I have several unfinished posts in the works. More lucky folks have escaped from “The Company,” but not without scars. I also want to shout out to a few brave people – one who just started a new job slightly out of her comfort zone but with great opportunities and another who is leaving a miserable job and taking a month off just for herself!

The honeymoon with my new job is over. I’m still in the mostly happy ‘newlywed’ stage of the relationship, but the new job definitely has some undesirable characteristics. As a result, I’ve learned a few new things to ask about in future interviews — let’s just say exploring the evils of billable hours and how a company goes about staffing its projects can be a great way to analyze a company’s communication and decision-making processes. I’ve read some books recently that have interesting management ideas I’d like to share.

Finally, I have sipped a few great gin drinks during the dog-days of summer. So stay-tuned… Lots more posts to follow.

When I think of Grandma I think of summers in Oregon. Sleeping in her “hobby” room that was stacked with paintings and sewing projects and the lovely orchids she propagated. I remember her handmade (and handpicked)
berry pies, learning to sew, toodling around in her yellow Gremlin which in my young mind was the coolest car ever!

I remember her bright red hair and pretty smile. She could name every Oregon wildflower that grew by the side of the road, and I tested her often on this as we drove to golf tournaments in Coos Bay, Bend or Klamath Falls.

I loved emptying her closets of all the pretty glassware – milk-glass and
cranberry glass. I would paw through her thimble collection (which was
extensive) and marvel over her camel collection. I also rooted through her
piano music collection and spent hours playing songs on her piano. She
never seemed to mind, even though I’m pretty sure I played “Roll Out the
Barrels” for hours and hours on end every summer.

I’ll remember the time we visited her in Oregon for Christmas and she had
chopped down a bush, A PRICKLY SCRAGGLY JUNIPER BUSH, from her front yard and decorated that instead of a Christmas tree. She was trying something creative and new, but in my child’s mind one does not mess with the Christmas Tree!!

I’ll never forget the time she visited us in Fallon and offended Mom by
ironing every piece of clothing in her closet! I thought it was pretty
funny to see my Mom getting riled up and acting like the daughter for a
change.

And it is family legend the time she convinced my father to drive for
hours up and down the Oregon coast looking for the perfect Seagull statue
to go with a piece of driftwood she found. I think we spent about 4 hours
in the car with her saying, “Oh yes, I think I saw it at a shop that is
just around the next bend.” No one else could have convinced Dad to do
that.

I think her greatest accomplishment was raising 6 fiercely independent,
intelligent, and kinda nutty kids who went on to raise wonderful families
of their own.

Even though Grandma is physically gone, she’ll always be with me – every
time I eat a blueberry, see a thimble, hang the Christmas stocking she
knitted for me when I was born, and every time I look at my family, where
I see glimmers of her spirit in each one of us.

I discovered this after switching buses. Upon sitting down, I looked at my lap and a giant wet stain covered each thigh. As I was digging through my bag to try and replace the lid of the soup container, the lid popped off of another container and my very healthy chicken breast, pan-fried in olive oil, sailed in an arc away from me and landed with a noisy *thwap* on the bus floor. I scrambled to collect the chicken breast and in the process knocked over my, fortunately empty, cup of coffee. It was at this point, that I realized I should not have left the house today.

I arrived at my destination, walked across the building, and rode the elevator to the office, all the while doing great gyrations to try to (unsuccessfully) hide the large vegetable stains on my pants. (Did I mention that the soup was tomato-based?) This is probably why the security guard who never says anything to me, said “Hello…” in a suspicious voice and watched me closely as I gyrated my way toward the elevator. Half an hour and a whole roll of paper towels later, I managed to clean up most of the cracks and crevasses of my bag, purse, notebook, picture frames, mp3 player, insurance card, FSA receipts, notebooks, banjo tab books, pedometer, sunglasses, Hello Kitty mint container, various lipsticks and balms, saline nasal spray, 100 calorie individual serving popcorn bags (unpopped), calendar, blueberries, two finger puppets, carton of half and half … well, you get the point. I carry a lot of stuff in that bag.

As I type this, my slightly mismatched but fun all green outfit has dried and there is only minimal stainage on my left thigh. I reek of vegetable soup. I smell salty and savory — Eau de Légume. In fact, I look and smell very much like the zucchini that won the giant squash competition at the county fair last year. I work in a casual work environment, but does casual include looking and smelling like a giant zucchini?

Happy Monday Everyone!

I have two Aunt Loises. This Aunt Lois was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, therefore unofficially dubbed “Crazy Aunt Lois.” Mom decided that wasn’t very nice, so we officially dubbed her “Lois J.” to differentiate between the two Aunts.

Anyhow, my family doesn’t handle mental illness well and pretty much resented her existence. They decided not to have a memorial for her. I guess she is going to be cremated, but I don’t know what will happen to her remains.

I like Crazy Aunt Lois. She was a daily part of my life for many years. Even though I haven’t seen her for years, I think of her often. This is my memorial to her.

My Grandma was married and widowed before she met my Grandpa Vern. She had three children from her first marriage, one of them was Lois. The story is that Grandma had measles when she was pregnant with Lois and this caused several birth defects including deafness and mental illness. The story also characterizes Lois’ father as an impatient and mean man, especially when he had been drinking. He would supposedly call Lois to the dinner table; she wouldn’t respond (they didn’t realize she was deaf until she was older); so he’d beat her. This, of course, could also cause mental illness. Grandma seemed to feel terribly guilty about Lois, so she decided to check Lois out of the Utah state mental facility. This decision had emotional, legal, and financial ramifications beyond anything anyone could have realized at the time.

Who’s to say what stories are true or not, but the simple fact is Lois was deaf and paranoid schizophrenic. There was little medical, financial, or legal support for her or the family. This made her life hard and it also made her hard to deal with.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when Lois came into my life (I was very young) but I do remember the event. The way I remember it (which is by no means factual) is that somehow Grandpa and Grandma had found out that Lois was living in Utah in a building that was about to be condemned. Dad and Grandpa were to go fetch her and bring her to Nevada to live with Grandpa and Grandma. When Dad and Grandpa got to the condemned building in Utah, they found Lois living with 50 cats in total squalor. 50 cats! Since I absolutely adored cats, but was not allowed to touch them (Mom forever believes that all cats carry ringworm) Aunt Lois instantly became an intriguing and heroic figure to me.

I remember Aunt Lois’ looks very clearly. I think she was about 15 years older than my father. She already had gray hair when I first met her. She was tiny. I’d say probably 5 feet tall or so, and she was thin. Her salt and pepper hair was slightly wavy and shoulder length often held back by clips. She wore 50′s style cat-eye silver glasses (which I loved!) and she was one of my few family members who wore make-up, often blue eye-shadow and thick super bright lipstick. She always put her lipstick on crooked. To this day when I see someone with crooked lipstick, I instantly assume they are mentally ill.

Aunt Lois spoke funny. You could understand what she was saying, but she had what I now realize is a deaf person’s accent. She could not hear much at all by the time I met her, but she could read lips with amazing accuracy.

Now that I think back about several incidents I realize Aunt Lois really was parnoid schizophrenic, even though people claim it is a rare disease. It didn’t phase me at all. I don’t know why. Maybe because I was a child I accepted things more readily. I was afraid of The Blob, sharks (I lived in Nevada – a land-locked state), and bears. I believed my stuffed animals had a secret underground life with villages in the walls. Why wouldn’t I accept Aunt Lois’ beliefs and fears?

Aunt Lois was Mormon. I’m not sure why, as noone else in my family was Mormon, but she was very devout. I should mention that I stayed at my Grandpa and Grandma’s house every day after school until my parents were off work. I was usually there on the weekend, and I was also there a lot during the summer. I was bopping through their house one day when I spied Lois gazing into a window and talking to someone. It seemed like a very private conversation, so I left her alone. Later, though, I unabashedly asked her who she had been talking to. She explained to me that the Angel Moroni often appeared to her in windows and mirrors. (The Angel Moroni was a resurrected being who brought The Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith.) She never told me what The Angel Moroni discussed with her. I figured that was her business Moroni being very sacred and all. Of course I believed her, because every little girl believes in angels and fairies and unicorns, so why wouldn’t I?

Probably my favorite memory of Aunt Lois is her diet. She liked to read magazines like Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest. Somewhere she had learned about a diet where you count how many times you chew, and you get a certain number of chews each day. She had reams of notepaper stashed on the kitchen table in the napkin holder. When I’d eat with her I’d try hard not to distract her because she had to count her chews. She would tally them the old-school way, in blocks of 5, four vertical slashes with a fifth diagonal slash running through them. She had pages and pages of tallies. I don’t know why, but these were very interesting to me, almost mystical. I wanted to start the diet myself, but my Mom squashed that idea with a resounding “NO!”

Aunt Lois’ paranoia caused her a lot of pain and anguish. One time Mom received a call at work that she had to help calm Lois down right away. (Mom was one of the few people who Lois seemed to trust.) When she arrived at Grandpa’s house, Lois was cowering, terrified under the patio furniture in the back yard. We lived in a town with a Naval air base. There were constantly jets flying over and daily sonic booms – you get used to it. On that particular day, the jets were practicing some manoeuvres and had been flying quite a lot. Lois was convinced that the Navy was spying on her because she was having her period. Mom calmed her down and talked her out from under the furniture. Folks, PMS is tough enough without the added effect of extreme paranoia!

In my memory, the price of gold was a big deal when I was a child in the 70′s. It seemed like it was announced every evening on the nightly news. Lois was obsessed with gold bullion. I remember she was extremely angry with one news station because they only verbally announced the price of gold and did not put it in a visual on the TV screen. Clearly they were doing this to specifically keep the price of gold from Lois and she was not happy about it. She called them, several times, to let them know! She also ordered gold bullion over the phone. Grandpa got a call once while I was there from one of those TV advertising places where you could buy gold or invest in gold or something. Apparently Lois had “ordered” some gold, but they were suspicious (I bet those places get a lot of calls from mentally ill people). I don’t know if she used one of Grandpa’s credit cards or what, but Grandpa handled it like it wasn’t a big deal.

I remember the police calling Grandpa once (the police knew Lois well) because she was at the police station in a total panic. She had been gardening and found a discarded lighter in the flower bed. She was convinced that there was a tiny camera in the lighter and They were watching her. She had hightailed it down to the police station and was demanding the police do some sort of forensic processing of the lighter and protect her.

And this brings us to Them. They are very bad. They are always watching you. They know everything. Once when I was older, about 12, Aunt Lois cornered me in the laundry room and told me now that I was growing up she wanted to give me some advice. OK, I was all ears. She told me, “Never trust Them.” I told her I never would, and she was happy with that response. Funny that twenty years later one of my most favorite TV shows, The X-Files, was based on that very premise. I’ve always considered that advise pretty good advise, even though I’m still not entirely sure who They are.

Mom was always kind to Aunt Lois. When Lois took her meds she was quite focussed and smart. Mom hired her to do a lot of typing and writing, and Lois was great at this. We always gave her birthday and Christmas gifts and it seemed like we may have been the only ones. She loved cats, so every Christmas we bought her a cat calendar. She reciprocated with some of the most memorable gifts Mom and I have ever received. We received the best gift from Lois after we’d moved to another town. It was a surprise because we didn’t see her much anymore. It arrived in the mail one day. It was in a small envelope with Lois’ return address. Inside the envelope was a single monogrammed sterling silver fork. We were simultaneously freaked out and honored. To this day Mom still has The Fork. When I told her Lois had died, Mom said she’d eat dinner with The Fork in memorium.

Lois also had a some creepy predictive flashes. Mom’s most memorable encounter with her was many years ago – back when my family was whole and seemingly happy. She called Mom one day with some very serious and important news. Mom patiently listened. It seems Lois had had a vision of Mom in Heaven, and Mom and Dad were not together. She wanted Mom to know that somewhere along the line she and Dad would separate and they would not be together in Heaven. Seven years later, Mom and Dad were divorced.

Sadly, meds and doctors were one of Lois’ biggest paranoias. She would refuse to take her meds and could not be forced by the family because the woman fought like a wildcat. Inevetiably she would become sicker and sicker until it would culminate in her attacking Grandpa. I don’t completely understand why Grandpa was the target of her anger, as he was quite tolerant of her. He was the head of the household though, and since he controlled the household money maybe she saw him as one of Them. Maybe she had issues with men. Who knows what happened to her all those years in Utah. I bet most of it wasn’t good. Anyhow, I specifically remember one incident when she sneaked up on Grandpa and clobbered him from behind with a cast iron skillet. Since she was so tiny, she was only able to reach his back – lucky for him because if she had hit him over the head it probably would have killed him. He spun around and punched her out. Then, of course, they called Mom.

At this point, Mom and Dad would be able to institutionalize Lois because they had proof she was dangerous. She’d live at the state facility where professionals forced her to take her meds. She would get better, and was really very calm and functional when she was on her meds. They’d release her because she was ‘better,’ and at that time, nothing the family did could keep her institutionalized. Then, the cycle would start again. It was hugely frustrating, expensive, and dangerous to Grandpa to take care of her. I think this is when the family really started to resent her. They had no help from the state or insurance, and it seemed like the family had few legal rights.

While Grandma was alive everyone tried to take care of Lois, because it was really important to Grandma. After Grandma died, it seemed clear that it wasn’t safe for Grandpa and Lois to live together, so my Uncle shelled out money for Lois to live in her own place. At that time though, the family pretty much walked away from her. They made sure she had a place to live, but stayed as far away as they could.

I think she lived like a street person for awhile. I saw her wandering around in a park once in Reno, about 60 miles from her home. To this day, street people don’t make me that uncomfortable or angry. I have a lot of sympathy for them. I always think about Aunt Lois and how she couldn’t help being mentally ill and how there didn’t seem to be anything that could really help her.

The last time I saw her was at my Uncle’s funeral. She was sitting at a card table by herself, eating. The family was studiously avoiding her. I plopped down next to her, because it just isn’t right to ignore her! She instantly remembered me and was very glad to see me. She wanted to know what was up in my life. I told her I had gotten married. It turns out that she too was engaged! (Lois had had a boyfriend [figment of imagination boyfriend] since her time in Utah.) We had a lovely chat about her wedding plans. My Dad didn’t get why I’d even give her the time of day or discuss such silliness with her. Like she was making stuff up on purpose! My thinking was that her life was so scary that if some of her illusions were happy, why not let her be happy while she could?

I guess after my Uncle died another Aunt took over Lois’ care. Awhile ago she moved into a hospice facility. Dad wouldn’t talk about her much and when I did bring her up we’d often end up in a fight about it. I don’t understand how you can blame someone for their mental illness, but I guess we each deal with these kinds of things in our own ways and some people just can’t deal at all. I don’t know what she was ill with, but she was probably over 80 when she died, so she lived a long, and I would guess not very fulfilling life.

Dad called to tell me she had died because he knows I like her. I was really angry after he called. Even on her last day on Earth, the family couldn’t aknowledge her existence with at least a potluck or something? Dad said he’d walked away from the problem a long time ago. The thing that makes me so angry is that the person who was most inconvenienced by mental illness was Lois herself. Imagine always hearing voices, seeing things that aren’t there, being constantly afraid. I heard a news story once about a virtual reality system that a group of psychiatrists used to try to understand what it is like to be paranoid. They would walk through a store for instance, with a helmet on that piped in voices telling you to be afraid or to do things. Most of the psychiatrists could not make it through the full scenario because it was so disturbing. Aunt Lois lived like this for 80+ years and as a result was misunderstood, beaten up, abanonded, and cared for only out of guilt or familial duty. (No wonder she liked cats so much. They don’t judge you like people do.)

I was sitting on my bed steaming mad, when something occurred to me that made me feel instantly at peace. I read this book once (a fiction book called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold) that had a beautiful idea of Heaven. In this book, Heaven is a very individual place that differs for each person. For a child it might be a lush green playground, for instance. It occurred to me that now that Lois is dead she can actually be herself – the true her at the core of her heart without the mental illness – in Heaven, or my dreams of Heaven anyway. I envisioned her as a little girl again, with long braids tied with bright ribbons and wearing a frilly dress. In my mind’s eye she is skipping though a field of wild-flowers and holding balloons. She is completely stripped away of the layers of fear and paranoia. She can hear the breeze and the birds. She is happy. She is the real Lois that we only got to see glimmers of during her life. She is at peace.

I love you Aunt Lois. You really made an impact on my life. You taught me about mental illness and compassion and that you can’t blame people for things that are out of their control. I’ll never forget you.

I heard an interesting interview on NPR with Pete Earley who wrote the book Crazy. I haven’t read the book yet, but I think it looks like a great starting point if one wants to read more about living with mentally ill people.

fired / booted / canned / got the chop / got the axe / terminated / dismissed / laid-off / discharged / pink-slipped / sacked / downsized / let go / dehired / re-deployed

moved on to other opportunities

souless / inhumane / greedy / ass-kissing / arrogant / thoughtless / spineless / control-freak / micro-manager / petty / insecure / manipulative / political

climbing to the top on the backs of others

lively / learned / happy / fulfilled / valued / priorities-straight / wiser / healthier / skinnier / richer

without you

Word has it that the Human Resources person was let go, (hopefully) because she finally realized that The Company does not love its employees or want to further their growth, and also fosters a culture of fear.

Supposedly several employees had filed complaints against their managers with HR. The HR person went to the CEOs and suggested some management training options, since it had become clear to her that the managers were very uneducated in management techniques. The gossips tell me that the response was that the CEOs did not want the managers thinking for themselves but just wanted them to do what they are told – so the training idea was nixed. Apparently the CEOs were also very upset about the disloyalty their employees were showing by questioning – well, let’s be honest here and just leave it at that – by questioning.

I’m sure the truth is a bit more complicated than that and the rumors are embellished, but I from what I experienced there and in the work world at large, I believe the gist of the message. The Company didn’t really like thinking, which was synonymous to questioning, discussing, and initiating. For example, we got this great new engineer who had worked on a lot of retail products. He went ahead and added an auto-run feature to the CDs, which is no big deal and is a very standard, I’d say expected, feature. He didn’t ask, he just did it. The guy worked lots of extra hours, and he never shirked his responsibilities so he didn’t do it at the expense of something else. He got in trouble. Yep, at least that is the story the rumor mill generated. What they taught me in school is that initiative is what you are supposed to have to show off “your stuff,” get ahead, move up. Well, they need to have a class in school on how to work for control freaks and kiss ass because that is what seems to further one’s career these days (surgical spine removal also seems like it would be beneficial).

The culture of fear is rampant throughout corporate America. When I was fired I heard a lot of “If they fired you, they’ll fire anybody.” I’ve heard this since then at other companies where folks were fired. Really what people mean when they say this is that how good our work is has nothing to do with keeping our jobs. Good reviews have nothing to do with keeping our jobs. Being promoted has nothing to do with keeping our jobs. Being well liked by our peers has nothing to do with keeping our jobs. I also hear a lot of fear about changing jobs. People complain to me about their jobs, but when I suggest looking for a new one I get a lot of maybes: maybe they’d get a job that was worse; maybe the new job would be less stable; maybe this… maybe that… As a result, I know a lot of people who spend 40+ hours a week, keeping their mouths shut, not being themselves, not really enjoying their work or growing, hanging onto the whisp of a hope of a bonus and the fear of what lays outside their cubicle walls.

Why am I writing about this today if the latest decapitation took place several months ago? To be honest, I had decided not to post about it because I’m trying really hard to let it go, but, today’s article on the Slow Leadership site, aptly titled Loyalty and a Culture of Fear was just too apropos to let it go.

I love this paragraph from the article because it really encapsulizes what I felt happened to me (yes, I wasn’t mature when I sent my frustrated email that ultimately got me fired, but that was the boiling point of an ongoing, unaddressed problem where I felt a total lack of respect from my workplace as a whole): Surely respect for others should extend to respect for their opinions, concerns, and anxieties? To be respectful means to listen with an open mind and a tolerant outlook. You won’t find Hamburger Managers with either. That’s why they make such poor listeners. They think they already know everything useful, and they have no respect for anyone who cannot directly advance their prospects. Of course they demand loyalty, even though they give none to others.

The next time you are upset about the lack of loyalty from an employee, boss, friend or family-member look to yourself first. Are you able to listen to this person’s ideas and anxieties without becoming threatened? Can you have an academic debate with them about these ideas? Do you understand that it is because this person respects you that they have come to you with concerns? Have you displayed loyalty to this person or do you try to climb the ladder of success by standing on her back?

Think about it – what you get from people is often a direct reflection of what you give to them.  Just like the HR person who had, under the direction of others, terminated so many people under ‘interesting’ circumstances.

Let’s face it – there is a lot of porn on TV. Of course, that meant that a lot of porn channels like Hustler and Playboy and Wicked were represented at the cable TV exposition. All these channels had “models” and “actresses” autographing photos. Miss August 2004 was at the Playboy TV booth one day, so I swung by the booth to get Hubby a signed photo. (Best wife ever!!!) Her name was Pilar, and she was very nice. She addressed the photo to Hubby and signed it with an XXXOOO. A week later, Hubby is still walking around the house with her photo clutched to his chest. I hear him wistfully sighing, “Oh, Pilar…” (Did I mention – best wife ever?!?!)

One of the evenings I went to dinner and drinks with a group of my co-workers (a few of them fairly high-up and influential people or as G’pa would say “big-cheeses”). I was once again the only female in the group, which became highlighted right away when ordering cocktails. (I’ve always worked in highly technical industries that seem to be inhabited mainly by males.) Everyone started out drinking barrel aged Jack Daniels. I’m not a huge Jack Daniels fan (one of my many rebellions against Dad) so I went for (that’s right, you guessed it!) a Gibson martini with Bombay Sapphire gin. We were at a very nice, expensive, fancy steakhouse on the strip in Las Vegas and the martini was excellent. It was also huge. The glass was big and had major heft and this was not a one shot martini. Definitely 2 or maybe even more… So, I had two martinis (hey the “big-cheeses” were buying).

I’ve also changed my diet recently. I did this because I kept falling asleep all the time (oh yeah, and ’cause I’m also fat and have high cholesterol, but technically I’m blaming those things on genetics and am still in full denial that I can do anything about them), so I haven’t had much alcohol, sugar, or red meat lately. The smallest steak at this place was a 10 oz. filet mignon. I got that – simply grilled (instead of heaped with blue cheese which was my other option – I figured by not getting the cheese I was still “on diet.”) This was one of those places where you get just the steak for like $40 and then you can order separate side dishes at $12 a pop if you want something other than meat. The guys all wanted side dishes so they got creamed spinach, macaroni and cheese and asparagus. Well, needless to say, I indulged perhaps a bit too much.

Slightly tipsy, I followed the group back to MGM where they were all staying. Oh, I forgot an important detail. Mom was back in town and we were sharing her car. I met her for lunch that day and she dropped me off at the conference. We were going to meet for dinner, but when I was invited out with some of the “big cheeses” I called her and told her I’d take a cab home. She told me that she’s usually up until 11:00 so to call her and she’d come pick me up. My colleagues were concerned about my transportation and I told them that up until 11:00 my Mom would come and get me. This started a line of ridicule that continued throughout the evening, “When’s your curfew again?” and “What time is Mommy gonna’ be here?” and crap like that.

Anyway we get back to the MGM and I remember there is a bar there that has these really good bellinis (champagne and fruit juice) and the bartenders dance on the bar periodically. I suggest we go there. They agree. I drink my bellini and listen to them gossip about other “big cheeses.” Highly enlightening. (And men may seem stoic and quiet, but boy they can gossip better than any group of chicks I know…and biiiitchy….whoaboy…quite entertaining.) So, here is something else I forgot. When I drink champagne I should only drink champagne. Champagne and hard liquor or wine or beer – it just is kind of like when you are a kid and you make that model volcano for your science class – and you learn about mixing vinegar and baking soda… Anyhoo, the bar we are at is called The Centrifuge, but somehow I don’t remember it actually spinning like a centrifuge when I was there before. Hmmm… must be a newly added feature.

The guys decide they are going to go gamble. I’ve lost enough money playing bingo at the old folks home all week so I say my goodbyes. I call Mom and she picks me up. The other thing I should mention, is I tend to get car sick even when I’m stone cold sober and haven’t eaten for a week – let alone my current condition, stuffed full of steak, mac&cheese, creamed spinach, asparagus, gin, and champagne. I’m also sort of a “professional barfer.” Meaning – I’ve thrown up in a lot of different places all over the country, so often that as a kid I could actually control it enough to turn it into a stream that would hit the bathtub from the doorway to the bathroom without getting any on the floor. Anyhoo…I think you see where I’m headed with this story…

My poor Mom had had a really bad day at work. As she is telling me this, my evening erupted all over her car (and a little bit on her). I guess those ads really are right – what happens in Vegas (ie: my dinner) really does stay in Vegas! Her only comment to me was, “Did you have asparagus for dinner?”

Well, Mom’s been barfed on a lot, especially close to curfew when asked to come pick me up from a party, so it was sort of a nice little sentimental flash back for all of us. I’m a good daughter and fully detailed her car, so it smells just fine and is shiny and clean. I’m just really glad my colleagues weren’t there to see it!

And that ends my tale of the Uninspired one year anniversary job-related trade-show experience. As you can see, some things change constantly (your job) – and some things never change (once you have kids they’ll never stop barfing on you – even when they are 37 years old). It is all good.

It was an exhausting week of pure culture shock jumping between the highly oxygenated, slow-paced halls of the assisted living facility, to the smokey casino floors and Armani clad businessmen who populate the cable TV industry – not to mention a brief time-travel back to high-school curfews.

Part I – Hangin’ with the Homies

The G’s are in an assisted living facility in Las Vegas. The are both near 90 (on one side or the other). G’pa has heart trouble and Parkinson’s. G’ma has heart trouble and lung cancer. Mom has been helping them for several years now and has actually let go of the rope when it comes to patience (in other words beyond being at the end of her rope). She needed a vacation desperately so I agreed to hold down the fort in LV so she could get a little R&R.

Right before Mom’s vacation, G’ma started having a bunch of problems, including falling out of bed and extreme confusion, and was moved to the 24 hour care wing of her building where most of the folks have Alzheimers. Mom also signed G’ma up for hospice care at this time. Mom was crazed and yelling at everyone. She was going to cancel her vacation, but I forced her to go.

I spent my first two days trying to sort out a bunch of the miscommunications/confusion/power struggles that occured between Mom and hospice care. While doing this, I spent a bunch of time in the Alzheimer’s Wing.

Alzheimer’s people love me. They always have. Frankly, I kinda like hanging out with them too. One lady in the wing grabs onto a phrase from her environment each day. When I arrived she was yelling “Happy Easter!” over and over (this was on a bulletin board near her room). On Bingo day she grabbed onto “G29″ and just said it over and over. She made me laugh, and if I just returned, “Happy Easter!” or “Hooray! G29!” she was happy too.

One day I was writing some notes from a conversation I’d just had with the hospice nurse and I overheard this conversation which I found highly amusing:

Old Guy 1: “I tell ya’ I don’t like that new male nurse.”

Old Guy 2: “Oh yeah, he kinda rough with ya’?”

Old Guy 1: “Oh yes, when he is dressing me he is just way too rough. I told him to stop but he doesn’t listen.”

Old Guy 2: “Wait a second – someone dresses you?!!”

Old Guy 1: “Oh yeah, don’t they dress you?”

Old Guy 2: “No!! Geez, I have to dress myself every day!”

Old Guy 1: “Well, that just isn’t right. It isn’t fair! You shouldn’t have to dress yourself!”

This just cracked me up because it was so backwards. Most of us dread the day someone has to dress us, yet to these two guys the unfairness of having to dress yourself was worse than the initial complaint about the roughness of the nurse. It is a matter of perspective, I suppose.

Maybe I like hanging with these people because they are just their raw selves and I don’t have to worry about figuring them out. Plus, it is easy to make them laugh and it feels so good to see them laugh.

Another thing I noted is that a lot of Alzheimer’s people I’ve met are stuck in their college years. More often than not, the stories they tell me are about where they went to college or their college graduation. Why is that? Was it the happiest time of their lives or maybe the biggest time of change going from the shelter of home out into the real world? Was it their proudest accomplishment? You’d think with all the alcohol consumed in college those braincells would be gone, but they seem most resilient after all.

I hung out with the nursing staff after everyone was tucked into bed and we’d swap stories about G’pa and his pants. He is very particular about his pants not being pulled up too far — probably because of the atomic wedgies Mom gives him when getting him into the car. She lifts him by his belt loops. It’s forever made him very nervous about anyone helping him with his pants.

Grandpa and I explored the ins and outs of dog ownership, the price of gasoline (years ago he arrogantly claimed to his golfing buddies that gas would never go over 50 cents a gallon. Boy, when he is wrong, he is really wrong!), Dan and Louis Oyster Bar in Portland (This is where the family would always eat when they were in Portland. G’pa asked me if the name of the family who owns the restaurant is Wachsmuth. I looked it up and indeed it is! He couldn’t believe it. He said with a sheepish grin, “Now how did I remember that? I can barely remember my own name most of the time!”), wood floors vs. carpeting, the benefits of HD TV, his gambling philosophy, and his famous BBQ grapefruit recipe –entirely at the top of our lungs because he doesn’t hear too well. He also regaled me with stories of the nurse who bathes him and their ongoing battle over how one ought to wash one’s face. All in all, I was highly entertained (and I’m not kidding — his battle with this nurse is epic and freaking hilarious!)

G’ma was confused when I first arrived (she thought the President was Truman – but hey at least she named a President – a war-time President at that – which is better than what reportedly a lot of American high-school students can do these days) but steadily improved while I was there. By the time I left she had her appetite back and remembered where she was and why she was there, as well as the previous days events. I gave her a banjo lesson on my travel banjo, and I learned that she played the violin at one time in her life. All these years hanging out with her and I’m still learning new things about her!

In my spare time I kicked around Mom’s house, made a brownie recipe I heard on NPR that is supposed to be Katharine Hepburn’s recipe (they were really really good), and experimented with Splenda. Yikes! I’d been hanging out with the old-folks too long!!

Enjoy!

When I was planning a vacation to visit family in Las Vegas, the Project Manager pointed out that I’d be there during NCTA and the applications I was working on were going to be demoed at that tradeshow. The company was kind enough to let me have a pass to the Expo floor. I’ve been to some large software trade shows before, such as the Game Developer’s Conference, but I’m a complete newbie to the cable industry. Here is my newbie-eye-view of the Expo floor.

In a nutshell, the NCTA Expo screamed, “Diversity Diversity Diversity!”

The Expo floor was a slice through the industry exhibiting the layers of technology, communication, and entertainment that come together to bring that delightful little box with 800+ channels to your living room. After chatting with the folks from Hangzhou Xingfa Transmission Equipment Co Ltd who provide more than 200,000 km of cable to the industry and checking out content providers like Beat the Traffic, I realized that the cable industry offers a range of diverse and interesting jobs.

The Expo floor nicely demonstrated that this is a world-wide industry. I stopped by Shalom TV and the Russian Television Network of America to meet figure skater, Oksana Baiul. Univision Television Group, BBC, and TV Japan are just a few more examples of the global programming represented at the show.

The diversity of the audience that the cable channels try to reach was stunning. At breakfast one morning I went through the program and circled exhibitors that sounded interesting. The Pentagon Channel piqued my interest, so I swung by the booth which was manned by a fully uniformed Air Force man. We discussed the goal of The Pentagon Channel which broadcasts military news and information for the 2.6 million members of the U.S. Armed Forces through programming including DOD news briefings, military news, interviews with top Defense officials, and short stories about military work.

As I wandered around it struck me that the Expo floor planner had a sardonic sense of humor. For example, I stopped by Wealth TV to pick-up a chocolate bar, a cigar rolled on-site by a very intense Cuban man, and to stroke the soft, soft leather of the convertible Ferrari. I turned around and next door was EWTN, the Catholic Network, where I spoke to an extremely sweet man who armed me with some Rosary beads and a crucifix painted with St. Francis of Assisi. Then again, maybe this was just very convenient. I could easily indulge then repent.

The floor show is obviously a big deal and everyone brings their “A-Game.”

All the booths displayed the latest apps and TV shows on super high quality screens. The entertainment oriented companies brought in stars from current shows. There were appearances by actors from the TV series Nip/Tuck, past American Idol stars, cheerleaders from the show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team, a live fighting demonstration from National Geographic’s Fight Science show, and a pretty funny ice-sculpting demonstration at the Weather Channel booth.

My company fit right in with all this fancy stuff. Its booth looked great and was in a prime position near the entrance to the show. The apps I had helped deveop were displayed nicely and looked spectacular. Every time I swung by the booth it was teeming with people who appeared to be engaged in interesting conversations. I also visited the apps I helped with in the Weather Channel booth. They looked beautiful!

I had great fun, learned a lot, and recommend that anyone in this industry attend NCTA. It really opened my eyes to the complex and diverse nature of the Cable industry. I’ll end this report with the first ever “Newbie Best Booth Awards” for NCTA 2007 :

• Newbie Favorite Booth Award goes to MTV Networks/Bet Networks for drawing people in by asking fun Trivia questions about their programs, giving away great prizes for the answers, bringing in fun personalities, and being the best at interacting with the people who visited their booth. I saw more people laughing here than in any other booth.

• Newbie Most Popular Award goes to FOX for generating lines of people that wrapped around their booth by bringing in stars, having entertaining demonstrations and handing out related paraphernalia (including skateboards).

• Newbie Nicest Staff Award goes to Imagine Communications for giving me a great tour of their products and somehow getting me really interested in video compression.

• Newbie Cutest Booth Uniform Award goes to GolTv, a soccer channel. The “booth babes” had on knee length ruffled dresses in black and white striped referee material and high-heeled Converse tennis shoes. They were running around the conference handing out whistles. Very cute!

• Newbie Best Booth Slogan Award goes to the Discovery Channel for “Smoothies on Demand” (and they were tasty too!)

1) I am happy in my job (which has comparable pay and better benefits than the job I was fired from)

2) I like my boss.

3) I am getting the opportunity to learn new things at work.

4) My company trusts me enough to let me set my own schedule, decide how to go about doing the work I am assigned, share company information with me with a minimum of up-the-ass smoke blowing.

5) I work with balanced people with normal egos, respect for their co-workers, who can have conversations and question things without getting all threatened and twitchy.

It is amazing what can happen in a year!!