Job satisfaction and road rage: disparate entities or closely connected?

According to several recent studies found in a quick online search, less than half of Americans are happy with their jobs, the greatest level of dissatisfaction in years. Poor communication from management, low compensation, and skyrocketing benefit costs are among the reasons workers cite for being unhappy with what they do for a living. Add to those complaints the gradually lengthening workweek many workers are experiencing, as well as a lack of control over their work environment, and we have a huge number of unhappy people.

When these workers leave their jobs at the end of a long, unfulfilling day, can we realistically expect that during their commute they will be courteous, thoughtful, and focused on the road? Too often, drivers take their frustration from the day out on the road instead of in the workplace -- and on the road, those emotions can be deadly.

Lack of control over daily job functions, I believe, can be closely tied to the desire to control one's vehicle, and to a point, the behavior of surrounding drivers. Honking and gesturing at other drivers to get them to move out of the way, tailgating to force the driver ahead to speed up, and cutting someone off to "punish" them: all are methods commonly used by drivers in an attempt to control the other person's driving. Unfortunately, when two or more of these frustrated drivers meet, the results are often fatal.

What can be done to relieve this frustration and the ensuing poor driving behavior? One of two solutions would need to be implemented: either companies would have to do a better job at keeping their employees happy, or drivers would have to separate their emotions left over from work from their driving habits.



-- part of an article I've had in my head - needs a lot of tweaking and more research to back up my theories, but it's a work in progress --

Ramble on

"No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, just as there is no Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny. But there is something better -- the belief in something larger and higher and more powerful than yourself. You can believe in anything you choose, so long as your belief is pure: the sky, a god among gods, or even a butterfly."

Notes on the day

Haven't been on in a while -- I apologize for my lack to you, my faithful reader (snicker). Life is full; I'm fighting the time thing on a constant basis. I do greatly appreciate all of the comments -- y'all make me feel good about writing again, like maybe I really can do this for a living someday. In the meantime, I'm exploring options on venues to submit work -- I've decided my dream job is writing for NPR. Am I much into politics? Nope, but I think that that would be an ultimately prestigious job to have. Course, I guess I'd probably have to move to DC, and I don't see that happening any time soon, but it's a nice dream.

I've decided that life isn't going to slow down and wait for me to catch up, so I have to pare all of the frivolous, superfluous time-eaters out of my life. TV's the first to go (OK, except for "Good Eats" or the occasional sappy 80s movie). Not that I watch that much anyway, but a few minutes here and there adds up. After TV, who knows? Still have to keep up on my reading, have the two manuscripts to work on, and then writing of my own, as well as trying to spend a bit of time with the family and -- oh, yeah -- working my day job.

Guess life being full isn't really all that bad -- it's better than the alternative of having none. Just seems to fly quicker than I can keep up with. I apologize if I've been harping on time way too much lately -- it's just been on my mind more so lately than ever before. There's a push that I can't explain telling me that now's the time, and I can't ignore it any longer. I'll keep y'all updated on my struggle and hopefully, ways I've found to carve out an occasional free moment.

Bytes from a Bridge

Spires; cracker boxes, some fire-damaged;
Pigeons and crows, those perpetual downtown denizens;
Monumental eagles with broken wings, eternally registering the fallen --
Signify the city that is both old and young, decrepit and new-built, stodgy and progressive.
Slag furnaces overlook high-tech firms,
Contrasting ancient industry and forward development.
Trains pass under, banal yet beautiful;
Production at its finest ever continuing.



OK, so it's been years since I tried my hand at poetry. Used to be all I'd write, but it will take quite a bit of creative-juice-stirring before I can call myself adequate again.
-- mp

Never enough

I feel very mortal today.

Today my youngest son turns 10. I also realized while standing in the shower this morning that 2005 is almost halfway gone. I've heard, of course, of the phenomenon of time moving faster the older you get, but if the passage of time continues to speed up at this rate, I'll be old and dead in the next few days.

Time, in all its wonderful and horrible aspects, has been on my mind very heavily recently. The elasticity of it, the lack thereof, and sneaky swiftness with which it moves -- all of these are part of my constant thought. I'm having a difficult time dealing with time, and have lately seen it as an enemy to be struggled with, rather than a collaborator. I'm reminded of the Alice in Wonderland scene where Time is discussed and Alice is chastised for treating it poorly. "I just don't have the time" and "Time has just slipped away from me" seem to be my mantras of late. I haven't quite figured out yet how to remedy these perspectives, as I feel that something is innately wrong with thinking this way, but I'm determined to try.

If someone out there has an extra few minutes or possibly even an hour that they can spare, send it on over.

Rants from the road

Have you ever noticed how drivers from various cities and states will, almost proudly, claim that their drivers are the worst? In an online insurance forum I belong to, members are also protesting "Yeah, that's bad, but you should try driving around here!" It's almost a contest: whose drivers are worst?

Driving as I do for much of my living, I've noticed that drivers' temperaments differ based not only on age and sex, but also on economic and geographic background. For instance, the area of town I work in is on the outskirts of downtown; the number of residents (and thus drivers in the area) that fall below the poverty line is fairly high. Driving seems to entail either crawling along at 15 miles an hour so the occupants of the car can talk to everyone on the side of the road, or slaloming through the streets at breakneck speed. Also, a ride seems to require at least one complete stop in the middle of the road, or taking a left turn from the far right lane -- normally to rest and speak with someone. I don't know if this means that folks around here are abnormally friendly, or just don't care about anyone else on the road.

Then there are the highbrow areas of town. Drivers are generally elderly, cautious to a fault, and convinced they own the road. These gentlemen and -women seem to have difficulty actually flowing with traffic, and often feel that one parking space may not quite be sufficient for the needs of their 18' long Cadillac. Thus, they take up three or four -- sideways -- in an extreme lack of haste. I've had more than one lady park in the middle of an intersection in front of me, then regally wave me around as though she were the queen, sending me on my way.

There seems to be a similarity to these two very disparate groups of drivers; each feels that only they matter, and drive in a fashion to-wit. Although in this neighborhood, one understands that these two groups will probably never meet except during commission of a crime, one might draw a correlation between the two that neither ever imagined.

Education vs. entertainment

The dumbing down of America: a topic very near and dear to my heart, evidenced as recently as today by two happenings in my city -- Bo Bice visiting Birmingham for a day, and a celebration for the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School being named by Newsweek the best high school in the nation.

Now, I don't have anything against American Idol; in fact, I watch it every week and root for Bo. I've even at least attempted to call in a few times. I think it's very much a popularity contest, but I see it as pure entertainment and count it as nothing more than that. However, the local Fox station carried literally hours worth of coverage on his visit today, from his local radio interviews to jamming with his band to fans receiving autographs. The IBS coverage on Fox? Thirty seconds of footage, mostly on the cake they served at the reception. This honor for IBS was huge, or at least should have been, to the city and area.

I think it's just another symptom of America's downward spiral into illiteracy and apathy; we care more about a Hollywood talent contest than a truly great academic achievement.

Thoughts on illegals and our workforce

I'm not sure that I completely understand the problems inherent in the whole hiring-illegal-aliens-for-jobs-Americans-don't-want-to-do thing. If it is true that Americans simply do not want to take the jobs most often performed by Hispanics (i.e., cleaning, construction day labor, landscaping, etc.), does that mean that unemployed persons are waiting around for something better, and refusing to take work because it's beneath them? Shouldn't the unemployment figures be even lower than they are, since apparently Americans don't need the jobs that aliens are performing?

I'm not sure that it's not a spoiled-child kind of situation -- we've gotten so used to having Hispanics around to do our dirty work for us that we don't want to lower ourselves any longer to doing that same type of work. The stock answer around my area for getting construction done quickly and cheaply? "Hire a few Mexicans -- they always want work." Yet less than 12 blocks from my office is a men's shelter, where I see 20-30 blacks and whites standing around at any given time of day, obviously not working, and apparently not interested in working. Have we gotten so lazy as a nation that we're willing to stand by and collect welfare while immigrants and illegals from other countries take over our workforce? I'm afraid the answer is becoming yes, more so today than ever.

From an earlier day's writing

May 1: the real start of spring, the touchstone to my feelings of urgency that I do something, become something greater than I am right now. This is the year -- 2005 is the year I cut my hair, quit smoking, and decided to quit my job to pursue writing full-time. (OK, so I haven't actually quit yet, but the seed is planted).

2005 is the year I decided to face my fears head-on and full-frontal -- I no longer wish to be afraid. I will no longer fear what my ex-husband might be able to use against me. I will no longer be afraid of going someplace new by myself. I will no longer be afraid of quitting a job I now realize was only temporary -- and despise every day. I will no longer live day-to-day, hoping for 6:00 as a signal I'm one day closer to the weekend.

I no longer want to live the timeline of my life -- I want to feel free to meander, to try out a tangent and feel justified about doing so. I want to finally give writing a try, and not be afraid that I'll fail. If I do fail, it's just another path to abandon -- there are too many possible paths in life to take to commit to just one. The possibilities in life are full and wide and infinite, and I want to try out some of those. Life is short, and I have too much to pack into it to be content with just living the same plodding existence day after day, year after year. I don't want to wake up one day -- old -- and realize I've let my whole life slide past while I stood immobile, waiting.

I am afraid of this new outlook, but as part of my plan to banish fear, I will no longer let the fear of letting go rule me. I have the potential to be so much more than I currently am, and no longer will I be afraid to become.

I will no longer be afraid.

Ramblings

You know, I go off on tangents too often. Thus spake my husband, anyway, he of the Capricorn persuasion. Then again, I am a Pisces, after all - born smack into the middle of the sign cycle. My personality reads like a checklist of the Pisces sign: creative and intuitive? Check. Flighty but well-meaning? You bet. Intelligent but common sense-challenged? That's me. I've tried to explain my thought process to my husband many times, but he just doesn't get it - or maybe my thought process itself isn't something easily explained. For instance, we'll start a discussion about, say, kitchen cabinets. That train will be chugging along until I realize that if we buy a new cabinet, that will require re-painting the other cabinets, which will mean a lot of work on weekends, which might interfere with my youngest son's baseball schedule. My next (out loud) comment might be that I don't know how the summer is going by as quickly as it is - to me, the lines of thought flowed smoothly from one topic to the next. To apparently anyone else, though, I seemed to have jumped not from A-Z, but from A-M1.3.P.

Ah, such is the life of a Pisces. We're often charged with not being able to hold a fluent conversation; quite the opposite - we've held 12 or 13 in the time it took you to follow the train of one.