2009 Resolution: Pay Attention To The Job At Hand

In New York City yesterday, there was an industrial-strength shredder set up in Times Square. The idea was that people would bring things from 2008 that needed to be forgotten.

People brought an assortment of bad memories from the year we are about to close out. Some were serious and some were more frivolous. It was simply a graphic to remind us we need to let go of 2008 which was pretty bad all round and start fresh in 2009.

This past year has been a strain on us all. I am not going to elaborate the things that have gone wrong.

On a personal note, I will tell you that as a crowning touch for us the other day, our bank bounced my Canadian Pension check ("cheque" for my Canadian readers). After twelve years, my pension check was bounced! We use the same procedure each time, and this month, they bounced it! (Basically, we write and deposit a check written off a Canadian financial institution U.S. dollar account and deposit it at the ATM here.)

Things like this happen all the time. . . to all of us.

Hello??? Is anybody paying attention to what they are doing?

It takes valuable time to straighten out mistakes like that. What a waste!

Now, it is entirely possible that we wrote the check incorrectly. If we did, wouldn't it be nice for the bank to telephone us and let us know? Oh, I forgot, they don't use telephones in financial institutions any more . . .

There is a very old expression that goes something like this: take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves!

When each individual starts to do their job with diligence, the entire organization's productivity will increase, the stock will go back up and our portfolio will go back up so we can go back to living the life we were living before so many large corporations had to borrow money from us.

Did you forget, government is funded by taxpayers? That is us. Yes, we had to finance some financial institutions and some car makers this year. Yes, yes, they borrowed from us. Let's hope they pay us back with a little better service than we are are getting.

Put down the cell phones, stop conversing with your fellow employees and please concentrate on what you are doing!

(Just to clarify, in our twelve years of marriage, we have never before had a bounced check.)