Category Archives: Whimsy

Daylight Saved

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I love how humans think by changing the time on clocks, we can control #daylight. Twice a year, we move the hands on the clock forward or back to “change” whether it’s light when we get up in the morning and dark when we get home from work.

I love this quote: “Timekeeping is also the invisible structure that makes modern infrastructure work.” From ancient Egypt, humans have attempted to track or measure time moving forward. The concept of daylight savings time was on and off again in the 1940s during the war. In 1966, the Unified Time Act was passed. I guess someone thought they needed an act of Congress to control daylight.

I hope you realize how ludicrous this sounds. We need more daylight, so let’s change the clocks? The thing we measure time with? That’s like saying, I’d like a bigger house, so let’s change the numbers on the tape measure.

Seasons, nature, brings us longer or shorter days. It’s the way the laws of nature were set in motion. There’s a time for planting, growing, harvesting, and resting. As we need longer light, we have in it when the days of spring and summer grow longer. When harvest is complete and winter comes, nature slows down or sleeps; why not humans? Ok, so sleeping away the winter isn’t a great idea, but there’s nothing wrong with slowing down, doing some re-grouping before spring comes again.

What are your thoughts?

KK

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Blameless Culture

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This week I heard the term “blameless culture.” Not knowing what the term meant, I Googled it. This is the first definition that came up.

Within a blameless culture, leaders blame processes, not people. They focus on understanding why something happened, not who is responsible. By striving to identify the root cause of an issue, they create systems that prevent it from happening again. This process of depersonalising mistakes can make a real difference.

Based on this definition (and not the context I heard the term), I can agree with it, for the most part. Finding the root cause of something happening (work not being delivered) can provide “lessons learned” to improve a process. However, outside of a purely automated situation, part of the root cause analysis of a process needs to be the people involved.

Having been a people leader, it was my job to ensure my team had what they needed to do their job well–equipment, time, and access to resources. A block in these things prohibits a strong team member from delivering on their work objective. If I fail to provide, they fail to deliver. I would take the blame, not push it off. If a team member has everything they need to deliver, and they don’t, that’s on them. Not me. Not the process.

Terms like #blamelessculture are a cautionary tale. We live in an imperfect world with fallible people. When things go wrong, it’s easy to point a finger of blame to circumstances or other people. There comes a time to own our part in the failure. If the process doesn’t work, whoever owns it, is responsible. Find yourself in an impossible situation where the process is preventing your success? Find the things you can own, you can control, and adjust. Own your part of the solution and don’t just blame the process. We can’t just sit back, throw up our hands, and blame the process.

Think about computers. If the functions of a computer aren’t set up correctly, the computer won’t produce what the user needs. In the early days of computing, we used the term, “garbage in, garbage out.” The code, formulas, and information had to be correct for the result to be correct.

Maybe the process is broken. Blaming a process isn’t going to make it better. Find the owner, or take ownership and make it better for the next time.

Just a thought,

KK

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The art of conversation

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We have so many platforms for our conversations – email, text, instant messaging, and posting on social media sites. As if the #English language wasn’t hard enough, now we’ve included hieroglyphics. For those of you who missed ancient Egypt class, #hieroglyphics was how stories were told and history was shared from one generation to the next.

In grade school, we learned how to write a letter. You know paper, pens, envelopes, and stamps. Letters have very specific parts, a salutation, the body, the closing, the signature. All of these have a purpose. They tell us the start, the purpose and message, and a close. It was a complete thought from one person to another. We mailed them (we call it snail-mail today). The recipient reads the entire message, thinks about it, and writes a response. The conversation can take days, weeks, or months, and is done completely with words.

Enter the tech approach. Our written conversations now involve quick phrases, not even sentences, and sometimes, I honestly don’t know when the message is complete. After the back and forth of messaging, someone adds the thumbs up or some other cutesy face indicating a message received and understood, I guess that’s the conclusion. The last word is now a cartoon face or hand sign.

Recently, I was given a #texting lesson from my college-age son. Evidently, I was using too much punctuation and not always the right emoji. I learned that the message is different if I text “Ok.” versus “Ok” with no period. But it’s a statement, it needs the period! According to our household expert who is in his final year of college, the period at the end indicates a curtness, frustration, or even anger. All that from the proper punctuation. What would my high school English, or my college Grammar 310 professor think?

This applies to the professional setting too. With the incorporation of Microsoft Teams and other tools for instant messaging, while we’re all working from home, quick messages are the standard. It’s replaced the “office drop-in” or hallway conversations we used to have. And the use of emojis is just as prevalent. It’s now considered appropriate to send the boss a smiley face when he complements your work. A word of warning though, be sure you know your emojis and what they mean. By the way, this is not chocolate ice cream…

Let me know how it goes for you.

All the best,

KK

It’s Groundhog Day again, Phil

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Phil’s alarm went off before dawn. He distinctly remembers not setting it. Momma groundhog strikes again. He buries his head under his pillow. The alarm shouts again as his little brother, Joe, comes bursting around the corner into Phil’s nook of their hollowed underground home.

“Today’s your day!” The smaller rodent pounces on his brother.

“Go away!”

“Come on Phil, isn’t it a blast to have the whole country waiting to see what you’re going to do?” Crawling closer to Phil’s ear he whispered, “What are you going to do? Will you see your shadow, or not?”

Phil moans and pushes his little brother away. Just as he’s about to dose back to sleep, instead of the alarm the shrill song of his mother jolted him awake. “Philly! It’s Groundhog Day.” His mother showed up with his bow tie.

“Seriously mom? A tie?”

“Philly, this is our family’s legacy. We come from a long line of #Punxsutawney groundhogs. Your cousins over in Harrisburg think they’re big stuff because they were around for the big war. Ha! It’s our line that has always held the honor of predicting spring’s arrival. People like that and get so excited. Every year. Your father, grandfather, great grand…”

“I get it, the men in our family had nothing to do on February 2nd but humor the humans up top. So, they joined the winter festival and became the star of the show.” Phil rolled out of bed, scratching behind his ear. “How did I get so lucky?”

“If Phil doesn’t want to do it, I’ll go, I can look for my shadow.” Phil’s brother bounced around with the bow tie.”

“No, no, it’s always the eldest son.” Mama said. “Come with me Joe to finish Phil’s breakfast, we want him to be bright and sunny today!”

His brother and mom scurried away. Phil sat on the side of his bed and scratched again. He stood and strapped the tie around his neck. What will I do this morning? It’s been a pretty long winter, maybe it is time for a little hope that spring is coming.

Phil finished his breakfast and licked his snout. “Oh Philly, you look so handsome. Every year you do our family proud.” She sniffed back a mother groundhog tear, “your father would be so proud to see you carrying on the family tradition.”

Phil’s shoulders softened as he leaned into his mother’s warm coat. He did miss his father. And it really didn’t take long to go out, hear the cheers and the declaration read from the man in the tall hat.

“Thanks for reminding me mom. I’ll do the family proud.” His mother opened the thatch door and scooted Phil out. Drawing back inside, she heard the muffled cheer of the #Punxsutawney people.

Today is Punxsutawney Phil’s Day

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Welcome to #GroundhogDay, or should I say woodchuck day. I won’t get into that debate, call your favorite zoologist. Today, I thought I’d share the scene from below ground.

It’s a cold February morning in Pennsylvania. The air is cool and dank, and really all anyone wants to do is stay in bed; including Punxsutawney Phil Jr. His alarm goes off just before dawn and he hits snooze and rolls over. Before the nine minutes are up he hears a shrill call from the other part of the tunneled home.

“Junior, get up! They’ll be calling for you soon. Today is your day, you need to get up and shower.”

Phil rolls over and covers his furry head. “Why was I born into this family?” Phil Jr. had been pressed into action after his father met an untimely passing with a Mack truck.

Every February 2nd since 1887, the Punxsutawny Groundhog Club has shown up outside their family hole to nudge the eldest male out for a reading on the seasons. “Mom, it’s the 21st century, can’t these guys look at a RADAR or weather app!” Phil yelled back to his mother.

Before he could cover his head again his mother was at the foot of his cubby. “Phillip Henry Junior, you get out of that hole right now. We are not going to be the branch of the family tree to fail our legacy. Now get up!”

“I know, but seriously, they haven’t even changed their outfits in over 100 years. It’s the same top-hatted freaks every time! Maybe if I bit one of them, they’d quit this madness. We’re only right like 40% of the time.”

His mother sighs and sits on the edge of his straw and grass bed as Phil Jr. sits up and rubs his eyes. “Phil, please embrace these few minutes for our legacy and for the community we live under.” She pulls a tissue from her apron pocket to dab her misting eyes, “and for your father, grandfather all the Phils before.” Groundhogs can’t count very well, so once they got to Phil X, they started over with Phil junior’s father.

Phil Jr. swings is feet over the straw bed, “I know mom. I’ll do it for you.” His mother reaches over and places a gentle kiss on his head between his ears. “Thank you son.”

And so the legacy and lore of Groundhog Day continues.

Click to tweet: It’s a cold February morning in Pennsylvania. The air has a dank feel, and really all anyone wants to do is stay in bed; including Punxsutawney Phil Jr. His alarm goes off just before dawn and he hits snooze and rolls over. Before the nine minutes are up he hears a shrill call from the other part of the tunneled home.

Dip or Condiment?

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Recently a co-worker and I had a conversation over watermelon salsa about what constitutes a condiment versus a dip. Both require something else to assist consumption. Yet, we give them different food values. I wonder why? Who determined that ketchup would be tasty spread on a hot dog, but cocktail (primary ingredient is ketchup) sauce is for dipping shrimp? Salsa is for dipping, but mayonnaise is for spreading. Who makes these decisions? What if everyone decided to dip chips in spicy mustard, would that change it’s aisle at the grocery?

If we downshift here to look up the definition of condiment, it’s “something used to enhance the flavor of food.” So what does dip do? According to our friends at Merriam-Webster, there are five definitions of the word, none of which have to do with food-to immerse; thrust; lower in and out- and a few definitions around chewing tobacco. YUCK. All the definitions have to do with actions.

According to the Foodimentary blog, dips didn’t show up on the entertainment scene until the 1950’s. However, there is evidence that President Wilson’s wife made dip for him. It was one of his favorites. And according to the Food Timeline History notes site, it was James Beard. In his very first cookbook (Hors d’Oeuvre and Canapes, 1940), Beard wrote: I think it delightful to have large bowls of cheese mixtures which are of a consistency that permits “dunking.” There are also tales of dip being served during the depression years when entertaining changed dramatically.

According to a Huffington post, the history of condiments is considered unique and perhaps bizarre. Because I mentioned ketchup above, it’s history is reported as being traced to a seventeenth-century Chinese sauce made of pickled fish and spices called kê-chiap. It was discovered by English explorers, who brought it back to England, where they made it less fishy and added more mushrooms and shallots. Tomatoes didn’t make their first appearance in ketchup until the early 1800’s.

Not sure we’ve completely answered the question other than the two yummy treats took parallel journeys to our grocery shelves and party tables. Imagine Superbowl Sunday, or a Summer cookout without either one. It’s not an appetizing thought. So go ahead and scoop, dip and squeeze your way to food happiness. Oh, and don’t forget to mark your calendars for March 23rd- National Chip and Dip Day!

KK

Click-it to tweet-it: Recently a co-worker and I had a conversation over watermelon salsa about what constitutes a condiment versus a dip. Both require something else to assist consumption. Yet, we give them different food values. I wonder why?

You can’t rush Jello

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We all enjoy it. The jiggly, cool, fruity treat makes us smile. But to get to the treat we have to wait. In fact, to make the delicious cubes of goodness, both hot water and ice are added. Hot and cold-timed perfectly, and never to be rushed. But on the other side, we have a great snack or addition to a meal.

#jelloIsn’t that the same with the ebb and flow of life? There are good times and challenging times. We’re hot, we’re cold. The seasons and process of going through both are what form who we become on the other side.  There is no rushing the challenging times, we just have to go through them. And who would want to rush the good times? We just need to savor, and learn from them, appreciating the blessing after the storm.

Next time you find the Jello gelatin treat on the menu, have some and enjoy the happy treat. Go ahead and be transported back to elementary school lunches, find a straw!

KK

Click to tweet: We all enjoy it. The jiggly, cool, fruity treat makes us smile. Making Jello is a lot like life.

Organize not minimize

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Recently I heard author Joshua Becker(@joshua_becker) interviewed on the radio. He made this statement, “organizing isn’t minimizing.” He’s the author of several books, two of which book coverare The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own; and Clutter-free with Kids: Change your thinking. Discover new habits. Free your home.

Becker discusses the benefits a family can experience if they reduce the amount of “stuff” they have and simplify their lives. He addresses parents, explaining how they can set the standard for how much stuff their kids have, and the expectation with family members about gift giving.

This #minimalist mindset is said to be a trend among the gen x’ers. Research shows they prefer to spend their money on experiences like traveling, rather than big homes and fancy cars. This generation doesn’t want a lot of stuff handed down to them. It makes you wonder about all of the short-term storage units being built. Really, we have so much stuff that the next generation doesn’t want, that we store it — just in case.

Becker’s statement that organizing isn’t minimizing makes complete sense. You can rearrange a dozen boxes in an attic, or stack them neatly out of the way in the garage, but there are still a dozen boxes.

To minimize you must eliminate. Go ahead, if you haven’t worn something in two cycles of seasons, you aren’t going to! Let it go. You’d be surprised what else you might find in your closet to wear. If you don’t love those books on your shelf, sell them! My book problem is that many of my favorites are by authors I know, or have been autographed.

My mother never understood why I didn’t want a lot of trinket things sitting around on my tables and mantel. Well, those statuettes serve no function and they collect dust. The few I have were gifts and have meaning beyond the aesthetics. But that’s the difference between her generation and mine. She was raised to be a housewife. Homes were “decorated” not “staged.” The home design for the times was pictures hung in great collages on the wall and nick nacks on all flat surfaces.

Having a simplistic space can temper the noise of life. Order in our space can minimize the chaos that whirls through our minds.

Yep, it’s Christmas time and I’m talking about not having too much stuff. It is the time of year when retail marketing is at its extreme. It is the “political ad season” for retail. You must have, you can’t live without, wouldn’t your life be better if, time of year. Believe me, I’m not downing gift giving. Even in choosing a gift, there is an art to not just choosing anything. But that’s a topic for another blog.

For now, as you are making space for all the new stuff, consider what you need, and what needs to be passed along.

KK

How to catch an earworm

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Many mornings I wake with a song on my mind. Not a bad way for this non-morning person to start the day. Going through the routine of getting ready for work, the song hangs on. If it lasts beyond breakfast, I declare it an earworm and decide its demise. This morning the song was a snippet of a hymn we sang Sunday morning when we visited a Baptist church. It was a hymn I had learned in middle school when we attended Walnut Street Baptist church. So it was familiar and singing it stirred the memory. It had a catchy melody. One that can easily get stuck. I guess it’s not bad to have an inspirational song rattling around in your head. The problem is that all I could remember was the chorus, so those two lines kept running over, and over, and over in my head. By the time I got in the car, the song went from inspirational to flat out annoying.

There are two cures for earworms that I’ve been successful with. First, listen to the song and sing along. That gets the melody and the words through your cognitive path it’s stuck on and out your mouth. Ok, so there is probably a fancy scientific reason this works, but girl with headphones singing with all her heart to the music.in layman’s terms…just sing it!

The other cure is to listen to some other music. You don’t have to sing along, but it seems that just getting another tune going spooks the earworm and it crawls away.

To save my office neighbors an uninvited concert this morning, I’ve tapped into the second cure. Along with sharing this with you, it seems to be working.

What’s your earworm (#earworm) story?

KK

Do you need to go to the bathroom?

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boys-and-girls-bathroom-signs-for-popular-girls-bathroom-signs-for-kids-diy-bathroom-door-signs-happiness-is-19There is an interesting social phenomenon among females that all these years later is still a mystery to me. The bathroom buddy system. Do I need to go to the bathroom? I’m pretty sure before middle school I hadn’t been asked that since I was two-years-old. It was a significant life-lesson for me to know the question had nothing to do with having to USE the facility. In middle school and high school, it’s not uncommon to see a gaggle of girls all going to the bathroom together. If you were female and not in the group going, it is likely you were the subject of conversation while the girls were using the facility, checking make-up, and brushing hair. At the end of a meal or at a given point in a social gathering one of the girls would say to the others, “do you need to go to the bathroom?”

The high school I attended (Christian Academy of Louisville, Rock Creek campus), had a girls room right off the cafeteria. This was a bathroom (single user) perhaps as big as 7′ x 5′. It included a sink with mirror, a toilet and, a radiator. While sharing “all the news on the gossip chain, we had a method for rotating turns in front of the mirror that included at least one of us sitting on the radiator, and someone standing on the back of the toilet. Of course, no one actually voided their bladder. This trip was all about primping and news gathering.

In college, the bathrooms got larger but were still a gathering place for the exchange of gossip. Girls still went to the bathroom in groups. There were more mirrors, sinks and now we had stalls for taking care of other personal activities. This is when the whole odyssey to the restroom changed for me. I still took the journey to the restroom with the girls, but it became a little weird to me to talk over the stalls. I don’t know, it just seems weird to me to have a normal conversation while doing that which should NEVER be shared with anyone. No one. That’s a little too intimate for me.

For me, the need for pairing up to go to the bathroom ended with college. If I’m the odd person out and become the topic of conversation, I consider it an honor. Spoiler alert, I’m not that interesting. Don’t waste your time. Part of this maturity may come from me really not caring to participate in the commentary of wardrobe, behaviors, parenting skills, or evaluations of the date someone came with. One of the most awkward social moments I’ve had as an adult is when another female in our party has stopped conversations to ask me if I wanted to go the bathroom. Not to embarrass them too much, I simply replied, “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

If I happen to run into someone coming in or at the mirror, I may chat. But sorry, I’m not having a conversation over the stall wall. Oh, and more than likely I won’t participate in epic gossip.

Just a thought,

KK

#metoo
#restroom