Motivate This

I have studied and practiced public speaking to the extent of winning awards for it. In my study I have run across a lot of 'motivational speakers'. I have concluded that the bottom line to life is the bottom line.

So I spent about a year at Toastmasters. I got good at getting up in front of a small group and doing my speech thing. I learned not to use 'So', so much, and to never begin a sentence with it. It was fun and has given me more education than I thought possible. One way I studied technique was to see some motivational speakers. Some few minutes into having sunshine blown up my ass I began to wonder how these paramours of attitude reacted when their kids cranked out or the dog crapped up the persian rug and chewed their 'one of a kind' electric guitar they never played. The magic quickly dissolved after working with a few celebrity’s I don't work with celebrity’s for fun, mine or theirs, enough said.

I had the wonderful opportunity to produce a radio show all about seniors. Some I remember vividly. One was a cranky, loud, Jewish-Italian lady, “I'm not dead yet” was her bottom line to continue new projects. She spoke several languages fluently according to some of the others she spoke with. She liked me, I know this because she yelled at me a lot. It was not yelling, I was a member of her family so the others told me. She lost the blood ones and was the first to tell me that family is the one you make. “Forget the blood and go with the ones good to you!” That came complete with hand gestures. She was of 'the greatest generation', a WWII survivor. By 1947 Italy was no longer a home to her. I lost contact with her and the others when I left KPCC.

The bottom line is the final end. You die, it's over. Carry a minimum sage with you at all times, make it concrete, a hammer blow to the barriers of your progress. Your bottom line could be; “your not dead yet.” I know someone who will smile down on you for using it.

Getting There

I went to court to define what kind of response I do. There are codes for how emergency personnel respond. In the end the head of my department stopped debating me and walked out of an arbitration hearing.

It was the hottest day in downtown one could be in as I carried my coat and made my way uphill to testify on behalf of my union and coworkers. I don't like going to court, I do what I can to frustrate the living daylights out of all who would bother my normal routine. In this session the question of forced overtime was supposed to be discussed. It went from pundit bantering to questioning me personally about my extensive knowledge regarding emergency response. I don't have such knowledge. Five deferrals to the judge later the other side got up and left. They quit. I guess turning to the judge and saying, “You honor, what does that mean?” had a deleterious effect on their case.

Emergency response codes come in many colors. Depending on where you are, they enact special teams to do specific things. I was supposed to respond to the very color that meant lights and sirens. That takes special training and sign off by the city that I am not responsible for munching pedestrians with my car or skid marks where ever. Ah, no kay? I get there, in one piece, and to the harm of no one.

I don't like being trapped between doing the right thing and an overbearing bureaucracy bent on making sure that I understand above all else that they are in charge of my every fiber and sinew. I eat high fiber to pass such build ups and send them to Hyperion, the billion gallon a day waste treatment facility owned by the bureaucracy I tactfully ignore just so I can help someone.