i’m so over it…
ever have those days where you just wanted to throw in the towel with just about everything?
who am i kidding? we’ve all had those days.
i’ve been working my ass off at my job with literally nothing to show for it. i’m on a career treadmill. the economy sucks, so business sucks, which makes me and my fellow employees look like we suck, and the suck-fest pulls down morale, which only leads to people not giving a shit (myself included at times), and the cycle gets worse. overall, i’m a very positive person. but over the past 6 months or so, that has been waning, seeing as how everything i do seems to fail, or if it succeeds, it doesn’t succeed “enough”.
at my previous job, one of my biggest peeves was that my boss’s boss, who wanted to promote me, could never just give me a compliment and be done with it. i was one of the best salespeople in his area, and i would close a deal, underneath what the “target” was, and he would ask why i didn’t make my target. now i should explain that i was in lending. so let’s say my “target” was $150k in loans, and this particular time i did $130k. now to me, that $130k is a hellalot better than ZERO. sure, i didn’t make the target. but i was proud of myself for not being at ZERO. i worked my ass off for that $130k. can you just say “great job” and get on with your life? why does upper management have to make everyone’s life miserable? there’s an old expression that goes something like, “shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the stars”. how optimistic!
every company i’ve ever had the “pleasure” of working with sets goals that are normally out of the realm of realistic. but i get it - they want you to push yourself, and to strive every month or quarter or what have you to do better and better. so why, when you can prove that you’ve done the work, you’ve tried every avenue, etc do they contend that you’re just not doing your job well enough if you don’t hit every goal?
now i suppose if the fact i was having this issue was isolated there might be an argument there. but most of the locations in our area are having the same issue. if they aren’t, i would say that they are the exception to the rule, and are doing well despite a shitty economy. no one wants to admit that things aren’t as easy as they used to be, but for the love of all things, accept and realize that this is the way things are. i can’t hold a gun to someone’s head and sell them a product or service that they quite simply do not want or can’t afford b/c of the way things are right now. get a clue.
whew. rant done. for now. anyone else experiencing the same crap?
gas or Starbucks?
There’s not a person alive not feeling the pinch of effing ridiculous gas prices. The fine folks at ecofriendlydriver.com posted about how people are cutting back on their daily latte in order to afford gas for their vehicle. (I’ll post the post at the bottom of this post. How very strange that last sentence looks.)
One person commented how one of the top 10 ways to save money on every top 10 list made, be it by Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey or the-financial-advisor-of-your-choice, is to cut out your daily trips to Starbucks. Which is all fine and good, but I know several people who pay their bills because people make daily trips to Starbucks, and they are also feeling the pinch from everyone else feeling the pinch. Less people are coming, which means less sales, so they’re losing hours, losing tips, and the pressure increases. Not many people think about them - not that I’m saying peopel should go into debt to maintain their daily latte so my friends get more hours, but just a thought to remember the “little people” behind the counter.
So what kinds of things have you done to accomodate the pinch? We’ve:
- cut out eating out as often (but when we do we’re tipping more, b/c we figure, like our Starbucks friends, those waiters are feeling the pinch of people cutting back)
- aren’t going to movies, bowling, putt-putt golfing, etc and instead opting for watching TV or playing video games or board games at home (which requires no use of gas…). We’re renting movies, and to save even more gas money, doing it through iTunes (boy are those Apple people brilliant).
- i will spend 5 hours shopping and running errands so I only have to make one trip. And no more frivolous spending.
What kinds of things are you doing?
If I could find the actual Kelley Blue Book article I’d give it to you, but alas - I cannot. Here’s the post from ecofriendlydriver.
Gas Prices Killing Starbucks, McDonald’s
I just thought this was an interesting thing to have in a survey. :p Kelley Blue Book performed some market research in regard to new car buyers’ other spending habits as gas prices have risen.
60% say they are eating out less often*
44% are taking fewer vacations
28% are buying fewer or have stopped buying any DVDs and CDs**
28% have stopped going to Starbucks, with another 21% saying they’ve cut back
wow. are you kidding?
Ohio man stalls long enough to get new outhouse
Mon Jun 9, 5:16 PM ET
An ailing, retired farmer who refused to give up his outhouse after authorities declared it to be a public nuisance finally got a new one.
Elbert “Lew” Preston, 79, stood his ground long enough for a nonprofit group to come to his aid and build him a sturdy new outhouse with a waste tank underneath.
“There she is,” Preston said as he showed off the new outbuilding. “She’s a lifesaver.”
The wooden outhouse, complete with a crescent moon on its door, replaces a 1960s-built version that had run afoul of public health officials in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati. While the old one was over a hole in the ground, this one sits atop a concrete base and a 1,000-gallon tank.
“It’s too nice and complicated to be an outhouse,” Preston said. “I call it a privy.”
Preston, a former trustee for Washington Township, challenged the board of health for months before seeking help from People Working Cooperatively, a nonprofit that has done thousands of projects for low-income, elderly and disabled residents in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky.
Past jobs have included replacing roofs and building wheelchair ramps, but this was its first outhouse.
Preston lives near a busy shopping area and has 175 acres of potentially lucrative real estate but didn’t want to go to the expense and complications of installing a septic system.
Preston, who is slowed by diabetes and has colon problems and pacemaker, said he never saw the need to replace the old outhouse — which once was picked up and carried into his garden by a tornado without major damage.
He said he has used an outside toilet since settling in Washington Township 40 years ago and likes the privacy of a privy.
“When you’re in a house, sounds carry,” Preston said. “Everybody knows your business.”
