Mind Blogging
It’s not easy to have positive outlook in life, for a long time, I had this quote as my signature line at the old LP forum, “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” by Herm Albright, and I guess that’s how I feel most of the time. To have a positive outlook in life, you literally have to train yourself, and for some of us, it might be a lifetime of trial and error. If you grew up in a family that encourage positive outlook in life, such as myself, then it’s a lot easier, but just because you didn’t have that at your earlier years, it doesn’t mean that you can’t train yourself, don’t get discourage because if you set you mind to do things, you will succeed, if not at least you try.
If you’re a positive thinker, there’s always room for growth, remember the old saying “If it’s Not Broken, Don’t Fix it.” I think we shouldn’t take it too literally, there’s always room for improvement. For some of us, we have proved that out of the disaster came the opportunity, it’s wise to be able to think out of the box, why do we have to think like everyone else? I heard a friend once describing himself as a Thinkler; I thought he meant a thinker because I’ve never heard of that term before, I didn’t know there is such word. A Thinkler is an out of the box thinker, the inventor whom creates or discovers new methods, means, or devices for performing a task. These people have a positive outlook in life, where there’s a will, there’s a way, so don’t loose hope in what ever you do.
One of my bosses is an out of the box thinker, he’s the 74-year-old man that I mentioned in the past, the energizer bunny as I’ve always referred to him, and literally he is. Nothing phases this man; sometimes I feel like he thinks he is superman or something. The last time he was in the hospital was when he had his knee replacement, the hospital was only able to keep him there overnight, he was back to work the next day, hobbling around but he was moving. He comes up with the craziest ideas, but strangely they caught on. What I’ve learned from him in life is that ‘you only live once’, which makes me think of a quote by Mae West, “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
I have another co-worker that is the opposite of this man; sometimes I feel like she is milking the situation for all it’s worth, awful for me to think this way. I just came back from visiting her at the hospital; she’s in there for a knee replacement. She is a heavyset person, so I’d imagine that it’d be difficult for her to get around, and can’t say that the one knee that they didn’t operate on is a good one. She is thinking that it might be 4-6 weeks before she can come back to work, which we’d allow her to come back in 2 weeks if she is capable. Just the thought of her having to come back to work brought tears to her eyes, and just the thought of her having to stay out for 6 weeks brought tears to my eyes because I have to do her work, but I have a feeling that she is milking it, and will take advantage of the 6 weeks leave.
She is an odd person, a little side tract from all of this, the day before her surgery, she went and had her hair done because she didn’t want people to see her with a flat head, okay I thought to myself, I’d just go with a wig. While I was visiting with her, she showed me the shoe pumps that they let her wear, to prevent blood from clotting, which I thought was pretty neat as to how inventor came up with such neat gadget, if it’s back in Laos, we’d have to sit there and massage her feet. But something stood out that caught my attention, she has a pedicure, her toenails were painted reddish pink, I didn’t know they allow that for surgery. Makes me wonder if she were showing the pumps to me because she wanted me to see her pedicure. I’m not sure as to why she needs to look pretty at the hospital, obviously and hopefully not to attract the doctors because she is married and is in her late 60s. I’ve been thinking about this and couldn’t figure it out, is it the new positive out look in life?
From this post I can't make much analysis of the two people. But based on the information provided I will make a wild assumption about them.
Your boss reminds me of a business man that I knew during my undergrad years. He is a controlling freak and workaholic. Having to run his own company he would work at least 12 hours a day.
On the average he sleeps about 3-4 hours per day. He was always coming up with new ideas, new ways to make money that his wife is so loney that she often found comforts in the company of other men.
This man was going through prostate cancer and was back to work too soon because he didn't want to listen to his doctors and knew best. He is around the same age as your boss. He is also Jewish so he fits the typical hard working Jewish stereotype.
Your boss is not much different from the man that I knew. Your boss is also a macho man. If he was ever in the army, then he would be the "Rambo" kind of boss. He could have a heart surgery and will be back the next day for work. He doesn't set limits for himself, even for his aging body.
Perhaps his surgery didn't have any complication and even though the doctor might have told him to rest a few days, being an owner of a company he probably thinks that if he is absent, then things would turn into a big mess. Being his age also meant that he wants to do so much, to accomplish so much before he is retired from this world. When you are running out of time, you don't want to waste any minute being productive. He might have 20 years left but that is not enough time for person his age.
Now as for your woman co-worker. She is a woman and probably not a strong woman. Since she is a heavy set, she would need more time to recover. I had to take care of my friend's grandmother once who went through a knee surgery twice. She was 60 years old and a bit heavy so there is more pressure on her knees.
This co-worker seems like the type of a person that is lonely and doesn't have many things going for her. The fact that you were there with her at the hospital said something about her.
As far as her spending time with doing her hair and getting a pedicure, it is probably something that she can do for herself to make herself feel like she is somewhat in control of her life. I read somewhere about the rate of success and rate of recovery of a surgery, whether it is as minor as knee surgery, that the people with more positive attitudes come out better.
Getting her hair and pedicure done could mean that she was killing time so she won't worry too much about her surgery. It could also mean that she want to feel good about herself and to take care of herself while having a feeling that she is in control and life goes on as normal. She is trying to maintain the everyday routines. Just because she is going under the knife, that doesn't mean she has to look crappy is probably her rational thinking.
As for being out of work for the maximum amount of time, perhaps she thought she deserve it. She wanted to make sure that she would be well 100% and more ready before she is back at work.
One thing to look at is that this lady is not like you. She doesn't have the Chinese work ethics. So, you can expect to pick up her work and the rest of your co-workers. Being who we are also meant that we have to take up duties that other people don't want to deal with. I know this from my parents and my siblings as well as myself. For some reason while other workers will get to take holidays like the 4th of July or other important holidays, we have to work during those special days.
Why is that the reason? It's because we don't fuss like the other employees. We don't want to get fired and we are less likely to take sick leaves.
Just do your best with the work load and treat yourself to a nice book by your lilly/fish pond.
That was a long one..lol
I think we might be working for the same person…my boss had been married several times, his last wife left him 3 years ago for another man, she only married, and used him to do her body (surgery) make over. He was in the army, in Thai/Viet., macho man but only 5.1 tall, had prostate cancer over 10 years ago, currently in submission, Jewish, daughter is a DR (shrink) in CA, and son, attorney in NYC that he is still supporting both of them financially, he drives mid life crisis sporty cars (bmw & Merced.), and yes his parking space is by the front door and we had to make it extra big for him, made me think of Padek parking space that he posted for ‘If women ruled’.
The lady, she shared office with me for over 9 years, she retired last fall, and is working part-time (3 days), and they moved me to the back office 3 years ago because she stayed on her personal phone call most of the time, which bothered me quiet a bit. She is caring for her sick husband for over 10 years now, and always wanting sympathy, exaggerates situation most of the time making him look bad, her story doesn’t always match, but I don’t correct her, just listen, I do that a lot lately. When she asked me about my mom in the past, only wanted the opportunity to talk about her husband, and not really wanting to hear of how my mom was doing. I think she felt like it’s her turn to be pampered. One of my co-workers read the post and was disappointed that I didn’t write more, but I feel badly talking about her. She’s been here the longest and feels the place owe her something, she is a Christian, and thinks I’m a fruit lube for being a Buddhist. I always have to help her or do her work, she treats me like a daughter, everybody here love me…but their love mean more work for me, I don’t think I need that much love, what do you think?