The Dirty Thirty

Well, I have joined a new club! I joined the Dirty Thirty club. I remember thinking 30 was so old while I was growing up. Now I am grown up, well sort off, and 30 isn't looking so old anymore. I am lucky that the Mayans were wrong and the world did not end on my 30th birthday, however, if they had been correct I couldn't have spent the end of the world with better company.

My wife and I had discussed that I didn't want a real big event for my 30th. I didn't want to go to a public place and create a big scene. Making my friends and family come out to a big restaurant or to Boondock's for bumper cars is not something that I would have enjoyed (and probably a few or more of my friends and family wouldn't have enjoyed it that much). I also did not want people to bring presents if we were going to do something when the day came. Getting presents isn't the reason I would want a birthday party. The reason would be to get all my friends together in one place where we could talk instead of me saying, "Give me, give me, give me." The time with friends and family is present enough for me (sounds cheesy, but it is true).

Well, after we had that discussion at the beginning of November, Sheila started planning the big event. I had a feeling she was putting something together but I didn't know to what extent or how many people. We always do dinner with both Sheila's family and my family for birthdays. We discovered that when we tried to make dinner plans for my birthday that my family had a lot of conflicts. My dad probably wouldn't be back from work in time, my older sister was on call that night, my two little sisters were out of town. This would have been dinner with Sheila, Mom, and me. Not a bad dinner, but not the whole family. The day we that would work was December 23. Sounds good, Jorgensen dinner planned.

December rolled around and Sheila was involved in some questionable actions, getting angry when her phone beeped with a text and I brought the phone to her possibly seeing what the message said, sitting strange on the couch so I couldn't see her computer screen, and staying up later than me (this hardly ever happens) to name a few. I even tried to make plans on December 14th at one point and was shot down really quick even though we did not have an event on the calendar. As a side node, I think smart phones that are able to link my calendar to Sheila's calendar is great so we are always on the same page when making plans.

I will be honest, I like to save a few dollars and like to make a menu at the beginning of the week so we aren't scrambling to find something to make when we both get hungry for dinner or go out to dinner. However, I also like to treat my wife and don't often tell her no when she wants something. The night of December 14 Sheila came home and said she wanted to go out to dinner. This was strange especially since we had a great menu item for the night, chicken pot pie. This made me think even more that Sheila had planned something for my birthday. Ultimately, I said we could go where she wanted to eat and ended up going to Red Rock.

Sheila didn't wait for a host/hostess to seat us and started walking in like she knew where she was going. This sealed the deal, I now knew she had planned something. She did make plans. It was very small, only a few friends. She made a plan and followed my wishes to have some friends where we could talk and be heard. Restaurants are hard since you can't hear everyone and don't get the opportunity to talk with all the people. Well, turns out the surprise has only three other adults and two kids. Kind of small but at least I could hear all the conversations even with only 40% of the hearing in my right ear. Good plan Sheila! I thought this was the birthday surprise and didn't think she had anything else planned.

The beginning of the next week, Sheila came home and asked if we could go to dinner at the country club with her parents and sister on my actual birthday since my family dinner was going to be the 23rd. We hadn't planned anything, and we had already had dinner with a few friends, so I said that would be great, Sobieski dinner planned.

The whole week before my birthday Sheila came home and seemed really stressed. I couldn't understand why, Winter Break was coming up and she wouldn't have to work for two weeks and she always talks about how the week before a break is almost useless. I did what I could to help her, who knows how successful I was.

Well, along came December 21.We usually go to her parents house around 5:30 to visit before we go to dinner. Sheila had mention that the club was doing a dinner with Santa so it would be really busy and we wouldn't be going to until about 6:30. That was alright with me. I thought that we would then want to get there around 6:00 so we could visit before dinner with the new dinner time. Sheila started getting ready around 5:40. I thought, "That is ok, it usually only takes her about 15 minutes to get ready. We will leave about 5:55 and be to here parents house to still visit, no problems."

I watched an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" while I waited. The episode finished. I came upstairs and Sheila wasn't ready yet. She came out and asked me what pair of glasses, which sweater, which shoes to wear. I gave my opinion, she put them on, and asked again which ones. We had a five minute conversation on her new glasses and if she should wear them. I finally told her she bought them for a reason, to wear them and she should wear them. We spent probably another five minutes on the shoes she should wear. Why all the sudden did she need so much help getting ready? Usually she would ask me once and go with what she had initially thought. By the time she was ready to go we wouldn't have any time to sit and visit with her parents before we headed to the club.

She finished getting ready to leave around 6:15. I was right, all the visit time before dinner was now gone. Luckily traffic wasn't bad so we didn't have any more holdups. Sheila was texting her parents while we on our way. This is not uncommon so did not cause me to think something was happening that I didn't know about. I still believed we were going to dinner at the club with her family.

We pulled up to the street before her circle and I noticed a large number of cars along the street. Someone was having a Christmas party! I hoped the party was going great for them. Then there was one car in the driveway, her dad's. The car we usually pile into to drive to the club. We opened the door and as, usual, Mike said, "hello." We walked into the kitchen and, "SURPRISE." Sheila had planned two surprise 30th birthday parties. The first was a decoy to make me stop thinking about it and the second had many family and friends that, I felt very privileged, would be able to find some time during the holiday season to come spend with me.

I spent the night talking to great friends and family and had a wonderful night. I could not have been with better company if the world really had ended like the Mayans thought. Even without the end of the world I couldn't have spent it with better company. I had family members, all of which had told me they were busy on my birthday, and friends there to celebrate. There was food and much laughing. I was able to spend time with everyone that came and I could hear them! No long tables with me at one end and someone on the other that I wouldn't be about to carry on a conversation.

Some great friends were able to spend the night with me and some other great friends were not able to make it. December is a busy time and I understand if you weren't able to make it. I am also very grateful to all those that were able to come and spend the night with me turning into an old man.

Thank you (in no particular order):
Sheila Jorgensen
Allen and Shauna Jorgensen
Mike and Micki Sobieski
Scott and Trisha Rafferty
Stacy Sobieski
Joyce Dahlquist
Robyn Dahlquist
Erika Dahlquist
Josh and Chelsy Judd
Aaron and Stephanie Partridge (although at separate times)
Katie Partridge
Jake and Betsy Wilberg
Jerry and Tiffany Turner
Clifton Uckerman
Peter and Beth Jorgensen
Alex and Rachel Rowe
Woody Bartlett
Bruce Bakker
Jon Seiler
Tyson Kamp
Megan Lauer
Matt Rowell
Jackie Higley
Wayne

And to those who weren't able to come, I hope to see you soon! Happy Holidays!

(I am sure there are more pictures but I don't have anymore maybe I will get tagged in Facebook?)

Email - bringing the world together

Email is a great tool for everyone to use. The size of the world has shrunk, well not literally but figuratively speaking. Correspondence which use to take days, even weeks, to reach a person on the other side of the world can now reach person in mere seconds. It is also much easier to send letters letting the family know what you have been up to, even Uncle Joe who you only met once at an obscure cousins wedding who only invited you to the wedding because they saw your name on Facebook and wanted another gift. You only have to type the letter and hit send, no printing using the ink on my printer which hasn't worked in months and no postage needed. All that we need now is a working email address before hitting send. Okay, it really takes a little more work, like knowing what you are going to write about, but nothing you weren't doing before.

Now we must ask ourselves, is everything email allows us to do always that great? We have all heard arguments that people will become so reliant on email and social media that we will forget how to actually dial a phone and talk to someone. With smartphones it is much easier to forget how to dial since we don't actually see the numbers we must dial to talk to a person. Email and social media are at our fingertips without even turning on a computer, unless you consider your phone a computer which has more power than the Apple IIGS we bought when I was a kid.

In addition to never talking to people, I see another issue that has to do with the workplace. It is easy to respond to an email, maybe it will take five minutes for an easy question which you know the answer right off hand. The issue comes when you see the email and decide NOT to answer. This email may become lost in the cyper-world of email because you didn't respond right away, or perhaps the email was deliberately not responded to in an effort to leave a "paper" trail.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and think that maybe they just missed the email or called because it is quicker. Yes, calling is quicker and take perhaps one minute instead of 10 emails back and forth, but there are cases when having the paper trail is appropriate. When do you decide that a person is avoiding the paper trail? That is a good question, but I think it can be answered when the person NEVER sends an email and always calls.

Say, hypothetically speaking, a manager never answers an email and will only call the employee with answers to emails. A new questions arises in which there was an HR issue and a manager needs to respond and provide proof that an agreement was made. It would make sense to have the "paper" trail to prove the agreement, should any questions arise. HR calls and says what the agreement is, but that your manager will be in charge of keeping track and making sure the agreement is executed. Well, the hypothetical person then emails the manager, on three different occasions, and never receives a response, not even a phone call this time. There comes another issue with email, phone call avoidance because a hypothetical email was sent and the manager now knows what the employee is calling about. No response to email and no answering the phone.

So, now there is no proof of the agreement, aside from the initial call from HR, and no "paper" trail. The employee sending the hypothetical email has proof that the emails were sent, but how will this hold up when stating that an agreement was reached? That will become the test. A new question, is this really an issue with email or is this an issue with the manager?