In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
***********************
It allows the trees to sleep and dream of leaves, squirrels and birds.
It gives the squirrels an unblocked sight to help them remember where they buried their provisions.
It gives the tiny birds of the north a season away from the bitter Arctic winds.
It wraps the twigs and wires in bright and glistening rain drops.
It holds up the branches of evergreens to boldly catch the strong whiteness.
It brings out the heavy gear to push and stomp.
It allows the child to slide and sled.
It pastes the fallen leaves into the Spring's mosaic.
It makes the kitchen an even more welcome place.
It stores up its history in icicles.
It records the commerce of the beasts in foot prints.
It touches the cheek with cool kisses.
It brightens the moon and beclouds the sun.
It redefines the landscape.
It brings people together.
DB
*********
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 3 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Here's a quick one, if you read this far.
Something happened on August 28, 888 that didn't happen again until February 2, 2000. What was it?
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Simple Truth
Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
Soren Kierkegaard
************************
"It can't be true, I only thought of it myself."
Are we all born wise and gradually become ignorant? Are we all born sane and slowly go mad? So it would seem since as adults we tend to give up rational thinking and do crazy things.
There is the classic legend of the man who goes out looking for the most beautiful flower in the world. He scours the earth, goes into every garden, every field and forest. He finds many exotic and colorful blossoms, but none he considers the most beautiful. After many years he finally gives up his quest and returns home, and there he finds the most beautiful flower of all growing in his own back yard.
After working several years in my career and having learned the ropes by doing I finally read a well known book on acting. The author wrote eloquently and affirmatively about the subject and I was expecting to find some secrets to improve my work.. I was surprised to realize that there was noshing in the book I wasn't acquainted with. As I read I kept saying "Yes. Yes. That's right."
I think to approach any venture from the practical instead of the theoretical side is the only way to go about it. At best the book did simplify a few things for me, and that was good. But you can't learn to be an actor by reading a book. A theoretical approach can lead one into gardens, fields and forests looking for the most beautiful. But we can learn to rely on our own reason, desire, sense of proportion and form, of right and wrong, our own sense of truth to tell us what is the most beautiful.. And once wedded to an objective with heart and mind and body the search is over. The doing is all.
I am grateful for my patient and unpatronizing friends with whom I can share and enjoy the simpleness of life.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 3 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Soren Kierkegaard
************************
"It can't be true, I only thought of it myself."
Are we all born wise and gradually become ignorant? Are we all born sane and slowly go mad? So it would seem since as adults we tend to give up rational thinking and do crazy things.
There is the classic legend of the man who goes out looking for the most beautiful flower in the world. He scours the earth, goes into every garden, every field and forest. He finds many exotic and colorful blossoms, but none he considers the most beautiful. After many years he finally gives up his quest and returns home, and there he finds the most beautiful flower of all growing in his own back yard.
After working several years in my career and having learned the ropes by doing I finally read a well known book on acting. The author wrote eloquently and affirmatively about the subject and I was expecting to find some secrets to improve my work.. I was surprised to realize that there was noshing in the book I wasn't acquainted with. As I read I kept saying "Yes. Yes. That's right."
I think to approach any venture from the practical instead of the theoretical side is the only way to go about it. At best the book did simplify a few things for me, and that was good. But you can't learn to be an actor by reading a book. A theoretical approach can lead one into gardens, fields and forests looking for the most beautiful. But we can learn to rely on our own reason, desire, sense of proportion and form, of right and wrong, our own sense of truth to tell us what is the most beautiful.. And once wedded to an objective with heart and mind and body the search is over. The doing is all.
I am grateful for my patient and unpatronizing friends with whom I can share and enjoy the simpleness of life.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 3 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Hands Across And Down The Middle
A man doesn't know what he knows, until he knows what he doesn't know.
Thomas Carlyle
************************
There hae been several times in my life when I was with a group of people who were having a conversation that was so far from what I thought was my broad intellectual realm that i felt like an alien, a stranger and an ignorant boob. It wasn't that the topics were highly technical or philosophically deep. It was that the people talking were thinking in a manner that was foreign to me.
I was never a good student. The rigors of the classroom were uncomfortable to me. I was an "accidental scholar." The knowledge I had was picked up along the way as facts and ideas were drawn like a magnet to my particular mentality. And then I would find myself in a discussion in which my mentality didn't function. So I sat there quietly listening and trying to understand why I couldn't understand.
It's similar to an intricate folk dance. "Hands across and down the middle." If you don't know the steps you'll get tangled up and bump into people. Best to get out of it, stand to one side and watch.
There are books by linguists such as Noam Chomsky and philosophers such as Martin Heidegger who speak of patterns of thought as it relates to other issues of the mind. But for me it was getting off the bus in the wrong city when I was actually surrounded by thought patterns that were unknown to me. It wasn't that I couldn't follow the subject of the discussions, it was that I couldn't follow the steps. Hands Across And Down The Middle. Connections were made between one idea and another that I found unexpected and unexplainable.
Part of a psychiatrist's job is to determine how people think. And so is an actor's evidentially. Soon I began to use my observations to understand how the characters thought in the roles I was playing. What is his thought process, his mental pattern, is it different from mine and how can I discipline my own mind to think they way he does?
I found a way "down the middle" by understanding how much we judge people without realizing it. It is not usual or tactical to take into consideration the fact that another person sees the world differently than we do. Assumptions are made about people and we don't listen or observe them properly. We should begin with the understanding that one may not be thinking about things with the same set of habitual thought patterns that we have. It doesn't mean that person is unreasonable or illogical. It means that person has a way of processing thoughts, facts and ideas which is different from ours and therefore they have a knowledge of things we don't. And there is something we don't know.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 3 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Thomas Carlyle
************************
There hae been several times in my life when I was with a group of people who were having a conversation that was so far from what I thought was my broad intellectual realm that i felt like an alien, a stranger and an ignorant boob. It wasn't that the topics were highly technical or philosophically deep. It was that the people talking were thinking in a manner that was foreign to me.
I was never a good student. The rigors of the classroom were uncomfortable to me. I was an "accidental scholar." The knowledge I had was picked up along the way as facts and ideas were drawn like a magnet to my particular mentality. And then I would find myself in a discussion in which my mentality didn't function. So I sat there quietly listening and trying to understand why I couldn't understand.
It's similar to an intricate folk dance. "Hands across and down the middle." If you don't know the steps you'll get tangled up and bump into people. Best to get out of it, stand to one side and watch.
There are books by linguists such as Noam Chomsky and philosophers such as Martin Heidegger who speak of patterns of thought as it relates to other issues of the mind. But for me it was getting off the bus in the wrong city when I was actually surrounded by thought patterns that were unknown to me. It wasn't that I couldn't follow the subject of the discussions, it was that I couldn't follow the steps. Hands Across And Down The Middle. Connections were made between one idea and another that I found unexpected and unexplainable.
Part of a psychiatrist's job is to determine how people think. And so is an actor's evidentially. Soon I began to use my observations to understand how the characters thought in the roles I was playing. What is his thought process, his mental pattern, is it different from mine and how can I discipline my own mind to think they way he does?
I found a way "down the middle" by understanding how much we judge people without realizing it. It is not usual or tactical to take into consideration the fact that another person sees the world differently than we do. Assumptions are made about people and we don't listen or observe them properly. We should begin with the understanding that one may not be thinking about things with the same set of habitual thought patterns that we have. It doesn't mean that person is unreasonable or illogical. It means that person has a way of processing thoughts, facts and ideas which is different from ours and therefore they have a knowledge of things we don't. And there is something we don't know.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 3 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Day I Scared The Tourists
Every path has a few puddles.
American proverb
***********************
Up in New Hampshire where I lived for a while there are two conjoined ledges on top of a very high and sheer cliff. One is called Cathedral Ledge and the other White Horse Ledge. When you are standing on one you can easly see over to the other one. There is a road which goes up to Cathedral Ledge where one can park, get out, walk to the edge and enjoy the magnificent view.
During the Summer and Autumn months I used to do a lat of hiking on the trails and peaks of the area mountains, and one cloudy day I decided to take the trail up to White Horse Ledge. As it looked like it might rain I folded up a large rain parka and put it in my back pack along with a few other items. took my trusty walking staff which always went with me, parked my car by a lake near the foot of the trail and started up.
The begiinig of the trail was a hefty climb through forest. Then the trail became very treacherous, straight up for about 30 feet. Old roots sticking out of the cliff and an occasional chuck of rock were the only places to get a foot hold. Half way up that part of the trail it started to rain which made it een more treacherous. When I finally came out of that stretch I donned my rain parka and vowed to descend on the road and not try to return by way of the trail. The rain parka was hooded and large enough to fit over my back pack and still cover most of my body.
The last part of the trail went though a young forest, was a fairly easy climb and by then the rain had stopped. But almost to the end of it I heard a car door slam. That is a sound one doesn't expect hear when out hiking in the middle of a forest. But I knew it meant that I was near the end of my hike and White Horse Ledge was just ahead.
When I stepped out on the ledge I looked across and saw a young couple enjoying the view from Cathedral Ledge. I didn't want to startle them so I stood perfectly still and waited.
But the woman looked over and saw me. She gasped and grabbed the man's arm. Now picture me. A large black robe covering a back pack which made me look deformed, a gray beard jutting out from beneath a black hood which covered my face, standing perfectly still holding a five foot staff.
I was a ghost, an apparition, Jeremiah raised from the dead, the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, the Mythical Rider of the White Horse, the Old Man Of The Mountain, a mystical being from the deep, dark forest, the Grim Reaper, Satan himself.
Whatever they thought I was they quickly got in their car and left. They were probably a nice couple form Massachusetts, tourists no doubt. I could have walked over and introduced myself but they were standing at the edge of a cliff and I didn't want to scare them. I scared them anyway, just being there. They probably still talk now and then about the strange spectre they saw one cloudy day in the mountains of New Hampshire.
DB - The Vagabond
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
American proverb
***********************
Up in New Hampshire where I lived for a while there are two conjoined ledges on top of a very high and sheer cliff. One is called Cathedral Ledge and the other White Horse Ledge. When you are standing on one you can easly see over to the other one. There is a road which goes up to Cathedral Ledge where one can park, get out, walk to the edge and enjoy the magnificent view.
During the Summer and Autumn months I used to do a lat of hiking on the trails and peaks of the area mountains, and one cloudy day I decided to take the trail up to White Horse Ledge. As it looked like it might rain I folded up a large rain parka and put it in my back pack along with a few other items. took my trusty walking staff which always went with me, parked my car by a lake near the foot of the trail and started up.
The begiinig of the trail was a hefty climb through forest. Then the trail became very treacherous, straight up for about 30 feet. Old roots sticking out of the cliff and an occasional chuck of rock were the only places to get a foot hold. Half way up that part of the trail it started to rain which made it een more treacherous. When I finally came out of that stretch I donned my rain parka and vowed to descend on the road and not try to return by way of the trail. The rain parka was hooded and large enough to fit over my back pack and still cover most of my body.
The last part of the trail went though a young forest, was a fairly easy climb and by then the rain had stopped. But almost to the end of it I heard a car door slam. That is a sound one doesn't expect hear when out hiking in the middle of a forest. But I knew it meant that I was near the end of my hike and White Horse Ledge was just ahead.
When I stepped out on the ledge I looked across and saw a young couple enjoying the view from Cathedral Ledge. I didn't want to startle them so I stood perfectly still and waited.
But the woman looked over and saw me. She gasped and grabbed the man's arm. Now picture me. A large black robe covering a back pack which made me look deformed, a gray beard jutting out from beneath a black hood which covered my face, standing perfectly still holding a five foot staff.
I was a ghost, an apparition, Jeremiah raised from the dead, the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, the Mythical Rider of the White Horse, the Old Man Of The Mountain, a mystical being from the deep, dark forest, the Grim Reaper, Satan himself.
Whatever they thought I was they quickly got in their car and left. They were probably a nice couple form Massachusetts, tourists no doubt. I could have walked over and introduced myself but they were standing at the edge of a cliff and I didn't want to scare them. I scared them anyway, just being there. They probably still talk now and then about the strange spectre they saw one cloudy day in the mountains of New Hampshire.
DB - The Vagabond
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Look At That
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
Lauren Bacall
**********************
Do you trust your instincts? Probably. Do you trust your intuition? Maybe. How about your ingenuity? Most likely. But do you trusty your imagination? Why not?
Imagination works in two ways. One is what happens when the mind "wanders" and you are what's known as lost in thought. At such a time you visit various places, ideas, memories, doubts, fears, worries, visions, spectacles, hopes, waking dreams. Then sometimes the wandering imagination finds a trail and follows it for a while. That wayfaring imagination can be a very pleasant experience or a negative one.
Creative imagination comes with a ballet slipper or a test tube. It is the potter;s clay, the carpenter's wood, the smith's metal, the poet's word. When the dial clicks on the right number an idea shows up into sight out of the fog of maybes and might bes. The creative thinker takes that idea and gives it a bath in his imagination. It is molded and fashioned by him, held up to the light and maybe hammered a little bit. That is the process of discovery and creativity and when it goes on one is truly lifted into a special place in the universe all his own. Out of the mundane into the spiritual, it's one of life's greatest joys.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Lauren Bacall
**********************
Do you trust your instincts? Probably. Do you trust your intuition? Maybe. How about your ingenuity? Most likely. But do you trusty your imagination? Why not?
Imagination works in two ways. One is what happens when the mind "wanders" and you are what's known as lost in thought. At such a time you visit various places, ideas, memories, doubts, fears, worries, visions, spectacles, hopes, waking dreams. Then sometimes the wandering imagination finds a trail and follows it for a while. That wayfaring imagination can be a very pleasant experience or a negative one.
Creative imagination comes with a ballet slipper or a test tube. It is the potter;s clay, the carpenter's wood, the smith's metal, the poet's word. When the dial clicks on the right number an idea shows up into sight out of the fog of maybes and might bes. The creative thinker takes that idea and gives it a bath in his imagination. It is molded and fashioned by him, held up to the light and maybe hammered a little bit. That is the process of discovery and creativity and when it goes on one is truly lifted into a special place in the universe all his own. Out of the mundane into the spiritual, it's one of life's greatest joys.
DB - The Vagabond
***************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Saturday, January 15, 2011
I Know My Rights
If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.
Irving Babbit
*************************
In the dispute between Andrei Sitov, correspondent for Russia's official news agency ITAR-TASS, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the score was Sitov 1, Gibbs 0. In a discussion about the massacre that took place in the Tucson parking lot, Sitov offered his condolences to "all Americans" and the victims. Then Sitov said the slaughter that took place "does not seem all that incomprehensible, at least from the outside. It's the reverse side of freedom. Unless you want restrictions, unless you want a bigger role for the government."
Gibbs strongly protested that assertion.
"No, no, I would disagree vehemently with that. There are -- there is nothing in the values of our country, there's nothing on the many laws on our books that would provide for somebody to impugn and impede on the very freedoms that you began with by exercising the actions that that individual took on that day. That is not American. There are -- I think there's agreement on all sides of the political spectrum: Violence is never, ever acceptable. We had people that died. We had people whose lives will be changed forever because of the deranged actions of a madman. Those are not American. Those are not in keeping with the important bedrock values by which this country was founded and by which its citizens live each and every day of their lives in hopes of something better for those that are here."
Gibbs's rhetoric is very fine and few Americans, if any, would argue with it, but it does not address the issue posed by Sitov. One may say it's splitting hairs or "just a matter of interpretation" but the fact remains there is a big difference between freedoms and rights.
President Bush said that we were fighting in Iraq to protect our freedoms. And now the same is said about our troops in Afghanistan. But what freedoms are they fighting to protect? The freedom to shoot a bunch of innocent people in a parking lot in Arizona?
I am free to take your car and you are free to take my computer. Yes. You can come into my apartment, unhook my computer and take it away and if I see your car parked somewhere and I can get into it, start it, drive it away and no one stops me I am free to take your car. Anything one can do one is free to do. But if everyone did what they wanted to we would be living in a state of barbaric anarchy.
So we enter into n agreement with each other, a contract. I agree not to take your car and you agree not to take my computer. Then we firm up that contract with a law, thus making it illegal to take your car, and if I'm caught with it I've broken the contract, I've broken the law, it's a crime, grand theft auto, and I will go to prison, thus depriving me of my freedoms.
The most important contract we have in this country is the Constitution. Attached to the Constution is a series of 10 amendments, known as the Bill Of Rights. It's actually a bill of restrictions. "Congress shall make no law..." etc.
The second amendment states "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. " That amendment can never be removed from the Constitution, it can only be amended against. But if it loses its position and influence that might put into jeopardy the entire Bill of Rights. We might find ourselves losing the right to speak, publish, worship, assemble, protest and have a fair trial So did Jared Loughner have the freedom to own a gun? Yes. Did he have the right to own a gun? Yes. Did he have the freedom to shoot people with it in the parking lot in Arizona? Yes. Did he have the right to shoot them? No. Why not? Because of a contract with Americans which allows them the right to live, a freedom they already have. To steal a man's car is a crime. To take away a man's life is a crime. For the same reasons. The freedom to do those things are denied by the contracts, and hence the laws against them.
The US Congress is in the business of passing legislation to define and protect our rights. Which they will do if they ever stop insulting each other. They can't protect our freedoms, any more than the troops in Afghanistan can. We own those freedoms. But they can protect our "unalienable rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Dana Bate
Vagabond Journeys
***************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Irving Babbit
*************************
In the dispute between Andrei Sitov, correspondent for Russia's official news agency ITAR-TASS, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the score was Sitov 1, Gibbs 0. In a discussion about the massacre that took place in the Tucson parking lot, Sitov offered his condolences to "all Americans" and the victims. Then Sitov said the slaughter that took place "does not seem all that incomprehensible, at least from the outside. It's the reverse side of freedom. Unless you want restrictions, unless you want a bigger role for the government."
Gibbs strongly protested that assertion.
"No, no, I would disagree vehemently with that. There are -- there is nothing in the values of our country, there's nothing on the many laws on our books that would provide for somebody to impugn and impede on the very freedoms that you began with by exercising the actions that that individual took on that day. That is not American. There are -- I think there's agreement on all sides of the political spectrum: Violence is never, ever acceptable. We had people that died. We had people whose lives will be changed forever because of the deranged actions of a madman. Those are not American. Those are not in keeping with the important bedrock values by which this country was founded and by which its citizens live each and every day of their lives in hopes of something better for those that are here."
Gibbs's rhetoric is very fine and few Americans, if any, would argue with it, but it does not address the issue posed by Sitov. One may say it's splitting hairs or "just a matter of interpretation" but the fact remains there is a big difference between freedoms and rights.
President Bush said that we were fighting in Iraq to protect our freedoms. And now the same is said about our troops in Afghanistan. But what freedoms are they fighting to protect? The freedom to shoot a bunch of innocent people in a parking lot in Arizona?
I am free to take your car and you are free to take my computer. Yes. You can come into my apartment, unhook my computer and take it away and if I see your car parked somewhere and I can get into it, start it, drive it away and no one stops me I am free to take your car. Anything one can do one is free to do. But if everyone did what they wanted to we would be living in a state of barbaric anarchy.
So we enter into n agreement with each other, a contract. I agree not to take your car and you agree not to take my computer. Then we firm up that contract with a law, thus making it illegal to take your car, and if I'm caught with it I've broken the contract, I've broken the law, it's a crime, grand theft auto, and I will go to prison, thus depriving me of my freedoms.
The most important contract we have in this country is the Constitution. Attached to the Constution is a series of 10 amendments, known as the Bill Of Rights. It's actually a bill of restrictions. "Congress shall make no law..." etc.
The second amendment states "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. " That amendment can never be removed from the Constitution, it can only be amended against. But if it loses its position and influence that might put into jeopardy the entire Bill of Rights. We might find ourselves losing the right to speak, publish, worship, assemble, protest and have a fair trial So did Jared Loughner have the freedom to own a gun? Yes. Did he have the right to own a gun? Yes. Did he have the freedom to shoot people with it in the parking lot in Arizona? Yes. Did he have the right to shoot them? No. Why not? Because of a contract with Americans which allows them the right to live, a freedom they already have. To steal a man's car is a crime. To take away a man's life is a crime. For the same reasons. The freedom to do those things are denied by the contracts, and hence the laws against them.
The US Congress is in the business of passing legislation to define and protect our rights. Which they will do if they ever stop insulting each other. They can't protect our freedoms, any more than the troops in Afghanistan can. We own those freedoms. But they can protect our "unalienable rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Dana Bate
Vagabond Journeys
***************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Thursday, January 13, 2011
A Grateful Exit
Always know where the back door is.
Bate
*****************************
I have often found that the best way out of a bad situation is not necessarily the same way you got into it. Back peddling is the tactic used most of the time, but it doesn't always work, and at worst it leaves one open to accusations of hypocrisy and infidelity. And breaking through a wall to make an exit is harmful and causes a lot of resentment. Knowing where the rear exit is is the best plan.
Being a bit claustrophobic myself, I always want to know what my means of escape are in case I want to leave a place. I was very uncomfortable when I had to work in the hermetically sealed office buildings in New York. I worked in the World Trade Center a few times and though it was very comfortable when you were in there, trying to get in or out was an indication of how ill equipped it was to allow for easy egress.
In concert with the sealed up office buildings was the sealed mentality that ran many of the businesses that tried to function in them. That was another thing I needed to escape from. Many of the people I met in those environments reminded me of Bob Newhart's "Buttoned Down Mind." Suits were wearing men rather than the other way around. I could sit there in a cubicle doing ridiculous things and tell myself how important they were. In my files I have some minutes of a Board Of Directors meeting. One paragraph clearly states: "Dress down Friday was discussed and all agreed it was a great success. The Board voted unanimously to have it discontinued." Quick! Where's the back door?!
Sometimes you can find the back door in a contract. Many a game has been lost because the winner knew the rules and the loser did not. A good agent will always negotiate an "out clause" into a contract simply to allow for getting out of a bad situation.
I gave my notice at a radio station I was working for. The boss was resentful and wanted to know where my loyalty was. When I signed up there was guaranteed job security. But the contract was renegotiated and firing without cause was inserted. I had to explain to him that if you take away job security you also take away employee loyalty. They go together. He wasn't bright enough to understand that.
Once in my life I was fired. It was from an actng job. But the vacuum heads who ran the theatre didn't know what they were doing and I had to go into the office and show them how to fire me. They didn't know about a termination clause in the contract, that I could work for two more weeks if they wanted me to, or they had to give me two weeks severance pay, and they had to provide transportation back to my home. It was all in the contract, which they never read. I was the one being fired and I had to teach them how to do it. You see why I have a sense of humor?
There were a few other sticky things they didn't know about and when all the legal mumble jumble was finished they probably wish they hadn't decided to do it. But I didn't care. I didn't like that job anyway. Firing people was not the only thing they were ignorant about.
I showed them the back door and had them hold it open for me while I gratefully made my exit.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************the out clause, mental cubicals, fired from my job
Bate
*****************************
I have often found that the best way out of a bad situation is not necessarily the same way you got into it. Back peddling is the tactic used most of the time, but it doesn't always work, and at worst it leaves one open to accusations of hypocrisy and infidelity. And breaking through a wall to make an exit is harmful and causes a lot of resentment. Knowing where the rear exit is is the best plan.
Being a bit claustrophobic myself, I always want to know what my means of escape are in case I want to leave a place. I was very uncomfortable when I had to work in the hermetically sealed office buildings in New York. I worked in the World Trade Center a few times and though it was very comfortable when you were in there, trying to get in or out was an indication of how ill equipped it was to allow for easy egress.
In concert with the sealed up office buildings was the sealed mentality that ran many of the businesses that tried to function in them. That was another thing I needed to escape from. Many of the people I met in those environments reminded me of Bob Newhart's "Buttoned Down Mind." Suits were wearing men rather than the other way around. I could sit there in a cubicle doing ridiculous things and tell myself how important they were. In my files I have some minutes of a Board Of Directors meeting. One paragraph clearly states: "Dress down Friday was discussed and all agreed it was a great success. The Board voted unanimously to have it discontinued." Quick! Where's the back door?!
Sometimes you can find the back door in a contract. Many a game has been lost because the winner knew the rules and the loser did not. A good agent will always negotiate an "out clause" into a contract simply to allow for getting out of a bad situation.
I gave my notice at a radio station I was working for. The boss was resentful and wanted to know where my loyalty was. When I signed up there was guaranteed job security. But the contract was renegotiated and firing without cause was inserted. I had to explain to him that if you take away job security you also take away employee loyalty. They go together. He wasn't bright enough to understand that.
Once in my life I was fired. It was from an actng job. But the vacuum heads who ran the theatre didn't know what they were doing and I had to go into the office and show them how to fire me. They didn't know about a termination clause in the contract, that I could work for two more weeks if they wanted me to, or they had to give me two weeks severance pay, and they had to provide transportation back to my home. It was all in the contract, which they never read. I was the one being fired and I had to teach them how to do it. You see why I have a sense of humor?
There were a few other sticky things they didn't know about and when all the legal mumble jumble was finished they probably wish they hadn't decided to do it. But I didn't care. I didn't like that job anyway. Firing people was not the only thing they were ignorant about.
I showed them the back door and had them hold it open for me while I gratefully made my exit.
DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 2 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************the out clause, mental cubicals, fired from my job
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