Working For Sauron

On 2/15/07, G@P wrote: Salut, Russ... The morale at work is so bad, that it leaves me bitchy and whiny about my lot in life and everyone around me is pretty damned tired of hearing it. What no one can seem to tell me is how the situation would improve if I jumped ship over to another WORLD IS FLAT/WAL-MART situation. At least HERE, I have a fair amount of time off...and at work, there seems to be more than ample time to catch up on reading. But make no mistake...change is needed. The big question mark is WHAT? Are you a NETFLIX person? Can't believe I didn't hop onto that sooner... In the middle of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING...and while I'm FAR more ready to appreciate it now than I was in high school, topology-travel tales take some patience on my part to get through... How are you doing? GaP How am I doing? Well, GaP, I'm bitchy, angry and tired. Tomorrow I go to the schoolhouse in MSP for recurrent. My heart is not in it. I'm suffering from recurrent headaches, my blood pressure is pegged at max for the first time ever ... and something has to change. How can we create a new reality? What are we doing wrong? Are we living in Hell and don't know it? I did my books and found that I'd spent $5,000 more in January than I brought in. That kind of cash flow drain is unsustainable. Okay, all that said, today I realized that I must quit concentrating on the negatives. In reinforcement of that idea, the Universe gave me a message. I opened the mail, expecting a bill, and found a $700 refund check from my insurance company. Then I checked my stocks and found I'd made several thousand dollars over the last 24 hours. So it's not all bad. We need to stick together and fight the dragons. We haven't done all this study and reading about myths, heroes and personal paths for nothing! I have a hard time with Tokien, too. So much so that I've never gotten past the first couple of chapters. There's a lot in there but so far it's not accessible to me. You have my admiration! Well, brother, we've got to learn to "hold our mouths right," stick to an idea of a better version of reality and, one day, we'll be sitting on the boat having a single malt and good long talk. We ain't gonna fix it all, not even the smalles part of it, that's not what life on earth is about, but we can get our spirits and minds into a better place. I believe that. Now, how do we do it? Beating up on each other is not the way. Yep, the morale sucks! Big time! I've been saying to the flight attendants in the briefing, "We're going to take care of each other, close the door on the Dumpster Doug Show and the funky corporation and keep our passengers safe. Please know I do take your concerns seriously." Since I've started saying these simple things, I've noticed I've gotten a more "thank you's," some real smiles, and more en route calls from the back, "Do you need water? We don't have any food but I just wanted to check on you. Do you need anything else?" than before. Just knowing that I genuinely (I do not say these things to blow smoke up anybody's ass) care for their interests and concerns seems to have a positive, though temporary, effect on morale (It is just too bad the skipper continues to grind his teeth and crunches on pills to fend off the migraines!). Keep the faith! Russ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers--thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams." ---Peter S. Beagle, praising the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.