Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
Contact Me Subscribe to this blog
beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
Originally created to honor the living WWI veterans on Armistice Day, It has become a time to thank all who wore the uniform and remember those who paid the price we asked of them....
On this Monday, stuck between the weekend and Veteran's Day, there is just one question that after 45 years MUST be answered soon: Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?
For #throwbackThursday, I went rummaging in my pciture archives to make a post on Twitter [and thus to Facebook] -- and found a snapshot from 11.06.2004, exactly ten years ago
This is Frank posing in a display on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World, Florida.
It was a relaxed vacation. We had been to WDW so many times before that it was an easy vacation, in fact Tom and Don weren't at all upset that they couldn't join us that year because they had spent a couple days with us just last year. The pictures that we took reflect that laid-back perspective -- we only took about eight rolls between the two of us. Gem joined us, flying down and taking the Magical Express from the airport
There were a couple of firsts on this trip. We didn't take a picture of the "Welcome to Florida" sign at the visitor center when we drove into the state, deciding that we really had enough of them. When we made our customary stop at the shrine, we took a sidetrip and xplored the lighthouse at St Augustine and I climbed all 219 steps to the very top. It was the first time we stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside. We purchased a "block" on the wall at EPCOTT, but without a photo, just putting our names on there and the comment that we were "doing Disney our way". Frank had stated that he always wanted to get a haircut in the barbarshop on Main Street and he did that much to the amusement of everyone. In fact, he had the lady barbar laughing so hard that I couldn't get a picture of her standing still!
Later Gem had her hair done [but not cut] and the two of them commiserated with each other over the problem of having sparkles clogging the shower drain.... It was a good trip, marred only by the drive home by another first when Frank handed me the keys and told me to drive -- a move that was totally out of character for him.
Google’s attitude towards users is a mystery to me. They discontinued Desktop, which I found to be a very helpful application and used it regularly. They discontinued the very popular Reader, driving many of us who used this service to aggregate and read multiple blog posts every day to subscribe to another service. They stopped the application that synced OUTLOOK with the Google Calendarreducing the functionality of the calendar. And now? As of today, Google announced it is no longer supporting the little Gtalk desktop application. Instead, they are shoving all users willy-nillly into the Hangout app.
this is what hangout looks like when it is minimized, instead of going quietly in the tray .
and it insists on opening a window right there in mid-screen when I try to access it
Gtalk lets me resize the window, and move it where I can see it most easily
I don’t like Hangout and I don't want to use it unless I can sort my contacts as I want, update my status and decide where on my desktop Hangouts show. But Google doesn't care because they have made up their minds.....
AND all of the EOM reports and reconciliations are due! And since today is already the 3rd, I'll be getting queries by Wednesday asking when they will be ready....
At least the sun was up before I was this morning....
Despite the debate, daylight savings time is over here in the US on Sunday night at 2AM
The clock on the cable display, the one on my phone and the one on my PC are supposed to set automatically. This year I pushed back the wall of weary long enough to see exactly what would happen at 2AM. Would all the clocks just stop for an hour and then start back up when it was 2AM standard time? Would they stutter and suddenly it would be 1AM again?
I watched the digital clock count off the seconds.... 1:58... 1:59 ... 1:00
And we have an extra hour this Saturday night / Sunday morning!
Quote of the day: "The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them." ~ Robert Frost
In the past in my family, everyone was retired by the time they were 62, and they lived rather comfortably on the pensions [supplemented by Social Security] that was paid by their previous employers. My parents were the last ones in my family to have that luxury of “golden years”.
There has been a lot of talk about how the baby boomers have failed to save enough for their retirement and are going to be dependent on Social Security, with the implication that somehow those of us who cannot afford to retire are or have been fiscally irresponsible. There hasn’t been as many conversations or studies that I have seen on the number of us who got caught in the changing social contract between employer and employee and the switch-over from pensions to IRAs and 401Ks. That transition to the 401K was neither smooth nor consistent, and unlike the generation behind us, we do not have an additional 15 years of employment to build up saving reserves.
15 years. If one can keep a job that long. If one can stay healthy enough to work that long. Not because you want to get up and get out every single morning, but because it has to be done. Hoping that Social Security will be there and be enough to help when you finally need it.
No wonder so many baby boomers are playing the lottery and answering sweepstakes ads!
It was a lovely fall day. I got to go to the neighborhood Halloween parade and see my granddaughter looking undeniably cute as a Cabbage Patch doll. And then we had a good dinner and I headed home. The apartment building's elevators are having problems this weekend -- two of the four are not working and there is a family trying to move out. We squeeze in on the basement level with some people who chose to ride down, and then the elevator stops at the first floor. "Come on," I tell the two waiting women, "we can all fit in" and we do. As the one woman got in, I asked her if the flowers she was holding were real because they looked so nice. When she got off at her floor, she turned and asked me if I would like a flower!
What a lovely gesture that was, and ended the weekend on a high note
I have a done switch -- I know that I do. I have always had one, the point at which I just step back and look at another person and say to myself, if not to them, "end of line". No one who has been estranged from their family, or divorced, remarried, divorced again and then remarried again can say that they don't when you come right down to it. I will admit that as I have gotten older and become more concious of the impact of irrevocable choices, realizing that they are indeed irrevocable [what part of you can't change it did I miss when I was younger?], I am somewhat slower to throw that done switch. Professionally, I have found myself sliding from "supporting" a direct report to "enabling" them before biting the bullet and firing them. Personally I find that I have a certain reluctant admiration for those who can just step back, say good-bye and leave. Really LEAVE, without a backwards glance or thought. How do they keep from wondering, wanting to know "the rest of the story" of the other person's life, how things turned out? How do they keep from wondering if the other person ever thinks of them?
When you find out, let me know, okay? My mind is getting really cluttered and needs a good airing out....
Why is it that all the doubts, all the worries, all the angst, all the fears, all the tears, all the STUFF you carry around in your head waits until 3AM to rise up and flood you?
Today my mother would've been 87. I wish we had been closer, that I had been a better daughter. I'm sorry that she didn't get to see her great-granddaugter
Ah the Adams Family... er, no I meant the day of the week. Awoke in a cold sweat, heart pounding at the insistent yammering of the claxon I call an alarm, from a dream that was a very literal interpretation of one of my worst fears -- not being able to keep my apartment and having to camp out in someone else's home. Thirty years ago, that might have been an adventure but today it would feel like imposition.... Come on, Dreamfinder, you can do better than that!
Long long thread on Facebook Sunday with multiple comments as a person gets sick over the weekend and blames a co-worker for coming in sick at the end of the work week. Bossman came in here sick on Friday -- complaining of flu like symptoms -- and is so sick today that he couldn't even email or call in. So, when do you stay home?
Lots of moving parts to this:
leave -- do you actually have PTO [paid time off] or does staying home mean that your paycheck will be less?
work -- in larger companies, if someone misses a day or two the work of the company rolls on even though your desk will be piled up high when you get back. But in smaller companies? When a person is out that might mean something vital slips
culture -- does your boss make you feel like a wimp for staying home? Are the non-verbal signals telling you that if you REALLY care about your career, you will drag yourself in no matter what?
co-workers -- just how much do they resent your being in the office sick? One person on Facebook described it as bad as sexual harrassment or bullying because you were contritbuting to a "hostile work environment", which are words to chill the heart of every manager and HR person, neh?
My personal indicator is whether or not I am running a fever. My body temperature tends to be normal at 97.6 [part and parcel of a low metabolism I guess], so if my temperature is between 99 - 100 F, then I am sick enough [and probably infectious] and I stay home. It is the old rule of thumb that the school nurses used to use for the kids -- although for a while in second grade, Tom figured out that if he ran around enough on the playground and then went to the nurse, his temperature would soar to 100 and he would get sent home. I had to put a stop to that!
Today is a first in broadcast history, at least here in the United States. This Saturday morning there were no cartoons. How odd, I remember that Saturday mornings were always nothing BUT cartoons until around noon every single week when I was a kid and when I had kids. The cartoons changed -- no more Porky Pig and Mighty Mouse and Popeye [what did he and Bluto see in Olive Oyl anyway?] -- but there were still cartoons!
No more -- the last bastion of the Saturday morning tradition was the Cartoon Network, and they stopped last week.
Another little piece of cultural history poofs.....
In knowledge management talks, I often used Johari's Window to show the different areas of knowledge and how they pertain to risk:
It's pretty simple -- it is what you don't know that will trip you up, that's obvious. And if you know you don't know you can take steps to find out and mitigate your weakness. The real area of risk is when you don't know what you don't know -- and reducing the size of that area is the aim of every person who even took on the responsibility of managing processes and procedures.
But try as hard as you can, you can not eliminate the risk. There is always something you didn't realize that you didn't know and weren't addressing And when it rears its ugly head, you have to deal with the consequences. Every time. You can't duck, you have to own it, come what may. And try not to waste a lot of time beating yourself up because you just can't know it all.
Thanks to the refraction of the sun's rays, even tho the equinox was back on Monday night, today is the day that is exactly half day and half night here in the mid-Atlantic USA.....
I have a theory about how folks act when they are angry, dividing them into thunderstorms and volcanoes. A thunderstorm clouds over and breaks with a gust and a boom and a torrential downpour – then it is over and the sun comes back out. A volcano smolders, building up heat and pressure for a long time, and then explodes – and keeps right on exploding and steaming and smoking for some time. A thunderstorm blows up quickly; a volcano takes a while to build up [don’t get me started on Yellowstone] Me? I am a thunderstorm for the most part – I rage and storm and sometimes throw things. It isn’t often that I get deep down smoldering quiet furious, and when I did, both my kids and my direct reports walked very warily around me until I went back to be vocal.
When a person who is a thunderstorm is in a relationship with a volcano, both people have to understand the difference or conflicts are going to end up being hurtful. Ever had one of those “discussions” that starts out with “now what is the problem” and goes downhill from there? Yeah, we all know the kind of downward spiral that starts, neh? A thunderstorm has to understand that a volcano isn’t ready to let bygones be bygones because they aren’t done yet and aren’t ready to move on. A volcano has to understand that a thunderstorm isn’t being trite when they are apologizing because they really are over it.
T’aint nothing wrong with getting mad. Like so many other things in relationships, folks just need to be a bit mindful of each other’s style.
In the course of family dinners, in addition to having some great food and amazing time with my daughter’s family, it has become apparent that Gem does not remember her younger years quite the way that I do. Being a vocal proponent of the tenant that there is no such thing as a historical fact and that “what happened” is always subject to interpretation and selective memory, I have noticed that we tell some very different stories at time of what happened. Neither are “wrong” [although I get the impression that Gem is correcting me] but it does make you wonder why the narrative changed from mother to daughter, neh?
I have been pondering the stories that we tell to ourselves and how much of them stem from roles that we play in our lives and how we use both to identify who we are. An interesting article http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/how-a-hero-narrative-can-transform-the-self/ tied in these narratives about our lives with change and confabulation. Interesting concept that confabulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulationand obviously there are those who see it as a psychological disorder. I wonder if it is actually related to the ability to create multiple personalities, each with their own unique story.
And I wonder if the stories I am telling myself about myself and my roles in life are actually true, or just a story….
A professional photo shoot is scheduled for tomorrow here at work -- the new lender needs a picture, the boss didn't like the ones from last year, the underwriter decided he would like an update and we are going to get some group shots done. For the new website design, puportedly. Notice I didn't say I was getting MY picture taken -- I can if I want but I really hate getting my picture taken
I found this among my old workpapers -- it is a picture of me from 1994 at C&F in my first management job. Notice the typewriter on the desk and the lack of a PC! We had one PC at that point for the four-person department, which changed within a couple of months to a PC on every desk and one typewriter in the department. I still have that wig.....
I have not attempted to commit suicide -- unless you count not altering my lifestyle to live healthier. I have not had anyone close to me commit suicide -- unless you count my mother's refusal to eat. So, in all fairness, I only have what I think to draw on, not any real experience. IMNSHO, FWIIW: To make the choice that there is nothing ahead but darkness, and that your pain is greater than the pain that you will leave behind, IS a selfish act. That doesn't mean you are a bad or cruel or heedless person, that doesn't mean you don't care about those you are leaving behind, that doesn't mean you are "wrong". It means that what is happening to you and how it is making you feel trumps everything and anything else -- and isn't that the definition of selfishness?
Tears are very close to the surface today. Still today, I should say, my head has been aching with unshed tears for a couple of days now. I find myself thinking a lot about Robin Williams -- if someone so successful, so popular, so recognized, who figured out how to make a living and make people laugh by voicing all those cacophonous thoughts rattling about in his cranium, cannot silence the voices in his head and gave in to the darkness, what chance have I? The struggle against the creeping darkness, against the tide, goes on with quiet desperation behind closed doors and shut windows as people get up and get dressed and go forth every day to live and love and work and play -- they are the true heroes that shoulder their burdens and tell themselves "I can do this" knowing that their only reward will be to be granted the opportunity to do it again tomorrow ad infinitum. Maybe, for tomorrow is promised to no one. He gave up the struggle. Yes it was his choice -- I agree with the blogger who said that depression didn't kill him, he killed himself and Robin Williams exercised his choice not to go on. They are looking for the "cause", for the "precipitating incident" [as we say in history as we look for the cause of war or social change] without understanding the grinding fatigue that drags on your feet and spirit until you just want to stand still and scream "I'M TIRED!" Judge him? I cannot, I can only fear that if he with all his fame, family, fortune could not do everyday life anymore, that my own chances of keeping going are slim and I feel despair. Maybe that is the real reason why there is an uptick in suicides after a celebrity does it – that extra dollop of despair is just too much for some folks to handle.
RIP, man of many voices, the manic energy has dissipated and the voices are still, and you will be remembered. And I hope that the Williams family understands that they didn’t do anything wrong or fail in any way and that they can go on without carrying a cloud about with them.
There are few things that are more helpless than a newly hatched baby bird. This one had fallen out of the nest and was laying on the concrete of the parking lot, chirping pathetically in the blistering heat. It was struggling, trying to flutter stubs of wings, trying to move, trying to find comfort. I stopped and looked at it. There was no way it would live, it was too young. There was nothing to be done and I walked onto my appointment with eyes suddenly blurred with tears. Two hours later the little chirps were more feeble, wracking the body each time. The hot sun beat down and it couldn’t even wriggle – the ants and flies were starting to torment it. A huge van had parked right in front of it, a massive tire right next to it, and as I walked back into work, the van pulled out…. When I came back out to go home, the little body was covered with the ants and flies. When I came in the next morning, nothing was left but the skull and beak. A day later, that too was gone, washed away in a storm.
Gone. As though nothing had happened. But I remember, little bird, I remember
I’m sure that little bird had not been evil, had not deserved the horrible death it was dealt. I’m sure that remembering the little thing is rather dumb, that there are far more important things to think about. I’m sure that there is an analogy in here somewhere….
yeah yeah, I know, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. Cue the upbeat and postive thinking messages.... .But you know what? Sometimes you just have to lay down the burdens and take a moment to admit that you are neither a superhero nor a saint and you are doing the best that you can with the hand you have been dealt, neh?
Did you know that the optimun number of pigs in a gruntle is five? If you want a scholarly explanation of how "dis" really is an intensifier in this case rather than serving as an opposite, as well as the beginnings of the term, I suggest you google it. As for me, I am quite content to insist that I've lost my gruntle and need to find it ASAP since I don't want to sour the weekend.
I resemble that remark! My favorite boss once told me that I was very difficult to give a review to or do an action plan with because if he listed 10 points and one was a "needs improvement", I totally focused on that one and made it negative....
On the middle shelf in the secretary that used to stand in Grandmom Riley's house, there is a framed picture of my mother and my father standing on the marble steps of a rowhome in Highlandtown, Baltimore. It is May 28th, 1949 and they just got married in the parlor of the pastor's house next to St Elizabeth’s.
Pete and Jerry had grown up within a block of each other. They were both pretty popular in school and apparently they both dated others, but in the end, they always ended up together. He asked her to marry him before he left school 16 to join the Navy during WWII. I don’t know what the differences were, but that engagement ring went back and forth at least three times, so the engagement was rather tumultuous. But in the end, they got married. There are no happy pictures of friends and family to be found to mark this date -- the only two people who saw them get married was Aunt Nell, Mom's older sister, and Uncle Harry, Dad's older brother. You see, my mother was Roman Catholic and my father was Lutheran [I think] and that was a problem. Grandmom Riley supposedly insisted that Mom would have to be married in the Church, or she wouldn’t come to the wedding. Dad supposedly lost his temper and declared that if her mother couldn’t see her married Protestant, then his mother couldn’t see him married Catholic. Both Grandmom Riley and Grandmom Hughes agreed on one point – the day of the wedding, both mothers sat home and cried their eyes out.. It was not an auspicious start to the marriage and indeed, there were many problems.
I remember hearing this story when I was around eight years old – third grade it was [and I have written before about how life changed for me that year in explaining why Mira is 8 in SL]. I heard it again and again through the years from both of my grandmothers, with slightly different perspectives of course, as to who was at fault. Aunt Nell and Uncle Harry never spoke about it to me, nor did my parents, but my grandmothers both tried to give me a perspective on the relationship as things started falling apart around me, knowing that as an only child I was blaming myself for the dissonance in the house.
And what did that 8 year old learn? Most importantly, that there are always three sides to every story – his, her’s and what actually happened. That sometimes the way that you look at something changes the way that you feel about it, or about someone, and how you remember what happened. In later years, this perception crystallized into my oft-repeated comment that there is no such thing as an historical fact because it is all based on what someone remembered.. But she also learned that being in the middle of differing stories sucks because someone always wants you to take sides. In later years that has meant that I am sometimes alone because I refuse to do that….
I keep the picture, I keep the secretary, they are both a little piece of family history and part of my story about the choices I have made that make me who I am.
CEOExpress
This is Frank posing in a display on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World, Florida.
this is what hangout looks like when it is minimized, instead of going quietly in the tray .
and I hope you did too!
It's pretty simple -- it is what you don't know that will trip you up, that's obvious. And if you know you don't know you can take steps to find out and mitigate your weakness. The real area of risk is when you don't know what you don't know -- and reducing the size of that area is the aim of every person who even took on the responsibility of managing processes and procedures.
yeah yeah, I know, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. Cue the upbeat and postive thinking messages.... .But you know what? Sometimes you just have to lay down the burdens and take a moment to admit that you are neither a superhero nor a saint and you are doing the best that you can with the hand you have been dealt, neh? 
Did you know that the optimun number of pigs in a gruntle is five? If you want a scholarly explanation of how "dis" really is an intensifier in this case rather than serving as an opposite, as well as the beginnings of the term, I suggest you google it. As for me, I am quite content to insist that I've lost my gruntle and need to find it ASAP since I don't want to sour the weekend.
