These annual reviews can play a critical role in a person’s career, like in how much money that they will hopefully continue to keep making. It helps determine the percentage of the next anticipated salary increase, if any, as well as if any additional training is needed. Maybe a promotion or another position would and/or could be factored into it as well. And of course if there is any discipline necessary, for things like attendance issues or any other negative interferences that too would be considered.

In the past, and for many years, possibly even today, a few select employees have been asked to do the task of rating themselves at this time. Something that would be a very difficult challenge to ask of anyone. My wife has been asked to do this several times thruout the years that she has worked at this company. She becomes a nervous wreck, absolutely frightful. To have to ask yourself with complete honesty, and being as modest a woman as some people like my wife tend to be,just “ What kind of employee am I? ”, is a heavy burden indeed.

Thank the people in charge because this year her company has put into place a workplace management tool from a company by the name of managerassistant.com that is programmed to ease the stress related to employee appraisal. The buzz in the office is that it is a wonderful program that will help eliminate much of pressure and prejudice that often accompanies such evaluations.

Computers are coming into play more and more often in today’s work force and a lot of tasks that were once handled by humans are being turned over to the always changing computer’s newest technologies, but humans will always be a necessity in order to program it, run it and fix it.

Net Simplicity offers simple office administration software, that states it “allows it to run your office instead of you.” their hopes are that her company will benefit from their room scheduling and asset management software.

It seems that according to this article, several seeds of this type were discovered some forty years ago and have been stored until just recently, when a group of scientists decided to try to germinate it.  I’m still not quite sure why they only tried one!  Anyway, what is good and important about this is that they think (and hope) that the tree will have some medicinal uses.  I’m all for that!

One of my grandfather’s most memorable sayings was “Put the pillow under a lady and put the pistol under the pillow” . And I think of that old saying more often than I would have ever thought I would. As a kid growing up listening to this old man’s stories and sayings, you sort of tuned them out after awhile.

I miss my grandfather. He passed on several years ago, leaving my grandmother grieving and broken hearted. We do what we can to keep her busy and the whole extended family has pulled together to make what is left of her life one that isn’t full of loneliness and old memories.

My grandfather did manage to leave me a small portion of his massive assortment of weapons that were divided up between several members of our very large and extended family.  I have several really nice holsters as well and he made sure that each weapon came with an good amount of bullets and cleaning kits and all kinds of other accessories that one might eventually needed for each piece.

They just recently opened up a firing range, less than 1/2 a mile from the house, and I’m thinking that it might just be a good idea to take out some of these old pieces, give them a good going over as well as a good cleaning, and take a trip down the street and try some of them out. No sense in them just sitting around collecting dust in some dark corner of the house.

We have installed security cameras all around the house and yard, the backyard is totally fenced in, and we really need to get on the ball and get the front yard fenced in also, We have been talking about doing that  for several years now and it still it remains unfenced, as it was on the first day of us moving in.

Our teenage daughter has approached me about her concerns of her safety during the night time hours and is interested in looking into carrying a gun of some sort. I’m all about be allowed to carry a firearm, but considering her young age and the lack of good judgement, I have convinced her into looking into some type of spray that she could use on someone, if the need be. So we both sat down on the PC last night and took a look around to see what was being offered out there on-line in the line of mace sprays, amazing how many different brands and varieties that are out there to be purchased, so it took a good bit of time to find one that we both agreed upon.

We have decided to buy baton pepper lace for $39.95, it sprays up to 5 feet and their four gram unit contains 3 one second bursts. You can purchase additional refills for just $7.95, all this is going to be done at planetmace.com, The total amount of our purchase didn’t quite add up to the amount of $50, which is what it takes to get their Free Shipping offer. So we looked around and found their selection of animal repellents and decided that for $13.95 it would be good to get their key chain canine repellent spray, which would place us well over the $50 mark.  We have had a lot of pit bulls now residing in our neighborhood and we have always wanted to get something that would help in case one day one of these free roaming pit bulls decides to act up with anyone from this household, so it really is a good idea to go ahead and get it also.

I hope that she never has to use either one of these products, but at least she will have something to help defend herself in this screwed up world that we now live in. She is a feisty one, this daughter is, I know she can kick some butt and doesn’t think twice about getting up in your face, and she can back it up too. But sometimes a girl needs an extra advantage and I hope that these will do the job.

Sometimes the most obvious solution is right in front of us, yet for some reason we just don’t see it.  When we use common sense in life things do tend to be a little bit easier.  This subject came up after reading an article on gas prices, where it state that only 10% of Americans work from home.  You would think that with the increase in gas prices that that number would have at least doubled by now.

Fortunately for those few they are saving a lot of money and time (without the commute).  Unfortunately for the rest of us one reason why we still drive into the office is because employers do not trust us.  That was the top reason why a lot of companies did not want their employees to work from home.  Other reasons revolved around the work that needed to be done.  For example, if you work the front desk at a hotel you need to be there in person.  I guess the only thing we can do is hope and pray that the economy will improve in the near future.

This site offers so many different kinds of Contractor’s that deal with remodeling, heating and air conditioning, roofing, electrical, general, plumbing, painting, flooring, and exc. that are qualified and have all the required state licenses, that have quite the reputation for doing a high quality job.  I really hope he finds what he is looking for, and I’m sure he will by going to this site, I know it has saved me and others from disappointment many of times.

 

On the cover of the Yahoo news is an article about how Starbucks is going to close up to 600 stores this year and lay off a lot of people - over 12,000 jobs will be lost. What are all those highly trained baristas going to do for work now? I mean, what is up with that?

I have placed the video of that particular showing for your viewing information and pleasure:

link here

What is one of the many good things about the Internet is, that it allows you to visit virtually every business and industry without having to leave your house, which tends to sway most folks into entering their web-site to look around, when normally you wouldn’t have even considered finding business like that and then actually transporting yourself there to look around.

For example, no more than 1 1/2 blocks away from our house is a Police Gear & Accessories store that I drive right by at least twice a day, but never once have I pulled into the parking lot and gone in to look around and for no reak particular reason either. I mean I am interested in the merchandise that they have for these hard working law enforcers and with all of today’s technology I’m sure that I would find some pretty interesting and amazing things there to explore, yet I wouldn’t think to go and browse around there, ever.

Which brings me to a web-site of lapolicegear.com that I stumbled onto earlier today, it is full of such amazing items that are geared for police officers, that I spent a good 20 minutes or so, just taking it all in.  So I got to see all of this merchandise right at home, without the drive, or parking issues, or dealing with really crappy customer service. You just gotta love the Internet for that.

I have the misfortune of suffering each year with allergies and it seems like this year my allergies have lasted weeks longer than usual. I’ve been sneezing and having sinus headaches ever since the temperatures hit 70 degrees. I’ve always been sensitive to tree pollen, but now I’m concerned that there are other things in the air that bother me, too.

An air purifier might possibly help with my allergies and also help reduce the sensitivity to the smoke that my wife suffers through, that wafts upstairs occasionally when my daughter has friends over in the family room who smoke in the house - even though we keep asking them not to. So every once in a while smelling smoke in the house is an issue and a purifier would take care of that for me, too.

In fact their live vehicle tracking, positions and is updated every ten seconds, that can be viewed by any computer hooked up with the Internet anywhere. That certainly could and would come in handy for so many needs that I can think of. It is an interesting read and worth the time to check out, if you will.

Thought I would share the video clip link below, for your viewing entertainment!

video clip