Friday, September 21, 2007

LIFE: The Danger of Great Expectations

Note: This post was originally written at the end of July and I went back and forth about posting it. Let me know what you think:

I normally wouldn't write something like this on the blog but my patience is completely shot lately and so with apologies...


I hate Wal-Mart! Have always hated it but began to hate it more when I learned about how bad a company it is for this country ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/). Putting mom and pop stores out of business, blocking the formation of unions, underpaying and not providing enough health benefits for employees ( http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/)...all things that I despise.

I had started my own personal boycott of Wal-Mart a few years back. I wouldn't spend any of my money there and avoided the place any way I could. I didn't force that boycott on my family but they knew how I felt (I don't believe in forcing beliefs on others but just ask that people listen to each other's ideas).

Well, with babies come expenses...such as diapers, baby wipes, baby food, etc. Wal-Mart, much to my mixed feelings, has these items cheaper than most other stores in the area. I wasn't very happy about giving them my money but economically it made sense for my family. And, now that I'm facing potential unemployment in two weeks, Wal-Mart is making me swallow my pride even more.

But, besides those other (admittedly, more important) reasons, the thing that gets under my skin the most about Wal-Mart are the people who shop there. Now, before you go getting insulted, I know that's a generalization and I accept that not everyone is the way I'm going to describe.

Now, I'm a Jersey Boy/New Yorker and I've seen just about everything and can tolerate many things. I've dealt with the "typical New Yorkers" that many people outside of NY envision. And I'll teach Mikey how to get along in this type of environment when he's old enough.

One of the problems that I've had in my adult life is having expectations of other people (you could call them great expectations in relation to our current society). I was raised with manners (saying excuse me, opening doors for people, respecting elders) and compassion for my fellow man. That's the way I want to raise Mikey, too. But, alas, it doesn't seem enough parents are teaching their kids that anymore and it seems even more adults have either never learned those things or have just given up on living them.

I was shopping with Mikey this past weekend at Wal-Mart. He's such a good boy when we go out in public and I enjoy his company. He made me being in Wal-Mart a little easier.

When I'm out with Mikey I'm very protective of him. Many people nowadays are self-centered and don't pay attention or care about other people around them and to me that's a potential danger to my child and/or my family.

Well, this big galoof of a guy (you know the type, a Vince Vaughan without the looks or talent) and his (I'm assuming) wife come walking toward us as I turn the corner to go down an aisle. There was barely any space between our shopping cart and the wall of the aisle and these two decide they can fit their adult frames in that space to get by. They squeeze through and bump the cart and, as I said about being protective of Mikey, that and the lack of manners was enough to get my attention. So, I said, "You know, 'excuse me' works." Making that comment was enough for me...kind of gets my frustration out to let people know when they were rude.

But, apparently, me making that comment was an even bigger affront than them bumping the cart and being rude. They both turn around and hurl some nice curses at me. I laughed and said "You gotta be kidding me." The lady (and I use that term loosely), I guess his wife, says "nice example you're setting for your son." This was enough to get my blood boiling and I said, incredulously, "Are you serious? You are the ones who have no manners!"

Again, I guess I was perpetrating such a crime in pointing this out to them that all of a sudden this "lady" comes marching at me with the look of a pit bull. I laughed again at the ridiculousness of this. She comes right up to me and knocks my Yankees cap off and says "Why don't you shut up, YANKEE fan!!!?" Now, other than when I was in Boston one time, I've never had my support of the Yankees be a reason for someone to attack me. She, like the cowards that these people usually are, started to walk away. I told her to hold on and come back. I said I was going to call the police and, again, apparently that is a crime too because that set Mr. Redneck Guy off into another rage of curses and threats to beat the "s***" out of me. Again, I laughed and said that "This is why I hate Wal-Mart...because of people like you."

As they took off walking, I was left to feel my heart rate pounding and my frustration level exploding. I always ask myself, after an experience like this, why do I bother expecting things of people? Why do I think that others will have the manners and compassion that I was told to expect? And then I looked at Mikey...

I looked at him and realized that this incredible little boy had more intelligence, class, and good-heartedness than those two adults could ever dream of having. I knew that I'd never let him get like them and that, yeah, I was setting a bad example for him by letting those people upset me. If you let someone who lacks your convictions make you lose your convictions (however temporarily) you're just as bad as they are.

Plus, and I don't know if this makes me a silly optimist, I still have faith in humanity. I've always believed we have the power to do good and to love each other. If that makes me the easy target then all I can say is that I'm ready to keep picking up my Yankee cap.

LIFE: The Summer of My Discontent*

In football, there's a penalty for jumping onto someone when they're already tackled...it's called piling on. In sports, we hear about coaches running up the score when they are already crushing their opponents. You often hear the expression, "don't kick a man when he's down." Well, over the past few months I've been kicked, piled on, and crushed.

I've written previously about my kidney stones. That turned into five (yes, FIVE) surgical procedures and months of pain and discomfort. I won't even go into the story about the day I had to take the train into New York City for a job interview and was trying to ignore the constant pain and urge to urinate because I had two stents in my kidneys. I can't tell you how many times over these past few months that women (mostly nurses) said to me that they'd rather go through childbirth again than have a kidney stone. I think that was supposed to be comforting to me. :-)

I had my fifth (and final) surgery about a week or so ago and it looks like everything is finally taken care of with that. I'm feeling a hundred times better and re-energized. When you face a daily physical challenge it knocks you down and takes away a lot of your strength and motivation. I've gained so much respect for people who deal with chronic pain.

On top of all that fun was the fact that I had been laid off and my last day at work was at the end of July. Doing a job search is a daunting task as it is (especially in my field of work and in an economy like the current one) but when you are dealing with something as painful as kidney stones it makes interviewing a huge challenge.

I've had about five interviews so far (six, if you count a phone interview) and I've come away from all of them feeling as if they went very well and that I would probably get a job offer. So far I've had no offers and have had no explanation (and often no response or notification of there decision). Is it difficult for an employer to let you know that they went with someone else? I've emailed a few of the people I met with and asked them for constructive criticism or at least a reason why they went with someone else and I haven't received many responses (and when I have they were not very helpful).

If I had the time and money I'd think about changing my career path. But I love being in a creative field and editing and writing are all I've ever done. And, to toot my own horn, I'm good at it. So, for now, I continue my career search in publishing/Editorial and work on starting my own freelance web site (more on that some other time).

But, as if those weren't enough to deal with, the worst part of the summer was when my wife, Lynne, was in the hospital for a couple weeks. She was pretty sick and it's still a bit of a mystery as to what exactly happened but it started with a reaction to a new prescription medication. It's a scary thing to see something like that happen and it angers and saddens me to think that there are doctors who prescribe medicines without really knowing much about them and drug companies that push drugs on the public without really knowing all the side-effects.

While my wife was in the hospital I was still at work so I would get up in the morning and get Mikey ready for his in-home teachers, go to work, and then rush home to go to the hospital and stay as long as I could at night, then go home and put Mikey to bed each night. He was lucky enough to have his nana watching him when I wasn't around so I don't know how much he realized that mommy wasn't there every day. It was a tough experience on all of us and very, very scary.

Have I mentioned that it wasn't a fun summer? ;-)

But, the shining beacon in this summer of darkness has been Mikey. He's such an incredible boy! He has been making really good progress with his development and his teachers are so dedicated to helping him. He never fails to make us smile or amaze us with something new he's learned. He just started going to a school for developmental disabilities (more about that in the next post).

Through all of the challenges this summer I have been able to keep a positive attitude (I might have had a bad day here or there) and it definitely wasn't my favorite summer ever...but, heading into the fall and winter I'm feeling ready for anything and full of energy again.

Normally people think of these coming seasons as a time of death and dormancy but I'm looking at them as a rebirth and I'm ready for good things to start growing.

Hope you all had a good summer.

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* Borrowed, slightly, from:

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York"
--William Shakespeare, Richard III

 
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