The notion of meaning as a guiding principle for happiness explains some interesting facts about what actually compensates workers in their jobs. . . . For example, people who think their work allows them to be productive are about five times more likely to be very satisfied with their jobs than people who do not feel they can be productive. And those who are proud to work for their employers are more than ten times as likely to be very satisfied with their jobs as those who are not proud. In contrast, money matters relatively little, and the amount of leisure time a job allows has no significant effect on satisfaction at all.
We Get Letters
This is the best email I’ve had all week. Let me preface it by saying that I don’t know the sender, so I changed her name to protect the “innocent.”
From: anne sexton [mailto:annie-s@hotmail.com]
Subject: Teacher?Only in Southern California could someone so woefully ignorant be a teacher.
Your childish clinging to some 1950’s idea of masculinity in order to bolster your own ego is pathetic, and the sad thing is, you’re teaching your son to be equally disrespectful. Wow. Nice parenting. In short, I’m sorry you have a small dick. It doesn’t give you the right to disrespect women.
Oh, And GO BEARS, mother fucker.
Love,
Anne Sexton
PhD candidate in English, UC Berkeley (ranked #1 in the world for their English program. Where’s USC ranked?)
Sweet! Here’s my reply:
Hi Anne –
You sound very angry about something but I’m not sure what.
I don’t know where the USC English program is ranked but I know where the football team is ranked! #1, BABY! FIGHT ON, TROJANS! See you Nov. 10 for another beating!
Also, I’m pretty sure “motherfucker” is one word, not two, Miss “#1 in the world” English program.
Love,
Paul
P.S. Send a picture!
Follow Your Heart
Man died doing what he loved most
He loved being hit by trucks?
Tricks of the Trade
The Chevron Extra Mile store near us has a Meal Deal where you get a 32-ounce fountain drink and a Johnsonville Brat for $1.99.
My son’s looking it over . . . he’d rather have a Smoky Cheddar Dog but that’s not the deal. So he plops a Smoky Cheddar Dog into a bun, completely smothers it in mustard and chili so you can’t tell what’s in there, takes it up to the register with his 32-ounce soda and says, “This is a Meal Deal, right?”
“Yace,” says the Indian clerk.
As we’re walking out of the store, he says to me, “Tricks of the trade.”
Advertisement for Myself
I was laid off recently by a mortgage bank here in Southern California. Times are tough in the mortgage business, as you may have heard.
First, some tips on how not to do a layoff:
- Call the layoff a “rightsizing,” which suggests that there was something “wrong” with the people who were let go. (Actually, the company I worked for has already announced another “rightsizing” in which 1,000 more people will be laid off over the next few months. They just can’t get these “rightsizings” right.)
- Overnight a layoff information packet, including a 20-page severance agreement, to the home of laid-off employees, asking them to sign and return it via the enclosed UPS envelope.
- Don’t enclose the UPS envelope.
- The next day, overnight a second packet to employees’ homes, containing the UPS envelope and a letter correcting phone numbers, email addresses and other misinformation in the previous day’s packet.
- Include an obvious misspelling or two in the letter — ideally, something that would slip past a spell checker but be caught easily by anyone who bothered to proofread it. Suggestion: “If you have nay questions . . .”
Unemployed people like to see the kind of flamboyant incompetence that still draws a paycheck.
Want to hire me?
Here’s what I’m good at:
- Software development
- Project management
- Writing
- Training, coaching and mentoring
Life Lessons
My friend PE was laid off recently. He’s leasing out his house and renting a smaller place in an effort to keep his finances under control.
This should be a good lesson for that boy of his: Work hard all your life, try to do the right things, and you too can wind up with no house, no job and a wife who hates you . . .
Killer Popcorn
Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit
If you actually read the story, you see that the man’s doctor says that there “is not a definitive causal link” between popcorn and the man’s health problems.
You’ve gotta love the total overreaction to one case where popcorn may have caused a lung problem.
The Bush administration had better crack down on this pronto!!!
Frankly, I’d rather get a lung disease and die than live in a country where the government tells me I can’t eat popcorn! You can take my popcorn when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands!
I’m going to go pop up a batch right now in protest!
Have a nice day . . .
A Waste of a Morning
The California Employment Development Department — aka the unemployment office — scheduled a meeting for me this morning at the Orange County One-Stop job center.
I thought it was going to be a one-on-one meeting to discuss appropriate employment opportunities for someone with my outstanding qualifications as a technologist.
Instead, I found myself placed in a room full of misfits and losers, none in professional attire, and many of them dressed for a day at the beach — shorts, sandals, Hooters T-shirts — while we listened to a presentation on how to make $50,000 a year selling cars.
(“Sounds pretty good,” my son says, and for someone with a junior high school education like him, it probably is.)
In the course of the meeting, three people asked to borrow my pen because they didn’t think to bring one.
Of course, I was wearing a shirt and tie, so I could very easily carry a pen in my shirt pocket. If I’d been wearing a Hooters T-shirt, I wouldn’t have been able to do that . . .
Definition of Marriage
I’ve come to think of marriage less as a way to spend your life with someone you love, and more as a way to have someone to blame for your life turning out the way it did . . .
Beating the Heat
We’re moving to a new residence next week. The man moving his family into our current home has already transferred the utilities to his name, even though he’s not moving in until Sept. 4.
This means I’ll be running the air conditioner the entire Labor Day weekend and he’ll be picking up the tab.
Thank you, sir!
The Hard Way
Death of Esperanza coach brings team togetherIf the Shoe Fits
I hobbled into a job interview today like a man whose shoes were too small for his feet.
No, wait, let me back up a little bit . . .
I can never find anything around the house because people keep moving my stuff. Why everyone can’t keep their hands to themselves, I don’t know, but I don’t even try to keep track of things anymore. I just look for something in the last place I put it, and when it’s not there, I ask someone.
“Don’t ask me. I didn’t touch it.”
So I look some more and it always turns out that my camera is in my son’s room, or my keys are in my wife’s purse, or the important document is in the trash, and everyone still maintains that they have no idea how it got there.
Living with people is a mixed blessing, I’ll tell you.
So I was leaving the house for a job interview, nobody else was home, and I couldn’t find my black oxfords.
I was able to find my son’s black oxfords, but his feet are a little bit smaller than mine . . .
Marital Inequity
I’ve decided to start the day by addressing an inequitable situation . . .
“Honey,” I say to my wife, “I’ve noticed that because you go to bed earlier than I do, you get to unmake the bed every night. Then because you get up before I do, I have to make the bed every morning, which is harder. It’s not fair.”
“I also do everything else in the house, like cooking and cleaning,” she says, “so don’t bother me with that.”
OK, she’s got me there . . .
Chicken Dinner
I picked up 8 pieces of fried chicken — 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 breasts and 2 wings — at the Albertson’s deli today, which seemed like a pretty good deal for the family until my son decided to eat all 8 pieces himself.
Wait, I take that back . . .
“I’m going to eat this one,” I said, holding up one of the wings.
“The whole piece?!” he shouted.
“Are you kidding? You’ve got 8 pieces here.”
“Not anymore!” he shouted.
Another Thing I Hate About Sports
Pitch counts and closers.
Johan Santana had a 2-hit shutout going through 8 innings yesterday — with 17 strikeouts. The record for most strikeouts in a 9-inning game is 20.
Santana threw 112 pitches, so instead of coming back out in the 9th inning with a chance to tie the record, he was replaced by closer Joe Nathan.
Was he tired? Well, he struck out six of the last seven batters he faced, so it sounds like he was just warming up.
Naked People on a Glacier
In this image supplied by Greenpeace, U.S. artist Spencer Tunick and Greenpeace Switzerland present hundreds of naked people to symbolize the vulnerability of glaciers under climate change.Is that what it’s supposed to symbolize?
What did it symbolize when he photographed hundreds of naked people in Venezuela, France, Britain, etc., etc., etc.
Isn’t anyone else bored out of their minds with this idiot yet? He’s like that miscreant who dresses up Weimaraners, and everyone else who has one limited idea and keeps repeating it over and over and over.
I don’t claim to be a great artist, but let me tell you how this glacier shoot should have been done:
You put the hundreds of people on the glacier, at which time they discover to their dismay that they’re stuck there like a tongue on a lamppost. You leave them there to slowly starve to death and decompose.
It reeks of symbolism . . .
Conversations with a 14-Year-Old
I’m trying to say something to my kid in the back seat of the car . . . he’s got his iPod on but I’m pretty sure he can still hear me.
Finally he says, “Are you trying to annoy me into a conversation?”
Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Just the Translator
My son’s working on the computer when Lightning the pug jumps in his lap and lays down on his arm.
“How am I supposed to type with a dog laying on my arm?” the boy asks either me or the dog, I’m not sure which.
Lightning looks at me and pants a few times.
“He says you need to start thinking outside the bun,” I tell the boy.
“Ummmm . . .”
“Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but that’s what he said.”
Pug Photos from Flickr
Originally uploaded by Rocktopotomus.
This next one is part of a set:
Originally uploaded by * katie.
My Dog Explains His Name
Sometimes when my owner takes me to the dog park, people ask him what my name is. When he says “Lightning,” they laugh, like it’s a joke, a bit of irony, like naming a Great Dane “Tiny.”
Look, people, I’m almost 4 years old now, but when I was a puppy, I was really fast — for a pug. That’s why my owners named me Lightning.
I’m still fast when I go full speed. I just don’t do it that much anymore.
— Lightning
