Month: September 2013

We saw this cutie in Falmouth today.

To readers of David Yamada’s blog:

I’m retired, so can put my money where my mouth is on the subject of blowing the cover of bad bosses.

I had a great boss once:  Robert C. Mahoney, retired from the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, MA.  He gave me every opportunity to succeed.  I didn’t, but it wasn’t his fault: I was in the wrong job that didn’t suit my few talents and many personality faults.

I’ve had a few lousy bosses, most of whom were more befuddled than evil.

One in particular on Cape Cod was and probably still is a genuinely mean-spirited, disloyal, unscrupulous bully:  Don Clark, of Onset Computer.  When I worked for him, he was enabled by a personnel director who was so ignorant that she thought “curry favor” means “sexually harass”.  That’s what I mean by “befuddled”.

I am sad when I think of Douglas Fletcher, deceased, former CEO of Convention Data Services.  Doug had a good heart, but was seduced by a couple of henchmen who now have senior management positions at his company.

Others, like Tom Kennedy of Back Office Associates, had no business managing people at all.  Intensely charismatic, a brilliant idea man and obsessively hard-working, Tom lacked the patience, wisdom and compassion to be a great leader.   I wanted so badly to please him but instead was metaphorically slapped in the face.  His wife Trish on the other hand is one of my personal heroes.  They sold their company to the Vampire of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs.  No hard feelings, good luck to them.

I once worked for Gary Morris of Marketing Advocate.  Gary was a combination of Doug and Tom:  hard-working, great thought leader, phenomenal family man but led astray by someone who did him and his company no favors.  Like Doug Fletcher, I believe Gary was taken in by fast talk and a flashy personality.  I tried to do my best for him but was undermined by an underling.

So, there you have it.

 

While I was out yesterday (annual physical and errands, including a stop at the kitchen supply store in Industrial Park), Ron put up an inexpensive but nonetheless elegant new shower curtain rod.

He loves it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to the gorgeous Wamsutta Club in New Bedford on Saturday for a concert and stopped at a couple of country stores on the way.  Did a little sightseeing through the NB historic district afterwards.

Yesterday we participated in an anti-war demonstration in Orleans: 54 people!

Today Ron finished the repairs on the message board at Santuit Pond Estates. He put everything back together again and I finished the weeding. We spotted a tiny neighbor and in its honor, renamed the place “Toad Hill Road”.

Union
Stop & Shop Cashier Salaries
Average Cashier Salary: $22k
Average Salary at Stop & Shop: $37k

Non-Union
Market Basket Cashier Salaries
Average Cashier Salary: $17k
Average Salary at Market Basket: $25k

From a NYT reader in Boston on the Serena Williams/Victoria Azarenka US Open women’s final this past weekend:

“I’m sure you and your family sat around agreeing with each other in a genteel pearl-clutching session about how dreadful, absolutely dreadful, it was to watch women overly exert themselves. Oh the horror!”

I was intrigued with Naomi Klein’s criticism of the “Big Green Groups” and found this is a term of art referring to the following well-funded organizations:

Defenders of Wildlife
Environmental Defense Fund
Greenpeace
National Audubon Society
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Nature Conservancy
Sierra Club
The Wilderness Society
World Wildlife Fund

In the words of activist Jeffrey St. Clair, Big Green has spawned the “ecological oxymorons of our time: ‘pollution credits,’ ‘re-created wetlands,’ ‘sustainable development.'”

Day before yesterday, Ron finally was able to unscrew the sign from the beach entrance at SPE. I did a bunch of weeding.

Yesterday, I brought the broken plexi to Falmouth Glass and Mirror, did a couple of loads of laundry, and started mowing the lawn here. Made veggie tacos. I finished mowing this morning and did some cleanup in the “oval”.

We sat ourselves in the jacuzzi at Sea Mist earlier this week. It was great until some shrill little kid entered the pool.

A muscle on my right shoulder blade has been bothering me. Ron grilled burgers for us tonight and had to switch out the propane tank. Glad I didn’t have to!

We went to Redfield for a lecture by Graham Brown, a local (Dennis) author who collaborated with Clive Custler on the NUMA series.

The best day of the summer is here, except that starting tomorrow, school buses will be clogging the roadways again.

We intended to get to the Sagamore for an anti-Pilgrim demonstration, but couldn’t make our way through traffic.

We joined some very nice ladies at the Oak Street overpass to wave goodbye to the tourists, something I’ve wanted to do for years. I discovered that it’s not that much fun unless you’re with a crowd, though: some fool flipped Ron and I the bird after the ladies left.

Unwilling to pay $20 to park at Sandy Neck beach, we’d boxed a lunch and ate it at Meetinghouse Farm while admiring their flower garden.

It’s been a poor weekend, weather-wise. After transfer station run yesterday, we crossed the bridge for cheaper gas and thwarted visits to the Old Company store and Tihonet Village. Ron lost his keys somewhere along the way but found them in the truck this morning.

Laughing fits last night folding laundry when Ron imitated Tantor the Elephant.