Posts about home life.
Hello everyone:
I was faced with another scam recently and I wanted to pass it along to you. Based on the website for the Elizabeth River Tunnel company, I am not the only person who has been charged with running their toll gate without paying. Here is my reply to their bill for about $6.00. It’s not the bill; it’s the ethics involved.
Hello everyone:
Sometimes I hear about young people who chose to drop out of college or not go in the first place. In fact, maybe they have even decided that a high school diploma isn’t worth the effort. They say that they’ll be able to get a good job without a diploma.
While I would be one of the first to say that not everyone is meant to be in traditional college and that a trade school might be the best choice for some folks, I will not agree that a high school diploma is unneeded.
Please think about this for a while. What kind of house will you live in without an education? What kind of car will you drive? What type of vacation will you be able to afford? What clothes will you be able to purchase?
Friends, if you are working at a fast food joint making even $10 an hour, you won’t have the home of your dreams- you’ll most likely never be able to leave home. Your car will be two tone- rust and whatever the original color was. Your vacations will be limited to going to see the in-laws, if they pay for it and if you are able to get married. You’ll buy your clothes at Goodwill instead of Nordstrom. Is that really the future you want?
So, you might say “Bill Gates didn’t graduate from college.” You would be right. Are you the next Bill Gates? Probably not.
I know someone right now who has the opportunity to get a free college education. This individual is thinking about dropping out of high school. Seriously?
The U.S. Census Bureau statistics say that someone with a college education will make a total of a million dollars more than someone who doesn’t have anything but a high school diploma, when you look at the average working lifespan of 40 years. That’s 40 years with a college degree that brings in a million dollars more. I’m not gifted in math, but the numbers look pretty good to me! Please give your future some serious thought!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
You know the type: this person seems really nice but then he or she starts talking. Within minutes the individual has shared every bad thing that has ever happened to him or her for the past _____ years.
Please don’t do that to your professor. I am not a trained psychologist. I am not your therapist. I am not the Psycho warden. I am being paid to teach you a specific topic, not to listen to your woes.
Now, before you say that it sounds like I don’t care, please hold off judgment. In any given term, I have 150 students, all with needs. If you share your tales of woe, expecting me to give you counsel, then it takes away time that I could spend with them, working on whatever topic I am being paid to teach them.
I really do care. If you are in a bad situation, then I will refer you to the appropriate department at my school. Share enough so that I know who to send you to, but please don’t flood my in-box with your life history.
Please don’t find my home phone number and call me at odd hours. Please don’t think that, just because you have my cellphone number (which I am required to give you), that you can call me Sunday night at 10:30 or Monday morning at 1:20, to tell me your Internet is down. (Yes, it has happened. Yes, I was asleep both times.)
If we were in a face-to-face class, you would be able to talk to me before and after class and during office hours. Please respect those guidelines, whether you are a face-to-face or online student. I care about my students, but please don’t over-share. I am not your shrink.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Backpacks are a wonderful invention. The amazing thing about them is that, when someone has strapped his or hers on, it seems to magically disappear. You know how that goes. The person has a fully-loaded knapsack and seems completely oblivious to the havoc he or she is raising by -oops- turning around and smacking all passersby with that whac-a-mole backpack.
This seems to be particularly prevalent in small spaces, such as an airplane aisle. (Folks, this is a hazard of air travel, especially if you have been lucky enough to snag an aisle seat.) You know how it goes: the person in question is laden with the weight of the backpack, only to be asked a very important question by his or her companion, such as “where do you want to sit?”
The backpacker then turns sharply around, slapping you in the face with the backpack, only to respond something profound such as “I don’t know.” The party of the first part then turns back around, wiping the blood on your face with the offending backpack. The key here is that the person who just nailed you twice is completely and blissfully unaware of his or her transgression. Then the person does it again a few minutes later.
Charming. You might have just had thousands of dollars of dental work done, all for naught. The next person in line will do it to you as well, rendering all previous dental work or plastic surgery null and void. And so will the people behind them, after those two move on.
What are you to do? I have tried holding up my hand but all that did was transfer the bruising to my forearms. Ducking seems the most obvious remedy to this malady, but the person in the seat next to you might look askance at your attempts to avoid disaster. Standing up does work reasonably well, unless you have a sensitive gut.
My personal favorite is to strike before they strike you. Give that ol’ backpack a hearty smack and I guarantee that you will get its owner’s attention. It might not be the type of attention you want, but they will take notice.
How do you solve the problem of whac-a-mole backpacks? Please hurry. My next trip into backpack land will be here before we know it.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Perhaps you have spent most of your lifetime (so far) taking care of your family and home. For whatever reason, you are going back on the job market. You want to put your best foot forward on that all-important job interview, but how do you do it without getting the ‘deer in the headlights’ look?
Be prepared. Figure out what questions you think the interviewer might ask, based on the job you are applying for, and practice answering them. For example, the questions you might be asked if you are applying for a job as a baker are going to be different than if you are a medical professional.
But, and this is a big “but,” some of the questions can be anticipated. Here are some of the sample questions a friend of mine and I were discussing earlier today:
Tell me about yourself. [Can you do it in less than one minute? Practice telling someone about yourself until your delivery is smooth. Not too smoothly, as if you were reciting a memorized spiel, but have your words flow smoothly.]
How will our hiring you make our company better? [Watch out here- don’t tell them their business stinks or that it’s run by idiots. You may be talking to the individual who created it and he or she will not be amused if you tell them they’ve really messed up. Friend, they’ve managed without you for years (perhaps) so they won’t fold (probably) if you don’t come on board.]
Why do you want to work here? Make your comments from a sincere heart. Don’t be an Eddie Haskell. [For those of you too young to remember, he was an obnoxious character on Leave it to Beaver. You don’t want to be like him, trust me.]
Tell the truth. When reading a story about three accountants trying to get a job, the first two were asked “how much is two plus two?” They both answered “four.” The third candidate, who was successful in his job search, answered the boss “How much do you want it to be?” While he may have been hired, he compromised the person he was to get the job. Don’t do that.
I wish you well on your re-entry back into the world of business. Do you have any sample questions to share?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Have you ever gotten stuck, really stuck in a rain storm and not known how to use your car’s windshield wipers? Maybe you’ve borrowed a friend or family member’s car. Perhaps you have rented a car to take you to that first big job interview.
And then it begins to rain. Folks, that’s not the time to search for the location of the wipers. It’s also not the best time to figure out how to turn them on (every car is different, or so it seems).
I was on a trip to Florida, which is known for torrential rainstorms, when suddenly it began to pour. I was about an hour and a half from my condo when the storm struck and it was as if someone was standing by the side of the road, pouring water on my car.
It was dark, which didn’t help matters one iota. The streetlights were few and far between which made things worse. And then I couldn’t figure out which way to flick the wiper switch. (It was not intuitively obvious!)
Here’s my personal recommendation: figure this out before you get on the road, especially if rain is forecast. Have you ever had this challenge? It’s not fun, trust me. Next time, perhaps I’ll talk about trying to open the gas door on an unfamiliar car, and wanting to refill your tank before you run out. Another issue: the location of the gas gauge isn’t always where you expect- you could be looking at the engine temperature light instead. (And you thought you were just getting great gas mileage!)
Have a great day and feel free to share your tales of woe.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
So here you are at the end of the semester. You are getting ready to walk across the stage to get your diploma. Well done!
Oh, the rolled paper you receive on stage probably won’t be your diploma. When we graduated, my son and I got a poster of the school when we shook hands with the dean. Another time, I got a rolled up Word document that said they would send me my diploma when they were sure my fees had been paid in full.
Don’t sweat it- that’s how things work. Do keep on top of things and call or email the school if you don’t get your diploma in the time they say they’ll get it to you. One of my schools didn’t send my final paperwork through until I had called them three times. A job was hinging on my receiving a final transcript that showed the degree had been conferred, but one of the ladies in the office for my school “just hadn’t gotten around to sending the paperwork over to the registrar.” Then she tried to blame the registrar after the first two times I called. I finally called the registrar and she got it straightened out.
I do have a question for you: Who are you now? For many, many years (probably since you were 4 or 5 years old), you have been a student. Now you aren’t. One of the hardest things I found was to redefine who I was. Since it took me a few months to get a job, that resulted in a lot of soul searching.
This might be difficult for you, and you may go through some depression until you get that first job, since you are no longer in the “student” category, but watch out for the tendency to stay in school after school so that you never have to redefine who you are. It’s an exciting time of life, so get your Big Boy or Big Girl pants on and go for it!
Congratulations on a job well done!
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
I don’t usually talk about movies in this space, but I wanted to share a recent blog posting of mine about the Ted Kennedy movie. I would love to hear what you think:
Hello everyone:
Have you ever known a guy or gal who was such an encouragement to your heart that you just wanted to give him or her a great big hug?
I have been blessed to have people like that in my life. I call them “Barnabas” and “Barnabarbie” in honor of Barnabas in the Bible. The name “Barnabas” means “son of encouragement.” Some encourages are not male, hence the “Barnabarbie.”
These folks always lift you up. Sometimes they tell you things you need to hear, even when you don’t want to hear them, but they do it nicely. They don’t put you down. They always have time for you. They support your biggest dreams, even when the odds are against your dreams ever panning out. They always tell you that you can do it, that you can achieve whatever you are aiming for. They pray for you. They are always on your side.
Thank you to all of the Barnabarbies in my life. I love and appreciate you more than words can say.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
For the past two and a half years, I have been writing a variety of posts. The most popular one by far has been my Death by Porta Potty blog posting. I hope you will take a few minutes to pull it up. It is a true story, to a certain extent.
Best,
Dr. Sheri