I knew an Italian Dr with a bag and shoe fetish that only a Dr.’s salary could support. She said it was an addiction. I say it’s a waste of money.
It is for girls to show off to other girls. Guys don’t care about the bags, necklaces, rings or makeup.
She spent 10’s of thousands for other girls I guess. Other than being a good Dr, even her sister said her life was effed up.
Or you could be like everyone else and just not talk to them because your life is better that way. I know mine is and there isn’t a one of them worth talking to, especially the one who turned into a traveling whore as a flight attendant for Delta.
I feel better knowing that by this equation, I would be the champion horse and as a person, I’m damn near royalty.
And, you if by chance you do break the next rule of look ahead and not at the other guy, you only are allowed to look each other in the eyes.
Guys learn this without being taught. No matter what socially/politically correct spew that comes out of their mouths outside the bathroom door, once you enter the rules are the same for everyone, everywhere.
If you are spatially aware (like a Seal or Spook), you go to the stall where you can’t get attacked from behind, but that is skill level 10 for dangerous people.
Winter hit here up in the mountains. I’m lucky that I have 4 wheel drive on both my truck and my dog.
No one is going anywhere. It’s an introverts dream
In case you don’t get the title, it is a Jimmy Buffet song.
I drove over the holidays to see some family. It was only 4 hours, but in the time, I passed a double digit number of cars abandoned on the highway with highway patrol stickers on them.
What did they have in common? They were all either pieces of shit or treated like shit. How these people even attempted to take a trip is beyond me.
I get if that what you have is all you can drive, but at least have the car checked before you leave. It costs way more to have it towed and to have your means of getting to work out of commission.
It’s cheaper and a hell of a lot less hassle to deal with to rent a car for a long trip if yours isn’t going to make it. Hell, Jiffy Lube will tell you if your POS needs something fixed when they try to up sell you from an oil change.
For the rest of us that made it, those cars broken down by the side of the road cause traffic to mess up or slow down unnecessarily.
Moral of the story, don’t ruin your trip, your next week(s) and our trip when it’s easier to take care of your vehicle properly.
I don’t use them, on purpose. I think they are a bit childish. I write out stuff. I also don’t LOL, OMG or any other stuff in real life.
There are times that I think people don’t want to talk, so they put something out there that means I’ll let you go or best wishes (read I don’t want to have to say what I really mean, like I don’t want to talk).
Sure, I get them from everyone, but I think if you are over 50, or a guy, you shouldn’t be doing this. It seems like playing with dolls, but then that is just me.
I dated a flight attendant who survived the Dallas Crash where they discovered wind sheer. She made it when only about 30 of 300 survived. She was at the back of the plane. I read that you have a better chance of surviving statistically in the back of a crashing plane.
I’d just rather not crash.
I’m exercising my Covid excuse not to go somewhere right now by just not flying.
My Mom said that life is about overcoming obstacles, climbing mountains and clearing hurdles. You are either in a crisis, just finished with one or about to start another.
That’s why I’ve learned that when too many things are going good, then this:
I used to live in bliss and then get blindsided as to how things can go wrong. When I was dating, there were times that I had a different girl for every day of the week and said no to others. Not long after that, it seems that even the professionals wouldn’t take my money.
I’d have 3 job offers waiting for me while I loved the job I was at, or I hated my job and no one would even give me an interview.
Now, when I’m feeling on top of the world, I start to prepare for what might be around the corner.
It sounds pessimistic, but I’ve realized that my Mom was right. Just wait long enough and you’ll have a challenge to overcome.
I like getting food from the local suppliers. It’s always fresher and taste better than from the commercial store.
Up where I am is a hippie type college town. I see a lot of people that are different than the usual man on the street. I’m ok with it as the food will be natural, meat will be grass fed and non GMO and the produce picked the day before. I keep to myself as usual.
Of course this week was the Halloween theme. It wasn’t too crazy, but I thought I’d share some pictures rather than my usual sarcasm. Don’t worry, I’ll get to that. Note, this is one of the few times that I’ll share pictures of myself. It’s a big step for an introvert who shy’s away from social media.
Anyway, here it is.
I’m smart enough to never have listened to a song by her (that I’m aware of). The drugs affected John and her by then and there wasn’t much to listen to. He was better with the Beatles. She was never good.
It doesn’t affect me as much anymore because my age gets me up whenever it feels like it. I (for the most part) don’t have to get up for anything. I agreed with my golfing partner not to get up too early for a tee time next round. Not being rushed is a great thing at this point in life.
I don’t miss early meetings, e-mail road rage or having to get the kids ready for school. That is for young people.
Here is a guide on how to set each of your devices for DST. You’ve been warned if you click on it. You’ll get another dose of sarcasm.
While I’m being sarcastic…..
When I lived there, this was the story almost every week. It was usually an 80+ year old grandmother who didn’t know how it happened. It got to where we weren’t even surprised, rather we’d just say, “well, there goes another one”.
They are the same drivers who get into the fast lane and go 5 MPH below the speed limit and don’t move. My friend called them nesters because they’d nest in the fast lane.
These were taken one week apart from the same chair. We’ve already seen the 30’s and the leaves are turning. It reminds me that I’m in the Autumn of my life. I hope to enjoy it, but it’s a lot slower and with more aches and pains than it used to be.
Maybe it’s all the hard wear and tear I put on myself through the years. I seem to learn more from mistakes than successes, they are more painful.
Here is Singapore, almost fully Vaxxed.
Here is Indonesia –
After the government authorized the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19 patients, the number of cases significantly plummeted since July.
The data below proves that Ivermectin played a role on the steep decline of COVID-19 cases despite having a low vaccination rate.
Here is a link to the data and story.
Do the math. Understand what works. Make an intelligent decision on your path. At least ask why they are forcing the Vax on us.
You do you.
As Elmore Leonard put it, “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
I played endless paper football between and before class in middle school. We had benches and tables that were perfect.
I could kick the way the picture is above and from one of the sides (where the fold is)
I could make a paper football today, after not making one for decades because I’ve made so many.
It was real life video games for us back then.
I also pitched quarters, but I hated losing money, why gambling was never one of my vices.
I always try to count how many are actually working.
I try to thank the sign workers who let the traffic flow when there is only one lane for both sides. They take a beating for holding up traffic, but it isn’t their fault.
When I worked in construction growing up, the lowest guy got the worst jobs. It’s an unwritten rule.
I had amnesia once — or twice.
*****
Protons have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic.
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I am neither for nor against apathy.
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All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.
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If the world were a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.
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What is a “free” gift? Aren’t all gifts free?
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They told me I was gullible and I believed them.
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Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home, and when he grows up, he’ll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
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Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
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One nice thing about egotists … they don’t talk about other people.
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My weight is perfect for my height … which varies.
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I used to be indecisive. Now, I’m not sure.
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The cost of living hasn’t affected its popularity.
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How can there be self-help groups
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Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants off.
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Is it just me, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?
When I was young and dumb I was driving in the rain and saw a guy walking along the sidewalk with an umbrella. It looked like the one below.
There was a puddle that I could have driven around, but chose to speed up, going through the puddle and just waxed him. He put his umbrella away and was drenched.
To this day, I am expecting it to happen to me. I avoid puddles knowing that payback is coming. I don’t really believe in karma, but I know it’s coming.
By the way, I’m old and dumb now. I expect it to happen when I get even older and can’t get out of the way. It will be in the most inconvenient time and place possible.
I hope you are able to ease into the weekend early today and not have a Monday for Friday.
I know someone who just went vegan and sure enough, I get to hear all about it. I don’t really care what anyone eats other than me so I’ll skip any vegan jokes here. You don’t have to tell everyone you see that you are vegan. We’ll see it soon enough anyway, or smell it.
I drew the line at asparagus for breakfast though. No, just no.
I wrote about all of the uses of WD40 and it’s ability to catch fish and help with tight nuts. Now, you can wear it and smell like……
Here’s a classic song that few know. The amount of music theory needed to do just the counting and coming in on time is innovative and rarely duplicated. It’s from Houses of the Holy, a classic album.
Cardi B and her WAP is something that should be before Dr. Seuss in the line of things to be banned.
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Washington thinks they are going to take away our guns, so check this out……..sales of this new product may skyrocket.
“IN GOD WE TRUST” |
See a couple of posts below on office speak. I heard one that said under promise and over deliver. That will make you look good once, but if you do the job right every time, you will be far more respected and trusted.
Activate:
To make carbons and add more names to the email.
Advanced Design:
Beyond the comprehension of the ad agency’s copywriters.
All New:
Parts not interchangeable with existing models.
Approved:
Needs revising
Automatic:
That which you cannot repair yourself.
Channels:
The trails left by interoffice emails.
Clarify:
To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.
Conference:
A place where conversation is substituted for the loneliness of thought and the dreariness of labor.
Consultant:
Someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is and then walks away with the watch.
Forwarded For Your Consideration:
You hold the bag for a while.
FYI:
Found yesterday, interested?
In Conference:
Nobody can find him/her.
Let’s Get Together On This:
I’m assuming you’re as confused as I.
Note & Initial:
I’m not taking the fall for this myself.
Policy:
We can hide behind this.
Please See Me:
Come down to my office. I’m lonely.
Top Priority:
It may be stupid but the boss wants it.
We Are Taking A Survey:
We need more time to think of an answer or we can’t find anyone willing to be responsible for this.
Will Advise In Due Course:
If we figure it out, we’ll let you know.
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
It’s true, you can really only promise to do something once and get fully believed, unless you do what you promised.
The bane of Introverts is small talk and inevitably, during small talk comes promises or boasting of things one will absolutely do. I’m more surprised when they actually do what is promised than by the cheap words now.
Yes, you are being judged by what you do, and probably fairly. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. Better yet, keep your mouth shut unless you’ve already delivered on the promise.
Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid.
Of course you can go to the Murphy’s Law site and see all of this there.
copyright 1995, 2002. David G. Uffelman
WordPress says this is my 600th post, but I know I lost the year 2007 when I switched from Blogger to WordPress because I avoid Google whenever possible. I likely passed it a while back, but they are gone forever now.
I post a lot about IQ, intelligence, Introverts, tech and a lot of subjects that would provide a platform to post something meaningful, deep in meaning , intelligent, well thought out and well written. As they say, the road to hell….
In that spirit, I give you a to do list that is sarcastic, funny to me and given the mood I’m in as I write this and very appropriate especially since my last name is Simonds (see number 8).
And as a bonus, there are many famous Porsche’s listed here for those who are in the know.
Again, these are not my answers, but are an interesting read on people. It will offend some, but God is number one for me. The rest of the lists below should offend someone or many.
1. Human psychology. It’s a young field, and no one has all the answers yet. But you can get a better understanding of why other people do what they do — and how to thread your way through life’s complexities — by studying at least a little of this field.
2. The basics of accounting. This will greatly reduce your chances of being swindled in life. It also will make it much easier for you to do some systematic planning, while keeping track of how you’re doing vis a vis your plans.
3. Music. It will calm you. It will inspire you. It will build bridges to a more interesting set of friends.
4. Your own family’s story. Where did your parents grow up, and how did that shape who they are? What are the formal or informal communities that help define your identity? (“We are athletes … we are Irish … we are restless spirits who move from city to city.”) Having an enduring sense of identity that goes beyond the ups and downs of your own life will be a source of comfort and motivation all your life.
5. The way your government really works. Find out why some laws are tightly enforced and others aren’t. Learn the best ways of influencing your government — whether it’s on matters of national significance or something as personal as winning a zoning variance for the cafe you run. Finally, gain some non-bitter insights about why society doesn’t always work the way you’d like.
6. Good nutrition and how to incorporate it into your life. Mike Leary is right. In a poor society, this is the difference between life and death. In a rich society, it’s — surprise! — the difference between a long, robust future and chronic illness that can turn deadly far too soon.
7. Different cultural values. If you’re going to be effective outside a small cluster of people like you, you’ll need to understand and appreciate how other tribes work, too.
8. How to communicate your ideas to the wider world. Justin Freeman is right. Learn how to speak clearly and persuasively. Or to write well. Or to create useful and appealing computer code, video, music, etc. Pick the medium that works best for you, and make sure you don’t go through life being mute.
9. Effective parenting. Just because your parents didn’t quite get it right (no one ever does!) doesn’t mean that you can’t do better. Find your own style, stick with what works … but keep refining your approach as you learn from others. You owe it to the species.
10. Quora. It’s one-stop shopping for biased crap! Be aware of what’s on Quora, and you’ll know what not to believe.
Here’s another:
Go to the link above, there is more.
Add more in comments if you have a better suggestion than these.
Even though I like to write about intellectual subjects, this one will have nothing to do with that.
Disclaimer: This game has been around for decades. It is not the somehow now bad OK sign that the evil PC police have condemned. When it was invented, no one cared about the OK sign. FWIW, the circle is upside down in this game. The PC SJW’s are dumbasses because a Reddit joke that trolled people by saying it was some supremacist sign. The woke fell for it immediately because they want to cancel any fun.
If you know or have played the game, you will get this whole post without reading it, but I’m posting for those who do not get it.
I searched this on the Interweb and it stated that this started in the 1980’s. Since I was in middle school way before this I’m calling BS and guessing that those before me have played it for 50 years.
So when I saw these examples, I knew what it was and it took me back to childhood, but I understood it without explanation.
The rules of the game are here:
Basically, you get someone to look at the circle below your waist against their will and you get to punch them.
It’s a game designed to be able to hit your friends and have them be ok with it.
The link provides other instructions like breaking the circle and not brushing it off, but they are just variations on being able to punch your friend.
We took it to all kinds of limits like drawing circles on the floor and other variations, but it’s simple.
I like all of these meme’s, but Darth Vader is my favorite. Readers like the volleyball girl the best if you look at how many times it’s been downloaded off this post.
I think the girl is giving a sign as to the play to make, but if not, it’s a really good Internet punch.
The Walmart guy is funny on many lev
els.
The black hole circle is a Universal punch.
The duck is just funny.
I found a new one that isn’t really meant to be in the circle game, but is.
I tend to notice trends early. I quit Twitter 4 years ago as soon as work didn’t (unofficially) require it. Almost every time I used it, the conversation degraded by the 3rd or 4th tweet into something political, followed by unsubstantiated name calling. You have to have a thick skin and a terse personality to want to survive out there.
A few years later I tried helping a friend get on Facebook and we both decided that it was like a high school reunion, or being in high school where you make up stuff to seem like your life is better than others. He finally told me to stop and to not put him on. At that point it dawned on me that most of social media falls under Sturgeon’s Law:
There might be a corollary that 99% of social media is crap.
The trend I noticed besides people acting false was that I never felt better after being on twitter and I loathe Facebook for the same reason. This was 5-8 years ago and now the studies are coming out proving what I noticed.
A recent article in the USA today talked about another high schoolish trend, mob mentality.
Social media also has polluted our more general life, with the ability to form online mobs increasing, as Prof. Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit recently wrote in USA Today:
People enjoy forming mobs. Mobs allow people to do things they’d be afraid to do on their own, to steal, to hurt and kill, to burn and destroy — and also to feel set free from the bonds of civil society, to experience a kind of atavistic catharsis, a feeling of power and a solidarity with their fellow rioters, in a way that’s otherwise difficult to achieve, especially without suffering serious consequences….
But now there’s a new kind of mob, an online mob. And judging by the events of the past week, this new mob is becoming a more frequent problem. Part of that is because it’s easier (and safer) to be part of an online mob than one in the real world.
Joining a real mob requires you to leave your house, go somewhere else, and experience risks and discomforts. Joining an online mob can be done from an easy chair at home.
There are times that I post something and bizarre comments come it, so much so that I have to moderate them according to the policy on the sidebar. Some just violate the policy too much. It’s like twitter, if it can get political it usually does. Since I’ve posted a lot about the military and patriotism, I caught a lot of crap.
I read a blog post by Legal Insurrection that noted the increase in suicides and the link that may exist between the two.
A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel
Social Media and Teen Depression: The Two Go Hand-In-Hand
Rise in teen suicide connected to social media popularity: study
Suicide rate’s increase can be tied to social media, technology: Dr. Marc Siegel
Using Many Social Media Platforms Linked With Depression, Anxiety Risk
Why don’t people just put it down? It looks to be like the new next cigarette, just as addictive and equally as bad for you.
As for me, I can go about my day enjoying not getting into useless tweet storms and having my head glued to my phone. Hell, I won’t even put Facebook on because I don’t want them in my life.
I’d like to say the higher IQ people would be immune to this, but it’s not true. They are just as susceptible to this and it goes under things they shouldn’t do.
WHAT FACEBOOK KNOWS AND IT ISN’T TELLING YOU
It preys on Women’s emotions and other mind altering and interfering techniques and the company KNOWS THAT IT IS DOING IT.
Even former Facebook President Sean Parker realizes the pitfalls of Facebook:
The former Facebook President discussed the company’s initial aim, which was mainly centered around drawing in and building their audience:
The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.
Parker described Facebook’s appeal as a “social-validation feedback loop” which exploits human psychology to keep users coming back to the app:
It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.
Comments such as this from Facebook former President, combined with Facebook’s mishandling of user data, has led to a greater level of distrust around the company. What was previously seen as just a website by many users was becoming better known as a data collection company.
It turns out that platforms like Facebook are the “Junk Food For the Soul”. In other words crap that isn’t good for you.
THE CESSPOOL OF HATE AND DISCRIMINATION BY TWITTER
Just say something, anything and pretty soon it can turn into a hate storm if you offend someone or anyone. I saw someone post here’s a picture of a rock, let the arguing begin just to prove it and it did.
When I check I often find that a user who has blocked me is someone I have never interacted with. So why the block? Often, it’s due to being on a block list created by a liberal activist group. Twitter supports block lists and makes it easy for users to mass-block entire universes of people they don’t even know.
But Twitter now uses factors such as the number of people who have blocked an account to determine whether to classify it as “low quality” content. The company also uses the number of complaints or reports on the account. If the number of these exceeds certain thresholds, an account can be deemed low quality and access to tweets from that user are severely diminished.
I couldn’t wait to leave that platform of time-wasting and hate and my life is better because of it.
I love controversial subjects, especially among the sexes. Nothing gets the hackles up quicker than something that offends what you hold close to your heart. I’ve worked with the media for decades and sensationalism is what sells. It’s sex, death, murder, immorality, bankruptcy, divorce and other vices that can be cherry picked to place on the headline. This is not real life, like…..
Ye old workplace.
It is a petri dish of human interaction that has been infected by #MeToo, harassment, incivility, sexism, partiality, affairs and occasionally competent work and results. I’ve already discussed if Men and Women can work together here, and Women now swear more than men, so I found this article and it looked either like a headline maker or a trend. I decided to find out.
Having sat through weeks of diversity training that is beyond boring and is a CYA for the legal department, I’ve been told that you can’t say certain things, act in a ways that could be demeaning or sexually suggestive or anything outside of plain vanilla. I choose to keep to myself and observe. That is why this study caught my eye. The behavior is far outside of my diversity training, yet it goes on unabated.
WHO ARE THE BIGGEST OFFENDERS?
A recent study shows that women are reporting that it is other women who are the most rude and uncivil towards women. It goes like this:
In terms of how it is acted out:
“Across the three studies, we found consistent evidence that women reported higher levels of incivility from other women than their male counterparts,” Gabriel says. “In other words, women are ruder to each other than they are to men, or than men are to women.
“This isn’t to say men were off the hook or they weren’t engaging in these behaviors,” she notes. “But when we compared the average levels of incivility reported, female-instigated incivility was reported more often than male-instigated incivility by women in our three studies.”
THE QUEEN BEE SYNDROME
The article at the link above states:
The phenomenon of women discriminating against other women in the workplace—particularly as they rise in seniority—has long been documented as the “queen bee syndrome.” As women have increased their ranks in the workplace, most will admit to experiencing rude behavior and incivility.
Who is at fault for dishing out these mildly deviant behaviors? Has the syndrome grown more pervasive?
“Studies show women report more incivility experiences overall than men, but we wanted to find out who was targeting women with rude remarks,” says Allison Gabriel, assistant professor of management and organizations in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.
I worked with a female named Sandy. No one was harder to understand or trust as a senior manager than she. My friends would dread working for her and it was a success not to get fired before your term was complete. Everyone tried to get out as fast as they could, or would not seek a promotion just to not work for or with her.
I WANTED TO KNOW SO I ASKED THEM IF IT WAS TRUE, WHAT THEY SAID, PERHAPS NSFW
I like to look at things from the point of view of how would an intellectual view this. Normally, this would entail a scientific study without bias, with control groups and so forth. My observation is that people’s behavior is not scientific when it comes to emotions and I’ve been told by those of the female persuasion that they are more likely to be emotional. I couldn’t argue the point, nor did I care to.
Therefore, I figured that asking some females if this was correct and what they’ve seen at work would be my best estimate as to whether this is true. Please note that some of the comments while stated verbatim are not always complimentary and some are off-color. Commenters: Note, if you get pissed off, these are answers by women to a question I asked about working with females and is the study accurate. If you just want to hate, please go elsewhere as if it’s directed at me, it’s a fart in the wind and that’s how I’ll treat it.
Here are some responses:
Females can be bitchy, catty. other names.
She slept her way to her position.
She got there because of her looks (or tits), not her ability.
She dresses like a whore.
There is one bitch who leans over in front of guys to get her way.
Women are the biggest backstabbers.
Sure there is an occasional guy who bugs me or tries to hit on me, but girls are far worse as a group.
Sure she was nice when she was one of us, but as soon as they gave her a little power, she turned on us like we’d done something to her.
She’s great to work for if you are female. She only promotes women and you can get your way over any guys.
Women here can only manage 2 inches in front of their face. They don’t get the big picture or work towards the company’s goals.
Once you make it clear you aren’t going to sleep with them, the men are much easier to work with or for. The mission and strategy are clear and they can focus on that.
Guys will either just not say anything or will tell you how it is. The girls say something to your face and f__k you over behind your back if you aren’t in their group.
Guys handle success and failure better than the girls I work with. One of them always takes it personally and spends weeks trying to get back at you instead of trying to get work done.
I can never trust what a woman says to me. Guys don’t lie as much or as well as girls do unless they want in your pants.
Women talk too much and I can’t get my work done.
When aunt Flo comes calling honey you better hide from that bitch.
Just get more than one female together in a group and watch the fireworks.
Guys are used to joking, I think they learned it in a locker room or something. They can cuss each other out in a meeting and it’s like a punch in the arm and then go have a beer. A woman will hold something you say to her against you for the rest of your life.
Enough! Most of these I got multiple times, which is why they made the list. I stopped asking because this attitude was overwhelming me.
CONCLUSION
I can only surmise that it is tough for women to work with women. I didn’t give it much thought until I read this study, but it does appear that women are more difficult towards other women at the workplace
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I read a WSJ article on ineffective meetings. It is about the manifesto to end boring meetings.
This brought back thousands of hours of meetings I wished I could have back or would certainly decline to attend had I realized what I know now. Most of this post is tongue in cheek unlike the WSJ, but I’ll bet everyone wishes they weren’t in so many meetings.
First, let me start out with some quotes I found from The Quote Garden, starting with the one that reminded me most of the meetings I’ve attended:
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. ~Milton Berle
To kill time, a committee meeting is the perfect weapon. ~Author Unknown
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.” ~Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”
Our age will be known as the age of committees. ~Ernest Benn
If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock. ~Arthur Goldberg
A committee is an animal with four back legs. ~John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. ~H.L. Mencken
A “Normal” person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, “Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray.” ~Alan Sherman
A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour. ~Elbert Hubbard
A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee. ~Author Unknown
A committee is a group of the unwilling chosen form the unfit, to do the unnecessary. ~Author Unknown
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. ~Author Unknown
Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club?… Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold
We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist. ~Frank Moore Colby
I don’t believe a committee can write a book. It can, oh, govern a country, perhaps, but I don’t believe it can write a book. ~Arnold Toynbee
There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee. ~Lester J. Pourciau
Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to. ~Katharine Whitehorn
Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything. ~Thomas Sowell
Usually, the meetings were a way to get other people to do your work for you, or to assign work to others they wouldn’t do or volunteer for were it not for the fact that they were at a meeting. The only time this didn’t work was when I actually needed to get a speaker for a press briefing for an interview with Time Magazine when print media was important. His manager, John Callies then VP of Netfinity or X series at IBM(x86 servers), wouldn’t let the speaker leave the staff meeting stating, “it’s only your job” as the reason. See how manage executive ego’s for more on this. I’d have never imagined having to cancel an interview with what was then an important publication due to an executives’ ego. I’ve seen bad manager moves in my time, but this was top 10 worst of the worst for me. He still ranks as the number one suit I’ve ever worked with. The below meme was how it felt to be in a meeting with him.
Execs have also had meetings in places that they wanted to visit (click on the link to see who it is), and most people knew that. That was a waste of travel time and money for a wasted meeting. There were other reasons they had meetings, but read the quotes at the beginning to find out why said were held.
Avoid training meetings, unless it was a way to be busy during a meeting you want to avoid. This is especially true of diversity training. It is a waste of time (same exact meeting every time every year for the required legal reason) but is more important than almost any other meeting, so it serves 2 purposes. No one will go against diversity training for fear of being politically or legally incorrect. It does allow you to miss another meeting and no one pays attention anyway. It’s an opportunity to get work done while the training is going on in the background. Your attendance is recorded so you are twice as effective as you complete your work, earn your mark for training and ignore the same speech you went through last year all at the same time.
MEETING RULES TO SURVIVE
The best way to deal with a meeting is to avoid it. If you can already have a meeting at a time that the scheduler proposes it or be busy and/or somehow away or out of the office. Teleconferencing kills that strategery unless you can be found traveling, but sometimes it’s unavoidable (see how to get out of a meeting below if you have to go). The people calling the meeting are really only people who want the meeting anyway.
For things to do to avoid meetings or how to goof around during a meeting, go to the link How to goof around at work.
HERE IS MY RULE WHEN TO DECIDE TO ATTEND IF I HAD A CHOICE: if there were more than 4 people, don’t go. Nothing will get done other than resulting in another meeting to have to attend. This is especially true if there are more than 1 executives, as each brings a team of competing players who guarantee the death of productivity.
The WSJ agrees with me, but goes on to say that if it has 17 people, there is no chance anything will get accomplished.
Don’t speak at a meeting if possible. It usually wastes time and extends the meeting length. There are only a couple of people who really have something to contribute, the rest want to hear themselves talk, show off their PowerPoint skills to bore you, or think they are more important if they speak. These show offs can be insufferable, but they offer time to check your email at best while pretending to listen.
This is in the department of redundancy department, but it is so important to note is to be careful when attending because the meeting leader’s purpose is to assign their work to others or get people to do work they wouldn’t do because they can’t decline in public (this is a corporate tradition). This further kills your ability to be productive at your real job. There are some who want to look important by accepting work magnanimously to show off, thinking they were climbing the ladder. Gladly accept their offer as most people have 10 hours of work for an 8 hour day anyway. Only accept it if it produces revenue or if you are the only one qualified to do it, but generally don’t, especially if you perceive it as a make work project.
Especially avoid planning meetings. A meeting to plan another meeting is one to be skipped unless you are the project manager and called the meeting, then you have to do it. Avoid these at all costs. Once nobody shows up, the meeting gets cancelled for email updates, which is a far better use of your time. As my grandfather said, they are as common as pig tracks and as useless as teats on a boar hog.
Avoid staff meetings. These are like planning meetings, but they occur regularly and when you miss one, nobody really cares (especially if there are more than 4 people). Only attend them occasionally as you work with these people everyday anyway, it’s not like you don’t know what is going on. Email your boss on a regular basis with your activity and you can plan something more productive during that time.
HOW TO GET OUT OF A MEETING
The tongue in cheek part really goes here. I’ll bet there are folks out there far more creative about this than me.
My favorite methods are to have a customer who needs you. They are your business and that overrides almost everything. Even your boss can’t deny this.
Pre-plan an emergency. I occasionally had another employee phone or knock on the door to call me out (email or text isn’t as good as that is not public enough) to get you out of a meeting. The trick is to never return. You’ll get the notes anyway, I promise. Since I worked with the press and analysts, I sometimes had a co-worker say that a reporter needed me right now. They were my customer and no one could say no. Many times there was no real emergency even if the press did call, it was the best and most efficient use of my time to leave the meeting so as to be actually working instead of being at a meeting. I usually dealt with the press immediately unless I had to do some digging to get back to them.
Attend meetings by phone if possible. You can always put the phone on mute and get your real work done, or surf the web or watch TV, which is usually just as productive. It’s easier to go to the bathroom, which brings me to…
Go to the bathroom. Offer to get a water to others when you go, then take as much time reading the sports page in the stall as you can. You are just as productive as listening to someone prattle on about their project.
Send your meeting information in by proxy. See above where someone is willing to talk. Give them your results or input so you don’t have to be there.
I realize that some meetings are necessary, so I understand that it’s the only way to get some things done. For the other majority of the time, see above.
The best meeting is a hall meeting. You run into the person you need help from and in 5 minutes, you’ve explained your need, what they can do and your time frame for doing it. Problem solved.
I also recommend having meetings with introverts and/or men. They don’t like to talk much (most of them) and want to get it over as quickly as you do. Attire requirements are less of a priority as is small talk.
Here is the net net, don’t go to a meeting if you don’t have to, get out early if at all possible and above all, don’t speak unless you have no option. Consider it a victory if you don’t attend, or a minor victory if you have to attend but don’t come out with anyone else’s work. You are a complete failure if you open your mouth and double your workload on something that is not tangential to your job or career. Enjoy your job more by having the time to actually be productive.
Happiness has a lot of definitions depending on who you are. Here is one that is not the only answer, just a good thought.
Mathematically speaking, it looks like this….
I have heard most of these 89 sophisticated clichés that typically form the trick vocabulary of such people, almost always by management, whom I’ve indicated:
Note: these are also meeting (BS) bingo words when you are bored. Please let me know if anyone is ever in a meeting that can cross off all of these words.
One of my favorite sayings is: A meeting is a cul-de-sac where ideas are strangled and usually eliminated.
1. It’s a paradigm shift = I don’t know what’s going on in our business. But we’re not making as much money as we used to.
2. We’re data-driven = We try not to make decisions by the seat of our pants. When possible, we try to base them in facts -SC.
3. We need to wrap our heads around this = Gosh, I never thought of that. We need to discuss that….SC
4. It’s a win-win = Hey, we both get something out of this (even though I’m really trying to get the best from you)
5. ROI [used in any sentence] = Look at me, I’m very financially minded, even if I never took any finance classes in school
6. Let’s blue sky this/let’s ballpark this = Let’s shoot around a bunch of ideas since we have no clue what to do
7. I’m a bit of a visionary = I’m a bit of an egomaniac and narcissist EB
8. I’m a team player/we only hire team players = I hope everyone on the team thinks this is a meritocracy, even though I’m the dictator in charge EB
9. Let’s circle back to that/Let’s put that in the parking lot/let’s touch base on that later/let’s take this off-line = Shut up and let’s go back to what I was talking about
10. We think outside the box here/color outside the lines = We wouldn’t know about how to do something innovative if it came up to us and bit us in the behind
11. I/we/you don’t have the bandwidth = Since we cut 60% of our headcount, we’re all doing the job of 3 people, so we’re all burned out
12. This is where the rubber meets the road = Don’t screw up
13. Net net/the net of it is/when you net it out = I never studied finance or accounting but I sound like someone who can make money if I keep talking about another word for profit
14. We’ll go back and sharpen our pencils = We’ll go back and offer you the same for 20% less in hopes you’ll buy it before the end of the quarter – RA
15. It’s like the book “Crossing the Chasm”/”Blue Ocean”/”Good To Great” / “Tipping Point” / “Outliers” = I’ve never read any of these books but I sound literate if I quote from them. And, besides, you cretins probably never read them either to call me out on it
16. Let’s right-size it = Let’s whack/fire a bunch of people – RA
17. It’s next-gen/turn-key/plug-and-play = I want it to sound so technical that you’ll just buy it without asking me any questions
18. We need to manage the optics of this = How can we lie about this in a way people will believe?
19. This is creative destruction = I’ve never read Joseph Schumpeter but our core business is getting killed so it’s your responsibility to come up with a new product the market will buy
20. We don’t have enough boots on the ground = I don’t want to be fired for this disastrous product/country launch, so I’m going to sound tough referring to the military and say I don’t have enough resources
21. Deal with it = Tough cookies – SC
22. By way of housekeeping = This makes the boring stuff I’m about to say sound more official
23. That’s the $64,000 question [sometimes, due to inflation, people will denominate this cliché in millions or billions of dollars] = I don’t know either
24. Let’s square the circle = I’m someone who can unify two team members’ views and sound important
25. It’s our cash cow/protect/milk the cash cow = If that business goes south, we’re all out of a job
26. It’s about synergies/1 + 1 = 3 = I don’t get the math either, but it sounds like more and more is better, right?
27. Who’s going to step up to the plate? = One of you is going to do this and it’s not going to be me
28. We’re eating our own dog food = It sounds gross but we seem like honest folks if we do this.
29. We need to monetize/strategize/analyze/incentivize = When in doubt, stick “-ize” on the end of a word and say we’ve got to do this and 9 out of 10 times, it will sound action-oriented.
30. We did a Five Forces/SWOT analysis/Value Chain analysis = We didn’t really do any of that, but none of you probably even remember Michael Porter, so what the heck
31. It was a perfect storm = We really screwed up but we’re going to blame a bunch of factors that are out of our hands (especially weather)
32. At the end of the day…. = OK, enough talking back and forth, we’re going to do what I want to do – LS
33. Who’s got the ‘R’? [i.e., responsibility to do what we just spent 20 minutes talking about aimlessly] = If I ask the question, it won’t be assigned to me
34. Let’s put lipstick on this pig = plug your nose
35. I’m putting a stake in the ground here… = I’m a leader, simply because I’m using this cliché
36. We’re customer-focused/proactive/results-oriented = That can’t be bad, right? This is motherhood and apple pie stuff
37. Our visibility into the quarter is a little fuzzy = Sales just fell off a cliff
38. That’s not our core competency/we’re sticking to our knitting = We’re just glad we’re making money in one business, because we’d have no clue how to get into any other business
39. Well, we’re facing some headwinds there = You put your finger on the area we’re panicking over
40. It’s a one-off = Do whatever they want to close the sale
41. Incent it = That’s not a verb but I just made it into one because I’m a man/woman of action
42. I’m an agent of change = This makes it sound like I know how to handle the chaos that our business is constantly going through
43. We’ve got to do a little more due diligence there = Don’t have a clue but does that legal term make me sound detail-oriented?
44. Don’t leave money on the table = Be as greedy with them as possible
45. We take a “ready, fire, aim” approach here = We totally operate on a seat-of-the-pants basis
46. Hope is not a strategy = I don’t have a strategy, but this makes it sound like I’m above people who also don’t have a strategy – BO
47. We have to tear down the silos internally = Our organizational structure is such a mess that I’m going to be under-mined by other departments at every turn
48. I don’t think it will move the needle = This won’t get my boss excited
49. Good to put a face to the name = I’d really rather talk to that person behind you
50. Let’s take the 30,000 foot view… = I like to think I see the big picture
51. It’s the old 80-20 rule = I really have no idea what the rule was, but I just want to focus on the things that will make us successful
52. We need to manage expectations = Get ready to start sucking up to people – AL
53. It’s not actionable enough/what’s the deliverable? = You guys do the work on refining the idea. I’m too tired.
54. My 2 cents is… = This opinion is worth a heck of a lot more than 2 cents
55. I’m going to sound like a broken record here… = I want to clearly point out to you idiots that I’ve made this point several times before
56. We’ve got too many chiefs and not enough Indians = I want to be the Chief
57. Going forward = Don’t screw up like this again – AL
58. My people know I’ve got an open door policy = I’ve told my direct reports to come to me if they have a problem, so why should I feel bad if they complain I’m too busy to talk to them?
59. It’s gone viral = Someone sent a tweet about this
60. I know you’ve been burning the candle on both ends = Get ready to do some more
61. It’s scalable = We can sell a lot of it in theory
62. It’s best-of-breed = We hired a market research firm to say that – too many – SC
63. We’re all about value-add = Unlike our competitors who seek to add no value
64. What’s our go-to-market? = Has anyone planned this out, because I’ve been too busy? SC
65. I’m drinking from a fire hose right now = I want a little sympathy over here, because I’m tired of carrying this company on my back
66. We’re getting some push back = They’re not buying it JB
67. We need to do a level-set = I’ve never been inside a Home Depot, but this phrase makes me sound handy
68. It’s basic blocking and tackling = How could you screw this up? I also played high school football and those were the best days of my life.
69. Let’s put our game faces on = Get serious, guys
70. We’ve got it covered from soup to nuts = I have no idea what that means, but don’t you dare question my prep work on it
71. We don’t want to get thrown under the bus = So let’s throw someone else first – RGorman
72. But to close the loop on this… = Always the more theoretical Business Development/Strategy guys who say this, so they can sound thorough
73. What are “next steps”? = Did anyone take notes during the last 90 minutes of this meeting?
74. This is low-hanging fruit = Get this done quickly
75. We need a few quick wins = We’ve got to trick people into thinking we know what we’re doing by some successes we can point to and claim as ours DHP
76. It’s a [Insert Company Name] killer = Did I get your attention yet with the Freddy Kreuger imagery associated with the company who’s currently eating our lunch? SC
77. I want to address the elephant in the room = I know you think I’m trying to cover up/gloss over something, so I might as well talk about it
78. This is the next big thing/new thing = Some of our 20-somethings have told me this is really cool
79. This time it’s different because… = Don’t wait for the explanation… simply run for the hills.
80. What are the best practices on this? = How can I cover my behind that we’re just doing stuff the way other good people have supposedly done this?
81. This is our deliverable = I know this sounds like something that comes in a body bag, but it makes our PowerPoint sound tougher than it actually is
82. We’ll loop you in when we need to = You’re not that important to know about all the details on this
83. We want this to move up and to the right = I failed high school algebra but someone said this means we’ll be making a lot of money if this happens
84. We’re going through a re-org = No one knows what the heck is going on at the moment, we’re going to lay off a bunch of people.
85. We’ve got to increase our mind-share with the customer = I think I would have been happier as a doctor doing lobotomies than in marketing as a career path
86. I don’t think you’re comparing apples to apples = Let me tell you how you should really think about this issue = DHP
87. Let’s peel back the onion on this = I want to sound thorough so this is a better way of telling you that than simply clearing my throat
88. You phoned it in = I was too busy checking my email during your presentation that I didn’t listen _ JC
89. I want you to run with this = I just threw you into the deep end of the pool and you’re on your own to figure it out -JC
UPDATE: The 7 Reasons Farting is Good For You
Dropping a deuce, pinching a loaf, laying pipe, reading the sports page, seeing a man about a horse, all are names for the same thing.
But how much does it weigh? Can you lose weight by taking laxatives or giving birth to a legend size turn monster? How much does a fart weigh? Do women fart as much as men? Let’s look into it.
According to thrill list health:
To find out how much our stool adds to the scale, researchers (serious poop
researchers do exist, folks) collected samples from people living in 12
different countries to get a comprehensive overview.
They discovered that poop weighs between 2.5oz and 1lb, on average.
To find out how much our stool adds to the scale, researchers (serious poop
researchers do exist, folks) collected samples from people living in 12
different countries to get a comprehensive overview.
Have you ever weighed yourself before and then after taking a dump?
Of course you have! Who hasn’t? The best part is seeing the scale budge
in your favor after dropping the kids off at the pool.
So it stands to reason that if you could poop more, you’d lose weight, right?
Same for farting — gas has mass, after all. Could pooping and farting
be legit weight-loss secrets, or is it all just a lot of hot air?
Unsurprisingly, Westernized populations have the lowest poop weights,
thanks to a severe lack of fiber that comes with a fast-food diet. Western
samples only averaged between 3-4oz, which isn’t nearly enough to
make a difference in your skinny jeans.
Very, very carefully. Gastroenterologists in England tried to determine
a fart’s weight by giving study participants 200g of baked beans in
addition to their normal diet. Even scientists know beans are a magical
fruit. To measure the toots these beans are known for, they used rectal
catheters over the course of 24 hours, which raises serious concerns
about the mental stability of the participants.
Despite the method, the data collected may surprise you more.
Scientists learned that the farts weighed between 16-50oz per day.
That’s right: You’re holding as much gas in your system as a small
Sweetums soda. And in case you’re wondering (you’re obviously
wondering), “Women and men expelled equivalent amounts,”
according to science. That’s right. Your sweet little cupcake is
cutting the cheese and stinking up the room just as much as you are.
Of course, there are those out there who see “poop can weigh a pound”
and will try to up their poop game by taking laxatives. Bad idea.
Robert Herbst, an 18-time world-champion powerlifter and one of
the drug-testing supervisors at the Rio Olympics, says laxative-driven
weight loss happens even at the highest levels of sport, and it isn’t pretty.
Herbst confirms that dropping a deuce will in fact budge the number
on the scale, though it won’t alter your body composition or muscle
percentage, saying, “One pound in does not guarantee one [pound] out,”
because food is metabolized differently. Certain foods are absorbed
more efficiently, while others pass right through (looking at you, corn).
So while a pound of lettuce may work its way out to the porcelain
water slide, a pound of pie will most likely stick to your thighs.
Pooping isn’t a total elimination of all the calories you eat, since that
wouldn’t make any sense. Your body needs energy, so it’s not going
to shit it all out.
On top of that, Herbst’s experience monitoring weigh-ins taught
him that no one’s going to see Biggest Loser-type results. He says
you may see a 5lb drop (if that), depending on how much you currently
weigh. If you’re a big dude, you’re going to expel more in weight and
volume because you’re already eating more.
The majority of people will only be able to look forward to a mere
1-2lb difference (at most) if you’re an active person. Those losses
aren’t worth canceling your gym membership, and in extreme
cases, excessive laxative use can lead to all sorts of nasty medical complications.
What About Competitive Eaters?
I watch the July 4th Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest yearly. Joey Chestnut
knocked down 70 dogs in 10 minutes. I’m not sure how much that
weighs, but given the average Joe spits out almost 2 pounds after a
few dogs at most, does that mean that Joey is somewhere between a
Saint Bernard and an elephant the day after the contest?
I found this gem THE 8 TYPES OF POOP YOU SHOULD NEVER
IGNORE because it means you have a problem
What Does Your Poop Say About You?
I found this gem at did you know your facts?
And finally, go to this link to evaluate your poop and pooping habits because you should examine your deuce to see if you are unhealthy or have a problem.
Somebody else calculated it. Go see the results here and whether your name is on the list.
Most common first name of geniuses.
This is the Background for my Facebook page, the reason I thought this article was so interesting. Perhaps you will also. Even the person some regard as the smartest surely forgot some things, especially on his desk.
Even the smartest people out there sometimes forget some of those obvious concepts:
1. Not feeling ready can be a good thing
Opportunities rarely come when we are 100% ready to seize them. They are more likely to knock on your door when you feel insecure with your preparation, knowledge and skills. But that doesn’t mean you should be ignoring them until you feel ready. Most of our lifetime opportunities force us to grow both emotionally and intellectually. They push us to give the best of ourselves, even if that means getting out of our comfort zones. But sacrificing our comfort can give us the chance for personal growth. If you want to change your life for the better, you should open yourself to the opportunities that arise, even if you don’t feel 100% ready.
2. Success and failure go hand in hand
Often times people tend to misinterpret the meaning of the word “failure”. Why are we so afraid of failure? It is just as natural as succeeding. Failure doesn’t mean not succeeding. It is actually a part of the circle of success. And success itself shouldn’t be measured by the achievement of a particular goal. Success is a state of being and therefore everyone can feel successful.
3. Action is the key for all success
We often hear that knowledge is power. But it only is power if you use it. Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things. It doesn’t matter if ,for example, you read books and articles on fighting procrastination, and take no particular action to overcome that problem. Knowledge and intelligence are useless without action.
4. Even mistakes mean progress
If you look back in your life, maybe you will realize that the mistakes you have done in the past have taught you valuable lessons. So why should we be scared of making mistakes, if they help us grow stronger and wiser? Every mistake you make on the way to a particular goal brings you one step closer to achieving it. It is highly possible that the mistake you will regret the most in your life is not taking action because of the fear of making mistakes. This way you will always be wondering what could have happened, if you hadn’t been so scared. And most importantly- you wouldn’t have made any progress. So don’t be afraid of feeling uncertain about something- give it a try and see what happens.
5. Making decisions is impeded when there are too many options
We live in times when there are so many opportunities for us to choose from when it comes to determining our career and life paths. But when we have so many choices before us, we can often times get confused and indecisive. Business and marketing studies prove that when a consumer has more product choices, he’s predisposed to buy less. If you think about it, choosing one product out of three product choices feels much easier than choosing one out of three hundred. Most people will give up easily, if the buying decision process is tough.
6. Success doesn’t necessarily mean happiness
Many people believe that they can only be happy if they accomplish a particular goal. In my opinion, we can choose to be happy every day, no matter where on the path to our goals we are at the moment. “The monk who sold his Ferrari” by Robin Sharma is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. One of the main ideas shared by the author is that you don’t have to wait to accomplish your dreams to be happy. The main character was one of the most successful layers in the country but even though he had everything he ever wanted, he wasn’t a happy person. The most important thing is to cherish every moment of every day and to be thankful for who you are and what you have now.
7. You can be the best at something even if you don’t like doing it
Some people say that in order to be good at doing something, you should love doing this thing. In my opinion, this isn’t necessarily true. If a person devotes their time and effort to learn a particular skill, they can become excellent at it. How they feel about the activity doesn’t determine their success in it.
8. What we see in others exists in us
When we have a problem with someone, this can actually help us learn more about ourselves. It can help us learn why we see that problem in the other person, and the reason can be that we hold it inside of us, too, and seeing it exposed before us can be frustrating. But acknowledging that what we see in others is a reflection of ourselves, can help us overcome our unsolved issues.
Hat tip to Intelligence.com
In a WSJ article today entitled, “Men and Women at Work: Unhappy, But Productive“, I couldn’t help but recall some observations I’ve made over the years at multiple companies in many situations. If you are the PC police, save your hostilities as most of this is common sense.
The article states this:
When women and men work together on teams, the results are good for business—but they don’t enjoy it much.
That, at least, is the experience of employees in one company, a large US professional services firm studied by economists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and George Washington University.
Researchers looked at eight years of the firm’s revenue data and employee surveys, measuring satisfaction, cooperation, morale and attitudes toward diversity. That included data from offices or teams that were entirely male or entirely female, along with data from teams that were more evenly mixed.
On surveys, individual employees reported higher levels of job satisfaction when they were on teams that were mainly staffed with people of their own gender. Those on more diverse teams reported lower levels of happiness, trust and cooperation–consider this Journal essay on what men don’t know about women at work – although revenue figures showed they were more productive and better performing—by a lot.
“People are more comfortable around people who are like them,” says study co-author Sara Fisher Ellison, of MIT.
It may be that members of homogenous groups “socialize more and work less,” Ellison notes. Mixed groups may lack social capital, but varied perspectives and skills may help a unit perform better. The researchers posit that shifting an all-female or all-male team to a coed one would increase revenues by 41%.
Also, researchers found that workers seemed to appreciate the idea of a diverse workplace more than they liked diversity in practice. According to employee surveys, workers gave gender and racial diversity high marks for boosting morale, trust and employee satisfaction, but those who actually worked on diverse teams tended to report lower levels of those traits.
My take so far…..
This prompted some thoughts that many have made about the differences between men and women. It’s likely that women have kept men from wiping each other off the planet in the adult version of kill the man with the ball, or who wants to be king. Conversely, men have killed each other over a woman (OK, women have killed over men also to a lesser degree) but that isn’t the same as competition in the workplace.
The sexes still are created differently. Little boys can make a gun out of sticks and play war. A majority of younger girls have a greater preference to play with dolls. Not long after, more boys begin in sports, even if on the street level. This activity encourages them to play your position as a team to win the game. While an increasing number of girls are playing sports, those that do appear to decline in numbers when social engagements take priority. It’s been observed that women enjoy shopping far more than men, but there is no winning the game in dolls or shopping. There certainly are a great number of outstanding female athletes, but the trends and volume of numbers still appear to favor men. Men on the other hand generally fail at these more social activities which women exceed at. It manifests itself in social behavior later in life where women can tend to be far more social than men.
This has to do with corporate behavior. Men get a rush out of hitting the walk off home run, catching or throwing the winning touchdown, scoring the winning goal or getting the biggest hit in the game. Delivering the crushing hit isn’t as big of a priority to most women. The workplace is a place of competition, even in a teamwork situation. You work together to kill the competition for market share. There traditionally has been a disproportionate number of women in the marketing and communications disciplines which by nature are more social. While there is an increasing number of female executives, one still notices that the skill of hitting the walk off is a learned practice, not ingrained and salivated for by testosterone driven executives.
Having observed these early differences, the article goes on to state the following:
There is a “mismatch between the kind of workplace people think they would like and the actual workplace that makes them happier,” says Ellison, and that may suggest employers could do more to help workers embrace differing backgrounds and viewpoints.
The researchers only studied one firm, Ellison cautions, so the results don’t necessarily translate to other companies. Other studies have found similar results — a positive relationship between gender diversity and firm performance, and higher satisfaction and trust among groups composed of similar people. What’s unusual about this study is that the researchers found both effects in the same firm.
The paper, Diversity, Social Goods Provision, and Performance in the Firm, recently published in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, is by Ellison and Wallace P. Mullin, an economist at George Washington University.
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AROUND EACH OTHER
Men act differently with each other when women aren’t around as I’ve been assured that women also do. We punch (physically or verbally), snap each other with towels and so forth. Women tend to act more grown up around each other, except that they can be harder on each other, especially behind other women’s backs. Men will hand your a$$ to you right to your face.
SEXUAL TENSION
There is another issue I’ve observed, sexual tension. Both sexes are genetically encoded to reproduce. This behavior requires some level of courtship ranging from drunken hookups to abstinence until marriage, but it exists. When you put men and women together, generally something is going to go on. I have yet to see an office where it hasn’t happened. When you stick opposite sexes together, or worse on extended business trips, guess what goes down? This almost always gets in the way in the form of nepotism while it’s going on, to retribution afterwords. The army saying is don’t s–t in your own foxhole.
PUSHING IT TOO FAR
Why the PC police are forcing the military to make the sexes cooperate in tight spaces like a submarine where you are guaranteed deserted island behavior is beyond me. The recent incident where men have filmed women in the shower on a sub is no surprise. That is asking for something to happen. You can only push the bubble so far before it breaks. This is quarters that are just too close. Someone is going to hop into the sack.
I also get diversity and have been through hours of training. It’s the same boring training year after year on what you can and can’t do and how to act so that the company doesn’t get sued or blame you for the easy way out. I’m for hiring the most talented and best candidate for a position rather than a quota based system. It can result in distorted statistics that the racial and feminist overlords use against companies, but the idea is to create the optimal team be the most competitive and win. Sometimes that creates teams of men and women, sometimes it’s dominated by more of one sex than the other. When it’s time for battle though, you put your best team on the field, and that is determined by meritocracy.
So do men and women like working together? For the most part to a person will say they do. Behind the others backs or in the back of their mind, the differences are there and likely go unspoken or not thought of until the instinct to crush the opponent is instinctual or learned. You can point the gun, but can you pull the trigger.
CRYING
I saw an article on LinkedIn about women crying more than men. You can read the article here and draw your own conclusion, but it appears that there are clear differences between the two sexes emotionally.
And…..women tell me the difference between women and men is women have 2000 web pages open at once and work them all. Men have one page open, but know every inch of it.
So in conclusion, no.
Why snot is green or yellow, or other color. Click to read more.
Mucus is clear when you’re healthy and have no serious invaders. However, when bacteria or viruses attack, it will turn yellow or green due to the influx of iron-containing enzymes including myeloperoxidases, other oxidases and peroxidases. These enzymes are used by white blood cells, namely polymorphonuclear granulocytes, to help ingest and deactivate bacteria through an oxidative process. The combination of dead white blood cells, used up enzymes and eaten bacteria, all of which still contain a fair amount of iron, results in the green or yellow color.
Notably, the longer snot stays in your sinuses, the greener it will get.
Is eating boogers healthy for you? Click to read.
That said, while it may seem gross to those of us who’ve never tried (or don’t remember- nearly all children do this at one point or another), according to the sparse few studies that have been conducted on booger eaters, the vast number of people who eat their nasal mucus find it palatable, which probably isn’t a surprise to anyone as if they didn’t, they’d likely just stop. As SidneyTarachow in a 1966 report oncoprophagia (the compulsive eating bodily secretions) noted, “persons do eat nasal debris, and find it tasty, too!”
So to sum up, at least to date, there is no scientific proof that ingesting snot by passing it through your mouth is beneficial. That said, it is plausible that the snot we do all ingest all the time is benefiting us in the way snot-eating proponents suggest. It’s just that we don’t need to put it into our mouths to see the benefit, if such a benefit does exist as hypothesized.
In the end, though, as long as you’re careful, picking and eating is not generally going to hurt you, and many find it tasty… so, if that’s your thing, bon appétit!
Why is poop brown? Click to read more.
Poop is brown due to bile from your gall bladder being metabolized by the bacteria in your intestines. This results in a byproduct called stercobilin, which, in turn, makes poop look brown-ish.
Without this stercobilin, your poop would typically look grey-ish/white. Because of this, a sure sign you are having problems with bile production, such as a blocked bile duct by a gall stone or something more serious like pancreatic cancer, is if you notice your poop is this white/grey-ish color.
In the end *pun intended*, brown poop is a pretty good sign you are a relatively healthy individual. Some other common poop colors that generally aren’t a good sign of health are as follows:
Bonus Facts:
There of course are many links in these pages that lead to other gross stuff. Enjoy.
This is not only very inspiring, it is some of the best advice on the Interweb. For those in a good way, it will make you better, for those in a bad way it will show you how to begin to pick yourself up. If you are young, it is a good lesson in how to live your life.
AP Photo/The University of Texas at Austin, Marsha Miller
UT alum Adm. William H. McRaven gives students the “hook ’em horns” at the university’s commencement last week.
U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week to give seniors 10 lessons from basic SEAL training when he spoke at the school’s commencement.
McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who organized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, stressed the importance of making your bed every morning, taking on obstacles headfirst, and realizing that it’s OK to be a “sugar cookie.”
All of his lessons were supported by personal stories from McRaven’s many years as a Navy SEAL.
“While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform,” McRaven told students. “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status.”
Once again, a smattering from many on this subject, but I can vouch for many of these techniques.
Some obvious examples.
But there are other aspects of it.
If you have learned to play the piano, you will be able to learn touch typing easier. This is because learning touch typing requires a rhythm and hand-and-eye motor skills.
If you have learnt to draw well you will generally be more observant.
You can use Venn diagrams to see what skills have in common.
Let’s imagine you want to learn three different subjects of:
Touch Typing
Piano
French
Also assume you were a beginner in each, and had only an hour a day to learn.
You can now use your practice hour in the following way.
This is only an indication of how skills can be transferred. We do it all the time in lesser ways, but it can be worked out systematically.
In my own case I once worked as a sailor.
I transferred that skill to helping run a diving boat. I was able to get free diving lessons for doing this.
Once I had learned to dive, I took up underwater photography. I now used my diving skills to get photos.
Once I got photos I sent them to magazines, so used my photo skills to get into journalism.
Once I got into journalism I wrote travel articles about diving.
I then expanded my journalistic skills to other subjects.
In most cases I simply learned enough to do the job required, so I was never particularly good at any of them, but good enough to achieve my purpose.
From an outside view I appeared to be a quick learner with many skills, whereas I was a normal learner with adequate skills applied in a systematic way.
The first one is pretty straightforward. Repeatedly think about something and the neurons related to that something will grow dendrites and make associations with other neurons, making it easier for us to remember and recall that something, when needed. We all know how to learn or memorize by repetition.
The second is the more complicated one. Our brains store information by context and association based on existing mental models (AKA schema). If we want to learn new information successfully we need to either find an existing mental model that will associate with the new information or we need to build a new mental model in which the new information will fit.
The quick learner determines the analogous existing mental model or realizes when they don’t have an existing acceptable mental model and they back-off and build a new mental model before trying to absorb the concept that is new. Building new mental models can be done by outlining or mind-mapping. Start with the central new concept and branch off to the key features of that concept. Keep branching off until you reach a point where you have existing knowledge that can connect to the new knowledge.
Here is a crude example. Let’s assume we wanted to learn how to play chess:
By making the association between the shape of the Bishop piece and a picture of a bishop’s hat we will have a neural association that will make it easy for us to recognize which piece is the Bishop.
Using images wherever practical is a benefit, because our brains are better at remembering images than words.
Go ahead, make jokes….they are always funny about this.
Now, The 7 reasons farting is good for you.
For many years it was thought the moon did have something to do with the attraction of moths to light. The so-called light-compass theory held that moths used the moon as a navigational beacon. By keeping it at a constant angle to their direction of travel, they were supposedly able to fly in a straight line. The trouble (for the moths) came when they made their sightings on a close-up light source like a candle flame. Instead of heading in a straight line, they flew around the flame in an ever-narrowing spiral until finally, phhhht, moth flambé.
But this theory had more holes in it than a moth-eaten sweater. The main problem was that moths simply don’t fly around lights in spirals. This was shown by an ingenious bug researcher named Henry Hsiao. He tethered moths to little styrofoam boats in a tiny artificial pond — I love guys like this — and tracked their flight as they headed toward a light source. He found the moths flew more or less straight at the light until they got up close, at which point they veered off and circled around it at a more or less constant distance. They seldom actually touched the light.
A number of other theories have also been discredited. Some claim that, to the moth, bright lights mean open space and open space means safety. But moths are nocturnal, and the night sky has no light sources anywhere near as bright as a porch light. Besides, why should the moth feel compelled to fly around the light in circles? Others argue that moths associate light with warmth. Yet ultraviolet lamps, which are much cooler than incandescent bulbs, attract more moths.
Henry Hsiao to the rescue. He said moths exhibit two kinds of behavior. When they’re distant from a light source (they’re drawn to light from as far as 200 feet away), they make a beeline straight toward it. Why, nobody knows. Maybe they’ve tumbled to the fact that lights mean people, and people mean: Wool sweaters! On an even more basic level, a light means: Other moths! Par-ty!
However, when the moths get close to the light, a different kind of behavior takes over. Instead of being attracted to the light, the moth is actually trying to avoid the light. When you think about it, this is only natural. To a creature of the night like a moth, daylight and by extension any bright light means danger. The moth doesn’t fly directly away from the light due to a peculiarity of vision called a Mach band. A Mach band, which apparently is common to all sighted creatures, is the region surrounding a bright light that seems darker than any other part of the sky.
Hsiao conjectured that the moth’s atom-sized brain figures the darkest part of the sky is safest. So it circles the light in the Mach band region, usually at a radius of about one foot, depending on the species. Eventually either its momentum carries it away or it finds a dark corner to hole up in.
In short, moths like some light but not too much — just like other creatures I could name. Nobody wants to get burned, naturally, but at some point in our lives, aren’t we all attracted to those bright porch lights?
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 35,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2013, there were 51 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 460 posts. There were 24 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was February 25th with 1,894 views. The most popular post that day was
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 35,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2013, there were 51 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 460 posts. There were 24 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was February 25th with 1,894 views. The most popular post that day was:
Views: 1,894?
Visitors: 1,545
Views per Visitor: 1.23
Next was WD-40 interesting facts
9/11 facts and pictures was next most popular
My all time number one hit though in any search engine, especially Google is:
1. Safely Unclog A Drain
A great natural solution for unclogging the drain! Just drop four Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain, followed by a cup of white vinegar and allow to stand for about ten minutes. Flush with a pot of boiling water. Doing this on a regular basis can help keep that drain clear. This also works to deodorize the drain.
2. Clean a Toilet In A Hurry
Drop two tablets in the toilet, wait 20 minutes for the citric acid to loosen the grime, scrub and flush. The bowl will be clean, shiny, and deodorized. Handy for a quick clean in case of uninvited, unannounced, surprise guests.
3. An All-Purpose Cleaner
Alka Seltzer can also be a good all around cleaner. Plop three tablets into 8 ounces of warm water. Once the fizzing stops, dip a sponge in the water (or you could fill a spray bottle) and wipe down counters, tiles and tubs. You can even place some in your sink and use as mop water. Just add five tablets to one half gallon of water.
4. Soothe Insect Bites
Drop two tablets in warm water, then soak a cotton ball in the solution. Place on the bite for 30 minutes for relief from the insect bites.
5. Catch a Fish
Fish love bubbles. Break a tablet in half and throw it out near your fishing line, or put a tablet inside your tube jig and cast off. The fish won’t be able to resist the stream of bubbles.
6. Remove Burnt On Food From Bakeware
Drop 5 tablets into a sink full of hot water and let your cookware soak for an hour or so. The burnt food will come off with ease.
7. Whiten and Brighten Your Laundry
To get rid of dingy yellow color on white cotton, soak your whites in a solution of a gallon of warm water and two Alka Seltzer tablets. Then hang your whites in the sun to dry to get rid of any lingering stains.
8. Deodorize the Fridge
For a clean, fresh smelling refrigerator, drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a cup of water and leave it in the refrigerator for a half hour. If there is still a smell in the refrigerator, then wash down the inside of the refrigerator with another Alka-Seltzer tablet in water.
9. Clean a Glass Jar, Flower Vase or Thermos
For those difficult to clean vessels with narrow-necks, and hard to reach places, drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets in, add hot water and swish it around until the tablets are dissolved and let it sit for an hour. Rinse, and the glass jar, vase or Thermos will be as clean as new.
10. Restore Stained Plastic Containers
Got spaghetti sauce stains on your plastic containers? Simply fill your container with warm to hot water and depending on the size drop 1-2 tablets into the water. Let sit for 30 minutes and the stains will disappear before your eyes.
11. Polish Your Jewelry
Drop two tablets in a bowl of warm water. Let your jewelry soak for about 20 minutes. It will look new again! (Note: This is not safe for pearls or opals.)
12. Build Rockets For Kids
Entertain little ones by heading outside with an empty film canister, filled halfway with warm water. Drop in half a tablet, snap on the lid and place the canister upside down on the sidewalk or driveway. Take a step back and watch your rocket blast off!
13. Clean Your Coffeemaker
Fill the water chamber of the coffeemaker and then drop in three tablets. When the Alka-Seltzer has dissolved, put the coffeemaker through a brew cycle. This will clean out all the internal components. Run through another plain water cycle before using the machine again for coffee.
14. Help For Nicotine Addiction
If you’re trying to quit smoking Alka-Seltzer can help. Take two tablets three times a day to relieve nicotine withdrawal symptoms and curb cravings.
15. Cure Urinary Tract Infections
Showing signs of a urinary infection? Take two tablets in a glass of water as soon as you notice symptoms. Results are almost immediate. Keep in mind that Aspirin is a main ingredient in Alka-Seltzer so those with Aspirin allergies shouldn’t use it.
16. Clean and Deodorize A Cooler
After an outing or trip, add about 1 inch of water to the bottom of your cooler, drop 4 tablets in, and let sit for an hour. After an hour, rinse and dry. All smells will be gone and it will be clean and ready for its next use.
17. Clean Dentures
Drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet into a glass of warm water, and then drop your dentures into the glass for about ten minutes. The citric acid and carbonation will remove the toughest stains from your dentures and other prosthetic dental work. This is an excellent substitute for more expensive denture cleanser products.
OK, the title should really read useful now that I think about it, but so what.
For those who care about punctuality, or for those who don’t, how would you like to know the correct exact time wherever you are?
How about if you want to check and see if your Laptop, mobile device, watch or any other time piece is accurate?
Click this link and enter your time zone to find out!
I’ve decided to that hurrying through life just doesn’t have the payback it seems. The hustle and bustle of busy work, conference calls, email and social media keep some in a coffee enhanced mode glued to their screen and missing out on life just isn’t worth it. I got to thinking about this and decided to take some stress off of things and so whenever possible, I now work on my schedule. I’ll get around to what is needed to do, but I’m not going to let it keep me up at night. I’m not as worried that my comments on social media or political diatribes that upset me really don’t matter all that much. Once you get used to this, those pesky deadlines that are mostly self inflicted become less important. After all, most of the above described issues are nuisances at best.
WHERE DO WE GET THIS CULTURE?
For many, they just can’t wait to grow up fast (not me). Then can’t wait to get promoted (partly me), can’t wait for kids to grow (not me) and finally can’t wait to retire (me even thought I’m working again, but for myself). Work seems to exacerbate it the most with demands endless meetings (Meeting = a cul-de-sac where ideas get strangled and go to die), phone calls, emails, instant messages, texts and incessant demands from bosses (the less competent usually are the worst like 3 of my last 4 before I retired, on my terms).
My last couple of Boss’s in this picture
It turns out that this extra stress can lead to brain damage.
On the social side, I have a relative with MOP (miss out phobia) who is afraid something is going to happen without her. Her sibling just doesn’t give a rats rump what others think and has far less pressure socially, but missed out on some things in life. Striking a balance is good.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on when not to accept a promotion. There is a myriad of reasons given including family life, unrewarded extra burdens for the less than promised climb up the ladder. I personally turned down 2 promotions as they wanted me to move to New York where I would get a 30% higher cost of living, three times the responsibility that I wouldn’t be compensated for and a back stabbing culture of ladder climbers. My real reason for not doing it is that I didn’t want to raise a family there and wanted to bring them up in a better part of the country. After that, I was happy not to be there stressing out more. Since I’d already been on every rung of the ladder, the need to be at the top was less than taking care of my kids. I still managed to beat the system to be rewarded better than the curve and on my terms.
All of this adds up to the rat race. I’m not sure why I didn’t think about it before, but it’s a terrible way to go through life. Now that I think about it, I just knew that taking it easy and beating the system was the way to get ahead the right way, and not sell your soul in the process
MOUNTAIN TIME AND ISLAND TIME
Having spent time in both places, I noticed that the folks there just don’t seem to be in a rush. It truly is a New Yorker’s nightmare not to have someone jump when they say how high or to have to be busy in crisis mode over everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m for punctuality, but these two groups set a different deadline (sometimes internally) and usually meet it. They don’t die early from stress usually.
I noticed it in the Caribbean islands first. They are not in a hurry for anything.
I then noticed it in the mountains that they get around to things..eventually. It was enough of a coincidence that I quickly connected the dots between the two.
I’M GETTING THINGS ACCOMPLISHED
To be fair, I’m busy and am accomplishing more under my own direction than when under the gun of a manager overlooking by shoulder. I’m the manager now. It’s just that I’m making the deadlines and am meeting all of them.
So I’m happier in life and wish that for others and hope that this 24/7/365 mentality doesn’t overtake your priorities. It’s corny, but true in this video below:
Not all of these are my idea, rather they were gathered from a collection of many, many others as I’ve run across them. Nevertheless, they are interesting to ponder. I’m sure there a thousands more, but they are here for you to share:
Don’t stop learning: If you start coasting through life, you’re gonna lose. Always stretch your intellect.
Don’t always try to be original: Just tell the story or paint the canvas or whatever.
Focusing on “fairness” will lead to stagnation.
If you’re not failing, you’re doing it wrong. (It’s OK to make mistakes.)
Don’t try to reason with mindless, irrational people.
Don’t stress yourself out with news and “staying informed” too much.
Do something that’s not for money.
The key to happiness is BUILDING stuff, not GETTING stuff.
Time passes by a lot faster than you’d think. This effect accelerates with age.
Wealth is relatively unimportant.
Some things can’t be learned; they can only be experienced.
Figure out who you are, then ACCEPT that person, and then BE that person.
Don’t wait for permission. Give yourself the okay.
Don’t lie to yourself.
Forgive as much as possible. Grudges achieve little.
Be humble (especially to the “little” people).
You and you alone control how happy you allow yourself to be.
Find a mentor and BE a mentor.
Find what you like and let it kill you.
You don’t have to eat everything that’s on your plate.
You don’t have to pick up a phone that’s ringing.
Always take action on things. People regret inaction more than action.
The past is something you learn from. It is not something you live in.
Wealth is measured by your happiness and not by your financial statement.
Your mind decides what is hopeless. Your circumstances do not.
More things will happen to you that you have absolutely no control over than things you do have control over. You ALWAYS Have the power to choose how you will react.
Remember that their is a God and don’t stop seeking him.
Do one thing at a time. All that huzzah about multi-tasking? BS
Don’t compare yourself with others. It’s an inaccurate measuring stick. It is more accurate to compare from within. Compare yourself with yourself. How much progress have you made? How have you changed? What negative behavior have you stopped engaging in? That’s what matters.
Don’t believe what you think. Never make up stories in your head about what other people are thinking or why they do certain things. Your made-up stories are making you miserable. You’re often wrong about other people are thinking anyway (I cannot count the number of times I’ve overhead “I think x hates me.”) Quit it. Remember, people are by nature benevolent). The criticism you hear about you is only ever one person’s opinion about you. If it becomes a pattern, then you can re-evaluate course and improve. More power to you.
Learn to handle criticism. Don’t take it personally. Criticism of an idea or project is not criticism of the creator as a person. Everything can always be improved; criticism is the vehicle to allow you to improve. Only apply remedial measures if the criticism has value. ”Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Aristotle
How You Would Spend Your Time
About You
“How will you make this world a better place than when you came into it?”
or similarly, in the same spirit,
“When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?”
I’ve found that, in general, a person can only answer these questions well if:
What is the first moment you remember in your Life?
What are 3 qualities that you take most pride in in yourself?
If you were to be exiled to a deserted island (presumably this island has nothing other than basic survival items) by yourself and were allowed one comfort item, what would that item be?
What is the last thing that you have seen/heard/experienced that has inspired you?
Do you have a role model right now, and why is that person your role model?
What are you most afraid of, amongst the 7 deadly fears?
– Most people don’t know what the 7 deadly fears are, so I often phrase this question as “What is worse, rejection, inadequacy, guilt, or whatever else you can think of?”
Rank the love languages for a) how you love to receive, and b) how you give.
What is the funniest thing that you’ve ever watched?
– Some people say chick flicks, some say The Office type shows, for me the Tina Fey spoof with Sarah Palin in 2008 takes the cake. You get the point.
If you go into a bookstore, what is the first section that you will go to?
What engages you intellectually?
Someone just told you “you are awesome”. What just transpired?
What drives you? If there ever come a point where you commit suicide (touch wood), presumably because you have lost all hope and drive to live, why would that be?
What would keep you up at night?
What is the most misunderstood trait/belief about you?
10 years later, you are the happiest person in the world. What could have happened in between those 10 years?
When was the last time you cried, and why?
What is your proudest moment in your life thus far?
– I get answers ranging from career accomplishments, to small things which do their family proud, to encounters with personal growth, etc.
What would be one skill that you would want to learn if you could master it in 1 hour?
1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.
3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
9. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
10. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case of emergency, Notify:’ I put ’911′
11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
13. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure..
14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
15. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
16. I’m supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.
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Delusions of Adequacy 