The people I meet.

There is a poem that says “People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” Generally speaking I know very quickly if it will be a reason a season or a lifetime.

On Dec 16th I was on a flight from Saint Louis to Fort Meyers via Chicago. There was a gentleman sitting next to me who looked and sounded like Mike Ditka. Generally speaking I do not prefer a flight next to Chatty Charlie however Joe (aka Mike D) was not going to let me sleep, read or listen to my ipod (chances are the fact that my head phones were not actually plugged into my ipod gave away the fact that I was not actually listening to anything but just trying to block out the world).

Joe asked me where I was from and where I was headed and we proceeded to talk about his life my life etc. By the end of the flight he had told me at least 6 times how happy he was for me that I would be spending the Holiday’s with my family and how much he liked me but he was not sure why. As we were coming in for a landing in Chicago he gave me some very nice words of wisdom to which I kindly responded “Jesus your getting a little old and wise on me here what the hell?” Had you all been a part of our 53 min conversation you would realize this was a completely appropriate response for the incredibly deep advice I had just received.

He ended the conversation with “I have one more question for you, what’s your name?” I told him and said “My name is Joe and I cannot wait to tell my friends that I met this amazing girl on the plane who I have no idea why I like her so much and I gave her some amazing advice. Only for them to all laugh in my face and say Joe you were drunk and dreaming.”

Joe is clearly a reason not a season or a lifetime. His advice was very timely and relevant to my situation at hand (unfortunately it did not really bring clarity or decision to the situation I am currently debating but it was timely and appreciated).

That being said Joe in another example of the odd responses I get from the people that I meet. There are generally two distinctly different responses 1) the people I meet really like me immediately and yet have no reason or clue why they like me they just know they do 2) they find me cold and stand-off-ish. In both cases in the end they generally come to find that I am awesome (and super modest ) and they either were right to like me upon meeting or wrong to think I was bitchy. What I find peculiar is how there are these two vastly opposite responses to me upon first impression. I often wonder what I am doing or saying in social situations to illicit such differing responses from people.

Any way I can tell you that the cold and stand-off-ish ness is simply because I am shy and socially awkward. It is not intentional not personal and if I knew I was doing it I would absolutely stop. To be honest I get kind of tired of hearing how much more fun I am than you thought I would be and that I am really not bitchy at all (while I know you all mean well when you say it, it’s actually not a compliment).

So for those I have not met or those who are with me when I meet new people feel free to give me a code word so that if I am being cold I can attempt to step back and see if I can decipher what I am doing or saying that is different from when I have me some of you who instantly loved me (although I have to say there are a number of people who to this day I really cannot imagine what they liked off the bat cause I really thought I was cold).

Remind me again why there are no laws in breeding?

As the day has progressed my title has gone from Where does that math go? (a reference to the song "Where does the good go" which is a great song but definitely not proper tense) to Remind me again why there are no laws in breeding?

So I will start with where does the math go? This morning I stopped at St Louis Bread Company (for my out of town friends Panera Bread) to get a bagel and coffee. My total was $3.47. I handed the young man waiting on me $20.07, his immediate response was "$3.47 out of $20.07, your change will be $16.60." How sad is it that I gave myself whiplash looking up to check the screen which led me to complete awe thinking to myself did you really just tell me the correct change amount without using the register or a calculator???? Did you just do math in your head???? Can I hug you? Now I realize that not everyone has a natural penchant for math (and no this is not where the laws in breeding comes in...but the laws would certainly not hurt this next point). It is completely ok for not everyone to have that naturally math driven mind I and understand that math is more difficult for some than it is others (just like spelling is a huge challenge for me and always has been). But... normally when I give someone $20.47 on a total of $3.47 they will hand my nickel back and tell me I gave them too much... Um no actually I gave you exactly what I wanted to give you. See I want two quarters and a dime back instead of two quarters and nickel, now I grant you perhaps I should accept the fact that my aversion to nickels is peculiar. And one might ask does it really make a difference to have two quarters and dime vs two quarters and two nickels??? Well actually yes it does make a difference because the end result is 3 coins in my purse versus 4. So long thought longer, I commend the young man today for actually making a conscious effort to use his brain and his ability to do math in his head as opposed to assuming I don't know what my total is.

Now for the real question of the day...Remind me again why there are no laws in breeding?
As many of you know I consider my neighborhood to be an odd mix of posh and ghetto. Th Walgreens in my neighborhood is by far GHETTO with absolutely no posh (ok except for the 5 minutes a few weeks ago that Kanye and Amber Rose where shopping there then it was almost posh). Today is the third of August 2010. Which means that I have worked in retailing for (gulp) 20 years. One would think that after 20 years in an industry often impacted by the first and fifteenth I would know better than to attempt to pick up a prescription for all intensive purposes two days after "pay day" in the ghetto... (still not where the laws come in just exceptionally poor planning on my part)

After sitting in the drive through for roughly 21 minutes I decided this is silly I am perfectly capable of going inside (I am not at all helping my own cause here tonight). So I went into my oh so ghetto Walgreens. I should have known from the # of cars in the lot that it would be a spectacular display. As I waited in line and looked around I wondered when it became acceptable to wear a nightgown (leopard print at that) as a dress in public (now she was wearing a bra so it could have been worse)? Finlay after 7 people in line in front of me I get to the counter and I say my last name following it up with the spelling. As always the gentleman waiting on me walks to computer and types in something that I can only assume to be my last name, and since he then looks at me and says Paula with an inflection that leads me to believe this is a question I say in yes. He then walks to the bins and starts looking through the C's surprisingly to him he does not find my prescription in the Co bin so he turns to me and says "it will be ready in 15 minutes." With as much calm as I can muster (if you have heard any of my other experiences of this particular Walgreens you know that I really really really really want my lovely hemp wearing left wing liberal neighbors to get off their non capatalistics butts and let CVS in already!!!) I say "um are you sure it's not ready because I would think you would want to look over here in the bins that start with K since my last name actually starts with a K and technically speaking it was supposed to be ready Sunday so I would like you to look again". "and when I came in last night to pick it up and it was not ready I was very understanding to the fact that I failed to remember that you will not fill my Rx's without verbal confirmation from me that I am willing pay for my Rx (really me of all the people I have stood in line with here tonight I am the one you have to question is going to pay really??). So after nicely asking him to look again he walks to the screen and says "how do you spell your name?" K-O-R-M-A-N "well its not in the bins so its not ready" (deep calming breath) "um yeah so I could be wrong but that bin that you looked in says C-O not K-O and well what does the screen say?" "how do you spell your name?" (in my head I am now saying are you effing kidding me is it really this hard you have my information on the screen in front of you I can CLEARLY see Korman, Paula why won't you look in the dadgum bin??????) After about 45 seconds of my blank stare he says "K-O" and I nod and smile through the clenched jaw and say "yes K-O which I really think is in these bins over here." So he says "ok I'm really sorry but it's going to be 15 minutes because its not ready yet" So I say "Ok but I guessed I am concerned as to why last night when I came in to pick it up they told me they needed verbal commitment that I would pay for the Rx (again REALLY???) and that it would be ready in an hour. So instead of coming back last night I am now here 24 hours later and did I somehow miss my window of opportunity to pick up? Is my verbal commitment only good for an hour? What can I do in the future to ensure that I am meeting your needs so that I as a customer can leave happy because right now every time I come into this store I do not leave happy." After 45 seconds of blank stare from everyone around me I say "ok well I guess just fill it and let me know when it's done" and I walk over to look at the allergy medicine. 45 seconds later the young man comes out and says "I believe your Rx is ready." I simply respond with "great? thanks?" I turn and look at the line and there now are officially 7 more people in front of me and I get to wait for all 7 of them to be helped... So after all that apparently the lady working with him actually looked in the bin that holds the K-O and surprise surprise found my Rx.

Now had I not had the opportunity to stand in line AGAIN I would not have had the "pleasure" of hearing the story the security guard was telling one of his buddies (yes my Walgreens has 24 hour armed guards I like to call that the posh part of my hood even though I know deep down inside they only have armed guards in the "hood"). So the part of the story I hear is this "well she tells me she locked her keys in the car and she needs me to unlock the door for her, I tell her i cant because I don't have the tools and they wont let me do that here but I can call the police for her. She tells me I cant call the police on her cause she left her baby in the car so I say well if you left the car running and locked the keys and the kid in the car they will come right away and there wont be a problem. Then she says well the car aint running i just locked the baby in it cause i was only running in for a minuit so I tell her well i really cant open your car for you I gotta call the police it's Walgreens policy. She says then man you cant call the police I got no chances left they gonna take my baby for sure this time" For those not sure it is 90 degrees outside as I am typing this. I am at home trying to digest the fact that a 19 year old clerk at Walgreens cant spell my name when it is on the screen in front of him, the people that shop in my Walgreens are all crazy and apparently somehow its ok to break from Walgreens policy and break into a woman's car for her because she is for sure going to lose her baby this time...

So I ask you why don't we have laws in breeding again?

The lost art of humility...

In the event you are not familiar with the definition of the word humility it is "the quality or state of being humble." Now just in case you do not know the definition of of humble it is "not proud or haughty: not arrogant or assertive, reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission." I realize I could continue to define deference and submission here but I would hope you all know the definitions or at least get the point.

I have this warped sense of reality in believing that certain social situations should be entered into with at least some level of humility. It amazes me how few people still believe that when entering into a new group of people you exorcised humility. I am a firm believer in the sit back and quietly observe philosophy when introduced into a new social setting.

Thus far in my life I have met a variety of people who have held fairly high profile positions; ok so really aside from the random celebrities at the airport and golf tournaments I have met some top Walmart executives no one really " bigger" than that but come on how much bigger than that does it really get? I have not met Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela nor Mahatma Gandhi. Of the WM executives I have met I can say that in three of the four the level of humility made it a true honor to meet these men (the one left a little to be desired but that honestly did not surprise me). When I think of the three public figures I sense an immense humility (again perhaps it is my warped sense of reality).

Now don't get me wrong I can be arrogant and full of myself but in most cases I think you all know that is me being silly and far from the truth (well now I am wondering again about that darned warped reality????).

I watch new people join social settings and to my knowledge these people have not successfully run the largest retailer in the world. They have not been pivotal figures in modern social and political activism, yet they seem to think they should be treated as though they have cured cancer. Now lets take step back here, would you be in my social circle if you were really "all that"?

For the most part it is fairly easy to group the people who come and go in our lives into segments of personalities (well clearly it is easy if it wasn't there would not be so many personality profiling systems out there).

If it wasn't for the fact that I prefer to walk a path of humility in this life I would really like to laugh in the faces of those who do not. Instead I sit back and watch as they walk the path of so many others who came before them and just shake my head while they believe they will change the world.

Why are bathroom tissue dispensers so difficult?

So every day at some point in the day I end up in the first stall of the bathroom closest to my desk at the big A. It seems that the toilet paper dispenser in this particular stall is stuck in a permanent state of disarray. I struggle to wrap my mind around the complex piece of "machinery" that is a toilette paper dispenser. I have been in a number of ladies rooms (and a hand full of men's rooms for that matter) throughout North America and Europe and frankly no one has mastered the TP dispenser. I mean really can someone tell me why it is so impossible to create a TPD that works? At the Big A we have the double decker version, the issue with this type of TPD is if the top roll is prematurely dropped from its top location you get one sheet at a time. ONE SHEET AT A TIME... My question with this type is who is experiencing the knee jerk reaction when the bottom roll is 3/4 gone that they need to release the top role as though to check and make sure its available if needed? At the other building we have the industrial side by side version. Most of the time this variety is great, however on occasion the door that slides is locked in a left or right position that is opposite of the position of the available roll. When this happens you are forced to wedge your hand up in the opposite side of the TPD and scratch at the roll until it turns to where you can grab onto the square and pull...Sweet victory! There are others that I could discuss, the 5 roll holder often found in airports, the gravity feed single square dispenser (rarely found in the US) and of course the single roll holder. It seems odd to me that we can perform surgery on a baby before it is born yet we can not create a fail safe TPD. I guess the people who would be designing such a wonder of the world are likely out there designing tools to perform these little miracles but come on somewhere there has to be an "under achiever" who wants the TP to roll when we want it to and stop when rolling when we are done.