Oh Good Grief...
The "scandal" of the day today? A male coworker closed his office door when he was talking with a male sales person. This immediately started gossip about the "poor dear" and how he "locked himself into his office with [the guy]" as though something either bad or pitiful or both is now happening. It cannot, of course, be related to the amount of noise in the hallway from the gossiping right outside his door. There has to be something tragic or fishy about it, apparently. I chose to take the high road and not say "Well, did you want them to have sex with the door *open*?!" Sheesh! Who the heck CARES if the doctor closes his office door when he talks to someone? What difference does it make to anybody? Absolutely none that I can identify. I guess it was a slow gossip day elsewhere in people's lives, so they had to start whispering about the closed door and what it could possibly mean. Folks, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Un/fortunately, I'm trying to remain on the Santa's "nice" list, so I restrained myself and didn't make the comment about sex with the door open. But it would have been hilarious to see the expressions on their faces.
Living Up or Down to Expectations
I realize that we don't get data as fast as we might like, but it does get here eventually. I have also found, in my experience, that people and organizations live up to the expectations made of them. If you expect people to fail or do a crappy job and tell them that, they will likely live up (or down) to that expectation. If you expect them to succeed and to do a good job, provide them with the goal/outcome you would like, they quite often do hit your target. And frankly, I find my life to be more pleasant if I expect positive things rather than spreading around negativity. The world is a negative enough place without focusing on all the shortcomings of the universe, griping about not always being everybody else's top priority, and threatening to break things that don't work right, instead of actually using them correctly in the first place. Remember, the computer and printer do what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do.
An Observation:
If you preface a conversation at lunch out at a restaurant with "I probably shouldn't talk about this at the dinner table", you probably shouldn't talk about it. If you do happen to go on to talk in detail about the bodily fluids you deposited on the toilet seat at home, then failed to clean up until after your middle school aged daughter said something about it, I think it's too late to go back to using euphemisms and talking about "unmentionables". You've already done mentioned it all in gory detail.
Another Observation:
Roads are not dangerous whether they are straight or curved. They will not randomly nor purposefully eject vehicles from their surfaces. Motor vehicle crashes are not caused by roads, but are instead caused by drivers. It is not the fault of the road that a driver failed to negotiate a curve successfully. Nor is it the fault of the road that a driver was ejected from a vehicle due to failure to use a seatbelt. Road conditions may contribute to an accident, but do not cause accidents unless the road does something unusual, like collapse in a sinkhole as you drive over it. It is absolutely possible to drive safely on icy, wet and snowy roads as well as dry roads. People have been managing that in northerly latitudes for decades. Snow doesn't shut down Buffalo, NY unless whiteout conditions are achieved and visibility is essentially nil.
What causes accidents is driver error/misjudgement. I regularly see people driving at 70+ mph on the Interstate with less than one vehicle length between vehicles. This works out very well as long as nothing goes wrong. If the front vehicle happens to blow a tire, have sudden mechanical difficulty or brake suddenly, the driver of the second vehicle has less than one second to react. That is just not enough time. There also appears to be a tendency to exceed the speed limit on surface roads and to overdrive the headlights at night. Overdriving headlights is when you are driving fast enough that you will not have sufficient time to react to/avoid objects that pop into the headlights as you drive. These objects could be debris in the road, pedestrians, deer, or curves in the road. You can indeed drive as fast or faster at night than in the day time, but there are possible negative consequences to this action.
I realize this isn't particularly comforting to those folks who are in crashes or have family/friends in crashes, but it's true. I've picked up the live (and dead) bodies of dozens of people at crashes. I have little sympathy for persons who fail to drive safely for the existing road conditions (including darkness) and for persons who decide to not use their seatbelt and suffer severe injuries after being ejected from the vehicle. It adds a few minutes more to the drive time to drive at a reasonable, prudent speed or to wear a seatbelt. It adds hours, weeks, months, years or even forever to your drive time if you end up in a crash. Wouldn't you rather get there late than not get there at all?
Un/fortunately, I'm trying to remain on the Santa's "nice" list, so I restrained myself and didn't make the comment about sex with the door open. But it would have been hilarious to see the expressions on their faces.
Living Up or Down to Expectations
I realize that we don't get data as fast as we might like, but it does get here eventually. I have also found, in my experience, that people and organizations live up to the expectations made of them. If you expect people to fail or do a crappy job and tell them that, they will likely live up (or down) to that expectation. If you expect them to succeed and to do a good job, provide them with the goal/outcome you would like, they quite often do hit your target. And frankly, I find my life to be more pleasant if I expect positive things rather than spreading around negativity. The world is a negative enough place without focusing on all the shortcomings of the universe, griping about not always being everybody else's top priority, and threatening to break things that don't work right, instead of actually using them correctly in the first place. Remember, the computer and printer do what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do.
An Observation:
If you preface a conversation at lunch out at a restaurant with "I probably shouldn't talk about this at the dinner table", you probably shouldn't talk about it. If you do happen to go on to talk in detail about the bodily fluids you deposited on the toilet seat at home, then failed to clean up until after your middle school aged daughter said something about it, I think it's too late to go back to using euphemisms and talking about "unmentionables". You've already done mentioned it all in gory detail.
Another Observation:
Roads are not dangerous whether they are straight or curved. They will not randomly nor purposefully eject vehicles from their surfaces. Motor vehicle crashes are not caused by roads, but are instead caused by drivers. It is not the fault of the road that a driver failed to negotiate a curve successfully. Nor is it the fault of the road that a driver was ejected from a vehicle due to failure to use a seatbelt. Road conditions may contribute to an accident, but do not cause accidents unless the road does something unusual, like collapse in a sinkhole as you drive over it. It is absolutely possible to drive safely on icy, wet and snowy roads as well as dry roads. People have been managing that in northerly latitudes for decades. Snow doesn't shut down Buffalo, NY unless whiteout conditions are achieved and visibility is essentially nil.
What causes accidents is driver error/misjudgement. I regularly see people driving at 70+ mph on the Interstate with less than one vehicle length between vehicles. This works out very well as long as nothing goes wrong. If the front vehicle happens to blow a tire, have sudden mechanical difficulty or brake suddenly, the driver of the second vehicle has less than one second to react. That is just not enough time. There also appears to be a tendency to exceed the speed limit on surface roads and to overdrive the headlights at night. Overdriving headlights is when you are driving fast enough that you will not have sufficient time to react to/avoid objects that pop into the headlights as you drive. These objects could be debris in the road, pedestrians, deer, or curves in the road. You can indeed drive as fast or faster at night than in the day time, but there are possible negative consequences to this action.
I realize this isn't particularly comforting to those folks who are in crashes or have family/friends in crashes, but it's true. I've picked up the live (and dead) bodies of dozens of people at crashes. I have little sympathy for persons who fail to drive safely for the existing road conditions (including darkness) and for persons who decide to not use their seatbelt and suffer severe injuries after being ejected from the vehicle. It adds a few minutes more to the drive time to drive at a reasonable, prudent speed or to wear a seatbelt. It adds hours, weeks, months, years or even forever to your drive time if you end up in a crash. Wouldn't you rather get there late than not get there at all?
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