Choose Love and Acceptance over Hate and Intolerance

It seems like you can't turn on the news these days without hearing stories of shootings, murders, terrorist attacks and hate crimes.  Everywhere you look, it seems like hate, anger and intolerance are winning while love, forgiveness and acceptance are nowhere to be seen.  Terrorist attacks are becoming an alarmingly common occurrence in Europe, while shootings and murders are approaching all-time highs in many large cities in the U.S.

What's behind all of this death and destruction?  There's no simple answer.  However, there are many things we can point to:

• Poisonous vitriol from our politicians - on both sides of the aisle - stoke the hatred of those with whom we do not agree.  The result?  People dislike and distrust people who don't march in lockstep with their own beliefs, which can cause a man to go on a shooting spree at a charity softball practice trying to kill people he disagrees with politically.
• Social media gives the ugliest views in our society an easy way to spread easily.  People hide behind anonymity and say things to people that they'd never say face-to-face.  People discard opposing viewpoints and begin to live in an echo chamber that reinforces that they are right and others are wrong.
• Racism, sexism, classism and many other isms allow people to stereotype others into one bucket and then casually make generalizations that dehumanize those individuals. All minorities aren't uneducated and violent.  All poor people aren't lazy. All homosexuals aren't promiscuous, bad people.  All addicts aren't losers who just have no self control. 

Each and every one of us is on our own journey.  Each and every one of us is battling demons that no one else may know about.  We're all trying to do our best to make our way in this world.  Some people have a battle that is readily apparent, be it a handicap or a health issue that is obvious.  But many more of us are fighting battles that others may know nothing about because those battles are fought behind closed doors.  People battling depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, addiction.  They may seem okay to you, but you have no idea how hard it is for them just to get out of bed in the morning and make it through the day without relapsing.  People going through marital difficulties who are watching everything they ever dreamed of being torn asunder. The single parent who didn't necessarily plan to be a single parent but is doing their best to raise their child while bearing all of the load of parenting.  The person who is dealing with the death of a loved one.  You have no idea what they are going through in the mornings or evenings, when they're not at work or school.

I have no grand solutions to solve the world's problems.  But here's an idea: let's all try to choose love and acceptance over hate and intolerance.  Let's love, care for and accept people in spite of their religion or marital status or sexual orientation or addiction or handicap or income level.  Let's look for common ground instead of focusing on our differences.  We're all in this world together and we're all trying to make our way through it as best as we can.  We all have enough problems to have to add worrying about people hating us or seeking to harm us because of our background, religion or personal struggles.

There's a quote I saw several years ago that has always stuck with me:

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

If all of us try to do that, think about the impact it could have on our schools, our places of business, our communities, our nation, our world.  I realize this sounds like some sort of utopian, hippy claptrap, but it's not. Nearly every religion on earth espouses treating others with respect, doing more good than harm, The Golden Rule, etc., so it's not like this is some sort of new age hullabaloo.  Jesus told us to love one another, so why do we have such a hard time doing it?

So, my challenge to you, dear readers, is to do what you can to be more open, accepting, tolerant and loving of your fellow human beings.  If each of us can do that, perhaps we can make a dent in the violence and hatred in our world and make it a better place for all of us.

Thanks for reading.

Vacation 2017 - By The Numbers

Another successful Golden Family Vacation is in the books.  This year, we enjoyed the white sand beaches and emerald green waters of the Destin/Ft. Walton Beach area of Florida, with a side trip to Atlanta on the way home.  Rather than bore you with a play-by-play recap of the trip, I thought I'd tell you about it in a little different way.

Here's the story of our vacation, by the numbers:

Number of days away from home: 10
Number of miles driven: 1,944
Number of hours spent in the car: 39 hours and 55 minutes (that includes driving around Destin and Atlanta)
Number of states visited: 8 (MO, TN, MS, AL, FL, GA, KY, IL)
Number of different state license plates seen: 42 (including D.C. - the only states we didn't see were HI, ID. NV, CT, DE, RI, VT, NH, ME)
Number of days we went to the beach: 5
Number of days when there was a red flag (and big waves) at the beach: 3
Number of times I got knocked down by said big waves: 7
Number of pairs of sunglasses lost in the gulf due to said big waves: 1
Number of planes that flew past beach with advertisement behind them: Approximately 30
Number of planes that flew past beach with marriage proposal behind them: 1
Number of days we went to the pool: 6
Number of pools at our complex: 4 (kiddie pool, adult pool, pool with waterfall and lily pad/ropes course deal, and lazy river) - This is place is awesome.  Ping me if you want the name of it.
Number of tattoos seen at beach and pool: Too many to count (I'd say roughly 40% of the people had at least 1 tattoo)
Number of disturbing tattoos seen at beach and pool: 2   Allow me to explain.  One guy had a tattoo of Michael Myers, his knife and the jack-o-lantern from "Halloween".  Picture a combination of these two pictures, side by side:

 

 

Look, "Halloween" is my all-time favorite horror movie.  But I'm not getting a tattoo of a serial killer - real or fictional.  But what I guess what made it more disturbing was that he was at the pool with said tattoo while playing in the water with his two toddler daughters. 

 

The other guy had a full back tattoo of a big sword surrounding by skulls....and he was at the beach with his two kids under the age of 5.  I'm not a big tattoo guy, but whatever.  People can do to their bodies whatever they want to do; I really don't care.  It just struck me as weird to have such violent images permanently emblazoned on their bodies when they have little kids around them.  Michael Myers scared the CRAP out of me when I was a kid....I can't imagine what it would be like to then see that image on my dad's arm every day.



Number of rebel flags seen flying: 4 (which was honestly less than I expected to see; this excludes the miniature version that is still part of Mississippi's state flag)
Number of times we played mini golf: 2
Number of times we rode go karts: 2.25 (The first time we attempted to ride them, it started pouring down rain, so we only got to go around the track once.  We got a refund and went back the next night to ride them)
Number of times I had shrimp for dinner: 4
Number of times we went to the outlet mall: 1
Number of dollars spent at said outlet mall: I'd prefer to not say.  :) (Let's just say that there was a North Face outlet and they had a lot of stuff that was 50% off.)
Number of roller coasters my daughter and I rode at Six Flags: 9 (including a stand-up coaster and her first flying coaster)
Number of roller coasters my son rode for the first time: 5 (including his first stand-up coaster)
Number of bad sunburns suffered by Golden family members: 0 (woo hoo!)
Number of family members who caught a cold during our trip: 3 (boo hoo)

There you have it - a quick recap of our family vacation. Thanks for reliving it with me!

HR Truths

Those of you who have followed and read this blog know that I work in Human Resources and have more than past 20+ years.  During my time in HR, I have dabbled in virtually every area of HR - recruitment and talent acquisition, benefits, compensation, employee relations and labor relations.  During this time, I have noticed some truths that I think anyone who has worked in HR for any length of time can relate to.

1. There are people who put forth more effort avoiding work than they would expend if they just did their job.  Some of them come up elaborate reasons for missing work, be it fake illnesses to be off work "sick" or feigning relationships to the recently deceased in order to get bereavement leave.  (Yes, I've actually seen that one.  Caught the guy, too!)  Others have no problem coming to work, but then spend much of their time "at work" doing things other than work.  Honestly, some of these folks expend more effort and brain power trying to NOT do work than they ever would if they just came in and did their jobs.

2. There is an inverse relationship between how strenuously an employee insists that he/she is "a good employee who just wants to come to work and do my job" and how much of a headache that employee actually is.  I cannot count the number of times I've heard the "I'm a good employee.  You know that.  I just want to come to work and do my job" speech from an employee who is nothing but a pain in the butt who often falls into category 1 above.  If not in that category, they are the employees who seem to thrive on conflict and drama.  Very seldom do I ever get that speech from the good employees who never miss work, always do their job and never cause any issues.  The more often an employee says it, the worse of an employee he/she probably is.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Thou doth protest too much."

3. A career in HR means dealing with more abbreviations than you see in almost any other career. DOL, OFCCP, NLRB, FMLA, ADA, EEOC, FLSA, DOT. HR is a veritable cornucopia of abbreviations.  And those are just the common, nationwide, government agency abbreviations.  You have to then throw on top of those things like STD, LTD, SPD and PIP, as well as the many company-specific abbreviations that nearly every company has.  Alphabet soup indeed!

4. The best part of working in HR is the "H". It's the people you get to work with, partner with and help through the various issues that arise every day.  It's finding that future gem of an employee and hiring them.  It can be helping to develop said gem to reach their full potential.  It's helping someone dealing with a personal crisis and doing what you can to help them pull through that crisis. It can be extremely rewarding.

5. The worst part of working in HR is the "H". It's the aforementioned problem children (see items 1 & 2 above). The people who don't come to work.  The people who don't play well with others.  The people who can't follow the rules.  The bad drivers, bad actors, bad supervisors, bad employees.  There is an HR saying that 20% of employees take up 80% of your time and it's definitely true.  A given supervisor certainly has to deal with their respective problem children, while HR gets involved with ALL of the supervisors' problem children.  It can be extremely exhausting.

There you have it - 5 truths to which anyone who has worked in Human Resources can relate.  A career in HR is many things, but boring is certainly not one of them.

Thanks for reading!