Is This High School All Over Again?

Have you ever left work early because you just couldn’t take it anymore?  Have you called in for a ‘mental health day’ lately?  Do you question whether your coworkers are the spawn of Satan?  If so, then Hi, my name’s Gen Clever; you must work with the same people I do!  Nice to meet you and I’m so very sorry.   

Image Courtesy of ClkerFreeVectorImages

Coworkers:  People we are thrown together with, usually by circumstances beyond our control, generally in a work environment.  Different but similar people may be found in your organizations, clubs, or civil activities.  The bottom line is that you wouldn’t spend time with these folks without some form of compensation, monetary or otherwise.  It is a forced relationship.  Maybe that’s why it’s called a work-force…

Back at work some days feel like a high school field trip where everything is fun and everyone is bonding like fingers dipped in superglue.  Other days feel like that day in high school when that note you wrote got passed directly into the wrong hands and you felt more embarrassed than if you’d shown up naked to gym class. 

Alas, there are those high school tales of undesirables undergoing extreme makeovers and a musical montage morphing them into the Prom Queen with a heart of gold…  Spoiler Alert!  These tales are unlikely to unfold in the workplace.  One is generally the victim OR the bully, the awkward loner OR the socially accepted, not one and then the other.  Sometimes a transfer or promotion will toss you from one status to another, but after an initial adjustment period, one usually ends up in the same old group, just perhaps now wearing heels from time to time.

Where am I going with this? 

If you're like me, it matters emotionally how your coworkers treat you.  It matters more than how your boss does.  (Much like in high school where your peers’ opinion of you was infinitely more vexing than any teachers’.) 

Nope, definitely not me.

I once was Homecoming Queen of the workplace.  Middle management with a smile.  Stern but fair and pretty darn likable.  Kinda like the Prom Queen but better because I got to hang out with the marching band and that is so much more fun than cheerleading!!  I mean let’s face it: upper management is just saying the right words with the proper enthusiasm while simultaneously shunning the minions and pleasing the shareholders.  I’m just not that girl.  

So there I was, minor royalty, when the company decides to cut corners and ‘laterally move’ me.  (That’s upper management speak for a demotion without a pay cut.)  So here I am, working in a department I used to run.  Ouch.  It feels like the queen is now forced to eat lunch at the Goth table.

It’s not that I mind the Goths.  I look great in black.  I appreciate Poe.  I’ve dabbled in cynicism and sculpted my own ‘Bell Jar’.  I get it.  So now I deal with insecure clones that push me around because they know I can and have done the job better than them.  I get micro-managed.  I get to be the scapegoat.  I internalize.  Then I go home and write.  Thank you?  

Image Courtesy of Gen Clever at insane_ekard Productions

It’s simple: treat me as you would a stranger.  It’s the least you could do.  And hey, we all know you’re good at doing the least…  

Please feel free to share this memo.

This post means no harm to Goths, Cheerleaders, Prom Queens, or Upper Management.  Especially that last one.  

Thank You For Lettin' Me...

The world gets crazy.  Our brains get full of worry and what-ifs (ironically except for "what if I stopped worrying about what-ifs?").

Our blood pressure rises and before we know it we are starting our heavily caps locked social media posts with words like: 'RANT' or 'WARNING'.  Seems more like anti-social media at times...

What I'm trying to say is, we get caught up and we forget to say thank you.  I don't mean thank you as in 'please and'.  I mean we straight up forget or downright overlook the good stuff, which is just down wrong.  Am I right?

So, I'm going to say some thanks and hopefully you'll  see some of mine that apply to you too.

 Image courtesy of Felixco, Inc. at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thank you for allowing a reasonable distance between your car and mine.
Thank you for letting me in front of you in line.
Thank you for picking up the phone.
Thank you for laughing at my awkward jokes.
Thank you for commenting on my post.
Thank you for the likes, shares, and pokes?
Thank you for accepting my pizza coupon that expired.
Thank you for the concern when I look tired.
Thank you for the extra napkins.  It's as if you knew what could happen!
Thank you for bringing chocolate candy.
Thank you for reading my rambling.
See how full of thanks we could be, 
Just by me seeing you and you seeing me?
Strange or familiar we're much the same
When we remove the busy and the pain.
Thanks for giving ourselves the chance
To see beyond our circumstance.


Happy New Year!!

How Many Parents Do You Really Have?

Image courtesy of supakitmod at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You may think that most people have no more than two parents.  Could you possibly be wrong?  I'm asking...

Perhaps you have one or more voluntary parents.  What constitutes a voluntary parent you ask?

A voluntary parent is an adult that loves and nurtures a child (or a grown-up child) with which they share no blood relation.

They are adults that care for us out of compassion, rather than obligation.

Sometimes the voluntary parent holds a potentially meaningless title or prefix like ‘step’ or ‘in-law’.  These mean different things to different people and often require an explanation of the relationship. 

The voluntary parent does things without thanks and with acceptance of the fact that you’ll probably never send them a birthday card.

The voluntary parent can teach you a lot about yourself because they see you more objectively than perhaps the rest of your family does.

The voluntary parent rarely plays the guilt card.

You probably won’t become a duplicate of your voluntary parent as you age, but you will miss them fiercely between visits, sometimes even more than your ‘real’ parents.

The bonds between you and your voluntary parents are very special and cannot be broken by time or distance.

So here’s to the parents who are just as important as... your parents.  Here’s to the Steps, the Aunts and Uncles, and yes, the In-laws.  Thanks for the love, the laughs, and the lessons.  I cherish all of you.

I miss you, Dad!

Gig Bless Us, Every One...

Image courtesy of geralt at Pixabay.com

Once upon a time 

I traveled store to store.  Nowadays I one stop shop:  veggies aisle one, curtains aisle four.

When I lost my way I'd consult giant maps, which I never could fold, only wad in my lap.  

Now I can make calls or send texts, while I drive

Multitasking technology keeps me alive.

When I get where I'm going the car does its own parking.

It charges and self navigates each embarking.

If I get home late and it's past dinner time, I just send emoji and pizza is mine!

What's on tv I never need know, because magic devices record all my shows.  

For every desire there's most surely an app

All our wishes, whims, wants with simply a tap

Instant gratification is our new motto

With the time we're all saving, Oh the places we'll go!

I'd like to go camping but there's no wifi 

What good are pictures of a brilliant night sky

If I cannot tweet them or share them for likes?

No Snapchat of marshmallows?  Seems a bit trite.

Off I must go, I've no more time for typing.  While I'm writing this poem, I could be off Skyping.

Thank the batteries and chargers that make my life happen

And may gigs bless this grid we've so foolishly fastened.

A poem by Gen Clever

How Do I Get My Happy Back?

Image courtesy of PixArc at Pixabay.com

Stressful day at work?  Loved ones struggling at the moment?  Financial woes?  Another shooting on the news?  Life is grand.  Sometimes life is a grand piano falling out of a third story window… towards your car… that you are still in, digging for change to feed the expired parking meter.  So what do you do to get your happy back?  Try doing yoga, or taking a walk.  Wait, what?  Seriously?  Let’s face it, those things require a certain amount of motivation and/or special pants.  But here are 5 dirt cheap easy things that maybe, just maybe will help you get back up:

1) Hug your dog.  I mean get down on the floor and really hug your dog.  My dog loves this.  I can tell by his top speed tail wagging, and hissquinty-with-pleasure gooey eyes.  Ahhhhhh…

2) Watch the movie that you and your best friend obsessed over as kids.  This is probably the same movie that you and your best friend still obsess over.  Pop some corn, melt your cares, or at least some butter.

3) Play a retro video game.  Super Mario Brothers comes to my mind.  Play whatever you like and/or have access to.  Turn up the volume and remember, buttons are for mashing!

4) Go outside and look up.  If it’s dark, find pictures in the stars.  If it’s cloudy, find pictures in the clouds.  If it’s both dark and cloudy, try out an app that will show you the stars you would see if it wasn’t.

5) Get crafty.  Cut out paper snowflakes.  Slice up a magazine and make a collage.  Get glue and glitter all over the place, and go to bed without cleaning it up.  That’s right!


The point is to change the scenery in your mind.  Stop the film reel in your head from playing the same scene over and over again.  Stop watching what happened.  Stop watching previews of what could or might happen later.  Turn off your mental picture show.  Step away from technology and electronics (except for that cloudy and dark scenario from number 4).  Breathe.  Put your stress in coat check and pick it up later.  Are you ready?  I’m asking…

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt 

Let's start with the BIG stuff shall we?!

Who, what, when, why, and how.  Right?  The important questions in life:  Who am I? What do I want to be when I grow up? When do I have to know by?  Why is it so important?  How much does it pay??  Decisions and questions and then some…

When I was in grade school I knew exactly what I wanted to be (an astronaut) and pretty much how to get there.  However, being as young as I was, I wasn't as thorough as I could have been in my planning.  It turns out that engineering is really hard, not to mention boring, and being an astronaut is more than floating around in a tin can pushing shiny buttons and drinking Tang.  Also, unless you look a lot like Sandra Bullock, you more than likely won’t successfully fumble your way home if you are the only surviving civilian after a space catastrophe.  Soooo maybe I chose the wrong career?

I can do anything I set my mind to.  That’s what my mama told me.  What she didn't tell me (or perhaps she did and I forgot to listen) is that money sucks and has a paradoxical relationship with happiness.  Money cannot buy happiness, but not having money can buy lots and lots of misery, on credit, at a ridiculously high interest rate.  I grew up with just enough to know that everyone else had a little more, but I was happy nonetheless.  Or maybe that’s why my life’s ambition was to get off this rock.  They never run out of Tang in space. 

I am definitely not unhappy now, but I can assure you that having more money would definitely not make me less happy.  My spouse makes twice the money that I do, but also works nearly double the hours.  So we bring home a lot of those freakish peanut pods that only have one peanut inside the shell.  (Same amount of work for only half the reward).  I feel like there exists somewhere a secret balance; a mystical percentage if you will, that allows people to work a realistic schedule and earn enough money to pay the realistic bills, maintain a realistic social life, and put away for those future days of retirement bliss; you know, realistically.  Who can do the math?  What are you waiting for?  When will you have this figured out?  Why weren't we told about this sooner (OR why didn't we listen)?  And finally how do we spread the message once the answer is found?

People are being paid millions to catch vermin and air their dirty laundry and bad habits on reality television.  I have no answers, only questions.  For instance, should I have learned to wrestle gators instead of spending all that time in college?  I’m asking…