Category: Fourre-tout

Relativity is the quality of having significance only in relation to something else.

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a hot stove a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”― Albert Einstein

For many people this quality can be extremely annoying.
Let’s say that you are the Top Jock in your school. Enters another top athlete and you are suddenly relegated to Second Banana. That’s relativity.
You are only a big fish in a small pond. In a larger pond your size shrinks significantly. As a result, your significance is relative to your environment.

Rudy Giuliani (the highly creative legal adviser to the President) said “Truth isn’t always truth.”
Listening to politicos, truth seems to be a conveniently pliable material. According to them, one’s truth could be truth, relative to another “truth”.

Baloney, and Einstein said so.

“Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.” Albert Einstein

So there is no other truth but “untruths” (I love this euphemism). Truth is like gold; it cannot be adulterated regardless of its environment, . Even after a long time buried or submerged, it will remain pristine.

Consequently, there is only one truth, regardless of what deniers are saying. No matter what cynics are stating, the Holocaust really took place and Hitler was its monstrous genitor.

Relativity is present in every situation, something that we experience every day. You might think that your girlfriend is beautiful, but in a different context she might not even qualify for a local beauty pageant.

While in parts of America people believe that POTUS is on the right track, in many other areas he is the Flying Dutchman, always changing direction and doomed to flounder forever.

Finally, when you compare yourself with somebody else, you are only great measured to a lesser person. With a more successful individual, you could rank distressingly low.

Alain

PS: I shot a few pictures today. Sneak a peek.

I am no Sherlock Holmes but I can always tell if a crime has been committed or if somebody broke into my office. My MO has always been “a place for everything and everything in its place.” So if anything looks even slightly out of place, I know that my safety perimeter has been breached.

The two most likely perpetrators are my cat and our grandson.

The cat prefers to operate under the cover of darkness. She possesses night vision goggles and her Native American name is “She who walks in the dark.” While everybody is snoozing, she gets up and goes on patrol. She examines/sniffs every single object in her path. If something catches her fancy she will bat it for a while. If she deems that thing amusing, she will play with it briefly and then abandon it.
How do I know that she was there? There might be footprints or hair (most likely) left on the scene of the crime. I even found a whisker once.

Our grandson is more like a bungling bandito. He does not dwell in the dark but operates under the blanket of innocence. He casually strolls into a room and investigates (flips, opens, uncorks, disassembles, deconstructs) whatever is in his reach.

The problem is that you cannot stay mad at these two scoundrels. The cat, no matter what you tell her, remains as cool as a cucumber. Even when obviously guilty, she never blinks. Under duress, she might give you her name, rank and microchip number. But that’s all. She is a tough bird.

Our grandson cunningly plays the educational card. “I was just trying to figure out how that thing works.” Yes, I was unable to put it back to his original state, but I did this because I am eager to learn. Learning is not a crime, or is it?
Well no… technically it is not a crime…

How do you deal with these two rascals?
Kill them with kindness, that’s how! After a little research, I came to the conclusion that to prevent crime, you need to wear out the offenders. Play with them until exhaustion… Until they (or you) fall flat on their backs begging for mercy.

A cat by the way, is easier to fatigue than a kid. Play 20 minutes with her and she is ready for a nap. A kid on the other hand, has inexhaustible energy. He will wear you out before you can tame him.

Treats are my Kryptonite. When the kid is overwhelming you, buy him off with a goody of any kind. Destroy his supernatural buoyancy through his stomach.

“the way to a scoundrel’s heart is through his stomach.”

That’s what wives have done for centuries to tame their wayward husbands.

Alain

“All successful businesses pay attention to customer service. As without your customers you have no business. The higher the level of satisfaction a customer has is one of the determining factors in the success of any business.” Catherine Pulsifer

Nothing irks me more than poor customer service. It aggravates me to no end when I have to wait an inordinate amount of time due to the ineptness of some employee.

I will (reluctantly I admit) put up with waiting if I perceive that the person in charge is doing the best he/she can do. But it absolutely drives me crazy if I feel that some “schmo” is not up to the job.

This morning I went to a local Safeway store to do a little grocery shopping. I went there out of convenience. The store is close by and it has a good array of products. But unfortunately, convenience is often synonymous with poor or inexistent service.

When in a supermarket, after your shopping is done, you ultimately have to pick a cash register line. Your goal is to get out of the store as quickly as possible and go about your business.

You gauge the people (and their caddies) waiting in the different lines, the employees in charge and you place your bet: you pick a line. But many things can go wrong. You can have pesky customers, a slow cash register handler or both.

My cash register jockey this morning happened to be an elderly black woman who was either very inexperienced or brain-dead. It also looked like that she desperately needed a pair of glasses. She was so agonizingly slow that I felt like screaming.

Some people should never be in a position to interact with a customer. You could be a great chef, a great mechanic or an outstanding engineer, but this alone does not qualify you for dealing with the public.

If you lack personal skills but are efficient, that will work for me. If on the other hand you are not up to speed but have an engaging personality, this will also win me over. But it you lack both qualities, we are in a confrontational course; it is more than probable that I will never deal with your business again.

In Marin County by the way, I highly recommend a hardware store called Pini. It has the best customer service anyone could wish for. In a perfect world, all stores would be Pini clones.

Dealing with the public is a difficult job. If you don’t have the inherent skills, don’t go against the grain. Become a prison guard, a fisherman or join the Marines but don’t interact with (often difficult) paying customers.

Alain