Diversity in the Workplace

I am a lifetime HR professional.  It is what I have always done.  Over the years, there have been ever increasing discussions around diversity.

When people think of diversity, generally they think of ethnic diversity, followed closely by gender diversity.

But diversity is so much more than differences in ethnic background or differences in gender!

My administrative assistant is less than half my age.  Let’s call her Peg.

Peg: I’m puttin’ on my boots tonight and going to a Luke Bryan concert!

Kari: Sounds like fun! We have tickets to see Bob Seger next week!

Peg: Oh! The dad from Full House?

Let’s not forget to honor the little things that make us all different and diverse!  And let’s not forget to have a sense of humor!

Keep on smiling!

Bob Saget

Bob Seger

The Rain Gauge

 

We’re from Wisconsin. We talk about the weather a lot. We start off conference calls by asking our coworkers in other parts of the country or world about the weather. Frankly, I thought everyone was as infatuated with the weather as we are. It turns out they are not.

One of my former managers was from California. She said she never understood why people from the Midwest talked about the weather so much. People in southern California don’t talk about the weather.   “How’s the weather today?  It’s 72 and sunny.  Just like every other day in southern California.” What’s the point in talking about it? 

And then she moved to Wisconsin and the reason for all the weather talk became very clear. You never know what’s going to happen.  It can be sunny and warm in the morning when you wake up and blizzard warnings can be out by the afternoon. Or tornado warnings. Or hurricane strength winds. Or wind chills below zero.  You can run the heat in your car on the way to work and need to run your air conditioning on the way home from work.  So the weather is always an interesting topic!

The meteorologists here earn their money. Or at least they give it their best shot.

This summer I bought a rain gauge. Somehow it made me feel very old. I’m not sure why but I have this belief that the only people who own rain gauges and are actually interested in how much rain we get are either farmers (I grew up on a farm) or old people. 

The funeral home in the town I grew up in gave out rain gauges as a gift one year.  So there are still people (probably old people) in my home town with little plastic gauges with the funeral home information on them.

I found my rain gauge when I was looking for something else of course. But there it was and it is decorative!!  The stand has scroll work and a red glass globe and the rain gauge itself is set nicely into the scroll work.

I was a bit embarrassed to put it out in my yard but I did and it looks great with the flowers and plants surrounding it.

Of course once I had the rain gauge out, we headed into a long drought period and I had no need for it!!

Sort of like last year when we finally broke down after 20+ years and bought a new snow blower.  We didn’t have a large enough snowfall to use it more than once during the season!

Makes me wonder what else we should buy to alter the state of nature! Ha ha!

But back to the rain gauge. I am now the person who can tell, with authority, how much it has rained in our neighborhood.  This weekend has been completely gray and gloomy and rainy.  We have already had 7 inches of rain with no end in sight.

I have to say, knowing exactly how much rain has come down is somehow more comforting to me than only knowing that it has rained steadily since Friday night!!

I’m sure I’ll keep talking about the weather no matter where I roam. Just like I keep taking pictures of sunsets and sunrises!

Keep on smiling!

The Times They Are A-Changin'

I've taken a bit of a break from my blog. It was a really busy summer with a crazy work schedule, high school graduation, a trip abroad for my daughter and all the prep work for her freshman year at college. It's the beginning of a new adventure for all of us!

A lot has changed since I was in college. This summer we found an old tuition bill from my freshman year. Tuition, room and board was about $1700 for the semester. Tuition is now about $7500 a semester at a state school. I hate to admit it but a lot of years have passed! :) And I still believe the benefits of a college education far outweigh the monetary investment.

I chatted with my daughter on the phone the other night. It was so nice to hear her voice! She was telling me about her science class and how she was planning to go back out online and review her professor’s presentation again. I was curious as to how she does this. She explained to me that he posts his PowerPoint slides online after the lecture so the students have access to them. 

I said, “Wow, that’s really nice! Our professors never did things like that when we were in college.” 

And then I realized it probably had something to do with the fact that PowerPoint hadn’t been invented yet.

And even if PowerPoint had already been invented, there was no “online” to post it to.

And even if “online” had existed, I wouldn’t have been able to access it from my typewriter!

It's amazing how much has changed from my experience to her experience. And amazing how much really hasn't!

What a great adventure!

Keep on smiling!

Workin' For the Weekend!

This morning started off on the wrong foot. I got all the way to work and realized I forgot my laptop at home. So I had to turn around and go all the way back home to get it. Not a great way to start the day. But…….

I got to drive into this spectacular sunrise!! So I pulled over and took this photo. Yes, I am one of THOSE people!

But now I’m heading back into work later than normal which throws everything off.  Normally I am here at least an hour before shift change so there aren’t a whole lot of people coming and going.  But just slightly behind schedule, the activity picks up significantly.

The driveway coming in to my place of employment is long and winding. I think it was designed that way so you have to drive slowly and think hard about the long day ahead.  Here is what I was following: Three large men on even larger Harley’s.  Behind them….. a guy on a scooter. Dressed is his North Face jacket and jaunty helmet.  Made me smile.  Made me laugh right out loud when they all pulled in to the motorcycle parking area together and the guys on the Harleys high fived the guy on the scooter as they walked by.

Then……… walking in from the other end of the parking lot, I saw not one but two guys carrying lunchboxes just like this….

No joke.  My guess is they are originals, not knockoffs, and they have been carried through these doors for 30+ years. The quality of lunchbox construction was obviously much higher back then!

And on my way back from the cafeteria, I saw…..

Well, not exactly this guy (since this is definitely not within the dress code policy) but I saw someone with a comb like this sticking out of his back pocket. The famous 70’s back pocket comb! I remember them well. I had a pastel pink one and another one that had orange and yellow and pink sort of melted together. An absolute necessity to keep feathered hairstyles looking super cool!

I have often said that working here has transported me back in time to the 70’s and I keep seeing things that support my theory!

And I'm also thinking it was a stroke of luck that I forgot my laptop at home this morning. Look at all the interesting things I saw, just by running a little bit late! :)

Happy Thursday to all! Thank you for stepping back in time with me and ENJOY the long holiday weekend!!

Keep on smiling!

Oh, To Be Young!!

Today we were in line to check out at a store in the mall. The young sales associate asked the woman in front of us, "Are you Colby's Mom?" Before the woman could answer she went on to tell about how she knew him from working somewhere else and how they have been out "clubbing" together a few times.

 The woman confirmed that yes, she was Colby's Mom.

 

The sales associate said, "I thought so! I saw you two together once and teased him that his Mom looked so young that she really looked more like his sister!"

 

Of course you can imagine that this woman looked really happy with that statement!

 

And the then the sales associate said, "Yeah, but I was really just joking; just giving him a hard time."
 

Ouch..
 

Reminds me of the time a hair stylist told me that she loved my hair style. And then followed up with, "When I get old, maybe I'll be brave enough to try that hairstyle too."
 

Double ouch!

 

But here's the deal. I still took the hairstyle comment as a compliment and the woman in line at the store really did look too young to have a son that was old enough to go out "clubbing"!  So it's all good!

Keep on smiling! 

God Loves Drunks Too!

Okay, this made me laugh so I had to share it!

A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door.

The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

 "Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3:00 in the morning!"

He slams the door and returns to bed.

"Who was that?" asked his wife.

"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.

"Did you help him?" she asks.

"No, I did not, it is 3:00 in the morning and it is pouring rain out there!"

"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself! God loves drunk people too."

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.

He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes," comes back the answer.

"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.

"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.

"Where are you?" asks the husband.

"Over here on the swing set," replied the drunk.

 

Keep on smiling! 

The Hot Pot of the 80's

No, I don't mean marijuana....

I went to college in the 80's. Just typing that sounds so bizarre, so very retro.  But it's true. I went to college in the 80's.

One of the appliance staples in a dorm room back then was the "hot pot".  You know what it is. It is one of those appliances that looks a bit like an old coffee percolator but it heats up hot water.  Those things were great.  You could boil noodles in them for macaroni and cheese, boil water for hot cocoa, etc. 

I'm not really even sure if ramen noodles had been invented yet in the 80's.  Or maybe their distribution channels had not reached as far as Wisconsin. Because I have to believe, if ramen noodles existed in the 80's, I would have been eating them in my little dorm room at UW-Whitewater! But I wasn't. So obviously they hadn't been invented yet, right?

My daughter is finishing up her senior year of high school and will be heading off to college herself this fall. I am so excited for her. I am also trying to prepare myself for life without her (my favorite person in the whole wide world) being here in this house everyday! 

We've been working on the prep stuff since summer; picking things up here and there on clearance, working through the list.  We have already purchased sheets and comforters that will fit the Twin XL beds in the dorms and are discussing the need for a refrigerator and microwave.  Today as I was wandering through Wal-Mart, I came across the "hot pot" appliance.  Ahhh, it brought back memories.

One of the memories that still makes me laugh pretty hard is starting up the "hot pot" one night to make macaroni and cheese while I studied. For some reason I had set it up on my roommate's dresser. I remember hearing this strange noise and I look over and water was shooting out of the spout of the "hot pot" and making a perfect arc directly into her closet!! Luckily, with some quick foot action and the grace of God, the macaroni-laden water didn't get on anything in her closet. Note to self, do NOT overfill the "hot pot" or the boiling water turns into a geyser of hot water and half-cooked macaroni.

So I see this similar device in Wal-Mart and picked it up to look at it. A cordless kettle. That's interesting. If there is no cord, does it run on batteries? That doesn't seem quite right. I read down a little bit further and it says, "Convenient Cord Storage". What? If it's cordless, why on earth do you need convenient cord storage? So I chuckled to myself and I took a couple of photos (see one below), put the "hot pot" back on the shelf and moved on. 

If my offspring, does indeed believe that a "hot pot" is something she would like to have in her dorm room, (I hope so!) we will do some comparison shopping and find a dandy one, fitting of the year 2012.

College...... it's funny the things you remember about those years!!  Wal-Mart..... it's funny what they sell!

Keep on smiling!