E. Jean Simpson's Blog: A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA, page 5

New Year, Another Chance

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I talk about the things that shaped 2022 and my hopes for 2023. Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year! If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I was thinking that so much happened in 2022. Some of the missteps included a lot of political mistakes…everything from the huge faux pas using First Nations experience to describe first world problems, to deaths in the New Brunswick health care system. Then there was the take-over of Twitter. This resulted in a lot of changes and a lot of back tracking of some of those changes. The world is not the place I grew up in any more. I grew up in a place where Happy Days and the Fonz were big. Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd starred in Back to the Future. Dark Shadows, the Partridge Family, Sonny and Cher had their own show and Carol Burnet ruled. News came on the TV, radio and/or local papers. Now we have Twitter bought up and made private. People are either jumping onboard or jumping off. Even the owner is seeing that it’s not all fun and games and maybe it was just a tad more difficult than he had first assumed and not everyone agrees with him. Then there is the violence and war between Russia and the Ukraine. Added to the dismal news stories are the deaths of girls in Iran and the continued violence there. There is still a great deal of intolerance out there based on gender, race and religion. They found dead children buried in Residential School Grounds. Some people would rather do anything rather than wear a simple mask to protect each other…acting so put upon that they developed a convoy which resulted in the Emergency Act being used and an inquiry. In Nova Scotia, they had an inquiry into a mass casualty event. So many people traumatized by COVID and many having to self isolate due to medical conditions. People don’t want to know about the medically vulnerable, it seems. Of course, in the USA, there was the fallout from the January 6, 2021 riots. There seems to be a lot of coverage on the lack of honesty amongst politicians which seems pretty scary considering they’re responsible for the lives of their people.

If you want to find out more on some of these, I have discussed a number of them in my blog posts. Not all of them of course. There are just too many to keep up with in weekly podcasts. I likely missed lots of huge issues, but caught as many as I could think of off the top of my head. There is no lack of things to add to a listing, but this just gives a taste of the issues out in the world at large. After all, this is only a ten to fifteen minute blog post and podcast. I’m not realistically going to cover everything. The world also lost a lot of celebrities and it is hard to see these stars that were part of my childhood leave this mortal coil. Bob Saget, Meat Loaf, Gilbert Gottfried, Naomi Judd, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Hache, Leslie Jordan, Bob McGrath, Kirstie Alley, Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss, John Aniston and Emilio Delgado just to name a few. Both Bob McGrath and Emilio Delgado spent their time on Sesame Street trying to encourage children to accept each other and others who are different from themselves. My apologies, I know there are other celebrities who passed away this year. Sympathies to all who have lost someone they loved or admired during the year. It’s never easy to lose someone. No one is ever prepared for the loss.

As Alex Morritt is credited with saying, "New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours.” I know that we can’t change the past; we have no choice but to move forward and grieve our losses. I have lost family during this year as well. I miss them. I also have no choice but to move forward. If you don’t move forward you get stuck in a cycle of guilt, blame and pain. To stay there forever is not healthy. Of course it is healthy and normal to grieve. The following article https://www.wikihow.com/Cope-With-Grief gives some suggestions. I’d be careful about the get a pet one. If you aren’t a pet person, getting a pet will only give you more work to do. If you are a pet person and can afford one, then that’s OK. Don’t just adopt a pet you’re going to give away later for the sake of trying it out. Pets are a big responsibility. Don’t worry about steps and reaching them all. I don’t know that I would suggest all steps in this article, but a lot of them do make sense. So, the first thing to move forward and continue working toward a healthy and happy New Year is to deal with grief. If it is complicated … if it is resulting in depression and getting in the way of moving forward and you are feeling suicidal, then reach out to a mental health therapist. You don’t have to keep feeling this way. If you belong to a church, you may be able to find a support group. It is possible to move forward. It’s a process and it’s not always perfect. It is also important to know that there are different reasons for someone to grieve. https://www.mayoclinic.org/patient-vi.... So, if you experienced something and you feel like you’re grieving, then it is possible. Any kind of loss can trigger grief.

Also, if you have experienced a rough year this year, it is important to know, “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start.” —Nido Qubein This is what makes for the hope for change. Just because this year has been tough doesn’t mean you can't decide where you go from here. Do you want to change things? Do you want to change how you are feeling? It’s not impossible. First, find the resources that you need to move forward. Figure out how you want your life to be. What do you want your future to look like? This might be part of the reason for New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not saying that you need to make them. Just decide if you want your life to continue the way it is or do you want to change how it is. Once you decide how you want your life to look, you’ve got to decide where you want to make changes. The New Year seems to be a good excuse to do this. A New Year, a new you is the battle cry of the Resolution making group. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, the biggest step isn’t the making of the Resolution. That’s actually the easier part of this process. The hardest part is starting January 1, 2023 when you have to decide to take that first big step in making the change. That’s where it falls apart. It also falls apart because one makes a plan so incredibly complex or so unrealistic that only a miracle will accomplish it. If you want to make changes or resolutions, then it is most important to make it happen in small doable steps. I want to, for example read 100 books this year if you haven’t read more than an instruction manual in the past few years, is likely going to be difficult and you’ll be discouraged before you even start. So, make sure to select small steps that you will be able to do. If you want to do something, isn’t it easier to do it if you take small steps to begin with? Changing everything over night is both impossible, frustrating and you will feel like you failed. Set yourself up for success. If you want to change eating habits, then change one or two things at a time unless there is a health crisis that necessitates overnight change. Then find recipes that will allow you to maintain your desired result. Stick with it. Sure things aren’t going to work out over night. Sometimes you’re going to mess up the decided goal and maybe fall back into old habits. When you find yourself doing that, then go back to the goal and work on it.

Now that I mentioned making resolutions, I’m going to change the name of it because often resolutions fail. Why? They often fail because they are unrealistic and done to fulfill some kind of wish fantasy rather than actually wanting to change. The article https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/... is more like what one needs to do to make successful change. So, for some, it might be better to set goals rather than make resolutions. The article gives some steps and shows how you might be more likely to be successful meeting them. Remember, if you actually have a goal in mind and you want to get there, 99% of people will be willing to do the work. So, make your goal realistic and something you really want to do. Have some steps. You can find various free goal sheets online without looking to hard.

As CS Lewis is credited with saying, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” This is true of most things. While you are still on earth, there is still hope for change for the better. If we all made a goal of making this a better world for all of us, without provisos about race, religion, orientation, gender, can you imagine what kind of world we’d have? I can. Can you? It is my wish for the New Year that we all learn to be a little more tolerant and a lot less hating of people who are different. My biggest wish for the future is that we don’t hate people because of something that people can’t change. Some things people are born with. Some things people develop. As Nelson Mandela has been quoted as saying, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” If we can all realize this, we can realize the dream of a better year for all. I suspect that this blog post and podcast falls into the realm of Resolution. It’s nowhere near realistic. I have no way to implement it. It depends on others for it to be fulfilled and so far, our record for that isn’t generally successful. I keep hoping it won’t fail, but there is no clear attainable goal…but together we could make it happen.

As Oprah Winfrey is quoted as saying, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” I can only hope that many take this quote to heart. We can’t keep up the way things are with all the violence against each other, hate greed and lies. We can’t continue to spread hate based on race, religion, orientation or gender. It’s just not profitable for anyone and costs us more and more every year. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
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Recent History and Holiday Clash of the Titans

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. While much of the world is experiencing the ‘holiday season’, or ‘Christmas Season’ if you are of that mind, not everyone has that luxury. I have no quarrel with what others do. I celebrate very quietly. There are a variety of reasons for the lack of spirit around the season. One is loss of loved ones, another is displacement and yet another is part of societal issues. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Early in the week, to what did my wounded eyes did appear, but the shock of a murder over a bit ‘o cheer. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/12/2... . This was rather shocking not just because of such a violent murder being committed, but the age of the perpetrators. These were all teen girls who apparently met on social media. These are children all under the age of 18. Social media was involved. The man was a shelter user. So, parents, do you understand what your kids are seeing and doing on social media? Is this enough impact for you? After seeing that, my head was reeling. For some reason, Sir John Lennon’s song came to me with the lyrics of the beginning, but as I read the lyrics again, these following lyrics seemed to be more in the spirit of what I had just seen.
‘And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong’ – from Sir John Lennon - So This Is Christmas

I know, I’m writing a real downer for a holiday season blog post and podcast. However, the reality of the situation is that a homeless man with supportive family was murdered. Some reports cite alcohol being involved. I can’t imagine what his family must be going through seeing this posted in the newspapers, TV and social media. I was hit by the gruesome details that have been released thus far. Will Christmas or the Holidays ever feel the same for his family? What about the families of these children? Did they plan to raise girls to act like vicious criminals? Did society plan on giving them a steady diet of violence and access to something that would cause this? The more I see, the more I am convinced that there needs to be some kind of stupid line drawn. We are feeding kids misinformation at an alarming rate. We feed them violence, hate, greed, adult content until they don’t understand the line between reality and a horror show.

At the same time, with all these societal issues which aren’t being addressed, I see the new Twitter owner is busily making and changing rules at breakneck speed. First he imposes a new rule, then when it back fires, or he gets enough furor, he backs it off and it appears as if he is finally going to see if someone else can run the place. What he doesn’t understand is that the rules that he was trying to impose felt like knee jerk reaction. His reopening accounts that weren’t wanted and closing accounts based on what was being shared. I suspect that he thought it was way more open and shut than it actually was. Often people in higher positions think that it is easy to run huge conglomerates. They are rich; and have mostly ‘yes people’ around them. Then they get into the real situation and find that it’s neither easy nor cut and dried. This might have been his first experience in dealing with huge amounts of human beings of differing viewpoints. It might have been his first real experience of dealing with people whose disagreement with them would not be fixed by firing or hiring. You can’t fire a goodly portion of Twitter and enough rubbish and many lose interest or float off in space. Many will tell you exactly where the bear did its business in the buckwheat (An old saying which was much blunter in my childhood but I run a clean blog post and podcast). You see, if he had looked at the policies and had advisors go over them, and understood where it came from, he might have dealt differently with it. However, that is just conjecture and I have nothing to back that up with. I assume some human understanding as well.

I think I just found my most favourite holiday quote. “For Christmas this year, try giving less. Start with less attitude. There’s more than enough of that in the world as it is – and people will usually just give it back anyway!” – Anne Bristow. I believe that the new owner of Twitter can attest to that. It might have been a difficult experience for him. If he finds a new CEO, then I’m sure it will be a valuable experience for him to find out that things aren’t as easy nor are they as controllable as he first thought. So, hoping for his sake, he uses it as a learning experience and finds some way to move forward in a positive manner. He still has New Years to make some resolutions for a happier future. On the other hand, those who have lost family during the season, I hope that they have positive memories to carry them into the future. It’s not easy to lose someone and during the holidays it is far less easy. The world insists on moving forward and having all the cheer in the world meanwhile you may feel like you’ve got to keep up appearances. Often one finds oneself ill. This is normal for someone who has just lost someone important to them. You have to understand that such an event can result in a great deal of stress which will have an effect on one’s immune system. This would bring us into the concepts of good stress and bad stress…yes, both types of stress exist. It is too long and complicated a concept to detail in this blog post and podcast. I have enough stuff that I’m covering this one. Just keep in mind that good and bad things come with stress.

So, apparently there is something called ‘Holiday Fatigue’ and yes, it is a thing. I don’t know what you call it when it hits before the holiday has even happened…’pre-holiday fatigue’? https://www.wellandgood.com/holiday-f... At any rate, many people seem to suffer from it and there are a few tips for getting through it in the article I have linked to. I think one of the things that we forget is that our body needs rest. Without it, we get cranky, tired, sometimes over eat depending on the degree of fatigue. Of course none of this makes it better for anyone. I suspect it is the reason for many a ‘holiday disagreement’. So, one of the things that they also mention in the article is try to make sure to get enough rest. Of course, a lot of rich food might also be a problem for your system. So, try to make sure to get some healthy snacks. Those two things might make a lot of difference.

Of course, for some of us the rampant commercialism of the holiday is part of the whole ambivalence that we experience at this time of year. It becomes more apparent to us that there are those who have not and those who have. As observed by a little boy in Springfield, Bart Simpson (creator Matt Groening adding as I see it attributed to both) “Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.” This speaks volumes about the role of social media and media in general on the holiday season. There are expectations placed on families and society in general. Any child not of the culture is seen as having missed out on childhood. Yet, we also have problems with homelessness in Canada and it is not just the subject of adults. Children are also affected. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c... Of course there are various associations etc that deal with these issues, with the poor economic times we are currently in, they are likely stretched pretty thin too.

Please understand I’m not anti-holiday, nor am I anti-Christian. Rather, I’m let’s please look at reality. The world isn’t the safe place it once seemed. We need to look at what is going on in the world and not shut our eyes to it. If we don’t, we’re going to be caught in a veritable deluge of children committing crimes, people with very little being beaten and stabbed to death on the streets of our own homes. We need to stop encouraging vile behavior. We need to stop pushing high expectations on children with no way to meet the expectations. We need to place more emphasis on good works. We need to place more emphasis on humanity and on treating people like human beings. If we do not, we will wake up one day to the whole tragedy of humanity losing just that…their humanity.

So, if you have what you need, then you are doing well. Recognize that even though you have freedom of speech, many do not. Even though you have freedom of religion, many do not. If you want to do anything for the world, then teach your children responsibility. Teach your children empathy. Teach your children to accept that there are people different from them. People should be respected, not used. What you teach your children about life and the world in general is what they will bring with them. It is what will affect what they do in future. Back to the song by Sir John Lennon
‘So this is Christmas
And what have you done?
Another year over
And a new one just begun’ – Sir John Lennon
So, I leave you with the thought that we are the only ones that can change the future and we need to start now for a happier holiday and merry Christmas for everyone. We’re all on this rotating sphere together and whether Santa circumnavigates it or another entity, they should all have the right to celebrate in whatever way they see fit without fear for one’s life. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...

The Hardest Words to Say in our Modern Times!

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I talk about what seems to be the hardest words to speak known to humanity in modern times. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I’ve seen a great deal of political posturing and stuff. I half wonder if they aren’t just watching too much “Reality TV”. First, I don’t care what the other guy has done that you don’t like. It makes for cheap political points. You want to impress me, tell me what you can offer and what I can offer in this crazy mixed up relationship called politics. I’m not a politician as I point out and I have little to no interest in politics…except maybe from the viewpoint of someone who has to live with the outcome of the votes. This week, I was surprised to see that one of the Provincial Government people literally compared the treatment of their Province to how First Nations People were treated. This was, in and of itself, really poorly thought out and of questionable utility. First, you’re comparing your treatment to a whole people who were actually treated badly from the time of colonization. This was the way at the time. I keep hoping we can move forward and become one healthy nation (I’m talking worldwide). Yup, I’m a dreamer and maybe a snowflake as well. But, I own it. Now, to add insult to injury, the politician started to apologize and turned that into an actual justification…she called it clarification, but tomAto/tomato (spelling to show enhanced pronunciation) https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/danielle-s.... Then she goes on to ‘clarify’ which turned into what felt like justification of using a poorly thought out analogy. How can generations of people having been marginalized and over the years, children taken and dying in residential schools even come close to how the Province has been treated? It is taking a First World Problem and using First Nation experience in a way that is highly inappropriate. In what way is this similar? So, apparently no one has the knowledge of etiquette that would be needed to dig one’s other end out of a debacle such as this since they insisted on going with this line even after it was pointed out to be inappropriate. I must state that I’m not First Nation that I know of, but as a human being, I do have a grasp on right and wrong.

I have to state, it’s not only politicians that make these errors, it’s just more salient when they do make them because it hits the news. To be honest, I suggest that they get some decent public relations people on board before they tank the whole place. But, I digress. People seem to have become immune to words and their impact. At one time, they used to teach you that what you said has meaning and that it would be a good idea to think about what you are saying when you cause harm. But, now people are so interested in the latest drama, creating it, sharing it, making likes and subscribers with it that there is little room or thought given to the fine art of talking to each other like human beings. This week alone, I see, in Canadian Politics that one minister referred to an 11 year old child as a “prop” https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/n-b-educa.... I honestly know nothing about the programs that they are arguing over. But, that is part of the world view that allows kids to be called ‘props’ and used as ‘props’. Either way, it is not encouraging respect for each other or others. Whether or not the accusation is correct, I have no real idea…it’s not a part of the purview of my writing to decide what is true in the news…. Of course, this is a whole other problem. However, most Government Officers could definitely use some old school etiquette classes. Has that Minister apologized, I have no idea.

For the sake of humanity, let’s look at what a real apology should consist of. We have too many ‘faked’ and ‘sorry if’ statements going around out there. According to the article in the blog post and podcast write up (https://www.healthline.com/health/how...), there are seven steps and knowing when to apologize or not is the eighth. First, I say don’t read the 8th because generally the apologies are what needs work. Most don’t see the need for the apology to begin with. The seven steps in the article are:
1) Know why you are apologizing (my aside, this seems to be lacking in cases where there is a tone deaf apology)
2) Start with I’m sorry. (My aside, don’t add extraneous stuff that justifies why you did it…you just nullify your apology. Also I’m sorry if…NO. You’re sorry. There is no IF.)
3) Take responsibility for your actions but make it short (my aside for politicians and serious cases, run that by your legal team because you could face unintended consequences…yeah, I’m realistic that not everything is theoretically going to work for the better. Your legal and Public Relations team will help figure out how to make it less likely to end in a law suit.)
4) Focus on impact not intent of your actions (my aside, your intentions might be good but misguided, but people don’t care at this point you’ve done harm).
5) Take steps to make amends if and where appropriate.
6) Don’t overdo it.
7) Ask forgiveness. If you want more details, the article contains them. You don’t have to be the top of the line Manners pro to do a half decent apology.

For the most part, you don’t even have to go through every one of the steps…a half decent apology and recognizing why it was wrong is a huge start to not offending everyone with the apology. If you have learned something from the event rather than trying to explain it away, one stands a chance of mending things. I’m sure there are other articles, but for a ten to fifteen minute blog post and podcast, I have to keep it brief. I’m sure that there are many other articles out there that may give you as good or better information. However, this more or less covers the ethical concepts involved in apologies. The concept of understanding why it was offensive to begin with would have resulted in an apology that did not continue on the same bent. Obviously the apology explaining it or clarifying it, in the case of using First Nation experience to deal with first world problems was very clear in the fact that the full extent of what the statement had said was totally what I like to call a whoosh moment. I call it this as it makes a lovely whoosh sound as it flies over the heads of the person who made it. I’m not putting down the particular politician. It is a component of a poorly made apology and that qualifies in my humble opinion. Whether she had made it or someone totally unknown had made it, it was still a tone deaf answer to a serious faux pas.

As Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “Never ruin an apology with an excuse.” This seems to be lost on some. Further as Jeannette LeBlanc is credited with saying, “The art of a sincere and heartfelt apology is one of the greatest skills you will ever learn.” So, there is hope for being able to address this problem because it is a skill one can learn. It definitely is a skill that would mend some fences and would be less likely to burn bridges. Some days on various forums, reading the news, I get a sense that many in positions of power seem to have forgotten that there is some importance to modelling good behaviour. It’s a shame as they and celebrities seem to be what citizens use as their role models nowadays. What we see online and in the news, the actions that we see from politicians, famous people and the world in general is what shows our children how to act in the world. Do we want to show them not to care for other human beings? Do we want them to think that no one has feelings and that it isn’t important that they have feelings? Do we want to teach them to make apologies that create more harm and discount the person they have harmed?

Remember what we, as people, allow to happen in our forums and in the world in general is what our children and our future are seeing and learning. This is what they will emulate. It isn’t easy with all the misinformation, hate speech and all the mess they have to navigate to form a sane and balanced view of the world. So, for those of you that like to call people snowflakes, get out a shovel…there’s a veritable storm being caused by not understanding why something that is said is wrong and why it matters! The main reason why a bit of etiquette can go a long way in teaching your children to form a better world is that “When you apologize for your mistakes and subsequently make an effort to correct them, you not only impart to your offspring the importance of taking responsibility for your actions, but also demonstrate the opportunity to learn from such mistakes.” Bethany Bridges. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...

You Win a Few, You Lose a Few

*note contains information on diabetes and anxiety in one dog from viewpoint of one of Sam's humans only. I am not a vet.*

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I provide an update on the current situation of Sam’s diabetes diagnosis. Things don’t always go as well as you’d like and sometimes you need to take a step back to move ahead. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I know I already said that Sam, our dog, was diagnosed with diabetes. We’ve been working hard at it to get him used to needles 2 times a day. Then there was the total change in his routine. His feeding times and amounts changed. His whole world changed including bedtime routine. I had been concerned about trying to get him to do the first curve. This is the term for the set of 5 blood glucose tests done over a day (the first one before he eats his first meal, then one about every two hours afterwards for a total of 5). This gives the vet a look at whether the insulin is working properly or if there is need for dose adjustments. This article gives more information on the blood test curve (https://www.dogabetix.com/glucose-cur...). It sounded very important. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is very important I’m not pushing aside the importance of the procedure. As the time came to do it, we tried to prepare. It did not go well. The vet was more optimistic and thought about maybe a second curve in a few weeks…well, that was until they had to meet with Sam to try to do the first curve. I had thought that we had failed as pet parents or that we were doing something wrong for Sam to be so reluctant. We thought that the vet had some special tricks up their sleeve that would make it happen. I guess there is the option of drugging the dog to get it done. Not sure what that does to the blood tests in general. At that point, Sam was pretty anxious and they had given up trying to get the test. Obviously a sick dog that is 5 years old and a big boy tends to be a little easier to get things done with. It tends to be a lot less easy when the insulin is doing its work and he’s feeling energetic again. We found that out. He was just getting stressed out. So, apparently, the vet had no more success than we did. We finally decided to go with the fact that the dog has the appropriate energy level of an energetic mix breed that he is. If his condition worsens or anything seems off, then bring him in. I figured that this was fair. Sam is a big boy over 90lbs. We have to approach the needle with the insulin with caution as he gets nervous and tries to pull away if he is not kept calm. When he got home, he was stressed, which of course makes the whole thing worse for him.

The worst of the consequences of this was that we had, unfortunately, lost ground with Sam. He was stressed and there was a low growl and it took two attempts to get the insulin needle in. This was the same issue from his early days. He’s getting special attention today to try to get him feeling better and less stressed and he is resting. It may take a few days to get him back to normal. Good news is as of the editing of the blog post/podcast, he has returned to getting the needle in more without fuss. We know that Sam is an intelligent dog. He is also a stubborn dog. This is part of the breeds that he is made up of. He’s also a big boy. Though a big boy, he’s what some might refer to as a wimp. He manages well on the schedule we have him on. He takes time to warm up to changes. I knew this. So, it took a few days to regain his doggy trust. We are determined that at some point in the next 6 months we can work him towards getting the requisite blood tests. With so much change for him, at this time, he’s decided that he is willing to go only so far, but no further. Humans are much easier to deal with because at least you can explain things to them and they understand the need for so much change so fast. Pets don’t have that going for them. So, for pet parents that are feeling like a failure trying to deal with your special needs pet, I can understand your frustration. It’s not easy.

The first step we had in getting toward Sam’s blood testing was to watch umpteen videos …. They all showed these lovely placid dogs. The ones that weren’t placid were small enough to pick up easily and hold still. It looked so easy and straight forward…yeah, right! First problem…Sam is not placid. Second problem was that Sam is not small. Well, we said, we’ll try…I’m sure it’ll be easy to get him to accept the lancet near him…then we can work on the blood taking and the sound of the glucose monitor. Spent several days trying to play with the lancet around him to get him used to it. This was a total dismal failure. We concede defeat after he got stressed out around it and we were afraid of losing ground with him with regard to the insulin shots. We finally said it is too soon for Sam and put the lancet back in the package and called the vet to see if they could do it.

First, pet parents out there…it would be awesome to see how to get an active, anxiety prone, intelligent dog to get to the point of agreeing with 5 blood tests in a day on top of the two insulin shots he needs every day. You can’t even take them from the same area as the blood vessels don’t tend to be reliable in that spot. The look of betrayal in Sam’s eyes when he got home told me that this was not a good experience for any of the vet’s office or Sam. So, don’t expect your active dog to suddenly become placid and agree to the blood tests…even our best attempts totally failed. For some dogs that you can’t gently restrain, this might take a bit of time that the vet association would not be enthused with. It’s not ideal, but neither is the dog getting uppity about his insulin. The stress had made the symptoms more salient when he came back from the appointment. Stress is not good for diabetes whether dog or human. It’s no one’s fault. Some dogs are a little anxious about stuff. Sam always knows what is around him. He’s always been vigilant. This is nothing new to him. He’s at least part herding dog. He thinks Ramses is his responsibility and any time I try to get Ramses down off something, Sam runs right away to encourage him to get down. He thinks it is his job.

So, now we have to back track a little with Sam and maybe try again in future. No one trains to deal with young dogs that are different from your average dog. You can’t prepare for your dog to get stressed out. So, you have to go back to the drawing board. Maybe we can get him to agree to do one at some point and work his stress down and his acceptance up. In the meantime, it’s important to very closely monitor him. Today was more difficult as he was stressed and exhibiting some pre-diagnosis behavior. So, tomorrow we’ll see if he gets back to insulin treated. As an aside, he has gotten back to the insulin shots without a fight. What they say about dogs and short memory…I wouldn’t bet on it. Sam can remember something we don’t want him to have along the road for days…long enough for us to forget about it and then he springs into action. You think we’d have learned by now. Who is the smartest in these situations? If you have a dog, you know the answer. Remember with stress, your dog is going to have more issues with whatever the condition is that they have. At the same time, understand that there are some conditions that will cause anxiety…and diabetes is one of them. This article gives some ideas of things that can be huge issues for dogs. https://www.vetinfo.com/medical-cause... So, careful monitoring is happening for Sam.

Of course, at some point, we will have to try to start with desensitization of his current phobia to blood tests. Right now, we have to stabilize him. This article talks a bit about options for anxiety…because not all anxiety in dogs is caused by diabetes or medical conditions. Some dogs do tend to suffer from anxiety in general. https://www.adwdiabetes.com/articles/... So, it is not always a dog with a medical condition that experiences anxiety. Of course this is common sense. Just anxiety alone does not mean your dog has a medical condition as such but the vet can rule out medical issues and help with how to deal with the stress. They could be anxious. Sam has always been aware of everything around him. There are things like; we have no idea why he has taken a dislike to bicycles and motor bikes. He never had a bad experience at least since we got him, but he seems to get very agitated by them. Even when he was well, he was very aware of things. It could be herding instinct kicking in.

As Ana Monnar has said, “Our pets are our family.” So, when Sam was diagnosed, we decided that we would see to his needs. What he needs right now is to stabilize his condition and slowly work with him to reduce his anxiety around blood tests. It isn’t necessarily a gigantic failure except on the part of his humans who knew that it was stressful for him and too short a time frame to try to get him to deal with too many changes. We tried to get things to work and work on someone’s timeline other than Sam’s. Sometimes you win a few and sometimes you lose a few. Sam will eventually forgive us and we can get him to accept the blood testing needles hopefully. Just because it is hard, we aren’t giving up on Sam. This is where my training might have some uses. I am familiar with desensitization for humans…and will have to research more on doggy desensitization. It won’t be happening really fast. At this point, Sam has been too stressed and we’re going to hope that the insulin is doing OK until we can get him stable and feeling safer with his routine. When you have an active and alert animal, sometimes you have to follow their routine and not your own. It isn’t easy. The choices aren’t easy. The health and well-being of the pet is the first priority of both pet parents and the vet.

If anyone has a tried and true method of getting a reluctant dog to accept blood testing, I’d be happy to hear about it in the comments to my blog post and/or podcast or on my Twitter page. A link would be great because I have yet to find any tips and tricks for diabetes glucose testing with an anxious dog. It’s one step at a time and sometimes it is a step back to try to get things that will work for your pet. Just like no two humans respond the same to situations, no two dogs do either. We haven’t given up on Sam…he’s part of our family. He is a young and an otherwise healthy dog. Much like with people, you need to keep expectations that they will have as normal a life as possible. If we fail at one step, we need to figure out how to make it happen in a more intelligent way. As my old mentor in my training at the University said once, if at first you don’t succeed give up and try it another way. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

As An aside, Sam has starting to take his needles without a fuss again. It is taking him a little time to get calmed from the appointment and it will take some work. Just because things are hard for him doesn't mean we're throwing in the towel. We have to find something that will work for him.

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‘Holidaze’: Burn Out; Opt Out; Call Out

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I talk about many things including a new condition for which I coin the term ‘Holidaze’. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

First, before I begin the whole thing, I would like to express thanks to you, readers and listeners. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Anchor/Spotify’s wrap up. It was a lovely thought. At first, I couldn’t figure out where the link took me….it seemed some kind of hybrid link. I’m not familiar with it so was mildly confused. It was a lovely thought….and since it came on my actual Anchor Account I presume some kind of hybrid link. The specialized link sort of thing can be confusing to patrons and to their followers, so best to point out that it is a specialized link to avoid problems. I knew it must be legit since it came from Anchor and I went to the page without using a link anywhere. In other words, I went to the link cold without using links in the notice because it is always safer to find the actual page to make sure it is a legit site offering. I happily used it as a thank you to the followers, readers, listeners, family and friend and the podcast companies got the advertising. So, right now I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anchor, Spotify and all of you as I wouldn’t have a podcast or blog post without you. Thanks!

This year, I’ve started seeing holiday posts already. I think I’ve gone into ‘Holidaze’ mode. My definition of ‘Holidaze’ is:
‘The feeling of being absolutely overwhelmed by holiday glitz and glamour when seen in juxtaposition to the realities one sees in the news, and media. It becomes more salient that there is a wide disparity in the world’s events and the ‘season’ makes it more clearly defined.’
This is the mode where you look at the news and your social media timeline with all the attention grabbing stuff right now going on in Twitter coming from the new owner. I’m sure he is a brilliant Engineer, he’s proven that. This does not necessarily translate into good with people or marketing…no one is good at everything.

Then you also find yourself looking at the horrors going on in the world and things feel surreal. You look at the issues going on in your own back yard (the saying since most Maritimers and Atlantic Canadians consider the whole area to be your own back yard, or at least I do). You see the people dying in Emergency Rooms in a Province next door. This article talks about one of the cases (https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/patient-d...). Sadly this is just one case out of more in the Province in the past year and two in the past few weeks alone. You see the thefts and murders going on in the world in general. You wonder just what is going on in the world with all the murders and intolerance.

On Twitter, there are people pushing an agenda for unfettered freedom of speech. This might have some benefits, but it does not take into account the serious repercussions that could occur from allowing free reign to free speech that targets other people. It could result in violence targeting people of different races, religions, genders or orientations. There has been at least one study that I could find quickly that addresses this very issue. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-online-.... They find that there was an increase in hate speech. They found that in some cases it resulted in an increase in real world violence against immigrants in one area. I’m sure there are other viewpoints and other studies. I have long been a proponent that the definition of Freedom of Speech should include some element of responsibility of the speaker. So, on the basis of potential harm to our fellow human beings, I would be happier to see less of it.

This concept of potential to harm others with unfettered freedom of speech brings us to the concept of ‘evaluations for potential for harm’ or ‘risk assessment’. This means very similar things and is important to many different professions. The main point is, according to this Wiki article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_as... that one considers what potential impacts of a particular action are. Then one has to decide what level of risk is acceptable. This is dependent on different factors in different situations and on the situations themselves. Often, when human lives could be put at risk, this takes first priority. For this reason, it is often important to consider what is actually known by research into the area. People who deal with ‘risk assessment’ know that to make the wrong choice might result in violence against people. It could result in deaths. Toward this end, it makes it important to consider the actual impacts rather than the theoretical arguments. In other words, people potentially dying should be seen as more important than living in a theoretically perfect world. Sorry, it’s not always easy nor is it simple and the world is anything but theoretically perfect. This is where people who live only by theory and words can run into trouble. There are real life effects to be considered. So, before jumping on the band wagon in favour of unfettered free speech, it’s imperative to also find out what the potential consequences are to your fellow humans.

The other factor that has my head going on a ‘Holidaze’ is well, the holidays. Every year, they start around Remembrance Day. I’m not particularly a fan of the Holiday and this is long standing. I find there is a focus on attending office parties and generally, at least when I was in the work force, this was a ‘prove your loyalty’ aspect. You were ‘required’ to attend in a lot of cases. You were required to ‘mingle’ in some form. It extends to shops playing the same tired music over and over. I sometimes think there should be some sort of award for any staff members still sane after a month or so of that. Then there is the long standing feud of call it Christmas, no call it holidays. At a time of year where there are more holidays than just the Christian one, I have often felt that it would have been somewhat interesting to be exposed, even a little, to different ethnic holiday music, something new and different, some different traditions. But, that seems to get screaming, fighting and crying started. So, often I just tune out. I wouldn’t mind learning different things. But, it appears that I’m the weird one. It seems that many see that idea as a threat. Yeah, I’m weird.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-holiday nor am I anti-Christmas. I’m rather ambivalent about holidays in general. I always found that this particular season is so full of hype and after enforced holiday/Christmas party attendance; I became less enthusiastic about it. After being told I had to have a specific dress in a specific set of colours and that what I had bought was not appropriate, I just picked something in the closet that matched their colour scheme. Part of the mingling included a seating chart. I had wondered why we weren’t dressed as nut crackers and made to stand in a corner. Not everyone is a big celebration person. I found the least bad experience from a workplace was one that everyone in a big room, there was some choice of food. You sat with whomever you chose. Even then, I found it difficult because the noise was high, but the meal was pleasant and no one enforced a dress code. I had no ability to pay attention to much and found it exhausting. But, then I’m the type of person who had to wear ear plugs in a concert to be able to hear it and did the same for going to movies. I didn’t tend to enjoy going to movies and preferred the Drive In. Literally an outdoor theatre where you either switch to a particular station that played the show or there was a box you put in the window and rolled up the window to reduce flies and other noise and it played the show. Then there was a big screen at the front. Cars parked in rows and watched it. They still have some in small towns.

So, for those who are not suffering from the ‘Holidaze’ and those who aren’t that big on holidays, be kind. We don’t always fit in with the rest of the world in quite the same way as ‘everyone else’ does. I think ‘Holidaze’ should be a special category. I think some of us suffer it early in the season whereas some never do. I don’t know if it is a philosophical dilemma or and ethical one. Maybe we’re just a diverse group of individuals who want to see the world actually follow that old “Peace on Earth and Good Will” thing in a more tolerant way. Either way, we’re different, we’re looking for a better world and I’m sure that there is still a possibility of finding or creating one. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
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The Big-ening

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I talk about the horror that can come with the ‘big-ening’. I use this to describe the enlargement of companies and the use of a main company to do a lot of the clerical work. I look at some of the issues it causes from the viewpoint of small towns. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Lately we’ve been waiting for a back ordered product to come in to a local store. We are using it on a new project that Hubby is working on. So, we’ve been watching closely. Imagine our delight when the local store showed that they had been able to get some in. We had groceries to get and other stuff at the same time and it seemed like absolutely perfect timing. I seldom go into town. I tend to stay and do stuff at home while hubby goes out. Then we put the items away when he gets home. He got home with everything on the list except the item. When I asked, he said that the conversation went like this.
‘Hi, I see you have the product listed as being on the shelf online.’
Customer service, ‘sorry, it’s on the truck.’
Hubby, ‘I only come to town every couple of weeks, is there a possibility of getting some before I leave?’

Apparently it was not possible. I can’t blame the store. They didn’t have it in the store. It was sitting somewhere in the truck. It still had to be unloaded. It was however, inconvenient to see it listed on the store website when it was not in fact in the store. I’m making grand and sweeping assumption that the store inventory is not taken care of in store, but rather at what I like to call the ‘mothership’. I use the term ‘mothership’ to refer to the head store/head company of any company entity. It usually does most of the various administrative duties so as not to duplicate services. I find that some of the processes in some of these ‘motherships’ need some looking at. For example, there might be more people looking for items that were on that truck. Not everyone in the area knows that the truck has to be unloaded and the items show up on the shelves at some later unspecified time. I might suggest that the ‘mothership’ save their smaller branches a lot of discomfort and the customers some angst if they took one simple step of not hitting the order processed and shelved button quite so quickly. This one step would make life easier for the branches that have to deal with the customers who feel that they are being put off and inconvenienced. This one step might save the stores a great deal of customer service angst and improve upon the reputation of the stores in general. It seems in smaller areas, that things can be made more difficult by some of the conveniences that are made through the ‘mothership’.

I know that it is the thing now and has been for awhile to buy up little companies and make one big company. My husband and myself both lost jobs to those types of mergers. One particular one was actually quite well done. They gave lots of notice to the staff. They developed a help to find a job program…with supports. The whole department had moved to a different Province. They actually had expressed concern for those ousted. I don’t currently hate the company and had friends who had stayed with the company. Respect makes a huge difference in these cases. Of course no one was happy to lose their job. We weren’t insane. At the same time, I know that it tends to come with a lot of confusion, changes and pretty much feeling like chaos reigns supreme. I know the feeling of it being a sinking ship. I therefore have some sympathy for those who are going through trauma with the new leadership in Twitter. I also know that if they get the wrong person at the helm, there can be changes of leadership happen as well. The company I described, their first attempt at being run through US sources was rather a debacle. They made a huge assumption that Canadians and the USA citizens run similarly in business. It was a choice they later regretted and changed leadership. Never make the mistake of assuming that everyone runs like the country you are from. Terrible choices can result. But, I digress. This is more about how big company running smaller companies can result in some difficulties.

It seems an issue with stores in some areas that often things are left in the warehouse rather than having a few on the floor. It is hard to say whether this is because some pricier things tend to grow feet and walk or if there is a lack of communications within the store itself. For example, if an item is searched for high and low and is not found on the shelf, this might be an item to take note of and it should go to someone who can make note of the missing items and someone either finds and replaces them or reports them as missing and removes them from inventory. The problem is that someone looking for the item is left feeling that no one cares which is not conducive to small town atmosphere. This can cause angst for the customers who perceive that nothing got done about the missing item that they wanted. This leaves one to wonder if the item has been simply misplaced or if it grew legs and walked. If you can’t trust the inventory, then that is a problem.

For those who miss the point of the growing feet and walking, I’m talking about shoplifting which is a huge epidemic. https://comparecamp.com/shoplifting-s... This article suggests that there are ‘over 200 million individual cases annually.’ This is not something that helps the retail market and increases your prices at the checkout. It is also, in the same article, suggests it to be a gateway crime. In other words, it is a slippery slope when one starts to steal from stores. Of course there is also another problem that many hate to think of because it calls staff into question, but it is also a sort of theft which can affect the bottom line and prices overall as well. So, on top of actual losses from various thefts, there are losses to a store from lack of planning or unclear chain of command. There is also the cost of training and retraining if staff has to be replaced often. This can occur with staff frustration. There is the cost of staff frustration when customers are displeased with not finding products that they expect to see.

Then there is the “I have to go back to the warehouse and get the item you requested”. This seems interesting. When there is more than one of a particular item in the online stock (and it is correct), the staff go back and obtain the one item. They generally have to do it using a cart of some sort. I’m not sure if there are stock restrictions or paperwork that needs to go with it, but it seems that the same items have the same issue come up more than once. There must be a chain of command for these items. Are the staffs unfamiliar with the chain of command? Are they so overwhelmed with work that they are not keeping track of what is missing and what needs refilling? It is especially confusing when there is actual space on the shelf for the item.

Sorry readers and listeners, I’m not doing this to nitpick (an old saying which has to do with lice for those who have historic interest, yeah gross LOL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitpick...). At any rate, the definition aside, I’m not doing it. I’m showing you why stores in small towns seem to have difficulties. I’m also showing you how to improve things. You see, the problem that comes from this is that people can’t find what they want. In this day and age of expensive, but easier travel, many have chosen to go to the bigger centres to shop or shop online. The fallout from that is that some people do not want to shop in local stores, those wanting to shop online rather than locally or who want to shop in a bigger centre to avoid frustration are killing small towns. There are a lot of options. If you want to compete with the larger centres and online sales, then customer service is what you have to work on offering. Being content with the status quo is not attracting doctors and other professionals to live in your area. It is one thing to build houses, to try to attract doctors and other professionals to your area, but if you do not provide them service when they go to buy goods and services, if you provide only frustration and not being able to find items, then you are killing your chances of attracting people to work and live in your area. In fact, I would argue that EVERY customer service person, EVERY staff person in your store is a store ambassador. This is not an unknown idea. People in business have always acknowledged that the receptionist is your first experience of a company.

The problem starts and ends with all of us. As shoppers, we need to appreciate customer service. Stores need to manage their customer experience. You need to make staff feel valued. You need to train staff. They need to feel valued for telling you if something isn’t on the shelf. You need to address these smaller issues. As Samuel Smiles is credited with saying, “Where men or nations have broken down, it will almost invariably be found that neglect of little things was the rock on which they split.” So, readers and listeners, if I would have you come away with something from this post, it would be that it is the little things as well as the great and huge things that make a place successful or not. To skimp on one thing will mess up others.

I think one of the jobs that I worked the hardest on was one where my boss literally said to me, don’t worry about the office politics or anything like that. YOU work for the CLIENT. Not exact words but the idea. They paid me, they took my feedback…but my main job was for the clients…not office politics, not how I felt, or how anyone else felt. The client was clearly defined and they were my boss. My immediate supervisor told me what jobs I had to do in general. The chain of command was clear…I answered to him and he would deal with the rest unless otherwise stated. It was the only job that I didn’t absolutely hate doing job evaluations for. Somehow he was able to translate I want to survive another year with some general thoughts into something that was acceptable to the higher ups. So, for your employees who are person centred, you have some ideas. For staff that are number centred, let them manage the inventory issues and other number driven stuff. A good employer can take the strengths of their staff and make the staff an effective body. Some small town issues are not insurmountable if you make the staff a partner in customer service. Make them proud of the jobs they do…they should be. It’s not an easy job. They are the only thing standing between customer chaos and customer satisfaction! Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
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Bewildering Array of Opinions and Options

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I look at the world of pet diagnosis and the bewildering array of information that can make things both better and worse. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

This past while, we had noticed that Sam, our dog has been drinking more, and urinating more frequently. It wasn’t stopping, so not the warm weather. For me, it was disturbing as I could see that something was amiss. Sam had never been that way. He’s a pretty clockwork dog. This means, he likes his scheduling, he likes routine. He even knows when lunch time and bed time are and literally starts getting ready near the same time every day. Anything that isn’t routine for him makes me suspicious. So, that was my first hint that things were wrong. After a few days of bathroom trips in the middle of the night, it was determined we should take him for a vet visit. So, we called. There is, much like with doctors, a lack of vets in the area. We got him in on a call and see about cancellations basis. In the meantime, it had worsened…which means that he was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night more often than before…so the vet made room for Sam.

After the visit, we faced the worst nightmare of every pet parent. Sam was diagnosed as diabetic. Here is where the beginning of confusion started. First, I did not go to the appointment. I have doubts that I would have made a difference being there as I had no real knowledge of dog diabetes and no idea about the costs and treatment. I knew from family experience that it can be complicated; there is a need for glucose monitoring, medication. I knew what some of the items were at least from the human perspective. My husband was a complete newbie and had no idea what any of the stuff was. I know they like to make available all the information, but the laundry list of items, mixed with my knowledge of human diabetes complicated things further. I didn’t realize that dogs don’t need constant blood work like humans. The medication is done on a schedule. With the stable diet, one doesn’t need to do constant monitoring as with people whose diets vary. The listing containing prices of treatment options contained more than one option. This confused my husband who thought he would need both of every option. This much, at least I was knowledgeable about. I could separate out the options. The totals therefore were meaningless as some options would not fit for Sam. Others would only be needed in much less numbers than for humans. Once we understood that the bottom line was meaningless, we worked on the numbers that we could see that Sam needed.

At this point, it became necessary for another appointment because we had a better grasp on what was going on and the actual costs were easier to weed out. I’m sure, most pet parents who hear bad news, lose their ability to hear most of what is said. So, within a day or so at the most, we had decided that the initial $800 a month was not the actual costs and needed to be clearer on what we were looking at. The problem with most of the programs for Vets seems that they end up having an end total come up. Despite being told it is meaningless, people tend to be in shock and will look at that as the guideline. This is useless. I would suggest a lovely black sharpie or a sticker with please call us to discuss options might be less intimidating to the already shell shocked owner finding out Sam, Fido or Fluffy needs special care.

Sam, of course is only 5 years old. Often diabetes is diagnosed middle age and later in a dog’s life. Sam is unusual somewhat. At the same time 1 in every 300 dogs will develop diabetes in its lifetime. https://www.greatpetcare.com/dog-heal... The article also contains information on what to watch for. The thirst and frequent urination top the list. It progresses from there. The earlier it is caught and treated, the better the dog’s chances. It’s not an easy thing. There is the problem of expenses. These can reach around $3000+ annually https://spendonpet.com/cost-to-treat-.... This article gives a better idea. We’re kind of guesstimating Sam’s case and Canadian prices…and I’m guessing that the article is American. Much depends on the size of the dog, and other factors that the Vet will examine.

Blood glucose testing is, as pointed out in the article, every 6 months after the stabilizing. One still has to know their animals and watch out for other issues. Some concerns centre around too much insulin or not enough insulin. The testing curves (the every 6 months test that I mention) are to help with getting this sorted. In the meantime, we have to get used to Sam getting shots every 12 hours…and worse, Sam has to get used to having the shots every 12 hours. That’s two times a day. Depending on how he responds to treatments, we need to know what to do, if he needs adjusted doses and such. The amount of insulin that he needs will be dependent on how he responds to treatment. This is all new to us as pet parents…and I have to admit to a little anxiety as to whether we’ll be doing it all right. You are never prepared for the illness of your fur babies. It has tossed most of the A & J PEI Treasures work into reverse and we’ve been spending most of our time trying to get our ducks in a row for Sam as fast as we can. We know that time is of the essence in getting him taken care of so that we can get his diabetes under control.

We are on the first steps right now. It might or might not work. That is the other consideration. There is no reason to expect that it won’t work at this point. However, there is always the possibility. So, we are going about this one step at a time. The Vet Tech showed us and got us to practice giving Sam a needle using saline solution. It’s not impossible to learn to manage to do this. It’s not impossible to manage your dog’s diabetes. Feeding routines will have to be followed closely. Calorie intake has to be as exact as possible.

I think the most important advice I can give for you and your dog friends is to make sure that you know their habits. Know how much they drink and eat and potty. We have Sam in at night and he is pretty much with us most of his time. So, we noticed almost immediately that his habits had changed when he started to drink more and needed to be let out at night. With almost any veterinary issue, catching changes in your pet is very important. The sooner you get that looked at, the more likely to get a good outcome.

Since starting the draft of this blog post and podcast, we have begun treatment with Sam. The first shot was difficult to say the least. I only managed to get about ¾ of it in. The second time we approached much differently. Sorry to say and I apologize to Vets everywhere, we resorted to a treat to distract him. Hubby decided to try what he does to make Sam more comfortable around the tools in the garage and showed him the needle and said good needle, good Sam. Whether that worked, the treat distraction worked or he’s starting to pair the shot with feeling better…because almost immediately he stopped needing to drink and potty so much. So, not very scientific I’m afraid, but we got the second shot in alright. Right now, it’s more urgent to get the insulin into him without it being a Battle Royale. At least we got the second shot in without trauma to him or us. He hardly noticed it. The Vet Tech says eventually he is going to get more used to it and it won’t be as hard. So, remember pet parents, don’t give up when at first you don’t succeed, try it a different way. Your Vet might be able to make suggestions.

People like to complain about the Veterinary Clinics being about money. What they don’t understand is that they are providing you with every possible option that you might wonder about. They also, to be realistic, are just like you and me; they got to pay for all their supplies, etc up front. You need to understand, just because they give you a long list, does not mean that you will need to get everything on it. For example, there might be multiple types of insulin available (or whatever the medication). Make sure you know the options and which are options and which are necessary. If the clinic didn’t care about animals, they wouldn’t have taken on that job. It would be rather a waste of time to work in a profession that you didn’t care about. I can see how people might start to feel overwhelmed and seeing the things add up can be overwhelming. But, at the same time if you don’t get the options available, then you’d be complaining that they didn’t tell you everything. It’s not an easy balancing act. If you need to take the list item by item and look everything up to try to sort things and spreadsheet what you can and will purchase, what you need to purchase, it might not be so traumatic as you first thought.

We hope that Sam will have a happy and healthy future and we’re willing to invest in it. The clinic has been helpful and has met with us once more to discuss treatment options more specific to Sam’s case. The second time was to train us to administer treatment. We came home with all the items necessary to give Sam a good start on getting stable and hopefully it goes well from there. Don’t allow yourself to be completely overwhelmed by the costs…not all of them may apply in your case. It’s in your hands whether or not you can afford treatment. It is a bit pricey, and it won’t be easy, but in our case, it pretty much takes up the sales from the past summer to make his treatment for the year. He’s a young dog and we hope to be able to give him as good a quality of life as possible. It is not to say that if you feel you can’t afford it that you are wrong. It’s costly and it could fail. It’s an individual decision and a private one. Remember, it’s your life and your pet. It is your choice and no choice is right or wrong. The treatment choice will still leave some anxieties.

As Benjamin Hoff is credited with saying, “Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen, though… That’s the problem.” So, my best advice in this blog post or podcast is to make sure to listen to your pet. They tell you something is wrong by behaving differently. We knew something was up when his drinking and potty changed. If you listen to your pet, you’ll have a better chance to help them if and when they need it. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

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If I Could Turn Back Time…

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I take you through the wild ride surrounding the Time Change. It appears some people took the concept of turning back time and made it a challenge and others made it an hour. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I sometimes wonder at the huge conglomerate that is the internet. There are so many potential good uses for it. Yet, there are also so many poor uses of time. Computers make us more efficient, yet they put us behind. This past time change period has been memorable in several ways. First, it seems that someone has taken the idea of turning back time quite literally. We see this in the first actions of the new owner of Twitter from the Twitterverse itself. First, there are some erratic pronouncements from the new owner which is concerning. It didn’t just start with this particular one, but this was closer to the time change. The flip flops are the most concerning. First it was indicated that he had a belief that social media should be neutral to politics, but then went on to endorse a candidate so apparently this doesn’t necessarily count for people who own social media companies….which is somewhat confusing (https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/musk-re...). Was it because celebrities were endorsing their own candidates? If so, that is concerning on that basis because he is not a leader then, he is a follower. If not, the flip flopping still doesn’t seem to be an encouraging sign. For those of us on the outside looking in, things are starting to feel a little bleak. Then came something that definitely turned back the clock in the form of an announcement that Twitter remote work would stop and everyone was expected to be in an office at least 40 hours a week. Is this a boon or not, time will tell. The other part of me wonders if there is enough office space to make this solution work (https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/elon...). This seems to be a step backwards in time when society has had to move to more work from home options since the advent of COVID. So, since I associate the Cher song with this time change, “If I Could Turn Back Time” I wonder if someone took this a little more literally than was necessary. It also leaves me to wonder, if in the end, the song might be a little more prophetic about the end of a relationship and regrets, but I digress.

Other things I notice in the news is that the there had been a desire to have a vote on a public enquiry into the last hurricane, Fiona. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince... I had wondered at what reasoning there should be for that to be brought up. I’m no Government person and no expert on natural disasters, but I have to wonder, other than getting military involved, utility companies from outside the area and getting Ottawa to foot the bill for the electric utility companies to work on getting the power back, getting people organized to help out and other measures and warnings given on the Island, just what was expected that didn’t happen? https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada... I just have to wonder what it is that they think the Premier should have done? I see that payment roll outs were admittedly not rolled out fast enough. Most of it seems to have to do with money after all. Perhaps exploring money dissemination methods could be useful. Otherwise, it is a matter of money and manpower. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/p-e-i-s-r... I’m not sure what things would make this a better situation. Perhaps having more locations that can do the verifications, but then remember, most of the agencies out there were also trying to get put together from Fiona. At the same time, putting more money onto enquiries is just going to be more money that we don’t have to spend. I’m not politically minded, I don’t care who is in, but to be honest, it’s a natural disaster…what do you expect? Much like a death in the family, one never expects it and it doesn’t make things easier. It appears that the complaints were made clear in the legislature. Now it should be up to logistical staff to figure it out for future situations. If you know the problem, spending time and money on trying to figure out the problem, when there is limited budget for such things, seems a bit overkill. So, if they are going to review the situation and the problems are clear according to the article I posted and saw. No one seemed to question what the issues were. So, they wanted an enquiry and spend money for what reason? Was it to make a political point? I think we need to stop being so quick to want enquiries. I see the need for enquiries into mass casualties and to missing and Indigenous women and things of a larger and more endemic nature. Though with climate change, it is possible that this issue will become more frequent; however, it appears that they are learning from the problems and trying to address things as quickly as possible. First enquiries don’t come cheap and secondly, if we know the problem then we need to find solutions, all the enquiries into what the problems were aren’t going to solve the issues and will just give us very similar answers.

Of course this all wrapped around the USA elections. It is rather disconcerting to see the finger pointing, the mudslinging and the circus that it becomes. For the Twitter takeover to be in full swing at that time, made things even wilder. What scares me more is that I see Canadian politics disintegrating into that style of politics. I far prefer to know what it is that someone has to offer. I far prefer to know what the particular party policies are. I actually hate politics. I want to know, not what the other guy has done that you don’t like, but what you can do and why do I want to bother to vote for you? This brings me to a more important point. No matter who we are, we have a voice. Whether we choose to use it in economic, political, humanistic or other endeavours, we have a voice. In the immortal words of John F. Kennedy, “…ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.” In many of these things, we are asking what someone can do for us. What someone can give us or do for us. There is no thought of our own responsibilities in the situation. Then when things don’t work, we play the blame game. We fight each other. Yet, when it comes down to it, we are all on the same earth. We are all here together. For better or for worse, this is the world that we have and the only one we have. There is no magic elixir. There is no magic cure. The world will not improve because of what we take, but will improve only by what we give.

I think in all the fighting and political rhetoric out there, in all the hate speech and intolerance, we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten who we want to be. We need to take a step back and remember who we are and were, and who we want to be. That was what I found most disturbing about all the fighting, hate speech and things that got put all over Twitter. I found that it was always us against them. The problem is that there is no us and there is no them. There are only we, the people, as the constitution of the US put it. I figure it is fair to use it on this occasion since it was their election week after all.

As Edward Everett Hale is credited with saying, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. “ When we forget that the world is filled with people. When we forget who we are or want to be as people, we run the risk of things running amok. In English we tell our children to be good. In French, they tell their children to “sois sage”. It means be wise. https://dictionary.reverso.net/french... I think, for behavior of any age, this makes a statement. It doesn’t question the behavior as being good or bad. It cautions to be wise in what you say and do. With wisdom, one hopes for better actions. It is less judgmental and more cautionary. It is meant to make people think. This brings me to something that felt so inappropriate and I know many would not agree. First, to be fair, I’m not a fan of Elon Musk in any way, but the new thing about fake and parody accounts (by this I mean taking someone else’s name and putting it on an account and making statements to belittle the person). There are multiple reasons why this can dilute the integrity of the forum. He’s made enough statements that were strange to begin with, so one doesn’t look too hard at the Twitter agent. That aside, this was first and foremost against the rules of good and fair conduct, but also against the forum rules. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and.... The main problem with this was…the first one I saw, I thought it was a valid account and then the name looked weird until I looked closer, I thought it was him…and granted with some of the stuff he did post, that wasn’t an out there thought. It wasn’t a fair thing to do, however. It also, if done enough brings into question, which is the valid account and do I have to read the whole biography slice to see if it is valid and will that be enough? Though many people were upset that the comedian had been suspended for it, it is obvious that someone likely reported it. We have enough fake accounts but it had the check on it which is supposed to be a form of showing integrity. To do this purposely seems unwise. This was rather distressing. I know it might have been intended for fun, and to make a point, but the point would have been easier to make and a better point made if the questionable actions had been addressed from the person doing parody. When we forget who we are and forget how the system is meant to work, we can get ourselves into trouble. So, when it comes to your interactions, remember who you are or want to be. Keep your integrity. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
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Social Experimentation in Real Time

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This past week has definitely shown the best and worst of the internet. With Twitter take over came tons of drama. I’m not sure if half the people read the news or don’t…I’m not even sure it will make a difference as there are so many different news stories with different perspectives depending on the ownership. Of course at the same time, there seems a ton of property damage and such being done in the name of environment. There seems a huge disconnect between the world and our social media. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

This week has been a smorgasbord of various events. Many of them don’t seem to connect well from a humanistic perspective. First, Elon Musk has finally taken over Twitter. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-... and apparently reports are true of him calling himself the “Head Twit”. I won’t comment further on this as I’m not sure that word means the same thing that it had when I was a child. Plus, cheap shots would only make me a “Twit wit” and I’m certain there are enough of those around. This has been received less than enthusiastically. His charge of $8 a reduction from the original proposed $20 https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/1... is also less than enthusiastically received. I can see both sides. I suppose that people paying for Netflix pay somewhere in that realm. I don’t get Netflix. On the other hand…the free speech that he touts has now become paid and it is hard to understand why his dislike of advertisers should translate into people paying for the shortfall. So, for those, such as me that don’t even indulge in Netflix, $8 is beyond what I can or would be willing to do. There are benefits to not being rich or famous.

I am wondering how much of the Elon Musk controversy was further inflamed by his insistence of posting a controversial link. I know it didn’t increase my confidence any. I believe it had to do with another event in which the husband of the Speaker of the House in the US was seriously injured. Some things aren’t a joking matter. A man born in the 1940 could have been killed in that attack. Further the actual target was the actual Speaker in the US. https://www.nytimes.com/article/pelos... So, whether we like to admit it or not, that does kick it up a notch. Despite Mr. Pelosi’s recent issues, he is husband of the Speaker. This does result in a stronger message having to be sent. There is also the fact that elder abuse is part of the messy issue.

Further, when it comes to Elon Musk…well, he did take over Twitter. I’m somewhat apprehensive about what he is intending to do with the forum…and some of his actions have been less than encouraging to those of us who watch. https://news.yahoo.com/hate-speech-sp... At the same time, to be fair, there was an increase in hate speech, however, this seemed more due to the fact that people were expecting to be able to get away with doing this. It was not due to a change in policies on his part at that time. It still doesn’t make me less apprehensive, but it needs to be understood that the monster that crawled out from under the bed, wasn’t exactly created by him though his giving expectations of ‘free speech’ may have dragged many the monster from under the bed. The monster that crawled out from under the bed was the fact that they thought that they could get away with it. They thought they saw an opportunity. Because there was so much of it, the AI just couldn’t catch it all. It’s still not right, and he still shares in the blame.

The thing that I find on Twitter lately is that incidents such as these result in people not acknowledging the wrongness of attacking an old man and nearly killing him. Some saw it as an opportunity to make light of it to score some kind of perverse political points. Some were making jokes of it, others spreading conspiracy theories. It was a total dehumanization of the main facts. An old man was attacked with a hammer because his wife was in politics. We have something wrong with our moral compass. Some were shocked by it. Others were disgusted by it. Others tried to downplay it. I know we have differing opinions on political people and who should run a country, but if it was my father or grandfather that was attacked, I certainly wouldn’t want to see people making light of it. If it was your parent, would you find it funny? Remember, the older a person is, the more brittle the bones, the more time it takes to heal. These are just the realistic problems that come with age and the injury itself. Every year elderly are abused. Every year, elderly are victims of crime. When you look at it from that angle, it makes a lot more sense. It seems that people make things political so that they don’t have to face the grim reality out there. They make things political so that they can point fingers. Rather than look at it from the human perspective, they make it political in an attempt to remove the human face. We have too many things that suddenly become political so we can’t look at it objectively. Stop making everything political. That seems to be the sticking point for a lot of the news issues out there. We need to look at it from a human perspective and that might take the form of “if it was someone related to me, how would I feel?” If it was my family that got attacked, how would I feel? Some even wanted to make it about orientation. This was not the issue. The issue was a man born in 1940 was attacked in a home invasion of his home. Being related to someone in Government made it a substantial threat to Government…no matter who runs it. His security system didn’t even help. We need to change our perceptions and change what we deem political and how we express these issues.

There has been a lot of news feed of people deciding that they wanted to protect the environment from oil. I saw at least three occasions in the past week. First someone tossed potatoes on a Monet painting https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/... then there was the same group tossing cake at a waxwork https://www.foxnews.com/world/just-st... followed by defacing buildings in London https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk.... It seems there is a lot of feeling that it is appropriate to do harm to make a point, yet others applaud this. First, these works of art are irreplaceable. If you damage a Monet painting, he cannot come back and repaint it. Artists of all sorts must have been incensed to see the lack of respect for art. Wax works, are also a form of art. To destroy it shows lack of respect to the artist. Then they follow up by painting all over London buildings. In my humble opinion, I didn’t understand the thought processes that went with it. See, paint has chemicals in it. They were old buildings (well known buildings) and they’ll have to use chemical compounds to try to get the paint off the buildings. They will have to do the work to remove it. It will cost, not only money but they will have to use chemicals to remove the paint and they do it because they don’t want chemicals (oil) to destroy the environment. So, they increased the need for chemicals. It seems somewhat illogical to me. In fact a lot of stuff that has been going on seems illogical to me. The property damage doesn’t seem to make any logical sense. At one time, there were sit-ins. There were protests. I was at some myself when in University. We did not try to damage others. We did not feel the need to make up lies about people. We didn’t feel the need to try to harm someone.

I think part of the problem is as Gertrude Stein is credited with saying, “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” This seems perhaps part of the crux of the problem. I’m sure that I’m missing some of the issues and some of the challenges. We have a steady diet of information coming at us. It’s all over every feed on every social media page. It’s on every page that we open. Many people seem to spend so much time online. I’m sure some pay for people to do online work for them. It’s freelancing work if you can get it. Then we have sources that are misinformation or disinformation. We have people who knowingly share provocative things…who in essence, lie to people. We have so much information to sort through, we often just take things as we find them without trying to determine if they are true or not. Gossip is often passed around as truth. So, it gets to the point that we often don’t know the difference between truths and lies. It is an ever changing cosmos of information that changes from minute to minute. Another issue with this is that people seem to invest in the story that they follow…and it follows what they want to believe. Knowing both sides of a story might not change the opinion of those who blindly follow one ideology, but it might add a human quality to what they spread.

As Dr. Seuss is credited with saying, “We should strive to treat each other with common Human Decency.” It seems that having everything online allows us to dehumanize each other. To take up whatever stand without taking into account the humans involved or the cost of the action in human suffering. I see it time and again where people jump on a bandwagon. Please, before you jump on the bandwagon, think about whether there might be something more to the situation. If it is important to you or you think that it is something that might be important, take some time to look deeper at the issue. You might find that the monster isn’t under the bed; the monster might be looking at you in the mirror. This is what makes common sense, honesty and common decency so important. Without it, we can become that monster under the bed. Without thinking about things, I spent several days wondering what was going on. Had things changed so dramatically, so quickly? I started to jump on that bandwagon. Then I realized that the problem wasn’t the problem. The problem was more how we look at the problem. There is still a problem, and I’m still not sure there is a good solution as of yet, but if we don’t look at the human side to the problem, we will be unable to find a humane solution. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

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Computers are Perfect…are Perfect

Or Things that go Bump in the Night

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I talk about the computerization of things and how without proper supports, this is not the move ahead it seems. It can, in fact, become the thing that goes bump in the night…the thing we all dread. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Wednesday is my usual blog post writing day. Today was different…well, to a point. I was sitting finishing off my email when my husband called. He had been to the bank, the card got eaten. By the time he got home and half way down the road with me, he realized that he hadn’t checked his wallet. There was the errant card sitting in his wallet. It turns out the machine had not given him money. He looked at the amount he took out, panicked and knew it didn’t come out. Didn’t read the paper entirely where it said that it didn’t come out and then in his panic forgot he had pulled out the card and put it in his wallet without thinking. So, at this point we’re half way to town anyway. So, might as well continue and get stuff done.

Then we got home, once things were sorted, I checked and the cell seemed good…but then I went to check my messages…and that’s when it said that it wasn’t good. I was not hooked to my cell….or it didn’t know about my monthly paid account. I’ve been paying for an account that shows I’m paying for it, but no service. Isn’t that wonderful? I didn’t have need of the cell for the last while…and so I thought it was a scam that I was getting messages. At that point, in fact, I was apparently not connected to my cell as it told me that I only had urgent calls available to me…Though, I am … at least on the internet…on the cell, it’s quite another story. As far as I know, there is only one me on the account for my cell phone…

Of course in the meantime, I got a ‘replacement credit card’. There have been a lot of family things on my mind and I forgot to get it activated by phone. Didn’t realize it was a ‘replacement card’. I decided to do that before I forgot again. The computer voice doesn’t recognize it. I tried both ways…I put in valid information and it suddenly decided that it didn’t like the number it already liked….so then I looked at my other card. I’m not sure what is going on there. This necessitates a visit to the bank, because after fighting it for half an hour and it gave me all sorts of weird and wonky things, I gave up. I won’t use it for the next while anyway.

Now, at the same time, I have had e-book sellers wanting me to give them my SIN. I don’t think so. I can’t even get my cell phone to know that I’m using it…or that I’m on it. I don’t know whose phone I’m on…they aren’t paying the bill, but I am paying mine. Hopefully I’m not paying someone else’s bills. I was writing this while waiting for the call back. It really wasn’t too long before getting the call back. It took five minutes. Of course, I both Tweeted them and asked for a call back on the nice machine. It seemed to give me all sorts of suggestions. Remember computers are perfect. Apparently there was nothing wrong…though my cell told me that it would only do emergency calls. Oh yeah, and that call that started it all…I already knew it was likely not a call at all…but hubby calling from the earlier stuff. The problem fixed I think at least for the next few minutes…at least that’s what the person on the other end of the phone told me. The call back was emailed prior to happening. Then they called shortly after. It was not unpleasant…but there was no indication what the problem was and they got notifications to send. I don’t know what the problem was. Their voice, possibly at a call centre was so low that I had a hard time to hear them. Now, I still turn the whole mess off but should try to get some of what I want on it rather than what I don’t want. I don’t like giving any information either over phone or online. There was the earlier hacking stuff that makes me even more distrustful…because computers are perfect.

We have so many computers doing things for us that we take it for granted that they will work properly. When they don’t, we don’t know what to do about it. I’m not anti- technology. I’m more pro- finding ways to deal with computerized work in a more intelligent way. What was wrong with my cell, I had no idea. What was the button that had to be pushed, who knows. The whole thing literally looked fine on the internet. Why the cell didn’t know about it, I don’t know. I even pulled out my SIM card to make sure that I had the right SIM card number. Then people wonder that I’m not that keen to give my sensitive information to a computer or even a person online. This seems a monumental decision to make. If someone pushes the wrong button, who knows what the online metaverse would do with it.

The other thing that I wonder about is that the computers and cells you get all these messages…some of them have links. I’m not sure that all those messages have valid links. It is often better to be safe than sorry. Just today, we decided to look something up on one of the Provincial pages on another Province. When we clicked the link, it didn’t go anywhere. It literally was a dead link and there was more than one. Apparently things move at such a breakneck speed that even Provincial Governments don’t manage to keep their links up to date. This is just one more sign of the times. We have so much information, and it is changing so fast that even Governments are not able to keep up. So, given the lesser stuff…links to pages that they manage or are associated with do not have time to be updated, what else is not being done with regard to security etc.

I’m not saying that computers are bad or wrong. I’m saying that we have so much information online and with so much information available online how can we possibly keep anything safe? With so much changing so fast, how much of what is online is useful? How much is actually safe and should we freely give sensitive information? We do things without thinking online. We can find tons of information. Some people feel that they have the right to hack what is online. To some it is a challenge. To some it is a way to scam. For some the internet is just a source of information.

Another thing that happens online which is scary is that some people duplicate accounts and some hack accounts. Not that long ago, there was an indication that Gene Simmon’s wife had her account hacked. At least there was a Tweet on it. She got it back according to a subsequent Tweet. Not everyone is Gene Simmons and I suspect that others are left to struggle or find some other way. I, myself got kicked out of my Facebook account for almost a full year and actually got back in accidentally. I don’t know why it worked. The same when my Amazon account got locked on me. I got back in by accident because I got a new computer and it finally worked. So, with all this kind of stuff going on, it is little wonder that I am a way beyond ambivalent when it comes to putting more sensitive information online.

As Nina Easton has been quoted as saying, “Your company is probably going to get hacked. The velocity and complexity of hacking attempts has skyrocketed, with companies routinely facing millions of knocks on the vault door.” So, with it being so widely accepted that it happens, that it can happen and does happen, why do we take such a blasé attitude toward our sensitive information. I know the other side is that information needs to be sent to the Government. I think we might need to move toward finding ways of giving people access to the ability to do some things without the use of the SIN or Passports. The more we put our sensitive information online, the more we risk having our lives sold to the highest bidder. I’ve had companies ask for SIN and some Passport. I also know that there are hackers who would definitely find it worth their while to get access to this information. It would give them a treasure trove of fake ID’s that they could make. It gives dishonest people a way to use other people or their personal information. For example, some look to selling Passport information on the black market. We need to come up with some kind of business computer model for contractors and people who spend most of their lives online that does not endanger them nor their livelihood. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you! Happy Halloween for those who celebrate!

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