Random Thoughts

Making Our Own Decisions

I was listening to the radio (NPR) this morning and the reporter had interviewed a teenage girl about her website which highlights her skepticism of the human impact on global warming. In the interview, David Kestenbaum said something that struck me. He was talking about how we allow others to make decisions for us, he said, "Most of us delegate, decide to believe someone we trust. We don't actively seek out the other side. We probably wouldn't know what to make of it, or how to reconcile the two. Who has time? Or the expertise?"

I see this happening a lot in the world. There are some things that are certainly of non-consequence that we don't need to express an opinion on all the time. My wife pretends to care about my opinion when she asks me what I want to do this weekend, although she already has the entire weekend planned out. (As a matter of fact she has the entire summer planned out already.) That is not something that really matters to me. I am OK trusting my wife to make those decisions. But when it comes to things like politics or religion, I think we need to understand for ourselves so we can make educated decisions and not rely on someone else to decide for us. Mostly because that other person probably doesn't really have our best interests in mind. It all reminds me of sheep being herded from one place to the next.

I consider myself to be a moderate Republican (maybe a little more left leaning on some topics than others). I do not believe that voting along party lines for the sake of maintaining party loyalties is appropriate. I recognize that our political leaders in the House and Senate need to make concessions, but once they get elected on whatever platform they have, they now should represent the people, not their party.

With the major issues we have in the country and the world right now, we need to stop allowing others to do the thinking for us, we need to educate ourselves on the issue that matter to us, and express our opinions to our representatives. We should stop allowing the few influential people from herding us because we (generally speaking) don't want to think about it or its too hard.

Dear Dave,

I've decided that I give great advice. I don't know everything, but I know enough about many things that I can hold an engaging conversation on a lot of topics. I think I am particularly good at relationships and people. Although there are many of you who know me well enough to know better, my wife especially! But I figure, when dear Abby dies, I can take her place, it will be Dear Dave. All the same no-nonsense advice, but from a man. Imagine how refreshing and insightful that would be!

No, really we're fine!

So I decided to create a new series I am going to call Random Thoughts. The intent of these posts is simply to provide less thoughtful, definitely less thought-provoking, potentially offensive random thoughts. I warn you now, if you ever had a decent thought about me you may want to stop reading any further, I am almost certain you will not think well of me ever again if you continue. So, please stop, really don't go on. OK, but you can't hold this against me, and by continuing to read on you are now no longer able to enact judgment on me as a result of the content of this blog.

So as you probably know from visiting the "Life in the Kids Lane" blog, that I was in Vegas with my 5 year old. Our first night we ate late at Denny's, as we were paying for the food, I overheard (using that term loosely as everyone in the restaurant heard the conversation) the apparent shift manager speaking to who I presume was another employee who, it seems, was due to be at work at that moment.

The manager, in order to keep this moving, we'll call her Marge, (I'm not sure why I chose Marge, but I did, and this is my blog so Marge it is.) is speaking with the currently absent employee, whom I will call Jim (mostly because I like Jim Halpert from The Office, although he would never leave his co-workers in such a lurch). Jim and Marge are arguing about whether Jim should bear the freezing weather (80 degrees in Vegas during the day, 50 degrees at the current time of the conversation) and come into work. The argument is not what you expect though, it isn't Jim trying to convince Marge that he is too sick to come in, it is Marge! Sweet Marge is breaking the Cardinal rule of Management, she is enabling Jim's absenteeism by trying to be an understanding, nice boss by telling him to stay home. "No, really we're fine, I have Ray and Jorge and Anna."

There are two problems with this is my mind. One is that she is telling him to stay home. She can't mark this as an unexcused absence, it can't be used as a coaching opportunity later, and certainly can't be held against him. (Although something tells me that Jim is not a stellar employee and this probably isn't the only infraction.) Second is that she doesn't realize that he is totally using her. "Oh Marge, I can come in, cough, cough, (that bad fake cough we all have been able to do since 2nd grade) I'm not that bad, my temperature is only 115, I can cough, cough, (with a wheezy voice) come in if you reeeeaaaaallllyyyy need me to. cough, cough (couple more for good measure) If I knew how to record a file and get it on this post, I would have re-enacted it for you for better effect.

So because I can't keep my mouth shut, not to mention Marge is not helping me while she is arguing with Jim while I am standing there waiting to pay and leave. (I'm like a dog, I always need stimulation, if I have to wait too long I tend to get agitated and want to "help" the process along. But do you blame me? I ahve a 5 yr old who fell asleep hugging a palm tree outside!) I tell her that if Jim wants to come in so bad, let him! We could have used him 45 mins ago. But I don't stop there, I keep prodding her, "Look Marge is it? Look Marge, the guy obviously wants to come in, that means he is faking it, he's probably got plans to go out later!" I feel like a very bad therapist! I can't let he work this out herself, I am trying to convince her that I am right, and she needs to do what I tell her. I ask her if this is the first time Jim has done this. At one point I really wanted to take the phone from her and tell Jim myself that he needs to get his moons over my hammie in pronto. She finally decides that my nuggets of managment wisdom are not helping her, so she lets me pay for our check so I'll go. I leave her one last nugget, as a tip if you will, "Call him later and see if he answers, call his house and cell both, he won't answer you, and tomorrow, he'll tell you that he took a lot of medicine and fell totally asleep." Which could be a legitimate reason for Anna or Ray, but probably not for Jim. The problem is, when he does get fired (because he will, even Denny's has standards) it will probably be for a true illness. Like the boy who cried wolf. Good luck Jim.