Thursday, May 21, 2015

Time Outs for Adults

Image: blogs.extension.iastate.edu 
Time outs are a great go to for parents who need to discipline their young children. Emily is a pretty good kid, but sometimes she just needs a time out to calm down when she gets upset or in trouble.

Honestly, I stop myself and take time outs myself when I'm getting really frustrated. Just take a minute, a breath and calm down.

Sadly, I'm beginning to wish that I could put my customers in time out. Make them sit in a time out chair and just chill for five minutes. I work in tech support you see, and most of the people I deal with know little to nothing about computers.

Common courtesy is sadly not so common these days. Since I'm just a faceless voice on the phone, some people think it's ok to verbally abuse me. Luckily, if it gets too bad I can hang up on them. Thankfully that doesn't happen too much.

What does happen all do often are the people who will troubleshoot but it will take twice as long as the person complains bitterly about how much the internet sucks, how much I suck, how they shouldn't have to troubleshoot. It goes on and on.

These people need time outs. You are wasting your time if you are so angry at the situation that you complain and rant the whole time you are on the phone with a tech. Take a time out, get a cookie and a juice box and just calm down.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Rest in Peace Aunt Dorothy

Aunt Dorothy and my cousin Boomer at my wedding
When I was very small, my dad's mom passed away from cancer. So while I only had one grandmother, I had two great aunts on my dad's who filled the grandma gap. Yesterday, I got the message that my Great Aunt Dorothy had passed away.

It's hard to talk about Aunt Dorothy without mentioning her sister Jackie. They were a pair throughout my childhood. When I was pretty young, we moved across the state because of a job my dad had gotten. When we would go back to Bay City, we would often stay with my Aunt Jackie. Even if we didn't stay there, we'd see both of them, usually at Jackie's house.

I do remember being at Aunt Dorothy's house - it was really cute and she actually had a rotary phone in her kitchen. I remember being very young and actually staying at her house one afternoon. I remember being put down for a nap, but not wanting to sleep. Just wanting to look around the room.

Aunt Dorothy was always happy, always smiling despite the hand life had dealt her. Her first husband died very young, leaving her and her small kids. Her second husband was abusive, but she was strong and stood up against him, leaving him. 

For many years, she's had a lot of health issues. I want to be like her when I grow up - happy despite the health issues. She also could do the splits all the way down even into her 80's which is a feat I couldn't do even when I was a teenager.

I feel very happy that I got to talk to her one last time on Easter. She sounds the same has she's done my entire life and she sounded like she was happy. I'll miss her, my dear Aunt Dorothy, but I'll cherish the memories I have - like of her dancing at my wedding.