Dumpster Diving - never thought I would

I hope I do not offend anyone with this topic, but I never thought I would resort to dumpster diving. Last week for our Earth Day celebration, we re-branded our recycling so that is it clearer what to recycle where. Our office has made HUGE improvements this past week on our recycling. This combined with the landlord introducing a single stream recycling in our blue recycle office bins.

I found myself all week, reaching into the trash barrel and removing yogurt contains and soda cans for someone who cannot read the signs for where to put plastics and aluminum cans, and instead put recycle things in the trash. I stopped short of saying someone who does not care, because I am practicing "Assume Positive Intent".

We now have ceramic mugs right above the coffee machine, and we moved the paper cups so that they are hard to find. Greg wanted to buy 3 oz. paper cups. I thought that was a bit extreme. We run the mugs through a dishwasher, so there is always a clean one ready to use.

Our minister preached on Green stuff on Sunday and she made the point that this topic of Green and recycling can produce people who are holier-than-thou. I am one of those who is on the cusp of being holier-than-thou, so instead I will stick to dumpster diving and doing their recycling for them. They won't even know I am doing it.

Latest Rant - PST or PDT; EST or EDT

For many years my trigger was being called a "GIRL"! A girl is an immature female species and many men unknowingly in the work place call women, "girl" when she is smart, or aggressive or assertive etc. As I said, they don't realize they are doing this. At Polaroid, a male who worked for me, called me honey and babe, when I gave him less than positive feedback. He also brought his 4 inch thick notebook into his 1-1 and dropped it from 4 feet above the table, onto the table in an effort to intimidate me. It did not work!

Many folks (men and women) have argued with me about this GIRL thing, and I have asked them to just observe. Often they come back and say they also observed it as well. I don't know when this changed but it no longer bugs me as much.

It has been replace with a much tamer trigger/rant.

When people put PST (Pacific Standard Time) and we are actually in PDT (Pacific Daylight Time), this jumps off the page for me. Mind you, details do not usually jump off the page, but this one does. In a conversation just now with a colleague, she puts just PT to get around that.

Am I just older than many people at work? Yes, I am older and I remember when daylight savings time was implemented so the difference between PST and PDT was much more important.

So why has this trigger replace the GIRL trigger? Maybe I have educated enough people around the GIRL issue. Maybe as I get older I don't mind as much being called a GIRL.

I can only store one joke in my memory at a time and tell and retell that joke until I hear the next good one. Maybe rants are the same way and the PDT rant has replace the GIRL rant. I will not promise to raise my eyebrows the next time I hear girl, but I no longer am giving the lecture which starts "A girl is an immature female species . . . "

Harvard Square differences

Last night since we arrived home early from our dinner with Star Island friends, we decided to drive into Harvard Square for a "date". We parked at Huron Ave so we could get our exercise in, walked the 15 minutes to the Square, spent 20 minutes in the Coop, Murg bought 3 books, and then we walked over the the Charles outside hotel bar for a drink. Fortunately the Red Sox game was on so we watched a nail biter as Baltimore scored two in the ninth, closing to within one run.

On our way to the Coop we happened upon this scene. 6 individuals sitting in chairs in a semi circle watching the game on a TV inside a store, facing outward to the street. There were about 15 other people standing around them, since the chairs were all occupied. They could have been at Fenway watching, they could have been at the Charles Hotel with us. We were only a few hundred yards away drinking our beer and Dark and Stormy.

We discussed whether the chairs were their own or had the store provided them with the chairs. We wondered if they were homeless! We wondered if this is a scene for every Sox game! The Red Sox are adored by many people in this area. Watching the game when you are out and about on a Saturday night is easy no matter what your situation in life.

Life is Good, go Red Sox!

I like Change - when I am the one initiating it

Our topic this week at the leadership training I am leading was change. I teach 5-6 models of change during this session, and get students to like about past and future change in their work or family lives, Many students said it was the best one yet.

New topic, but not really, you will see the tie in, I promise. I am a co-leader of our Green Team, and one part of Earth Day was making our recycling clearer, through signage and new bins. Two of us have been taking home plastic and Styrofoam to our town recycling for a year now, and we were going to have to get more folks to take stuff home because of the increased recycling. Yesterday was our Earth Day celebration, and employees walked into the new bins and signage. I asked a lot of them what they thought about the changes. Most like the changes, and some did not even notice.

Our facilities folks have been working with the property management company to do more recycling. Today they sent us an email that they are now going to recycle, IN ONE BIN, everything; paper, plastic, Styrofoam, glass bottles etc.

Wait a minute, we just rolled out our new program and one day later you roll out yours was my first thought. Mind you the facilities person has been telling me that the landlord was going to have increased recycling. I did not know it would be only one day after ours.

Obviously, I like that fact that they are recycling, but I did not like that we did not coordinate with them for the roll out. I actually did not like their change at first because I was not in control of it. Most of us, do not like a change when we are not in control and when someone does IT to us.

Cannot live without a furry beast around the house!

People who know us well, know that our beloved Qammi and brilliant Autumn died last year. It was a sad sad year for animals in the Russell/Lowe/Swartzbaugh house. We have had an animal in the house or barn since 1987 when I snuck the first little kitty into the house under the nose of my new husband. I knew he would not go for a dog, although that came 2 years later. At one point we had 3 cats, a dog and a horse.

Since December, every time I drive up the street, I expect a brown nose to be poking out from under the shade, to greet me. This week we are taking care of two rambunctious dogs and I realized that I MUST HAVE AN ANIMAL around the house.

Concurrent with this, Bee returns from Turkey on May 2nd and we were thinking of a welcome home gift for her. When we had squirrels in the winter, one solution on Murg's facebook entry was to have a cat. Bee asked recently on Skype "Now, that the squirrels are gone are you still considering a cat?"

So all of these forces of nature are coming together and on May 3rd we will be making a trip to the pound to choose a kitty. I don't want this kitty to scratch my furniture, so Bee's solution is to buy a scratching post, take it to the pound and see which feline is attracted to it.

This is her cat BTW, and as soon as she has an apartment where she can keep the cat either legally or illegally (2 bunnies lived illegally in her dorm room last year at Hampshire and then lived at our house last summer. I would rather have a cat than bunnies!), then it leaves 22 Hayes Lane for greener pastures, or apartments as the case may be.

Very Interesting - Grand Challenge Summit today at Wellsley

Today I attended this Grand Challenge Summit at Wellesley, sponsored by Wellesley, Olin and Babson. I was invited because Intuit has hired interns from Olin for the last 3 summers. I had not done my homework prior to the summit, as to what the 14 Grand Challenges are, and will be doing that reading in the next few days.

What was clear, very early on, is that there were a lot of academics attending. There were also quite a few students from the three schools, and a few industry folks like myself. I have some friends who work in colleges and universities and I have had discussions with them about the culture of academia. It is very different from any culture that I have worked in before.

One of the comments that a woman from Harvard made to me on the bus ride from Olin to Wellesley was "Professors don't go through any training on education or how to teach." She said it so matter of fact, and I paused a minute before I burst out laughing and started shaking my head. Seriously? Those individuals, who stand up in front of millions of students all over the world, do not have training in training, or training in education. They are rewarded for research and teaching is a means to an end, of getting the research and being able to do the research.

There were lots of statistics about the future that were quoted. The one that stuck with me is that by 2019, 50% of education will be online education. It was pretty funny to watch a room full of academics squirm in their seats when this prediction was quoted. One man refuted this with all kinds of opinion, and I leaned to my colleague and said "A little bit of resistance, maybe, or job nervousness about job security."

There were some great speakers, some great videos of Grand Challenge students projects, some interesting panels including one of the three presidents of the institutions, Linda Wertheimer and Paul Romer.

I came away with a new desire to help with educational reform, after my efforts have been exhausted with health reform. There is a lot of work to be done in this world and it is being done by a lot of smart people.

A half day out of the office, and I was pretty happy to return this afternoon to my cozy office in corporate America, armed with some new thoughts about education, engineering, culture, innovation, collaboration and Grand Challenges.

Airlines again - good and bad

I know that I have touted the brilliance of customer service for Jet Blue but one agent slipped through the cracks or missed the obligatory customer service training, or as we call it at Intuit, customer success. An agent in Boston on 4/16/2010 was very cranky had a short tempered, dismissive attitude. I could not get close enough to photograph her clearly, so here she is from far enough away that she could not "smack" me either literally or figuratively. She is the one on the left, the one on the right does get it and had a great attitude. This is an anomaly for Jet Blue, to have a cranky service person!

This is where I am confused though. We had a flight to Dulles Airport, deplaned and walked into the hallway, looked for our connecting flight to Orlando, and IT WAS THE EXACT SAME GATE AND PLANE that we had just left, and they made everyone get off. The next flight was a new number, but the same plane and about 20 of us were on both flights. The exact same crew were on both flights.

Why did they do this? Is it TSA related?

BTW - this travel experience was exceptional. Both flights took off on time. They fed us Terra Yukon blue potato chips and sodas. Individual TV screens with lots of channels. Great service except for the agent in Boston (if you forgot, she is on the left in this picture).

We arrived in Orlando, EARLY!

If only they could all be this perfect.

It did occur to me that because of volcano in Iceland Eyjafjallajokul "Ey ya fyat tah YOH kuht" there were a lot less flights from Dulles Boston and Orlando which might explain on time departures on a Friday afternoon the Friday of April school vacation. Am I becoming a cynic in my old age?

It is only one floor away

Yesterday at church, the main floor bathroom was occupied so I went downstairs to use that one and as I walked down the stairs, I realized that I had not been downstairs for a while. I used to go every Sunday when I did youth group, but now that I am not involved with RE (Religious Education), I don't go as frequently. I could also sense that I am getting disconnected from the children and youth in the Church by not going "downstairs". I vowed that I could never get disconnected from the youth in the church and become one of those old fogies who complains about them and their behavior.

Intergenerational interaction are a challenge for any group, and especially our church. We try to raise awareness, by intentionally scheduling activities that get the generations to "play" and "work" together. As an aside the Burlington VT UU church has social hour separate for adults and those involved in RE. This seemed really strange when I noticed this because it really separates youth, children and the possible adults relationships they might be developing when a young person runs, and almost knocks down the 101 year old octogenarian, and the "it takes a community" intervention happens by that loving adult, not always their parent or guardian. In the case of Burlington UU, they have 2 services and there is no place to accommodate all the people who want to be social during social hour.

What I thought yesterday is our challenge at work to get the 6th floor and 7th floor to interact, or even the North side 6th floor and South side 6th floor to interact (they are separated by the kitchenette). We schedule lunches, lectures, social events, and we are still inclined to hang with our familiar buddies. We often discuss this at our leadership meetings, that many employees in different Business Units on the site could share work information and end up helping and supporting each other on work projects, because they are working on the same technology.

There has to be a reason to go to the North side of the floor rather than just wandering over, and there has to be a reason to go "downstairs" at Church rather than to use the bathroom. How have you helped groups, who seem so separate, realize the advantage of reaching out across that boundary of a floor or a kitchenette? Do you have a similar story to my floor kitchenette one?

Sally's Trip to the Dentist

As I lay nearly horizontal in the dentist chair today, of course memories of the dentist chair from my early years came flooding over me. The drills were a lot noisier, a lot slower and a lot more smelly. The Novocaine, I am sure, hurt more. The dentist, I am sure, had NO empathy for the patient. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of hours in the chair as a child.

I now have the most wonderful dentist in the world, Fawn Rosenberg. I refer anyone to her who even hints that they need a dentist, and she sends me 2 free movie passes. Now she has a new technician, who I love. The very first technician that Fawn had, Laura, was wonderful, and since Laura there has not been one I love as much. Mind you, I have been going to Fawn for over 20 years.

I approach the chair, with my distractions and yoga breaths. Today I had my ipod and listened to Mystic Chorale tunes. The technician, talked to me, asked me about myself and in general is what I need in the chair. I need distractions, and I need someone to act as if they really care about me.

Fawn has always cared about me, and today, after my "deep" cleaning, she filled a small cavity at no charge, because it was one she worked on less than one year ago. When was the last time, any professional, did something for you, for free? Dentists have gotten better since I was a kid. The needle however, for Novocaine, is still HUGE!

Length of Blogs and content really matter

I realized just now as I abandoned reading a very long blog, that for me to read a blog to the end it must maintain my interest it needs to be short, and probably fit on one computer screen. Some of this has to do with the advent of facebook and twitter, which are short snippets of information.

I suppose if the blog were well written, that I would continue reading to the very end no matter how long. I also might have kept reading it if the topic were interesting. I landed there surfing the net and through a particular series of clicks, it seemed interesting, but as soon as my interest waned, I scrolled down to see how much more, and since there were 5 computer screens worth, it was not worth my time to finish reading.

So I think the following are important for me to start and finish reading blog posts:

• Interesting title that catches my eye OR
  
• Known author who I follow
• Writing keeps my interest and is therefore well written
• Balance of human interest and humor

Part of the reason I am thinking about blog posts, is that this week I am a guest blogger on the Quickbase Team blog. I am thinking more about my writing, my content and my style. I have never really cared if anyone follows me on my blog, and since I feed my blogs into facebook more people read what I write, and make comments.

My blog is me, pure and simple. Sometimes the posts are long, and a rant, or short and a description of a thought I just had, or something I have been thinking about for a while.

I wonder if this fits on one computer screen?

Life is Not Fair - God are you listening? You messed up down here!

My two facebook posts, said it succinctly because there is a limit to the number of characters but it is now time for a post. In fact, I split a facebook post into two when I encountered the limit this afternoon. That is what cut and paste is for after all.

I have a friend from the late 70s and early 80s, who I have been on and off in touch with since then. We reconnected when she was publishing her first book, I was in her second book and Friday night at Barnes and Noble I just happened to have a neuron fire which said, "I wonder if Susan's third book is out yet?" YES, it is out. The computer said that they had them in stock. I could not find them on the shelf, and the clerk searched high and low to find a copy buried in the stock room. Apparently she involved 5 Barnes and Noble employees in her quest for a copy. The book is not really out yet, since the publication date says May 4, 2010 so I got my hands on a very recently shipped copy, which obviously was not supposed to be out on the shelf yet.

I came home last night, and read 1/3 of the book, and could not sleep this morning past 6am because I wanted to read more. This is what Susan's books do to me. I have to read them all at once, or in a few sessions. She is a great writer, and since I know her, and her story, I am even more intrigued. So this morning, I read another 1/3 before heading out for the day. Just before I left for the day, I emailed Susan that I was loving her book. When I got back from my day, an email from her waited in my inbox. Her husband who she had finally found love with, had died in January of this year. Damnit I said. Life is just not fair. Why couldn't, whoever controls this crap, just leave her alone and let them be happy for a few more years.

She was in her 50s before she met Dennis after her first book "Chosen by a Horse". In fact her second book was about their love affair and was called "Chosen Forever". She deserves someone to love her and to love. She deserves to be happy. It is hard for me right now to be objective and I feel so badly that she had yet another loss in her life.

Life is not fair and if there is a God, she had really made a huge mistake on this one. If only we could give each other some of our happiness, and long lasting love. Must some people be tried and challenged all their life and others seemingly have it easier?

I guess by being in community with each other we do share our souls. We light candles to share joys and sorrows. When someone lights a candle about a past joy or sorrow for us, it helps us move along the journey or grief or pride.

Susan and I are getting together this summer with another friend Barb. We were the dynamic trio in our younger days. We were pretty stupid some days, and we had a lot of fun together. We have a bond from those days such that Susan's pain and sorrow are mine too. Right now I am in the phase of grief that is anger. I am sure Susan is further along the path of grieving.

However, Life is not Fair and for the third time this week, I find myself saying this over and over. These 3 situations on the surface are not about me, but about someone in my web . . . so, in fact, they are about me.