I came across a great post by Jake Behrens where he talks about the relationship between employee and employer. In short, he states it’s up to the individual to look out for himself, and employers need to understand talented employees will look for new challenges. He says:

At my last job, I did the typical personal-sick day to interview routine. In my exit interview my boss gave me this lovely quote, “I think it was immature of you to lie about being sick, you could have just told us you had an interview.” Wow. I was shocked. Don’t ever let an employer pull that card. Anyone knows that you have to look out for yourself, and eventually your family too.

I agree 100%. Nobody will care about your career more than you will. You have to take control of the situation and do what’s best for you (and your family). Sometimes that means using vacation or sick days. I can’t picture my boss or company executives sitting around dreaming up ideas to further my career. I view my job as just that: a job. My company pays me a salary as long as they feel I’m worth more than what it costs them to keep me. The less they have to pay me the better because, any compensation they save increases their bottom line. I know this sounds brutally cold to some people but this is how I feel. Basically, I’m a free agent working for the company I feel will compensate me well for the amount of work they expect me to perform.

There’s no such thing as company loyalty. No company cares about me or you. People care about other people. Companies do not exist to take care of their employees. Companies exist to increase shareholder or owner value. I’ve felt loyal to a manager or two, but never to a company.

I’ve had a number of jobs since graduating from college and I left all but one on good terms with my former boss. Along the way I’ve learned a thing or two about quitting a job without burning bridges. Here are a few suggestions that have worked for me:

1. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF – Don’t tell your coworkers you’re looking for a job. That only causes a scene. Go about the process in a discrete and professional fashion. If you blab it will get back to your manager. You want to be the one to break the news. You don’t want your coworkers putting their own spin on the situation.
2. FIND A JOB FIRST – You’re welcome to tell me you’re looking for a job. I may act understanding. In fact, I’ll probably encourage you. Just don’t expect perks such as promotions, raises or plum assignments. I hold those for employees who plan to stick around.
3. TELL YOUR BOSS – The time to tell your boss is ONLY once you’ve found and accepted another job offer. You don’t have to go into specifics. Once you tell me you’ve accepted another job the only thing I really care about is how much longer you plan to stick around. The shorter the better.
4. LEAVE WITH CLASS – Badmouthing the company or boss on the way out is a poor reflection on you, and could come back to haunt you. Why spend years building a good reputation only to tarnish it on the last day?

What have you learned by leaving a job that I’ve missed?

My brother-in-law wrote about this topic as well. He decided to tell his boss he was looking for another job and it worked out for him. Lucky dog.

We drove to Olympia to see the State capitol building this weekend. I wanted to take some pictures and the kids wanted to run up and down the stairs. There were dozens of stairs leading to the capitol and the kids spent a good hour running up and down them. It’s a miracle we avoid a trip to the emergency room for stitches or worse. 

Olympia is a gorgeous city nestled in what feels like a hilly forest. It has a rustic flavor with many small shops dotting the downtown. On a musical note, Kurt Cobain wrote most of Nevermind while living in Olympia. I can’t believe I’ve lived in the Seattle area nearly 14 years and had never visited Olympia till this weekend.

While we were there, a photographer showed up and began taking pictures of a couple that may have recently been married. I told Kim they looked too old to be getting married, and then it struck me,  Kim and I tried to keep our kids away from them but I’m certain at least on kid will show up in a picture or two.

Here’s a picture of the kids playing Humpty Dumpty without the great fall.

I grew up in Ogden, Utah two homes away from McKay Dee Hospital and not far from Weber State University. Just past the water fountains and parking lot at the hospital sat a huge grassy area. As kids we’d run though the sprinklers, hit golf balls and play Frisbee on that patch of grass we assumed to be an extension of our own front yard.

But my favorite activity was hitting baseballs. I would spend hours tossing balls to myself and then smacking them as far as I could. I would occasionally hit the sweet spot and knock one into the hospital parking lot. I may have been responsible for leaving a few hood surprises but I’m certain the statute of limitations has long expired. 

I knew I was improving my swing when my dad came over to watch one night and I told him to back way up. He took a few steps back, but I still belted it well over his head. This may explain why it wasn’t long before he told me about a contest called the “Pitch, Hit and Run” that was sponsored by Burger King.

The competition consisted of throwing 3 balls into a net the size of the strike zone, running the bases and hitting a baseball fungo-style (tossing the ball to yourself and hitting it). I don’t recall practicing five minutes for the pitching and running portions of the contest so when I showed up at the little league park to participate, expectations were not very high.

Although I could throw a baseball quite well, I hadn’t practiced much and it showed when only one out of three balls found the net giving me 50 out of 150 possible points. Next up was the base running event and I scored an 80 out of 100 when I slipped going around third base. This left me near the bottom of the standings with only the one event to go. Several of the boys in my age bracket (12-13 year olds) hit the pitching target 2 or 3 times and nearly all collected the full 100 points in the base running portion.

Since I wasn’t expecting much from the start, I didn’t feel nervous going into the last event. I thought, how hard can this be? I’ll just do what I do for hours on the hospital grass each day. I watched the younger boys step to the plate and take their swings. If you’ve ever tossed a baseball to yourself to hit you’ll know the key is to get “under” the ball to give it the desired lift. This requires an uppercut swing compared to the the more level swing I’d normally take during a game.

I was surprised to watch most of the kids barely hit ball out of the infield. They hit the ball hard but were not getting any lift. Occasionally one would hit a pop fly into the outfield but that was rare. I walked over to an area where the bats were located. They were standing up against a chain link fence. I searched for a bat that felt just right. But they all seemed too small or too light. I started to get nervous. I was the next batter in line and I had to find a good bat.

Finally, my name was called and I stepped to the plate without a bat in my hand. As the hitter before me walked by I asked if I could use his bat and he threw it to me. The bat felt good! It felt very good. It was bigger and heavier than the other bats. I looked towards the outfield and saw a number of contest officials waiting for me to swing so they could measure the distance my ball traveled. I had three chances to get a good score. The furthest hit would tally into my overall score.

I tossed the first ball and smacked it over the officials head. I watched as they ran to where my ball had first touched down and measured it. The officials now backed up a little further. I tossed the second ball and hit it very high into the air but not as far as my first try. No need to measure.

Here’s where my competitive nature came out. My father had explained to me before the competition started that the two boys on the west coast with the most points would win a trip to San Francisco for themselves and their parents. That all sounded fun, but what I was most excited about was the possibility of getting to travel by airplane.

I took the last ball in my hand and figured I had nothing to lose. I must have been living right because I detected a small breeze at my back. All I need to do was get that ball into the wind and let it ride. My father had dropped me off at the park and wasn’t able to watch me, but I looked behind me hoping maybe he’d be there.

I stepped up to the plate, lofted the ball just right and swung as hard as I could. My swing felt good, and I could barely feel the ball hit the bat which means I’d connected at the sweet spot. The baseball got up into the air and took off just like it had done thousands of times on the hospital lawn. It kept going and going. I watched the officials begin running for the fence.

But I’d crushed that sucker and the wind was carrying it further than it had any right to travel. The ball sailed over the fence and into the parking lot. One official jumped the fence and tried to locate the exact spot my ball had landed. I watched as they threaded the tape measure through the fence. My ball had flown over the first row of cars and came down in the middle of the parking lot. Kids were jumping up and down all around me. Finally, one of the officials yelled TWO HUNDRED FIFTY SEVEN FEET!

I felt like I was floating on air. I jumped up and down and started high fiving people I didn’t know. To a twelve year old boy, it was magical.

When things settled down, I grabbed my glove and waited for my dad to arrive. When he pulled up, he asked how I’d done, and I told him about the hit. I wish he had been there to see it. He said I might have done well enough to earn a trip to San Francisco where I’d compete for a chance to attend the World Series.

What I didn’t know at the time as I sat in the front seat of our Plymouth Duster was how right he was. A few weeks late my mom picked up the phone to find out we were headed to Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

We took our kids to Taco Time in Covington last night because our oldest daughter was going to die if she didn’t get some CINNAMON CRUSTOS and what a lame dad I’d be if I let that happen.

After I paid, I was invited to earn a free combo meal by taking a customer survey. I figured I’d take the survey because this Taco Time has screwed up our order on a number of occasions. But they always fix it so I was planning on filling out a generally positive survey.

But Taco Time does not want my feedback.

I went to their website and clicked the “Take our Survey” link and was presented with this message:

I tried again and and again and received the same message each time.

This is the first I can remember a company saying they have received enough feedback and don’t want anymore. I’ll bet it’s a case of Taco Time not wanting to give out more combo meals. But they should still allow me to fill out a survey.

How can they “appreciate” my feedback when they don’t allow it to be given?

So I went back to the homepage. While I’m here I might as well enter the drawing for the Ford Escape Hybrid, right? That’s almost as cool as CINNAMON CRUSTOS. But when I clicked “Click here for more details” it tried to launch a PDF file.

Who has time for this nonsense?

Seen at FFFFound

This summer’s Olympic games were so amazing that I’m sad to see them come to an end this evening. Here’s what I’ll remember most:

1. After winning gold in women’s beach volleyball, watching May and Walsh fall to the sand in jubilation. A wonderful moment!
2. Usain Bolt’s chest thump on the way to setting a world record in the 100m.
3. Gymnast Shawn Johnson’s infectious smile.
4. Lebron James diving out of bounds to save a ball in a game vs. Greece with his team up big. The “Redeem Team” made me proud of the NBA again.
5. Watching Michael Phelps cheer on his teammate, Ryan Lochte, in the 100×4 relay. The most exciting event I watched.

   

This marks the first Olympics that I watched more of online than sitting in front of the TV. NBC did a nice job of getting video of the events online quickly and the quality was quite good.

What were your favorite moments?

Given how often I have music playing in the background, it’s not uncommon to have a song running through my mind throughout the day. Especially when I’m bored. It’s usually a song like Mother from Pink Floyd or similar tune I’ve listened to for years and know all the lyrics to.

But yesterday, as I sat in a large conference room, surrounded by colleagues waiting for the HR manager to arrive I found myself humming the song below as these lyrics whirled through my mind:

“Come along take my hand…let’s all go to Dragon Land.”

When I caught myself humming the theme from Dragon Tails, I sheepishly looked around to see if anyone was listening. If anyone was listening they probably chalked it up to the fact I was working on my 2nd Diet Coke before 9 am.

It could have been worse. It could have been this.

http://songza.com/e/listen

We stopped by a small but unique store in Bellevue today called Common Folk Kid located at Crossroads Shopping Center. We visit the store when we’re in the area because they carry toys and puzzles and games and clothing we don’t find elsewhere.

Our kids love to browse through the store and tells us what they REALLY REALLY REALLY need.

Take it to Santa.

As we looked around the store, Kim noticed they carry a line of shoes for kids called See Kai Run that we love but have never purchased. But how could we pass up a pair for very own little Kai?

We couldn’t. 

I spotted a lady selling gorgeous flower bouquets while I filled up my car this afternoon. She was arranging a collection of followers of many colors as I approached her. I said, “Can I buy the bouquet you’re working on?” She nodded and went back to work.

I watched her grab flowers and leaves and other plants I didn’t recognize out of the back of her Pathfinder. She’d move and twist and the stems just so. She pulled off leaves and cut stems to the right length.

 
One of the many flowers I bought today

Her hands moved in a flurry. I wondered if she had a picture in her mind of how the finished product should look or if she created it on the fly.

The flowers kept coming and the size of the bouquet keep growing. I thought to myself maybe I should have asked how much she planned to sell it for before offering to buy it.

She added some green and still more flowers. Finally she ripped off a large swath of white paper and wrapped it around the flowers. The last thing she did was tie a small bag of water to the end of the stems before handing it to me.

I stood there holding this amazing bouquet barely able to see her when she said, “How does ten dollars sound?”

I gave her $15.

I bought them home to Kim who put them in a vase in the kitchen.

I should have given her $25.

I haven’t listened to much Soul Asylum but I like this song a lot.

http://songza.com/e/listen