- Happy Independence Day! Be thankful for what you've been given by those who have gone before! #
- Waiting for fireworks with the brats. Excitement is high. #
- @PhilVillarreal Amazing. I'm really Cringer. That makes me feel creepy. in reply to PhilVillarreal #
- Built a public life-maintenance calendar in GCal. https://liverealnow.net/y7ph #
- @ericabiz makes webinars fun! Even if her house didn't collapse in the middle of it. #
- BOFH + idiot = bad combination #
Stand Up For Yourself
Monday night, my son was struggling to get all of his homework done before bed. He had a 6 page packet of work from his advanced math class that he was supposed to have done over the weekend.
When I asked him why he hadn’t done it, he told me he forgot about it.
I wasn’t happy.
We’ve had a lot of conversations about responsibility and planning over the years. He knows better.
Cue Dad Lecture #26.
Towards the end, when I’m building up this rocking crescendo about how what he does now will affect him for the rest of his life, I stopped.
“Buddy, weren’t you sick on Friday?”
He didn’t get his weekend homework until Monday. Of course he didn’t do it over the weekend.
Dad Lecture #26 immediately transitioned to Ad Hoc Lecture #4, titled “Why did you let me chew you out for something you didn’t do?”
I’ve always tried to raise my kids to be independent. I’ve never stifled asking questions, and I am willing to explain my decisions to them, even if they don’t stand a chance of winning the appeal. As frustrating as independent, strong-willed children can be, I know it will serve them well as adults.
Now I’m trying to figure out why that fell apart on Monday. I wasn’t yelling at him and he doesn’t think I was. Sometimes, the perception of who’s yelling differs depending on which side of my loud voice you are on.
He doesn’t know why he sat back at took the lecture instead of explaining what happened. He apparently forgot that he was given that homework just a few hours before.
My question to all of you is how can I make my kid behave and obey when necessary, but still have enough backbone to stand up for himself when he’s not wrong? And know when each is necessary.
Distraction
At work, there are a dozen coworkers who can(and do) interrupt me. Though its not in my actual job description, there are a dozen customers with my direct line.
On an average day, I get interrupted at least ten times with issues that require my full attention. When an issue requires my full attention it throws me off my stride. Is an issue requires ten minutes to resolve, discuss, or explain, and it takes another ten minutes to recover my “groove”, that is twenty minutes wasted out of about every fifty. That is almost half of my day unavailable for the things that are strictly within my job description. On a good day.
Naturally, this takes a toll on my productivity.
Avoiding Distractions
1. Warn People. If you have been allowing interruptions and distractions, it may come as a shock to your coworkers that easy time is over. Send an email to everyone who normally expects your attention.
2. Turn off your email. I check my email three times per day. Morning, noon, and night. An auto-response explaining your plan may be helpful.
3. Unplug the phone. I’m fortunate to have a “Do not disturb” button on my phone. Unplug it, turn off the ringer, or drop it in the sink. Just don’t answer it.
4. Close your door. This isn’t always possible, but if it is, do it. It provides a wonderful psychological barrier to anybody thinking about interrupting you.
5. Block the internet. If you have an opportunity to work unmolested, don’t waste it on the internet. BE PRODUCTIVE!
Now, is this a sustainable solution? I’m not sure. I work in a small company and have varied responsibilities, including reviewing potential contracts, demonstrations, and a bit of high-level customer care. It doesn’t appear to be possible to sequester myself every day, but I’m making an attempt to do so on at least once every other week.
How do you keep work distractions to a minimum?
A Well-Trained Husband
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
Bonding Relationships
People can’t be happy in a vacuum. We are social creatures. Even the most anti-social among us needs some human contact. How can you make that contact happen in a meaningful way? How can you connect with other people beyond some superficial meaningless chatter?
According to Keith Ferrazzi in his book, Who’s got your back, there are four mindsets necessary to build lifelong relationships.
1. Generosity. This is your promise to help others succeed. If have a skill that can help someone you know, why not give them a hand? when you help others, you are building social capital, which is a currency that cannot be bought. Since our lives are not ledger books, you can’t do favors with repayment in mind, but it is reasonable to assume that the people ou help will want to help you some day.
An often overlooked generosity strategy is to give away 90% of everything. I’m not suggesting you give away 90% of your wealth or possessions. I’m suggesting you give away 90% of your personal product. Plan to give away 9 times more than your receive. This will not only keep your from being disappointed, but it will also leave you feeling very fulfilled.
2. Vulnerability. It is important to let down your guard and let the world see your humanity. It’s almost impossible to truly connect with someone who’s shields are always up: the guy who seems to be invulnerable and unapproachable. The people you spend time with know your flaw anyway. If you pretend they don’t exist, you are only fooling yourself. I have a lot of problem with this one. Letting down my guard is incredibly difficult, in almost every circumstance. It is far easier to be strong than to let myself be vulnerable.
3. Candor. Total honesty is vital to establishing–and maintaining– lifelong relationships. Even the white lies can destroy your connections. If you can lie about the little things, you are planting doubts on everything else you do and say. Who can trust you then? Lying is inappropriate in almost all conceivable cases. I was raised that a man’s word is his bond. Almost everything you have can be taken away from you, but not your honor. That can only be destroyed by you. Without it, what do you really have?
4. Accountability. You need to follow through on your promises. Be Mr. Reliable(or Mrs!). If you say you will do something, do it! Nothing builds resentment faster than disappointing the people who are counting on you. If you can’t meet a commitment, let the soon-to-be-let-down know as early as possible, so other plans can be made. If you have a hard time keeping promises, then make fewer of them.
If you embrace these principles, you will be well on your way to building–and keeping–strong, satisfying relationships that benefit everyone.
How do you build your relationships?
A Bit of Christmas Magic
On Thursday, my wife left with my kids and dog. I had to work all day on Friday, so she took off to get an early start on Christmas at my brother’s house. I followed Saturday morning.
Two nights with no whining, and a bed to myself.
Friday afternoon, my wife called to tell me about her day.
When she got to my brother’s, she took her tailgate down to get the suitcases out of the back of her truck. She left the plastic container full of presents in her truck, since we’d be exchanging presents at my parent’s house nearby.
Friday morning, she left to feed her shopping addiction for a few hours.
When she got to the giant store that had our new car seats on sale, she discovered that she had neglected to put the tailgate back up on the truck when she unpacked. This was the box that held most of our budgeting overspend.
Gone.
When she called me, she was retracing her steps, hoping to find the box.
I was upset.
She didn’t find the box on the side of the road.
Gone.
Normally, this would be a strong object lesson in the futility of rampant consumerism. A lot of zen-like “the stuff you own is fleeting”, amidst the wailing of children who are discovering that their Christmas presents evaporated in a ditch somewhere.
Somebody found the box. I don’t know who.
Whoever it was, opened the box and saw the tears of small children inside. She read the name tags and, amazingly, recognized enough of the first names to place the family.
Keep in mind that I live more than 100 miles away, and moved out of the town 15 years ago.
This anonymous Christmas elf brought the box into a nearby gas station, and asked them to call my parents, since the names on the tags matched those of my parents’ grandchildren.
Everything was still in the box.
Everything was still intact.
Anonymous Christmas Elf saved Christmas for my family
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