I was asked yesterday if I was going to go to the camp party up north, in Heber, right near where my son is at the SA camp.  No, I replied, I don't know anything about it.  In fact, no-one at our branch was invited.  As if we somehow intrinsically know everything that is being circulated at the main branch, where this idea came up.  If they don't tell us - phone call; PM; email; face-to-face - we don't know.

I'll come back to that.  Fast forward to this morning.  Woke up with a raging headache.  It happens when I don't get enough sleep for several days in a row.  I was awakened last night by a sneezing Great Dane. He was going at it and let me tell you, that much noise is going to wake just about anyone up.  I couldn't hold it against the dog, but I never really got back to sleep.  So, today at work, I had the headache; I was irritable and cranky and the situation with the new employee?  It doesn't get any better.  Now, he sits in the back of the warehouse, sitting on the forklift, rolling and smoking his cigarettes.

I caught him today.  I pulled into the yard with the semi, he apparently thought I was a freight truck coming in with goods to deliver as he didn't even look up.  I was up on that last warehouse bay before he looked up and saw that it was me.  I just looked away.  I can't stand it.  I can't stand people who want a paycheck but don't want to work for it.  I don't care if he's getting paid lower wages, I was there at one point in my life and I gave it my all.  Always have.  You earn your pay, you don't sit around on your @$$ with whatever is going on in your mind to somehow justify it.

And there is plenty to do around there.  The driveway is covered with rocks again.  I have swept them up or blown them out with a blower several times over.  I don't care about the "work" aspect of it or even if it's hot and humid out there.  Yes, we have humidity here, the monsoons come and so does the humidity, coupled with the high heat.  But whatever, I went inside and figured the manager knew all about it. He doesn't let much get past him.

He asked me what that guy was doing.  Ummmm, sitting on the forklift, rolling a cigarette and smoking it.  Yup, he states, he does that all the time now.  We had a discussion about his lack of desire to do anything.  When I came in this morning, I was met by the operations manager who was there to get his RV trailer.  He came out to the parking lot from the side entrance and asked me if I had just got there or had I been there earlier?  Ummm, no, I just got here, it's my regular start time.  Are you sure? Well, yes, of course I'm sure, why would I come here and then leave?

He then states the alarm hadn't been set.  Oh really?  Well, it's happened before.  It isn't the end of the world, just good that no-one happened to break in during that time.  He says, well that isn't the worst of it.  I had no clue.  We walk around to the side and to the back and he points at the first bay door, which is half way opened.  You see that?  ..........  It was like that when I got here! I immediately took defense of my manager, NO WAY he would EVER leave that door opened before going home.  I intoned that it must have been a salesman.  I ask him where he is going with the trailer.  Oh, just up to the mountains, not bothering  to tell me he's going to the camp thing where allegedly, everyone is invited, everyone but us at this store anyway.

Getting beyond that, and yes it was an inside salesman who had come earlier and left it open "because we were going to be there soon anyway", a contractor comes in and is there for a rather large amount of material.  I printed the order and started pulling it.  I had already been on the forklift attempting to load the truck for the day's deliveries when he had shown up.

So, this new guy comes in at his regular time.  I am inside just getting done with the paperwork, he comes in, signs in and goes outside.  I go outside to start pulling the order and hopefully have this guy help me.  He just stands there.  I am not his boss, I can't and won't bother to try to force him to do anything.  I have tolerance for such people and I would rather just willingly do all the work myself than have someone else helping that is doing it begrudgingly.  I'm working way when the manager shows up.  He goes inside and finds the new guy sitting on the computer, perusing the internet, reading the news.

Why is Ben out there pulling orders and loading the truck and you are in here doing nothing?  He had no reply.

The guy is going to be history.  That's just the way it's going to be.

Remember, I have a raging headache during all of this.  It isn't subsiding and I am attempting to put on a good face while feeling like s*** the entire time.  The next thing I know, this new guy is "going to town" after the manager shows up, of course.  I'm not the manager and my manager doesn't understand why I won't just tell the guy off. It's NOT my place to do that.  It's HIS place to deal with this stuff, that's how it works.  That's why you have management, to deal with everything including the negatives.  I CAN tell this guy what to do, but I would rather just do my thing and let this guy dig his own hole.  The hole is pretty much dug and soon, if he doesn't change his work attitude, his days at our company are numbered.

I get back from a rather elongated run and then start discussing with my manager about going up there. He's going with is girlfriend, asking me if I'm going.  I thought not at first, but that's because I don't really like half the people (at least) that are going.  There is only on God that I know of, and it doesn't include any of them though several of them certainly act like they are sitting on the Throne.

But tonight, I have had a change of heart.  The Lord.  Perhaps you should get over yourself, I think I hear being said or something to that matter, and just go up there and enjoy the beauty of my creation?

You can argue with God if you want, but realistically, you aren't going to win.  If you choose to ignore Him, then I guess, but other than that, you are done and toast, might as well just do it and go with a good attitude.
But I had no plans to go up north this weekend.  Mary's son can't go because of Mary's situation, though that has really been sort of resolved, it is too late to do anything about getting gates and going up there to install them.  So I had completely put that out of my mind and had just decided to stay home, go to church on Sunday, get some stuff done around here and that's it.  Besides the fact that all these other people going have had this idea - on their table - for a while now and have had time to prepare. So tomorrow morning, I will decide one way or the other whether I am going to drive all the way up there.

Meanwhile, I talked to Caleb via Facebook.  We talk on the phone sometimes, other times he writes me messages.  I caught him today after he had just sent me a message and we got into a conversation.  He was telling me the dates of his California trip - he will be gone from the 2cd until the 10th. So, apparently, the day he gets back from camp he is also leaving for California.

It also conflicts with mom's attempt to have a party with the family for him up at her property, of which I promptly notified her.  We'll try for the next weekend. Which is cool, I hope he can see his extended family before he leaves for Hawaii, but I had something pressing on my mind to ask him while I had him on the line.  Do you want to go on our annual boat trip?  If you have time and you want to, great, if you don't it's cool.  I don't want to pressure him, but at the same time, he loves going out on a boat on the ocean.  He was all over that.  No, he replies, I don't have anything going on during that week and I would love to go!

I have already asked for that entire week off.  I am going to get some quality time in with my son if at all possible before he is gone for an entire year.

I don't know, but it's starting to get late - my version of it anyway.  I am staying up a bit to get nice and sleep and hopefully get some shuteye tonight.  I won't drive up there tomorrow if I wake up feeling the way I did today.  I forced myself out of bed, into the shower and out of the bedroom this morning, a sheer act of will that defied everything that was raging within me to simply stay in bed and go back to sleep.

G'nite.

ben

I wrote this on my Facebook wall this morning - it came to me through the Spirit and I felt compelled to write it and so, I am going to post it here as well:

Forgiveness. It's something that mankind finds so hard to do. Holding grudges and unforgiveness in the heart is so much easier. You can dwell in it every day, let it stew within your spirit and let it rot at your very inner being. You can let it take over your entire life to the point that it is mostly all that you think about. You can become so embroiled in it that nothing else in life matters and people start to steer clear of you because it's written all over you. It is that obvious to others when it consumes you. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is freedom from prison. It releases you and that person or all of those people from the bars that bind you. To not forgive is to simply continue to hold you in a prison of your own making, an internal hell that never goes away.

 What was amazing about this, to me anyway, is that people were copying and pasting it to their own Facebook wall.  I'm not talking Facebook "share" function, though 2 people did that as well, it was going down Facebook wall among and seeing this thing had been copied and pasted so many times over.  I started wondering if this paragraph of words had spoken to them or if they were posting it in the hopes a friend of theirs might see it.  

I purposely left out Scripture in this particular instance.  The concept of forgiveness is obvious in Christianity, but I have so many FB "friends" that do not profess Christ as Savior and the thought came to me to leave that out.  So I did.  If someone else brings it up, so beit.  I freely admit that I almost never unfriend Facebook people because as far as I see it, many of them are an open mission field.  There are less than a handful of instances that I have unfriended people and that for very extreme circumstances.  

And to the opposite end of thing, I have been unfriended at least 8 times in the last 2 weeks, lol, for my "religious" or political posts.

_______________________________

My dad is blowing off coming up here to see Caleb.
But there's a good reason for it.
One of my uncles/his brother is dying and is only expected to have a few more months to live.  Multiple Sclerosis.

Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. Sounds bad, but in reality?  Best thing that could have happened to that city as long as they can also dump all that debt to pension funds along with it.  Union leaders refused to negotiate with the state appointed manager that was sent to try to bail out the city, now those unions may end up getting screwed altogether.  Unions, don't get it. They never seem to care about the fact that their unrelenting stance can end up hurting them as well as everyone else.  That city is in a shambles, hope they can "fix" it.

Friday.  Long work week.  Just long.  Hot, I guess is the operative word here.  Middle of July, so about halfway through the worst of it.  About the end of August the temps start coming down, though September is still usually quite warm, not as hot as June, July and August.  Long ways off from that, though.

Anyway, time to get offa here and get to work!

G'day.

ben