Kudos to UPS for devising a keenly intelligent business model. I ordered something from ACME Company on Sunday night and selected ground shipping, which was scheduled to arrive in something like 3-5 business days. When the item shipped the following day, ACME sent me a tracking number. Being the impatient consumer that I am, I tracked it, taking note that my package is sitting in their sort facility in Virginia or something. It’s scheduled to arrive here tomorrow and it’s still sitting there. Just sitting there. Waiting.
What the heck is it doing? Having lunch with it’s other packaged friends? Sitting on the beach catching some rays? Maybe it’s visiting relatives? I don’t know, but it’s just sitting there.
This makes me realize that UPS, for all intents and purposes, could conceivably have had this package at my doorstep on Tuesday. There’s no issue with sorting, there’s no issue with transportation and there’s certainly no issue with time. There’s only an issue with me being too cheap to spend the extra $12 to have them step up the process a bit. In fact, it probably doesn’t even cost them a penny more to ship it faster since the package will ride on the same flight it would have ridden on if I chose an overnight option; it just rides it on a different day.
And so once again, people like me who want instant gratification get sucked in by capitalism. Oink.

posted by paula 1:07 PM

Life is great enough when you get to gloat about being the technology geek of the household, but when you get a compliment from your co-worker – particularly one you thought was difficult to impress and easy to mistrust – life gets even better. Especially when that co-worker, who sits a level above you on the corporate food chain has recommended that you become her peer, rather than her grunt. And said co-worker has done so, despite the fact that another person (more interested in the position than you), has been a friend of said co-worker much longer than you have. AND said co-worker has discussed with her supervisor that you would be much more qualified for the job than the other interested party. Well color me a nice, brilliant shade of flattered.

On and entirely unrelated note: I never thought I’d say this, but I think my most valuable part of college education was that of my Sociology major; much more so than my Psychology major anyway. More than ever before I believe that my $80,000 education finally makes sense. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Those little career tests that you take in high school can’t be that far off. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they’re a paper (or in these days, computer) exam which most high schools offer their students at one time or another in their sophomore, junior or senior years. Plop unsuspecting, misguided teenager in front of the computer, ask them a bazillion* questions about what they find interesting and like to do and voila! The computer spits out a number of careers which would be suitable for the teenager. My #1 career choice, above all others was an anthropologist, to which I said: “What the f*!%& is an anthropologist?” My guidance counselor explained it as ‘those people who study dinosaurs by digging up their bones.’ I nixed the career immediately. It was only years later, after ‘haphazardly’ picking my undergrad majors that I realized the error.

Sociology isn’t that far off from Anthropology, although most college professors might kill me for saying so. In short, Sociology views the world as a bunch of groups and studies how people relate and identify themselves according to those groups. We say things like “I am a mother,” “I am an alcoholic,” “I am a Republican,” “I am a Catholic” and “I am an Oracle Database Administrator,” which all signify who we are and how we participate in society. This is what I like to call a “World View” in its most literal sense. When viewing things from this perspective, you start to see the ‘big picture’ and view the world in a bunch of concentric and overlapping circles, since one identifies him or herself with plenty of different groups.

More interestingly, we not only participate, but we depend on these groups to tell us who we are, who we want to be and to reaffirm who we’ve chosen to be. For example, your AA group tells you that you're a much better person when in recovery than off the wagon. Your church group tells you that by believing in god you’ll be saved and others might fall at the feet of demons. Your political party makes you believe that it’s not only the best political party, but that by believing it its values you’re obviously, the only ‘correct’ political choice. Obviously, this is all a very simplistic view of a whole science and I’m geeking out on a subject that most people don’t give a rat’s rear end about, but it’s cool to me. Sociology is just my little world view of how people relate to each other. Or according to my résumé, it’s my way of “seeing the big picture, while paying attention to details.”

*Did you know that this isn’t a word, but it doesn’t error out in Microsoft Word 2002’s spell check function? Apparently this term is now considered slang.

posted by paula 1:20 PM

BlogFodder: What's your favorite part of your daily routine?
The shower. Although it comes entirely too early some mornings, it is the birthplace of my day as well as the birthplace of all ideas innovative, creative or contemplative.
Our particular shower is a conservationist’s nightmare. It consists of standard, old, cheapest-thing-you-can-find shower head that dumps the equivalent of Lake Michigan over you approximately every 2.6 seconds. Obviously this raises issues with water temperature for those who like to stand under the apparatus at length. I’ve often considered temporarily replacing it while we’re in our apartment, but my attacks of conscience are much less frequent than my actual enjoyment of the super-bath and thankfully our water bill is covered by the management.
Considering that we are over 75% water ourselves, it’s only natural that showers are the healing, rejuvenating things that they are. The shower serves as my wake up call in the morning and a cleansing ground in the evening. In both times I wash away the dirt of the day and the dreams that clung to me through the night. It is my breeding ground for ideas that have slept dormant in my head for ages, which seem to come to the forefront of my mind for no apparent reason at all. It is where I contemplate problems and scrub or exfoliate them away and wash away whatever is plaguing me, be it sickness or tension or odor. And odor is the best part: there is no smell so comforting as that of someone who smells of soap.
I relish them when I can and despise it when they need to be short either out of a hurried schedule or courtesy for the others that need to go through the same process. It is my favorite part of the day and sometimes I hate the combing, brushing, curling, blowing or applying that precedes or follows it, but I never hate the shower.

posted by paula 1:10 PM