SueWorks

Asking for Help

I am horrible at asking people to do things for me.  About half the time I come across as the wicked witch with a B making demands.  For the other 50%, I'm so lacking in confidence and direction no one would even want to be bothered by me.

Years ago I used to be a secretary, or administrative assistant.  You know, there person (usually female) who gets told what to do, when to do it and how to do it.  If you work for anyone, and we all do, we are all some one's secretary.  Our customers tell us what they want; our managers tell us what they need; our families tell us what they don't want or need.  We get told all the time, when is it our turn to ask for help?

I'm a procrastinator.  There is someone I work with with whom I am to coordinate my administrative needs.  She's not a secretary.  She's not under my 100% direction.  She has work and responsibilities all of her own that I have nothing to do with.  She is also the person who's supposed to order my training supplies, make catering arrangements, and work with facilities to set up meeting rooms. 

Why do I feel each time I ask her to do her job that I'm imposing on her?  Why can't I just say, "Please order two flip charts for me.  Thanks!"  Then walk away and receive the flip charts two to three days later?  Is this too much to ask? 

After worrying about how to order lunch for tomorrow, I went to the source.  I found an old email about the new cafeteria (I'm spoiled, we have one on site).  There was a number to call, which I did.  The person I spoke with said I could email her, and I did.  Now I'm getting lunch for 18 on Tuesday.  Easy as pie.  Why would I ever go back to asking, "Please order lunch for 18 people on Tuesday.  Thank you!"?  There are no slings and arrows to face, no checking up, other than the normal kind.  Of course, if it's 12:05 on Tuesday and I'm still waiting for lunch, I might be singing a different tune.  Please wish me luck!

My Feet

I love my feet.  It's always been this way.  Most babies grab onto their feet.  I think it has do with developing our muscles and learning to walk.  Most people grow out of this stage.  I never did.  I love to rub, massage, pick at, hold my feet.  I especially like my toes.   My toes are both long and slender but also very tense.  I tend to exist with my toes in a perpetual state of contraction which over the years has had some less than favorable impacts of the toes themselves.

Since I adore my feet, I am very particular about the shoes that cover them.  I have long subscribed to the "it's better to look good than to feel good" school.  But as 40 looms, I'm less and less tolerant of being uncomfortable.  Tuesday I wore sneakers from my home to my office where I changed in to a lovely pair of ankle strapped high heels.  By 5:00 I was so ready to get back into the sneakers.  On Wednesday, I wore an equally lovely pair of mules with a 2.5 inch heel.  And oh my goodness, I was in pain from the second I stepped out of the car.  I must have looked with an arthritic old women as I hobbled from the parking lot to my office.  I honestly do not know how I survived without screaming at the top of my lungs that my feet were on fire. 

So you may ask, what have I learned? 

Today, Thursday I have on my feet loafers with a 1.25 inch heel and 3/8ths inch of rubber sole at the ball of my foot.  But I feel ugly.  My feet are screaming sighs of relief but I'm wondering if everyone is looking at my feet saying to themselves, "Why is Sue wearing old lady shoes?"

Craig asks, "Who looks at feet anyway?"  He thinks I have issues.  And sure, of course I have issues.  I'm a 40 year old, overweight woman in Los Angeles.  I'm issue central.  But honestly, who looks at feet?

I LOOK AT FEET! I look at my own feet, I look at Craig's feet.  (They look like the feet of a 9 month old only larger.  I'll have pictures tomorrow.  Mine are like a Grecian marble statue that I saw in a museum.)  I admire and critique the footwear of all of those around me.  I notice if a foot is bare or covered. 

I've become obsessed with pantyhose.  I'm not required to wear them but I find they make some outfits look more complete.  But there's the washing and storage of hose -- yuck!  For years I was required to wear hose.  Honestly, it was in the dress code where I used to work.  (I hear they went casual last year.)  And have you noticed?  Katie Couric seldom wears hose.  She is not a generally accepted fashion maven but so many people are watching her and taking their cues from what they see on TV.

But today I have loafers and cotton socks on my feet.  My toes are in continual motivation, contracting and releasing, twisting left and right, up and down.  My left foot is at the end of my crocked left knee and is under my right thigh. 

Gone Missin'

I went missing for a few weeks and the whole Typepad interface looks different.  I've been working in Corporate America for almost 20 years.  (Gosh am I old!)  When I first started working if there was going to be a change in the little-est thing there would be memos about it.  Well, that's a sure sign of age;  we don't use memos anymore.  But you get the point. 

If our paychecks were changing color from cream to off-white, there would be a memo about it.  There could be a demonstration of the old and new colored papers.  Our managers might have a sit-down meeting to let us know that this was only a minor change and maybe we'd get a reason.  ("The off-white paper works better in the mailing envelopes," or whatever.)  Now AOL changes its interface page and there is no notice whatsoever.  Typepad changes its colors and page layout and nothing. 

Of course, I could have survived without having 17 trees killed to let me know that the paycheck was still good, though slightly less cream and more white in color.  Twenty years ago change was treated as something unique, now change is the norm.  Colors change, logos change.  I remember a search engine called GoTo.  I think it's now called Overture.  I used to use GoTo now I just use Google.  So not all change is a good thing.  But if I wanted a musical interlude, I might consider Overture.

And most of all, I used to be able to program computers.  Now I get an error message and I have no idea why I would send a report to Microsoft.  Will Microsoft actually do something to help me in the future so that that error will not occur again?  I'd really like to know.

Oh, another thing I think about.  Do I need a website?  I have this blog.  I have AOL.  Do I need another interface between myself and the online world?  Of course the answer is no.  But I wonder.  If I went missing for a few weeks, a website would be current unlike this blog.

What would I put on my website?  I've got nothing to sell, trade or lend.  Maybe I should go missing for a while longer.  I could read more, like books and not electronic images.  Actually, in my short absence I did manage to read two books (one in full and two halves) and I'm caught up with my comics pages.  I'm positively addicted to Mutts, Sally Forth and Boondocks.  I do know where they live online (two weeks old, but there.)

The point of the story is that I'm back.  Things have changed, colors, layouts, etc, but they are also the same.

Homeshoring

You have to read this article to learn more. 

Nines, Rats and Electro-Shock

Don't you hate it when a great post is lost?  I was writing and multi-tasking as always and lost about two paragraphs.  Now I'm troubled by the choice.  I can write about something entirely different or I can attempt to re-create my first bit of rambling. 

I was going to write about how I think things to death and how that thinking is causing me health, energy, time and friends.  But now it's coming out sillish.  Of course, I just could be thinking too much.

Have you heard of an experiment involving two sets of people where the first group were the "shockers" and the second the "shockees"?  I forget the details and of course I could just be remembering a dream, but the shockers dialed different levels of electrical shock to be delivered to the shockees.  The dial was labeled, like from "minor" to "certain death."  Apparently the shockers were quite ready to dial up to heaven, as it were, but they also faced dire side-effects.  They exhibited visible and measurable signs of stress, like hair loss, weight loss, dry mouth, the whole nine yards.  While the shockees had no control over their fates they just dealt with the situation.  And as you may suspects, the Certain Death setting was not in fact deadly.  I think this same experiment was done with rats as well, with the same results.  Of maybe the rats were choosing between sexual stimulation and food.  In case you're wondering, they starved.  Any way, the group that had full control of the outcome, the shockers couldn't help themselves from making the worst decisions possible and they still suffered.  What does that tell us? 

Well, I don't know where I was headed with that little digression.  Are rats better than people at choosing?  Perhaps.  There are an awful lot of rats in the world.  I would estimate that rats outnumber humans by tens, hundreds, or maybe thousands.  A hundred trillion rats can't be wrong?!?

As an aside, you may wonder what is the origin of the "whole nine yards."  What I heard was that on Supermarine Spitfires in WWII, the length of the ammunition belt was 27 feet, or 9 yards.  If the fighter shot is entire wad, as it where, someone got the "whole nine yards."  There are other explanations but I like this one best.

Appreciating Diversity

I started reading a book and have since lost it, misplaced it, or otherwise forgotten about it's existence except for one thing.  The authors made a comment at the beginning of the book that was very interesting.  They would not use the gender sensitive "he and she" or "his and hers" in the book.  Some examples in the book would describe how SHE responded.  There would be some illustrations of how HE did this or that.  The comment was that the rather inelegant but gender neutral phrasing was clumsy.  And that we were mature men reading the book and would be able to generalize the examples.  Also as intelligent women, we should be able to get over it.

I agree with them whole-heartedly.  And I can't wait to first find then finish their book.  If you agree with an author's foreword comments then the book can't be all that bad.

At times I write material and am deeply troubled by having to use the plural or "s/he."  I saw a S/HE once on the Discovery Channel and it had nothing to do with gender neutrality.  In fact it was very gender specific, perhaps genderS specific is more appropriate.

I think of myself as a liberal.  Craig would say I'm less and less liberal as the conservatives take greater and greater hold of the political offices, but that is another story.  I believe than anyone can do a job, if they really want to do it.  I also think that if you want to do the job and are the best qualified for it, as a man or woman, tall or short person, or four- or two-functioning limbs, you should get the job.  I do not think we need to re-write the Constitution or the Bible to include more women or other majorities (according to Craig, the white, Anglo-Saxon male is the minority in the US) into the mix.  I think we need to experience each person, one at a time.

Oh, oh, oh!  A heard from a Northern European colleague that she felt a diversity poster we were looking at did not have a mix of pictures that her workforce could identify with.  By US standards, the picture was diverse with someone in a wheelchair and men and women of various ages and ethnic backgrounds.  The one group omitted was the blond Scandinavian group.