The Proper Use of Tools

Today we will talk about using the right tool for the job. Recently I spent an entire day cleaning up water in my basement, and this concept became very clear to me.

To start that job I gathered up every towel in the house and started sopping up water. This was the wrong approach. Towels were the wrong tool for this job. Using towels required me to carry plastic trash cans full of heavy wet towels to my washer where they were run through the spin cycle and reused to soak up water. A better solution was to use my Hoover Scrub 'n Spin carpet cleaner to suck up the water. I filled up that holding tank a bunch of times. Hoover should mention this handy functionality in the manual, or maybe they already do because like you I never read the manual. So Tip #1 is "Use a carpet cleaner to suck up water on your floor."

We may be getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's go back to the reason we need Tip #1. That is because a helpful family member diverted a downspout into a window well recently so he could rake the dead grass out of our lawn in preparation for Spring. He just moved the round black plastic downspout extension from where it extended to the middle of the yard, sticking it down that window well to get it out of the way. Totally understandable. He forgot to put it back in the grass, maybe because it was 70 degrees outside that day and seemed like the winter snow 'n melt season was over. He was SO wrong. Since we already have Tip #1, let's call this Tip #0. Tip #0 is "Don't alter drainage in your yard."

But even Tip #0 has a predecessor. The reason there was a black downspout extension in the yard is there was so much heavy snow during the winter that would melt and refreeze. The weight of the snow and ice on the downspouts, not to mention the expansion of the ice when it froze, caused the downspouts to pull away from the rain gutters and to become dislodged from their extensions at the bottom that are buried in the ground and lead to the street. Every time there was a semi-warm day the snow would melt a little and torrents of water would plunge out of the downspout-less holes in the gutters. That was causing small ponds of water by the foundation. So Tip # -1 "Is secure your gutters and downspouts even if you need to (heaven forbid) hire a professional to do the work."

Wow. We are moving backwards in this tool usage discussion. We are making about as much progress as a bill through Congress. Let's pretend there has been a spate of congressional hearings on gutters and downspouts and all the previous discussions have been promoted to Cabinet-level positions, and start again. Synonyms for “spate” are “plague” or “Congress.”We could also be awed imagining there has been a spate of congressional pontificating about spate, which is defined by Google dictionary as “a sudden flood in a river, especially one caused by heavy rains or melting snow.” Coincidence? I think not.

After Tip #1 above I wanted the wet carpet to dry out, so I pulled it up, draped it over some plastic trash cans and turned a fan on in that room. Then I noticed a little area of wet carpet under the stairs. That's a carpeted play area for kids to hide out. Again I sucked out any water I could with the carpet cleaner. When I tried to pull up the carpet I couldn't get my fingers under the edge of the carpet. This was where the sloping ceiling below the stairs meets the floor. I knew I need a tool to help me. What would a carpet professional use? What would a chimpanzee use? What could I use?

When I was growing up we were taught to be resourceful and never give up; consequently I won't stop working on a problem until I have made the problem much worse than it was when it started out. What I needed was a handle with a hook on the end of it. I don't crochet, so that was out. I rifled through the utensil drawer, and the junk drawer. I found a big meat fork that might work. In the computer desk drawer I found a bunch of those gray metal face plates that had been removed from my desktop computer when I installed CD and DVD drives. Not sure why I saved those (kind of like saving that Mexican medication) but their L-shape might serve as a hook. I thought about looking in the tool chest in the garage, but thought "who needs that bother." So, armed with a fork and a face plate I went to work trying to pull up the edge of the
carpet under the 15 degree ceiling. The fork was useless, but face plate worked! Tip #2 is "Whatever works is the right tool for the job." Who says females don't have good spacial relationship judgment?

Tip #3 is "Don't share your tool successes with people who don't appreciate creative thinking." My husband locks his tool box from me, but then doesn't appreciate it when I find a way to pull up the carpet, or hang a picture or tighten a screw, without bothering him. Recently I locked up his TV remote. I wonder if he will be as resourceful in solving that problem as I was when I hung our Christmas lights with a pitchfork.

Teachin' English

Welcome, students. I'm Mrs. Johnson, your substitute teacher in seventh grade English class today. I am qualified to be your substitute today because I graduated from High School.

Your regular teacher, Mrs. Smith, left a lesson plan for us. To begin, you are supposed to do an exercise called "Using Proper Words." For example, I see the digital projector on the ceiling but Mrs. Smith prefers to have this assignment on an overhead projector sheet. The proper words for that are "set in her ways." That is a rather a colloquial phrase referring to someone who does not like to change the way she does things. "Colloquial" is an adjective used to describe a word or phrase we say which might not translate exactly to what we mean. Write that down: c-o-l-l-o-q-u-i-a-l.

Yes, Kaleigh? That word is not on your list for this week? That's okay. I don't need a list to teach this topic. I have been compiling a mental list for years. And we ARE supposed to be discussing adjectives, so this is perfectly within the lesson plan. It is extra credit.

Please number your papers from 1 - 5. In each sentence on the overhead you need to identify the adjective, the word it modifies, and any spelling or grammatical errors. Sentence one says "This school festival will be the funest ever given by the PTA." Hmm. I am not sure what you should write if there is no proper adjective. Is a "word" misspelled if it is not really a word? Perhaps we will skip sentence #1.

"What are you talking about, Mrs. Johnson?" asked K'Lee. "Is PTA not a word?"

So I explained the word "fun" was conjugated incorrectly here. One bright student, obviously from out of state, blurted out "It should be fun, more fun, most fun, right?" Immediately he became my favorite student. I went on to explain that "funner" or "funnest" in any spelled form is not a word, not found in dictionaries, and not used by anyone who expected to successfully chat online with foreigners while playing video games. They are not in online dictionaries except for www.merriam-webster.com, which calls it an inflected form of the word fun. Write down "inflected" as your next adjective, I told them. The students were speechless. Incredulous. They had no idea those fun words were colloquialisms which readily identified them with their region of residence, nor what "inflected" meant, nor that the PTA had actually sent out a flyer with that very phrase on it.

"I say those words all the time. Everybody does." protested Caylee. Yes, I know.

The second sentence on the overhead sheet says "The school and the library was on the same side of the shady street."

"What are the adjectives here and are there any problems with this sentance," I asked the students. Yes, "shady" is the adjective, and "street" is the word it modifies. What else?

Kaylea offered "Maybe the school and the library are not on the same side of the street. Maybe they are on opposite sides." I'm sorry Kaylea, but that would be a geographical error, not spelling or grammatical. Any one else want to take a wild guess?

"The school and the library 'were'...?" offered Cayli, timidly. Ding Ding Ding! Right! Very good! For those of you still pondering this, when you have more than 1 noun, or a plural noun, in a sentence you use "were" not "was." We was never going anywhere, but we were going to stay after school for tutoring. Understand? The school and the library "were" on the same side of the street to facilitate education which apparently was a good idea in theory only.

Let's just move on to your spelling test. Please have only one sheet of paper and one pen or pencil on your desk. This is test #28 and there are ten words. Your teacher left me a paper with the words and a sentence to read for each word. Ready? Wait. Kaeli, please put your notebook on the floor. Kalie, your books need to be off your desk. Those are Calye's books? Well they still need to be off your desk. I think we are ready now. Please write your name, your full name, and the date at the top of your paper.

The first word is "terrace." "The terrace hit the World Trade Centers." What? That sounds wrong. How about "The terrace is like a patio in the garden."

Next, "accompany." "Chaelea asked her mother to accompany her on her date." Chaelea, did you really do that? You don't know what "accompany" means? In this sentence it means torture. Was the date near the terrace?

The third word is "dairy." "Do not confuse "dairy" with "diary." Wait a minute.... The spelling word is definitely "dairy." And the next word is "definitely." "These words are definitely confusing." Almost as confusing as having all the girls in this class named the same name. I would hate to have a spelling test on your names. Why did your parents all spell your names so, mmm, uniquely?

"My mom says she wanted my name to be special just for me," said Quai Li. So, the thinking was to name you the same as every other girl born that year but spell it obscurely so no one knows how to pronounce it? How's that working out for you?

Aren't you boys glad your parents didn't do that to you Kayden, Kaden, Kaeden, Kadyn and Kaydn?

What's that, Kadan? No I am not a real teacher. Do you think I should be? Kadan?

My Share of Nothing

Yesterday while I was trying to peacefully blog about Adventures in Health Insurance, I got a phone call from a job recruiter. She said she just got my resume through an online job submission. When she said she "just got" my resume she wasn't kidding since I had only sent it right before I started the blog I was working on. The funny thing is that I sent in that resume as part of an application for 1 of 4 jobs posted by the recruiting firm, with a cover letter saying I realized my credentials didn't fully meet the requirements of any of the 4 jobs, but partially met the requirements of all of the 4 jobs, so please take a look and see if there was some way to fit me into a job. She called to say she had a totally different job for me to consider.

As she started talking I realized I knew the job she was presenting, so I stopped her.

"Is this the job to change useless reports from one old technology into useless reports in another old technology, and supposed to last about 6 months?" I asked.

"Why yes it is, but how could you so quickly identify this job of drudgery from all others?" she wanted to know.

It's a skill I developed over too many years of, yes, jobs of drudgery. And bad news travels fast.

I had heard about this position in February from a different recruiter, but never even got interviewed for it. Turns out that the fellow who did get this particular employment was only there about a month and then let go. He was not a good fit, I was told. Was his cubicle too small? Didn't he like sci-fi movies? Whatever the problem it had created a job opening where Ms. Recruiter thought I might do well since I am a short person. We talked. I really liked her down to earth personality, and she said she would send my resume to the hiring company with the tiny cubicles.

A very short while later she called to say that the hiring company with the tiny cubicles, let's call it cubita corp, had some questions for all applicants to answer. She emailed them to me. I scratched my head. Here are the actual questions and answers:

Q. Please have your candidate provide a 1 paragraph of what they have done with Access
A. My ACCESS experience has been mostly in importing its data into SQL Server and building reports from there, either from scratch in C# or in Reporting Services. I have written queries and made forms in ACCESS. I have analyzed and converted ACCESS forms.

Q. Have they built applications in Access?
A. No

Q. Are you comfortable using VBA in Access?
A. No

Q. Have they done VBA work before & what did they do with it?
A. No

Q. Do they want an Access Development contract?
A. For ongoing ACCESS development probably not. For transitioning to newer technologies, yes.

I wouldn't hire me after reading that, size 6 shoes or not. I sent the Q&A back to the nice lady, and said I would understand if the cubie didn't fit after all.

Very soon after that, so soon I still hadn't had time to finish my blog which is way more important that finding a job, I got a call from a different recruiter, let's call him Mr. Recruiter, to whom I had talked in February about this very position.

Mr. Recruiter is my best friend. He has the voice of a game show announcer. He has the perfect job for me. He can throw in a set of Ginsu knives to sweeten the deal. But wait, there's more! Today only all applicants receive, free of charge, a resume restructuring kit guaranteed to highlight only the relevant items that any given employer wants to see. But I must act now. These resume restructuring kits are not available from stores or any other recruiters, so hurry to accept this offer now before all the erasers with his logo are gone!

Poor guy. He did not react well the the news that I was already in the queue for this job through another recruiter. Didn't I understand that he had created the professional relationship agreement with me last February by soliciting my resume and submitting it to the inquiring organization? Umm... It must be apparent that his implied contract to represent me preceded any more recent interaction with additional parties whereunto the aforenamed company sought redress from absence of malicious slander in the form of cubiculus absentium. I felt like singing God Save The Queen!

I said "Bob," that was his name, "Bob, I don't know how all this recruiting stuff works but I haven't agreed to do anything for anyone, so you guys work it out. And by the way, I don't have the qualifications for the job, so you can untwist your panties." I didn't really say that last part, just the second to last part (Paragraph 1, Section C, Clause 2). I did say I would ask Ms. Recruiter if she had really, truly submitted my resume today, and call him in the morning.

Apparently he was just too excited to wait for my call. He called me at 8AM speaking more Latin, said something about popping into a meeting for tea and ringing me up later. I turned off my phone. Ms. Recruiter had submitted my resume already, and said Mr. Recruiter, Solicitor, worked for an aggressive firm. But she, not he, had secured me an interview for this very afternoon. When I got there I was interviewed by two guys. One guy had my information with Mr. Recruiter's logo on it, and the other had my information with Ms. Recruiter's logo on it. The interviewers were great, the job actually sounded very good, and it's very close to my home. That, of course, is the kiss of death to my hopes of getting the job.

Ever see the comic called Real Life? Somehow the writer managed to take my everyday boring life and get paid for it. Our family favorite is of some kid saying to his parent "Cut out of the will? Oooo. I won't get my share of nothing!"

That's what these recruiters were worried about. As you can see, I still have plenty of time to blog.

Health Insurance, The Game

On my way home from substitute teaching today, where I worked educating your children for less than minimum wage but still managed to make enough that my unemployment will be docked, I got a phone call from a friend who wanted to share a story about her health insurance. This is a bonding experience I share often with many friends. Every new story seems to top any previous ones. If you do not know how to play this game you either don't have health insurance or work for a health insurance provider (in which case you have different stories to tell).

In any case let me explain how this is played. It's kind of like the game "BS" played with cards, where in turn players lay cards face down and tell you what cards they are, like 5 aces. The other players, if they don't believe the cards are 5 aces, will say "BS." Then the dropout who said it was 5 aces from 1 deck has to show the cards and take all the cards previously laid down in the pile, which explains why he was desperately trying to get rid of his huge hand of cards by laying down 3 cards and saying it was 5 aces. In "HI" (Health Insurance) as we like to call it, one person relates a "true" story to another person about an experience he or she had with a health insurance company. The listener can, at any time, just call "HI" on the storyteller, if the story is too unbelievable.

Here is today's story. You decide - "HI" or not.

My friend had a single mastectomy many years ago. She wears undergarments with a prosthesis to make her look normal. It is time for a new one, and because she needs authorization for that she called her health insurance provider who, by the way, is a large HMO that has been around for a long time. She got the authorization and took it to a major department store that provides these prostheses where the sales person suggested that she should also get some new bras. I know what you're thinking, and no, those don't automatically come with the prostheses. My friend ordered the prosthesis, then went home and called the health insurance provider to find out about getting some special bras.

Here is how the conversation went between my friend, hereafter known as "Friend" and the HI customer service representative, hereafter known as "Cus."

Friend: "Here is my insurance number, social security number, phone number, shoe size, and tooth number that last had a cavity filled."
Cus: "Can you verify your address?"
Friend: "Yes."
Cus: "Go ahead."
Friend: "Go ahead with what?"
Cus: "Please verify your address."
Friend: "Okay. It is 123 Higher Education Lane, University Town, USA."
Cus, sounding surprised: "Right!"

It went on like this for some time, my friend completely doing her income taxes, applying for medical school and reading the Wall Street Journal while the conversation went on.

Cus: "Now that we have verified your information since birth, how can I help you today?"
Friend: "I have an authorization for a new prosthesis. Does it include authorization for the special bras that go with it?"
Cus: "One moment.... I will put you on hold. Okay?"
Musak plays. It's The New York Symphony playing ZZ Top.
Friend: "No, I.. oh well."
Cus: "Thank you for holding. I see right here that you are authorized for two prothesises."
Friend: "I only need one prosthesis, which is authorized already. What I need to know is if any bras have been authorized."
Cus: "Hmm. Let me check again. I'll put you on hold for a moment."
Musak plays. Strings, heavy on the cello, playing "She's got legs... She knows how to use them."
Cus: "Thanks again for holding. I see authorization for 2 prosthesises."
Friend: "There is no such that as 2 prosthesises. It would be 2 prostheses, but I don't NEED 2 prostheses. Do you know what a prosthesis is?"
Cus: "I thought it was the bra you asked about."
Friend: "You should know what these medical terms mean. You do work for Emperor Health Mismanagement Organization, don't you?"
Cus: "I think so."
Friend: "Are you in India?"
Cus: "No, West Virginia."
Friend: "Even worse. Let me explain in terms you might understand. My prosthesis is the fake boob you put into the special bra. I only need one of those, and that's authorized. Now I need to know if the special bras have been authorized."
Cus: "I don't know."
Friend: "Would you please find out about my authorizations and call me back, today? You have all my contact information."
Cus: "What's your phone number?"
Friend: click

What do you think? HI or true? I'm thinking true, especially the bad grammar. There is no way my friend could have made that up, even if she tried.

Logically my mind went to how this whole scenario relates to me. I'm unemployed. I speak good English. I have had a fair, no an abundance, of experience with health insurance. Maybe I could be an HI customer service rep. "BS", my friend said. "Too many aces."