12/10/03

I’m feeling an entry on etiquette coming on. I swear, people can be so fucking rude!! But for now I’ll hold my tongue.

I had to make sure not to make an etiquette mistake myself this morning. You see, my father mentioned on last Monday, the day before my birthday that he was dropping my birthday present in the mail. Well, it’s been 9 days and I’ve not received anything. I wanted to ask him if he’d mailed it but I didn’t want to sound like a little brat saying “Where’s my gift”. My main concern is that it might have gotten lost in the mail or something. But, my father is also very forgetful so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if it’s still in his truck. 🙂 So I had to politely word an e-mail that basically said that I’d hate to think that his gift was “lost in the mail”. I’m sure he’d want to know if he mailed a check, which is what he usually does, and would need to put a stop on it. I’m hoping he just forgot to mail it at all. I didn’t want to sound like I was “fishing for a gifts” because that’s not the case at all, I would want someone to tell me if something I said I was sending hadn’t arrived.

I think I’m going to try to find a wee gift for my boss. She always gives us gifts around this time of year and this is my last year working for her. So, kind of a holiday/going away gift. I thought it would be a nice way to say thanks, she’s been a wonderful supervisor. Only other thing is I didn’t do anything like this when my other supervisor quit supervising us so I don’t want him to think I didn’t like him. Since it’s the holidays though he probably wouldn’t think anything of it. My supervisor has been more than just a supervisor, she’s someone I can go to when there’s a problem at work. She’s given me advice for dealing with problem people and she’s really helped me grow in the past year. She’s the kind of supervisor everyone should have. She’s not critical, problems are addressed in a manner that questions more than accuses. It’s funny because she didn’t want to supervise, yet she’s the best supervisor I think I’ve ever had. I’m used to supervisors that lord over everyone, like the one I had for a long time at the direct mail company. That’s not what people need, because that often creates more problems. Most people want to succeed and do well, and when there’s a problem it’s often not something that can be fixed by being lorded over and put on probation. A lot of times the problem person can be having personal problems or problems with co-workers. Lording over that person is just going to make the problem worse.

Looking at pyschology again I’m almost thinking of going into some kind of organizational psychology or doing counseling at a school or a college. I like to guide people, help them find their way and a school or office building would be the perfect place. I’m leaning towards high school or college counseling. Helping students find their place, what they want to do when they grow up. I do love young people, children, teenagers, young adults like myself. That might be the direction I want to head though I’m not 100% sure.

Something bothered me the other day which is kind of what got me thinking about this school psychology thing. We were at my sister in laws and she was telling us how her step-son isn’t too bright, how he can’t read, how he’s giving up. How he’ll probably never go to college because he’s not bright enough. She was saying he’ll probably just have to go to trade school, and it’s just too bad for him that he’s not smarter. That kind of mentality really bothers me. Why would anyone take a child that is failing in school and just shrug their shoulders and say something like that. I wanted to jump in and say “I’ll help him”. I mean jeez, the main problem he’s having is with reading for crying out loud. At 13 or 14 this problem is STILL fixable, you can’t just shrug your shoulders at it and let him fail. He’s miserable in school and this is why. Help the child for crying out loud!!! Sit at the table with him and help him with his homework, buy hooked on phonics, ANYTHING, don’t just let him fail. He seems to want help but it seems no one is willing to offer it. This made me wonder just how many kids out there have this problem, parents just won’t help them even though they’re asking for it. How many parents just say “Well, you’ll just have to go to trade school or flip burgers”. There’s nothing wrong with trade school or burger flipping but only if that’s what you WANT out of life. If he wants to become a doctor or a lawyer or something later on he won’t have a chance and it’s all because no one thought he could be helped. The kid seems terribly depressed to me, I want to say something but it’s hard to know how to approach these things. You don’t want to hurt feelings yet it’s hard to sit there and watch someone not help a child that wants help and can be helped. *sigh*

Anyway, I need to get to work.