11/16/11 Workin' For a Livin'

Some people find their careers by divine intervention, some people say that they were born to do what they do, some people fall into their careers by accident, and still some others are just trying to avoid sunday school.

I told you before that I hated participating in religious activities, and my parents tried everything to get me to want to change my mind. They sent me to religious groups, they made me participate in religious tutoring, they sent me to the previously mentioned religious camp, and when none of that worked they tried, bribes, force, yelling, screaming, and when none of that yielded the result that they wanted my mother used guilt.  By the by, jewish mothers use guilt all the time, and this is not an just some sort of opinion or stereotype, this is a proven scientific fact.

By the time I was twelve (my bar mitzvah was completed by now) my parents had run out of ways to make me participate . So like any other parents at their wits end, they found religion, and went to the Rabbi to ask for advice.  So the scheme went like this.  My parents would give me an ultimatum.   I could either go to Sunday school and confirmation, or I could work at the family business every weekend.  So after some long deliberation and thought..... o.k. who am I kidding, my parents no more then said the words then I said, "WORK."

My fate was sealed, and I have since then always held some sort of management or supervisory position.  Now everyone claims that they would like nothing more then to be the boss.  They say things like, the boss gets all of the perks, the boss never has to take responsibility, and the boss never really has to work.  There is also my favorite comment, "I wish I was to the boss so I could (fill in the blank here)."
The truth of the matter is I have never as a manager had it easy, and I have never been able to sit and watch others work.  Now don't get me wrong, I have over the years said the same things about my past bosses, that they are lazy or stupid, but...well, they were stupid and lazy, so there.  One caveat, I will take the opportunity to mention, that after all of these years of working, I finally have a boss that I like, so the possibility of working for a competent person does exist, it is not just a myth perpetuated by all of those books about businesses.
Now I could just keep expounding on the virtues and challenges of employee / management relations, but that really is not funny or any fun.  What is fun is talking about the excuses that I have gotten from the brain trusts that want my job over the years, so I will share those with you.  Enjoy.
1.  An employee who had been late and was on her last and final warning called me with this excuse 15 minutes before she worked.  "My plane coming back from Las Vegas flew slower then normal so I won't be able to make it on time."
2.  An employee who had been sick on Monday failed to show up for their shift on Friday.  When we called the employee to see where they were their answer was, "Well I called on Monday to say I was sick that should cover me until I come back."
3.  An employee who worked the night shift called to tell me that she would not be able to make it because, "Her mother had an emergency tax situation and that she would not be able to make it in."  I have still to this day never been able to find out what an emergency tax situation is.
4.  An employee came to see me to tell me that there was a family emergency.  The employee told me that he would not be able to make it in for a few days.  Apparently someone in his family had gone missing and he gave me a card from the police officer in charge of the case if I needed to contact someone to corroborate his story.  Needless to say it took me three days to reach the officer in charge.  In the mean time I covered all of the employees shifts, and made other arrangement.  When I finally reached the officer I told him that I just needed to know if the story was true and that I did not need any details.  The officer did indeed corroborate the story but then offered this one little fact.  The missing family member was not some cousin or sister it was my employee.  He left home to live somewhere else and his parents called the police.  I let the employee go.  I am sorry you cannot call me to claim yourself as a missing person.

So If you need to call out from work, you either need to be clever or truthful, I would choose truthful.

11/6/11 Bug-a-Boo

I know with the passing of halloween that you were all looking forward to hearing about me being dragged to some party where I would make fun of my wife's friends and acquaintances.  Well just so you know I was indeed dragged to one of my wife's friends parties, and I would talk about it but something more important came up.

When I was in fifth grade, my parents, in their ever futile attempt to make me like religion sent me to a jewish camp.  You see my parents were jewish and thought that if they made me do enough jewish things that eventually I would like going to Friday night services, Saturday morning services, Sunday school, Tuesday and Thursday night hebrew school, and every holiday that came up.
So when the time came, I was shipped away from my small midwestern city, were I was surrounded by a bunch of rich W.A.S.P's (white anglo saxon princes/princesses) and I ended up in the woods for the summer with a bunch of J.A.P.'s (jewish american princes/ princesses).  Up until that time I thought that nothing could be worse then being the poor fat jewish kid in a rich white wasp school.  Turns out that being the poor fat jewish kid at a jewish camp sucks just as much.
I served my time at camp and when I was done I went with my father to the east coast to spend a few weeks with my cousins and his family.  We came home and I spent the next few weeks going to synagogue and participating in events with all of the other kids I went to camp with.
One day my godmother called and said that she needed to come over.  We were all standing in the front yard waiting for her.  She got out of her car and before she was even within 20 feet of me she said, "Oh yes, he has it."  I could not for the life of me think of what I could have that she would be able to diagnose from that far away.  She then said the word that I have come to dread for the rest of my life. LICE.  Apparently all of the jewish kids who had been sent away to camp that summer had come back with lice, and it was a disaster.  We had to professionally clean the house, we all had to be treated and we even had to have the dog shaved and dipped.
Things like this have a lasting effect.  Because of this, over the last thirty years, I have never shared a hat with another person, slept in the woods, or been able to hear the word lice without scratching my head for days.  I have also, never since that day, walked into a synagogue and borrowed a yarmulke (the little beanie that jewish people wear).  Why you ask.  Well, not only did we all get lice at camp, but we gave it to the whole jewish community when we came back.  Subsequently, they burned all of the yarmulkes and bought new ones, but all of the boys I know have carried their own yarmulkes since then.

So why am I telling you about this.  Well my oldest daughter is in the third grade this year, and every year since she started school, she has been sent home with a note telling us about one class or another where they found lice.  I have held my breath for the last three years, but this time we crapped out.
My wife called and said, "I think we have lice."
I could not believe it.  I had visions of buying a gas mask and running through the school spraying DDT everywhere.  I wanted to pull my daughter out of school immediately, I wanted to home school her, I wanted to buy nair and bathe everyone in it, I wanted to set our house on fire and walk away, and I wanted to scratch my scalp off.
What I did do is immediately turn my car around and go to the nearest pharmacy.  One hundred dollars later I had the lice killing kit.  Included was the spray for your furniture, shampoo for your head, the tiny comb to get the bugs out, some sort of gel that I have still not used, an extra bottle of shampoo and furniture spray, a magnifying glass and a sprite (I was kind of thirsty).  I then went to my local big box retailer and purchased  two hundred dollars worth of pillow and mattress covers.  We used all of the chemicals on the girls and ourselves, we bagged up all of the couch pillows, stuffed animals, american girl dolls, extra blankets, and anything else we thought the lice would live on (by the way, it has been two weeks and neither of the girls have asked where their toys or dolls are, leading me to believe that they have been given way, way, way too much stuff).  
We then washed all of our clothes, sheets, rugs, blankets, and anything else that would fit in the washer and dryer.  We ran the washer and dryer so much it looked like a consumer reports test was being conducted in my basement.
The next day my wife took my daughters to see the special lice ladies who confirmed that even though we used all of the chemicals that that my daughter still had lice.  For another $100.00 they treated her.  I spent the rest of the day re-washing and vacuuming the rugs, mattresses, and bedding.
My wife has been washing and treating my daughters hair for almost two weeks now ("Your the best honey.").  Washing it, treating it, and brushing it out, and buying $$$ more lice treatment.  After three days I felt a little better we had not seen anything.  But the day she went back to school we found two lice.
This whole thing has been such an utterly disgusting process.
I just cannot help myself.  I find myself daydreaming of burning down the school, or sending her to school in an outbreak outfit, or scrubbing down all of her classmates like they did in the movie Silkwood (you know, with the chemicals and stiff brushes).  My mother even told me to buy a jar of mayonnaise and rub it all over her head and wrap it in plastic.  She said that it would kill all of the lice, and you know what for a moment, I thought of trying it.
I know I have a problem.  I know I need help.  "Hi, my name is the FatDad and I am a germ-a-phob."
At the time of this post I do not have any advice for any of you, but I will keep you posted.
In the meantime I will try not to scratch my scalp off, or go all Silkwood on her classmates.