Happy Holidays!

You know, it's that time of year when we count our blessings, find the good in our fellow man, and really make the season bright and happy.

Well, unless you're busy getting rid of the problem.

Let me make myself clear.

During the holidays, things tend to either REALLY be good, or REALLY be crap.

For example:

My best friend was fired from his job THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING. Happy holidays, you're fired, go try to find work someplace else in this shitty economy.

A friend of the family is going through a divorce. Happy holidays! Here's to weekly visitation, shitty attitude, and finding out just how much more of a jerk your soon-to-be ex-husband really can be!

Another friend of the family was dumped by her lover. Happy holidays, hit the road, I've got someone new who's closer to my age, and isn't going to prove to be a problem when I want to go out and party.

Now, I get to follow suit.

Happy holidays. You've changed. You're MUCH better than where you were when we met. HOWEVER, because I can't forgive or forget the past, you're doomed to repeat your mistakes, and for that I just can't deal with you anymore.

Hope you find someone else, and have a better life. Why? Because I'm not going to try anymore.

Excuse me?

From what I recall, marriage is NEVER an easy road. All of the "successful" married folks I've talked to have said that it's a long, painful and difficult 24-7-365 JOB. You've got to WORK at it. It doesn't just happen, and "poof!" everything you ever want or needed drops into your lap with a nice bow around it.

It takes dedication. It takes time. It takes WORK and COMMITMENT.

Sure. There are times when the problems are going to fall thick and heavy, and you feel that you can't gain a breath while treading water. That you're going under, and there's no life preserver around to grasp onto.

THAT'S LIFE.

But even then, you've got to be willing to fight for what you want. You've got to be willing to drop it all, and focus on that ONE THING that you want more than anything else.

In my case, I'm willing to drop everything, including y'all, if it means I'd be able to have this marriage back.

I want my wife. I want my kids. I want a happy home.

The question is:

What does she want?

I mean, it's great that I want it and all, but marriage isn't just a one-way street.

I could give, and give, and give until I have nothing left. But if she doesn't assist, it still falls well short, doesn't it?

So here's my Christmas Wish:

Give me back my family. Let me have my home. Give me back my loving wife.

That's all I want for Christmas.

Please.. If you're out there, can you help me make this come true?

I hope so.

'Tis the season

To spend as much as you can humanly accumulate on gift for folks you know, but probably won't reciprocate, and then spend the rest of the next year paying it all off so you can repeat it all over again.

Isn't Christmas wonderful?

Let's put things into perspective here:

You go out, buy a couple of things for the kids. Then, you check to make sure that the gifts are going to be percieved by the kids as being of equal value. If not, then you struggle to figure out how to balance the scales. Maybe a knit sweater for the kid with the semi-laptop that-only-does-math-problems-but-looks-cool toy will lose some ground, and the kid with the Legos(tm) won't feel too snubbed.

Yeah. Kids and clothes. There's another Christmas gift BOMB.

Kids look for the toys and games. They will blow right past any and all clothes to fawn and drool over the newest toy that they've gotten, even if it's something they've never asked for before.

Why?

Because it's a TOY.

Just like they'll pretty much ignore any and all clothing. It's like asking them to read the card that comes with the gift. In their mind, the gift says it all, not the sappy words and sayings on the card.

Big present that was high up on their wish list? LOVE.

Socks and underwear (that they need!)? You're getting ready to deport them to some third world country.

How about family?

Yeah, we buy for my folks, her folks, her sister, and my brother.

However, I can't recall the last time her sister or my brother ever returned the favor.

But we still get them gifts, because we're the eternal (sucker) optimist.

That, and it keeps them quiet for another year!

Anyway, happy holidays. I'm sure that I'll rant and complain more as the time gets closer.

Enjoy!

Friday.. Time to recoup!

Well, it's Friday, but instead of giving some fun facts about me, I'm going to just sit here and relax..

After all, it's the day after Christmas, and I really don't want to do too much!

So, here's a funny video to watch, and my best wishes for your Christmas, and on the upcoming New Year!


Straight, No Chaser

Merry Christmas!!

Well, today I'll be doing the hustle and bustle to get kids, wife and dog around to as many family as I can manage..

Yeah, her family and mine live in the same town we do, so we try to pack the entire holiday into about 10 hours of complete madness.

Luckily, there's some kind of twisted formula my wife uses to be able to figure out who's house we go to first.

If it's on a even year, but not a leap year, then we go to her parent's house first.

If it's leap year, we go to her parent's first.

If it's an odd year, we go to her parent's house....

Wait.

Did she trick me?

I'm thinking so!

Whatever her reasons, we end up being at her folks first each Christmas. We celebrate with them, give and get gifts, and eat.

Then, we make a quick stop at the house, unload everything gotten from her parents, load up the gifts for my folks, and go to their house.

Then follows round two of Christmas. Gifts given and received, food eaten, and a bit of conversation.

Once this is over, and food coma is beginning to set in, we pack it all up again, and head home.

This then leads to the LAST part of Christmas, when we have the family time..

Gifts are given and received, yet more food is eaten, and then as my wife and I clean, the kids get to play with all of the goodies they've gotten...

Once the madness settles down, I find my comfortable spot, whether in my overstuffed recliner, or in my comfortable corner on the couch, and watch the mayhem of new toys and excited kids.

Ah, Christmas...

Where else can you drive yourself crazy to get things done, only to reminisce, and look forward to the next time?

Merry Christmas to all!

Not a Creature was stirring.. Not even my Manager!

Can you believe that this day, Christmas Eve, when we're already working a shortened day so that employees can get together with family, that my Manager would do even LESS than he normally does?

Yeah.

Let's see..

Hos job duties, as described in the handbook are as follows:

Patrol the warehouse, doing random checks of order selectors, loading personnel, inbound receiving clerks, and replenishment drivers. Do a weekly yard audit of all trailers outside, ro ensure proper storage and movement of inventory coming into and going out of the warehouse. Randomly check on inventory in stock, including reserve items. Participate in one store audit per day, making sure that QC associates are doing their jobs correctly. Inspect and audit 5 company stores per week, limited to no more than two stores per day, one store visit per month.

Yeah. Those are the duties he's been slacking in. He hasn't left his office since the end of Summer! He sits in his office, browsing the web, and sometimes filling out enough paperwork to walk it down to the front office. Yeah, he does leave from time to time to go to a meeting, but 95% of the time you can find him sitting at his desk, talking on the phone (usually with his wife and kids), or browsing some internet site totally unrelated to work.

I can't really fault him for the internet use, I mean, look what I'm doing on company time!

But seriously, to shirk all of those other things, and pawn them off on the rest of the crew? Don't you think we should get some kind of pay raise for doing his job?

Nope.

Not even a "Great job this year, you all make me proud" kind of speech.

The last "talk" we had was his instruction to buckle down, and do a better job, because we missed a HALF POINT in the last corporate audit we had.

So we got beat down because instead of the 100% he was expecting, our department got a 99.5% rating.

Oh. My. God.

Someone fire me because I didn't do his job for him.. again.

I hope that Karma means he'll get something worse this year than what I've dealt with...

And I hope to you, all of my readers, that your Christmas is filled with life, love, happiness, and joy.

Merry Christmas, and I'll see you all on Friday!

2-Fer Tuesday Post #2

Well, I'm kind of curious about y'all.

Yeah, I said "y'all".

Sue me, some of my family have spoken like that for years, and there are some "country" phrases that just say it all, so there!

Anyway, back to my question..

Do you look forward to, or do you fear, the company Christmas dinner/party/whathaveyou.

Me? I can't stand it.

Why?

Because we've got an absolutely CLUELESS HR person, and she doesn't understand a thing about the employees.

Each and every single function we've done these past 5 years has been a complete and total FLOP.

She picks events, food, entertainment et all to her personal preferences, and not to the general consensus.

If she wanted to do something like that, why not put on her OWN party, and invite us over? Don't use the company money and time to make the associates grumble and gripe over what they're not getting, and how silly the theme is, or anything of that nature..

I'll give you a couple of examples of her style.

First, we've got the company gift-giving process we do each year.

Before we even got started on this, the warehouse personnel decided to save up funds to help the "Make A Wish" program for kids with, or recovering from, cancer.

What this program does is give the child, and their close family, the chance for a vacation of a lifetime. The only request from the foundation? $5000 for each child you want to try to sponsor.

If your facility is able to make that goal, you get to "adopt" a child's family, and you usually will get a visit from them once the trip is over.

If you make more than that, but less than enough for a second child, then the extra is put into a pool fund to help out causes who are falling short.

The last 4 years our facility has been able to support 4-5 kids per year. That's between 20-25k a year to a charitable cause.

This last year? She stopped it. When questioned why, her answer was this:

"I feel that we're putting WAY too much funding towards these kids, and not enough of it towards our own goals."

Translated, it means that she was hoping that the cash that we'd generate for the kids would then be diverted towards her coffers, where she could delegate the spending.

Sad to say that this year's Christmas gifts are going to seriously be lacking compared to the last few years. All because of some selfish reasoning.

Another example is the picnic we tried to plan for this year.

We tend to try to take pride in being a family-oriented business. Healthcare is paid for in full by the company, and that policy is blanketed to cover not only the associate, but his entire family of dependants as well.

Because of the family focus we have, the picnic planners decided to try to hold a carnival-type of cookout. Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Corn Dogs, Fries, Pizza, Clowns, a couple of trick pets, and some games were in the works.

Enter in Ms. HR.

The picnic ended up like some kind of school fair, with cash being REQUIRED to be able to play the games.

What kind of games?

A cakewalk, that cost $5 per entry. It made exactly $0.

A water balloon toss. $2 per entry. It made $4.

A "Dunk the manager" contest. $1 per entry. This made $10.

No clown. No pets. No bounce house. No fair or circus-type of attitude anywhere.

Only 25 out of 300 employees showed up for it, once it was announced that games would cost cash to play.

There were 20 gifts to be awarded, and 10 were returned because they were things like $1 sun visors, or Water bottles that could be bought for less than $.50 each.

Needless to say, there were plenty of outraged folks over this.

And now we're hearing the plans for the "banquet" we're supposed to be having for this Christmas dinner.

Are we having anything traditional?

No.

Chinese Take-out is the menu.

Sure, it's being catered. However, Chinese food for a CHRISTMAS dinner?

Where's the ham? Roast Beef? Turkey? Mashed potatoes?

Wherever it is, I know you're not going to find it at my dinner.

And the prizes?

Well, like I said, 300 employees, and there's only 15 gifts to be given out.

Odds are that there are going to be some serious rumblings about that one.

Oh, and also add to that the news that the Christmas bonus program that everyone looks forward to this year has been decided upon (by HR) to be diverted towards a disaster relief program for this area in case of flooding or severe weather.

Last time there was something that severe around here, the employer I work for was just buying their first storefront back East!

That was 35 years ago!

So yeah, I'm pissed, I'm disgruntled, and I know that I'm going to hear about it from other workers.

What can I do about it?

Well, you're reading it.

Hope yours isn't as bad as mine's going to be!

Cookie Exchange!!

ASM has a great idea for this holiday season, and asked us all to share a recipe that reminded us of Christmas.

Well, my most vivid memory is helping my grandma make her cookies, lefse, krumkake, futtimuns, cinnamon rolls, pies, cakes, and pastries in the weeks prior to our family get togethers.

I come from a very large family, and the celebration of Christmas was usually a 2-3 week event. Many meals, many people, and lots of gifts to go around.

But the one cookie that tended to let me know that is was Christmastime was when my grandma would start baking the Peanut Butter Hershey's Kisses cookies.

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES WITH HERSHEY KISSES

1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. peanut butter (creamy)
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together first 5 ingredients; then add remaining flour and mix until you form a sticky dough. Roll into small balls and place onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until just golden brown. Place unwrapped Hershey kiss in center of each cookie, while they are still hot. Makes approximately 48 cookies.

I would DEVOUR these with gleeful abandon. Of course a tall icy glass of milk is also a must for these delights!

Hope you enjoy, and Happy Holidays!