The Snarking

Do you ever run into people who you'd consider kindred spirits?

They don't have to be anyone you spend a great deal of time with; just someone you encounter in some way or another that you feel an unspoken connection to based on compatibility of personality. (No, this has nothing to do with dating or romance, though if your love interest happens to be a kindred spirit, well... double bonus for you.)

For example...

A couple months ago I was at a friend's wedding reception sitting at a table with a couple of friends. It was near enough to Christmas time that one of the decorations in the center of the table was a small sleigh bell. While I was talking I absent-mindedly picked up the bell, and my friend nearby said, "Hey, shake it and give an angel its wings."

So I shook the bell, and all that came out of the bell was a muted "thunk". This happened just as one of the helpers with the refreshments leaned over to take our empty plates, and without missing a beat he said, "And every time a bell makes that noise an angel's wings fall off."

I burst into laughter, made eye contact with the kid (who looked about 17 years old), he smiled back, and took our plates away. But just in that brief moment of eye contact, I knew he was one of those. A person who I would instantly fall well with had our circumstances permitted us to be actual friends.

It kind of makes me think of that kid in the movie The Shining when he's talking to the old black guy who works at the hotel. The guy can sense that the kid has telepathic powers too, and talks to him using his mind. They have a brief conversation about the power that they both have (which he refers to as "shining"), Old Guy validates Kid's powers as something real, and then the characters go on their ways in the story. I think. I've only seen the edited TV version of it and I don't even know if it was in it's entirety so who knows what plot chunks are missing.

That description was so awesome that you don't even have to see the movie now.

Anyway. I dedicate this post to my smart-alecy kindred spirits out there. Old, young, male, female... mock on.

Hide it under a bush? NO!

So I'm driving eastbound on 3300 S headed towards my house (a phrase that I never thought would escape my lips) and I'm keeping a lookout for a cemetary on the right hand side of the street. Since I'm still not very used to driving in my new area, I use the cemetary on the right as a landmark to tell me when the street I need to turn down is coming up. It was dark and so I wondered if I'd be able to see it.

And then I saw it.

In the distance there were thousands of dim lights glowing across the huge expanse of the lawn. As I drove closer I realized that the lights were luminaries; one for each grave and then others to line the paths around the cemetary.

I had been in the left lane anticipating the turn into my neighborhood, but instead I made a quick (and somewhat dangerous... sorry blue car) lane change to made an immediate right into the cemetary grounds.

I then spent the next twenty minutes following a parade of cars who had almost all (and I curse the ones that didn't) turned their headlights off and were driving around to see the lights. I turned my radio off (I don't know why, but it seemed appropriate) and just looked around.

Several thoughts went through my head as I drove around. First of all, I don't think I'll ever really comprehend how MANY people there are in this world. Just in that teeny tiny bit of earth, there were thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS of lights each commemorating someone's life. Just in one cemetary, in one city, in one state, in one nation. I'm a visual learner, so it struck me to see so many lights.

And then naturally, being in the volunteer business, I thought, How in the world did they get all of these lit?! It must have taken them HOURS to make this happen! Because every single one was an actual burning candle. To place AND light each of those must have been a huge undertaking... one that I want to volunteer to help do next year.

The last thought I had was about how much influence one person's life can have. To their neighbors, to their family and friends, to strangers, to the world. I was touched that every single grave had a light. Not one of them was too out of the way or too small or too inconveniently placed to NOT have a luminary near it. Each life was worth remembering. It reminded me that each life IS worth remembering... living or dead, complicated or simple, good or bad.

And then as I drove out of the cemetary and turned my radio on I thought, Man... for someone not known for sentimentality, I can sure get sappy sometimes.

Happy 100th Post.

...and, in celebration, I have a gift for you.

At my place of employment there's a program where we distribute a box of food once a month to over two thousand low-income seniors around the Salt Lake valley. These boxes are plain brown and fairly boring, which is why we allow volunteers to take these boxes home, decorate them, and return them to us so we can eventually fill them with food. The common themes of decorations on the box usually follow the season of the year or consist of generally cheerful things: smiles, rainbows, butterflies, sunshine.

But every now and then, we get a box that breaks the mold:


Is this not the coolest thing you've ever seen?! I was having a pretty rough morning at work when I found this little number, and boy howdy did it turn my day around.

Here's some other pictures of things I kept meaning to post, but my internet connection made rather impossible to do so:

I went to Zion and Bryce National Parks over the Labor Day weekend. I was once again convinced that we live in the most beautiful state in the nation.



I went with my pal Robin to the fair shortly thereafter. We successfully found the booth of all things deep-fried. I enjoyed a brownie, while Robin tried her hand at the oreos. Next year I'm going to try the cheesecake.

On Thanksgiving morning I ran the Utah Human Race 5K. It was all kinds of cold outside and I didn't beat my time, but I really enjoyed seeing the thousands of people there together for a good cause. I'll continue to run it each year as long as I'm able.

And, I've recently fallen in love with this little guy:

It's my new roommate's nephew. He comes to visit sometimes and when he does I'm glad.

Work is slowing down and stress is slowly ebbing from my mind, so I hope to post more often in the future. Thanks for hangin' in there with me.

Worn.

Work is absolutely wearing me out. (It looks to get better from here though, so stay tuned for my usual chipper self to return any time now.) Having absolutely run out of groceries this week, I was forced to drag myself into a grocery store on the way home from work one day and pick up a few things.

As I was checking out and about to leave the store, I encountered a two-year old girl who was waiting for her father to finish checking out and had wandered out into my path. I stopped in my tracks and waited for her to decide which way she was going to go.

She didn't go anywhere. She looked up at me with an absolute look of exhaustion, gave a gentle sigh, and carefully laid herself on the ground, tucking one arm under her head and curling up a bit.

I looked down at her and smiled, and said to no one in particular, "I hear ya, sister." It took every ounce of strength I had not to join her there on the floor.

By the way, I'm moving to Sugarhouse in a couple of weeks. (Yes, I just moved. And I'm moving again. Wanna make something of it?) The good news is that my internet connection might improve, meaning you might start seeing actual pictures of the stuff I'm doing. Yay.

Scooters?

At the bottom of this screen as I type, it gives me the option to "label" my post with a specific word for organizing purposes. It then says: "e.g. scooters, vacation, fall".

Vacation, sure. Fall? Eh, it's a stretch... I guess if you want your postings listed seasonally too. But scooters? Do people really write multiple postings about scooters? Besides you, Jason Bell.

That's not what this was originally intended to be about. Moving on.

My father is in the hotel business and has been so most of his adult life. And, as his offspring, I was instilled with a natural knack for customer service and courtesy. This skill has come in handy many more times in my life than I can count. It's been a part of ME during MY adult years as long as I can remember. It's something I didn't ever think would go away.

Tonight I'm here to tell you... it's going away.

My job has been extraordinarily busy recently due to some staff changes in my realm. In short, the amount of work that three people usually do full-time for forty hours a week has been shifted to only two people until the other position can be filled.

So as to try and make things as simple as possible, my coworker and I have decided that the majority of my days will be spent doing face-to-face customer service at the volunteer desk, and she will be the one to field all phone calls about volunteering (which have increased dramatically over recent weeks due to the holidays approaching.)

I originally thought that my coworker had gotten the rough end of the deal, because she gets to spend her days saying no to all the people who have waited until the last minute to schedule their groups because our schedule is already full. All I had to do was be nice to people as they came in and get them started on a project. Easy enough.

Yeah. Easy as herding cats. Which I'm used to doing, but for 4 hours a day, not 8. And I'm reaching a breaking point.

A story to illustrate...

Yesterday, a woman came in with her two daughters. She had scheduled in advance, which was great. They immediately started on what I asked them to do, which was wonderful. But after their two hours were up and they came to sign out, that's when our good relationship ended.

Lady: Hi! Would you mind filling this service card out for my daughter? (handing me a small card)
Me: Sure. (I take the card, fill out all the spaces that it asked me for information, and return it.) There you go. Thanks for your help today.
Lady: Great. Oh, would you mind putting the date somewhere?
Me: Uh, sure. There's no line for it, just...
Lady: Yeah. Somewhere. Wherever.
Me: (writing it in the margin and handing it back) There you go. Thanks for your...
Lady: Oh, and print your name somewhere too. Sometimes they can't read the signature.
Me: ...Okay. (I find another space in the margin and hand it back.) Thanks...
Lady: Can you maybe put a telephone number on there somewhere too? I'm sorry, they really need this information on there.
Me: (taking the card back yet again and starting to get impatient, because there were now three additional people peering over the volunteer desk waiting for my attention) You'd think that if it were so critical that they would have added lines and spaces for this information to begin with.
Lady: (her smile fades a bit) Yeah, I don't know why...
Me: Maybe that's some constructive criticism you can give them when you hand the card in.
Lady: (laughs politely like I was making a joke) Thank you. And, do you have a validation form she can have too?
Me: (staring at her, hoping she's now making a joke) Wait... is the card I filled out not proof enough that she was here?
Lady: Well, I think it's wise to have both just in case.
Me: (trying to stifle my withering sigh and quickly filling one out, leaving the name of the girl blank because I didn't know her name and assumed she could write it in) Okay. Here you go. (peering over her shoulder at the next person in line) How can I...
Lady: Wait. Her name isn't on here. Can you write her name?
Me: (finally losing it) Is there a reason that SHE can't write her name? (This was only half of what I wanted to say. The other half was "Because I'm pretty sure evolution has treated her just as well as it's treated me and she has opposable thumbs just like I do.")
Lady: Oh. Yes, I guess she can. Okay. Thanks.

Lucky for her they left before my filter completely failed me.

So, if sometime soon in your blog stalking you stumble upon the blog of a girl who is writing about how she now has the work of THREE people to do because a SECOND co-worker just got fired, you'll know that my days of courtesy had run their course. I'll be sure to blog about exactly how it went down if that does happen, though. I'm sure it'll be a good story.

a little plug... then a little rambling

First, here's a link to my co-worker's recent bloggy-ode to the strange things we pull out of our food totes as they're being sorted. As you can see, it doesn't take much to amuse us:

Food Drive Item of the Day

Secondly, I've been thinking about pain thresholds. And how mine seems to be a bit higher than some other peoples. Or maybe I just don't get myself into as painful as predicaments as others.

Or maybe you're all just wimps.

And how there are people all around me who have a pretty rough go at life, where the trials they're still enduring are a result of decisions they made years and years ago when they were teenagers and didn't have their heads on straight.

I was a teenager once. I went a good while without my head on straight. But how did I avoid becoming addicted to something or making a really bad choice with long-lasting consequences? How did I just end up reading R.L. Stine books and writing depressing poetry instead?

Luck? Meant for something greater? Spending too much time around really down-and-out people? You decide.

I'm working like a mad woman these days, so I apologize for the lack of postings. I also apologize for the lack of pictures, but my internet connection leaves much to want these days.

But thanks for still checking in on me every now and then.

The bad color.

There's a sign on the door that leads from the volunteer sort room of this place to the back offices.

It also happens to lead to the nearest restroom for volunteers.

There's a sign on the door. It says:
"Authorized personnel only. Volunteers must be accompanied by staff beyond this point."

The words are black on a bright red background.

As long as I have worked here, the sign has been on that door. And as long as I've worked here, we've NEVER accompanied ANYONE back there. I don't know who put it there, and I don't know what incident motivated its creation.

But I do know it works.

We tell volunteers as we're orienting them that they're welcome to go through that door and use the facilities as they need, but to be quiet because there's a call center just beyond the bathrooms. But even after the permission is clearly given, people are terrified to go through that door.

It fascinates me. At least once a day the following interaction will happen:

Volunteer: Excuse me, where did you say the restrooms are?

Me: (Pointing at the door) Through that door on the left hand side.

Volunteer: (Looks at red sign, then back at me) This door?

Me: (Pointing even more directly) Yep. Go on through. They're on the left.

Volunteer: (Looks down at the handle, then back up at the sign, then back at me. Then they'll notice the door right next to it that is clearly labeled "Supply closet". They approach THAT door.) This one here?

Me: (Standing up from my desk and pointing my finger within 3 inches of the correct door) No, THIS one.

Volunteer: Oh. Okay. (They hesitantly put their hand out to the door handle like they're afraid it's going to shock them. After they open the door a few inches a look of guilt crosses their face and they glance back at me. I give them a reassuring smile and nod encouragingly. They take a deep breath and push the door open.)

Okay, there might be slight exaggeration here. But not much. I can't tell you how many times I have to stop someone from peeing on our tapeguns in the supply closet. And, I can't tell you how many OTHER posted rules people blatantly ignore. Don't take food? Nah! They have plenty, they'll live without this item. Don't use the pallet jacks as skateboards? Meh! That's just for people without the balance to do it safely.

But none of those rules are posted in red.