What This World Needs

What this world needs


Is not another one hit wonder with an axe to grind













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Another two bit politician peddling lies

Another three ring circus society

What this world needs

Is not another sign waving super saint that's better than you

Another ear pleasing candy man afraid of the truth
Another prophet in an Armani suit



What this world needs is a Savior who will rescue
A Spirit who will lead
A Father who will love them in their time of need
A Savior who will rescue
A Spirit who will lead
A Father who will love
That's what this world needs

What this world needs
Is for us to care more about the inside than the outside
Have we become so blind that we can't see
God's gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt


What this world needs
Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance
Blending in so well that people can't see the difference
And it's the difference that sets the world free.

Ripped off from the lyrics of a Casting Crowns song.

And as a postscript, it was just a fluke the whackos from the KS church had a sign that said, "Rita is God's Wrath".  I THINK they were referring to Hurricane Rita and NOT me.

Establishing Priorities

I'm sure I've made it abundantly clear by now that I have been working too much and having to keep a few people in line.  My issue is that some people can't figure out priorities.  At least one of the main players can't seem to figure out what to do on his own and interrupts people with issues that are significantly lower on the priority list.  He's never happy when I overrule him.

I've been preaching this "priority" lesson for over five weeks now and I can't seem to get the message through to the slacker.

1)  Keeping the company in business.
2)  Be able to sell the products.
3)  Being able to deliver and transfer the products.

Seems simple, right?   Who couldn't understand the priority list?

Today, there was another priority lesson, this one much clearer than the one I had been yelling.  It was not taught by yelling, it was not taught by me and it was not taught to the slacker. 

It was delivered to me.

The hours are cutting back a little but I had to get up for an early morning conference call again.  This one was faster than normal and we were done by 8, quicker than I expected.

So after the call, we hurried off to a place we hadn't been in waaay too long.  Below is my "ripoff" of the priority lesson that slapped me hard today.


Did you worship here?



What about here?

And here?

And even here?

Your answer? ......................................

Yeah, me neither.

Time to get back to REAL priorities.

Just Call Me Bruce

I try never to write anything about work.   I make sure that every post would be something I could defend if it was suddenly front page news.

So today, all I can say is this was me:

                   "Welcome to the party, pal". 

If you don't remember this part, it was when McClane was trying to get help from the police.  The cruiser had pulled up and looked around, but didn't get there was a big problem in the building.  McClane blasts the cruiser with his automatic weapon. When the cop backs up and goes off an embankment after the car was riddled with shots and McClane says this great line.

Suffice it to say, I'm not exactly ONE person's favorite right now and I like it that way.

Why I don't like most women.

Apparently a large portion of women are born with a gene where they like to bash each other behind their backs.

If you want a couple of  perfect examples, here they are.

Or these:

These ladies remind me I why I generally don't like working with women.

I found my elementary and junior high school years filled with girls that could not be friends with more than one person.  If there are three junior high girls together, I guarantee you two of them will gang up on the third.  It is a trait that seems exclusive to the female gender and one that alot of women never outgrow.

So I can say I "generally" don't like working with women.  I have to stress the "generally" because the field I am in is mainly dominated by men, so most of the women that I do and have worked with over several years outgrew that junior high mentality and behave more like men do.  They can be good friends with lots of people and they don't go get their feelings hurt and try to get the other women to on "their side" in an argument. 

I hate to admit it, but I'm hooked on Real Housewives, which seems weird to me since I hate women who nitpick behind other women's backs. I don't know, maybe it makes me feel superior to them even with all their money and glamour because I have long outgrown the need to take sides on stupid women arguments.

One of my very best friends for over 25 years now started like this.  We would go on break and there was a third girl who was friends with Debbie.  I could tell this third girl didn't like it that Debbie and I were friends, it was subtle at first.

One day I sat down in the breakroom at our normal time and in walked Maggie.  Instead of sitting at the same table like we normally did, she sat at the other table.  I could see what was happening.  When Debbie came down, she would be forced to "choose" which was her better friend.  I remember thinking how ridiculous it was given that jr.high was years before.  I could see Debbie's confusion when she came down and she finally sat down with Maggie.  Did I interpret that as Debbie being Maggie's friend over me?  Nope, I thought Debbie assessed which friend would deal with it as an adult and not a teenager.

I made up my mind to not ever say anything to Debbie about how ridiculous this jr. high girl mentality was.  She was a smart lady, she could figure it out eventually.

A couple weeks later, Debbie was ordering something from a Hanes Catalog.  All the women normally made it one order so we could get a better discount.  Since Debbie worked close to me, we had our orders ready and Maggie came by with the catalog.  When Debbie told her she could add to the order so we could get a larger discount, Maggie decided she didn't want to place her order with mine.  OK, we were only in our 20's, but geez, how immature can you get?

It wasn't long afterward that Maggie and Debbie's friendship cooled significantly when they went out with their husbands and Maggie thought it was her opportunity to bash on me.  Now remember, I had not said one word to Debbie what I saw was going on with this jr. high girl rivalry that I refused to participate in.  Debbie told me later that after listening to Maggie drone on about me for 15 minutes, Debbie told her that I was her friend and that she would not listen to anything else.  Maggie wasn't very happy.

It was only after that night that Debbie ever mentioned to me how she felt she was being pushed by Maggie to not be friends with me and I finally told her that I realized it was going on for months.

So,  that's why I would prefer to work with men.  By and large, men don't play those stupid jr high girl games and more than a majority of the women do.  Any women I encounter that play that game are quickly eliminated from my list of people I associate with.    Debbie and I are like sisters over 25 years later.  And I have a number of women I have worked with over the years that I dearly love and will remain friends with forever.   All of them left jr high school behind them years ago. 

I choose my friends wisely.

It's Mine All Mine

I won it.  Really.   I wouldn't pull your leg.

OK, I confess.  It's not true.  I did not win the lottery.  That would have been impossible since I don't play the lottery, although Bob does now and then.

But with this crazy work that's been going on, I really wonder what EXACTLY I would do after immediately winning the lottery. 

Who doesn't imagine winning the lottery and telling your work, "bye bye" the very next day? 

So, let's go down the path of fantasy land. 

There have been plenty of jobs, maybe most of my jobs where I would do just that.  I have worked my entire life to some day provide us with a comfortable retirement.  I haven't regretted working.  I've worked for some wonderful people and I have worked with Lucifer himself and I've managed to manuever through that minefield for more than 30 years now.

Three years ago I was forced into a career change in an entirely new industry due to my company going bankrupt.  Technically, I am now self-employed as I'm working as a contractor with a company that is growing fast, but the basis is a family business and that mentality of all that is good about a family business has been maintained.

Significant project, rolled out almost three weeks ago.  We are suffering through bringing ancient programming code, nearly as old as hieroglyphics into today's world.  Working with a skeletal IT staff, where the complete understanding of the business and IT is wrapped up into only one brain.  On top of this major project are suddenly all kinds of personal issues with the IT staff and their families.  The Spock Brain of the operation lost his mother-in-law last Friday and there are other health issues abounding within the staff that are not insignificant.

My job?  Officially it's Project Manager of this major project.  Which means you do anything that needs done that helps the subject matter experts keep seated and doing their jobs long past the time any reasonably sane person would work. 

These people are all hard working, committed, fun people.  They overwork themselves, to the point I worry they won't be able to function.  While I've been putting in 80 hour weeks, at least four or five of them have put in well over 100 hours or more.  When I object about how much they are working, they are soooo quick to point out they are ALOT younger than I am.  No, they aren't clueless to what they are saying, they mean it and they love to slam me that I'm the old lady of the group.  I'm good with that as long as they keep working.  And I wait for my time to find an even better smart remark back.  It's the way we roll and laugh through the chaos.

So....

If I woke up tomorrow and realized I had mega millions now waiting for me at the lottery office, what would I do?

Would I cash in the money and tell all of these good hardworking people good luck but I'm outta there? 

"Hey I would be glad to continue to help you, but I don't need the money now, so you're on your own."

As crazy as it seems in my head, I could not do that.  I couldn't leave in the middle of rolling out this project and telling people that I've worked with for three years, people that I have grown to love and care about that I don't care enough to help get this project running smoothly enough they don't need me. 

I cannot imagine doing that.  I don't think I could enjoy the freedom the money would provide by knowing I have made it worse for the people I work with.  And NO, don't suggest I just split the winnings with them so all of them could quit, THAT is not happening even more. 

But I am tired.  I want things to smooth out.  I told Bob this morning that I was going to call in "retired" but he wasn't keen on that idea.  So I got up again, in the office by 7 and volunteered for the support line until 10 tonight, which really lasted until after 11.  I can't wait for a day off. 

If I was still working for Lucifer, all bets are off and I'm "outta there", maybe without even calling in at all. 

Bob Called It

We don't see alot of movies.  Some years we are lucky if we manage to see one or two.  A couple months ago it seemed there were several coming out that looked interesting.

You might remember my post on The Blind Side.  Wonderful movie. 

When we walked out of the theatre, Bob said, "Sandra Bullock should win an Oscar for that one." 

I was surprised because Bob doesn't really get into awards shows and we both get confused between the Oscars and the Emmy's and then they throw in the Golden Globes.

So, Bob was right.  She got the Oscar.  She was amazing, but I still liked Tim McGraw in it too.  No, his performance wasn't worthy of an award, but I liked the way they played together and I thought he did a decent job considering he's a singer not an actor.

As a side note, I'm hoping I can get back to some regular work hours soon.  Just finished the second straight week of over 80 hours and it appears this one won't be much better since I've already put in 14 hours.