Vintage Social Networking

Second City Consulting: The Orientee's Dilemma

Second City Consulting: The Orientee's Dilemma: There is something I don't know that I'm supposed to know. I don't know what  it is I don't know, and yet I am supposed t...

Type A Personalities

As a Type A personality myself, I found an article titled 16 Signs You're A Little (Or A Lot) Type A via The Huffington Post quite an interesting read since I saw so much of myself in those signs.

This article (found here) starts with a background of where the term "Type A" comes from which was a lesson learned for me today and then goes on to list those sixteen traits that speak so clearly to me.

Capricorns: What We're Really Like

Winter in Chicago

Today's chilly weather has shattered records and 12 noon today was marked as the 7th coldest noon time EVER recorded here in Chicago.  We're at -13 (yes negative thirteen) with a wind chill of -40 (yes negative forty).

Think you know everything?

• Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• The average person's let had does 56% of the typing.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
• The longest one-syllable word in the English language is screeched.
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
• No word in the English language rhymes with mouth, orange, silver or purple.
• Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
• All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
• Almonds are a member of the peach family.
• Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
• There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

But it's only...

One of my current frustrations surrounds what I refer to as the "it's only" habit that an organization I volunteer with has a habit of falling into all too often.  As in, "it'll only take an extra few minutes" that drags a meeting on for another hour.  Or, "it's only $X per person" when each individual person in the group didn't have a say in the cost in the first place and may not have budgeted for said expense.

Many of the women I volunteer with in this organization are in professions that traditionally make good salaries or otherwise are a part of a duel income household where the combined income is at a good rate.  These same women forget that some of us live on just our income.  An income in middle-management at a non-profit that is anything but "good".  An income that pays for the necessities and a few of the "luxuries" but that isn't as expendable as others.

While I'm fortunate to have some savings and am by no means destitute, at the same time, I do have to be mindful of what I spend.  Especially since I just bought a new house with the costs that come with moving and setting up a new home.  A home that went from a condo to a single family house.  And, it is afterall the Christmas season and I'm buying gifts for my family which is where my current extra money is going.

But how do you tell those who are better off that coming up with that extra time and money just isn't always possible?  How do we remind them that what may be "only" an extra hour or an extra $25 to them may mean cutting out some of the basics for us?

I guess sometimes going along with what we aren't comfortable doing is really the "only" option available to us.