WORK FROM HOME

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Working at Home

Carolyn J. Rose

 A good friend is in line for a job with a company she worked for previously. Then, she had to commute across the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon. Now, she’ll be able to work from home in Vancouver, WA.

If you live near a MAJOR metropolitan area, I can almost hear you saying, “What’s the big deal? Commuting is far worse here in New York/Los Angeles/Chicago/etc.” But if you live in the Portland area, I can almost hear your empathetic sigh of relief. Commuting in and out of Portland sucks. Trying to time your trip to hit a window of opportunity that isn’t between the hours of 11 PM and 4 AM is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets instead of one.

Did I mention that it sucks?

 Oh, right, I did. Let’s get to the topic of this blog.

Working at home means no one in the next cubicle snapping gum, clipping toenails, tapping a pencil, squeaking a chair, or talking in an outdoor voice about in-laws, in-grown toenails, or insanity issues. It means you can play music, make mouth sounds, and swear all you want. On the downside, working without eavesdropping and/or annoying your co-workers can be soooo boring.

Working at home means no dress code. It means you can work in your pajamas, wear T-shirts with offensive slogans, and even skip the deodorant and put off showering until a time to be named later. Get too far into these habits though, and you run the risk of forgetting what you’re wearing, going out to run errands, and finding yourself accused of being racist or sexist, an exhibitionist or totally insensitive. Plus, personal hygiene can slip to the point where friends wear hazmat suits when they visit—if they visit.

Working at home means no one from the cleaning staff moves things around or vacuums up that loose change you’ve been meaning to crawl under the desk and retrieve. On the negative side, the cleaning staff is you. That means there’s no one to blame for the dust bunnies in the corners, the spider webs festooning the ceiling, and those pungent odors emanating from the kitchen and bathroom.

Working at home means less supervision and micro-managing; it means no one looking over your shoulder. Unfortunately, there’s also no one right there to offer advice. On the other hand, there’s no one to see you playing Farmville or Angry Birds.

Working from home, unless you have an extended family, means no on-site pool of people to go to lunch with. It means calling around and finding a lunch buddy, or snacking from breakfast until dinner instead of taking a genuine lunch break. But that’s not really a downside until you’re working in your pajamas not because you want to but because nothing else fits.

Working at home means no fire drills in the dead of winter. Unless you forget about that bacon frying on the stove and the curtains catch fire. But, then that wouldn’t be a drill, would it?

Got some thoughts about the joys of working from home? Leave a comment. Just don’t let the boss catch you doing it.

Roll over Beethoven

You didn't tell us there would be a quiz !!!

Mike Nettleton    

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. 

      Albert Einstein

My first musical memories are of singing in a trio with my older sister Lana and one of her friends. They were both in high school and I was, maybe eight years old, short, round, precocious and already an incurable smart-ass.  

          

We mostly sang folk songs. A favorite was Tennessee Ernie Ford’s Sixteen Tons.  I sang the bass part, which was amusing as I was a soprano, bordering on castrato.  “One fist of iron, the other of steel, if the left one don’t get you, then the right one . . . “ Chirrup!

         

 My lifelong love of music extended into my career choice, disc jockey morphing into annoying talk-show host and the tendency to play my basement stereo so loud it sets the dogs howling and my wife searching the rolodex for the number of her divorce lawyer. My  I-pod is stuffed with 1500 plus songs, ranging from show tunes to pop and rock and gut bucket country to delta blues. I even have Run DMC’s version of Aerosmith’s Walk This Way so I can’t be accused of not including rap in my selections.

        

 Most of us have been influenced by music from our formative years, so I thought I’d make use of this space to offer a five question pop music-pop quiz. Include your answers in the comments section of the blog and we’ll see how many you get right.

1. Which of the following is not an actual lyric line from a pop song?

      A. Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa!

      B. Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip! Mum mum  

          mum mum mum mum !!!!

      C.  Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna.

      D.  Buhrapppadappadappadappadap !!!!

      E.   Boom shaka-laka-laka, Boom shaka-

            laka-laka Boom !!!

2.  Which of the following is not the name of a rock and roll guitarist? There may be more than one right answer.

            A. Slash

            B.  Yngwie Malmsteen

            C.  The Edge

            D.   Over the Edge

            E.   Skunk Baxter

            F.   Catfish Jimmy Fryboy

3. Who said the following?  “The great thing about rock-and-roll is that someone like me can be a star.”

       A.   Elton John

       B.  Jimi Hendrix

       C.   Pat Boone

       D.   Bono

       E.   Freddy Mercury

4.  Many pop songwriters have been credited with inventing an ingenious lyric line or musical riff. Who is most famous for having invented a totally unique musical beat or rhythm?

5. Match the following nicknames with the appropriate musical artist.

A. God                                          1.  Neil Young

B. The Godfather of Grunge         2.  Prince

C. The Prince of Wails                  3.  Ozzie Osbourne

D.  The Prince of Darkness           4.  Eric Clapton

E.   His Royal Badness                 5.   Johnny Ray

And your 11 point bonus question, If we didn’t send Lawyers, Guns and Money to Warren Zevon in his song of the same name, what would hit the fan?

Look for the answers in this space up the road. Until then, stretch your brain, annoy your friends with long distance calls and consult your Ouija board. But Googling is contrary to the spirit of the contest, not to mention the spirit of Rock and Roll.

         

 

Tolerating Telemarketers

Why I Tolerate Those Annoying Telemarketing Calls

Carolyn J. Rose

Almost every evening the phone rings and the screen display indicates a number I don’t recognize. Many of my friends let calls like that go to voice mail, but I'm from an age when the phone didn't ring often, and a call might mean a shift in the status quo—bad news about an ailing family member or, on the other end of the spectrum, an invitation to a movie or a party. It’s hard to buck that history, so I pick up the receiver and utter a tentative “Hello.”

Often there’s a pause. Sometimes, I hear an electronic whisper like wind on the prairie. Then there might be a few distant clicks and finally a voice, frequently mumbling and sometimes obscured by a heavy accent.

If that voice refers to me as Mrs. Rose or Mrs. Nettleton, I know for sure this is a stranger. I use Ms. And I didn’t take my husband’s name. Friends and relatives know that.

So now I have several choices: hang up, ask the person to correct their records, listen to their spiel, or jerk their chains.

I take choice #4.

“Mrs. Rose was my mother,” I say. Or, “Mrs. Nettleton was my mother-in-law.” Then I bring out the big gun. I use the word “dead.”

This results in another long pause, sometimes followed by: “Who is this?” My reply is, “Who is this?” or “Why do you want to know?”

This usually leads to another long pause while the person at the other end searches their script for a response. Sometimes I get a rushed explanation or a mumbled apology. Often my statement is enough to make them hang up.

If I’ve driven them to disconnect, I feel a spurt of gleeful joy. That’s often followed by a wave of guilt.

The person on the other end of that call was trying to do a job—maybe a job needed to feed a family. The call to my number might have been critical to whether a quota was made and a paycheck delivered. Whether someone got a meal or got evicted.

I feel grateful that I was on the receiving end and not the one in a boiler room with hundreds of calls to be made and a strict schedule to keep.

And I’m grateful that I’m able to realize I have choices when the phone rings, that I have some wits about me and am not likely—at least not yet—to be sucked into a financial commitment or a scam.

As long as I’m able to mess with their minds, they’re less likely to be able to mess with mine.

How Dogs View Vacations

HOW DOGS VIEW VACATIONS

By Bubba and Max. 

 

Max: (nudging Bubba awake) Hey, I found out what it was that we did with Mom and Dad in the car.

Bubba: (opening one eye) What?

Max: We took a vay . . . a vake . . . an evacuation.

Bubba: No, that’s what you do out in the garden.

Max: Oh, right. I remember now. Mom called it a vacation. Is that what it was?

Bubba: Nope, vacations are supposed to be fun. This was just a long ride. I mean, a loonnnggg honkin’ ride.

Max: Well, it kinda was, but it was fun, right?

Bubba: Fun? We had to take little pink pills every morning. And I got real sleepy and got in my bed in the back seat but you had to be special and ride on Mom’s lap almost the whole way.

Max: (hanging his head) The pill made me needy.

Bubba: (sputters) You started at needy. The pill made you pathetic.

Max: I can’t help it. I’m a purebred dog. I have papers.

Bubba: So do I. Out back of the hot tub. I squat on them to pee.

Max: Well, when we were on vacation in Los Angeles, I peed on a palm tree. And a prickly cactus. Did you see that?

Bubba: (yawning) I saw it.

Max: And that hedge. It was long. Really long.

Bubba: Six whole feet.

Max: And I got the whole thing at once. Hop, pee, hop, hop, pee. Did you see how I held my leg up the whole time?

Bubba: Truly awesome. Except for the fact that your tank was empty.

Max: Was not.

Bubba: Was so.

Max: Temporary condition. Did you see me squirt that agave? And that huge pile of snow at Mt. Shasta?

Bubba: Nope. Missed that. (Turning to get more comfortable on the sofa) So, a vacation is all about squirting on new things?

Max: Um . . . I guess.

Bubba: Then next time I’ll stay home.

Max: And miss the exciting stuff? Like when you had to pee at 1:00 AM and the door lock stopped working at the motel in Williams, California, and the manager had to break the window and we had to move to another room.

Bubba: I lost an hour of sleep.

Max: And miss the part where I tried to jump up on the bed but slipped on the floor and missed?

Bubba: Okay, that was pretty funny.

Max: And the part where I got a new harness—black and silver—way cooler than my old one.

Bubba: It’s all about you, isn’t it?

Max: And the part where we almost went to the Walk of Fame?

Bubba: But Mom was afraid you’d poop on a star.

Max: Never happen. I have pinpoint accuracy.

Bubba: Not.

Max: I wonder if we’ll go back next year.

Bubba: How long is a year?

Max: Two times February?

Bubba: You sure it’s not four times squirrel?

Max: Four squirrels? Where?

Max and Bubba threaten work stoppage

Sleep

By Max and Bubba

Max:  (jumping up on the sofa) Hey, wake up.

Bubba: (opening one eye) Huh . . . Wha . . .? Why?

Max: Because Mom says we sleep too much before bedtime and not enough at night. She says she’s exhausted because we keep getting her up to go outside with the flashlight and then just mill around till she lets us come back in.

Bubba: (closing the eye she opened) That would be my problem because . . . ?

Max: Because she might get really cranky and take her pillow into the guest room and close the door and not get up to give us our breakfast when it’s time.

Bubba: (opening both eyes) You had me at breakfast.

Max: Breakfast is good. (scratching his ear) It’s as good as dinner. In fact, it’s sorta-kinda-exactly like dinner. Only at the other end of the day.

Bubba: Use that brain often, do you?

Max: Nope. I don’t wanna wear it out. (checks out the window for a squirrel) So what are we gonna do? About sleeping at night?

Bubba: Well, whenever I wake up, I want to go outside, so you could stop waking me up by crawling under the bed and digging.

Max: Nope. Can’t stop that. There might be moles.

Bubba: Moles? In the carpet?

Max: You never know. Moles are sneaky.

Bubba: All right, then you could stop climbing over Dad and making him flop over and snore louder and wake me up.

Max: Sounds like you don’t want me to have any fun.

Bubba: Okay, then you could get more exercise before we go to bed. Chase your squeaky football down the stairs a hundred times.

Max: Booorrrrrinnnggg.

Bubba: Okay, then play that game where you run at the sofa and I growl at you and you jump back and spin in little circles.

Max: Also booorrrrinnnggg. You never get off the sofa and take your turn.

Bubba: Why should I? I have seniority.

Max: Seen Who Itty?

Bubba: I’m older than you are and I’ve lived here longer.

Max: Maybe that’s why Mom says you’re too set in your ways. She says there’s no good reason for you to get her up for breakfast when you do.

Bubba: No good reason? It’s 5:30 when I get her up. That’s when breakfast is supposed to happen.

Max: Mom thinks 6:30 would be better.

Bubba: 6:30? That’s practically noon. (standing and stamping her front feet) I won’t do it. I won’t even consider it. I’ll go on strike before I’ll give in to a ridiculous demand like that.

Max: (running in circles) Oh boy. If you’re going on strike, I’m going too. Okay? Okay? Okay? (stops and scratches his chin) What’s on strike?

Bubba: It’s when we refuse to do our jobs.

Max: We have jobs? Like Dad used to have before he retired?

Bubba: Sort of, only different. We take Mom and Dad on walks and clean up stuff they drop on the floor and sit on their laps and let them pet us and do stupid tricks.

Max: Got it. No more walks! No more eating off the floor. No more tricks! No more petting!

Bubba: (raising a paw) Lap dogs of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Max: Yeah. What you said. (sits and cocks his head) Um, except we don’t have chains, we have those plastic leashes. And, um, I’m kinda gonna miss the petting. (Looks out of the window) And the walks. Let’s not go on strike.

Bubba: Okay, so much for my Norma Rae impression. (curling up to go back to sleep) Don’t forget to wake me up at midnight for a trip to the back yard. Tonight could be the night we see a squirrel.

Max: (running for the door) Squirrel!?! Where?

What would Will do?

What Would Will Do?

by Mike Nettleton

 The great thing about having Thanksgiving come hard-on-the heels of a presidential election is not having to work very hard on our list of things to be thankful for.

• No more slimy, fact-deprived, how-dumb-do-you-think-we-are-? campaign ads.
• Ditto the presidential debates, which, face it, are just two extremely long campaign ads mooshed together.
• The possibility that Texas may actually be allowed to secede from the union (Don’t let the door hit you in the Amarillo on your way out).
• The election eve expression on Karl Rove’s face. Even if you voted for Mitt Romney, you gotta admit watching the smugness sand-blasted off Rove’s pudgy puss was priceless
• The chance, albeit slim, that our elected officials may actually stop slinging political sewage at each other and come up with some common sense solutions to our nation’s problems.

 Yes, the final bullet-point is far-fetched but nowhere in the rules of thankfulness does it state you can’t be thankful for imaginary outcomes.

The presidential debates were predictable, unhelpful and, most importantly to the television networks, not very widely watched. I have a few suggestions to inject a little entertainment value into the 2016 debates and possibly even provide some information that could allow us to make a more informed decision.

• Have a gigantic buzzer and floor-to-ceiling neon reader boards that would erupt when candidates bend the truth. They could flash sayings like: really? really?, your nose is growing, and you must be high!

• Surprise guests could appear, ala the old “This Is Your Life,” T.V. show.  From behind a curtain a cheerful voice could say Barack, remember when we used liquid paper and an old Smith Corona to forge your birth certificate? Or, Mitt, how about the time we drove to Provo with a live hippo tied to the roof of your VW van?

• Get somebody a little edgier to moderate the debates. Couldn’t you just see Robin Williams riffing on the candidate’s answers? Or tag-team hosting by Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh. It could get noisy, nasty and big funesque very quickly.

Finally, the insults the candidates throw at each other have gotten way too policy wonky. You know the ones: Unemployment during your administration rose by 7.89 decibels, multiplied the consumer price index. Or, My opponent believes lowering taxes on the rich will somehow spontaneously lead to a gravitational rise in the consumer index and eradication of acne. Blah, blah, blah.  But what if some of the exchanges went Shakespearean?

Candidate A:  My opponent believes in feeding orphans to wild dingoes on Christmas eve.

Candidate B:  Scurrilous fallydaddle, thou irksome, brawling, scolding pestilence!

Now the fireworks can commence.

Candidate A:   A fine and telling jest, thou base bleating spaniel. But I have invoked nettlesome sculldoggery that shall send smoke billowing from thy bulging codpiece!

Candidate B:  Quiet knave, or I shall thrust my pusillanimous  foundering phalanges into thy spongy sopping-dog innards!

By the way, if you’re frantically thumbing through your well-worn, college-era paperback of Twelfth Night, looking for the Shakespearean jargon I’ve invoked, chill. I took poetic license with much of it (Oh, okay, nearly all of it). In impeccable iambic pentameter, of course.

There’s a handy web site for any, (including aspiring presidential candidates) to construct their own handy-dandy Shakespearean insults. Just go to www.ariel.com.au/jokes/Shakespearean_Insults.html

Imagine the satisfaction you’ll get, the next time you’re standing behind the lout with two full shopping carts in the 11 items or less line, at shaking your finger and booming out for all in (your supermarket here) to hear;

Away, you mouldy rogue, away! Begone with you, thou  starveling, thou elf-skin, thou dried neat's tongue, you bull's pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck!

This, by-the-by is actual Shakespearean text. But if that’s too much to remember, you could always fall back on the old reliable; Thou sucketh!

Wish as we might, we can’t avoid the next round of political posturing, finger-shaking and smirking. All we can do is remember the bard’s words. 

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Dizzying Wake-up Call

Carolyn J. Rose

On October 27^th, the earth tilted and spun.

At least it seemed to from where I was sitting. For the record, that was (thankfully) in the passenger seat as Mike drove down Main Street in Vancouver, Washington.

It took all my will power not to seize his arm when the street in front of us lifted and rippled and the car lurched from side to side. Somehow, while screaming, “Stop the car! Pull over!” I recognized that jerking his arm—and the steering wheel—would make things worse.

By the time he was able to pull into a parking lot—three to five seconds later—the vertigo had passed. I was shaking with jolts of adrenaline and anxiety, but my mind seemed clear.

I raised my hands above my head and asked Mike, “Can I smile with both sides of my mouth? Are both of my eyebrows going up? Is my speech slurred?”

Shook up and frightened, he didn’t seize the opportunity to mess with me, but gave me straight answers. Smile, eyebrows, and speech were normal. So far, so good. I didn’t feel sick to my stomach and when I got out of the car I was able to walk and keep to a straight line. I didn’t have pain in my chest or shortness of breath. Grateful to all the friends who forwarded bulletins listing warning signs and symptoms, I self-diagnosed that I hadn’t suffered a stroke or heart attack.

Mike wanted to take me to the urgent care center a few blocks away but I refused. Going to the doctor meant I was sick and things were out of my control. Going home meant I was in charge—or in denial.

We went home and, after resting for a few minutes, I logged on to the Internet and began entering my symptoms. Not the smartest thing for a person with an active imagination to do. Within an hour I diagnosed myself with heart and artery issues, dehydration, thyroid problems, and a brain tumor.

It was time to relinquish control to someone whose training was many levels above pointing and clicking.

Putting on clean underwear without any rips so my grandmother wouldn’t spend the rest of her afterlife in a state of impacted embarrassment, I went to the urgent care center.

Their diagnosis? Not a stroke. Not a heart attack. Not thyroid issues.

Rocks in my ears.

He’s been gone for nine years, but I can almost hear my father laughing and saying he always knew I had rocks in my head. No one ever accused him of being the sympathetic sort.

Among the many things I didn’t know about the human body is that tiny calcium crystals in the inner ear can fall out of their pouch and into a canal where they roll around and make the brain think the head is moving—in my case, moving like that of the girl in The Exorcist.

Because age is a factor in these “rock slides” and I may have other episodes, I’m armed with coping strategies like closing one eye, getting to the floor or ground as fast as I can, and taking precautions like going downstairs on my butt—not something I want to do in public. I’m also armed with medication to reduce nausea and an exercise/maneuver to try to move the rocks back where they belong.

The condition isn’t serious—at least not anywhere near as serious as the conditions I diagnosed myself with. Those few seconds of vertigo weren’t a near-death experience, but they made me think about THE END and how unexpected and terrifying it might be.

I got up the next morning making all the usual vows—be a kinder person, have more patience, don’t be as snarky and sarcastic, control my temper, and don’t waste time that could be spent writing. No more games of solitaire, no more rearranging the contents of the desk, no more (or at least fewer) trips to the kitchen in search of snacks.

And next time Mike says we should go to the urgent care center, I won’t argue and I won’t stop off at home to check the Internet. To play off an old saying, “She who diagnoses herself has a fool for a patient.”