Work Meetings: A Waste of Life

They truly are. I do not think there are may people out there that will disagree with the title of this blog. Frequently, we are called into meetings in order to go over things that are deemed "important" by someone who deems themselves "important" and our time, not.

At the company I work for there is a general meeting once every 3 months and, as you will soon see, this meeting can very easily be avoided. Last time we met, we spent half of our two hour meeting listening to one of our mini-bosses read a public web page to us. We all had seen this web page many times before, at the company's request, and most of us happen to be literate. The next 45 minutes were spent on our mini-boss answering questions that had just been answered in the hour long reading - a good chunk of time in these meetings is wasted on the illiterates-in-denial, who are apparently deaf as well. Only the last 15 minutes were spent on new material, such as how the company is doing. In summary, 2 hours were spent on what could have taken 15 minutes to go over, and the information discussed over the last 15 minutes could have been sent via email. Precious minutes I will never get back.

Under scrutiny my meetings seem like a big waste of time, however they do only happen once every 3 months. That's not too bad if you think of it. My sister, on the other hand, sits in conference-call meetings almost all of her day, everyday; and since she frequently works from her home, I have from time to time, while visiting her, sat in those meetings out of morbid curiosity. Let me tell you, most of them could have been condensed; probably into one sentence emails. Unfortunately for her, she too has to deal with illiterates-in-denial, and, since most of them seem to be deaf as well, on top of her 40+ weekly phone meetings she still has to go into the office a couple of times a week to explain things with hand gestures and diagrams. Absolutely amazing. Imagine if everyone learned to read, all meetings were turned into condensed emails, and we all used the saved time for vacations. For me it would not make too much of a difference, but for people like my sister it would add a few of months of vacation time per year.

One can dream.

White Socks: Why Do You Upset Me?

Ever since I could remember, I have had an aversion to white socks. I am not sure why, but I feel like they never match. The only time I do not get bothered by them is when they are worn with an entirely white outfit; if, however, there is any colour or shade in an ensemble, I am against them. Similar to red cars; I do not approve of their existence. 

I had to put it out there. White socks upset me.

Re: Häagen-Dazs®

Dear Mrs. and Mr. Mattus,

This blog entry originally started out as a love letter to Häagen-Dazs® Baileys® Irish Cream Ice Cream, the love of my taste buds' life. But as I started writing it, and it did come easy, I decided that perhaps instead I should be writing a thank you letter to the Häagen-Dazs family for creating this ice cream that I love so much. I proceeded by first researching this wonderful Scandinavian family. If you are reading this, Mrs. and Mr. Mattus, I am sure you know where the rest of this letter is going, but I would like to spell it out for you anyway.

First off, I found that Häagen-Dazs is not a Scandinavian family name. Nor is it two hyphenated Scandinavian family names. Häagen and Dazs are actually two made up words that just look Scandinavian (to everyone except for Scandinavians, who just assume they must be German). I read this, and thought to myself: 'Hmm. Maybe the actual Scandinavian family behind Häagen-Dazs® just wanted to make up an original company name instead of using their own last name. I can understand that.' But at that point a spark of doubt formed in my head and I decided to research further, just in case anything else was not what it seemed. Guess what I found out.

Häagen-Dazs® ice cream was created by a Polish-American family from the Bronx of New York and is produced in North America. In fact, absolutely nothing about Häagen-Dazs® has anything to do with Scandinavia.

What the hell?

I have been eating this magnificent combination of deliciousness, filled with 250 calories per half a cup (minimal possible ingestion at one sitting being four times that), telling myself that 'It's ok. I can eat these Scandinavian calories; they are foreign, so it's like being on vacation. Everyone needs a vacation!'

Ignorance was beautiful beautiful bliss. But now that reality has hit I know that I have been consuming American ice cream calories all this time, a lot of them. Apparently what I thought was a semi-liquid vacation, turned out to be a trap. A delicious American-fat-ass-making trap. Furthermore, since I have been consuming this frozen once-upon-a-time-a-vacation-recently-discovered-trap for so long, I cannot even stop myself from future consumption; although your product is not physically addictive, it certainly is emotionally. I have been tricked, and now I am stuck.

So thank you, Mrs. and Mr. Mattus, for creating this bliss-destroying lie. Perhaps next time you should conceal it a little better.

Driven (and now also Sad)

The Power of a Crossing Guard

One of my students and I were driving around today, practicing turns at intersections with lights. We were coming up to a red light at which we were planning to turn right. As we got closer, we noticed a crossing guard standing at the corner, observing us. We approached the light, made our stop, and slowly began moving up to see if the lane we were intending to turn into was free. As soon as we set the car in motion, the crossing guard's hand (occupied by a stop sign) went up. We stopped, assuming someone was about to cross in front of us. We waited; no one crossed. A couple of seconds later, the stop sign was lowered. I looked to the crossing guard for an eye-contact explanation, and instead received an intense blank look.

We began moving up again, and immediately the stop sign was flipped up. We stopped; however, this time we made it far enough into the intersection to notice that the side walk was empty, in both directions. Very very empty. No people; no cars. I again looked to the crossing guard, who was now staring at me very seriously while continuing to firmly hold the stop sign up, for an explanation; none was given. My student, slightly confused, looked to me for advice; I, less confused, told him "Ignore the crazy".

We proceed to turn while I continued to stare down the guard who, once we were half way through our turn, faced the stop sign in another direction and began to wave us on as if the only reason why we could even perform the turn was because she was doing us a favour by holding back all other traffic.

Thank you Crazy. Just imagine what a terrible turn my life could have taken if someone insisted that crossing guards had to pass psychological evaluations prior to receiving their Mighty Scepters of Stopping.