Ladling oatmeal with millennials

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Punch in: To check in formally at a job upon arrival.
Punch out: To check out formally at a job upon departure.


Hold the fort: To take responsibility for a situation while another person is temporarily absent.
All hands on deck:  
A call for all members of a ship's crew to come to the deck, usually in a time of crisis. By extension, everyone 
available to help with a problem, or a call for those people to help. 

 The mail must go through.

Work your fingers to the bone: Boney fingers 
 Your job may be crucial for the greater good: Keep the ships from crashing on the rocks no matter how small you are.
Ladle that cream of wheat through holidays and blizzards: Sick people need to eat, and so do the folks taking care of them.

Find your own sub: You are responsible for covering the time and the work you are assigned whether or not working is convenient.

The show must go on: Regardless of what happens, whatever show has been planned still has to be staged for the waiting patrons.

Just a tiny cog in a big machine: You probably aren't as important as you imagine.







Another day older and deeper in debt: Tennesse Ernie & ZZ Top.

Perpetual tardiness is arrogance: It’s simply that some people no longer even pretend that they think your time is as important as theirs. And technology makes it worse. It seems texting or emailing that you are late somehow means you are no longer late. Rubbish. You are rude. And inconsiderate.

Let's just get it out there: Working with millennials is not always a picnic in the park. I birthed and raise three of them, but most of the others are from another galaxy. Even so, many are amazingly committed to causes and passions, an inspiration to older coworkers, and a bonus to any team. Except when one wants to boot them off the island... Kids These Days gave me valuable new and often infuriating insight into how we created the Millenials and the economic situations they face.

Bring out the hammock:  You didn't just imagine it. Our weekends have lost the restoring, relaxing powers we desperately need.

Much has been written about Hillbilly Elegy and The Glass Castle. Jeannette Walls' book is the more powerful to my mind, bringing out so many choices we make about work, callings, parenthood, and personal responsibility. Do any of our choices make more sense, and why?

    
    

David Brown's memoir is a powerful description of police work, but also a celebration of vocation, meaning and purpose in one's life work.

The Promised Land of Error is a reminder that for much of mankind's existence work took up less of each day than it does in this time of labor-saving devices and technology.

And now this Christmas evening I will hang it up without ranting about earbuds on the job. Be present.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder