My conclusion is the same every year when I start this... I really should just hire someone with a crew of illegals to come do this for me. First of all, they'd have better tools for the work and secondly, they could haul out all the brush. Right now I just wind up with big piles that will take years to rot. This year I also add the conclusion that I didn't do enough bicep curls over the winter.
What did you do this weekend? When it's 65 degrees at the end of February, you start gardening! What an amazing day to be outside. If you tell people you did some gardening, they are likely to picture a little pruning maybe, a little raking. But I do Extreme Gardening and let me tell you, I am not in shape for it yet! My entire property is a steep slope, so gardening at my house always involves lots of trips up and down the hill..whether for tools or drinks or the mulch pile. And I have a wooded area that it absolutely impassible because of invasive sticker bushes. Every year I try to recover a little bit more of that. It's really hard. So that's where I began today - with a cordless Ryobi hedge trimmer -- just making sweeps across the stickers. They are higher than my head and the trimmer weighs about 15 pounds and of course, vibrates. When I came in for lunch my arms were shaking just lifting a drink to my mouth. The trimmer can't tear through everything, so I have to use the long-handle pruning shears which takes force. And then I rake the stuff out and finally I pitch-forked the mulch pile and stuff to the mulch pile
My conclusion is the same every year when I start this... I really should just hire someone with a crew of illegals to come do this for me. First of all, they'd have better tools for the work and secondly, they could haul out all the brush. Right now I just wind up with big piles that will take years to rot. This year I also add the conclusion that I didn't do enough bicep curls over the winter.
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Last week I found out I didn’t get an internal job that I had applied for and I’m OK with that. Truth be told, I was ambivalent about the role for a variety of reasons, but the hiring manager had suggested that I’d be a very good candidate if I wanted to apply for it. Ambivalence is not bad per se. I currently like my current work and role quite a bit, and the new job would be a lateral change into a new area. But you never approach an interview with ambivalence; I did my research and preparation ahead of time. I dressed professionally. I came up with several really creative ideas that I shared and I think the conversation was easygoing. But I left somehow ‘knowing’ that the job was not mine.
I figured out that over my 35 years of working, I’ve interviewed for 17 jobs, 11 of which I got, not all of which I accepted. That’s a pretty good success rate, but it’s more about life leading you where you need to be. You win the jobs you’re supposed to have. The way jobs are filled has changed a lot over the years. I remember the good old days when if people above you thought you were ready for a promotion or new job, you just got it without an elaborate posting and interviewing process. Then employment lawyers must have gotten involved. Today, it takes a lot more time to fill positions, at least those below the VP level. I’ve done my fair share of interviewing people for jobs too. I try to ask questions interviewees have never heard before...things like, “what is your gift?” or “what is your superpower?” I want to see responses that can’t be prepared by some internet research, and in the process, get insights into the person. Another question I ask is, “what kind of people do you like to work with?” One candidate answered, “everyone.” That was immediately a bit unbelievable to me. So I followed up with, “what kind of people don’t you like to work with?” He had a hard time with that one too. In the process, I learned about him. And no, he didn’t get the job. Interviewing is all about identifying “fit” – fit for the role and the work that needs to get done as well as the fit with the team. I wasn’t the fit the hiring manager had in mind for the job I didn’t get. But it doesn’t mean I’m not still good at what I do. Ever notice that smartphones are great for masking social anxiety? Anytime we have a moment of feeling weird or bored or lonely it seems we pick up our phone and hide in it. It’s so very acceptable everywhere (well at least common, if not acceptable). I’m guilty of this. I was waiting outside a building for a friend. I tried to fight my uncomfortable everyone-must-be-looking-at-the-girl-with-no-friends feeling and just study people walking by or pretend great interest in traffic. But if I wait too long, I confess I pull out my phone too, even though I know there is nothing new there for me to see. There. I’m no longer awkward; I’m like everyone else. No reason to be looking over here. In fact, I'm invisible.
The cell phone is just the latest thing we’ll do to relieve anxiety. We need a distraction it seems, from our own minds. Some people smoke or snack… why is it so hard to just ‘be’… or more specifically, be a little uncomfortable? Should we actually be inuring ourselves to the discomfort? Would getting more used to it provide some benefit? We need to develop resilience and courage and confidence and a lot of other things that come from looking at our feelings and thinking about them. Feelings of discomfort pass, most of the time, without consequence. On the other hand, why torture ourselves with discomfort when we don’t have to? It’s a quandary. I watch ABC News – New York every morning while getting ready for work. Primarily I am interested in traffic and weather, but I also want to know a little about what’s going on in the world. These were some of the morning stories:
1 Shot After Fight Spills Out Of Bushwick Nightclub Kansas Gunman Kills 3, Wounds 14 In Workplace Shooting Father Arrested and Injured After Confronting Teacher The news doesn’t leave us feeling secure in the world or positive about our future. But probably a lot of people missed these stories:
All of those statistics come from the final progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), established in 2000 by 189 United Nations member and 23 international organizations. Look what the human race can do when we a) decide to do something and b) join forces to do it! Why can’t these stories be on the news? I was happy and inspired by these outcomes, but I have to say the one report I read about the MDG outcomes was still negative. Yes, there is more to be done and we didn’t meet the goals, but ohmigosh, can we celebrate the huge advances we made? How does saying, “…but there are an estimated 795 million people who are still undernourished” or, “…but children under five in developing countries continue to die from preventable causes…at the horrendous rate of 16,000 per day” inspire us into anything but hopelessness about these problems?! Is it really any wonder so many people walk around scared and pessimistic about the future? I don’t think a little celebration here would take our collective eyes off the prize…I think it would provide a welcome wave of optimism to stay the course. Russian police are issuing a safety brochure. Mumbai is launching patrols of high-risk areas and will be putting up warning signs. Theme parks have banned selfie-sticks. Death by selfie is a growing concern. Young people are taking greater risks to capture unique photos. In January, a teenager in India lifted his selfie stick on a railway and caught hold of a power line. The ensuing electrical shock caused him to fall from the bridge. There are now selfie fatality statistics. You are most likely to die while doing a selfie on a cliff or a tall building. But nearly an equal number of people kill themselves on water. Then there are the Einsteins who died at the Running of the Bulls (never turn your back on a charging bull seems like obvious advice) and the one who wanted a picture with a revolver at her head (she probably thought about that for several long seconds).
I think the people who mindlessly slip off or back off a cliff amaze me the most. These are smartphone cameras people, not Hasselblads! The photo of your vista doesn’t improve even noticeably when you are inches from the cliff edge versus the photo you’d get if you were three feet closer to safety. But people are not giving these set-ups that much thought. The word “snapshot” is pretty accurate…we take the pictures in a snap, using snap judgment. As a safety professional, I see every serious accident description amongst our 123,000 employees. Some are very sad. Some make you wonder what the person was thinking. And some actually make you laugh because of the way they were written. Some of them trace back to an unsafe condition; the overwhelming majority have ‘unsafe acts/behaviors’ as their root cause. And these are the hardest to prevent. Nobody can sustain constant mindfulness on one thing (like safety) for very long. Hence the reason we always go deep to see if there are ways to make unsafe behaviors impossible….like a sensor that stops a machine before your fingers get to the pinch point. I will own up to owning a selfie stick…or narcissistick as some people call them. It’s a disability aid. Being single is a disability when travelling alone. You get lots of scenery pictures, but no proof you were actually there unless you are asking someone else to take your picture. And how does that go without sounding narcissistic anyway? But don’t worry: I do a silent risk assessment for all my cool shots. I am divorced five years today so it seemed a fine time to contemplate what I learned from divorce:
Divorce is not shameful. It is a choice and I chose me. I chose to rescue myself. Pre-nups are pragmatic. I don’t care if they are not romantic. I was lucky this time, but if I ever marry again, I will have one because people sure can surprise the shit out of you. People sure can surprise the shit out of you. At first I thought he really changed a lot, but later I came to realize he didn’t change as much as his real character finally emerged. I felt many things from divorce – surprise is the feeling that has never gone away. My instincts are 100% reliable. I can trust the faintest of signals, even if they only initially add up to nothing more than, “something’s wrong.” Sadly, I also knew that at the moment you know something’s wrong, the other person is already gone. So skip the counseling, the arguing, the tears, the pleading…and start making your own plan. I never even bothered to confront him with the majority of what I knew because there was no point. Alone is better than lonely. Being alone was a reluctant, painful choice, but way better than staying with someone who left me lonely even when in the same room. You don’t miss the person you divorce. I didn’t know the person I divorced, so I can hardly miss him. He is a stranger I was married to once and that’s all. I miss the handyman, the snow plower, the lawn mower – all things I easily replaced with cash. I was never more grateful for my education. Many women are trapped in bad marriages because they don’t know how they would support themselves or their children. I was then, and am now, tremendously grateful my parents made sure I got educated and could take care of myself. That made all the difference. Upon deciding I deserved better, I had the options to make that happen. My friends and family really love me. It almost seemed wrong to ‘enjoy’ so much love and support from my friends and family because something as common in the world as divorce happened to me. They immediately and unfailingly had my back and that’s how I survived and started to thrive again. Divorce sucks, but when you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you have healed. My neighborhood is great for exercise because of some really challenging hills. Said hills make it better for walking than running. It’s rural, so there are no sidewalks, but the streets are very wide and not too much traffic. Lots of neighbors are regulars – passing by my windows in all kinds of weather and all times of day. Two of the regulars stand out. We’ve spoken a few times, but mostly we share waves. One is an older guy. He’s retired and he plays tennis. And that’s about what I know of him so far. He always walks alone, early evening after dinner. The other regulars intrigue me – an older retired couple. They walk every day, different times of day. I call them The Separate Walkers because there is always at least one car length between them. So on one hand it’s cute that this older couple exercises together, but what is the huge buffer zone saying?
I walk too. It’s fun to see what’s going on in the neighbor yards and in the open spaces. I often see deer and I love watching the hawks soaring on air currents, occasionally diving for small field critters. There are a few places where I can go ‘off-road’ and explore. One of my favorites is the Quaking Bog. It is, well, a bog. The “quaking” part comes from floating moss, sedges and decaying vegetation. It appears solid enough to walk on, but if you step on it, it “quakes” or shivers, then sinks and rises again. Nature’s trampoline. But it is possible to break through to the muck below and I don’t think that’d be good. I imagine it would grab my feet like quicksand. The water surface would close off again with moss and nobody would know I’m under there. Still, it’s a fascinating place to me, teeming with biodiversity. I’ve always liked mosses. They have pretty shades of green and delicate blooms. This bog is also the obvious home of some beaver. They are doing terrible damage to the trees in the area. It’s fun to poke around this time of year while visibility is so good and before the mosquitos and gnats take over. When that happens, my off-road excursion is onto an undeveloped piece of property with a decaying building, fascinating for other reasons. It’s interesting to see how nature recovers abandoned buildings little by little – assisted by vandals of course. ![]() I was so virtuous with my Sunday morning. By 9 a.m., I had already run 3 miles, stopped for my weekly bagel, made an appointment for a same-day massage and thrown a load of clothes into the washer. At 11 a.m., I’m getting ready to go to my massage and I realize that I just put my car key through the wash, still in the zipper slot of my running tights! Yikes! Those key fobs are not cheap to replace…like $250. Amazingly, it still worked! I never expected that. Turns out, most people that take their key for a swim are not so lucky. To be on the safe side, I carried my backup key with me to my massage appointment. I told a friend about my lapse of attention and we got laughing and swapping key stories. It reminded me of an incident in high school where a senior reported his car stolen at the end of the day. It turned out not to be stolen at all. It seems another kid had the same exact car, and amazingly, it started with the same key! The second kid had lent his car to a friend (the ‘thief’), who simply took the wrong car from the lot. What are the odds? And why would I remember that? I have another friend with a good key story. She found out her boyfriend was cheating on her. He happened to be out of town, but she knew where he parked at the airport. So she went there and retrieved the key she knew he kept hidden underneath the car and moved the car! Not stolen, just moved. Clever, right? There may or may not have been some flat tires in this story too. :) Do you eavesdrop? I’m not asking if you own extendable ears or put a glass to the wall; I’m thinking more about the public variety of tuning in to all the conversations around you. I’m a listener in general and honestly, it’s almost too easy now. Manners and personal boundaries are nearly gone. There is no politeness left. I feel like a dinosaur when I walk to an empty gate at the airport to make a phone call so I’m not overheard or annoying other people. And it’s not like I’m discussing a contagious, persistent rash or a devious plan to undermine a colleague. My conversations, like most people’s, are of the ordinary day-to-day drivel. But if you’re going to carry on around me, I’m going to listen.
It’s not even always a choice. Many times I am minding my own business, not ‘trying’ to listen, and all of a sudden, a peculiar phrase catches my attention – like, “he’s going to pay for it”. Oooh. Pay for what? My subconscious was evidently listening, not closely enough to know what “it” some poor sucker tripped into. But now I’m hooked…and I start actively listening. These days I probably listen more now that I’m a blogger trying to find something to write about every day. I consider it research! I have a few years’ experience being around non-profit organizations. I’ve volunteered, been a trustee and now an officer. And at work, part of my job is developing partnerships and allocating funding for non-profits. This has allowed me to make some observations about people who work for non-profits.
First of all, they may get paid less, but they are not less competent or less capable than people in corporations. The Executive Director of my current organization is amazing. She has people skills that outshine many great people at work. She connects with donors, impresses regulators and is articulate in front of a judge. I observed the same versatility with people at the World Wildlife Fund. Secondly, I have found that people who work in nonprofits are generally more engaged than those employed at for-profits. They are usually energized by the organization’s mission and this makes them feel good about their work. I think they remain pretty loyal as employees go, but of course, non-profits are real employers too and can have their own politics and problems. So if you were to profile non-profit employees I wonder if they would rate higher on things like compassion. Today I spent all day in a training class for Board members; this one was on financial management. About 40 people spent an unusually warm and sunny February Saturday in a classroom to learn how to more responsibly run their organizations. The majority of attendees were volunteer trustees, not paid to be there. These classes are run by the Dodge Foundation and it’s pretty impressive that they invest not only in the organization, but in the organization’s staff development. As Dodge supports the arts and environmental organizations, most of the people present were from non-profits dedicated to those causes. It was a very interesting group of people – all who care about something deeply enough to get involved. There is a neat energy with that. Finance stuff bores me silly, but I can now tell you about the financial health of my Watershed Association. I know the percent of resources being applied to fundraising, how liquid our reserves are and how many months we can operate with currently available cash. And I know what LUNA is and why I should know what LUNA is! |
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July 2017
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