Just life – Page 9 – Schpilkes The Blog

When the Temperature “feels like”

The temperatures dipped this week in California and we are cold, real cold and not the fake California cold. We keep getting blizzard warnings, snow at the Hollywood sign and rain, lots of rain. When we actually get weather we check out the weather channel to see how many layers of clothing we need since a sweater and jacket will clearly not be enough and we will need to wear a warm coat, that’s if we even own one. But the temperature report does not only consist of what the thermometer says, they also include information about what the temperature feels like, feels like to whom?

That’s what made me wonder- when they say it’s 46 and feels like 42 degrees, Who is the person that works for the forecasters and tells everyone what the temperature feels like. What if that person’s internal thermostat is broken and they run cold or hot. Today it said 42 degrees but feels like 41, now really will I be more cold with that extra less degree?

If there was a 10 degree difference , I might feel it again depending on the circumstances. Let’s say it says 70 degrees but feels like 80, I would. But if it is 10 degrees formally but they say it feels like 9 or 11, I believe I will be freezing cold regardless.

So my mission now is to find that person that reports the “feels like” aspect of the weather report, find them and see if that person’s internal thermostat is accurate and then go find the people who report the temperatures and ask them if really anybody cares about this and does it really natter.

My dislike of 10 best lists

The internet is full of lists – 10 things you should not buy at costco, 10 things you should, 10 things you should or shouldn’t buy at trader joes, target or whatever store you go to.

As much as I love lists like any other person (I hate lists!) These people who write the lists either have too much time on their hands to go from store to store or they must enjoy the constant travel from store to store and forget to add the shopping time or the gas as a cost.

My time is limited and even if I love a great deal and really I do,I have to also account for my travel time and the time it takes me to go from one place to another to find the bestest deal. Driving time comes at a cost. Many of us discovered that when we moved to work from home when tha pandemic closed everything that without driving we had time to play with our kids, cook and even give the dog an extra walk. So even if I am on the hunt for my next great deal I have to calculate my driving time. What will I miss if I spend more time in the car plus in some cases the cost of gas adds up.

Not to mention that we all value our products differently, what I see as a great bargain or the best product ever, does not mean anything to someone else with different preferences. There is a reason I buy a specific brand of toilet paper despite an article telling me that a different brand is better, better for whom I ask?

So read these lists, take what you want from them, But don’t let them rule your universe as at the end of the day you have your own list.

Resenteeism or hating your job

Read an article this weekend about work resenteeism as in resenting our work, I started laughing, apparently I love humor columns. They coined this as a new term and a new danger to the work environment. However, some of us have resented or hated our jobs for many years without having a great term to define it, we just called it hating our jobs. That’s why you see so many people going drinking after work in TV shows or in the movies, at least in my opinion. I on the other hand do not drink at all, maybe I like my job, maybe not.

According to the latest articles there are several reasons for resenteeism, being underpaid, overworked, feeling like you missed the boat on getting a different job with all the layoffs going around, not feeling appreciated and undervalued by your company. These are all valid reasons that have been around forever and will most likely be around forever. However for most of us, we don’t always need to find a reason why we hate our jobs and yet stay at the job we hate. Most of us stay in our jobs because we are responsible, we have family obligations, we need to put food on the table, we have kids in college, a mortgage and the need for health insurance. Maybe we should all start drinking.

The weird things I like to read in my local newspaper

My local newspaper publishes a list of restaurants that have had health violations the previous week, each week I think to myself do I check the list or do I not. Do I really want to know? And yet every week I go to that list and read it, hoping and praying that I did not go to any of these places. It’s like a traffic accident that you see is about to happen and you can’t turn your head to avoid looking.

There really is no point in reading that a restaurant I went to last week or two weeks ago had a cockroach infestation or no sufficient hot water and yet I still read it. Maybe its a form of self torture, who knows.

There usually have some normal and reasonable closures, but when it said the closed CVS and only allowed prepacked foods at this particular CVS I started to wonder what exactly they sell, we have several CVS’s close by and none of them sell fresh food or ice cream. So I went to the official county website to see if there is any further information but alas there is none.

What should we do with the information about health department closures,do I go to a place that was cited and closed with the belief that it is cleaner now, with immodium in my purse just in case or do I avoid going to a place I like as they frequently have issues. This is going to be a tough decision!

When fries are on the no go list

I love eating and I love eating crap! The problem is my body, with complete agreement from my doctors, all disagree with my love of crap. This sucks big time! So for the last 2 weeks I have been eating relatively healthy, not that I don’t like healthy foods, fruit and vegetables, I actually do like them and some I even love. What I don’t love is not having the freedom to eat what I feel like. As a celiac, I should be used to this feeling. But adding more restrictions to my already restricted diet is not fun. Goodbye french fries and potato chips hello cottage cheese and tomatoes. Someone should write a country song about this, really. I can even hear the song in my brain and it’s a very sad breakup song. But truthfully. While I will be limiting some of my favorite fried food groups,I will not be giving them up completely, I will just be more conscious of what I am eating and some foods will be modified. Fries are really too good to give up completely.

Unfortunately for my walking partner, the vet told Sagey girl that she is a little chonky as well and needs to lose a few. So both of us will be adding more veggies to our diets and walking a couple more steps. Thankfully the weather where we live is good almost year round so someone is happy about the extra steps.I already exercise and walk 10000 steps a day thanks to my 70lb dog, who makes sure to provide me with my resistance training as well.

Enjoying the sunset

We are busy planning our trips for the next couple of years, trying to decide on where we would like to go and what we would like to see. This is great because we both really like to travel and did not have any destinations planned for 2023 and beyond. Planning big trips is a lot of fun but we should not forget day trips and hikes and local amazing places that most of us have close to home. Sometimes our own backyard can be amazing as well. Today we decided to go down for a walk and went down to our local beach. The weather was perfect, low 70’s (20C) and just beautiful. I haven’t gone to the beach in the last 3 months, no special reason, just did not get a chance, which is a real shame.

The weather was amazing and we were blessed with a great sunset. And we really enjoyed our walk as did Sagey girl,our Airedale, she behaved well and did not bark or terrorize the other dogs either. So what have I learned from this?

I learned that I have to remind myself to enjoy the simple things. Grand plans are great, but sometimes local things are great as well. I also had to remind myself to pause a little and take a break, walk the dog on different paths and just enjoy being away from work even if it’s for an hour.

Valuing your time as a patient

I had an 8 am doctor’s appointment the other week, the office called to confirm and requested that I arrive at 7:45. I have been a patient of this doctor for more than 20 years, in those 20 years my appointment has never been on time, I love this doctor and he usually runs late as he takes time with each patient and really listens so I don’t mind usually but as I am aware that he runs late I try to be his first appointment of the day, hence my 8am appointment. But even me being his first appointment I know he will be late as usual, this time he saw me at 8.25am.

I did not arrive at 7:45 as I am very aware he takes his time, I arrived at 7:58am and with me all the medical staff arrived as well. I was even there before the nurse arrived and felt like I should turn on all the lights in the office as well. I was not called in until 8:10am.

So why do these schedulers not value our time? If I had actually been there early, that would have meant almost 40 minutes of just waiting there. Shouldn’t there be an appreciation for the patient’s valuable time as well as the doctor’s time?
Sadly, this doctor’s appointment was actually one of the most efficient ones. I had another appointment with a different doctor lately that had me waiting for 30 minutes in the waiting room and another 45 in the exam room, when I asked his medical assistant if he was running late today, she looked at me in wonder and goes no, he is on time, to which my reply was really, I have been waiting for an hour and half already. I have canceled all future appointments with this practioner as this was the second time in a row that I was left waiting for hours and will be shopping around for another doctor. It seems like some medical practitioners overbook and value their own time but not their patient’s time. Yes, if the doctor has had some emergency this is expected, but most cases this is not the reason for leaving us in a waiting room in a paper robe cold.

So who’s time is more valuable? CVS just announced that their pharmacies will have less hours and will close earlier in the day. Those who need to pick up their prescriptions will have to go get them in the middle of the day or during lunches or wait for the weekend and delay taking them,again the focus is not on the patient. When did the medical field change from being patient focused to being corporate focused.

Every one’s time is valuable, us waiting in a doctors office to be seen for hours or running to the pharmacy instead of eating lunch as well as the service providers, there must be some middle ground and respect between everyone’s needs.

Listening to your body

We always say that we don’t have time to be sick but truthfully no one has time to be sick or really wants to be sick. That’s usually when the universe finds us and shows us how much it really cares about our time line. This week it’s my turn, I postponed going to the doctor and gave myself many excuses of why it’s not a big deal. Of course I ended up with antibiotics and even more medical procedures that will take more of my time this week. I should have known better and listened to my body, for sure. I am after all a grown adult.

But I guess even I don’t listen to my own advice. My first inclination was to be upset with myself as I just postponed the inevitable or probably made my condition worse . I actually did make it worse and my dr was not very happy with me. So now the question is what have I learned from this week? For starters I need to Listen to my body and commit to taking better care of myself. Not only for me but for my family as well. I should also practice what I preach.

Finding time for taking time off

It is very easy to delay time off and vacations, telling yourself you are very busy right now and postpone fun activities. God knows I have found many excuses before – I have deadlines at work, this is not the right time, it’s the end of the quarter or year and many more excuses. But when is the right time really? It seems like when we become adults with full time jobs there is never really a right time to take a vacation or sometimes even just a day or two off.

I know some people with unlimited PTO and from what I hear these unlimited PTO people take the least time off. I have a limited amount of time off, it is not small at all but still limited and I get to transfer only a small amount of vacation days to the next calendar year.

Time off is important, we all need it. We need time to refresh, clear our heads and do things outside of our professional life for ourselves and our families. Weekend breaks are really not enough, at least not for me.

Although my time off is limited to specific times during the year, times that are not flexible and do not always allow me to get the best rates for travel, I still choose to take my vacation days and have some fun. I even stopped taking my laptop with me as I learned to let go and trust my team to cover for me (this was a big issue for me as a recovering workaholic).

Something happened in the last couple of years that made clear what my priorities should be: family, friends , health and time off for fun. Health I can’t really control but everything else I can.

I can not only make sure I take care of myself but take care of my work team as well.

And since no time off makes employees burn out, it is very important for us as not only to take care of ourselves but as leaders and managers to make sure our team gets time off as well.

I read somewhere that employees don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. Not sure how true that is for everyone who quits, but having managers that truly care about their employees’ life balance , happiness and yes, their time off is, should be part of managing a great team.

My barketing team, yes, barketing!

I have a barketing team, yes a barketing team. I have a chief barketing officer and a vp of barketing. The barketing team has many opinions, they usually love to have their opinion heard during zoom meetings when I have to speak or when I am on the phone for any reason, As I mentioned before they are very opinionated.

Luckily they are cute, so on internal zoom meetings people love to see them. The problem is when it’s not internal or I am on the phone. My home office is in the family room. This is where I was relegated to when everyone had to work from home, I love my home office. It is warm , has great acoustics and is close to the coffee machine. It is also where the barketing team sleeps, eats and loves to bark.

I have to say that they are a great barketing team, they listen to my ideas,don’t interrupt me when I talk and are great one sided sound boards and even better lunchtime walking partners.

However cute they are, they have demanding compensation requests- scratchies, snackies and walks. Not as demanding as hi tech cafeteria and gym benefits but quite demanding. As I am writing this there are loud protests from the barking team, so I shall go answer them before the union rep arrives.