skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Working from home can be either really good or really bad. Bad, as in the days that you don't shower and pad around the house in sweats and bunny slippers with a cup of coffee so old it could get up and walk. Good, as in today!
The excuse was valid. The television ordered for the office wouldn't be delivered without a signature. It came to my house because it's easier for a delivery to be made here then drive whatever was ordered into the garage rather than have to deal with the extra security checks the police make delivery folks go through.
In working from home, I saved over an hour in commute time and plowed through more work in one day than in a usual week. There were no distractions of office mates coming by my desk to talk, no phones to answer, no people stopping by the office to drop off mail or meet with the leg [pronounced ledge - short for legislative] staff. And to top it off, there even was time for a mani-pedi after I was caught up. If I could work from home one day every week, I'd be the happiest girl on the face of the earth.
If I pitch it to the chief of staff in terms of better productivity, do you think he'd go for it? Maybe on the weeks they're in recess? It's worth a shot.
[Title taken from this.]
Has anyone else noticed this?
And what does it say about our values?
[Title taken from this.]
"Pick a number between one and six then read your email," I text Mr. Gaelic.
"Four," he texts back.
Our date this weekend will be an early morning outing to watch the planes land while drinking coffee and reading to each other. He then gets to pick six books and I pick the number.
"Five," is my reply text.
We'll be reading Without Feathers by Woody Allen. Maybe there will be a cold snap by this weekend and we'll have to cuddle under a blanket on the hood of the car and drink our coffees from an old glass vacuum aluminum Thermos bottle.
What are your "date night" plans this weekend? (Doesn't everyone have date night once a week?)
[Title taken from this.]
Mr. Gaelic gets paid $5 to walk the dog for 30 minutes. Actually, there doesn't have to be a dog in the picture. Or anything else except some form of exercise for 30 minutes and his office will pay him $5.
They also give him $35 for going to his annual physical, $25 for going to the dentist. But it's not paid in cash. It's paid in gift cards. Yet there's a cap of $240 a year that he can earn.
He then can use the gift cards at a number of approved vendors from Amazon to Zappos.com. All part of his company's encouragement of their employees to be healthy. His well-being reward.
What about the rest of us? We exercise and eat healthy and visit our doctors and dentists. Why can't our companies pay us in Best Buy gift cards?
One of the vendors is a national grocery chain that sells mostly organic foods. So, let me see if I have this right. You work for a Fortune 500 company. They pay you to be healthy. Then you can use your rewards to buy organic food to be even healthier. Because you are healthier, you miss fewer days from work. Increased productivity all for as little as $240 worth of gift cards a year for being healthy.
Don't let it be forgotten that exercising also leads to fewer stress-related diseases and less depression. Aha! Happier worker bees! Happy. Healthy. Productive.
Where's the justice? How can the rest of us get such added benefits?
How do you know there's an elephant in your refrigerator?
Elephant footprints in your butter.
How do you know there are two elephants in your refrigerator?
Two sets of footprints.
How do you put a giraffe in your refrigerator?
Take out the elephants and put the giraffe in.
How do you get four elephants in a compact car?
Two in front and two in the rear.
How do you know there are four elephants in your refrigerator?
There's a compact car parked out front and a giraffe standing in your kitchen.
[Now back to your regular daily life.]
God, I love the United States Air Force! So the guys in the liaison office aren't quite as handsome as the Navy guys (oh, those blue eyes). But man! Can they make a killer margarita!
The Air Force birthday is September 18th. So the liaison office had their birthday celebration today. Having spent over 30 minutes in the back office trading war stories with the Air Force scheduler and one of the Colonels, the birthday cake and most of the food was all gone. Nothing else but beer, wine, sodas, water, and made-on-the-spot margaritas. Hey, after the week I've had, one goes straight for the tequila. That's when I noticed the chocolate Pentagon.
In chatting up the Air Force bartender, we ended up with a friendly wager of whether the chocolate Pentagon was solid chocolate or hollow.
"Solid," said I.
"Nah, it's hollow. Just use a fork to break it up," he replied.
"No, it's solid."
"Uh-uh, hollow."
"Coffee?"
"You're on!"
Guess what! It broke apart the minute the fork went in. That Air Force major is getting a free coffee next week.
Overheard at my office...
"Schools are failing our children. My granddaughter takes civics at high school. She came home and said that our country is a democracy. I told her, 'No, it's not. It's a republic.' She kept insisting that it's a democracy because that's what she's been taught at school. Can you believe what they're teaching our kids these days?"
The person saying this is running for public office. And people wonder why our democratically elected government is dysfunctional.
[Title taken from this.]
Who hasn't heard of the cupcake craze? Stores that sell cupcakes exclusively. TV shows about cupcake contests. Now, there are even eggs specifically designed for baking into cupcakes.
All in a bright pink box. Pepto-Bismol pink. No. Barbie pink. Advertising the perfect sized eggs in rags like Cosmo and selling them at your local Sainsbury.
And the woman in the ad? She looks like she just finished a shoot for an adult movie rather than baked cupcakes. Did someone photoshop a cupcake over a dildo in her hand?
She looks very Stepford-esque. Isn't that every man's secret fantasy? A woman with perfectly coifed hair, killer figure, prim dress, offering him fresh baked goods and a stiff drink when he walks in the door after a long day at the office before strapping on her knee-pads in the bedroom to help him "relax".
Where's my Stepford Husband?
[Title taken from this.]
Do you listen to your dreams? What do they tell you about yourself and your life? Inquiring minds want to know.
[Here is a dream catcher.]
Goooooood Evening, blog buddies! My Pollyanna is showing. Mostly because the stitches were removed from my back. The results came back. The spot that the doctor cut out was benign.
Let the earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, zombie apocalypse come. I'm here and I'm cleared. Get used to it! I'm here to stay.
[Title taken from this.]
Everyone else is doing it. Might as well jump on the bandwagon. Remembrances of, thoughts about, lives changed by 9/11.
To begin, a friend and former co-worker was in a meeting at the Pentagon that fateful morning. My firefighter neighbors confirmed that he probably didn't know what was happening and that he didn't suffer.
My city has received renewed threats on this anniversary. The police and other security officials near my office have stepped up their presence. A current co-worker doesn't want to be within 200 miles of here this weekend. Not being able to decamp to our home state, she has promised her mother not to leave her apartment at all this weekend.
Yet, I'm not afraid.
Fear won't prevent me from going to the mall, or the grocery store, or the pub to watch football. I am more terrified of driving on the interstate in a deluge of a rainstorm than I am of being targetted by a terrorist. I'm more fearful of dying of cancer than of dying at the hands of some vengeful zealot hellbent on driving a figuative stake through our collective capitalist hearts.
They didn't do their job. If they were successful terrorists, they would have filled me with terror. They didn't. They didn't defeat me. Like a child who tells the monster under the bed that he is no longer afraid of it because it's not real, I have told the monster in the fertilizer-and-fuel-oil-packed rental truck that I am not afraid of him. He may kill my body, but never my spirit.
Because I am not afraid.
[Title taken from this.]
Actual email:
"The United States Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs cordially invites you to a Pizza Brief from 1200-1300 on Day, Month Date in Room XXX. Join us as S.M.I., Assistant Director, National Security Directorate, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) provides information on NCIS. To ensure we order enough pizza, please send me a short e-mail RSVP if you think you will attend."
Yes, the real NCIS! As if they have to entice me there with free pizza. They had me with blue eyes.
[Title taken from this.]
Cue the music. In the saga of my 30-Day Non-Facebook Prose-instead-of-Pictures Challenge, it's been quite a while since my last entry. A sage once told me, when blogging, never explain your absences and never apologize for not writing. In that vein, this is my cheating entry. Knocking out the last entries because, well, it's so confining having a meme to follow. What was supposed to spark creativity has turned into a chore. Read fast, I'm going for broke...
22.A picture of something you wish you were better at - Ballet
23.A picture of your favorite book - The Six Wives of Henry VIII
24.A picture of something you wish you could change - Christmas
25.A picture of your favorite day - Snow Day
26.A picture of something that means a lot to you - Genealogy
27.A picture of yourself and a family member - Me and Mr. Gaelic (sort of - I just like this clip)
28.A picture of something you're afraid of - Snakes (sorry no pics - even pictures of snakes terrify me)
29.A picture that can always make you smile - Stories I read as a child
30.A picture of someone you miss - My parents
So, yeah, I cheated. And now, let's go on with the blogs.
