REALITY bites some times

Original art (c) Jeannette Marshall
No reproduction permitted.
Sharing allowed by tagging the artist.

The following is an email to someone who I'd been in touch with to review finances and see if there were any fine tunes I'd missed from a fresh set of eyes.

I'm posting it, however jumbled it may sound because perhaps by sharing our challenges, we can learn something new or shed light for others yet to encounter the same things.


Thanks Dallin,

If anything, going through this helps every time.

It allows me to assess our current situation and speak to those in the know, it allows me to communicate the scenario, the situation that we're in and the options that I've looked into.

As mentioned, I had been going through this with Sarah Hollingsworth, Social Worker with Tom Baker Cancer Center October, November 2019.

We approached Alberta Works twice - once they were exceptionally awesome, our second experience horrible - the supervisor stopped getting back to me back in December with a time for us to meet with her - I'd confirmed a response to her that we'd be willing to meet to review our feedback based on our unique experience.

I have it on my "TO DO" as far as taking it up the chain to hold her accountable for not getting back to me, never mind schedule as email chain.

In December, The Tom Baker Cancer Clinic's SocioPhychoOnchology department nominated me for "Gift of Hope".  I got a number of gift cards, the grocery one from Loblaws was used up immediately since Christmas was soon upon us.

A few months ago I cancelled cable TV, renegotiated unlimited data to $50 a month from $85 per month -- if you don't ask, they won't tell you.  I quoted, at the time, Freedom's cell for UNLTD data and ULTD Canada calling for $50 a month.  Going without a cell phone was a hardship, especially when I went for Radiation Treatment or Job Interviews:  which included one job interview within a couple of hours of finishing treatment.  I can't say I was looking my best at 58 years old, but my optimism wanted to believe that people would amazed at that.  I only told one interviewer.  Probably frightened her because I have excess energy when I was trying to be at my best.

We had our basement flood a year ago this time because the home builder, Cardel Homes, only put in plastic tubing from the outside tap to the inside walls in the 1990s when it was built.  If this were the US, we'd be in court already behind a class action suit of consumers holding corporations or companies accountable.

I quit Telus after being let go, after following the proper protocol of reporting sexually harassment from a supervisor.  The following harassment in the form of bullying from department supervisors and managers was a cultural toxicity in a call center environment.  As I mentioned, at that time, I had just come from being a senior project manager at HP (Hewlett-Packard) being responsible for up to 15 projects a month, one equaling $14 million just as an example.  Before that, I was a branch operations manager for a local business that is run by a pretty boy who inherited the business from daddy.  He decided he didn't need me when the CEO of TransCanada Pipelines asked him to hire his brother, who had been laid off as a GM of a car dealership.  That's a long story.

I got a year of unemployment benefits from paying into Unemployment Insurance for years, not including employers' contributions.

Then my husband had a brain aneurysm in February 2018 and the whole world stood still.

He was saved by Foothills Center having the preeminent neurosurgeons in the world!  Dr. Midtha

An example of how our country has been built on the backs of immigrants like our parents and our kids friend's parents, colleagues, associates.

After about 6-8 weeks coma, he graduated to the 2nd level recovery unit.  From there he was accepted into the recovery care of Dr. Li Pi Chan, who is a highly regarded recoverist.  We saw him just a week ago.  They like following Rob because his amazing recovery strength is something they can make an impact with so that others benefit.

While he was at this unit, the Social Worker assisted me with filling out the application for Caregiver Benefits from the Canadian Government.

Rejection.  Six or 8 weeks later:  Caregiver Benefits is not an extension of Unemployment Insurance Benefits.

PLAINLY:  as I had just received the year's worth of UIC benefits, and even though one situation (Caregiver) and another (unemployed) were completely different circumstances, it overlaps in the bureaucracy of government.

After going through a whole bunch of advice and making dozens of calls, I put the call into you.

As far as the tax clinic goes, already signed up and heard back that we were next on the waiting list based on a cancellation and someone before us has to decline.

That's a lot of information to swallow, I know.

It is going to be a testament of your magic to see us at the other end of the long, dark tunnel.

Sincerely,

Jeannette

Reading this myself I'm wondering why the government hasn't seen this glitch?  Surely, someone knows that there is such a glitch?

Square pegs don't belong in round holes

ref:  article from HBR 

"A clean desk
is the sign of
a sick mind."
~Albert Einstein
Fact check

My commentary on the following article from HBR 

When I was at my peak performance in sales:  winning awards ..... my desk was a big huge blob of paper.

When I became a leader, I kept my desk sparse and turned off all devices when someone came to me with a problem.

When I took a job to pay the bills:  I ensured I was surrounded by art:  art of beaches, boats or light- hearted sayings to keep me motivated.

People need to stop trying to be a square peg in a round hole.  You are you and your desk habits are your own: 

* pristine (conveys no nonsense efficiency)

* cluttered paper bomb (disorganized scatter head)

* lively & personal (keeping things light & disassociate from surroundings)

When, in fact:

* spotless can mean you are organized and efficient

* a MESS says: whatever you're doing is more important

* tasteful art and super slogans means you are balanced

NOTE:  I am not a doctor, educated in human behavior, nor am I a psychologist.  This is my own take.

Art by Jeannette Marshall (c) 2019

Michael McCool - the sales guy

QUEEN of ADVICE II

The Publisher

About writing, blogging, editing, publishing

A queen of advice ...

December 19, 2017

Sir BUDDY:  My sidekick and assistant 

I wrote this a number of years ago.

Thankfully, I can capture these thoughts and moods as they are dispersed into the universe, hoping optimistically, it can help others.

My one daughter told me once:  some of her friends, read my blog for shits & giggles when they're drunk.

I really haven't imparted that much advice over the years, if anything, sharing that as you enter your 50s, you are charting a new course in life.  No differently than the cliff to leap beyond becomes a metaphor for being at the tip toe point  before you jump :: into a relationship, a new job, a difficult decision, financial security.

I haven't written on this blog for quite some time:  I've been dabbling (cheating on this blog) with creating my own domain website - more than once with different providers (I will write about later), sidestepping to Wordpress (which turned out to be less blogger friendly than anticipated, created a great, small tribe; also alarmed people that maybe I was going to break because of my ramblings .... who not only ditched my blog domain because I couldn't afford the renewal fee.  Well, they can talk to @HostPapa who automatically withdrew funds from my credit card without my permission and during transition to a new credit card number -- the sum of over $400 and ignored my request for a refund.  VISA was absolving itself from the situation, although they had approved the transaction and processed it between the time I had reported the card missing and a new one issued.

At the optioneerJM blog on Wordpress, I was focussed a lot on demographics and numbers:  something that I'm keen on.  Then, scrambled in, were tales of escapades with #Millennial children, how parenting evolves as both you and your child ages to earn their "adulting" medal.

GOOGLE always seems to be tried and true, completely faithful and in tune with who its "customers" are:  the loyal, the influential, the authenticity established over a long waltz of learning, for both of us, really, because my stats there are incredible.  Besides Pinterest, the analytics and insights from Google is still the best in the world.  I can't blame them for wanting to create a revenue stream from all those morsels of data, stored in the cloud - REALLY AHEAD of its time.

On the contrary, Twitter is flexing its muscle and really showing the universe its power and ability to skew the information that lands in our "Trending" sidebar.  

Not only is it "purging" inactive accounts, as a blank statement, Twitter has become vigilantly turfing IDs for abusing "The Rules".

Twitter may have a lot of insights, control and users.  However, they have not been able to monetize it effectively.  Like Google has.

Twitter is a young kid having a temper tantrum after taking critiques (I'm guessing - I will have to go wander and fact-check to see if such a event has occurred) by shareholders (how many? ) and Price per share (TBD) as of today, December 18, 2019.

One thing I have arrived to the conclusion of:  

The definition of  social networking sites that help me become better, narrow my audience, attract high value clicks, into a Global leader in clicks -- this is being shared actively on @Twitter and @LinkedIn ::

LinkedIn:  We've grown together since I began there 12 years ago, then 10 years ago 2020 I went on to Twitter.  

Twitter:  Should be sued for permanently suspending @optioneerJM that is the only way this UPSTART will learn that they cannot mess with people's livelihood, or path to make income associated with the identity that they deleted.  No warning, no conversation, no appeal, no listening by anyone.

Facebook:  Has my most loyal following of all the social sites:  where I have the most clicks, likes, comments, follow through, links to with everything all connecting.

Instagram:  As I evolve my artistic portrayals of eccentric people, Instagram has attracted a lot of new followers with artistic creative inclination:  photographers, artists, marketers, etc.

Twitter:  IS NOT graphic friendly.  In the way of displaying the images more largely with their offending way of sidebars that they try to distract users from examining great innovation.

Twitter:  HAS NOT learned how the disruption of events, knowingly or accidentally become known:  Facebook lost a lot of users as repercussions unfold, still to this day.  

When these baby companies, they tend to ignore others' failures or business lessons.  It always looks from my vantage point:  they think they know it all.

As soon as someone thinks that they are an expert, it indicates to me that they've stopped learning.  That is the greatest disservice to the online world, real versus fake, data or cloud or privacy?

Google has remained true and strong.  If not always transparent:  the media didn't implode with imparting advice or criticism when they cancelled Google Plus G+ -- in my opinion the most visually friendly setting that allowed the artist to also write more about what they were imagining or how they came about creating that piece of art?  Maybe take your own advice, Jeannette?

I've said that a lot lately to my youngest.  AKA the daughter from hell when she was 14-15 and a gem now that she's 25.

My kids have become REALLY uncomfortable and vocal about me sharing their photo or naming them.

Another aspect of me and them changing simultaneously.  As we all age, build wisdom, we are influenced by life events - ones which we can control and those which we cannot.  Building understanding on which is which (and not be a Bitch about it).  That is for all of us.  

By treating each other with kindness but firstly empathy:  we can become compassionate towards each other.

I've seen my eldest daughter evolve beautifully:  being invited to their home to celebrate her dad's birthday was spellbinding:  seeing the complete family unit with a husband, a son, and the first grandson to her ailing father.  It makes me choke up.

TIDBIT:  If you want to have a real conversation with your Millennial daughter:  DON'T CHOKE UP with emotions or let the waterworks flow (proof:  her head will go down and thumbs scroll on her smartphone BEFORE she says quite strongly:  "If you cry, I will leave."

SINCE Wordpress and Twitter are being dicks, I will continue to grace their sites because there is good stuff there.

THE WISDOM I want to impart as this decade comes to a close:  get online to navigate and control your messaging as of NOW.  You can control what you post or like or share:  flex those mouse-muscles and get ready.

As always, I will continue to meandering about with my thoughts on here.  For the drunk friends and the sober ones, those battling afflictions or addictions, I'll be here.

All the best for the holidays of 2019 and continue with hope for the best in store for 2020!

Think about this quote I tweeted on https://twitter.com/postingfromedge :

#ThoughtOfTheDay "There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, the responsibility lies with you."~J.K. Rowling #inspirational @JKRowling >no identifiable @Twitter? art by moi (c)*^*jm

Posted on Wordpress

flying high on the wings of angels:

Thank you “Wings of Hope” gift bag from Calgary Tom Baker Cancer Center > I don’t know how or why I was nominated… but it sure does give me hope after completing radiation & treatment for breast cancer November 18th > 2019 >> I’ll be able to say survivor *is there a minimum time before you say “survivor”?

Be breast aware

Posted on Wordpress

The Political Waltz begins, eh? #Canadian #politics #AlbertaStrong #Ivoted4Kenney and believe I was astutely aware on what he brought to the table.

A sure way to avoid FAKE*NEWS is see for yourself.

If you leave it up to the media outlets, they’re skewing the views based on what the share, what commentators Or commentary say, show, opined… they’re narrowing your awareness because they can’t share everything… no matter what, their opinions are skewed.

Watch NETFLIX instead of a cable provider: the quality is only surpassed by quantity of superb viewing, programming gifted guided by the numbers machine, (that churns out audience size, their percentage ) eclipsed by brilliant service and customer intuitiveness flexed audience schematics.

About the headline.

I didn’t vote emotionally, I voted analytically: who can best steer the ship when things go wrong … BECAUSE the world is spinning at aN alarming rate — there’s a saying (I have no idea who started it) that falsehood travels around the world before the truth is known (or something like that.

Similarly, I consider: is that individual match your own ideals to how your nation is represented.

POINT> I don’t think Canada nor The United States would consider an exchange of Justin Trudeau for Donald Trump.

I’ve never heard of the threaten of imploding notorious moving up here to Canada as they threatened to in 2016 if Trump were elected.

We wouldn’t hear about these stories if we weren’t connected online > the most sure way to be incept-able to fake news is ignore the online hub, don’t have Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts. (These people are VERY proud of this claim to fame) …….