Life in the Slow Lane

I'm not sure I buy it. I don't have any proof either way, and I know Facebook is running an experiment to prove that everyone is connected to Kevin Bacon or something, but have you ever considered the obnoxious email forwards that are supposed to replicate signing a petition? I get more than my fair share, since many people I have responded to at work add my email address to their list of contacts. And more than once, I have received an impassioned plea for my signature at the end of a list of several hundred. I sometimes, because I have an over-developed sense of curiosity, will read through the list looking for names I recognize. I have never found one. Wouldn't you think that with only six degrees of separation, once the petition had been passed around to several hundred people, I would know at least one or two? And while we are on the topic of statistics, I would like someone well experienced in such matters to give me the probability of a handful of co-workers all s...

I have never been an avid reader of news. In high school, I'd read a few articles in the front page as I waited for the comics section. For a time in college I felt obliged to stop and read the headlines through the glass of the newspaper stand on my way to class. As a responsible adult, I read the news feed from BBC, but that was before I began suspecting that someday I would see a name I recognized in the news. But recently my boss signed me up for an international news service where everything pertains to people with disabilities. Except for the headlines I may glance at as I sign in to my web-based email account, this is the only news I see. I've only been on this disability-news-only diet for maybe as long as two months, but it has greatly affected my perception. I would not have guessed this beforehand; my job has revolved around this theme for more than two and a half years. But I've been given a different set of lenses to view the world, and it is almost enough to ...

Everywhere there is talk of economic hardship. I keep getting letters, both in my personal mailbox and the piles at work, mentioning the harder times individuals and organizations are facing. My alma mater mentions students who won't be able to return next semester... a mother with five young children asks if I can send a box of used clothes and old toys for Christmas. And the red-aproned red kettle keeps ding, ding, dinging the bell. "No" is painful to say, yet avoiding the eyes of the woman collecting donations for the homeless shelter downtown hurts even more... and pictures prove the shelves at the food pantry are bare. Another family writes in that they will be losing their house unless we can help with their payments, but we can't. And that is just the plain, hard truth. And the gift catalog for goats and bicycles sits next to the magazine advertising the T-shirt that supports the end of world hunger. No. No, I'm sorry. It is just not possible. That...

Yesterday I spoke with a woman who told me she's been receiving advice to divorce her husband. He's a great guy, works hard to pay the bills, loves his family... but he makes too much money. "Too much money" in the "we can't pay our medical bills" kind-of way. I've known for a long time about "marriage penalties" and people losing health care benefits when they get married, but this is the first time I actually heard first-hand from someone who had been told to divorce her husband so she could get help... "Everybody's doing it." Where are the protests, the mass campaigns, the well-funded advertisements and societies fighting for the rights of this woman, and thousands of others like her, to be married? Oh, that we could protect the rights of people to keep the vows they said before God and man "in sickness and in health... until death do us part." Instead it is even worse. Not only does this woman have the right to...

My fingers are happy today. This week a year ago I was given the task of training up a department around me, and my personal productivity plummeted. But this week I was back within range of my previous records of letter writing, and oo-wow. Does it feel good. In honor of this occasion, I thought I would share a few random facts: I have corresponded with people in over 100 countries. I have won accolades from my co-workers for my ability to tell people "no" (Folks, unlike the anti-people-pleasers might tell you, it isn't just a matter of saying "n" and "o"). I started a collection of foreign stamps because there must be something good to do with them. I have 494 business cards out of a box of 500. And certainly last, but not least, SOS and his violin playing has made it onto the "unofficial optional stories to tell" tour script.