LivingSocial Disease
Somehow I got signed up to LivingSocial. How? I don’t know. Maybe I pissed off one of my neighbors and they did it as passive-aggressive revenge. Well played.
Meanwhile, I happen to love me a good Mongolian BBQ. I have many happy memories of loading up bowls and topping them off with bean sprouts piled so high they resembled Marge Simpson’s hair. And onions. Lots and lots of onions.
One time my bowl came up and the lady in front of me grabbed it by mistake. Moments later she returned and said, in disgust, “This isn’t mine! It’s full of … onions!” I said good day, you onion hater. Those are my onions you’re talking about!
Another time I was in a Mongolian BBQ stuffing my face minding my own business and I watched two snot-nosed bubble-launchers kids load up giant bowls with nothing but meat. That’s bad form. Mom and dad watched approvingly. I can only assume they were also redshirting the bastards. Yeah, they were clearly on the right path. Anyway, these kids brought their steaming bowls of meat back to the table, picked at them momentarily, then pushed them away. It was none of my concern but it still pissed me off. Man, what a waste of good meat. And the food went uneaten, too.
The point is, I love me a mean Mongolian BBQ.
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My nine-pound hammers
This is my scheduled Tuesday post, but as I sit here and write this, it is still Monday morning before work. It’s a special period of time I like to call The Dark Time. I just woke up and before I know it, lickity split, I’ll be back in the shit hole.
The act of going to work has a physical and emotional impact on me. The closer it gets to 9am the more ill I feel. And on Mondays this effect is especially pronounced.
Because I love my job so much I thought this would be a good time to share a couple of videos about work.
As we all know, those of us who work full time have to face certain realities. The first is that in a typical week, “work” is the single most important aspect of our existence based on the amount of time. As far as hours are concerned, work is rivaled only by sleep. If you think about your week as a pie chart, things like spouses and family are inconsequential slices compared to work and sleep. And one of the smallest slivers that can be found in that pie? Time spent doing things we enjoy and voluntarily get to do. In other words, the time we spend doing what we choose to do. For most of us, that’s the smallest part of the whole damn week.
So it is important to step back and evaluate our existence from a different perspective. How is work working out for us? Is it meeting our needs? Or only those of the boss?
It’s a surprising idea to think that we can take more ownership of our work experience and proactively make it better for us. This idea is explored in the first video.
In the second video, some important questions are raised. Why is it required for employees to go to places called offices which are actually obstacles to work getting done? How is it possible to get more work done? And who and what gets in the way?
So, the theme of this Monday morning post is fittingly: Work. It’s what’s for dinner. (Or something like that.)
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1069
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1014
Shouts from the Abyss 
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