Monday, March 14, 2005
Calebcito
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made a loud, delighted squeaking noise.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made a loud, slightly less delighted angry noise.
Raise both your hands if either of those noises was prompted by the state of your diaper.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have drunk a cup of milk in under 15 seconds.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have rolled halfway across the living room floor.
Raise both your hands if you've done both, in that order, and then been so excited you threw up.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made speech sounds not associated with English or Spanish.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have drooled on someone you like.
Raise both your hands if you have used the occasion of speech sounds to project roughly three liters of saliva onto someone (or multiple someones) you like.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have attempted to run away to Malawi.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have tried bungee jumping.
Raise both your hands if you've done both despite being unable to walk or crawl.
The more hands you have in the air (borrow other people's if necessary), the more you are like the coolest person in the world. Congratulations.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made a loud, delighted squeaking noise.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made a loud, slightly less delighted angry noise.
Raise both your hands if either of those noises was prompted by the state of your diaper.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have drunk a cup of milk in under 15 seconds.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have rolled halfway across the living room floor.
Raise both your hands if you've done both, in that order, and then been so excited you threw up.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have made speech sounds not associated with English or Spanish.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have drooled on someone you like.
Raise both your hands if you have used the occasion of speech sounds to project roughly three liters of saliva onto someone (or multiple someones) you like.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have attempted to run away to Malawi.
Raise your hand if you, in the past 24 hours, have tried bungee jumping.
Raise both your hands if you've done both despite being unable to walk or crawl.
The more hands you have in the air (borrow other people's if necessary), the more you are like the coolest person in the world. Congratulations.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Hey, J?
I promise to do my best, and if at any time my resolution lapses, pen me a few fierce vitriolic words and you shall receive by the next post a lachrymose & abject apology in my most emotional hand writing.
--Rupert Brooke, letter to James Strachey, July 7, 1905
I promise to do my best, and if at any time my resolution lapses, pen me a few fierce vitriolic words and you shall receive by the next post a lachrymose & abject apology in my most emotional hand writing.
--Rupert Brooke, letter to James Strachey, July 7, 1905
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Practical Magic
A week ago, I discovered what love is.
Love is two people with colds sitting side-by-side on the floor passing a roll of toilet paper back and forth while staring exhaustedly, bemusedly at the screaming 4-month-old sitting in his car seat in front of them. A different flavor of love is that same congested couple, three minutes later, tossing the toilet paper into the car seat and passing the baby back and forth (albeit for a different purpose).
A week ago, I discovered what love is.
Love is two people with colds sitting side-by-side on the floor passing a roll of toilet paper back and forth while staring exhaustedly, bemusedly at the screaming 4-month-old sitting in his car seat in front of them. A different flavor of love is that same congested couple, three minutes later, tossing the toilet paper into the car seat and passing the baby back and forth (albeit for a different purpose).
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Guys! Guys! I know how to run a company into the ground!
But really, I can't take credit for it. I've learned by observing the masters at the aptly-named Low Morale Ambulance Company. Heed these words of wisdom:
--- Guard the parking passes with your life. Threaten the nice receptionist / data entry grandmotherly lady with DEATH if she hands out more than one parking pass to each employee, especially when said employee just got in a fairly major car crash and stupidly was too focused on continuing to breathe despite a collapsed lung to recover her old pass from her car before the ambulance came. See, because the real problem isn't the massive drop in morale and loyalty caused by controlling everything your employees do and making them feel that they can't be trusted to use resources properly. It's letting employees park in your parking lot. And the wasteful expenditure of approximately 35 cents per parking pass handed out? Take care of it by taking five bucks out of the employee's pay.
--- When you have an employee who is paid eight dollars per hour for her work as an EMT-B, pay her eight dollars per hour for her work as a dispatcher, even if other dispatchers who have no certification whatsoever are paid eleven dollars an hour and she's doing the exact same work as they are. The massive $24-dollar-per-day savings caused by paying her by job title rather than work description will more than offset the disgruntledness you will observe in that employee and everyone else in the comm center or in the field who knows what you're doing.
--- Tell dispatchers that if they don't keep the ratio of (calls per hour) : (trucks sent on runs per hour) above 0.75, they will be disciplined. That way, they'll send trucks on runs before they're done with the last run, and they'll send them on runs they can't possibly complete before the time the employees on the truck are supposed to get off work. This way, you can get more work out of employees without paying them appreciably more, and in addition you can create hostility between dispatch and field employees, thereby preventing them from allying to overthrow your pinched and stingy self.
--- Time clocks, time clocks, time clocks, and make 'em clock out for lunch. See, because it's much better to make people carry around a card and know you're monitoring them than it is to let them believe that you trust them to come in to work on time. Time clocks are the greatest invention ever, next to unpaid lunch. They raise morale by letting employees know that you think they're lazy, uncommitted, two-faced bastards who will probably be late to their own funerals.
There you have it, folks. If you ever want to destroy a thriving private ambulance company, you will know how. And if you know of any hospitals hiring EMTs, let me know.
But really, I can't take credit for it. I've learned by observing the masters at the aptly-named Low Morale Ambulance Company. Heed these words of wisdom:
--- Guard the parking passes with your life. Threaten the nice receptionist / data entry grandmotherly lady with DEATH if she hands out more than one parking pass to each employee, especially when said employee just got in a fairly major car crash and stupidly was too focused on continuing to breathe despite a collapsed lung to recover her old pass from her car before the ambulance came. See, because the real problem isn't the massive drop in morale and loyalty caused by controlling everything your employees do and making them feel that they can't be trusted to use resources properly. It's letting employees park in your parking lot. And the wasteful expenditure of approximately 35 cents per parking pass handed out? Take care of it by taking five bucks out of the employee's pay.
--- When you have an employee who is paid eight dollars per hour for her work as an EMT-B, pay her eight dollars per hour for her work as a dispatcher, even if other dispatchers who have no certification whatsoever are paid eleven dollars an hour and she's doing the exact same work as they are. The massive $24-dollar-per-day savings caused by paying her by job title rather than work description will more than offset the disgruntledness you will observe in that employee and everyone else in the comm center or in the field who knows what you're doing.
--- Tell dispatchers that if they don't keep the ratio of (calls per hour) : (trucks sent on runs per hour) above 0.75, they will be disciplined. That way, they'll send trucks on runs before they're done with the last run, and they'll send them on runs they can't possibly complete before the time the employees on the truck are supposed to get off work. This way, you can get more work out of employees without paying them appreciably more, and in addition you can create hostility between dispatch and field employees, thereby preventing them from allying to overthrow your pinched and stingy self.
--- Time clocks, time clocks, time clocks, and make 'em clock out for lunch. See, because it's much better to make people carry around a card and know you're monitoring them than it is to let them believe that you trust them to come in to work on time. Time clocks are the greatest invention ever, next to unpaid lunch. They raise morale by letting employees know that you think they're lazy, uncommitted, two-faced bastards who will probably be late to their own funerals.
There you have it, folks. If you ever want to destroy a thriving private ambulance company, you will know how. And if you know of any hospitals hiring EMTs, let me know.
