• A Progressive’s thoughts
  • postaday
  • postaday2011
  • postaday2012
  • Uncategorized

laurieanichols

~ Just another WordPress.com site

laurieanichols

Daily Archives: October 24, 2011

Have you ever fired someone?

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurieanichols in postaday2011

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

employment, fired, postaday2011, unemployment

I have never had the responsibility of hiring or firing employees. The most responsibility I had with other employees was training any new employees. I was quite good at it, whether at Conran’s-Habitat during my time in housewares or during my time in furniture, I trained all the new employees and quite a few of them moved up into management positions. I had left to go elsewhere for a time, a Law firm and then the Environmental Action Coalition, when I came back I trained a few more new employees and I was than promoted myself to Catalog Coordinator for Conran’s-Habitat.

During my years of working in the restaurant business as a waiter, I trained all the new waiters that came in, it is called trailing. It is kind of horrible for the new people because while you are trailing the “real” waiter, you are working hard and learning at the same time, it never happens on a slow night, management always does the trailing on weekends because it is busy, and you are not paid. If you are lucky, the person who is training you will give you a cut of their tips, but that is relatively rare. I would because I always felt bad. However, I never had the decision to hire or fire, that was up to the floor manager.

I’m glad that I never had to fire anyone, I always enjoyed training new employees, it was fun and enjoyable. I had a lot of patience for the job and I think that all the managers saw that in me. Firing someone can’t be easy or pleasant, I mean, what do you say? Unless the person really doesn’t care and I doubt that, that happens too often, it must really be one of the worst parts of the management’s responsibilities. I am happy it is not my job to fire anyone, the only thing that I have to fire, is fire up the grill or the broiler, and that is it.

Who is the most patient person you know?

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurieanichols in postaday2011

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

children, marriage, patience, pets, postaday2011

C’est moi. I am the most patient person I know. Why do I think that, you ask. Well, since you are curious, I will tell you. Have I always been patient? Growing up, I had the capability to be patient, I don’t think that I had to make it a daily occurrence because growing up, I had really, only myself to think of and my chores to do. Life was mostly about school, part-time jobs, socializing and getting along with family and friends. I know that I did learn patience and waiting my turn during the summers in France, when we all shared on bathroom and the we, meant that there were at least ten of us.

I got married at 23 years old and had our son at 24 years old. That was when patience and a lot of it were required, was I always capable back then of expressing patience? I know that there were days when patience walked out of the apartment and stayed away for a few hours, luckily those days were fairly rare. I would be so tired and feel so alone that I would cry. Those days were mainly caused by sleep deprivation. My baby boy was a non-stop breast feeder, I didn’t sleep a solid nights sleep for at least 8 months. I was exhausted and stupid by the time he was nine months.

On a side note, I just came back from picking up my seventeen year old daughter from school this evening. I told her about today’s topic and asked her who she thought was the most patient person that she knew. She said “well, it certainly isn’t Papa, and it is definitely not you”. I said, calmly, “really, you don’t think that I am the most patient person” She said “what! you are not patient with me, Papa or Bob”. I said “well I started writing that I am the most patient person I know” and I left it at that. I didn’t get hurt or indignant. If the conversation had happened between my mother and myself, she would have said a few choice things to me, along the vein that she deserved a medal for putting up with me as a teenager. I let it go with my daughter, I don’t know what my son would say, I take that back, I do know because I called him for research purposes and he said that I am the most patient person he knows. Back to my daughter, I can let it go because she has the right to her opinion, and she is probably thinking of the times when I do get exasperated after asking her at least 4 or 5 times to do something and I get a retort instead.

Where was I? Oh, yes the early days of parenthood. Instead of giving you the step by step inaugural pathway to patience, I’ll give you my ideas of why it grew through the years. I think that I have become more patient because I don’t see or feel the need to have everything exactly the way I want it to be. I have gotten very accommodating over the years and it has been a blessing. When I find myself getting annoyed by something small, I try to step back and ask myself “is it really worth it?” More often than not, that question is quickly answered no and I can let whatever go. It is liberating and makes life easier.

I’ve noticed that patience sometimes has a negative connotation to it. The person who has it is considered either good and virtuous or put upon. However, that, in regards to human relationships, means that the other half of the relationship, the other person probably isn’t so very good, they might be a handful or high maintenance. When it comes to taking care of pets, than the person who is patient, is considered a good pet owner no matter how the pet behaves because pets are given more leeway than humans. The same can be determined for gardening, taking care of the home, cooking, many of these tasks require patience and time to be done correctly and that is easily seen as something to aspire to or at least admire.

It is when you throw people in the mix that feelings can get hurt. As in the example of my daughter, I could have lashed out because my feelings were hurt that she doesn’t think of me as a patient person. If I had, well maybe she would have been right. As I am still thinking if I have been a little impatient with her, it isn’t that I am losing my patience, I get nervous that she is not doing certain little things independently, such as making herself toast in the morning, or making herself lunch for school or getting herself something to eat after school. I do all these things for her but when I ask her if she can do it on occasion, she will start to complain and complain. So when I do lose my patience and I have explained it to my daughter, it is coming from a place of caring and worrying that I am not doing my job to make her as independent as she can be for a 17-year-old. There are times when that explanation isn’t good enough for my daughter and I try to be sensitive to her feelings and everything she is going through as a teenager.

So there you have it, at the very least after writing my thoughts on the subject, this topic will keep me and my patience in the forefront of my thoughts for the next few days.

Movies Everyone Should See At Least Once

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurieanichols in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

room with a view • howard’s end • maurice

Princess Bride, Willow, Lady Hawke, Pride & Prejudice, A Room with a View,

Howard's End, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources(Manon of the Spring), Le Chateau de Ma Mere (My Mother's Castle), La Gloire de Mon Pere(My Father's Glory)

Powered by Plinky

The Myth Of Small Business-Driven Job Growth

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurieanichols in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment


This just goes to show that the GOP line of worshiping the small businessma­n, the jobs creator, is a bunch of baloney. It has been repeatedly debunked and yet they continue to belt out those two words job creator as if, when you say it enough it comes true. I am or was a small business owner, the constructi­on market is beyond horrible so no new business, but regardless of now, even at the height of it, we had ten employees. This is what I call small business, the GOP never means me, they always mean millionair­es and billionair­es. They are master manipulato­rs of taking small pieces of fact, molding it into large fictional soundbites­. Than they craft policies from those soundbites that have no connection to the reality of our world, at least if you are truly a small business owner, whose only desire is for demand to come back.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Ex-Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker: Government Should Stop Financing Mortgages

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurieanichols in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment


Forget the Volcker rule, why not just reinstate the Glass-Stea­gall Act? It worked by itself very well for decades, I know that in the mid 80’s the GOP adjusted the percentage of what investing banks could do from 5% to 10% and that led the way down the path to eventual full on repeal. I say that it be reinstated in its original form. How can it not be obvious to everyone that Wall Street and the Bankers, aided and abetted by the politician­s, have descended into a quasi capitalist­/finance socialist form of industry. This is not free market theory, all those secret loans given to the banks by the Fed and the Fed keeping the interest rates at record lows for so long, it resembles financial socialism when the government subsidizes the banking sector. We the taxpayers are getting hit by the banks in fees for every transactio­n imaginable but when the nurses are protesting for an adoption of a financial transactio­n fee, the nurses are anti-capit­alist? It is ludicrous. The OWS isn’t protesting at the wrong location, they need and should be protesting Wall Street, because it isn’t Washington in a vacuum that led to their reckless behavior, they the titans of Wall Street lobbied, cajoled and probably bullied for these policies to be implemente­d. So OWS and OccupyWash­ington should go hand in hand, we the country need to be heard.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,209 other subscribers

a work in progress

October 2011
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Sep   Nov »

Archives

nanowrimo

2012 Blog of the Year Award

Blogroll

  • Discuss
  • Get Inspired
  • Get Polling
  • Get Reading Now
  • Get Support
  • Laurieanichols
  • Learn WordPress.com
  • Rebecca Franklin
  • The Laughing Housewife
  • Wee Scoops
  • WordPress Planet
  • WordPress.com News

business of blogging

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Top Rated

Member of The Internet Defense League

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • laurieanichols
    • Join 769 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • laurieanichols
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar