Thursday, March 29, 2007

 

Work Place Psalm 23

The Lord is my real boss, and I shall not want.
He gives me peace, when chaos is all around me.
He gently reminds me to pray and do all things without murmuring and complaining.

He reminds me that He is my source and not my job.
He restores my sanity everyday and guides my decisions that I might honor Him in all that I do.

Even though I face absurd amounts of e-mails, system crashes, unrealistic deadlines, budget cutbacks, gossiping co-workers, discriminating supervisors and an aging body that doesn't cooperate every morning, I still will not stop--- for He is with me! His presence, His peace, and His power will see me through.

He raises me up, even when they fail to promote me.
He claims me as His own, even when the company threatens to let me go.
His Faithfulness and love is better than any bonus check.

His retirement plan beats any 401k there is!
When it's all said and done, I'll be working for Him a whole lot longer and for that, I BLESS HIS NAME!!!!!!

Saturday, March 17, 2007

 

Chariot Driver

Ever wonder about destiny? Do you think about the statement that every hair on your head is numbered? Don't tempt fate, lest fate tempt you?

For months I had driven my mother back and forth to the Cleveland Clinic trying to get them to come up with a solution for my mother's aortic aneurism. She was too far along for conventional solutions, so anything they tried would have been experimental.

Mom was 75 years old when she learned of her aneurism. Like all of us, she wanted to live. She was not ready to die. So she signed the paperwork for the experimental procedures to begin.

She was complaining about back pain and the doctors identified it to bladder stones. They removed the bladder stones during the first week of December, 2003. Mom indicated that her back pain was gone once the stones were removed. The back pain is a symptom of bladder stones.

They had planned on scheduling Mom for a consultation after the first of the new year to discuss a procedure that may help resolve her aneurism. Mom died on December 28th, 2003.

The receptionist called after the first of the year to schedule mom's appointment and acted surprised when I told her that it was too late, mom already died.

My sister actually drove my mother to/from Cleveland on one of her trips up there. It was nice to have some help. My other siblings were indisposed, out of town, or was not willing to help out. One brother actually shared in expenses for one of the trips.

I remember during one of our drives up to Cleveland, my mother looked over at me and said, "You are my chariot driver.", which kind of took me by surprise. At the same time, it made me feel good. It meant she was proud of me and was glad to have me as her son and was a way for her to convey her appreciation for me taking her up to Cleveland and back home so many times.

After mom passed away, I used my share of the money that she left for her children to put down on a new white pickup truck. The truck was white.

The first truck I was assigned when I started to work for a trucking company, was white.

The color white was not by choice, it was fate, and I felt it was Mom's way of letting me know that she appreciated me driving her back and forth to Cleveland during her last months.

 

Who Do You Think You Are?

During my last trip to Savage, Maryland, which is near Baltimore, I ran across an attitude that I thought I would share in both my blogs. Some of the egos you run across are really unbelievable at times, eh?

I had pulled up to the customer's site, parked my truck, and was heading towards the receiving door. On my way in I met a fellow that I thought was driving the truck parked in front of me. I was curious about the orange box that looked like an old Schneider van trailer, so I began chatting with him to ask him about it.

Since he was walking around the vicinity of the tractor, I just assumed he was the driver of the truck. I asked him about the orange trailer and he responded with, "I guess they must have bought it from Schneider.".

My next question was, "Is that your truck?".

He laughed and replied, "No, I graduated from that.".

The thoughts that abounded in my mind. My first thought was to ask who the hell he thought he was, making a statement like that. My second thought was to ask him what he graduated to, being an a$$hole?

Well, knowing that I must treat customers with respect, regardless of how they treat me, I just politely ignored the comment and went on about checking into receiving. I did not know who this person was, nor his position within this customer's site, so I did not want to tick him off. If you get the receiving personnel upset with you, they can make your life miserable by making you wait for hours before you can get your load off your truck and/or other things to make you miserable.

When you have doctors, lawyers, pilots, computer geeks, and all other types of people driving trucks that used to work other jobs, you should never make comments like that fellow did.

The more I thought about it, not saying anything at all to him was the best response. He will go on in his life with his narrow minded way of thinking, and eventually he will make that comment to the wrong person.

What goes around comes around.


 

Know Your Options

My wife and I were fretting the loss of her job since I had lost mine last year. We thought we were going to have to sell everything and start all over, but our financial advisor put our minds at rest. When we approached him to talk about cashing in our 401s in order to pay off our house, he came up with another option that not too many are aware of, using the 72T option.

You can find out more information about the 72T option by going to the website
http://www.72t.net. Beware of the warnings not to use the option unless you have a knowledgeable financial advisor working with you. Using the 72T option enables you to draw from your 401k without the major penalties assessed when pulling large amounts of money from it.

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