House Of Excuses

I work in the school system. School is all about helping students reach their full potential through education and socialization. So, why is it that, at least where I work, we accept excuses and behavior from alleged adults that we would never accept from children.

Even before a problem arises, someone's knee jerk reaction is to prepare me and rationalize why they are going to fail on a regular basis. If one more person explains to me why something CANNOT be done, I am going to explode. I mean it. Look to your horizon. There will scraps of someone that thought whatever they were doing was so important that whoever is nearby can be put on hold. Lately, this is the school secretary. Despite their protests, they are not holding up walls or putting pressure on arterial wounds. The last secretary I saw as I walked in the office w/o warning was not moving her hands. She was barely moving her diaphragm as she starred out the doorway. (This is why she needs a phone call to lift both of her butts out of the chair. She is not a woman. She is one of Pavlov's dogs.)

I do not even hear the phrase, "I can't..." anymore. You see, everybody wants to tell me that what I need is impossible until we involve other people. You see excuse-makers, SOMEBODY holds your leash. You think getting off of your butt and doing your job is difficult? Try doing that while feeling embarrassment and resentment because you needed that leash jerked to bring you back to reality. Every time we do this dance, it's "I can't," discussion, then they find a way to do it. You can. If someone lights a fire under your ass, you can find a way to solve problems. You just do not want to.

I would love to survey people in other school districts and see if "I can't" is as popular a phrase as it is here.

Car Expo

At the car expo, each make of car had its own area. This was nice, because you could sit in all the Fords, all the Nissans, etc, etc. Originally, I had thought I wanted a Nissan due to pricing and reliability. Sitting in them, it occurred to me that no matter how large the outside became, the inside would always be a Japanese companies' idea of what a large person needs, and not of what one actually does. A lot of cars, in fact, have the outside of my right arm touching the side of the passenger's seat. (I was really hoping to have two ride in my car this time.)

Like I said before, there were people there to answer my questions, but not to sell me on anything. I would not discover how well I had it until later, when I had to deal with car salesmen (or salesbroads).

Just before heading to the expo, I told a friend of mine what aspects that I wanted in a car, and she told me that she got her Hyundai Santa Fe for all of the same reasons. I kept that in mind as I sat in many cars, eliminating one after another. She also told me that in '07, they took the Santa Fe, remodeled it, and even better, took everything that had gone wrong with Santa Fes in the past, and FIXED IT.

This really got my attention. I left the expo that day with two cars in mind: the Hyundai Santa Fe and the Chrysler 300.

This was only the beginning.