self-checkout exercise: where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Relatively Happy:

I see myself working for a fine organization like this one, in middle management, but not in your job…

Somewhat Happy:

I see myself as a catalyst for something greater, something finer, something magnificent….well yes, I may still be here working here

Slightly Happy:

I see myself as you might see myself. A satisfied worker, making people satisfied.

Happy…not so lucky:

I see myself being here…except on Saturdays. Yes, I still cannot ask this poor old body to drag itself in on a Saturday morning…if you know what I mean…

Not nearly Happy enough…

I see myself driving a Tesla through the French countryside while the people riot in the streets. What do you think? Of course. I see myself as gainfully employed, not out rioting in the streets over tacos, the water supply, and who is spying on me while I am on my laptop!

Certainly not Happy:

I see myself not sitting in front of you….not in front of a personnel manager…wondering why I have not been promoted to creative resources, where I could actually use my skills. No, I see myself as “maybe working at this company,” and then again, maybe not.

A bit more unhappy:

I see myself as a loser, stuck in a dead-end job, reciting euphemisms and cliches while people half my age get promoted to CEO of this frickin company. To answer your question, no, I do not see myself as being an employee after my 62nd birthday.

Downright unhappy:

In ten years I see myself as manager of the local collective, working in the fields digging onions and sweet potatoes, living with my Asian wife in the provinces because I cannot afford to work here, I cannot afford to live here, I cannot afford to breathe here. The fact that you have to ask me this question, even though the most ignorant of workers would understand, tells me that you don’t get it, have never got it, and in fact lack the intelligence necessary to run this firm. I am, therefore, resigning, but not before taking my week-long promised vacation, which is noted on this directive signed and dated….

where do you see yourself in ten years?

the joys of chat assistance

the trouble with chatting with “tech support” is you never know how your humor did on the other end of the cybercord… especially when you have a terminal case of stand-up. it is not like the check-out line, where Kayla, who has just finished with her 44th customer for the day, is not expecting anything more exciting than seeing the new meat specials from the butcher pass by. she is ready for humor…she’s endured mean, grumpy, grouchy, belligerent, pre-menstrual, and presumably psychotic in five pathetic hours…

but Lars…from tech support…is an enigma, a puzzle, a personality as vibrant as old wallpaper without… extensive interaction. and his job is not to make the dialogue scintillating, but to assist you with a technical problem. besides, we do not know where Lars is, how technical he is, nor how bright his bulb is in the socket.

so, our conversations are rarely the stuff of “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” No. The conversation will likely start with….

Hello. This is Lars and I am here to help you today.

Hello Lars. This is Jack. I have a problem.

How may I assist you today, Jack?

I got a package in the mail and it’s too big to fit inside my door…

At this point, it is clear that Lars doesn’t know Jack…but aside from that, can we assume, from the other side of Cyberland, that Lars understands Jack’s urgent need to challenge the mental capacity of a chat assistant, who now will likely transfer Jack to “Customer Service,” an ominous- sounding dystopian unit that will verbally tear every limb from Jack’s body because he did not adhere to the standard operating procedures of chat assistance.

….which is why one should always be polite to chat assistance. mental gymnastics, sarcasm, speaking in multiple languages, and asking two questions at a time are inappropriate when a simple format of NPC behavior will suffice. because the man, woman, or unicorn on the other end of the chat line may or may not be capable of discourse outside of simplistic chat parameters. questioning the meaning of life or arguing for the origin of species probably is “chat taboo.”

while i am thankful for those who endure hours of chat purgatory, i choose to limit my exposure. to all yer men stuck in such a job, our hearts go out to you. i would need a mound of candy bars and three or four mountain dews to make it through eight hours of that…

life is short and so are you

when you have to stand at the back of the line- behind twenty-five monsters- your toes pointed straight ahead, your mouth shut, and your arms down at your sides like some kind of toy soldier- it isn’t fun when some wiggleworm can’t keep still in front of you…and you end up getting in trouble. because your teacher isn’t going to be able to see it wasn’t you who had ants in your pants. but that’s the way it is when you’re the shortest one in class.

back in the old days. back when little girls wore dresses to your patio birthday party, organized by your big sister and her bigger friend. and everyone had a paper name tag, complete with a giant safety pin, pinned right there on the front of your shirt or blouse because, well, life was kind of clunky. you’d stand around in a circle waiting for your big sister to tell you what to do next, because she knew exactly what came next. and when it was time to play spin the bottle, why everyone played and you just couldn’t get out of it, even if you tried.

i know. i remember Katy-did…that’s what we called her….with the insect-like hairdo…spun the bottle and it pointed directly at me. in the ensuing panic, she managed to graze me slightly on the side of the head, lips touching hair, and i escaped total humiliation.

at least it wasn’t Judy, the girl who responded with horse-whinnies whenever you said something she didn’t like. she galloped around the playground at recess like she’d lost her mind…but sitting in the circle, she couldn’t do that. as long as my big sister was there, she was half-way human.

and after a few games, it was time for treats. not the decadent processed goodies you get today, but some baked peanut butter cookies and a big glass of green kool-aid. i loved the taste of green, and although i cannot tell you what it tastes like today, i know it turned my tongue green, and that was good enough for me and my friends.

when you’re short, you have to do something to attract the cute little girl from down the street…so i practiced making my tongue green…and purple and orange (Tang). i ran down the street in my father’s boxer shorts…over my own pants. i rode my skateboard into her father’s vehicle, knocking me to the ground.

it didn’t work…because i was short, and life was short. by the time i managed to get the courage to speak to her in complete sentences, she’d found herself some real friends, and i was standing at the back of the line again…literally and now figuratively.

i managed to grow up and escape the line, and grow tall enough to not be the shortest man on the street, but back in the old days, being the shortest one in class always meant the last on the list.

The biggest book in the house

something poetic

My grandfather, who lived in a time period when big, bound dictionaries were about as valuable as a graduate diploma, bought a set of dictionaries from a traveling salesman. This effusive little man- not my grandfather, who was not little- instructed my grandfather that two payments would suffice.

When the first volume arrived, it instantly became the heaviest book in the house. How heavy was it? It could kill a mouse, a squirrel, or a peaceful moment in one swift, declining drop. At 1,344 pages, from “a” to “pocket veto,” it was a treasure, albeit outside the cedar treasure chest.

My grandfather, following his education, had a passion for knowledge, and taught himself engineering to help him advance in his career. But, he would have rather been a sailor or a ship’s captain, on account of his love of the sea and of a good boat. When he was on…

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being human

it started innocently. you know, i thought i would say something nice. something affirming. something contemporary.

…make it all about black, white and gray…like the ubiquitous houses, pants, shirts, signs…and otherwise beige everywhere things…stuck in “life in the drab lane.” but be nice about it

like flying a Ukranian flag

or dating a virtual partner

or composing a love poem for my favorite AI

…and be nice about it.

but i cannot. not at 1 am. not at 2 am. when i should be sleeping. but my mind is working overtime. so, i did something stupid…said something stupid. online. i hate when that happens. and i ended it with a comma, not a period. a writer, anal about commas, periods, and putting the comma where it actually belongs, and using semicolons correctly, ended a sentence with a comma. well sure, it isn’t the end of the world- it isn’t 100 billion dollars thrown around like Monopoly money, or a chemical spill in your backyard, but it is something.

i am a spiritual being, packaged in a material form in a material world…as you are. which is why, no matter how wise we may become in our older age, we are still doing stupid things that perplex our spirits. we still have characteristics that someone out there will never like. we still are unique, mortal beings, hopefully still with a sense of humor.

but AI does not have a spirit, nor a soul. AI will never equal a man or woman because spirit is far superior to machine. God created us in God’s image, that is, in a spiritual image. AI cannot attain to the spiritual. Being fallible, but spiritual, while possibly not being as “intelligent” or “theoretically creative,” we will always be superior to AI in the end because we, like that cocoon that becomes a butterfly, will be transformed into a totally spiritual being beyond this realm one day.

contemplating….

changing the site name. if you’ve looked through it, what would you call it? i am leaning toward something poetic…

any…kind…suggestions?

Revival, Awakening, or Transformation?

On the Asbury University campus, in Wilmore, Kentucky, the chapel recently held a steady 10 day plus, 24-hours-a-day service within the chapel. Some are calling it a “revival.” Sunday was supposed to be the end of the 24-hour stream-service, with a rearrangement of services within the chapel and elsewhere. But, is it a revival, an awakening, or a transformation?

“Revival,” according to the dictionary, could include what seems to be happening there- “an improvement,” a “reawakening.”

A revival, however, assumes that something needed reviving, something was dead or needed improving. By definition, however, a revival is not a transformation.

It is nice to sit in a service and get worked up…even for hours at a time…but will it change not only you, but everyone around you?

A true change in the nature of a people and place requires what happened to Nineveh. The people repented- turned away completely of sin- and became transformed. God spared Nineveh when the people repented of their evil ways. They did not attend endless services, they turned their lives over to God, so that their lives changed so dramatically an entire city was changed.

We do not need that old time religion. We do not need more revivals. We need transformations, changes that are forever.

The Lost Kerryman in the Land of Fragrant Postcards

Digging deeper into the pile of organizational pain my parents left me…from God-only-knows-how-many ancient relatives…I found a series of plastic baggies holding postcards with dead people, bluebirds, Santa Claus, pixies, and random bridges…

before Hallmark movies…

and social media…

…before Linkedin…

and travelocity, motels.com, priceline…

when the world liked a picture postcard…

The original go….cart

The biggest book in the house

My grandfather, who lived in a time period when big, bound dictionaries were about as valuable as a graduate diploma, bought a set of dictionaries from a traveling salesman. This effusive little man- not my grandfather, who was not little- instructed my grandfather that two payments would suffice.

When the first volume arrived, it instantly became the heaviest book in the house. How heavy was it? It could kill a mouse, a squirrel, or a peaceful moment in one swift, declining drop. At 1,344 pages, from “a” to “pocket veto,” it was a treasure, albeit outside the cedar treasure chest.

My grandfather, following his education, had a passion for knowledge, and taught himself engineering to help him advance in his career. But, he would have rather been a sailor or a ship’s captain, on account of his love of the sea and of a good boat. When he was on his boat, he would fish, and become less studious, and become disgusted with himself, because, after all, he’d paid all that money…and not a little…for the most extensive dictionary volumes one could buy.

My father grew up with the two volume The New Century Dictionary…and a large set of encyclopedias….as the main sources of information outside of the wit and wisdom of the more aged of the family. They might have had a way with history, and the encyclopedias may not have measured up in some cases, but the dictionary stood as the final say for spelling…and though increasingly dated as the decades passed, a first source for the more eclectic vocabulary that my grandfather acquired.

This two-set volume from 1927 has passed on to me, as the caretaker of a now-dated work of reference and amusement. It contains fine phrases and explanations from the Roaring Twenties that may not be the best source for the Terrible Twenties….I mean the 2020s.

Glancing through the New Century, one finds many words not in vogue in the second decade of the 21st Century.

But, for the character of the 1920s, the books are a gas, a sensation, a talk-of-the-town. Here you’ll find all the dirt on “frippery” and how “tawdry” it was…essentially silly…as “she who wore a hat wore a statement of absurdity.”

A sanitorium was a good place, not a place for mindless ninnies. Pennies from Heaven were a good thing, a penny for your thoughts had no attachment to financial value, and references to the appearance of a “bluebird” was a happy occasion. Conversely, one sang “Bye bye” to a blackbird.

The pages are adorned with drawings of a “barb” (a linen covering for the throat and breast), a whelk, and examples of 15th century gorgets. Every page contains at least one, and as many as four, artistic details. The finery is remarkable, particularly considering the low-tech methods used in publishing said pages.

Although the collecting of old books has faded in popularity as the screen has taken over the common world, an antiquated book can be a great substitute for the mindlessly predictable entertainment from the programmed screen world and the equally predictable “print” world via screen. Like the new Century Dictionary, it can be light reading while waiting for your dinner to cook, or your mail to arrive, or for the children to come home from school.