Professionalism

Wonder what the rules are when it comes to establishing the boundaries of "professionalism"?  Who made them up?  Are they one-size-fits-all?  Or is it a subjective assessment based on the preferences of whoever's in charge?

I've been wondering about my own professionalism or the lack thereof.  There are many questionable behaviors which comprise my demeanor, but for the most part, I'd characterize myself as professional.

Pros for Professionalism

• I do not fart in public.
• I do my best to call my superiors "sir" and "ma'am".  Most of the time, anyway.
• I have acceptable hygiene practices.
• I listen respectfully to others' opinions in meetings and refrain from remarking on the dumb ones.
• My clothes are usually clean and pressed or at least haven't been wadded up lately.
• I accept and admit my mistakes and make sure to take responsibility for them.
• I don't take credit for other people's work.

Cons

• I would rather wear old garbage than pantyhose.  Whoever thought those up is a cruel, cruel MAN.
• I call everybody honey or sweetie. 
• I'm a serial hugger, and have been known to kiss people on the cheek.
• I can easily slip into redneck slang as it is my native tongue.  Y'all can just get over it.
• I cry, in front of bosses, co-workers, my own team members.  I hate it and do my best to not do it, but once my nose gets red and my chin starts wiggling, it's all downhill from there.

Hmmm.  Maybe not so professional.  But definitely me.

Travelers Envy

I travel for work.  A lot.  Not as much as some people, though, and for that I'm grateful. 

When I transitioned into the job I now occupy, I was intrigued and excited by the prospect of being an official business traveler.  I would look smart and professional as I strode through the various concourses in my heels and suit, giving confident direction to my colleagues via BlackBerry and Bluetooth.  I would breeze through security and into my first class seating without a thought or a care.

HA.

Most trips I am lucky to keep up with all of my personal belongings, much less look professional or even pause long enough to smell first class.  Yes I travel a lot, but most trips are just a few hundred miles - too far to drive, but barely worth all the time and effort it takes to travel via Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport. 

You see, it takes me an hour to get to the airport, plus getting there early enough to fool with security, plus the probable delay... which means that I could've driven to Lexington and had a sandwich before the doggone plane leaves the ground in ATL.

But I digress.

It's become a great source of interest to me to ascertain people's "frequent flyer" designation.  I'm a personal fan of Delta (no, really!) and so I'm in their SkyMiles program.  I thought I had hit the jackpot last fall when I was "awarded" SILVER MEDALLION status.  I won Silver!  Woo hoo!  This must mean I'm an Official Business Traveler!

Again, expectations significantly outpaced reality, and it turns out that the Silver status basically means that I can check one "free" bag (which used to be free in the first place) and I might luck into a first class seat if everybody else in first class has a car wreck on the way to the airport.  I love watching the "Upgrade List", just for fun...when I first check in, I'm like #2 out of 3 people vying for those 2 open spots left in the First Class cabin.  Yet I mysteriously drop to #25 out of 30 in very short order.

Similarly, I thought I would get an automatic invitation for the pleasure of my company in the Delta Sky Club.  I'm a Silver member after all -- don't these people know who I am?  Again, it seems that Silver status basically means that you can buy a day pass for ten bucks cheaper than the average joe.  Meh.

And what's the real benefit of the SkyClub anyway?  Free booze just doesn't hold the same appeal for me that it once did, and I've got wi-fi pretty much anywhere.  Ok, the chairs are more comfy and you might spot a minor celebrity that can't afford their own private jet (I saw The Captain and Tenille once in the Sky Club.  When I was 20.  On a trip with my family. I knew it was them because of her hair and his glasses. Yes, I got The Captain's autograph.  No, I didn't ask them to sing Muskrat Love.)

The Sky Club is also somewhat appealing when you take into account the number of bums that occupy an airport toilet on any given day. Hygiene odds are better when the herd is thinner.  Just saying.

For a while there, I thought it would really be cool if I can one day be a Platinum or Diamond member -forget this amateur Silver level.  I'm going to run with the big dogs!

But today it occurred to me that people pay an awful lot for those cards.  Not so much the price of air fare...which is ridiculous anyway..but instead the priceless commodity of TIME.  Time with family, time with friends, time spent doing something other than waiting to go to the next somewhere.

So I'm OK with my Silver status, although it is about to turn Gold.  Until today, I didn't consider the sad side of frequent flyer milestones.

But if I have to travel for work, which I do, I'm pretty happy about the Sky Club toilets.

A Woman of Few Words

Thats what I want to be when I grow up. A woman of few words. Those darn things can HURT people.

Spring Break 2012 - Epilogue

It is Easter Sunday and I am relieved.

-- Relieved because our spring break trip is over.  Maybe ours is the only one, but this family doesn't do well with that much togetherness.  Don't get me wrong - we loved our trip and we love each other.  Our vacation gave us a hundred new memories;  a few yucky ones, but most are wonderful.  See prior posts for details. 

It's just that we are four very sensitive people (even though they think I'm the only one.)  The nice thing about being sensitive is that you can easily enjoy all the bright beauty and joy and goodness around you;  the bad thing is that your feelings get hurt even when others don't mean to hurt them.  Anyway, you can't cram 4 sensitive people into a minivan and a series of hotel rooms and not expect there to be some drama.

-- Relieved because our friends that kept our dog are still speaking to us.  Plus the dog lost some weight at their house.

-- Relieved to see my daddy in good health and good spirits yesterday. 

-- Relieved that we came home from a vacation without going into the red.

-- Relieved that I can now log back into Facebook and drink a diet Coke.

But most importantly, and far outside my ability to describe it in words, is the relief I feel from believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  See, even though I've said I believed in him for more than 30 years,  I thought it was up to me - to do good, to be good, to do more, to do better, to try harder, to...to... to make myself acceptable enough to earn peace and get forgiven for the mess I've made of my life.

I recently heard a teacher explaining the difference between calling myself a "Christian" versus calling myself a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ.  Maybe it's semantics, but it really stuck with me.  All kinds of nastiness throughout history has been perpetrated by people who called themselves Christians, and when I see the judgmental and critical nature of many churchgoers today, I don't particularly want to be associated with that either.

If I can be honest, there aren't a lot of "Christians" who have anything that I want.  Looks like a lot of work and unhappiness to me.

But, oh the peace of being a follower of Jesus Christ.  Just accepting him, without arguing or questioning or trying to be good enough.  I don't need to know why he did what he did - I just know that he did, and scripture is explicitly clear that he did it for me and for you.

To fully believe and accept that he took all my black-hearted, selfish and nasty sin to the grave 2000 years ago, and then came back to life three days later without it...

Now that's what I call relief!  Happy Easter!

HC Tour 2012 - Homeward Bound

Upon awakening yesterday morning in Williamsburg, we made the decision to blow off Gatlinburg altogether and just head home.  I've been to Gatlinburg hundreds of times, and in retrospect, it seems kind of dumb that I would prolong a really long vacation just to stop there and spend the night, when I have a perfectly good place stay right down the road from there on the Tennessee River - my dad's house.

So I called ahead and booked a room at our favorite Knoxville destination, and down the road we went.  I-64 on the west side of Richmond is breathtaking, as is I-81 down through the Shenandoah Valley.  Perhaps if our timing had been better, we could've planned to stick around in the area for a few days - but we were more than ready to be home. 

Although I go to Knoxville at least twice a year, I am always approaching from the south.  Yesterday was the first time I've come in from Virginia since...well, it's been so long that I don't know how long it's been.  Talk about gorgeous countryside;  the mountains and hills of southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee are pretty enough to make your heart hurt.  I have little vignette memories associated with most of the exits up through there -

Bulls Gap - as the esteemed national committeewoman for the Tennessee Young Republicans, I was once invited to serve on the panel of judges for the annual Bulls Gap Christmas lighting competition.  Clark Griswold has NOTHING on the good people of Bulls Gap, Tennessee.

Jonesborough - world's greatest destination for antiquing and junk-shopping.  There are little stores lining the main drag in Jboro full of treasures like old Marlboro signs, random dishware and ancient stacks of vinyl record albums.  And election buttons from campaigns long past.  I love election paraphernalia.

Fall Branch - not particularly noteworthy except this is the home of the Tennessee Highway Patrol in that area and I always feel compelled to turn down the radio and carefully observe the speed limit.  THP in Knoxville never made me particularly nervous, but them boys up the mountain ain't fooling around.

Morristown - in another opportunity to serve in a dignitary capacity, I was the lead judge for the chicken category in a barbecue fundraiser to save the old Princess Theatre in downtown Morristown.   

Douglas Dam - did my open-water checkout dives in the murky waters around Douglas Dam.  Some people earn their scuba certificate in the crystal waters of the Caribbean or in the Florida Keys -- I got mine diving around tires and a sunken car in a muddy Tennessee lake.

Sevierville/Gatlinburg - well, there's just too much associated with exit 407 to put in a paragraph, so this will have to be another post for another time.  It does make me smile to see that this is now referred to as the "Dollywood" exit.  God love her for pouring all that money back into these mountains.

We got to Dad's around suppertime last night and enjoyed a great visit with him;  my sister came in later last night from Texas, and I got to spend some good time with her too.  Breakfast with Dad and then back on the road this morning by 11;  we stopped in Canton for a late lunch then pulled into our driveway around 3.

Not a moment too soon - we were extremely ready to be HOME.

HC Tour 2012 - Day Seven

Much much much cooler weather today - it even sprinkled on us a while this morning while we were walking in the colonial area. 

Yesterday was at least twenty degrees warmer;  I forgot to mention that we got a couple of hours at the pool yesterday.  Like most of the amenities here, "the pool" is an understated misnomer.  There are actually several pools - an indoor lap pool, a huge hot tub, a large family pool and also a specifically-named quiet pool.

I was splashing around in the family pool with Jamie and Grace and enjoying the sunshine, when Jamie yelled, "Mom, DUCK!"

So I ducked, and he pointed and said, "no, Mom, DUCK!"  I turned just in time to see a beautiful mallard land in the swimming pool right next to us.  (Thus far at Williamsburg, we've seen horses drawing carriages, and several new spring lambs, but a duck in the pool?)  Of course, Jamie tried to approach the duck, who was not interested in being approached and quickly took wing.

Today we walked around the upper end of the colonial area near the Governor's Palace;  we also toured the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum.  My favorite part of the museum was the map exhibit;  it was fun to look at original maps of the colonies and picking out my old stomping grounds based on the location of the "Tenefse River". 

We also toured the "Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds".  It broke my heart to see the cruel ignorance of a prison cell as the place of "confinement" for those suffering from mental illness in colonial America.  (Not sure they had much choice, but I guess that's fodder for a future blog post.)

Completely unrelated to anything else - I thought I should mention that we saw a young father who had the longest hair of any human being I've ever seen, literally down past his calves, and twisted in matted dreads.  His wife's hair was comparatively short, ending at her hips, and their small son had a regular, little-boy haircut.  The sight got stuck in my mind for several minutes...how does he wash it and comb it?  How does he sleep without getting tangled up and choking himself?  How many years has it been since his last haircut?  I didn't feel particularly judgmental - just curious.

The Mister gave me the gift of time to myself this afternoon to go enjoy the spa.  I got a "reflexology" massage, where they focus just on your hands and feet - it was amazing.  Even more amazing were the extras associated with receiving services at the Colonial Williamsburg spa - a relaxation room with crazy-soft blankets; a steam room with optional menthol mist; a huge jacuzzi that would easily seat a couple dozen folks; one of those giant showers with a showerhead as big as a hula-hoop; lavender-infused shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion; every personal hygiene item you could possibly want; and use of a silk-and-terry robe that felt a lot like wearing a cloud.  The massage was great - but the additional amenities made it an incredible experience.

So basically, I am spoiled rotten at the moment, but so grateful to my better half for such a wonderful gift. 

Tonight we're thinking about room service and taking it easy.  Since we've cut Roanoke out of our itinerary, we will have a long day's drive tomorrow to Gatlinburg.  Getting excited at the thought of being home!

HC Tour 2012 - Day Six

Williamsburg.  What a wonderful place! 

Our colonial adventure began last night with supper at Shields Tavern.  Our simple but delicious supper of pork and beef was complemented by balladeers who conducted sing-alongs throughout the dining rooms.  Sounds cheesy, I know, but it was actually quite fun.  Afterwards, we had a lovely stroll back to the lodge.  The town was all but empty, with just a few fellow guests meandering the quiet streets.

I've been here once before, on a class trip when I was 16, but I didn't have much recollection of it.  My preconception, therefore, was that this week's visit would be something like a colonial theme park or an upscale Dollywood.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but gosh, this is so much more!

The proprietors of this area have gone to great lengths to preserve and present an accurate replication of 18th-century America.  From the costumes to the menus to the activities to the architecture and even the floors, everything works together to create a colonial atmosphere.  I was delighted to overhear a couple of costumed characters on the street having a spirited discussion about the Stamp Act and British taxation which didn't appear to be scripted at all.

We went to the courthouse and saw two civil disputes being heard by the court;  while it was light and silly, we also learned about pre-revolutionary court proceedings.  (We were even prompted to say, "God Save the King" at the open and close of court.)  We visited a couple of shops and enjoyed cool drinks with ginger cakes out on the lawn.  It has been a gorgeous and unseasonably warm day.

The only "downer" about our visit to Williamsburg is that it is also jam-packed here with students and families on spring break.  It was quiet last night, but today Duke of Gloucester Street was thick with people in t-shirts and sunscreen. 

Unlike D.C., however, most of our fellow tourists are well-mannered and cheerful.  Also unlike D.C., all of the Williamsburg personnel we've encountered have been unusually gracious and accommodating, despite the crowds.  They chat with us and seem sincerely interested in making sure we enjoy ourselves.

We've had such a good time thus far that we're cancelling our Thursday night reservation at the Hotel Roanoke and are staying on an extra day here instead.  There's still so much we want to see and do here, plus we may try and squeeze in a side-trip to Jamestown.  It just didn't make any sense to throw all of our stuff back into the suitcases tomorrow and drive to Roanoke for a one-night stay there.

Between D.C. and Arlington and now Williamsburg, I have walked more in the last six days than I have in the last six months.  It's a good thing because there is no shortage of outstanding food here, and my barely-existent willpower is no match for it.  But my feet and back and hips are so dang sore from all this walking - getting out of bed in the morning is almost comical.  If you're old enough to remember Sanford and Son, then just imagine Fred Sanford walking around the junk shop - that's what I look like first thing.  The Mister is kind enough not to make fun of me, although I'm sure it must be tempting.