On Work and Suspicion

    There's a new upper management employee at work. Where she used to work they could telework every day but management would run reports on every employee's computer to make sure they were working when they were home. I tell you this to help explain the rest of this post.

    This woman attended our weekly meetings this week. During the first meeting the subject of telework was brought up because there have been rumors that the office policy is being revised to allow for more telework days per week. This woman, who has only been in our office for two weeks, mentioned running those reports straight away. She's been with us two weeks, she barely knows my name, and immediately suggests we teleworkers are not working when we are at home. 

    Then, in between meetings when my supervisor was out of the room, this woman asks us what procedures our supervisor has in place to verify that we are working when we are at home. She didn't ask our supervisor. She went behind his back to ask us. During the meeting she commented how beneficial telework was and how she got so much work accomplished when she teleworked, but then supported these draconian, KGB style tactics to control the innocent workforce.

    So that's two marks against her in my book. She assumes I'm guilty of abusing the telework policy with no evidence, threatens to run reports on our computers because our work record and performance evaluations can't possibly reflect our work ethic and productivity. That last bit was sarcasm. And, she is attempting to use us to attack our own supervisor instead of just communicating with him directly. 

    I think some of this distrust and disrespect she demonstrates comes from West Virginia's long history of treating labor like tools instead of people. West Virginia was built on coal and the coal companies did view miners as tools. Remember the "company towns" in which miners were paid in "scrip" and could only buy necessities from the "company store"? That coal baron mentality never really went away in West Virginia. Many employers still view people this way. That's probably why the republican legislature and governor want income tax cuts that proportionately benefit the wealthy more than the poor. Tax cuts to be paid for by the working poor is par for the course in West Virginia. The workforce has always been exploited by management here.

    Before this rumor about expanding telework days came about I was planning to retire early as the daily commute is long and expensive and I didn't want to have to buy a new vehicle just to get me to a job that I wouldn't have to have if there wasn't a car loan to pay off. Then the rumor came about and I thought maybe I could work a year or two longer since I wouldn't be driving as much. But now that this woman is showing me such disrespect and accusing me of things without evidence, I'm back to thinking I'll retire early. She seems to be a snake, the way she tried to get us to talk about our supervisor behind his back. She may think we are on her radar, but she's on mine. 

Overly Invested

    I've been reading posts on social media about the Royal Family's family feud. It amazes me the amount of hate and anger in these posts directed at one side or the other. None of these people are directly involved. They don't work for the RF. They don't work for H & M. But they all seem to believe passionately in one or the other, so much so that they say mean, hurtful things.

    Where are they getting their information to react to? They are getting stories from the British tabloids and H's autobiography. I haven't read H's book or attempted to fact check any of the claims therein. But I know the British tabloids have a history of printing things that may not be true just to stir things up. They've been feeding off the RF for decades. So all these people on social media are so emotionally invested in stories that may not be true and waging verbal wars against others based on these stories. 

    As with every dust-up, the truth is somewhere in between the two sides of the feud. It's a shame all these people on social media saying mean and hurtful things can't take a step back and look at things with a little distance. They feel that hate deep within themselves, that anger. It must seep into every corner of their lives and comes through in their relationships with others. 

    It's a sad phenomenon. No individual wins. Social media posters are miserable. And the tabloids will get more internet traffic and sell more papers. 

Anger is a Good Motivator

    I did not want this blog to turn into a political rant so I'm going to tiptoe around all the politics that factored into this specific post. Why is anger motivating me right now? What am I motivated to do? Let's get into that.

    My future is threatened. The rhetoric coming out of Washington suggests I won't have Social Security or Medicare when I get old. How will I pay for my existence? How will I pay for medical care? This makes me angry. For 23 years I paid for that promised future out of every paycheck. Do you think I'm going to be refunded what I paid in? Not likely. The folks in charge don't seem like the type to do that. I am very angry at those who threaten my future. 

    What am I motivated to do? Well, since I won't be able to pay for my medical care I need to do what I can to make sure I don't need any medical care. So, I am motivated to work out. I need to lose weight and get off the blood pressure medication. I need to exercise this heart and these lungs. I need some strength training so I can avoid falls.

    We've all done the New Year's Resolution thing. We've all made those commitments to exercise that last about a week. It's easy to discard those commitments when life gets busy or when you just forget because exercise isn't a habit. With the politicians in my face all the time now it won't be that easy to forget my anger. They will do something or many somethings every day to keep me angry. I expect to be on that stationary bike every day to protect what's left of my future. 

    I can't trust the leaders of this country to do anything to make my life easier or better. But I know they will do many, many things to make my life worse. I'm fighting 536 people on the federal level and 135 people on the state level just for the right to live a regular life and reap the rewards of the money I've invested in the programs promised to me all these years.  I know I'm not the only one.

On New Year's and New Paradigms

    I've never been one to attach a special meaning to "The New Year". To me, it's always been a time to have to get used to writing a new year on documents.  And when you get down to it, it's a new year because someone decided we should all follow a specific calendar. 

    This year, there is an added ingredient in this recipe of time and life. I just had a milestone birthday - one of those birthdays where you say, "Playtime is over." Looking ahead to the future that seems to be rushing toward me faster each year, I see healthcare getting impossible to afford. So this New Year has to be the end of the playtime, like eating whatever I want, however much I want, whenever I want, like sitting around with no exercise at all, like impulse buying when I check out the deals and sales on the internet. 

    Yes, the first half of my life was playtime. The second half has to be nose-to-the-grindstone serious. I may be able to squeeze a little play in there. In fact, it's probably necessary to keep me on the straight and narrow path to good health and financial security. If I didn't allow for a little play, I'd end up scrapping all the seriousness, like I've done countless times before.

    Committing these thoughts to paper (so to speak) is one way to put some oomph behind the decision. I can also come back to this post time and again if I need a reminder of why I'm on this path to begin with. This post title referenced a new paradigm and that's what I'm trying to create for the second half of my life. Let's see if I can do it.