Sophia's Consecration

Wednesday, Oct. 22 was Sophia’s consecration at our synagogue. Together with 51 other children, they practiced for weeks, had a full dress rehearsal and many “casual” rehearsals.

On her big day, Sophia looked beautiful.



The day of the event was on Simchat Torah and we all participated in parading the Torahs around our synagogue. It was a great service. Sophia even volunteered to carry one of the kid-sized Torahs.

There was a big luncheon at the synagogue right after the ceremony and we had a great time.

M-U-L-T-I-C-U-L-T-U-R-A-L-I-S-M

Sophia had a big project for the culmination of her first grade class' multicultural week. She needed to bring in a food for the group lunch that represented her heritage. We decided on providing potato pancakes, or as we affectionately call them - latkes.

Sophia wanted to help. She really did, but after putting all the ingredients within reach on the kitchen table, and doing a little mixing, she dissappeared. Zach, however, was keenly interested in helping out doing the dirty work. And it was dirty and smelled up the entire house.

I won't lie - on a crisp fall afternoon, I had the front and back doors open for ventilation. It got smokey in the house. Some rooms were actually filled with dense flavor (read: smoke) and I was more than mildly concerned for the smoke detector. Zach pulled up a chair to stand on at the stove (while maintaining a safe distance from the hot stuff) and tried to help and watch as best he could. He was pretty excited to be invovled in this project. It turns out I'm not close to being as good at making latkes as either of my grandmas, or yours, or anyone's for that matter. Really that's not a surprise. I basically created a huge, smelly mess.



Once I finished cooking two batches of the batter, I covered them up and took the kids outside - mostly for some fresh air, but also to run a few errands. Upon our return home, I realized how much the house stank and that the stank was in my hair and on my clothes. It was all in the name of helping Sophia get a good mark for her multiculturalism project. Which probably meant she'd get a check mark in a ledger somewhere. I had to throw my clothes down the laundry chute and almost showered. I must say though, I didn't mind any of this and found it quite fun.



The finished project (two plates full) went to school today for the big lunch, along with a box of matzohs. Don't tell the other first graders that the matzoh box was left over (unopened of course) from this past Passover. Fresh?, you ask. Do matzohs really ever go bad?

The result of all this - Sophia said all the latkes were eaten. Hmmmm. I wonder about that.

HR update

Here's the update that will for now close the book on what happened earlier this month with "Betty." (Reread what happened on Oct. 3.)

While I was debating what further action to take, my witness, unbeknownst to me, talked with my manager about what happened. My manager then came to talk with me about it and encouraged me to discuss it with our HR manager.

So I did.

She took down the details of the incident and told me what would likely happen - a woman who works in the corporate HR department in a diversity tolerance kind of role would probably contact me to talk about what happened.

Well it turns out that several other people had a problem with Betty. I don't know any other details about what she did, except that she must have been saying some pretty bad things.

By the time that my complaint was recorded, this corporate HR woman had enough in Betty's file to take action. A meeting was held late last week with Betty, her manager and an HR representative.

I don't know the results of this meeting, nor have I seen Betty since the problem occurred. I'm happy though, that I wasn't the only one to come forward about her.

Zima, we hardley knew ye

Sadly today, MillerCoors LLC announced that it has discontinued production of Zima, choosing instead to focus on other "malternative" beverages.



What?

Who the hell knew this "malternative" beverage still existed? I completely forgot about it years ago.

I remember it's introduction in 1993 (I had to look it up here. It was really popular for tens of minutes back then by, well, almost no-one. Actually, several NJ friends of mine (Tom) and I drank it for the novelty back in the early 90s. But not in public. Or where we knew other people.

I'm pleased to report how far I've come from drinking this clear alcoholic beverage. Of course, those who know me these days know that my favorite alcoholic beverage today is ....vodka.

How would you have handled this?

This happened at work today just as you’ll read here, and I have a witness (you know who you are).

I was in a tradeshow planning meeting this afternoon that included people in my division and others participating on a conference call from other divisions.

The woman who (incredibly) is responsible for our tradeshows is, well, completely inadequate for her position. She seems to be 216 years old and just doesn’t get it. She somehow has 30-plus years with the company. I’m sure way back before telephones she was almost tolerable, but not today. Let’s call her Betty.

Betty’s main goal of tradeshow planning ensuring we have enough Skittles in the booth. I’m not kidding. The frustration level of sitting through her meetings is indescribably high. Being in a meeting with her is like going on the Bataan Death March. She rambles around without sense, makes bizarre comments to no one in particular, writes what looks like scribble but must be her notes, summarizes them, and then restates them during the next meeting. And, she regularly contradicts herself from meeting to meeting.

Unfortunately and frustratingly, while many people within the company are aware of the problem (Betty), it seems as though waiting for her to retire is the corporate plan.

We (the overwhelming majority of the participants, including me) on these conference calls already share a low opinion of this person for a large variety of reasons.

I was shocked at what happened, and thought carefully about how to handle my response.

The conference call ended, but there were a few things left to discuss among the people left in my conference room.

At one point, Betty said someone “Jewed” her down on a price.

I wasn’t looking, but I certainly heard it. I immediately looked up and around to see everyone's reactions. One of my co-workers also looked up and shot me a look, as if to say “WTF, did she really just say that?”

I shot him a look back with the same incredulous look on my face. Several others in the room didn’t react, so I don’t think they heard her what she said.

My heart started to race as I thought to immediately stop her in her tracks and rip her a new one right there. I waited…

She continued along but I was only thinking of how to handle what just happened. I decided to wait and confront her privately after everyone left the room.

So I did. The others finally left, and I moved to the chair directly across from her.

I said “Betty, I need to tell you something.”

She must know what I think of her even before this. I don’t pretend to hide my disdain.

“Yes Doug. What is it?”

“Your comment – about Jewing someone down. Besides being an incredibly ignorant thing to say, it was highly offensive to me because I’m Jewish.”

“Oh, well I guess it’s just a saying.”

“What!?!”

“I guess I should be more careful with what I say.”

“Yes you should.” And with my best disgusted look, I shook my head at her and walked out.

So, I ask for your reaction to what happened.

Would you have –

A – stopped the meeting in its tracks and publicly embarrassed her?

B – handled it privately like I did

C – or put her head right through the %$@^&*#! wall.