I love Etsy. I like that it is the phonetic spelling of how I read the abbreviation "etc." in my head. I got an awesome quarter sized pin that reads "I'd rather be smooching my nerdy husband" and some great earrings from another seller that came in a tin that I reuse for hair elastics. It is a refreshing corner of the internet and the answer for many a Twenty Dollar Or Less gift quandary. Etsy good.
If you people only knew the truth. Stop believing everything you read on the internet. The only reason people want to go after Horizon Organic Dairy is because they have become so sucessful. In this day and age it seems you just can't possibly be sucessful without cheating...right? WRONG. I saw it first hand. The cows are put out on pasture every single day. Not just access....out on it! Out grazing and laying down and doing whatever they'd like. People insist on taking pictures of them not on pasture say...on 95 degree hot July days. Would you want to be out on pasture on a hot summer day? I didn't think so. Just as a FYI a cow becomes overheated any temperature over 68 degrees. Hmm. Bet you didn't consider that one. Wouldn't it also be a little ridiculous to say they are constantly hooked up the the milkers? Any dairy farmer knows the best way to be productive is to manage your herd the very best you can. The better you manage your herd...the more milk they produce. The more milk you produce, the more money you make...makes sense to me. Since Horizon Organic cannot use growth horomones to increase milk production there is no way around taking proper care of the cows to produce milk! Think about it. Organic animals are also not shipped off to slaughter if they do become sick. They are treated with NOP approved products first and if that does not work they are then treated with whatever it takes to make them well. They then are tagged as non-organic and sold to live out their lives as a conventional animal. How do I know this? I have a master's in dairy management, a bachelor's in dairy science. I'm a certified organic inspector. I'm a previous employee of Horizon Organic Dairy. I think I know better than any of this false information I read online. Take home message: The milk is safe. The cows are safe and yes...happy. Everything is truely certified organic. No corners were cut, no cover-ups. It is what it is...believe it or not.
Strange logic of escalating vehicle size for "safety" reasons. You'll all be driving Hummers soon. Then you'll have to get tanks. :-)
Sold my last (small) car in 1999. I've "saved" over $100,000, less the $15,000 or so I've spent on public transport. I prefer to spend my money on other things.
I am one of the people that agree that renting a home is not as good of an option vs. owning (at least for long-term).
Think about it...the owner of the property is essentially running a business, and must charge you enough to cover his/her costs (mortgage payments/upkeep/insurance/etc). The problem with most people is that they try to compare apples to oranges when comparing costs of renting to owning.
Sure, you can obviously rent a 1000ft^2 apartment for a LOT less than you'd pay for a 2000ft^2 house with a nice yard. However, if you compare the costs of owning vs. renting equivalent properties, then month-to-month owning wins. Add in the fact that you have to do some/most of the maintenance yourself if you own, then while you have a mortgage, the costs balance out. BUT, after you've paid off the mortgage, your only mandatory recurring costs are taxes.
For me, my mortgage (PITI) payment is <$750/month. To rent an equivalent house in my area would be $900-1100/month. Granted, the extra $150+ does get used for upkeep. However, I don't have to worry about massive rent hikes (even tax increases only affect the mortgage payment by 10-20 of dollars, not a hundred or so like you'd get from a renter).
Plus, with owning, you have even more options for saving money by being able to install high-efficiency items (windows/AC/furnace/etc) to save you further on your month-to-month bills. Try convincing your landlord to install a new, high-efficiency furnace and A/C to save you money on your heating/cooling bills!
Okay, I've heard this argument about little cars before. I drive a Corolla, myself, while most everyone else in the volunteer fire department drives their big, manly trucks. Before I continue, take a look at the numbers (of stars, that is)
Both the Explorer and the Corolla score pretty well. I'm also an engineer as my day job, so what I'm about to say doesn't come out of nowhere. True, the energy of the crash has to go somewhere, and it will get absorbed mostly by crumpling metal and heat. True, the Corolla will almost definitely be totaled by a head-on. Nonetheless, experience and observation tell me that the Explorer won't fare much better in a major accident. I've been to plenty of accidents where big SUVs shatter into a million plastic and twisted, metal pieces while small cars sustain damage that's hardly visible. In the major accidents, both cars are usually toast. In a head-on at 40 MPH between the two vehicles, both parties would likely sustain serious injury. Don't ask me how I know...
Now... Understand that, if you invest the smaller sum in an economy car like mine, you've probably got one big accident before you're totaled, while an SUV might sustain less damage or just as much. You, as a person, however, are likely to be just as safe (or unsafe) in either vehicle. My wife is a bit more prone to accidents, and her '99 Jeep Cherokee has taken a few small hits without much damage, while I'm pretty sure the Corolla would need more body work. The Jeep is a lot thirstier, but the investment seems to have paid off. If your driving habits are less than perfect, a more robust vehicle might be a better investment, but safety has more to do with structural integrity than size. Alright, I'll stop lecturing now.
When I'm in an environment in which I am expected to work on several projects at once, I keep a shared spreadsheet in a folder with all of my projects, ranked by priority (you can do this in MS Project if you have it, but Project can be hard to learn). I have a column for the project name, due date, what (if anything) is holding it back, and expected completion time.
My boss can check this spreadsheet to see where I am on projects as I go along. If they don't like what they see, they can contact me to change the order. There's no point in whining about bosses giving you more work and expecting deadlines to remain in place - it's your job to communicate what kind of impact any additional work is going to have on your other projects.
Not that I haven't had my fair share of bad bosses. But it's important to have the guts to say, "No problem. But that WILL push back Project A until Tuesday, OK?"
I'm currently negotiating with myself over downsizing my vehicle for the reasons you outline. I feel I made a stupid, emotion-driven choice 2 years ago and am about ready to partially fix it. I posted about it here.
Good post. More people should think about these things.
I think that the email idea is a great way to go about solving your problem. Like Timothy said, you have to know your boss to know whether or not something like this will work.
Another idea would be to talk to her about it. There are ways to do this that aren't confrontative or accusing...something like, "Hey, you came in a minute ago and asked me for Q. I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be working on Q, and I'm afraid we miscommunicated. What can I do to make sure that I'm on the same page you are?" If your boss likes open, straight-forward communication, this gives him/her the chance to influence the process (and so feel more like the "boss") and it helps you avoid future, awkward situations.
And Timothy, I'm happy you brought up knowing your boss. That is SO key to making these sorts of work-relationships...well, WORK.
Point taken. After I wrote my post, I started thinking about how I rode my bike to high school and I typically was the only one who did. Most kids rode the bus or took a car. The only infrastructure that I had was the open road. Looking back, I am wondering if drivers looked out for me since I was a regular -- I certainly looked out for (learned to avoid) them!
I had a manager who would claim that she assigned me tasks when she really didn't. At first, I had difficult figuring out if it was her fault or mine. Like you, I finally started keeping a record of what she had assigned me.
The final straw was when, on one occasion, she had asked me why we had a particular set of tasks lined up the way we did (releases under test). I pulled out my notes from our meeting the previous day and re-stated what we had discussed to which she had responded that 'that wasn't what she meant'. I pulled one of my project leads into the discussion and he had the exact same thing I had. She still insisted that wasn't what we agreed on and that we had gotten it wrong.
After that, every time I met with her or was assigned a task, I followed up in email with a list of my current tasks and where it fell in my priority tree. That provided a record to her of what I knew my tasks to be. She had the opportunity with the email to respond and correct it and, when I started doing this, I let her know that if she didn't, I assumed that I was getting implicit agreement from her.
A little while later, she tried to claim that she had assigned me something when she didn't. I showed her the last task email and it pretty much quieted her down.
In my case, my boss was really trying to manage up and assumed everything she was promising to upper management was being communicated down and it wasn't.
My method was a bit more work but saved me on more than one occasion. The important thing is to let her know (tactfully), that unless she responds with something different, that the email represents an agreement on your work.
Awesome top 10 list. I definitely agree with the renting over owning point. My wife and I just bought a house less than a year ago, with everyone telling us what a good investment we had made. But we're spending at just $800 more a month on the mortgage, not to mention what we spend additionally on utilities.
We were just talking 2 nights ago about how much better an investment we could make if we put that $800 into something else besides our house. Even if it's just a savings account, it would still wind up a better investment than our profit from selling our house.
This article gives us hundreds and hundreds of useful ebooks about home based business which is useful to those who are interested in home based business.If you are really motivated to build a thriving small, solo or home based business and would like to know how to build a profitable business in one year, this is a great no cost resource.
When I used to work 30 miles from where I lived, taking a bus or riding a bike simply wasn't an option. I mean, sure, I could take that extra 2 hours to get to work (yes, a bus from my house to my workplace took two hours including three transfers), but I'd rather shell out the dough and be home in 30 minutes versus 2 and a half hours.
I hate to say this, but I suspect that Europeans have the option to ride more because (1) a LOT people ride bike, and there is safetely in numbers, (2) people don't work 50 hour work weeks and (3) the countries are simply smaller.
Also, and I might be totally off here, but don't most European countries have really good mental health care? I could be reading more into this than necessary, but is it as common in Europe as it is in Seattle to get on a bus and immediately be harrassed by some fecal-smeared mentally unbalanced person? Because that has been my experience 9 times out of 10 on the bus,
Where do I get my ticket? My web transaction ID is B4NBDR ($300.70) and I need confirmation emailed to agnimz@yahoo.com.
My flight is on tuesday 22 may, Guatemala to Miami.
I haven{t received confirmation yet and urgently need to know how to get my ticket.
Regards,
Inga Monterroso
P.S. Please make sure you email me at this email account I have just given you. Thanks!
Although this post was created with long term jobs in mind, I'm currently in university and was deliberating whether to leave or stay in my part time job when I stumbled across this. It really helped make the decision, thanks.
I love Etsy. I like that it is the phonetic spelling of how I read the abbreviation "etc." in my head. I got an awesome quarter sized pin that reads "I'd rather be smooching my nerdy husband" and some great earrings from another seller that came in a tin that I reuse for hair elastics. It is a refreshing corner of the internet and the answer for many a Twenty Dollar Or Less gift quandary. Etsy good.
i wonder if i could do this...it'll probably be painful huh..
So, perhaps we've established then that the person with the biggest car doesn't necessarily "win."
If you people only knew the truth. Stop believing everything you read on the internet. The only reason people want to go after Horizon Organic Dairy is because they have become so sucessful. In this day and age it seems you just can't possibly be sucessful without cheating...right? WRONG. I saw it first hand. The cows are put out on pasture every single day. Not just access....out on it! Out grazing and laying down and doing whatever they'd like. People insist on taking pictures of them not on pasture say...on 95 degree hot July days. Would you want to be out on pasture on a hot summer day? I didn't think so. Just as a FYI a cow becomes overheated any temperature over 68 degrees. Hmm. Bet you didn't consider that one. Wouldn't it also be a little ridiculous to say they are constantly hooked up the the milkers? Any dairy farmer knows the best way to be productive is to manage your herd the very best you can. The better you manage your herd...the more milk they produce. The more milk you produce, the more money you make...makes sense to me. Since Horizon Organic cannot use growth horomones to increase milk production there is no way around taking proper care of the cows to produce milk! Think about it. Organic animals are also not shipped off to slaughter if they do become sick. They are treated with NOP approved products first and if that does not work they are then treated with whatever it takes to make them well. They then are tagged as non-organic and sold to live out their lives as a conventional animal. How do I know this? I have a master's in dairy management, a bachelor's in dairy science. I'm a certified organic inspector. I'm a previous employee of Horizon Organic Dairy. I think I know better than any of this false information I read online. Take home message: The milk is safe. The cows are safe and yes...happy. Everything is truely certified organic. No corners were cut, no cover-ups. It is what it is...believe it or not.
Who doesn't love free drinks!
W000t!
Strange logic of escalating vehicle size for "safety" reasons. You'll all be driving Hummers soon. Then you'll have to get tanks. :-)
Sold my last (small) car in 1999. I've "saved" over $100,000, less the $15,000 or so I've spent on public transport. I prefer to spend my money on other things.
I am one of the people that agree that renting a home is not as good of an option vs. owning (at least for long-term).
Think about it...the owner of the property is essentially running a business, and must charge you enough to cover his/her costs (mortgage payments/upkeep/insurance/etc). The problem with most people is that they try to compare apples to oranges when comparing costs of renting to owning.
Sure, you can obviously rent a 1000ft^2 apartment for a LOT less than you'd pay for a 2000ft^2 house with a nice yard. However, if you compare the costs of owning vs. renting equivalent properties, then month-to-month owning wins. Add in the fact that you have to do some/most of the maintenance yourself if you own, then while you have a mortgage, the costs balance out. BUT, after you've paid off the mortgage, your only mandatory recurring costs are taxes.
For me, my mortgage (PITI) payment is <$750/month. To rent an equivalent house in my area would be $900-1100/month. Granted, the extra $150+ does get used for upkeep. However, I don't have to worry about massive rent hikes (even tax increases only affect the mortgage payment by 10-20 of dollars, not a hundred or so like you'd get from a renter).
Plus, with owning, you have even more options for saving money by being able to install high-efficiency items (windows/AC/furnace/etc) to save you further on your month-to-month bills. Try convincing your landlord to install a new, high-efficiency furnace and A/C to save you money on your heating/cooling bills!
Okay, I've heard this argument about little cars before. I drive a Corolla, myself, while most everyone else in the volunteer fire department drives their big, manly trucks. Before I continue, take a look at the numbers (of stars, that is)
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/
Both the Explorer and the Corolla score pretty well. I'm also an engineer as my day job, so what I'm about to say doesn't come out of nowhere. True, the energy of the crash has to go somewhere, and it will get absorbed mostly by crumpling metal and heat. True, the Corolla will almost definitely be totaled by a head-on. Nonetheless, experience and observation tell me that the Explorer won't fare much better in a major accident. I've been to plenty of accidents where big SUVs shatter into a million plastic and twisted, metal pieces while small cars sustain damage that's hardly visible. In the major accidents, both cars are usually toast. In a head-on at 40 MPH between the two vehicles, both parties would likely sustain serious injury. Don't ask me how I know...
Now... Understand that, if you invest the smaller sum in an economy car like mine, you've probably got one big accident before you're totaled, while an SUV might sustain less damage or just as much. You, as a person, however, are likely to be just as safe (or unsafe) in either vehicle. My wife is a bit more prone to accidents, and her '99 Jeep Cherokee has taken a few small hits without much damage, while I'm pretty sure the Corolla would need more body work. The Jeep is a lot thirstier, but the investment seems to have paid off. If your driving habits are less than perfect, a more robust vehicle might be a better investment, but safety has more to do with structural integrity than size. Alright, I'll stop lecturing now.
When I'm in an environment in which I am expected to work on several projects at once, I keep a shared spreadsheet in a folder with all of my projects, ranked by priority (you can do this in MS Project if you have it, but Project can be hard to learn). I have a column for the project name, due date, what (if anything) is holding it back, and expected completion time.
My boss can check this spreadsheet to see where I am on projects as I go along. If they don't like what they see, they can contact me to change the order. There's no point in whining about bosses giving you more work and expecting deadlines to remain in place - it's your job to communicate what kind of impact any additional work is going to have on your other projects.
Not that I haven't had my fair share of bad bosses. But it's important to have the guts to say, "No problem. But that WILL push back Project A until Tuesday, OK?"
Yah, I would take the corolla over the explorer in an accident any day.
Check it out:
http://www.aaa.asn.au/NCAP/PDF%20Docs/corolla02.htm
http://www.aaa.asn.au/NCAP/PDF%20Docs/escape02.pdf
corolla scores better pretty much everywhere.
Nah, if Obiwan can get past a security checkpoint, I think Yoda can sneak us into an amusement park.
You left out one big variable:
Ford Explorer:
Medical cost after colliding with Toyota Corolla at 40 mph head on: $1200
Toyota Corolla:
Medical cost after colliding with Ford Explorer at 40 mph head on: None (because you're dead).
Hmmm.. you're right... Toyota Corolla is cheaper but I guess you get what you pay for.....
I'm currently negotiating with myself over downsizing my vehicle for the reasons you outline. I feel I made a stupid, emotion-driven choice 2 years ago and am about ready to partially fix it. I posted about it here.
Good post. More people should think about these things.
Will, they'd probably try to make Yoda pay admission.
I think that the email idea is a great way to go about solving your problem. Like Timothy said, you have to know your boss to know whether or not something like this will work.
Another idea would be to talk to her about it. There are ways to do this that aren't confrontative or accusing...something like, "Hey, you came in a minute ago and asked me for Q. I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be working on Q, and I'm afraid we miscommunicated. What can I do to make sure that I'm on the same page you are?" If your boss likes open, straight-forward communication, this gives him/her the chance to influence the process (and so feel more like the "boss") and it helps you avoid future, awkward situations.
And Timothy, I'm happy you brought up knowing your boss. That is SO key to making these sorts of work-relationships...well, WORK.
Point taken. After I wrote my post, I started thinking about how I rode my bike to high school and I typically was the only one who did. Most kids rode the bus or took a car. The only infrastructure that I had was the open road. Looking back, I am wondering if drivers looked out for me since I was a regular -- I certainly looked out for (learned to avoid) them!
You're gonna have great times on that road bike!
Dwight,
I had a manager who would claim that she assigned me tasks when she really didn't. At first, I had difficult figuring out if it was her fault or mine. Like you, I finally started keeping a record of what she had assigned me.
The final straw was when, on one occasion, she had asked me why we had a particular set of tasks lined up the way we did (releases under test). I pulled out my notes from our meeting the previous day and re-stated what we had discussed to which she had responded that 'that wasn't what she meant'. I pulled one of my project leads into the discussion and he had the exact same thing I had. She still insisted that wasn't what we agreed on and that we had gotten it wrong.
After that, every time I met with her or was assigned a task, I followed up in email with a list of my current tasks and where it fell in my priority tree. That provided a record to her of what I knew my tasks to be. She had the opportunity with the email to respond and correct it and, when I started doing this, I let her know that if she didn't, I assumed that I was getting implicit agreement from her.
A little while later, she tried to claim that she had assigned me something when she didn't. I showed her the last task email and it pretty much quieted her down.
In my case, my boss was really trying to manage up and assumed everything she was promising to upper management was being communicated down and it wasn't.
My method was a bit more work but saved me on more than one occasion. The important thing is to let her know (tactfully), that unless she responds with something different, that the email represents an agreement on your work.
Awesome top 10 list. I definitely agree with the renting over owning point. My wife and I just bought a house less than a year ago, with everyone telling us what a good investment we had made. But we're spending at just $800 more a month on the mortgage, not to mention what we spend additionally on utilities.
We were just talking 2 nights ago about how much better an investment we could make if we put that $800 into something else besides our house. Even if it's just a savings account, it would still wind up a better investment than our profit from selling our house.
This article gives us hundreds and hundreds of useful ebooks about home based business which is useful to those who are interested in home based business.If you are really motivated to build a thriving small, solo or home based business and would like to know
how to build a profitable business in one year, this is a great no cost resource.
When I used to work 30 miles from where I lived, taking a bus or riding a bike simply wasn't an option. I mean, sure, I could take that extra 2 hours to get to work (yes, a bus from my house to my workplace took two hours including three transfers), but I'd rather shell out the dough and be home in 30 minutes versus 2 and a half hours.
I hate to say this, but I suspect that Europeans have the option to ride more because (1) a LOT people ride bike, and there is safetely in numbers, (2) people don't work 50 hour work weeks and (3) the countries are simply smaller.
Also, and I might be totally off here, but don't most European countries have really good mental health care? I could be reading more into this than necessary, but is it as common in Europe as it is in Seattle to get on a bus and immediately be harrassed by some fecal-smeared mentally unbalanced person? Because that has been my experience 9 times out of 10 on the bus,
Where do I get my ticket? My web transaction ID is B4NBDR ($300.70) and I need confirmation emailed to agnimz@yahoo.com.
My flight is on tuesday 22 may, Guatemala to Miami.
I haven{t received confirmation yet and urgently need to know how to get my ticket.
Regards,
Inga Monterroso
P.S. Please make sure you email me at this email account I have just given you. Thanks!
Although this post was created with long term jobs in mind, I'm currently in university and was deliberating whether to leave or stay in my part time job when I stumbled across this. It really helped make the decision, thanks.
Your energy is better spent trying to impress the cute receptionist instead of your idiotic boss.
I hope I am there to see that, and then watch him kick you all around the carnival.