BettyBeth says....

Tips For A Successful Company by the peon in cube 2356

bettybeth — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:10:39 +0000

Do not engage in flash layoffs. These are the kind of layoffs where your peons look out the window and see a horde of people walking out of the building with white envelopes. Then they see their good friend waving goodbye to them from their refinanced car. These kinds of layoffs cause fear and dissention within the ranks. Everyone will be wondering if their co-worker has been laid off, when in fact they just needed extra time in the bathroom.
Learn how to stick with a decision. Make one decision stick with it and be prepared to defend your decision. Don’t make a decision, change your mind and then change it back again. This causes your peons to lose faith and trust in you. Remember you earn respect, just because you are at a higher level than your peons doesn’t meant they will automatically respect you.
Do not hire a consultant to help you rearrange your departments if you don’t intend to rearrange your departments. This gives your peons false hope.
Make sure you know everything about a company before you decide to get into bed with them. If you don’t your peons will quickly learn why they have a lower satisfactory rating than your own company.
Do not hire a life coach/consultant/super awesome person to instruct the remaining few peons on how to row a boat, not to be concerned when someone moved their cheese, or how to awaken the giant within. These people cost money and cause your peons to question your sanity.
If it is a duck, call it a duck. Don’t pass off another company as a sister company when in fact you plan to merge with that company within the year. Your peons are a lot smarter than that. If you are going to merge with another company and affect hundreds of lives because of it, then tell your peons up front…they might respect you for it.
Put on your common sense hat. Running a company is not rocket science, unless it is a company about rocket science. When your common sense hat is not put on your peons have to pick up the pieces of your mistakes.
Don’t forget peons have feelings too.

Who’s your daddy…

bettybeth — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:59:08 +0000

An incident happened in my extended family. A younger unmarried cousin got pregnant. She was only 27 weeks along before giving birth last week. The baby, a girl, only weighed 2.7lbs at birth. Thankfully the baby is hanging in there and gaining weight, but because she was so pre-mature it is still possible she might not make it. However, I know that neonatal care has come along ways, so I have hope. My cousin has a long road ahead of her.

This incident has caused me to examine my views on pregnancy and parenthood outside of marriage. Unfortunately I am not close with my extended family so I had to do some Facebook research to get more details. What I found out made me sad and a little mad. Not too many friends seemed to know that she was pregnant. When my own parents found out about the pregnancy, they said they would keep it a secret. Why? How?

We no longer live in a culture where unwed and pregnant women are whisked off to convents or special homes in the middle of the night to stay until they give birth. Yet people still stigmatize pregnant unwed mothers. There is even an emphasis placed on the unwed mother marrying the baby-daddy. Again I ask why?

I am told that my cousin’s baby-daddy is one of her better boyfriends. When I asked if he was down with the baby and my cousin I was given a blank look and some speech about how he’s not ready to be married. That’s not currently the issue. The concern is whether or not the baby-daddy is helping take care of my cousin and her baby, not if he is ready for marriage. If he is not manning up to his responsibilities then my cousin shouldn’t be interested in marrying him anyways.

Just because a guy can make a baby doesn’t make him a father. I know of several examples of where men have stepped up and took on an unwed mother’s children as their own. A former co-worker married a gal with three kids of various ages. Wil Wheaton married a women with two children from another relationship. Joseph became the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25). And a good example of a guy who married a girl just because she was preggers and the thing went up in smoke…my brother.

Right now my cousin and her baby need love and support, not stigmatization and a not so awesome baby-daddy who might not be worth marrying anyways.

P.S. The baby’s name is Mallory. How cute is that!

2012 Bucket List a.k.a. My New Years Resolutions

bettybeth — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:10:50 +0000

For the past couple years or more I have been firm in my resolve to not make resolutions as one year turns into the next. However, the last month I have had a lot of things on my mind. Therefore I came up with this list of resolutions, which I prefer to call my 2012 Bucket List. It is an addendum to the previous bucket list which I wrote in 2011.

1) Floss more. Time to start taking care of those teeth before they fall out of my head.
2) Get my tragus pierced.
3) Moisturize. I am currently obsessed with Dermatologica products. They do wonders for my face.
4) Eat less chocolate and sweets. (I am going to put this one out here…this probably really won’t happen). At least I am being honest.
5) Become a runner or rollerblade. I need to start taking care of my body better. It’s the only one I got.
6) Move away from Bellingham. I do love it here, but after 11 years it is time for a change.
7) Figure out this thing called Love. ‘Cause I have no clue. Infatuation and Lust do not equal love.
8) Rearrange my apartment. Or if I move to a new place decorate it awesomely.
9) Publish an ebook. It would help if I wasn’t currently suffering writer’s block.
10) Reveal my feelings to my gaming buddy. This one probably won’t happen either. There would be no going back. But go big or go home, right?
11) Find a new job.
12) Choose joy. I am tired of feeling depressed all the time.
13) Travel
14) Blog, write, take lots of pictures. I am pretty sure I say this every year.
15) This space reserved for any other cool thing I can think of to do in 2012.

I know 2012 will be a good year. For me. For everyone. It sounds like we are off to a good start because the moon is in a balanced state for the New Year. Ok, don’t really know what that means, just something I saw on a friend’s FB page.

Happy New Year to everyone who stops by and reads this blog. May the coming year be filled with joy and…er…um… Chocolate.

Bucket List Update – Grad School

bettybeth — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:27:24 +0000

I have been accepted to Grad School! Yay! I was accepted into the Writing for Young People Master of Fine Arts program at Antioch University. It was a great phone call to receive, especially after a hard day at work.

I felt justified in my writing skills and proud that my dreams were going to come true. All of my friends and brother were excited and supportive of me. My parents not so much. Within a few days I had confirmed with the head of the program that I would attend even if I had to sell my car. I received a packet of more information and signed my intent to register form and gave the school $200.00.

Shortly after I gave them my money, one of the Executive Leadership Team came and spoke to us at work and was like hey guys you are going to be let go, or you can move to Tennessee. Then I received my Financial Aid Award letter. And well…I was going to have to raise $10,000.00 through private loans on top of the $10,000.00 in Federal loans I had been given. So after two years of the program I would be in debt around $40,000.00. Yes I am aware that there are many people out there that have accumulated that much debt or more for schooling. For me personally it would not sit well with me that I would owe that much money in the government and a private company.

Therefore after much thought and agonizing I decided that I will not be attending Grad School at this time. Grad School and writing is my dream. I know now that my dream is attainable. I’ll just be better prepared for it next time it comes around.

Happy 1st Birthday!

bettybeth — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:25:10 +0000

“…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

By the time you read this I’ll be in California

bettybeth — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:56:03 +0000

In an attempt to chip away at my “bucket list” (See this post) or things I want to do before I reach 40 I will be spending the weekend in San Francisco. I’ve never been to Northern California and am excited about this opportunity that presented itself about 4 months ago.

A friend from San Louis Obispo, who currently makes her home in the Pacific Northwest, was planning on driving down to her hometown. I have family inNewport Beach, so I decided to tag along. As the months passed the plans changed to a mini road trip to San Francisco for the weekend. My friend would continue on to San Louis Obispo and I would fly home fromSan Franciscoafter the weekend.

I am excited to spend some time in a bustling city that I have never seen and geek out at all the touristy stuff one can experience: Fisherman’s Warf, Trolley Cars, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown and San Francisco Sourdough Bread (not really sure if this is an actual thing tourists do in SF).

What excites me the most is getting the opportunity to take pictures of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.

Oh! I’ll also be looking for Nuclear Wessels in Alameda.*

*Points to those who get the reference. And maybe a taco.

Job Tools

bettybeth — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:10:37 +0000

Most of the jobs I have held in the past, except for two, have required me to take a survey about the company for which I was working. One of the questions in these surveys that I remember is: Do you have the tools to do your job?

I would usually answer yes because all I would need to do my job would be pens and a cash till. I wasn’t doing rocket science so there wasn’t much that was needed.

However if my current job were to ask me if I have the tools to do my job my answer would be a resounding “no”. I am writing this while our main system in which we do work is down. It’s been down for several hours at this point and we were told over an hour ago that it would be fixed within the hour. Ha! Apparently someone needs a watch.

This is not the first time this system has gone down this month. A few weeks ago, due to a system update (allegedly) only 200 people could be logged into the system and 244 people were trying to use the system. That was unacceptable. We are living in the 21^st Century we shouldn’t have technological issues like this or small oversights where only 200 people of a 500 person company can share one system.

However, we never run out of paper clips.

Ready for his/her close-up

bettybeth — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:36:33 +0000

Everyone comes out to enjoy the park on a sunny afternoon.

Fare Thee Well

bettybeth — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:55:30 +0000

This month is full of goodbyes. Four people in my department have put in their notices. They are all moving on to bigger and better things. Their absence will create a large gap in our workforce which will not be replaced any time soon. Things are already stressful but with only three peons stress will escalate.

They are not the only ones in my life that are leaving. Four friends are also leaving. One to Florida. One to North Carolina. One to Oregon. One to Southern Washington. They too are moving on to different things to help further their careers.

It is sad that they are leaving. They will be missed. But it is a happy time as well because they are all experiencing new things; moving out of their comfort zones. As nervous and scared as some of them are, they are also brave for embarking on a new adventure.

There was a time when I would have begrudged their leaving (I have abandonment issues). Now I can honestly say I am happy for them.
So to Casey, Tyler, Callie,Darren,Brittany, Ellen, Greg and Raymond:

May you always have walls for the winds,
a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
and all your heart might desire.*

*Irish Proverb

Mawage.

bettybeth — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:53:17 +0000

Mawage is wot bwings us togeva tooday….

Mawage, the bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam….