torture, Bullies and Useless Adults

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Joey gave me the topic of “torture” for my ‘t’ post in the a to z challenge. I had no idea what I was going to do with this topic but thankfully I saw a movie on the weekend that lends itself well to this topic.

Torture is intentionally inflicting pain on another person whether it be physical or psychological. It is a horrible word with horrible connotations and I have no idea how people who have been tortured continue living. I have been slightly psychologically tortured by bullies at one point in my life and I will tell you right now, it is hell. If I got the “slight” version I can only imagine how the “severe” version feels.

I saw the movie “Bully” the other night. Those kids were tortured not only by other kids but also by the adults in their lives. One of the victims, Kelby, is a 16-year old lesbian, who is ostracized by her small community. The educators in her life participate in the bullying behaviour rather than stand up and do the right thing. One teacher goes so far as to verbally divide the class into “boys”, “girls” and “Kelby”. Thankfully, Kelby’s parents, particularly her father, are compassionate loving adults who eventually enroll Kelby in a different school.

One kid’s story really sticks out in my mind. His name is Alex. The other kids call him ”fishface”. The vice-principal of his school is the biggest bully of them all. She is sickening. After seeing video footage of other kids mistreating their son on the school bus Alex’s parents go in to speak to this wonderful specimen of a human being.

With a little lilt in her voice she says, “It can be torture on those buses, I’ve been on them.” I was waiting for the parents to say, “We know it’s torture on the bus biatch, that’s why we’re here.” She continues to explain things away by saying “boys will be boys.” This poor excuse for an educator manages to twist the conversation so it becomes all about her, even producing a photograph of her “grand-babies”. I was left just shaking my head. What on god’s green earth does Alex being tortured on the bus have ANYTHING to do with this idiot’s grandchildren? She continues to steamroll these poor parents right out the office door. As they walk away, the mother turns to the father and says “we’ve been politicianed”. I have never heard politician being used as a verb before but I will tell you it was the perfect way to explain what had happened.

In another scene, and in another stellar move, this same vice-principal insists that a bullying victim shake hands with his victimizer because the bully “is willing to shake hands”. By not shaking his bully’s hand, says vice-useless, the victim is now “just as bad” as the bully himself. Huh???? This woman is an incompetent human being never mind an incompetent vice-principal. You are left hoping she was fired after the film was released. She was absolutely replusive.

“Bullying” is the new buzz word in our society. It’s the new bandwagon on which everyone is trying to hop. Unfortunately until the adults in kids’ lives – particularly adults that work with them on a daily basis - learn to face the fact that they themselves use techniques that can be labelled nothing other than “bullying” this is not going to be something that goes away anytime soon.

 

Rocket Science

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When my friend tinatret had a difficult time signing up for this blog she said it was like rocket science and then promptly gave me that topic for ‘r’ day. It is 11:41 and I have 19 minutes to make the deadline. So forgive my brevity in this post. But they do say brevity is the soul of wit – or so a wise snow shovelling man once told me so what the hell. :)

Rocket science is used in a mocking or condescending way to tell someone that something is very simple. As someone struggles to say… add 2 + 2, a friend nearby might say “come on, it’s not like it’s rocket science.” Or when referring to a new boyfriend a girl might say “he’s a looker but not exactly a rocket scientist” meaning he is a bit dim-witted. I think we are all aware of the use of this term as a euphemism.

It is true that rocket science is very difficult. It refers to aeronautical engineering and those who work in the field are responsible for designing and building aircraft and spacecraft. These are definitely some of the most intelligent amongst us (at least in a mathematical and scientific manner). As I bounced around the internet reading the odd bit here and there about rocket science I found it quite entertaining that someone, an engineer herself, wondered why people use this expression. “All you have to understand to comprehend rocket science is the three laws of Newton.”

“Oh well then,” I said to myself, “that makes it all so much clearer.”

A rather handsome devil, wasn't he?

Rocket scientists are smart. The concept of rocket science is extremely difficult to grasp. So the euphemism makes perfect sense. For some reason, however, it bothers people. By that I mean the good people at Oxford University. (You’ve heard of that one, haven’t you?) A few years ago, they compiled a list of the ten most annoying phrases. Guess what came in at number 10? “It’s not rocket science.” (Easy for them to say. After all, they are from Oxford.) Here are the 10 phrases because I know you must be curious.

  1. At the end of the day
  2. Fairly unique
  3. I personally
  4. At this moment in time
  5. With all due respect
  6. Absolutely
  7. It’s a nightmare
  8. Shouldn’t of
  9. 24/7
  10. It’s not rocket science

Most of the phrases on the list don’t faze me (except #8 which is just plain wrong) but my Mom had a much better saying. When referring to something that did not exactly require the workings of a lot of gray matter, she would say “well it’s not like you have to be a Rhodes scholar to understand that” and other such variations such as ”what do you think you are? a Rhodes scholar?”

At the end of the day, everyone’s opinion is fairly unique. With all due respect, at this moment in time, I personally don’t think that these phrases are absolutely a nightmare.:)

What do you think?

(Posting 28 minutes past deadline and it wasn’t that brief but oh well, it’s all I’ve got on a Friday night!)

 

 

It’s a Pop Quiz!

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In honour of ‘q’ day (and because I am suffering serious a to z challenge burnout) I am going to do a quiz live on this blog. LIVE! So exciting. :)  I have just googled “general knowledge quiz”. I am going to the intermediate level and I will answer the questions right here in front of your eyes. I will do 5 questions in four different categories. I promise I will not cheat. Play along with me. I’ll post the answers at the bottom.

SCIENCE

1. Blood is filtered by which pair of organs?
2. Which planet is fifth from the sun?
3. Who developed the theory of relativity?
4. Which chemical element is represented by the symbol N?
5. Which travel faster, light or sound waves?

GEOGRAPHY

1. In which country is Mount Everest? (by the way my cousin, Ben Webster, has summitted Mount Everest 5 times, cool eh?)
2. Which continent has the biggest population?
3. What is the capital city of New Zealand?
4. On which continent is the Sahara desert?
5. Name the two longest rivers in the world.

SPORTS

1. What is longest running race in the Olympic Games called?
2. Who won the 2001 British Open golf tournament?
3. In snooker, what is the colour of the last ball potted?
4. What nationality is the tennis player Lleyton Hewitt?
5. In which sport can you throw a ‘curve ball’? (oh there’s a big challenge)

MUSIC

1. Which pop singer married British movie director Guy Ritchie?
2. Which rock group did George Harrison belong to? (if you get this one wrong we are no longer friends)
3. Which classical composer became deaf near the end of his life?
4. How many strings does a bass guitar usually have?
5. What nationality was Mozart?

*Click here for a q-related musical interlude while you add up your score.

I am ashamed to say I only correctly answered 11 of the questions right. Here is the breakdown.

SCIENCE: 4/5
GEOGRAPHY: 2/5
SPORTS: 2/5
MUSIC: 3/5

SCIENCE 1. Kidneys   2. Jupiter   3. Albert Einstein   4. Nitrogen   5. Light waves
GEOGRAPHY 1. Nepal   2. Asia   3. Wellington   4. Africa   5. Nile and Amazon
SPORTS  1. Marathon   2. Dave Duval   3. Black   4. Australian   5. Baseball
MUSIC   1. Madonna   2. The Beatles   3. Beethoven   4. Four   5. Austrian

I just tested my husband. He got 17 out of 20. He’ll be rubbing that one in for the next week. :) So…….. how did you do? Share in the comments below!