This and That and That and This

This and That and That and This - February 28, 2022

Here we are the end of February. Valentine’s Day has passed us by, and I hope all of you who love to spoil someone on this day went ahead and did so. Whether you went and bought flowers that day for 3 times more than the week before, went out for a nice supper, bought a special gift – or perhaps a simple I love you was good enough. Between the pandemic and the higher cost of living staying home with a glass of red wine was suffice for me. Not to mention when you have an alcoholic beverage you have to think about the safe ride home. Sometimes it’s just easier to stay home and make a good meal.

Once more the world around us is changing. We are leaving 2 years of a pandemic, mask wearing and recommended vaccinations. Majority of people have adapted to what our government mandated us to do, whether we liked it or not. And now change is upon us once more. Time to remove the mask and forget about showing your vaccination card if you had one. We can wander around freely like we used to do. For some this will be easy, for others they will work into their comfort zone one day at a time. I must say though the mask has come in mighty handy on these cold winter days. Lol!

This blog you are getting a little bit of this and a little bit of that – I decided not to nail down just one topic. So here is one of the topics I want to talk about. What are acronyms and why have they become such a big part of our language?  An acronym is formed from the initial letters of other words and then pronounced as a word. For example, I have a really long name, which most people can’t say or spell. I get tired of correcting them, so it is easier to say just use “MLA”, which is the shortened version (acronym) of my name. I find it less annoying than hearing my name misspelled and mispronounced. Here are some other very frequent used acronyms. DIY - do it yourself, BLT – bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, EUC – excellent used condition, VL – vacation leave, SL – sick leave, NASA – National Aeronautics Space Administration, and the list goes on. With the wide use of texting, we now use even more acronyms. Such as TTYL – talk to you later, LOL – laugh out loud, BTW – by the way, FAQ – frequently asked questions. The list goes on and on. I so dislike it when I don’t have a clue of what the acronym means. Pretty hard to understand something when the abbreviated letters mean nothing to you.

And what is the EDO? It is a new experience for me. The majority of my life was spent working for private business. No such thing as an EDO there. And what is the EDO – an Extra Day Off or in some cases an Earned Day Off, depending on where you work. Frequently associated with government jobs. In my case the EDO is an extra day off – no pay. I work 72 hours every 2 weeks vs a standard 80-hour work week. Why does this matter? Well, a taxpayer is not paying for my EDO, even though this is a common misconception. I get paid for what I work – 72 hours and not a penny more. Working 72 hours can also be a challenge for some people as they would really like 80 hours of work every 2 weeks vs 72. But man alive – once you get used to having an extra day off every 2 weeks; I just don’t think you can go back to the good old 80-hours of work every two weeks.

For years I worked split days off because I had to work Saturdays. Fortunately, I always had Sundays off and any holiday days that were government legislated, which allowed me to have 2 days off about 8 times a year. Crazy right? Having a day off in the middle of the week does not even come close to having 3 days off in a row every 2 weeks. Talk about feeling rested and having time to do things for yourself. Why did I do this? For the money of course. There is a trade-off for everything. There are no free rides per say. Time or money. It’s hard to have both. Trying to stay balanced between life and work is a tricky business. You need the money for the household, but you want the time to be able to spend it with family and friends. And as we know most jobs are Monday to Friday with 2 days off in a row.  Children are in school Monday to Friday. Days off revolve around weekends. Fact!

What about the Earned Day Off? Well, this is where people work an extra 15 or 20 minutes every day and then they take a day off every 2 or 3 weeks without missing out on any pay. This is a great way as well to have extra time off and not lose any pay. Your choice – think about it if you are entering the work force. What do you want? For those of us that are done being in the work force or close to retirement, it is what it is for us.

One of the funniest parts of my workday is 12:00 noon. If you haven’t watched the Flintstones with Fred and Barney with Wilma and Betty, you should. They have a whistle that blows at 12:00 sharp and everyone stops what they are doing to head home for lunch. I have worked where I was lucky if I took 10 minutes for lunch to now having the actual noon hour lunch. And yup, I have joined the ranks of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. When that whistle blows, I log off my computer and take my lunch break. Whatever I am working on can wait until 1:00. And the same thing happens at 5:00 pm. Once again, the whistle blows, and you head for home. But if we think about it this is what happens from the time we start school until we leave school. Bells ring, we stop what we are doing and move onto the next task. So how can we help not being like Fred and Barney? We’ve been trained that way.

Working through the pandemic has put more people working from home. For some this is a great trade off from going into the office. For others, not so much. Everyone’s situation is different. Hopefully, employers and employees have learned what works for them. For sure if you ask an employee what is important, they will tell you having flexibility. Time to go to their child’s piano concert, take a parent to a doctor appointment, being able to take a sick day when they don’t feel well, the list goes on. Once again it is about balance – life, work and family.

We have interesting times coming up ahead. We now have to learn how to make it through a pandemic that is maybe finished and maybe is not. But how long can you shut down business for and wear a mask? We have forgotten how we used to live. It’s kind of like living in a bubble and now it’s time to go back to the old way. We will all find our way. We’ve been playing “Zorro” long enough. Are we as a society ready to stop playing Zorro? Not sure, times will tell whether we were right or wrong.

The 2022 Beijing Olympics are now over and as I am writing this how sad it was to see all of those empty seats as our athletes performed. These athletes have worked so hard to get where they are and instead of playing to thousands they were playing to hundreds, if they were lucky. It was hard to hear a clap above the sound of the music for the skaters, you could always hear “hurry hard” though!

So here is to another chapter in life. If somebody had predicted I would wear a mask for a year and a half and live through a pandemic, I would have told them they were nuts. Let’s take this next journey together and may you all stay safe and healthy.

And what song do I have picked out for you today? The Times They Are a Changin’ by Bob Dylan. Written in 1964 during times of unrest and strife. It was written as an anthem about positive social changes happening during any era. A good match with the world we are living today, I think.

As I end this blog today, don’t forget to be grateful. The world as we know it could be very much changing. I ask you to send prayers and positive thoughts to our fellow people living in the Ukraine. Their world has changed significantly overnight – as may ours. The evil powers of mankind are upon us once more. As if two world wars weren’t enough! I pray we don’t see three.