An incomplete list of things I don't understand

There is snow everywhere, I am still trying to find most of my stuff after a recent move, I have 879 HR Tech Conference speaking proposals to review (only a slight exaggeration), and I am heading out tomorrow for my first work trip of 2015. In short, I have no time/energy/good ideas for the blog today.

But carry on we must. Actually, we don't 'must', it just feels better to post something than not to post, so here goes something nothing. The first installment of what might become a semi-regular series titled 'An Incomplete List of Things I Don't Understand'. These things can be anything really, stuff that is really complex, things that are really popular and I don't get why, or just things I can't be bothered to figure out.

Feel free to add the things you don't understand, (including the point of this post), in the comments.

Here goes...

10. The tendency when one popular social platform is down, for people to immediately migrate to a different social network to report/moan/whine/joke about the first network being down. 

9. Taylor Swift. She might be great I guess. I don't really know.

8. Why many people think music should be 'free', and artists should just give it away or allow it to be taken for no compensation. Actually, that was Ms. Swift's issue recently too. Maybe I do understand her.

7. Why I get pitched 29 times each week to reprint someone's terrible infographic. 

6. 'Follow Friday'

5. Adults who think they need a 'Birthday month' or a 'Birthday week'. We were all, you know, actually born and have birthdays. You have not accomplished anything special here. Shut it about your stupid birthday already.

4. Carmelo Anthony bashing that is done primarily by 'experts' that read statistics and don't actually watch Knicks games. Have you seen this team? Who else do you want taking shots? 

3. Conference call PINs or Access codes that are actually longer than the dial-in number itself. Holy Hannah, we make cracking into someone's boring conference call harder than stealing their ATM pin number.

2. Life coaches

1. Stupid lists on the internet.

Have a great day!

If you're going to drop some Yoda, then at least pick a better quote

Two things drove me to post about Yoda (or really three if you also count the fact that the weather turned incredibly gorgeous this past weekend in Western New York and I didn't want to spend that much of it inside writing blog posts).

First - Saturday was 'Star Wars Day' - May 4th - 'May the fourth be with you' and all that. And second with all the additional attention paid to the legendary entertainment franchise, I know I spotted that venerable old staple quote from our favorite warrior/teacher/philosopher Yoda bandied about more that a few times. Sure, there is a 'try'

You know the one I mean - the 'Do, or do not - there is no try' line that Yoda dropped on Luke Skywalker when young Luke was struggling with his confidence during his training. I know, Yoda must have been shocked that a kid about 2 years removed from working on a dirt farm with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru wasn't sure he could levitate a starfighter in the air using only his mind.

Regardless, that 'there is no try' line gets quoted constantly - and is also really stupid as well. Of course there is a 'try'. We all try things all the time. You have to 'try' things and experiment and explore in order to make life, work, pretty much anything actually interesting. If 'try' is not part of the equation, and you force the world into a black and white 'Do' or 'Do not' pair of choices then 'Do not' is going to win way more often than it should. I could go on for ages about how stupid that quote is, but as I said the sun is out for the first time since September and I want to go outside. 

So I will leave you with this - if must quote your pal Yoda (who is, I might remind you, a fictional character, that doesn't actually exist), then go with this one:

“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are ... a different game you should play.”

Perfectly played Master Yoda. And actually good advice for after you have ignored his 'Do not try' nonsense and spent some time actually trying new things. Sometimes you have to move on - even if you have done everything right, and even when it doesn't seem fair.

So there you go - a lesser known but infinitely more valuable piece of wisdom from the movies most famous 800 year-old, three foot Jedi.

Have a great week all - May the 4th be with you too, (two days late).

The Problem With Kids These Days...

From the always entertaining xkcd site:

MTV Generation

I guess there's really two problems with the kids these days - one, we (the old folks) can't be them any more and it ticks us off; and two, they eventually grow up and pretend to forget what being a kid was all about.

It's pretty tough in these mostly difficult and stressful times to ease back off the gas pedal for a few minutes and act a little childish - after all, everyone's counting on you. I get it. If you take a break you'll miss something, the other guy will get past you, and your boss will start questioning your commitment if you did not respond to that email at 11PM on Friday night.

I don't have any good answers really, or even any silly and no-one-asked-for-it advice about disconnecting, or tuning out and making sure to spend in-person time with friends and family. If you need to read some dopey blog to be reminded of what is important in life its probably already too late.

And it would be bad advice anyway. Because succeeding and staying ahead of the game is important, ands while not everyone is counting on you, some people truly are. So even if that (sometimes) means answering emails at 11PM on Friday after the kids have gone to bed, well so what?  

I guess I do have some advice after all - don't feel like you have to apologize for hustling, for staying connected (almost) all the time, for waking up and going to sleep with your iPhone.  Outworking the other guy will always be a solid strategy. You're the MTV Generation after all.

Have a Great Weekend!

Safe at home

"When you live with someone a long time, pretty much your whole life, you kind of get to know them."

- Patrick, age 10

When I was 8 or 9 years old I attended my first major league baseball game. I insisted on bringing my baseball glove, as I wanted to be prepared to snag one of the many foul balls that were sure to be hit into the stands within reach of my seat during the course of the game. My Dad didn't try to talk me out of hauling along the glove, although he must have known that the sheer distance from home plate to where we were sitting would have made a foul ball actually reaching us incredibly unlikely. I remember a snapshot that we took from that game - an image captured of me looking at the camera, smiling, glove in hand, with the players on the field in the deep background, so far in the distance that they were mostly indistinguishable.

Years later when I took my son to his first major league game, I wanted to make sure everything was just right, that the experience was perfect - choice seats (and ones that were not up in the top decks, a mile away from the action), great food and drinks, and a trip (or two) to the souvenir shop. I knew, or at least assumed, that much like I remember the first game my Dad took me to all those years ago, that 10, 20, even 30 years from now, my son would look back on his first game as well. I wanted to do everything I could to make sure that the memory, one of the few childhood memories I was sure would resonate with him, was as close to perfect as I could create.

But looking back on both these games, with the added luxury of time and perspective, I should have realized that just like I can't really remember many of the specific details of the game I attended as a child that my son as well will eventually forget (if he hasn't already) the details of his first game.  Who played, who won, what we ate in the 5th inning, whether or not it was cold or hot, what I bought him from the team store - these details fade over time. What we both will remember is the connection with our Dad, the shared experience, and the feeling for at least those few hours, that there was nothing else at all happening in the world.

We do the best we can for our children. We work as hard as we can muster, and as our capabilities allow, to try and make the best lives possible for them. This often entails working more than perhaps we should, saying 'yes' when we ought to say 'no', and sometimes sacrificing little things in an attempt to secure bigger things. We take calls when we should be helping with homework. We break out the BlackBerry at soccer practice, send a few texts during the school concert - it's not a big deal right? It's work. We convince ourselves we are doing it for them. And by working this hard, we can score box seats next summer, bag the suite at Disney World, and pass out iPads next Christmas.

I think most kids, eventually, begin to care less about the 'stuff' we can provide and care more about our attention.

Mostly, I think, our kids just want to feel safe at home. 

Family Recipes

It is Thanksgiving, the day when when most of us in the USA gather with friends and family to share a great meal, watch football, and doze off on the sofa, while making sure we connect with and share stories and feelings with those closest to us.  I find I emote much more fully when watching football and dozing off.

But truly the best part of the holiday is the food, and the way that shopping, preparing, serving, and decompressing from the over-indulging cements our relationships with our family and friends, and how these activities form traditions.  To me, and I think to many others as well, it is the food itself that serves as the glue, and maintains an important and prominent place in our family shared memory.

We don't look back (or ahead in anticipation), for stuffing, mashed potatoes, or pie.  We remember and anticipate Grandma's stuffing, Aunt Snooky's potatoes, (yes, I had an Aunt Snooky), and the proverbial Mom's apple pie. It doesn't really matter if in our travels around the world we have sampled apple pie in likely dozens of other places, with the high probability that at least a few of these not-Mom's apple pies were actually better than the same old version Mom would trot out year after year, served in the same dish, using the same china, and accompanied by a fresh cup of Maxwell House. 

Of course Mom's pie (and stuffing, and sweet potatoes and green bean casserole) will always hold the place as the best you ever had. So what if it isn't completely about the taste.  Everyone knows this is the case, and quite frankly it isn't all that novel or even interesting.

But I did hear something else about this I do think is interesting. Turns out in certain families the older women, (Mom, Grandma, Aunt Betty, etc.), never like to fully and completely share the details of these legendary family recipes. Ask Grandma about her stuffing and she would share some of the secrets, but would be careful to leave a crucial ingredient out, or fail to mention a little trick or nuance in the preparation that would be impossible to guess, and that serves to distinguish the dish somehow in a unique and personal way.  The person telling me this story said the reason why the matriarchs don't like to give up all the secrets of their signature dishes was so that they could continue to be known for not just their ability to cook, but for their singular and non-repeatable ability to create 'Aunt Snooky's Stuffing'.  Anyone can make stuffing. But only Aunt Snooky could make her stuffing, and as long as she could continue to produce the magic each year, her place in the family hierarchy and lore was secure.  

I had never thought about this 'family exclusivity of recipe secrets' before I heard the theory, but looking back I think I agree with the premise, and have seen the theory in action in my family. Like most of us, my Mom had a few of her recipe secrets as well.  At Thanksgiving she always hosted, did all the cooking, and made sure that everyone left satiated, groggy, and happy.  Her 'secret' dish was her stuffing.  It was fantastic.  And she (as far as I know) never had a formally written recipe for its preparation.  But every year it came out the same, fantastic way. Over the years people would say, 'Please Joan, you have to give me the recipe for your stuffing, it is the best I have ever had.' These enquiries were always brushed off by my mother, she was happy, but also proud and protective of her secrets. She promised to give away the recipe once she retired from hosting the holiday, a date she always reminded us, was many years away.

The first Thanksgiving after she passed away was, as you would expect, sad and kind of uneventful. The family was still coming to terms with the permanence of her absence, and not really in the frame of mind for a celebration.  I don't really remember much about the day or meal, save for being glad when it was over.  As the years have progressed (my Mom died in 2003), and as new combinations of people, places, and traditions have developed, Thanksgiving has once again been restored to a happy, food-filled day.

But no one knows how, exactly, to duplicate Mom's stuffing.  She never shared the recipe, never revealed her secrets. She, I suppose, was successful in keeping 'Joan's Stuffing' as a legendary fixture in the family history. We will never have it again, because no one really knows precisely how to mix, measure, prepare, and serve the dish the way she did for all those years.

What she did not fully understand, even if she had carefully recorded the recipe, and made sure that the next generation could precisely and honorably replicate the dish, it still would always be her dish. The stuffing, the pie, the potatoes - whatever, they are just food. The legacy of Mom and Grandma isn't about food, it's about how they took care of you, and your brothers and sisters, and everyone else that they touched. What makes me sad it that I don't think we let the Moms and Grandmas know this often enough, and they feel by clinging to their secret recipes we won't be able to forget them.

My Mom made her stuffing one day each year, she took care of all of us every day, all year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone - and Mom's, share your recipes!