Communication

Yesterday I posted about chasing your dream. Well, it really was more about how I’ve changed over the years and how I’ve tried to dish out advice to others on following their dreams. I ended that post by saying I would share my dream with you tomorrow. Well, it’s tomorrow. I know I haven’t been blogging much, but I made a promise yesterday and decided that it’s important to keep it.

Anybody that is friends with me on Facebook knows that I love Arbonne products. I’ve only been using them for about 10 months, but I love them. It started with an online Facebook party that I attended. I learned about the Arbonne products and their pure, safe, and beneficial ingredients. Arbonne was founded by Petter Mørck. You can read the story of Arbonne here.  http://est1980.arbonne.com/our-story.shtml

The first week of March I became an Arbonne Independent Consultant. My goal was not to sell Arbonne, but just to continue making my purchases with a better discount. However, when I signed up, a box arrived. The box had 10 catalogs and 10 RE9 samples. I put the box away and went on about my business. In just a couple of days, after listening to that box call my name, I decided to just take the catalogs and the samples and see what happened.

What happened is other people were interested. Some people were interested because I had been talking up Arbonne on Facebook. Other people were truly looking for something. Maybe skincare, maybe nutrition, maybe makeup.  What I’ve found in the last 60 days is that I can share my love of a product and maybe, just maybe build my own business.

It’s been kind of a whirlwind, roller coaster ride the last 60 days. One minute, I’m asking myself “What the hell are you doing? Why are you wasting your time?” For every one of those kind of questions, there were probably three comments to myself like  “I can’t believe this!” “This is great!”

It’s working for me right now, because I am actively believing in my dream. What is my dream?

After becoming an IC with Arbonne and after beginning to actively share Arbonne, I began to become more acquainted with some of the people on my “team”. One of these sweet ladies sent me a book entitled “Where Will You Be Five Years From Today?”

Before I even opened that I book, I knew exactly where I wanted to be five years from today. Retired. Our plan is to retire in less than 3 years. Doug has given about all he has to give to his employer. He says that when he retires, I retire. But I’ve had questions about this retirement thing. Like – Insurance? In 3 years I will only be 58. I won’t be eligible for Medicare.

So when I looked at the pretty book tied up with a pretty white bow, I laid it aside and gave it some thought. What came to me was sort of a vision, really just a little glimmer on the horizon. Maybe, just maybe, if I work really hard and follow the plans that have been laid out before me by other women who have already achieved success, I could earn enough from this Arbonne thing to pay for my health insurance.

I’ve got a great learning tool with the Arbonne website. Everything I need to know as an Independent Consultant, I can find on the site. There is a wonderful team of women who have already walked this walk and they are willing to share, mentor, and encourage me. Plus I’m a smart girl, I have a few ideas myself.

One of them was to place a small display of the fizz sticks on my desk. (What are fizz sticks – click the link below

http://www.arbonne.com/PWS/AnnaHibbard/store/AMUS/product/Energy-Fizz-Sticks-Pomegranate-2079,8010.aspx

I also ordered a special glass for my fizz sticks. This is a conversation starter. People are in and out of my office all day. Some people notice, some people don’t. If they ask what it is, I explain what it is. If this opens up the conversation to skincare, makeup, or nutritional products, I pull out a prepackaged sample pack that I put together and hand it to them. I consider this an investment. An investment in myself and my dream. So far this is working for me.

Like any dream, I can’t just sit here and wait for the eager new Arbonne customers to come to me. I have to go find them. Hopefully, I will find others who believe in the products the way I do and I can teach them how to fulfill their dreams.

So if I call you, or text you, or email you and ask you about your skincare products, your makeup products, or maybe if you would like to learn how to eat healthy again, I’m not offended if you tell me you aren’t interested right now.  If you say no to me today, please feel free to call me if you change your mind. Please be patient with me if I call you in a couple of months to share with you a new product that I’ve learned about and I thought of you when I saw it. If I ask you to host an Arbonne party either live or in your home, you aren’t obligated to me in any way, you aren’t obligated to purchase anything. But I will reward you for helping me. You help me by allowing me to introduce this wonderful products to your friends. Plus it’s a fun way to reconnect and meet new people.

All I ask is that you are open to me and willing to discuss your dreams with me. After all, I am a problem solver.

I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. Growing up, I was never much of a people person. I was very shy. Painfully shy. Even after divorcing my first husband at the tender age of 25, I was still very shy. I moved into a gated apartment complex and I really hated leaving with someone in their car. Why? Because it would require me to stop at the entrance and tell the guard who I was.

This was just with strangers. You can ask anyone who really knew me back then and they will tell you that I was talkative, engaging, and fun. But with people I didn’t know I kept my head down, didn’t make eye contact, and would probably faint dead away if spoken too.

Something happened along the way. I’m not sure where. But somewhere in the last 25 years, I began to lift my head and see what was going on around me. I looked people, strangers, straight in the eye and smiled. They smiled back, most of the time. I asked questions. I found my voice.

Now I find that I will insert myself into other people’s conversations. Complete strangers. Recently I was having breakfast with my mom at Cracker Barrel and I overheard a couple talking about their plans for the day. They were visiting Fort Worth and trying to decide what they should do next. They asked the waiter. He seemed to be caught off guard and didn’t offer any real suggestions. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and then got up and walked over to their table. I said “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but hear you asking about what there is to do in Fort Worth.” Then we proceeded to have a very nice conversation about the Stockyards. You can’t come to Fort Worth and not visit the Stockyards. There is major road construction going on I-35. They weren’t too hip on traversing that route again. So I told them how to get there the back way from where we were.

Now see, 30 years ago I would have loved to offer my advice. But I wouldn’t have. I would have convinced myself that they didn’t need to hear from me. That they didn’t want to hear from me.

I hear conversations going on around me all the time. I find it very very hard to keep my mouth shut. Sometimes, even at work, I keep my door shut. This is to not only cut out the outer room noise so that I can focus on what I’m doing, but it is also to keep me out of things going on.

When I stop and think about it, who I am now amazes me. What I’ve realized is, I’m a problem solver. I’m not saying that to toot my own horn. But I think that’s my gift, problem solver.

I think I have great ideas. The problem is, people rarely listen to me when they should. Ha! Ha! You know the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

Example #1 – I had a friend who lived in a small town. She wanted to open up a catering business and maybe a bakery. She’s a great cook! But, in my opinion, she was thinking too big. She talked about renting a building, buying equipment, etc. My suggestion was to start small. Start from her kitchen. Each day come up with a menu of a couple of sandwiches or box lunches. Call local business and find out if they would like to have the menu faxed or emailed to them each day. She could send it either the day before or early the morning of. If people were interested, they would fax their order to her. Since it was a small town, she could offer free delivery. This would enable her to build a clientele before actually making a big up front investment. She didn’t see what I saw.

Example #2 – I had a friend who loved to bake cookies and cup cakes. She was really good at it too. She used only the best ingredients. The first mistake she made was calling the city to find out what she needed to do to open a bakery. Of course they gave her a long list of permits and requirements. She was crushed. We had a long conversation, in which I basically presented the same ideas as Example #1. But she didn’t see what I saw.

Example #3 – I have a young friend who has tried unsuccessfully to launch a homemade soap business. She has made soaps for me and they were lovely. She was a single mom and I knew that there were durable supplies that she needed in order to make and promote her soaps on a larger scale. She seemed to want to go from hobby soap maker to side income soap maker. We talked about farmers markets and different craft fairs. But in order to do those things, you have to have product. So I invested in her dream. I gave her some money hoping that she would buy the molds and things that she needed.  She continued to make small batches of custom soaps. So, she didn’t see what I saw.

But those were their dreams. So they didn’t need to see what I saw. They only needed to see what they see. They shared their dreams with me and I had a visualization of their dream. But apparently what I visualized was not what they visualized. And that’s ok. Sometimes, people just like to talk out loud and that’s fine too. I’m happy that they were comfortable enough to share their dreams with me.

Now, I am chasing my own dream. Four months ago I didn’t even know it was my dream. I’ll share my dream with you tomorrow.

Yes, this year is nearly over. But I woke up this morning, looked at the old woman in the mirror and whispered “Happy birthday lady.” Somehow I have managed to make it to the age of 55. It seems like just yesterday I was 17. Apparently a lot of life happened between 17 and 55. I see it in the mirror, in the lines on my face. I feel it in my attitude. My personality is sort of like a roller coaster.

I wish I was more even tempered, but sadly I am not. I wish I could keep my opinion to myself, but sadly I can not. I wish I liked people in general, but sadly I do not. Even though I don’t like people in general, I find that I am a people pleaser. I guess I just don’t like confrontation. I’m sensitive to a change in tone when someone speaks to me.

But that’s not why I’m here today. I’m here today with the obligatory list of things I’ve learned in the last 55 years. I’ve reflected on these basic tenets and tweaked them into sort of list of New Year’s Resolutions. But mainly, things I need to remember or things I need to strive to be more aware of on my next trip around the sun.

1. Be kind and thoughtful, but don’t be a doormat.

2. Don’t be a gossip. If it isn’t kind or encouraging, zip your lip!

3. Don’t put someone on the top of your list, when you aren’t even on theirs

4. Return negativity with positivity

5. When #4 doesn’t work, remove the cause of the negativity permanently.

6. Rest your mind and body as needed. Your aren’t 20!

7. Don’t be idle. Time is short and valuable. I’m 55, I have far less time than I thought

8. Early to bed and early to rise is a good motto to live by

9. Don’t be silent! Speak for others when they can’t speak for themselves

10. I’m too old to be in a clique. I can only be myself.

I may need to come back to this list from time to time in the next year. After looking back over the list, some of them seem contradictory. Cutting someone out of your circle may not seem “kind”. But time is too short to allow others to bring you down.

Save

I feel

• Forgotten
• Sad
• Unimportant
• Melancholy
• Lost
• Lonely
• Unimportant
• Bereaved
• Invisible
• Cast aside
• Used
• Small
• Discarded
• Hurt

I’m beginning to feel –

• Angry
• Vengeful
• Frustrated
• Anxious
• Offended
• Resentful
• Indignant
• Contentious
• Cold
• Outraged
• Unforgiving
• Distant
• Indifferent
• Hostile
• Unsympathetic

At my age I’ve learned some of life’s hard lessons. But I’m still learning and I’ve got the scars currently healing on my heart to prove it. Life would be a lot easier if I could just turn off the rest of the world and lock myself away here on this hill in the middle of nowhere. If it was just me and Doug forever and ever, I think I could be content with that.

But alas, there are other relationships in my life. Sometimes they are difficult to navigate no matter how long you have been doing it. I cry over relationships that seem to be fizzling out. I wish I could fix them. But I can reach out only so many times. Silence and indifference speaks volumes. I won’t beg. I won’t force my way in.

I’m not perfect. I know that. There are things I wish I could change. But you can’t turn back time. Although imperfect, I think I do make an effort. I do tend to sometimes read to much into things. One thing that I have found is that usually these things tend to work themselves out.

Our intimacy ebbs and flows over the years. I sometimes think of relationship like rivers running across the country. Raging rapids followed by calm streams. Intense busyness followed by quiet stillness. Or the ocean. Raging, dark waves followed by calm, glassy seas.

We are each occupied with our day to day life. So I try to chalk it up to that. But it still makes me sad.

We had a weekend visitor a few weeks ago. My mother. I’m grateful to still have my mother, but I really miss my Mom. My mother seemed happy the weekend she was here. She was chatty and engaging. She was comfortable doing with us whatever we did. She sat on the front porch in the morning and chatted with Doug. We visited her sister. We looked at old pictures as I scanned them into the computer. She didn’t recognize me or my sister in a picture taken when we were about 14 or 15 in the mid 70’s with my cousin, Jamie.

“Who is this?” She asked, her eyebrows bunched together as she looked at it. “They look familiar.” Finally I said, “That’s me, Trisha, and Jamie.” She looked at it again and said “Oh yes.” But I could tell by the look in her eye, that it was just a picture of three teenage girls to her. That makes me sad.

The visitor a few weeks ago, seemed like a distant relative. It’s a weird, disjointed, feeling. Like having someone you don’t really know, spending time with you. She’s still mother, but my Mom is gone.

My Mom was always a take charge type of person. If someone was sick, she was there. It didn’t matter if it was her own child or someone elses, her brother, her sister, her mother, her father, a friend, or an in-law, She was there to do whatever needed to be done. A cool cloth on your forehead, a moist swab for your mouth, brushing your hair, tidying you up, making you feel human even as some prepared to meet death.

If I needed Mom or if anyone else needed Mom, she dropped what she was doing and she came. She was truly there for you. Heart, Mind, and Soul.

I miss my friend, my Mom. She was my very first friend. She was my truest friend and champion. When I made a meringue pie and the meringue fell, I threw up my hands and screamed “I GIVE UP!” She walked to the refrigerator and handed me the eggs and said “Start over! No daughter of mine gives up so easily.” When I was wallowing in self pity one Sunday afternoon over a break up, she laughed at me. She was tired of it and felt it had gone on long enough. She finally said, “I can’t believe you’re going to let that little toad of a man upset you.”

It sneaks up on you and catches you unaware. When Mom became forgetful, I told myself that it was just a part of getting older. But then you wake up and realize that it’s something more. It’s this epidemic, called Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is a thief. It’s taken my Mom a little at a time until she has become just a shadow of the person that she was.

She’s a tiny little woman who is happy just being wherever she is. As long as she’s is content and happy, I can’t really ask for anything else. But I cry. I sob. I wallow in my sadness for a bit. Then I pick myself up, wipe away my tears, and put one foot in front of another. My circle of friends and family are filled with people doing the same. I am not alone, but I am.

My life is filled with commuting, working, cleaning, and an abundance of other chores. The free time that I do have seems to slip through my fingers like sand in an hour glass. I’m always going to do that one thing “tomorrow”. I’ll start organizing my house tomorrow. I’ll start exercising tomorrow. I’ll start eating better tomorrow. I’ll spend more time  with my mother next month. We’ll visit with Lila next month. I’ll spend time with cousins and aunts and uncles this Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter. We’ll take all those trips when we retire.

It seems all my life I’ve been waiting on tomorrow. My fear is that when tomorrow comes I’ll be doing another load of laundry and planning another tomorrow that doesn’t come. I have a 15 month old great nephew and a 7 week old grand daughter that I fear will not know me. Doug has family that I love and enjoy spending time with. But they live across the country and we plan on spending time with them “some day”. My mother has Alzheimer’s and my days with her are slipping away.

I am married to a man that I love. He is a wonderful, loving, provider. Our goal is early retirement. But he is a homebody and loves being here. I can hear the sound of the four wheeler taking him somewhere right now. We have 50 acres and he loves doing his thing here. I love working along side him here. But sometimes this distance and this place feels like a millstone around my neck.

There are times I feel isolated and disconnected from those that matter to me. The sadness and discouragement spills over me and pulls me down. Today is one of those days.

Time to gather the tax receipts for the farm and organize them for the tax lady. Maybe after I get that done we can make plans to do something fun next weekend.

Normally I have lunch with my mother on Tuesdays. Not every Tuesday. But maybe two or three Tuesdays a month. I started taking care of her bills last year. They seemed to be getting away from her. So she and I decided that I would take over that duty. It’s just one less thing that she has to worry about. On a recent Tuesday, I ran into Fuzzy’s and got us a couple of tacos and some queso. No two people love queso as much as my mom and I. You should see her eyes light up when queso comes out of a sack!  But this isn’t about queso, this is about cell phones.

One of the things that I take care of for her is her cell phone.  She occasionally has trouble with it.  She has lost it on ocassion. I have ordered her another one, knowing that she would find the lost one once the new one was ordered. She has occasionally let the battery completely run down on it. When this happens she plugs it in and waits for it to charge. After several hours she checks it and finds that she still cannot use it. She will call me on the phone and tell me “I need a new cell phone. This one is broke.” What has happened is the phone has turned itself off and she doesn’t know how to turn it back on. So one of us will go over there, push the green button and Voila! It’s fixed! This has happened at least twice in the last year. She has also said that she needs her air conditioning in her van fixed, only for us to find that the snowflake (A/C) button isn’t pushed in.

So after we ate, I was sitting at her desk going thru her mail, when all of a sudden she jumped up and said “I’ve got something I need you to do!!” and ran off into the other room. She very much reminded me of my grandmother, her own mother, when she did this. I don’t know if it was her tone of voice, her hand movements, or what. But guess what she came back with? A new cell phone still in the AT&T box.

I asked her, “Where did you get this?”  She said she didn’t remember as she handed me the box.  I opened the box to find a Samsung Galaxy Rugby.  In the box was a receipt from Radio Shack for the purchase of a phone for $19.99.  Now there were a lot of questions I should have asked at that particular moment.  They did not come to mind until I went back to work and my brain started to wrap itself around some of the things that were said and happened during that little lunch period.  She said, “I want to be able to take pictures.”

So I asked her “Is this a phone that you have to add minutes to?”  She shrugged her shoulders.  I asked her where her other cell phone was.  The one that she uses all the time.  The one that I pay the bill for each month.  She went into the other room and returned with three more cell phones.  Her regular black flip cell phone, a red flip cell phone she lost last year, and a Kyocera flip phone that I had never seen before in my life.  She opens up the Kyocera phone as my head begins to spin and says to me “This one doesn’t have any of my phone numbers in it.  I just use it when I want to call long distance.”

This is where I should have asked “Why don’t you use this phone?” as I picked up the black cell phone.  But I didn’t.  I took the Kyocera phone and turned it on and saw that it had the “Virgin Mobile Prepay” logo on it.  So I sat that aside and said “We won’t worry about this one right now.  It’s one of those you have to add minutes to.”  Then I turned my attention to the Samsung phone.  At this point, I guess part of my brain shut down.  For some reason I assumed this was also a “Pay as you go” phone.

I took the sim card out of her cell phone that we pay for every month and put it in the Samsung phone.  I tested it and it worked with that cell phone.  Then I put everything back the way it was because it was time for me to leave and go back to work.  As I put everything back I tell her “Your sim card works in this Samsung.”  I’ll come over next week and swtich it over for you.  We’ll have to make sure you know how to use it.

I leave her house with a slight sensation of vertigo.  But I’m finally able to push those questions that are nagging at me aside.  After being back at my desk for a couple of hours I suddenly realize I didn’t ask the question I should have asked.  I wondered why a Samsung Rugby would be sold as a “pay as you go” phone for only $19.99.  That was the price on the receipt that she showed me.  But mainly I did not ask “Did you sign any paperwork?”

So I pick up the phone and call her and ask this question.  She says “Yes, I signed some paperwork.  I should have shown it to you, but I forgot.”  So I ask her to go get the paperwork and call me back.  She calls me back and I ask her “On that paperwork is there anywhere on there that it says anything about a monthly fee?”

She says “It say’s the monthly rate is $59.95.” I ask her “Why would you sign a contract for a phone at $59.95 per month, when you’re only paying $28.95 now?”  We have a conversation where I confuse the hell out of her and she sends my head spinning all over again.  So I ask her “When did you get this phone?”  She says she thinks she got it Monday, because she was having trouble with her cell phone.

Knowing that time is of the essence and that she probably has at least 14 days, I call my niece and ask her if she will take this phone back and get the contract cancelled or pay a fee or whatever needs to be done.

My niece goes to my mother’s and finds that the receipt that I saw was for the Kyocera prepaid phone and the AT&T Samsung phone was purchased at Walmart.  My niece takes my mother to Walmart and spends at the very minimum, a hour getting this taken care of.

Now I know my mother wants a new phone.  She also wants a phone that she can take pictures with.  I looked at the Consumer Cellular site and they have the exact same Samsung that she got from AT&T.  So I’ve ordered that phone for her.  When I told her I was going to order the phone, she told me “Oh let’s not bother with a new phone.”  But I know she said this because she feels that she put us all out.

I’ve scolded her.  I’m pretty sure my niece scolded her.  But she has always been the type of person that leaps before she looks.  She has always been a very independent woman.  It doesn’t have to do with aging.  Maybe the four cell phones do.  But not the wanting a new phone.  So even though she told me not to, I ordered her phone and I think she will be happy with it.

It has taken me over a week to write this little story.  I don’t think I’ve done a very good job of relating exactly what happened over the course of a couple of days last week.  Mainly because each time I started writing and recalling the sequence of events, my head would start to spin just a bit.  It’s spinning just a bit right this very minute.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Denise had been working at the “Watchamadoodle” for years.  She was a dependable and reliable employee.  She also considered herself a team player.  She liked her job and the people she worked with well enough.  She had been a member of the workforce long enough to know that you can have trouble at any job.  So for the most part she was quite satisfied with where she was at.

Denise had been a shy, quiet girl growing up.  But as Denise aged, she discovered that there was a sort of rage bubbling just beneath the surface.  At times it seemed to erupt and she had no power to contain it.  It wasn’t something that started over night.  At a former place of employment her dissatisfaction and unhappiness had erupted into a very loud “F#$% you!!!” early one morning.  Then she had grabbed her purse and left for the day.  She knew that the response was inappropriate and over the top.  She later returned to her place of employment and apologized for her outburst.  She had hung on there for several months and finally found a new place at the “Watchamadoodle.”

She rarely had these bursts of rage at home.  Not to say that they hadn’t happened, but they were very rare.  It seemed her antagonism grew as she neared the “Watchamadoodle” each day.  She woke each morning happy, for the most part.  The short drive didn’t bother her.  She sometimes wished it was longer.  Denise pulled into the parking lot each morning anticipating that it was going to be a good day.  She willed it to be a good day.

Days went by, weeks, and months.  Oh there were test upon her frame of mind.  But she had learned to shrug off the shortcomings of her co-workers.  After all, Denise knew that she was not perfect either.  It just seemed everyone was happier at the “Watchamadoodle” if Denise didn’t rock the boat.  If she ignored the mistakes.  She would laugh when she brought something to someone’s attention.  No need to get yours or someone else’s panties in a wad.  Just a friendly “Hey look what you did.  Try not to do it again.”

For a couple of years Denise had been taking a tiny little pill that helped her keep her rage in check.  But Denise was only human and so the tiny little pill only helped to a certain extent.  Things always seemed to start to smolder a couple of months before the Watchamadoodle’s busy season.  Denise had actually believed for a couple of years that certain people went out of their way this time of year to blow her off and disregard her direction.  Denise did not like to be blown off.

She tried to let the little things go.  She would correct them herself, if she could.  If not she would just enter things the way they were done.  It was hard for Denise.  She did not understand why people couldn’t follow simple rules.  Why could they do things correctly and then suddenly one day just the complete opposite.

They weren’t doing things wrong because Denise said they were doing it wrong.  Some things they were doing wrong because Big Brother said they were doing it wrong.  Other things were done the way they were done hundred years ago.  Not the way they were done in the 21st century.  So one day Denise was blamed for not knowing that something was done with chicken scratch on a piece of paper, stapled behind other pieces of paper.  Denise could not understand why Watchamadoodle would spend so much money on software and hardware if they were not going to utilize it.  Nor did she understand how anyone else was suppose to know about the chicken scratch if the chicken scratcher wasn’t available.

But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the out right lies.  An error was made on the sale of a watchamadoodle.  When Denise asked about it and why it was done that way she was given a bunch of hooey.  A lot of excuses.  “I thought this and I thought that.”  But the part that really ticked her off was “Oh Well!”

The captain of the Watchamadoodle store was aware of this exchange.  He sat less than 10 feet away.  But he ignored it.  So Denise went back to her office and was distraught.  No one in the whole wide Watchamadoodle world cared if things were done correctly.  So she emailed the captain a copy of the tax law pertaining to that transaction along with a copy of the invoice.  But Denise wishes she had left it alone, because what happened next sent her absolutely over the edge.

She found the captain and the clerk discussing the tax law as if they had just heard of it that day.  Now Denise knew for a fact that both of these persons had been presented with this law in the past.  No only did Denise know it, she also knew that the same sort of transaction had been done recently and had been done correctly.  She could overlook the captain’s forgetfulness, after all he did have a lot on his plate.  But the clerk was just misleading the captain and covering her own ass.  She for sure was very well aware of the regulation and chose to lie rather than admit to her mistake.

So Denise went back through days of transactions and found the exact same kind of watchamadoodle sale two week prior.  This transaction was done correctly by the clerk.  Yet the clerk had purported not to know.  Denise detested a liar.

Early one morning Denise presented the captain with the correctly processed transaction from two weeks prior.  He looked at it with wonder.  Denise was not sure if he knew what he was looking at, so she explained it to him.  She told the captain that she did not care if he said anything to the clerk or not.  She just wanted the captain to know that the clerk did know the law.

And then the captain began to speak and it was not good.  Suddenly he was on Denise’s side.  This did not make Denise happy, for she knew this was his way of trying to just stop the boat from rocking.  He asked questions.  Silly, silly questions.  Which made Denise’s blood boil.  She had her own questions she wanted to ask the captain, but she didn’t.  For she knew the answers would be skewed and nothing would be solved.  So why put forth the effort.

But Denise did make a statement.  She told the captain that she must remind herself that she is here to do a job.  She is not here to make friends.  She told the captain that her partner has to remind her from time to time that these people she works with are not her friends.  That was when the captain became angry.  Of all the things that were said, this was the one that needled him.  “You are not my friend.”

So he made a snarky comment about Denise’s partner and then asked Denise, “How can you say we aren’t your friends after all we’ve done for you!!”  This statement made Denise want to throw back her head and laugh, laugh as loudly as she could.  But the worse thing that the captain said was “I only have trouble with you women bitching.  I don’t have any problems out of the men.”  This made Denise see red.  She had worked for the captain for a while.  She knew about the personality conflicts among the men.  So she knew it was time to go.  As Denise walked back to her office she told the captain that maybe he needed to hire a man to do her job.

Denise sits in her office now.  She trudges through the paperwork.  She no longer cares if the transactions are done correctly.  At least now Denise knows where she stands with the captain.  She should not share personal things with her coworkers.  They just take the stories Denise tells of her home life and twist them around into something loathsome.  She is not a valued employee.  She is thought of less because she is female.

Denise’s rage has subsided, but it still simmers below the surface.

You know on Facebook there is no dislike button.  There is a scam that gets going every now and then.  I’m not sure if its just a run of the mill hoax or it there is some kind of virus attached to it.  My general rule of thumb is I don’t click links on Facebook, unless I’m 100% sure I should.  I think we all should be well versed enough with the digital age to know that we shouldn’t click on certain kinds of links found on Facebook, in emails, or on other internet sites.

This brings me back to the “dislike” feature that Facebook does not have.  Some people think we should have a “dislike” option on postings.  I for one, am glad that we do not.  The internet has turned a lot of us into an argumentative group of individuals.  Already you can post “It’s a bright, beautiful, sunshiny day!!!!” and some where along the way someone just might post something negative.

Just go to any internet site that allows comments and you will see what I’m talking about.  It’s not so much the difference of opinions that I’m talking about as it is the rudeness.  The belligerence, contentious, and combative replies.  If I say “It’s a good day.” and you reply “It’s a bad day.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for me.”  Fine, that’s a difference of opinion.  But if I say “It’s a good day.” and you reply “Are you out of your ever loving mind!!!  What the hell are you talking about??  This is the worse day ever.  You don’t know what you’re talking about.  Haven’t you watched the news!!??”  Well that’s just a tad rude.  In my opinion.

“In my opinion.”  That’s what a lot of commenters say.  That’s sort of like “don’t get me wrong” or “I hope you don’t take this wrong.”  or demanding (politely) some sort of reference to their “sources”.

I have found that the demands for sources usually surfaces in political or theological statements.  Now we’ve all been told not to bring up politics or religion at the dinner table or sometimes even family gatherings.  So when you post a political or religious statement on Facebook, beware.  You have opened yourself up for a debate.  This is when it can get ugly.  Generally on Facebook it may not be your own friends that waylay you, but the friends of friends.  If its your own friends that become rude, ugly, and begin the name calling, it may be time to reconsider your friends list.

When people request “sources” or “where did you get your information?” I must say, I chuckle just a bit.  I think most of us know we can pull just about anything to support our “opinion”.  Its funny to me to see people become some kind of  self appointed expert in a particular area.  I also think its hilarious that someone thinks that they can listen and read up on a political candidate and be able to discern the truth.  At this time of the year in the political cycle and generally any other time, politicians (ALL politicians) say what they think their constituents want to hear.

I’m sick of the arguments about politics.  Whoever is in the White House, whoever is in congress, whoever sits in the senate, they could care less about what is going on amongst the run of the mill working class American.  The big corporations run this country and they run the world.   We as individuals have relatively no rights as compared to the military industry, pharmaceutical, energy, agribusiness (just ask any family farmer), and the banking industry.  These industries run the world.

Actually when I think about it, it’s really very depressing.  We have lost all control.  Politicians, all politicians, are in the pockets of these industries.  I believe that there will have to be a revolution.  I think eventually there will be.  Maybe not in my life time.  I sometimes go back and read this editorial by Steven Van Zandt.  I think its well thought out, but you may have a different opinion and that’s okay.

Well, I really did not mean to go off in this direction.  But I will let it stand, because that’s the way I feel.  I started off with the absence of a dislike button on Facebook.  What I wanted to say is, let’s just be nice to each other.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion and their beliefs.  Its okay to disagree with someone in a considerate way.  But why try to belittle them?  No one person has the right to condemn another human being because of their opinions or beliefs.