What I Do (Did) For a Living

The array of jobs a person has in a lifetime is both formative and reflective of a life path.  My wife has only done one kind of job ... ever!  She has always worked in a dental office, since the age of 16.  She has worked at her current position for over 35 years.  It pays well, it has been recession proof and she likes the patients she works with.  The downside is that she has become so tired of cleaning teeth that she could spit!

I'm from the other end of the spectrum, the person who has moved from position to position freely thoughout his life, having worked at 45 different places in a variety of fields.  For the past 20 years, I've had my own company and have done software application development for various corporations in the San Francisco Bay Area, but even that has had a wide range of variability.

For your entertainment, I list below the jobs I can remember:

Nursery field worker
Souvenir Shop Assistant
Grocery Bagger
Door-to-door Bible Salesman
Feed Mill Worker
Cab Driver
McCall's Pattern Company factory worker
Meat Packing plant hamburger mixer
Playground supervisor
Jr. High Science Teacher
Substitute Teacher system wide
High School Chemistry Teacher
State Mental Hospital Teacher
Menninger's Institute Child Care Counselor
Emotionally Disturbed Children Counselor in San Francisco
Pine Tree Nursery Foreman
Construction Worker
Oil Rig worker
Railroad Gandy Dancer
Milkman
Rock Quarry Worker
Adult Computer Educator
Computer Technical Support
Type shop programmer
Customer Support for Graphics / Typography system in Silicon Valley
Manager of that Customer Support
Started my own software development company

I think that is fewer than 30, but give me allowance for age, LOL.  Also, if it didn't hit the list, it is probably so boring I just can't remember it!

I'm late with this entry, but I need to get around to the other members of the Loose Blogger Consortium - with clickable links on the right - to see what they came up with last Friday.  Since we all write on the same topic totally independently, you never know what any member will bring out.  I think I'll go see right now ...

My Friday post will be unavoidably late

Please forgive me, but appreciate the irony.  Those of you making the rounds know today’s topic and that yours truly brought it to the Consortium.  Know also that it is the very current substance of that topic that is preventing the writing.  Right now.

But, soon.  Very soon.

National Healthcare vs Private

shackman brought us a topic hashed and rehashed over the past five years here in America.  And I don't have a good answer.  How can that be?

The problem is obvious.  A rare piece of good journalism - let's face it, this isn't exactly the age of Murrow - followed the path our healthcare dollars often take right now.  They followed a guy who needed some hospitalization, something that wasn't life threatening, but needed to be attended to.  They also asked for a detailed breakdown of all expenses incurred.  What they found was ridiculous padding.  For example, one ibuprofen tablet cost our patient well over $100.00!

So, they took this outrage to the management, expecting a little shame or contrition - or at least some effort at distraction, a little mendacity.  What they got was bald faced honesty.  The hospital said this was the only way they could recoup the huge losses being incurred with the uninsured.  The ER has become the doctor's office for a huge number of uninsured patients.  The hospitals incur the expense without any choice, for they are mandated by law that they must accept people who come to these rooms for help.  It becomes worse if the person is admitted, for they cannot release those who have no place to be released to for care.

So, they went to the insurance company and asked why they didn't do something to stop this waste of money.  The insurance company said they didn't even examine any claims of less than $100,000.00.  Basically, they cover it with high insurance rates and high deductibles.  In other words, the burden is on the shoulders of those of us who ARE insured.

So, what has happened here?  Why doesn't the free market solve this issue like so many insist it can?  I'm thinking that it is because it is not and cannot be a fully free market situation for one thing.  It is not just to simply let the uninsured die and I don't think any of us want that as our solution.  And, we don't want the insurance companies working to solve this by dictating what treatments each patient is to get, something far too many of us are facing from time to time, treatment prescribed based upon judgment of cost rather than as a medical decision.  So, unless someone can plainly explain to me how the free market is supposed to solve this, I am at a loss to see how it can work.

And that last comment by me is part of the problem I have with this whole situation.  The national debate has not been helpful!  I don't want attack politics on this.  I don't want ideology and I'm tired of nasty substituting for knowledge.  This is too important for the health of people and the health of the economy.

Tomorrow

This is the topic brought to us from sometime in the past by Grannymar.  Oh, that's rich with irony!  Just as I started considering the topic, I ran across the eventual rebirth of GM's first response to the idea of the Loose Blogger Consortium as it resurfaced on Facebook.  It was yours truly who originally had the brainstorm and Ramana has rightly said that only three of us originals still contribute on a regular basis.  Of course, now you know who the three are.

So, GM suggests "Tomorrow" as a topic from sometime yesterday and I get ready to deal with the inspiration from yesterday of "Tomorrow," but a message from yesterday reemerges that has every bearing on tomorrow, causing my earlier ideas to terminate before I even reach the now of writing.  Is that clear?  As she makes the transition to a new blog format using Wordpress, her past resurfaces as posts convert over and this one came due at the perfect time!  GM was a bit intimidated back then which I now find pretty humorous.  The woman, my cuz (cousin), is an all-star writer in a league few can match, but I don't think she could fully realize that without taking a bold stride into her tomorrow.  She's made a life out of doing that!

This is a microcosm of what the LBC has done to those of us who have taken it to heart.  It upsets our preconceptions, it keeps tomorrow a mystery gestating some new excitement.  Sometimes, it is even a bit scary.  After all, you lay out your ideas and people comment, then you go see what the others, all talented and creative, have come up with.  Put on your helmet poor ego.

Tomorrow doesn't get any better than that!

Here was Grannymar's original post:

http://grannymar.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/creating-a-consortium/

What Keeps Me Busy

I promised my friend Ramana to lay out those positive, creative things I'm involved with that are keeping me occupied right now.  So, here goes a shot at it:

The above picture is of a new, proprietary product that a group of us are developing primarily for businesses.  I don't want to be very descriptive since we have all promised to keep the lid on it at this developmental stage, but we have gathered a nice collection of media specialists and educational experts in collaboration.  My part is the development of the processes that will deliver information in a new way that blends needs.  What you see above is one of many flowcharts that I am currently working on.

I am really finding it exciting to be working with some of the quality thinkers around me.  If we succeed, it could really improve educational processes across large corporations and we have some large corporations very interested.  If it succeeds, it could also be an income stream that continues into my retirement and that might allow me to come to exotic places like Ireland or India!

The second project taking a very large amount of my time is the development of software to allow input of orders into a computer system that generates bills of materials, assembly diagrams, accounting needs, etc., for a new type of lighting product that is taking off like wildfire:

http://www.finelite.com/products/serieshp4-id-overview/

Essentially, we are needing to develop a custom autocad system that can allow sales to input an order in three dimensions and they told me yesterday that if I can put in 50 hours a week, they would accept it.  It will occupy me projected pretty much through October and my other customers don't go away.  And they have another product needing development right after this one!

At the same time, I am working with another company to enhance order processing from 8 different internet sources and communication with a newly installed accounting system on a SQL Server.

Usually, I tell you about my family and the exciting and involving developments there.  Now, you know another side of the picture.  It is kind of holding some of my LBC interactions down, but I am still able to faithfully post each Friday at least.  I find time to read.  I find time spend with my wife.  I find time to walk.  I find time to talk each evening with my daughter or my mother or my friend going through trying times or ... on and on.  The good part is that it is all positive, creative, growing and flourishing.

I'm a busy and very lucky man!

Saying Goodbye

This truly difficult topic is brought to us this week by Padmini (Padmum).  It is not that it is a bad topic in any way, just difficult.

I am going to sidestep the worst of the goodbyes, the death of loved ones.  We have had too many of those over the past few years and we have a few to go.  The saddest of all is the saying goodbye our good friends had to do at Arlington this past week for their son, a decorated Green Beret, a fine young man, an artist.  He died in Afghanistan.

No, I'd rather look at simpler, more manageable goodbyes, for I have found them painful nonetheless.  Leaving Kansas to move to California was brutal.  It gives me an appreciation of my ancestors coming across the Great Pond to start a new life in America.  It is a story that continues today for so many here.  And it is HARD!  To leave what you have known, who you have known, your family, your friends, your entire support system.  It is like a tender plant being uprooted from its birth place and transplanted to another soil, a move that may or may not take.  Many have tried to migrate and have failed the transplant and I have experienced why.  Many are the nights you feel bereft, the days you feel lost.

But, that obviously is not the entire story, else I would be back in Kansas.  I am here because first there were new friends that I bonded with and the pain and loneliness lessened with shared experience.  More importantly, I met my mate!  Suddenly, my roots were to the center of the Earth.

There was another side to this situation.  My parents had to say goodbye to me.  Not goodbye, I'd never call again.  Not goodbye, that I had turned by back.  Not goodbye that they could not visit.  No, the goodbye that says, "Our boy is half a continent away and we won't see him often, like we always have."

Migration is a painful and selfish move.  It is like creativity, for it requires denial of what is because what can be must be sought.  It is driven by something inside an individual.  It is a cause unto itself.

I admire the courage of the migrants who have ventured forth over the eons, for if not for the pain they endured, we would be a group of somewhat advanced apes living in Africa, clinging to the known.  It's more difficult than we often credit it to be.

Yesterday was exciting!

Latin definitions necessary to understand parts of this post:

• cum laude, meaning "with honor"^[1]—usually pronounced /kʊmˈlaʊdeɪ/ or /kʊmˈlɔːdeɪ/.
• magna cum laude, meaning "with great honor"
• summa cum laude, meaning "with highest honor"

Lafawnda graduated from college yesterday!  Yeah!  If I start listing the honors she accrued, it would be a bit unseemly, but let me tell you that we are exceedingly proud.

I leave this drop of wisdom, though: she graduated magna cum laude which is a high honor.  Her response was pleasure at that and the followup wisdom that she was delighted the she "only graduated magna!"  What?  She contends with bipolar disorder and is most definitely making bipolar deal with her rather than the other way around.  It has forged her in a different furnace than the other students.  Had she remained at the stage whe found herself when she entered college, she rightfully noted that she would have graduated summa cum laude, for she would have been unable to accept less.  And the price would have been terrible.

My daughter has learned that achievement comes in many colors.  She has learned to still achieve in her chosen path of study and career and simultaneously achieve balance.  That maturation and her happy marriage bring me more delight than any awards possibly could.

THAT is why college is a life lab.  The challenges are presented in packages designed by others, but they are worthy challenges nonetheless.  Now, she is ready to leave the lab and deal with life as she finds it, seldom prepackaged and unknown in its path.  She (and we) think with no hesitation that she is ready! 

Congratulations!!