~Tuesday~ The city bus was on the verge of being “too late” this morning. It arrived at 8:30, ten minutes later than the expected 8:20.
Library Man was aboard, reading a newspaper or a magazine that looked like a newspaper.
At one stop, a college kid boarded with a carton that said, “All Whites,” on it, which first made me think of eggs, but since it was in a milk carton I figured it must be some brand of milk I wasn’t aware of. A quick Google search reveals it as, “100% Liquid Egg Whites.” Not sure how I feel about that. Can’t get past the picture of drinking the runny, undercooked white portion of fried eggs. Gross.
At the next stop, a “piggy banker” got on, and in the course of dropping in what sounded like 20 dimes, one of them missed the slot and got jammed in a place in the fare machine that was too tight for the girth of his fingers.
The plus-sized woman that I’ve talked about before got on today, not busting out of Lycra as she has the last couple of times, but sporting a blouse that had short enough sleeves to reveal an old tattooed word whose font has widened considerably since its inception. It said, “S E X Y,” and presumably at one time, it was.
One other note of interest regarding her, today she had her hair braided in the thinnest of braids, which came down below her shoulders. I thought, “It must take at least five minutes to do each of those braids.” And then I started counting them. I sectioned off her head into groups of 10 braids and estimated that there were at least 20 groups of them making up all of her hair. That’s 200 x 5 minutes each, which comes out to over 16.5 hours worth of braiding. Is that possible?
We had our weekly one-hour team meeting at the coffee shop near our office. Jude, my boss, treated. The owner of the place had left a pile of paper on the table we took, with—among other things—a listing of the salary paid to her employees: $6.50 an hour. I thought minimum wage was more than that, and a quick check shows it is.
I can’t believe she considers the jobs there tip jobs as there’s no waiting of tables. It’s all behind-the-counter work. I guess because there’s a “tip jar” at the register, she can get away with it. I’ve always wondered why there are tip jars at counters, and this might very well be the reason.
I have been nominated for an Award for Excellence by my organization. The five criteria for which an employee may be nominated are:
- Outstanding Service – Exhibited unselfish devotion to duty, far and above normal requirements
- Innovations – Initiated fruitful study and investigation or has successfully established new and outstanding methods, practices, plans or designs (such as pioneering or research and development work in administration, engineering, productivity, agriculture, medicine, natural resources, the social sciences, etc.)
- Public Service – Made outstanding contributions by participating in or by implementing community and public service projects (such as volunteering with various non-profit organizations)
- Safety/Heroism -Demonstrated outstanding judgment or courage in an emergency; or meritorious action or service to prevent injury, loss of life or prevent damage to or loss of property.
- Human Relations – Made outstanding contributions toward enhancing the quality and morale of the workplace.
I’ve been nominated in the Public Service category, and today our resident photographer, Chris, took my picture for the publicity that will surround the nomination:
A number of people—I think it’s 10—in my organization have also been nominated in the other categories, and I’m humbled to be among their company. There are two levels to this award process. First, there will be a winner from our organization, who will get $250 cash one day of additional vacation time. Our organization’s winner will move up to the university level of the award, where a win at that level would bring an additional $250 in cash, as well as one more extra vacation day.
I weighed in today, and even though our digital scale at work indicated no weight loss, the one I started the program on—which is now at home—said down four pounds. I split the difference and took a two-pound loss on dailyburn.com. No matter what any of the scales say, my clothes are fitting better, and I feel better, so it’s all good.
I ran over to the Atrium Food Court for a cup of coffee, where I passed by a new preacher in The Brickyard. He was right in the middle of it, instead of off to the side where I’ve seen the previous ones, and he actually had somewhat of a crowd around him. God sent a fairly decent-looking messenger this time, and I wondered how much “attractiveness” plays into how much people will sit and listen to you.
I definitely wanted to get back to my exercise routine this week, and I took advantage of the fabulous weather and the newly extended daylight hours to walk the three-mile trail around Lake Johnson instead of holing up in the gym.
During my 50-minute walk, during which I burned off 338 calories according to dailyburn.com, I listened to some great stories in the This American Life podcast episode named Contents Unknown. The prologue to the three stories, described as:
“On every British nuclear submarine, there is a safe. Inside that safe is another safe. And inside that safe is a handwritten letter from the British Prime Minister, to be opened only if the country has been decimated by nuclear war. Host Ira Glass talks with journalist Ron Rosenbaum about these peculiar letters.”
made me think of the “ultimatum” concept in The Wisdom of Crowds book we’re reading in my Social Media and Technical Communication class. The first and third stories were incredibly compelling to me.
The first story was described as, “If you don’t pay the rent on a self storage unit, eventually all of your stuff can go up for auction. But the people bidding aren’t allowed to dig around. They just peer in from the outside with flashlights, guessing where there are valuables. Jon Mooallem visited auctions in Northern California, and learned the surprising techniques people use to tell junk from treasure.”
And the third one, this way, “On October 13 [my birthday!], 2002, David MacLean woke up in India with no memory of who he was or how he got there. He had no choice but to let the people who recognized him—and even strangers—fill in his identity.”