What is it?

The past is history, the present is fleeting and the future is unknown.... so why is it that we find ourselves held by the grip of things we can no longer change, our pasts hold a powerful sway over all of the actions that we take. We uphold past wrongs and judgements up as a way to understand the world and the people in it.

The mind is a tricky thing, in some instances (ie. companies, organizations, governments, etc) we remember the small injustices, the hurt of many years ago as if it was a fresh wound. Holding onto it as if to say, “see this is what you are capable of”. Other times (ie. people, family, friends, etc) we forget all that went before, all of the hurt, heart ache, and pain just for another opportunity to spend time with those we love/care about. Why is it that we focus so intently on or the other? Why are we so quick to judge the larger bodies, but when it comes down to the individual we are so quick to forget?

I was reminded of this, the other day, after speaking with a friend, lets call her A. A has recently been thrust back together with a person who did not treat her particularly well when they were together. The reason for A’s sudden need to talk to this person again is the fact that she has found out that she is pregnant, and needed to inform him of this development. Now that she has finally told him, and he is back in her life, she has been reminded of feelings that are still there for this man. All that happened this past summer, the way he treated her and dumped her to go back to his ex appears to have been forgotten.

In the realm of organizations, the grudges and anger can last for decades. Working at Rogers, I have been keenly aware of how long people can hold onto anger for. Just to illustrate this, I once received a letter from a customer requesting a refund for money that we had been holding as a credit on his account. As I read the customers letter I could understand his feelings of anger at there being no response to his request and wanted to get it looked after... that is until I looked at the copy of his original invoice that he had sent with the letter. The invoice was dated in 1992, we had been through 3 different company names and two billing systems from that time. Try as I might there was no way to find this customers account or credit.

I know that I have been responsible for both of those situations, there are some companies that I will just not deal with and some people who I will always make the effort to keep in touch with no matter how much they have hurt me.

What part of being human is it that makes us this way?

Note: This was originally written sometime last month and has been waiting as a back up for when I had not posted in a while, and almost a month qualifies as a while. :-)

Have you ever looked at a blank page and wondered "What possibilites lie within"? Or a book?

Michaelangelo once said that he pulled the marble away from the TRUE image within the stone. He didn't create the work, the image was always there trapped inside and waiting to be let out. I sometimes wonder the same thing about writing. What is that something that lies withing the pages, what story is yet untold, or masterpiece of art waiting to be released...

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the blank page and what story it might tell me... perhaps that is why it has always taken me forever to put pen to paper, to blemish that unmarked surface with unworthy thoughts. There is something so transcendent about taking that first step and realizing you never know what you might write till you take that plunge.

Perhaps a glorious work or art, or just another letter to Grandma...

Prevent-it Follow-up

Tonight while watching Bones, just before the end the first Prevent-it commercial that I have ever seen rolled across my television. I was completely horrified, I had thought the radio adds were bad. Boy was I wrong. The commercial was repulsive, I was so shocked that I almost changed the channel to avoid watching it happen. it was done using the same process as the radio commercial, down to the letter, only this time with a complete view of the ravaged body of the person who had been hurt.

I just don't know how they think that this is going to make people more aware of their surrounding at work.

Prevent-it Commercial

Anger Management

Anger is something that we all have to deal with on a daily basis, from our morning coffee burning our tongue, to the guy on the 401 who cut you off for the 2nd time...

So why does it become acceptable for some people to go the extra mile to get out of there car with a baseball bat and start beating someone up for a slight.

The whole concept of how far is too far when you are angry is all jumbled up in my brain right now as a friend of mine, lets call him H, was assaulted this afternoon right before our exam. His partner from our Drawing assignment walked into the examination room and put him in a headlock, he literally had to be pulled off of him by the other people in the room and the teacher. All of this because H held onto his partners USB drive and had forgotten to bring it to the class on Friday.

This guy literally walked into the class, put H into a headlock. Didn't he think he was going to be caught? That maybe it wasn't a good idea to walk into a classroom full of witnesses and a teacher and start beating on someone? All over a USB drive, I mean how does your mind go from. "My partner has it, he will get it back to me eventually." to, "He still F#$cking has it, after 3 days. I am going to murderize him!!!" Where does that connection get made in the brain?

It has floored all of us in the class, we are all talking about it and I know that it caught our teacher off guard. He had to kick this guy out of the classroom and talk to H to make sure that he didn't want anyone with him when he went to talk to him.

Non of us want to work with this guy ever again if this is the way he reacts to his partner and someone who helped him limp through the major project in our Drawing class. It is really just unbelievable.

Prevent-it Campaign

Over the past month my favorite radio station has been playing a series of commercials by the WSIB (Workplace Safety & Information Board). These commercials depict an accident, where someone is horribly injured and then they talk about how these type of accidents could be prevented. Usually by the injured person saying that it "is no accident" and that "it could have been prevented"

I applaud the WSIB for making workplace safety concerns available to the general public as it is something everyone should be concerned about, and not just people in high risk professions. I do wonder about the way they have chosen to make that message heard. Is this type of commercial really making people more aware or just causing them to shut off when they hear it?

In the first commercial i heard metal rending flesh, and i was sickened. In the second I was blessed to hear heavy machinery crushing bone, while the actor grunted in agony. . .

When did informing the average person at any cost become an acceptable way to get your message heard? Whatever happened to that imaginary line that was supposed to stop this kind of scare tactic?

Now don't get me wrong, I admit that there is a need for employees to be better aware of their rights on the job and what they can do if they feel that their rights and safety are being sacrificed. I just don't find that this kind of campaign is going to help make me work harder at finding out what my rights are.