@jatonlouise I am very sorry if what I said gave you offense. My response was intended to be honest and light-hearted and funny. That's how I interface with the real world because, frankly, if you get some distance on the whole thing, much of real life involves dealling with things that have very little impact on the real world. For instance, the man from Texas (where I spent my formative years) who wanted thes tate legislature ro pass a bill forbidding public schools from putting litter boxes in the school's bathrooms to accommodae any students who practiced the lifestyle of the Furries (people lwho prefer to act like dogs or cats, for example.. perhaps some identify with snakes, so I don't know what bathroom provisions for them must have been) .An astute legislator asked him if he could name any schools where this had occurred. He could not, but this idea poppoed into his head, "'This bill witll prevent that from ever happening." The legislator rightly told him that he was wasting the legislators' time and the taxpayers' dollars with this bill when there are serious issues to be addressed.) But I digress. It is my firmly held opinion that each individual gets to decide what goes onto their major issue list and what goes on their minor issue list. Nobody else has a vote in the matter .I'm not sure how my words left the impression that I was being critical of whatevery you had on your major issue list. It's none of my business. I, too, share your frustration at what passes for customer service. At the same time, for me, there are only 24 hours in the day and I have to decide how much time and energy I have to devote to a particular issue. It's even morev critical now because my 82nd birthday is on a fast traian and will arrive in 5 months, w hich is a blink of the eye . And every hour of becomes a greater percentage of the time I have left on the planet. Some of those hours have to be spent just tending to my body and the various potions and activities I must do to keeping this old battered body on this side of the grass so I can enjoy my family and all the things that I love to do aa little longer. And I'm susre what I consider a major issue would seem to be absurd to a normal person. There's a first name that I loathe, because a person of twith that name brought so much misery into my childhood that it took 3 18-wheelers to deliver it. I will avoid indiviiuals with that name. I don't give a fig how batsh*t crazy it seems. I'm glad the company I worked for only put first initials and last names on the doorplates jusst outside our office doors. If they had used first names I might hve periodically stayed late to remove all the plates with that name and thrown them in the trash. But they didn't use the first names so I wasn't compelled to do that. I can imafine my carrer trajetory would have been negatively afftected by such behaviour. We all have to deal with sosrting out our issues and allocating the time, money, and energy that wwe c onsider appropriate to deal with them, The only thing that might come into the decision is whether people lin our lives who care about us would like to have some fun with us from time to time and maybe we do owe it to them to consider how we divvy up our time and energy ato deal with our issues and how much to spend having fun with them and being there for them. The only advice I would dare to have is to consider what the right balance is for yourself, is and how some day when you look back on your choices, you can feel comfortable with how you allocated your time.. May all those folks who dropped your
calls sstep in dog poopoo in their best shoes on their way to interview for their dream job,