Tag Archives: training

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Mistaken Identity

I once had to hire a Production Control clerk, a position that required a certain attention to detail.  The experience was…. interesting, amusing, and educational.

Back before the Interwebz were invented, hand-written and typed applications came flooding in, stapled to resumés, hand-delivered, mailed, and couriered. I didn’t feel that it was a good idea to examine each day’s batch, and then have to go back to review today’s against tomorrow – and tomorrow – and tomorrow.

I set a one-week limit, and blocked out a chunk of Friday afternoon to examine them all.  I had accumulated a pile of 50 applications.  It didn’t take long.  Within an hour, 45 of them were in the garbage.

The winner of the losers was a young man who claimed four years of experience at another, similar, metal-fabrication shop.

ONLY….

Not in Production Control, but as a machine operator in the plant.  He told me that he had put in four years, working for SAIL Engineering.  I would have given him credit for on-the-job training,

ONLY….

The company was founded by a local German family named SEHL, so the company was SEHL Engineering.

ONLY….

Three years before his claimed start date, it was absorbed by a larger corporation, and for the entire four years that he spent there, it was named Ledco.

I couldn’t doubt his employment stint, but I was amazed at his astounding lack of attention to the detail of who had been issuing his paychecks.  Thank you for your submission.  Don’t call us.  We’ll call you.

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Coup De Grace Comedy

One day a lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw a guy eating grass. He told the driver to stop. He got out and asked him, “Why are you eating grass?”

The man replied, “I’m so poor, I cannot afford anything to eat.”

So the layer said, “Poor guy, come back to my house.”

The guys say, “I have a wife and three kids.” The lawyer told him to bring them along.

When they were all in the car, the poor man said, “Thanks for taking us back to your house; it is so kind of you.”

The lawyer replied, “You’re going to love it there … the grass is a foot tall!”

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(Remember, folks, HR is not your friend.)

Once management wants you fired, you’ll be fired!

A king had 10 wild ferocious dogs. He used them to torture and kill any minister that misguided him. A minister once gave an opinion which was wrong and which the king didn’t like at all. So he ordered that the minister to be thrown to the dogs.

The minister said, “I have served you loyally for 10 years and you do this?”

The king was unrelenting.

Minister pleaded, “Please give me 10 days before you throw me to the dogs.”

The king agreed. In those 10 days the minister went to the keeper of the dogs and told him he wanted to serve the dogs for the next 10 days.

The guard was baffled, but he agreed. So the minister started feeding the dogs, caring for them, washing them, and providing all sorts of comfort for them. So when the 10 days were up. The king ordered that the minister be thrown to the dogs as sentenced.

When he was thrown in, everyone was amazed at what they saw. The dogs were wagging their tails playing with the condemned minister, licking his feet.

The king was baffled at what he saw. “What happened to the dogs?!!!” he growled.

The minister then said, “I served the dogs for only 10 days and they didn’t forget my service. I served you for 10 years and you forgot all, at the first mistake!”

The King realized his mistake and replaced the dogs with crocodiles!

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It’s All Greek To Me Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101’s theme last week was It’s all Greek to Me.
Have some fun with dreaming up who these ‘familiar people’ were or what they could be remembered for (or whatever your mind comes up with).

1.  Perseus

He was the god of men’s tote bags.  Don’t ask – don’t tell – but he swished when he swaggered.

2.  Ares

He was a blurry little godlet, who was the twin brother of Hi-Res.  It was never clear what he was the god of – perhaps Optometrists.

3.  Achilles

He is the owner of a small chain of physiotherapy and rehabilitation clinics, specializing in lower leg injuries.

4.  Poseidon

This is Elon Musk’s younger brother, who is making a name for himself with an impressive line of battery-driven boats.

5.  Medusa

She used to be the goddess of marijuana, with the problem hair, but all her followers got stoned.  Now she’s working as a guardian angel for all those wearing MAGA hats.

6.  Athena

This lady loved the arts and craft revolution so much, that she took up a few and then got so hooked, she dove down the rabbit hole of creating.  Spinning, weaving and other crafts filled her days.  She also had a thing for watching the “WAR channel” on Olympus TV.
Before she was adopted by the Greeks and got busy with them, she was a minor deity to the Arabs.  They gave us the concept of ZERO, so she was the goddess of absolutely nothing.

7. Hades

After doing the training of Cerberus, he decided to get into the dog training business.  I mean once you have trained a 3-headed dog to behave and follow commands, regular canines are a breeze!

8. Apollo

He’s an entertainment mogul who owns several theaters and music halls named after him.  I saw Jimmy Carr at one in London.

9.  Cronos

Is a watchmaker who started out with Timex, but, given time, has worked his way up to Piaget.

10. Hermes

He is the god of very expensive, pretentious scarves.

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Well Worth 10 Days Of Medical Hell

TDLR

I did not take my doctor’s advice on how to sneak into the little, local cardiac hospital through the emergency department.

I SHOULD HAVE!

Instead, I patiently waited for the cardiac clinic – and waited- and waited!  Days flowed into weeks. Weeks turned into months.

After three months and a week, I drove to the clinic on a Friday and raised a small amount of hell. I told the receptionist that I was busy dying out here and would appreciate if someone would do something.

On the Monday morning, I got a call from my newly adoptive doctor’s assistant.  I would need to start with an EKG. Someone had cancelled; did I wish to take their appointment that afternoon?

Damned Right!

I must have piqued some interest. That Friday, I got a call asking me to come back in, next Wednesday for an Echocardiogram. The next day I got called to (finally) come back for my stress test and evaluation.

The test is to walk on a continuously inclining treadmill, in three-minute segments. I didn’t last the first TWO minutes. I got home to an email scheduling me for an Angiogram at the hospital in four weeks. The fire has been lit, but the days still stretch.

Two weeks later, I got a phone call on a Wednesday. Someone had cancelled an Angiogram on Friday. Scared the hell out of me! Same guy as the EKG? Did he die? Did I want to take it?

HELL YES!

Ordinarily, they would mail out a requisition for an independent clinic to perform blood tests, urine sample, heart X-ray, blood pressure and an all-out tree’s worth of questionnaires and other assorted paperwork. With no lead time, those would be done in the hospital, after the test.

I arrived at the hospital Friday at noon, to register. I was escorted to surgery prep, stripped, given a backless gown, a hair net, and paper booties. ID was checked and an IV shunt put in the back of my left hand.  About 1:30 I was told to take me and my pal the IV pole down the hall to the washroom, have a final pee, and sit on a chair outside the operating room.

A nurse escorted me in, up onto the table, and inserted an anesthetic line, while the surgeon readied my right arm.  I asked her how long the procedure would take.  If it’s simple and easy – 20 minutes.  If there are problems – 45 minutes.  The doctor nodded to her, and…. she tapped my leg and said that they were putting me on a gurney to recovery.  RECOVERY??!  I looked up at the clock, and wondered where the Hell three quarters of an hour went.  Not a good sign!

When all the procedures were completed, the experts examined and discussed them.  I was later given the copy of my test, above.  It shows four feeder arteries, all clogged, from 76%, to 98%, and blocked both at the top, as well as the delivery end.  My surgeon only had to install four large pieces of vein, but, technically, I got an octuple bypass.  Most hearts only have three feed vessels.  Mine had spontaneously formed a new one to take up the slack.  That was the one that was only 76% blocked.

The doctor most capable of installing stents, took one look, and said, “Too big!  Too Complicated.”  I needed to be kept under medical observation, and had to wait until the next day to shed my anesthetics, so that I could make a (reasonably) intelligent, informed decision.

It came down to either a 15% chance of dying from heart failure within ten years, or allowing some guy to open my chest with a miniature chain saw, stop my heart for a while, so that I was legally dead, attach me to a heart/lung machine, and install new plumbing.   The choice was unenviable, but inevitable.

After getting someone else’s EKG appointment, and someone else’s angiogram appointment, the surgeon I urgently needed, had a Monday afternoon open.  Tough as nails, by 6 PM, the family was informed that I had come through well.  A night in Emergency observation – three days in Cardiac ICU, because there were no free beds in the recovery ward – slowly, I recovered.

Finally, a week after registering, I was told that I would go home on Monday.  On Sunday, a lady doctor told me that she was going to take the wires out of my chest.  I thought that she meant wires holding my sternum together, but she gently withdrew two thread-fine neuro-electronic leads still embedded in my heart and protruding from my chest, that had been attached to the external pacemaker which restarted and controlled my heart.

A nurse/trainee removed the first 25 alternate of 50 tiny surgical staples holding the vein-graft site on the inside of my right calf, as well as 18 of the 36 staples on my chest.  Monday morning, a nurse-supervisor removed two non-dissolving sutures that closed two chest drainage holes.  The same trainee removed the last 43 staples, peeled off the EKG tabs that had been glued to me for a week, and removed the Just In Case IV shunt.  The son went to get the car.  An orderly wheel-chaired me to the front entrance, and I was finally on my way to home and freedom.

The hospital likes to release cardiac patients at the same weight they were when they arrived.  I arrived at least 20 pounds overweight.  Over 10 days, I lost 20 pounds.  I could wish that more disappeared from my tubby tummy, than from muscle and other tissue, but it makes it easier on my rebuilt engine.  It is not a weight-loss program that I would recommend, but the entire experience was well worthwhile.

Many Americans denigrate Canada, and our socialized medicine system.  It’s hard to estimate, but I’d guess that I was the recipient of $500,000 to $1,000,000 of time, talent, training, specialized equipment and supplies – and ten more years of decent life only cost me an outrageous $100 for parking.  If there are any other gory details you’d like to know, feel free to ask.

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Re-Ordering Prejudices

Some people believe that they are thinking, when they are really just re-ordering their prejudices.

I have to be very careful what I say to my Osteopath.  I don’t want to have to find a new one.  She’s an Evangelical Baptist.  She wasn’t raised as one.  She got it as a wedding present from her second husband.  Like a NEW anything, she’s taking it far too seriously.

At a recent visit, she was bragging about how she was brought up, and that her mother wasn’t biased, bigoted, or prejudiced.  Her best-friend neighbors across the street were a Negro family, she worked with an African woman, and a couple of new families on the block were Indian immigrants, and she got along well with them all.

She once said to her daughter, “People in other countries are just like us.  They get up and go to work or school like us.  We should respect them.”  Okay so far.  Then I mentioned a woman who I’d helped with a rail-travel problem.  I said that she had to go to Toronto to train as a wedding officiant.   👿

Hmmph, Atheist
Secular Humanist
Whatever they want to call themselves now.
They want to call themselves what they are.
If people don’t want to get married in a church, they should just go to a JP.
Perhaps they want a memorable ceremony, but just not a religious ceremony.
What’s wrong with a religious ceremony?
An officiant is often used at mixed-religion marriages.  Perhaps the Catholic doesn’t want to attend a Jewish Synagogue.  Maybe the Muslim doesn’t want to go to an Eastern Orthodox Temple.  Possibly the Moron Mormon doesn’t want to get married in a Christian Science reading room.

Until I identified her as a Secular Humanist, the officiant could have been a cross-carrying Catholic, trying to make a few extra bucks.  The Osteopath didn’t seem to be convinced, or very happy about how the discussion had gone.

The wife piped up to say that she doesn’t argue with me anymore, because My logic, and My Wordsmith abilities, always prove her wrong – like I have access to some special kind of logic that’s not  available to her.  When I prove someone wrong, it’s because they are wrong.  All you have to do to win, is present believable evidence.  In a discussion about any other topic, it may be possible to convince someone that they are mistaken.  Only with religion are the views so iron-bound.

I have carefully not used the term Atheist about any of the family, to her, but I did tell her that the Grandson and his wife used an Officiant (Not this one) at their ceremony in the Historic Mill-House in the park, to accommodate an inclusive array of religious and non-religious guests.
😀

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A Road Not Taken

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

The days of lifelong careers is past, even for the University-educated.  Social and employment needs and standards morph and alter almost daily.  Especially for the under-educated like me, constant evolution and change are inevitable.  Even ignoring workplace politics, it becomes imperative to adapt and improve – leaving failing industries, and accepting new challenges.

Even in my retirement, I am continuously perfecting my couch-potato, and blogger, positions.  In my brief half-century of working life, I was a bank clerk, a golf pro (in name only – to protect the “real pro’s” amateur standing), a (very small) office manager, a Community College instructor, a production clerk, a time-study clerk, an inventory clerk, Inventory Manager, expeditor, buyer, Purchasing Agent, Materials Manager, Outside Salesman, security guard, shoe-parts cutter, auto-parts press operator, metal-shop press operator, and rail-shipping framer.

There’s really not enough room for any more.  I’ve been a student, a husband, a father, a wage-earner, a mentor, a role-model, and a good citizen.  With my physical and mental limitations, I am satisfied with what I have been.  You really don’t want old Sheldon Shaky-Hands doing your eye surgery – or even your taxes.

😳

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More Buck For The Bang

One of my readers recently offered me the chance for a mutual suicide – and I laughed and laughed.

When the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – and the aches and pains and misfortunes of modern life are too much, I was to obtain a box of .308 rifle ammunition, and transport it to his home in the wilds of the Ohio outback.  We would load similar guns, face each other, and on the count of three, shoot each other dead.

That’s how it would work, In Principle.  In Fact, if his gun-handling abilities matched mine, we’d probably shoot someone’s pig, and flatten the tire of a passing farm wagon.  The Amish Mafia would kidnap and abuse us.  The part that I laughed hardest at, was the American-centric notion that I could just, somehow, waltz into a local Canadian establishment, and be handed a box of shells.  Even with me not owning a gun, the Government is afraid that I might throw them at someone.

Canada is not like Russia, or China, or North Korea, where civilian gun ownership is banned, prohibited, and strictly prevented.  In Canada, Anyone can own a firearm – as long as they have a healthy bank account, and the patience of Job.

To possess anything firearm-related, you have to sacrifice a tree to produce enough paper to satisfy all the bureaucratic boondoggles, and to print enough money to pay for it all.  There are forms for this, licenses for that, and certificates for everything else.  Only when you have generated enough paper documents to equal the weight of the gun, are you actually allowed to acquire and keep it.

I would require a background/psychological evaluation form, a signed permission slip from the wife, to have and keep it in our home, a carry permit to bring it there from point of purchase, a different carry permit to take it (Only) to and from home, to a licensed shooting range.  None of this target practice at bottles at the dump.  I would need a form proving to Police officers where and how I was safely and securely storing the gun – with any ammunition locked in a different location, and they all cost money. The police – local, Provincial, and RCMP – have a license to randomly search my home, a minimum of once a year, to ensure that I am complying with all the rules.

It would all begin with – despite the fact that I have almost 300 hours of gun safety training, the government would force me to attend their $200/$300, 30-hour course and test, where, if I carelessly used the vernacular terms bullet, or shell, instead of their OCD-authorized word, cartridge, I would be failed, and my wallet and I would have to start all over again.

Twenty years ago, when I still rode a motorcycle, I would occasionally ride to the north end of town, where there was a company called Shooter’s Choice, a combination of retail sales, and a supervised shooting range.  They had a glass display case with most of the handguns that I would never be able to afford.  I was warned to stop drooling on the counter.

The fact that there was also a nearby strip-club, and one of the Region’s best French-fry wagons, might help explain the attraction – one-stop sin shopping.  Alas, they are all gone.  The strip club was too close to a Mennonite Worship Hall, and the city cancelled their license.  Now it’s just a road-house bar.  Skin is taboo, but booze is okay.  The fries-wagon moved to a smaller city.

An automotive repair had me nearby recently.  Just for old-time’s sake, I drove over.  The glass handgun display case now contains fishing lures, archery equipment, hikers’ trail-bars, and rifle scopes – to be used to watch our gun-owning (non)-rights disappear into the distance.  😀

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Two Kinds Of One-Liners

There are two kinds of people….
….Those who can extrapolate to get extra information.

Logic is a systematic method….
….of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

After all is said and done….
….a Hell of a lot more is said than done.

My Dad was a failed magician….
….I also have two half-sisters.

I think the Origami Society is out of business….
….I heard they folded.

My flight back from Gibraltar to Glasgow has just been canceled….
….Now I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place…

My friend failed his aboriginal music exam….
….I asked him, “Did you redo it?”

Just found out I failed my online German exam….
….Sacre bleu!

What’s a specimen?….
….An Italian astronaut.

And now, a one-liner from seven-year-old Archon
What three vegetables do we take to the bathroom?….
….Lettuce, turnip and pea.
I like to hope that my humour has matured a little in seven decades.

It’s not the rapid pace of life that worries me….
….It’s the sudden stop at the end.

I just visited a diabetes-awareness site, and it asked me if I accept cookies….
….Is that a trick question?

You can train a cat to do anything….
….that it wants to do.

You can tell that Monopoly is an old game….
….There’s a luxury tax, and the rich can go to jail.

Did you hear about the guy who lost his hearing aids?….
….WHAT???

The bartender told me that they were about to begin happy hour….
….so he asked me to leave.

A limbo champion walked into a bar….
….and was disqualified.

I feel very strongly about graffiti in toilet cubicles….
….so I signed a partition.

A man reading a thesaurus….
….saunters into a tavern.

They say that being a hostage is hard and mentally draining….
….I could do it with my hands tied behind my back.

What’s the difference between a Scotsman and a canoe?….
….A canoe tips.

My friend was killed by a falling piano….
….It was a low-key funeral.

At an interview once, I got asked to describe my life in a nutshell….
….I said, “It’s cramped and dark in here”.

I used to live paycheck to paycheck, but with hard work and perseverance….
….I now live direct deposit to direct deposit.

ILLITERATE!??….
….Write for free help, 232 Main St.

The first rule of the Micromanagement Club….
….is right at the top of the first page in this three-ring binder.

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First And Ten Fibbing Friday

Here I go with Pensitivity101’s first ten (in the second week) of 2023:

1. Aurora Borealis is also known as

Ashley Carbonera, but only by people who knew her before she became a famous porn star.

  1. Who was Farouk Balsara?

He was a Syrian refugee who sneaked into the UK by floating across the English Channel on a raft he built, using plans he got off the internet from some Colombian who floated into the USA.

  1. Chasing Cars is by which group?

The Stray Dogs, before they changed the name of the group to The Stray Cats.

  1. What is Detritus?

That was Baskin & Robbins 32th flavor of ice cream.

  1. Eggplant is also known as

The colour of Elton John’s favorite pair of shoes.

  1. Who is Filbert Fox?

He is/was the best friend of Gilbert Grape, in the movie adaptation of his life story.

  1. Gentoo is a what?

The family who run my local “Curry In A Hurry” outlet.  😳  I stop there every time after my mandatory sensitivity training sessions.

  1. Rutabaga is also called

A Swede, by many Brits, until Sweden found out about it, and threatened to stop exporting Volvos, Saabs, and replacement mobile phone parts to England, unless it stops.  The Scots also have a derogatory term for Swedes, but no-one can understand what they’re saying, so the Swedes just assume they’re drunk – as usual.

  1. What is IPlayer?

He’s the thoroughly-modern male who relies on his electronics to get lucky in love.  He has swiped right so many times, the notches on his bedpost are threatening to collapse it in mid-tryst.  Ooh, kinky!

  1. Jambo is a greeting in which language?

India Elephant – in African elephant, it’s Tantor.

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Eight Teen Fibbing Fridays

Every time I publish one of these, Pensitivity101 emails me a calendar.  Ever since that Mayan one didn’t work, I don’t really care anymore.  Procrastination is the only project that I’ve ever started on time.  And now, without further adieu, here’s another friggin’ Fibbing Friday list.

1.What kind of dog was Lassie?

Lassie was a boy dog with a girl’s name.  Because of that, he was a lightning-rod for, and the local distributor of, bad luck and karma.  Timmy got lost in the woods??  Lassie was there.  Timmy fell down a well??  Lassie was there.  Timmy was trapped in a burning barn??  Lassie was there!  I’d have traded him in for a hedgehog, or at least got his name legally changed.

2. Who was Toto’s owner?

He was the mascot for the band, Kansas.  He was even smart enough to play drums for them for a while, but he lost his edge, and started dogging it, and they had to let him go.  They said, “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

3. What breed of dog was Beethoven?

He was a Dutch Chocolate Labrador Retriever.  He had a minor role in the movie, Amadeus.  He played a harpsichord – but it took a lot of prosthetics and makeup.

4. Who was Goofy’s best buddy?

I was, for a while.  We were both in that Dumb And Dumber movie together, but the string on our tin-can telephone broke, and he never calls me anymore.

5. How many dogs starred in The Incredible Journey?

None!  They both think that they were stars, but it was really the cat that made the movie.  Without his wise guidance, Arf and Woof would still be wandering around, looking for a fire hydrant.  Focus guys!  Focus!

6. What made Superdog super?

He ate some chili con carne that Walter White made up, on the TV series, Breaking Bad, the day of “the incident.  Between the hot peppers and the meth, ANYTHING was possible – higher, faster, longer.

7. What is meant by Dogma?

That is narrow-minded, non-critical-thinking claims made by religious fundagelicals.  My Karma ran over their Dogma.

8. What is ‘flyball’?

That’s the mess of insects that you accumulate when you hang sticky insect strips in the cheap two-week vacation cottage that you rent.

9. Who introduced ‘WALKIES!’ into their training programmes?

The now-ex-pitching coach of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.  The strike zone is 17 inches wide, and about two feet high.  Would it be too much to ask, to get the guys to put the ball through that, once in a while??  They were giving so many opponents a base on balls, that it looked like the world’s slowest conga line.

10. What is frontline used for?

That’s a product also known as Invisible Fence.  It’s a cable that you bury at the edge of your property, which emits a radio signal.  You put a collar on your dog with a receiver.  If he/she gets too close, they get tasered behind the ear.  Now, if I could just slip a couple of those on that Jehovah’s Witness pair who keep waking my dogs and me on Saturday mornings….