A day off yeah! Now I wish I had a job.

I hope many families are enjoying this day off. Sometimes I think that every day off is like a vacation from insanity. Not that there's anything wrong with working hard, but in modern society it seems we idolize the motivated worker who spends 60 or more hours a week away from their family. I just wonder how we can expect to have well adjusted kids growing up, if they hardly ever see their parents. Of course it is admirable for people to work hard and pay for a home and put money away for their children's college tuition. I'm just wondering, what effect their absence has on their children's emotional and mental health. It isn't getting any easier for children growing up in a society that puts more interest on developing new technology than it does on solving social issues.

As Bobby might say;
The times they are a changin.

Does money motivate you to write?

I can only imagine that being able to do something that you enjoy in life and getting paid for doing it must be the ultimate joy. Perhaps many authors would agree. I wonder if most successful writers enjoy writing so much, that when starting out, money was secondary in their mind. The love or passion for writing is the motivation and the rewards are recognition and financial gain. Although I haven't reached that point of success, I can tell you that being able to have time to write is one of the most satisfying experiences. There is a feeling, perhaps pride, that you experience after successfully writing a good article. I don't know how one defines it, but I see a successful article as one that fits together smoothly from sentence to sentence. It is easy to read, and keeps your interest until the end. I don't know if there is a formula to use (I doubt it) but I believe it does requrie hard work and concentration, because you realize that every word is important. Using the appropriate words and in a specific order, enables the reader to create an image, a story. If it is true what they say about; "a picture being worth a thousand words," then perhaps we could say, "a thousand words is like a painting."

It's Tuesday, what happened to Monday

Yesterday flew by and I can hardly believe it's Tuesday already. I spent most of Monday listening to a couple of seminars offered free by the provincial government. The first information and question session was three hours long and focused on Ontario employee's rights in the workplace. I found it interesting and learned some surprising facts. Before beginning the talk, the facilitator handed out a quiz with nine true and false questions, that we answered before getting started . I will share it with you, so you can do it for fun. The answers are at the bottom of this page. (BTW I only got 6 out of the 9 questions right).


1. The standard work week is 48 hours.....................T or F

2. Employees receive a minimum of 5 days
sick time per year...................................................T or F

3. You can be fired without notice for
misconduct on the job..............................................T or F

4. Men and women must be paid the same wage
for the same work in the same workplace..................T or F

5. Joining a union in your workplace is
always optional........................................................T or F

6. An employee is entitled to a safe
work environment................................................... T or F

7. After 12 months of employment, employees
are entitled to two weeks paid vacation......................T or F

8. Employees in stores have the right to
refuse to work on Sunday.........................................T or F

9. Employees are entitled to 1/2 hour break
every 5 hours..........................................................T or F

Answers:
1. T
2. F
3. T
4. T
5. F
6. T
7. T
8. T
9. T

Of course there are always exceptions to these rules, but there are minimum standards that employers must adhere to. It is worth the effort to learn about your rights. Who knows when an employer is unknowingly or deliberately exploiting them. What is most important is ensuring you are working in a safe and healthy workplace environment, and are confident enough to speak up if you are in doubt.

Yes, it's Friday!

Okay, maybe I shouldn't be excited about it being the end of the work week, primarily because I'm not working. Nevertheless there are many who are. I'm feeling happy for them. It's starting to snow heavily here; probably 20 or more centimeters or about 8 inches, of cold, white powdery flakes, by tomorrow. Winter; it's just too long.

China has had it's worst winter in fifty years. Millions are affected, and hundreds of thousands wishing to travel for the Chinese New Year, are stranded at railways with no trains running. Listen China; if your leader plans on making a New Year's resolution, he can start by paying a little more money out for snow removal then pay some more to the common worker. Anyway, best wishes and have a Happy New Year. Happy birthday to all you rats by the way, since I heard it's your year. How can being a rat be a good thing? I suppose it's a step up from being a snake.

Does it hurt to help?

"Every cloud has a silver lining." That's an inspirational saying. "It'll all be better in the morning," that's another inspirational comment, and how about; "it's always darkest before the dawn?" These comments have been used for ages, usually to try and cheer people up when they are feeling down. Do they really work? I doubt it, sorry to say. If a person is really depressed, these comments only have a fleeting glimpse of hope, that things will get better. All of us want to be happy, but the pressures of life can be overwhelming at times, and the fun is sucked right out of it. So what can we do?

I'm not a qualified therapist, nor would I want to be one (except for the salary part of it) but I think any one of us can help others, even if we haven't been, so called "trained" in that field. I really believe that people natually want to help each other. Perhaps it goes back many thousands of years, when we had to survive in groups (I didn't want to use the word "packs") and protect ourselves from wild animals, that could tear us apart if we were caught off guard, and alone. We are instinctively drawn to help each other out, although nowadays people have become wary of helping others out and for ligitimate reasons. One being that we can get sued or even hurt if we do the wrong thing. An example of each would be when offering to help out an injured person who has been hurt in an accident. An unethical person along with a immorale and sharp witted lawyer could sue your pants off. Another example would be trying to break up an argument between a couple. I've heard stories of a well intentioned person getting severley beaten when the arguing couple turned their anger on the "meddling" intruder.

So naturally when we wish to help out anyone in distress, it is vitally important to be aware of the risks. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from helping others out, in fact I encourage it, however, you must remember that your welfare comes first. If everyone would help each other out, no matter how much they dislike the other person; the world could be changed overnight. Do you agree?

No News is Good News

It's morning here, and the sun is trying to break through the clouds. It's not too cold, (around -9 degrees C or 16 degrees F), but the wind is making it feel much colder.

Sadly, early this morning, a terrible accident here in Ottawa killed three young people and seriously injured two others. All five were driving in an SUV which ran into a city OC Transpo bus around 2 a.m. Two women and one man were killed and one female is still in critical condition. The bus driver and one passenger were released after being checked by paramedics. It's hard not to be affected by a tragedy like this, even not knowing the victims or their families. The cause of the accident is still being investigated this morning. It sure makes one realize how quickly a life can end. Even as bad as it can be sometimes, I wonder if we should appreciate life more.

In some odd news from overseas, it is reported that people are posing nude and having sex around the famous Vimy memorial in France. The monument was built by a joint effort between Canada and France to honour thousands of Canadian soldiers who were killed defending France from the Germans during the First World War. It's an unusual place for men and women to expose themselves and indulge in sexual acts. I'll bet that none of the people engaging in these public sexual activities were even living at the time the monument was opened by King Edward VIII in 1935 (Oh God! I hope not!).

Waiting for the UPS Guy (or Gal)

I waited all of yesterday for a digital cable box to be delivered to my son's place by UPS. The reason is, that for a couple of days, I missed their first couple of attempts to deliver it and the final notice card was issued on Tuesday, I think. After my son called them on Wednesday night to see what the status of the deliver was, we were told they could deliver it yesterday (Thursday). It never showed up. That's annoying, and what is more annoying is they won't give you any idea of what time they deliver. It's a generic answer; any time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m I was told. That's twelve hours of apprehension, not knowing whether to take the garbage out or even talk on the phone, for fear of missing the precious package's arrival. I'll have to give them credit that their policy doesn't allow them to deliver 24 hours a day, or I would be very apprehesive about getting to sleep, fearing the door bell might ring at three in the morning. Anyway, I called them this morning to ask what was going on with the mystery package. The woman I spoke with was helpful, and told me at first, that it was being held at the UPS counter, then upon further investigation she said that it wasn't. It started getting complicated from there, and I was a little put off when she said "Would you like me to reschedule the delivery for Monday?" "Well, that would be disappointing," I said to her (calmly and nicely),"because I was looking forward to having the digital box for the weekend." She asked if she could put me hold on while she looked up some more information. I said,"Sure, no problem." I think she might have forgotten to press the hold button, because I heard her say something in French, which sounded like she was swearing to herself. However I couldn't understand the words, as I don't speak the language. All I could sense was she sounded frustrated. She came back on the phone and apologized for making me wait, and I said not to worry, it wasn't a problem. Then she said the parcel was supposed to be delivered today. That's when I said, "Well I waited all day yesterday, and that's the day I was told it was supposed to be delivered." She asked me to hold on again so she could talk to someone to find out more information. When she returned, she apologized again for making me wait and told me that they received a call last night (Thursday) and it would be delivered today. I told her, we called Wednesday night and were told it would be delivered yesterday. She said she understood that, but they have a cutoff time around 7 p.m. and calls after that time, are counted as the next day's calls (I think that's how she explained it). It was very confusing, and still is, but she said the package would definitely be delivered today (Friday). She also apologized for not being able to tell me what time it would be delivered. She said that there was no way for her to tell what time the truck would be delivering in my area. All this new technology is wonderful, but it would be so much easier if the delivery guy could just give me a quick phone call before coming. Would that be asking too much from them? I mean; the guy has missed me three times. Wouldn't that save them time and money also, especially with the price of fuel today. I'm convinced that electronic communication is great for computers, but spoken words are much better for people.