WordSisters

Category: Change

  • Rewind 11 Years

    In the fall of 2007, our oldest son left for college. At 16, our younger son was still at home and a little dismayed about having our undivided attention. I had my marketing communications business (the Great Recession of 2008-2009 hadn’t dried up freelance work yet), but I was contemplating what the next stage might offer. Recently, while tossing old paper files, I found notes from 2007 about what I hoped my life would be like—a snapshot that surprised me.

    Photo of Ireland I added to my life map — Rock of Cashel near Tipperary

     

     

     

     

     

    Photo I took from the inside of the Rock of Cashel ruins

     

     

    At 53, I figured I had 30 years of good health and maybe another 10 years of iffy health. It’s a little odd that I had signed up for a workshop centered around “What To Do with the Rest of Your Life” or some other dippy name. I’ve always made a lot of lists and had short-term goals like lose 5 pounds, exercise more, and write more, but my long-range goals have remained hazy. OK, the truth is that I’ve never had 5-year career plans or 5-year life plans. Mostly I’ve had vague directions and made up my life as I went along. However, with so many articles and books about the challenges of mid-life, empty nests, and retirement, I felt a pang of responsibility (like maybe I needed to act like a grownup and prepare a little), so I signed up.

    The workshop focused on helping us identify our values, gifts, passions, and purpose so we could create “life maps.” The language of self-help tends to give me the vapors, but once I set aside my bad attitude, I saw that they were worthy questions, so I did my homework. Then I promptly forgot all about my life map until I recently rediscovered it.

    In 2007, here’s what I envisioned—

    • Creativity – Keep writing, return to pottery and quilting, explore watercolors and stained glass. Writing, pottery, quilting—check. Watercolors and stained glass— still to come.
    • Travel – Visit Hawaii, Ireland, Paris and Provence, and return to Italy. Hawaii, Italy and Ireland – done. We plan to visit Paris next year. Provence is still to come and the list continues to grow.
    • Teaching – Instead of teaching a writing course at St. Thomas University, now I help teach immigrants English.
    • Stay close with family – Yes, definitely. However, in 2007, my parents were still in good health. I understood they were aging, but I spent no time imagining my father’s death in 2011 and my mother’s death in 2014.
    • Volunteer work – Ongoing.
    • Socializing – Continue book group – Now I participate in two of them. Have more dinner parties or start a gourmet group. Still hopeful.
    • Move to a smaller home – We have.

    What surprises me is that I’ve actually done so much of what I’d envisioned, especially considering my lack of focused planning. Maybe writing out my goals helped make them more real. Maybe my goals were so modest that it wouldn’t be a stretch to complete them. Either way, I’m pleased that I’ve used my time well.

    I haven’t prepared a new life map and probably won’t. However, if pressed, I would say that my long-range plans include more of the same activities and maybe some grandchildren.

    Check back with me in 2029!

  • Shopping? Let Me Grab My Laptop!

    When I received a gift of money recently, my first impulse was to grab my laptop and shop online. Maybe there are some summer tops on sale. Wait. What? I’m going to shop online despite having a stack of 30% off and $10 off coupons from local department stores? Even though I might have to pay shipping charges? Um, yeah. For me, online clothes shopping is more fun than in-store shopping.

     

    It wasn’t always this way. A long time ago, in a land far away, when my sister and I accompanied my mother on shopping trips to department stores, it was a fun excursion (for us, anyway). We all had to change out of our grubby around-the-house clothes and into something more presentable. There was a saleslady and cash register in every department. She’d help you find another color and bring the item to your dressing room—so my mother didn’t have to get completely dressed again or send my sister and me on a mission to fetch another size. Sometimes Mom would treat us to Cokes in the store’s coffee shop, while she had a cup of coffee.

    Fast forward to today. On the rare occasion when I shop in-store at places like Macy’s, Kohl’s, JCPenney, or Herberger’s, my chances of finding a sales clerk are slim. Plenty of times, I’ve zigzagged through the store before I spot one several departments away. And this bored underpaid person doesn’t look too happy to see me with my question about another size.

    To be fair, I have an uneasy relationship with sales clerks. The ones I remember from my girlhood often looked down their nose at me and my teenaged girlfriends as we flipped through the racks. When I was older and clearly a serious shopper, often a saleslady’s “help” turned into pushy upsell.

    Today, if I want a snack to fuel my shopping, I can buy bottled water and a candy bar at the checkout. Not exactly the same as sipping a leisurely Coke while spinning on stools at the counter with my sister and mom.

    I do get that customers like me helped change the retail experience. We don’t come because it’s no fun, and it’s no fun because we don’t come.

    Nevertheless, if I want to shop for clothes these days, I’m most likely to be sprawled on my bed in my nightgown. There I can happily scroll through several store websites at once, checking for clearance items and considering the possibilities. Maybe the blue patterned one. No wait, what about the green one? And my coffee’s near at hand.

  • It Happened Like This …

    Crystel and Tio Scott Photo by Tia Anna

    Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how I choose to look at it, I have many personal examples when I hold employee meetings or talk with my children regarding undesirable behavior.

    This past week I met with employees in Grand Forks, North Dakota to discuss profanity in the workplace. In meetings, I first try to establish that I’m not much different from who they are. My position today as a Human Resources Manager was not where I started. I began my career more than thirty years ago, running an inserting machine on the night shift, was promoted to lead person, then Supervisor.

    I told the employees that when I was a supervisor, I would say,“What did you f..k up now?” when I dealt with a challenging employee who was constantly making mistakes. My boss informed me that my language was not appropriate. Even so, the next night before I even knew it, before I could stop myself, I said the exact same thing to the exact same employee who once again had screwed up. This time, my boss made it clear that I would be fired if it happened again.

    I had heard that profanity was a sign of a limited vocabulary. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that it took me concerted effort to stop swearing. It certainly was embedded behavior.

    Juan Jose

    Recently, our employee meeting was focused on hygiene in the workplace. Our manufacturing plants are Safe Quality Food certified, meaning that we are held to a high standard when it comes to conditions on our manufacturing floor. I used the example of my father coming to one of my brother’s football games without changing from his farm clothes. They laughed watching my face turn red at the memory. “Whatever you are doing before you come to work, change into your work uniform and your work shoes. Don’t bring the dirt from the fields in here.”

    “It happened like this,” I said, to Juan Jose and Crystel, when I was teaching them about why bullying was wrong. I began by telling them how I bullied a kid mercilessly and often was in fights in middle school. “Did you ever run away from home?” Juan asked. “Once,” I said. “I was going to hop a train. I can’t imagine you or Crystel ever running away. Even parents want to be adopted by me and Mama Jody.” I paused. Well, unless it’s drugs, alcohol, or sex, I thought but didn’t say. Then again, if that happens, we’ll deal. I’ve got examples of that too.