You think you know someone.

I have always trusted The Sociologist's priorities. I had no reason to doubt her earlier this week, certainly, when she called to say that she had just seen a 3-story Sonic in Oklahoma City. Well, yes, that is news in the South, where we populate our towns with the low-slung drive-ins that offer the best ice in the land.

She assured that she would be getting back to the location for a photograph before leaving the city. And much later, after she left the city, she called to say, "would you believe that 3-story Sonic is world headquarters?" Well, all right! Sonic has a home office! It's not just tips and receipts and a cash register managed by a teenager.

So, I said, you got the photograph. Well, no, she admitted.

You think you know someone.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

American workplaces undergoing change

2009 has already seen remarkable changes in the American workplace. The Great Recession has prompted more lay-offs than we're accustomed to, more cost-saving measures than any office likes to see, and furloughs that will soon stop feeling like vacations and start feeling like pay cuts.

What could change it more? A voluntary exodus by employees who will happily take their chances on becoming independent contractors (instead of full-time employees) if they have access to guaranteed health care insurance. I would need several hands to count the number of boomer women I know who "work for the bennies" for themselves and (for some) their spouses.

I asked Tom Bold yesterday if he thought that described boomer men, too. He agreed: former colleagues are already making the comparison between full-time work and three-quarter-time (contract) work, but with that matter of health insurance keeping them on a job. That job is becoming more and more demanding as lay-offs continue so the prospect of working from home, whether for one client or several, is becoming more and more attractive.

Such an exodus could be a brain drain from the employer's perspective but could also be a solution for balance sheets that are currently hurting. Some employers might find out for the first time what really attracts talent to their companies. And some might find out what percentage of workers were responsible for what percentage of productivity.

And a whole lot of boomers might find their adjustment to the recession a whole lot happier.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Movies: It was the same but different

Yesterday, when I took myself off to a movie, it was the same but different from 2001 when I sat in a different theatre, different town, but experienced the same period of adjustment as I realized I was seeing something I had not planned to see.

In 2001, I don't recall what movie I intended. But as I sat in the opening few seconds, with the screen turning orange, I was certain the mood being set was not the one for a typical Lida movie. Indeed. The movie was Training Day. R, brutal, and an award-winner (or maybe it was the actors who won awards). I had walked into the wrong show. I stayed, wary but fascinated.

Yesterday was the same but different. Within a single minute of the movie's start, I realized this was not my movie. Now, I cannot claim that I walked into the wrong theatre. I held the right ticket for I Love You, Beth Cooper. It's just that I thought it would be something more along the lines of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I actually saw and considered mildly amusing. I didn't say good. I said mildly amusing. And for Beth Cooper, I have to report that lots of other people actually liked it. The theatre was more than half-full (unusual for the times that I go to the movies) and people laughed sympathetically as the grown men and women on screen worked hard to resemble high school seniors. I will say this: I didn't have to close my eyes for violent scenes. Of course, by the time I left I was feeling pretty violent....

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

A commute to live by

It's a map season (if you spotted the blog on remote maps last week).

Actually, I'm writing about commuting today. I'm not a commuter anymore but sometimes there is regular driving to a client's site. When that involves Dallas traffic, the strategy is to start early, tune the radio to Weather & Traffic on the 8s, and prepare to abandon the freeway.

I have a particular route across the DFW Metroplex that is actually 3 routes. Depending on clogs on the freeway, I have pathways "mapped" in my mind and on the car's GPS uint, too, so that I can adjust between the extreme 35 minute trip (granted that happened only once, on a Saturday morning) and the horrendous 2-hour trip (which has happened several times). On a good day, the drive takes 55 minutes. On an average day it takes 65 to 70 minutes.

And then there's the industrial route. It's very relaxing. I start with only 12 minutes on my neighborhood highway and then I exit for the little-known airport cut-across, to the north industrial neighborhood, which leads to a southward stretch of about 4 miles with stoplights, and then turns into a relaxing boulevard drive across a couple of towns' industrial warehouses with few cars on the road. Speed is 45 mph (the hybrid loves it) but with areas of stoplights that slow the trip. But the longest stoplight line I have ever been in is 10 cars and trucks. That's no exaggeration. The typical line is 2. Or 3. Did I mention there is no stress whatsoever?

What price do I pay for my industrial commute? Drive time is always at least 75 minutes. It can stretch to 80 minutes. Did I mention there is no stress whatsoever....

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Personal Technology: InstaMapper-ing

Katy Bold gets the credit for discovering this tool (free from the web) although I think she was taken aback by the intensity of my reaction and my insistence that "I want it all—web and mobile—and I want it on Tom's phone, too!"

InstaMapper permits tracking a cooperative trackee with a GPS-enabled cell phone, producing an informational screen for the tracker viewing on the web (with option for mobile version for viewing on an Internet-equipped cell phone). The information includes map, coordinates, altitude, and speed of movement.

The system requires cooperation. The trackee must make an update click, and the tracker must refresh the web page display. Does it work? Exceedingly well. (The tracking can also be embedded on a web page or blog with nearly-constant updating.)

Did we use it? We did. As Katy drove halfway across the country she occasionally updated (her click) and I obsessively refreshed (my click). On that day, I was on site working for a client and I showed the display to colleagues. They happened to be women with offspring ranging from teenage to adulthood. Most of them wrote down the name of the application. I breezily commented that I like the system because it operates on cooperation: my grown daughter was voluntarily sharing information with me and I could read a lot into speed of 70 versus speed of 0.

A colleague stopped me, "You can tell how fast she's driving?" Well, yes, that's one of the results. And I repeated that I don't feel as though I'm invading my daughter's privacy. And this colleague said, "My daughter is 16. I don't care about privacy." Another colleague formed a plan: "My husband. You have no idea how often he gets lost and calls me to read a map to him."

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Virtual Birthday

Virtual events come by many names. A young friend recently reminded me of when the virtual becomes F2F, however. That's when you have a LAN party at your house and your friends bring their computers for F2F interaction in addition to simultaneous online gaming.

I once planned a political non-dinner because some events prevented the real thing. I printed up a whole menu (featuring baked chicken, of course) with the usual payment stub. The campaign raised some thousands of dollars, remarkably as this was back in the early '70s.

In the years since I've seen similar technique but the Internet and cell phone photography really bring the whole exercise to everyone. So, the photo here is fried ice cream at the local Cristina's. Virtual for the birthday celebrant in California. Very real for the family members in Texas.

Should have saved this for Personal Technology on Friday, of course.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Cozumel Ruins

The pre-Columbian Mayan ruins at the center of Cozumel island (Mexico) are not large. Pretty, but not large. The grander sort are gone. They were bulldozed in WW2 to create an airstrip.

The ruins we visited are protected in a park. We spent about an hour walking around the 18 monuments. That was our excursion on the one day in port for our practice cruise.

We traveled from Galveston to Cozumel (and back) on the Carnival Ecstasy. We were not much suited to the party atmosphere but we learned what we needed to learn before planning longer trips. (I napped and slept very well. Tom Bold was bored. I need cheaper Internet access.)

A reader asked if Sherman had practiced something, too, because of this trip. It was his first time without either me or Tom at the house. He became attached to his dog-sitter over the 5 days. Had we given him a full practice experience it would have been at a kennel. We are actually scouting out the local options for that experiment.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Practice ruins, too

We continue on our practice cruise, and this weekend added practice ruins to the list. Photo to follow next weekend. It seems that when one relies only on a cell phone for photographs, one is scared to death to log onto the Cellular at Sea network for fear of racking up big charges. So, the photos will sit for a few days.

FYI, Internet access is 40 cents/minute. That reminds me of per-minute charges for long-distance calls in my long-distant memory. I could be wrong.

I can blog. I can email. I can check web sites. I can do a certain amount of work but not log into all work sites that I am accustomed to.

Could I manage longer than a 4-night cruise? To be determined.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (http://www.marybold.com/, http://www.boldproductions.com/, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Practice Cruise: Late Blooming Boomers

Tom Bold and I are on a practice cruise. We are late blooming at cruising, as just about everyone we know has already tried it. As most readers will attest, the single most positive comment made about cruises is that Alaska as destination is best.

That's not where we're going. Remember, I titled this Practice Cruise. That means that before we invest thought and money into a cruise among the islands of the South Pacific, we need to make sure we're good fits for this mode of transportation.

Imagine us on the way to Cozumel. Also imagine us as having booked this trip without caring what the destination might be. More on all this later.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.