One to grow on

Sometimes you get so mired in your own thoughts and ideas, you fail to recognize what’s right in front of you.  Last Halloween, we had a pumpkin carving contest at work.  My department (Marketing) won against Sales, Customer Service and the Warehouse teams.  We’re marketing creative and cool is what we do.  Then, two months later we had a gingerbread house building party.  Once again we were wildly creative but lost out to the Customer Service team.  I figured we paid the Marketing Penalty that we couldn’t win everything, and like our annual awards, it’s pretty much participation and who would win “this time”.    We’d built an awesome gingerbread house with a snowy lawn and a drunken snowball fight between snowmen and gingerbread men.  I was disappointed we didn’t win, but whatever …

Marketing

Customer Service - the winner

We missed the pumpkin carving this year, but they resurrected the gingerbread house contest.  One of my newer coworkers was appointed captain by our boss and she promptly picked a beach theme.  The team worked on this all week.  We planned, plotted, decorated, expanded and (we thought) knocked it out of the park.  We brought our creation out of the lab and scoped out the competition.  It wasn’t even close (in our minds) we had this with totally creative and out of the box thinking and design. 

Marketing 

Well, Customer Service won again.

We were stunned.  Their entry was pretty, but ours was EPIC.  I figured they were just playing nice with the Customer Service team that always takes shit and has a tough job.  Marketing and Sales get all the accolades and awards, the travel and the perks, so let CS have this?  That was all I could think.  Our Captain decided to dig further, whereas the rest of us had simply shrugged our shoulders and given up.  She decided to find out what the “scorecard” was.  Once she had that information it became very clear why the CS team had one and we had lost.  We had this “post-Christmas Santa getaway Beach house” theme, which wasn’t what the judges were looking for at all.  They were judging on “how Christmasy it was” which ours really wasn’t and “how nice the piping was” we didn’t have any piping.  That was the eye-opening moment for me.  We didn’t know where the goal post was, how the hell were we ever going to make the shot?  Instead of looking for what the judges wanted, we gave them what we wanted, and as a result, we lost.  It was an epiphany moment because that would relate to our work as well.  Instead of pushing what WE want on our customer, we need to really dig to find out what the customer WANTS that’s the only way to win.

So, next year, before we take a knife to pumpkin or icing to gingerbread, I’m going to find out what it’s going to be judged on, and do THAT.

Doing the mom thing right!

Following my friends on FaceBook, I often do the quizzes that my friends do, just to see how I fair, because the answers are sometimes hysterical or I just want to prove how epically Canadian I am.  Today a friend of mine did a word cloud.  I find these fascinating because it shows the words you often use and the more you use a word, the bigger it is in the cloud. 

Here is mine.

For a minute I was awash with guilt.  While both boys’ names are there, they’re TINY.  I thought “I can’t share that!” what will people think?  That I don’t talk about my kids enough?  Then it hit me.

• I’m not just a mom.
• I’m not just an employee.
• I’m not just a wife.
• I’m not just a family member.
• I’m not just a best friend.
• I’m not just a baseball fan.

I’m many things, all of the above and more.  I don’t live solely for my children and I’m not just “their mom”.  I’m a dynamic person with a lot of passions and apparently a lot of happiness.  BHE and I do a LOT of things together.  We go on adventures, we explore new things, and we get out and about so it’s obvious that he’d be the biggest name.  It’s obvious I’m living my best life full of love and happiness.

There’s no shame in my game.  I love my kids, they’re a very important part of my life and an important part of me, but I don’t live only for them, I live with them and they get to see what a happy and fulfilled parent looks like.  I know they’re happy and well loved and I’m thrilled with the balance and joy in my life.

Trust

It's one word, five letters; yet so powerful, so important, so easily damaged and so hard to repair.   I’ve had trust issues for most of my life.  My father is an ass.  Always has been, always will be.  For the last 20+ years that he’s been completely out of my life has been a blessing.  My ex-husband lost my trust early in the relationship and never even tried to regain it.  He lied, a lot or he’d purposely leave out pertinent information.  I didn’t trust him and it was a huge part of the demise of our marriage. 

In business, I’ve seen a lot of young bucks say “fake it until you make it”.  I remember doing that, I’d make up answers that sounded plausible, but I really didn’t know.  That burned me a few times and one of my best leaders taught me that “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you” is a WAY better answer than anything else I could say if I didn’t know.  Once people peg you as a liar, you lose their trust, and that’s ridiculously hard to earn back.

TCW (Toxic CoWorker) is a liar.  I’ve caught her a number of times either blatantly lying to cover her ass or getting hyperbolic and blowing things way out of proportion.  Now, I simply ignore her.  I know I can’t trust her.  It’s a shame; a lot of people do trust her and end up getting burned by her over and over again.  I did, in the beginning, but I’ve since learned my lesson.  It really sucks, having to keep your eye on someone who will knife you in the back faster than she’ll even smile at you.  She’s not even subtle about it.  I walked past her bitching about me to FCW (Flakey CoWorker) in FCW’s office with the door open.  She’d not said a word to me, but she’d bitched about me to one of the sales guys (who told me) so I knew what she was complaining about. 

Two weeks ago TCW was out with that Sales Guy and one of our US colleagues.   She’d texted me in the middle of the day “Do you know where Staples HO is?”  *sigh* again, complete lack of manners drives me absolutely bat-shit.  I was tempted to simply ignore her text, but there was no need to punish SG or USC because she’s a cow.  I simply responded with “yes” but at the same time emailed the address to her and SG.  Apparently, she exploded in the car calling me all sorts of names (she didn’t look at her email).  She texted back “please” and I immediately responded with “already emailed it to you”.  She was complaining about what a bitch I was to FCW, I just looked at both of them, smirked and walked away.

She’s taught me that no matter how nice she can appear I cannot trust her.   She also reminds me that I don’t want to lose other people's trust.  It’s very important, and obviously more important that she knows.  I've finally got a marriage based on trust, love and respect.  I've built a reputation at work based on trust, respect and quality.  I know and respect its value.  

Rising from the ashes

Following up from yesterday.

http://www.680news.com/2017/05/18/pillar-suspended-2-games-yelling-homophobic-slur/

In a nutshell, he's been suspended for two games and appears embarrassed and sorry for using a homophobic slur.  I understand that he felt it was "in the heat of the moment", but that's a word you should never reach for unless you're compiling a bundle of sticks!  

I'm not ready to burn my Kevin Pillar bobble head in effigy, but rather watch, and see what becomes of this.  He apologized to the pitcher, he apologized to the other team, but most importantly he's apologized to the LGBTQ community who are most affected by this.  People screw up, and hopefully, he's learned that words do matter and he should take such horrific words out of his vocabulary.

He can learn and grow from this, a LOT of people (based on the reaction online) can learn and grow from this.  

When your hero falls

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/kevin-pillar-blue-jays-1.4121088

Over the past 3 years, LML and I have become big Blue Jays fans and our favourite player is #11 Kevin Pillar.  We enjoyed ourselves on our annual Mothers Day game, watching KP bang out a solo home run at the bottom of the 9^th with 2 out to break the tie and win the game.  YAAAAAAAY.

Driving to work this morning, I heard that in the “heat of the moment” he hurled a homophobic slur f----t at the pitcher for the Atlanta Braves.  My jaw hit my lap and my heart sank to my stomach.  All I hear on the radio was “I’m a competitive guy” “it was the heat of the moment” “I won’t let this define me” “we need to move on”.  I was heartbroken.  He was making excuses, and it didn’t sound apologetic at all.  It’s slightly better in the article, he does say he’ll reach out to the pitcher to apologize, but he needs to more.  I believe he understands what he did was wrong, but I don’t think he realizes HOW wrong.  It’s just as bad as a racial or religious slur.  You’re degrading someone for simply who they are.  I hope he really opens himself up to the experiences of those discriminated against solely because who they love and learn what he said is horrific.  I need to see more than one quick article about him moving on.  He has the opportunity to grow from this.  I really hope he does, because if this simply “goes away” I’m going to stop cheering for someone like that. 

I don’t want my team to be the league villains, but they’re heading there in a hurry.  Looks like we’ll have to switch to basketball in the 6ix!  Goodness knows we’ll never be hockey fans here.  I really hope the League punishes him for this.

What happens to you is a direct reflection of your actions.

I get that, more today than ever; whether it is the problems in your life or the happiness.  I’ve been pretty alienated at work.  I’m okay with that.  I don’t get caught up in a lot of the high school histrionics that happens when 5 middle-aged women work together.  We’re all at various stages in our life.  Engaged, divorced, single, married, with kids, without, really the only thing we have in common is the name on our pay cheques.  Honestly, I doubt I’d be friends with any of them if I’d met them outside of work. 

I hear them come in and chat about “OMG you’ll never believe what happened … “ and it’s always a series of bad on-line dates, kids getting in trouble, getting blasted at work by one of the Sales guys, tremendous bills, etc.  There’s a lot of negativity in their lives, but I believe it’s just the world reflecting the negativity back that they put out.

Example #1  

TCW – She’s my BEC, I don’t know why, I think she should not get away with the majority of the shit she does get away with … I’ve never seen someone with so much rope!  She was going to keep her then husband until her girls were off to University, and then give him walking papers, because that’s what made her life easiest.  Well she busted him having an affair.  Their marriage then fell apart and she and her daughters went off the rails hard.  I get it, divorce is hard, and change is hard.  She started sleeping with whoever she could find on line, the stories truly were horrific.  Not surprisingly her daughters became rather promiscuous, drugs, dropping out of school, theft, stolen cars; it seemed a new low every day.  One of the problems was, TCW would be screwing up ROYALLY at work and there were no repercussions, so when her daughters were failing, she’d come in and rescue them.  None of them have hit bottom, because there’s always someone to catch them.   Even today, TCW is dating this “nice guy” but has her “army boy” that she’s expecting an engagement ring from.  She’s been seeing this army guy since her husband, but she doesn’t realize she’s just his local port.  But good grief, don’t try to TELL her any of this, she knows best!

Example #2 

FCW – she’s a physically beautiful woman.  She’s 50 but looks late 30’s and pretty much a blonde bombshell.  However either her standards are so ridiculously high, or she’s just so bitter about life, no one will ever want to be around.   I introduced her to a friend of mine a couple of years ago and they developed a close friendship.  I find out all sorts of stuff through this mutual friend.  She hates me because in the past 5 years I’ve divorced my “seemingly perfect” husband and gone on to win awards at work, be promoted, have straight A kids who are never in trouble, find the love of my life, get remarried and have a “charmed” life.  They use words like “lucky” but they don’t see all the work I put in behind the scenes.  I found the love of my life by marrying my best friend.  She would have taken one look at him and written him off because he’s short.  I looked to what was on the inside and saw the most amazing man in the world.

It’s more than just the obvious, it’s the attitude.  This morning on my way to work, I was stopped at a red light and all of a sudden I felt “BUMP”.  It’s the same feeling as when you stall a manual car, the same feeling when you’re hit from behind.  I truly believe that I’m Wonder Woman as my CR-V is invisible as this is the third time in 2 years that I’ve been rear ended.   We pulled off to the side and the lady behind me was obviously very upset.  She kept saying “I’m so sorry”.  Honestly, she likely just took her foot off the brake.  I couldn’t see any damage, the other two events were much more impactful.  I rubbed her arm and told her it was okay, we’ll just let it go and to take it easy on herself today.  She was stunned.  She was ready for wrath, for anger, for blame, but instead she got kindness and forgiveness.   No one was hurt, there weren’t any kids involved, and she took responsibility.  Maybe she’ll pay a bit more attention in the future and prevent a bigger accident.    

I jumped in my car, continued on to work and still beat my coworkers in.  I hear them whining and complaining about life to each other.  I’ve put on my wireless headset and decided to smile.  I’m lucky … no, I’m happy.  It’s a choice and I get positivity back from the Universe because of it.

It’s a choice, choose wisely.

The difference between quitting and tapping out.

I’ve been watching the TV show “Naked & Afraid” with LML lately.   A Rather interesting concept, two people (one man and one woman) are dropped off in a survival situation with only one item each (usually a machete and a fire starter) no clothes and have to survive for 21 days.  We’ve been watching it because the gifts have been at their father’s, I don’t think it’s appropriate for them, even though they blur out the survivors' bits.  We’re on Season 3 and what struck me is that they never talk about quitting, but always refer to it as “tapping out”.  I didn’t really notice it at first, but then, NO ONE ever quit, no one ever “gave up”, the ones who couldn’t make it “tapped out”.

Without going to look up dictionary definitions and on the surface this may seem like the same thing, I see a rather distinct difference in it.  To quit means you’re giving up.  It’s a first-person action.  You don’t have the strength, skill, courage, stamina or whatever to keep going so you stop.  This is entirely a reflection of the person.   On the other hand, when you “tap out” that means the forces applied to you were too great to overcome.  I believe it’s from a boxing/wrestling origin in which the loser of the match is counted out with tapping on the mat.  Therefore, if one is to “tap out” it’s a reflection of the overwhelming force against them, not necessarily of their inability to overcome it.  It puts the onus on the force, not the person.

Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s better to accept defeat and quit, to take responsibility or to shift the fault to the forces against you and tap out.  I lean toward taking responsibility and admit it’s quitting, but if it helps people feel better about themselves, then tap out!  Then again, even as I write this it feels like “giving everyone a participation ribbon” and not taking ownership of our own actions, limitations and faults.  

Just because I make it look easy …

Ok, look out, rant ahead.  At work today, after a meeting with two coworkers (both women, neither has children) I was chit chatting about some of the recent goings-on around the office.  TCW had been having her eldest daughter working in our warehouse on an off for the past year since she dropped out of high school.   Today TCW is not in; apparently, she’d call the boss and said this same daughter had been throwing up for 3 days and was in the hospital with her.  My XH texted me randomly this morning to say he’d spotted TCW and the daughter in his Principles Office (XH is a teacher at the school she dropped out from).  Ok, there ya go, TCW was trying to get her daughter back into school because apparently, we fired her from her really lax warehouse job earlier this week.  Yes, the three-year long train wreck of a life for TCW (and family) continues.

When I was chatting with my other two coworkers, the subject of my XH and my kids came up.  Apparently, TCW likes to point out that I’m “lucky” to have such a good co-parenting relationship with XH and my kids are only good because they’re little, and were so young when we split.

DAFUQ?!?!?!?!??!

First off, luck has NOTHING to do with it.  My relationship with my XH could have gone to hell during the divorce, but it took a lot of hard work (on both parts) to constantly put the kids above all else.  We didn’t bother with each other’s personal lives, outside of inquiries as to the health of each other’s families.  We only really discussed the kids and acted in their best interests.  This created a healthy co-parenting relationship.  I won’t say we’re friends, we never really were friends, but we both do what we can to help the other out and keep the kids happy, healthy and safe.

Secondly, my kids were traumatized by the divorce too, but that doesn’t give ANYONE carte blanche to rebel and derail HARD.  TCW’s oldest dropped out of high school in her last year.  She started hanging around with kids who did some serious drugs, even her boyfriend robbed TCW’s house blind.  She told TCW that the school pushed her out, but (having an EX at THAT school) I found out she’d withdrawn (dropped out).  So she’s been working here for the past year on and off, but was always on her phone, wandering away from her job and basically being paid to sleep in her mother’s office.  Whenever she’d go off the rails hard (drugs, theft, etc) I’d ask TCW what were the repercussions of her actions?  Take her phone!  She said “then I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of her” … so, she just kept yelling at her.  Ya, obviously that works … NOT.  The daughter has had mom hand her everything, and now that she’s 18 she has absolutely no coping skills or mechanisms other than drugs.  Lovely.  She swears she doesn’t need counselling, she doesn’t implement any real rules at home, so why would the daughter straighten up?

She’s gotten the other coworkers thinking I’m just born under a lucky star, and they have NO CLUE how hard it is.  You make rules, you enforce them, and you provide repercussions for breaking the rules.  You stay consistent with that.  You have your kids learn from a young age that life isn’t handed to you on a silver platter.  You earn your keep.  You’re a contributing and important member of the family.

That’s not luck, that’s hard work.

Love songs on the radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yW7w8F2TVA

This song, every time I hear it, I think of LML.  Like, makes me melty, swoony and almost a little teary.  I’m still amazed by how much I love this man, I still get hung up on love songs on the radio.  I still get butterflies when I see him.  So this is what it’s like to be in love with your best friend!  Cool!

Why is saying “I’m sorry” so difficult for some people?

I’m Canadian; the jokes about how we are always so quick to apologise are prevalent.   When you bump into a Canadian, they apologise to you … that’s how we roll.    However, I know from past experience this isn’t always true.  Manners are a big thing for me.  I say please and thank you if I think I’ve offended or hurt someone I’m the first to apologise.  I’ve taught the boys that it’s okay to make mistakes, be wrong, but make sure you’re sorry for it and express it.  My ex-husband is TERRIBLE for this.  He’d NEVER apologise and it made me feel like crap.  I once called him out on it and he actually said: “really, we’ve been together long enough we don’t have to do that” … what … be kind … respectful?  Ergo one of the many reasons he’s the ex-husband.  BestHusbandEver always apologises; if we’re arguing (which is rare), he’ll stop, think about things and apologise if appropriate.  To this day it still catches me off guard, and I love it.

I had a situation this week where an apology would have gone a LONG way, but it didn’t happen.  I was hosting Girls Night In for 3 friends.  We try to get together once every couple of months.  Last month it was an impromptu night with one of the girls, so I hosted.  We had a great time, so we decided to repeat it for this month.  Schedules are tricky, I try to make it when BHE is on nights and the gifts are at their dads' so we can enjoy ourselves uninterrupted.  We set everything up via email and Facebook messenger.  It was all a go.  It’s a lot of work, I work 8.5 hours a day, have 2 hours of commuting, on the way home I stopped at the store and picked up $60 worth of meats, cheese, dips, fruit, veg, etc to nibble on.  I get home, empty the dishwasher, tidy the front room, look after the pets in need, tidy the living room, set up the food plates and am ready for the girls to show up at 6:30. 

*cue ticking clock*

I get a text message from M.  She’s a part-time WFH mother.  She loved this date because her husband was off for the week (March Break) so she could be on time.  She kindly kept me up to date on her progress “just leaving in 15” … “be there soon” … “just picking up wine” … and she arrived at 7:30. 

About 8:00 we get a FB message from C “OMG I totally gapped, I’m stuck at work, we’re really busy”.  That was all.  No apology, just that.  C and her husband own a pub and act like they have children as they have two dogs.  She BARELY works, and we picked this night specifically because it was good for her.  I was annoyed.

I’d texted K at 7:30 asking if she was still coming … and didn’t hear back until 8:30.  “I’m just leaving work from a meeting that went way overdue L” K works part time for a brewery, no kids … seriously?  BHE even made her a fresh loaf of Rye Bread because she loves it.

How hard is it to put a reminder in your calendar?  How hard is it to say “I’m sorry, I’m late or I can’t make it” … or just “I’m sorry”.   I wonder if it’s because the plans were made in cyber-space so people think they don’t matter.  When did common courtesy become so uncommon?  What their actions told me was “you don’t matter, your feelings don’t matter” and that hurts. 

Needless to say, I’m going to take a bit of a break from K & C.  I’m not going to be mean or rude; I’m just going to take my foot off the gas in an effort to reach out.   I love organising big or small social events … I just hate it when your guests suck.