We went to a DQ the other night, and the bill came to $4.22.  So my husband hands the cashier a $20, a quarter, and two pennies.  $20.27 total.  Now this young woman is not actually dispensing ice cream, she’s a roving cashier.  Which I think is FANTASTIC because then my cone or cup or whatever is not handled by the same person who’s handling the admittedly filthy money.  However, they need to pick a new person to do this job.  Here’s why:

She took the money, and handed my husband back the two pennies, saying, “I’ll just give these back to you” and then she proceeded to give him his $16 in bills and three pennies.  Hello?  Is anyone home?  What school do you attend, so I can warn others not to send their children there?

So very, very depressing.  This is what we have to look forward to.

Part Two: Never push on a door marked pull…

There are two young women who work in the same department as I do, and my initial opinion of them, based on their speech patterns, loud volume in public areas, and other behaviors, was that they were locals.  But, since they were employed in an IT department, I granted them a certain basic assumption that they had some level of skill and intelligence.

We have security doors in this building, and there are three features to them.  First, there is a “black box” on the outside that, when you wave your badge past it, it releases the lock on the doors and you can pull them open and enter.  Second, inside the doors is a sensor that “pops” the door whenever you get within range.  It is cranky; sometimes it triggers and unlocks but then re-locks immediately, so you have to step away, out of range, and go back in range. 

The third feature is the panic button.  You press and hold it while opening the door.  One person of average height cannot do it, because the button and the door are too far apart.  So, you need a partner.  Thus my tale begins… 

These two were having a problem getting through the door.  By the time I got there, a traffic jam had formed , with five of us trying to get out.  Instead of backing off and letting the door reset, they are taking turns pushing on the door.  They are complaining bitterly about how this same thing happened to them yesterday. 

Someone mentions the panic button, and one of them goes over there and punches the button repeatedly.  It has to be held down while you push the door or else it doesn’t work  So the other one is still pushing on the door, but never at exactly the right moment when the door is releasing due to the  panic button being pressed.  

They will think I’m very friendly from now on, because I’m not going to be able to avoid grinning every time I see them.  Irresistible!

I think Franklin is an amazing and interesting person.  At one point in his life, he determined to look at himself with clear eyes, determine what values were important to him, how his current behavior deviated from those values, and put together a plan to improve himself.  If you read his autobiography, it’s astonishing that his plan for self-improvement is still valid and viable today.

Keep in mind his quote above when you decide if you’re willing to let other people control you because it’s the “safe” move.  It’s never safe to give up any portion of your freedom; you will die a little inside each time you make such a compromise.

Organizations that have too much power fall into this category.  Abuse of power by certain government agencies. Companies who mistreat their employees or contract jobs out so they won’t have direct responsibility when things go wrong.  Official oppression of many kinds.  

When I read stories about Wal-Mart double contracting their warehouse operations so they wouldn’t be responsible when the employees there were shorted on their paychecks, and when I see the coverage of the 6-year-old girl who was patted down in an airport, it makes me physically ill. 

I don’t know what the solution is to this, but it seems to me that it is getting worse.  And I wish I knew what I, personally, could do about it.

Nobody should assume from this that I’m either a doormat or overly belligerent.  I’m big on cooperation and getting along.  But there are some specific steps that I need to take to make a positive change.  And this is my first step.  Wish me luck.

Keep in mind that I’m not a fiction writer, and don’t really want to be at this point.  So this is the perfect venue; write about the truth.  About what I know, or believe I know.  I do write, a lot, but it’s work, not fun, and it’s not very creative.

So I’m back.  Let’s see if I can keep it up.

My real problem is the quality of these contacts.  I feel like I’m being spammed.  You know, the messages with bad grammar that sound like they were written by ESL students.  Here’s one example:

Hello ,
Hope you are doing good,
I got a job opening for you as a “Technical Writer”. If you are available and interested, please send your updated resume asap.

As you can see, this was probably semi-automated, as there’s an odd space after “Hello.” There’s bad grammar and several examples of bad punctuation.   Not too awful, but check out the next one.  It’s from the same company, but a different sender.

Hello {my first name},
Hope you are doing good.
 
I have an Immediate requirement for Technical Writer, Please respond with your  updated resume in a word format with  a best number to reach you if your interested in this position.

Here’s a link to the story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08230/904934-455.stm. Here’s another one; http://www.pittsburghpost-gazette.com/pg/08226/903798-85.stm

If you read the article you will see that Kenneth Yaw’s first wife, Maureen, was a wonderful woman who raised 10 well-adjusted children who had many friends and were involved in many activities in the community. When she died of breast cancer, that was the end of her happy family. Without Maureen, the real Kenneth came to the surface.

Let me tell you how I know about the real Kenneth.  When we became involved with him, he was a surgeon at UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.) Our son had a painful lump on his hand, and Dr. Yaw performed the biopsy that discovered a rare bone cancer. The options were, removal of the bone and associated finger plus chemotherapy, or a combination of radiation and chemotherapy.  Our son, being 17 years old, determined that he wanted to try to keep the finger, so he opted for radiation and chemo. 

That did not sit well with Dr. Yaw, and he called us repeatedly to insist that our son should have the surgery. We told him that he was under the care of an oncologist that we trusted, and that he had opted for the non-surgical treatment. At one point, I indicated that our son had made his own decision on this, and we stood by his choice. His reaction was, in hindsight, exactly what you would expect. He could not believe that we were allowing a teenager to be involved in his own care.

Eventually we changed oncologists (to the doctor who would later treat Mario Lemieux for his Hodgkins lymphoma) but this new doctor agreed with our son’s choice of treatment, too.  Since our son is cancer-free for over 15 years now, we feel that it was the best option.

But that was not the end of Dr. Yaw. What he did next will inform you as to his basic character.  He sent us a letter that said if we did not make our son have the surgery, we were negligent as parents.  Then he proceeded to say that our son would probably DIE, and that it would be our fault. I believe he also implied that he would turn us in to the authorities (probably child welfare services) if we didn’t respond to him. Imagine receiving such a letter, when you are in the midst of a terrible crisis, where your child is facing a life-threatening illness. Imagine using the word “die” in such a letter. I rarely cry, but this letter made me so angry that I think I may have had what they now call a panic attack. I wept and shook uncontrollably.

Yaw is one of the few people that I believe can be called evil – he lacks empathy, thinks he is always right, and doesn’t care about the effects of his actions.  I’m pretty sure he’s what the mental health professionals call a sociopath; no conscience.  Karma in this lifetime has caught up with him. It will not change who or what he is, but at least the remaining children are free of him.

The opening acts were The Chris Higbee Project, fronted by the fiddle player from the now defunct Povertyneck Hillbillies, and the Outlaws, a southern rock group that sounds like a combination of Tom Petty and Lynrd Skynrd. The only thing against them is that a good proportion of their songs sound pretty much the same.

What was not good was the crowd. They were smoking during the sets, which was against the rules, and if you needed to get away from it to breathe, you’d miss the show. People moved into other people’s seats between sets, and when they were asked to move, there was some pushing and shoving around us. Someone almost fell on me. Afterwards, out in the parking lot, people were falling-down drunk. And then they got into cars to drive home.

The crowd stood up through the whole concert. I am very short, so as soon as a twelve-year-old stands up in front of me, I’m done. I’m used to that happening with certain bands, and my husband tries to get aisle seats for us, but in this case we were mid-row.

What I’m not used to is having to use my inhaler multiple times before I can breathe again after getting a face-full of smoke. You can’t turn them in, because they know it was you and then you can’t go back to your seat. I always thought that Pittsburghers were nicer than the average, but maybe I need to revisit that assumption.

I’m kind of glad the NFL has instituted text messaging during the games to turn people in.  That should be the case for all of these venues.  Who knows who you are texting; after all, everyone does it all the time.  I already added the text address to my contacts; first game is coming up soon for us.

The reason this resonated with me, so much so that I feel I should write about it here, is because the comics page has gotten into the act.  Normally I don’t read the weekday comics in my local paper (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) but since I’m not working yet, I have time to indulge a number of interests and vices.  The Mary Worth strip has been doing a story line on phishingschemes.  What a fantastic way to educate a ton of people, especially the demographic who reads Mary Worth – basically my parents.  People over 70.  These folks need help.  Many of them, like my dad, will get the “there’s something wrong here” vibe, and call a more knowledgeable person (me) but what if you don’t know someone who can advise you or you don’t have a natural skepticism?

So now I’m thinking about what I can do as an IT expert to reduce our exposure to the kinds of attacks David describes.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I should try to educate people about what you should do to protect your computer, and what you should never do.  I’m going to post things like that on this blog, and also pull together an article that I’ll try to post on writing sites.

David’s article mentions some things we can do on our own computers to protect them from becoming part of an attack.  Here they are:

1. Installing anti-virus software and keeping it updated with new virus definitions
2. Installing operating system updates
3. Never opening e-mail attachments
4. Educating yourself about threats

At the risk of repeating myself, the bottom line may just be having a healthy skepticism, and realizing that even if a message appears to be from someone you know, it could be faked quite easily.  So if something doesn’t feel right, send a new message to the person you think sent it, find out where they got the message and if you should open the attachment. You could save yourself a lot of grief, and prevent passing a damaging file to others.

First, the trip.  I posted some of my pictures to Snapfish, and is the link: http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=67041217895716020/l=411006151/g=86393974/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Here’s the puppy:  She’s a miniature dachshund, about 6 months old now.  I can almost see her growing daily.  I had to loosen her harness a few weeks ago, so I know she is bigger than when I first got her.  She is a rescue, given up by her breeder because she was sick and the breeder couldn’t handle the vet bills.

I say that I’m feeling guilt, but actually I’m feeling guilty that I’m not feeling very guilty at all.  If that makes sense.  A wise woman told me that I’m in a normal stage of the grieving process you go through with job loss, and it does sound like I’m close to getting on with my life.  The trouble is, my perfect life might not involve much IT work.  Running a coffee shop, baking biscotti, making trail mix from scratch, and creating healthy quick breakfast and lunch items to sell – that sounds much better than working in IT.  My husband is certified by the health department to run a food operation, so if he retires next August, that would be the time to take such a plunge. 

In the meanwhile, I’m going to actually try to apply for a job.  After I read two books.  And after I finish the dog training class.  And get all my documents organized and filed.  I am a procrastinator, yes, but if I did get a job quickly, it would mess me up because the dog is not ready to be left alone for 8 hours a day. 

I just feel, with some justification, that my next job is going to be just like the last job, I’ll be miserable and bored and not challenged within 6 months, and I will also be stuck.  Subsequent moves will be made with much deliberation and care, I can assure you.