Oh how I hate hold music.

Posted by random olio

How often do you call your cable company, or your credit card company and either have to listen to a zillion annoying little prompts to get to where you want to go, or you wait on the line for what feels like eternity only to listen to their hold music?

I can adamantly say that I have never once said to anyone: “Oh, xxxx company has the most amazing hold music.” Why is that? Why is waiting on hold to be helped so excruciatingly painful? Do they hope that most of us will hang up the phone out of boredom, anguish, and insanity and instead go online and send them an email? I try to do that as much as possible, but there are just certain things that need to be handled by a live person. I will give you a few examples:

_When your cable company (ahem, Comcast) continues to screw up your bill every month since you moved in 10 months ago. No email will ever be able to truly shed light on your true frustration, only duking it out with a live person will hopefully grant you the discounts and offers you deserve.

_Anything having to do with financial information, credit cards, and bank accounts should be handled online. Yes I am old school. I prefer a live person to mess up my account, then a live person behind an email. At least I can ask for my phone call to be escalated, and hopefully my phone call was “recorded for quality purposes.”

_You enjoy connecting with other people, making their day, and generally being the world’s nicest customer. I know a few people who fit that description, and they are the cream of the crop. If only we could have their patience.

I digress. This all started out being about hold music. I still do not understand why they have not invented hold music that connects you to Pandora or Spotify and lets you jam to your current selection. Maybe customer service representatives will find their customers happier, more patient, and generally not going insane by hearing the same song for the 37 minutes they waited on hold. Of course that song was interspersed with a few ads for lower interest rates, or how you could be saved money, with the additional message of how many other customers are in front of you in the queue.

#needmorepatience4holdmusic

Is there always a silver lining?

Posted by random olio

Does everything have a silver lining? If you are a glass half full kind of person you might think that there is a silver lining in everything. Maybe it is all in how you approach a situation. You could have a frustrating experience with a friend or family member and choose to look at it for all the things that might be negative or wrong, or you can choose to look at it as an opportunity.

While we cannot change another person, and often we cannot change a situation, we can change how we look at the situation. Is it a moment to stand up for what you believe in? Is it now the time to say what you are really thinking? Or is it a time to stay quiet and let the other individual(s) work it out on their own? Maybe you are the type of person to always fix things for others, and maybe you have to take a break from that and let someone learn in their own way.

I think we can be in strange situations many times in our lives. Maybe we are stuck in a job we hate, or have struggled to tell a friend that we no longer want them in our life. Whatever the situation, the silver lining is often what we learn, and what we do not know. For example, you could hate your job, and struggle to understand why you keep interviewing but continue to not get the job. If that is your situation and you are reading this right now, you might say, “Tami you are crazy, there is no silver lining.” The silver lining is what you learn: more patience, persistence, perseverance, and maybe even the people skills to put yourself out there, to dig deep and fight for where you want to be. Not everything we do in life is easy.

Is it time to find the silver lining?

Addicted to Electricity

Posted by random olio

Yesterday I am running on the treadmill while Chris is riding the bike. I am 5.5 miles into my run and I start to shoot off the back. I realize that the lights in the garage go dark, and the tread is instantly slowing to a stop. The power went out. I go inside to see if it is just the garage or the rest of the house. It is the entire house. Chris starts to investigate if it is just our house or if others are affected. He called Portland General Electric. 60 customers had already called, and 240 were effected. In the five minutes it took to call the Electric company, 59 other individuals had already called. Amazing how fast we respond when something is taken from us.

I am dripping with sweat. I want to keep running, so I grab my phone and head outside to finish my run, hoping that when I come back it will be back on and we can proceed with our day. I come home and the house smells amazing with black beans, sausage, and eggs. I am curious how Chris made food, without the electricity. He said he lit the gas stove with a lighter, and presto, a yummy breakfast. I am still sopping wet with sweat, and want to take a shower, but do not want to use all the hot water. I begin to contemplate over breakfast what we can do today without electricity.

I tell Chris: “We could research the items on the list and just chill on the couch.” He says: “No electricity, no wi-fi.” Ugh. Bummer. I continue to mention different ideas. We could run errands, and go to the grocery, but we do not want to bring home cold items if the electricity does not come back on. We would also have to figure out how to manually open the garage door. So frustrating. Yet, it makes my mind wander.

We take so many creature comforts for granted. Electricity to power a zillion things: our computers, wi-fi, televisions, charge our phones, our refrigerators and stoves, hair dryers, air conditioning (a dream for our home), the list goes on. So I can definitely say to you today that I am addicted to electricity, and I need to appreciate it more. In the era of instant everything, we forget all that goes into getting it to our front door. It was an eye-opening reminder for me to not take it for granted.

So…I am going to show gratitude for electricity today. #thankyouelectricity

Eternal Searcher

Posted by random olio

I can find contentment in my life. I can appreciate what is right in front of me. Yet, I also find that I am always searching, voraciously for new information. I am a learner. I have often wondered what made me crave wanting to know and learn more. Over the weekend I finished reading: Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking by Elissa Altman. It is a memoir about food and she often talks fondly about her father and how he helped shape her craving to want to learn more about food. As a child he would whisk her away to upscale restaurants while her mother would be off getting her hair and nails done.

This quote made me think about why we search in life. Altman is talking about her father’s mother leaving when he was young.

“Her leaving him at such a young age turned my father into an eternal searcher–always walking, always moving and hoping and looking for something he was never quite able to find, or to nail down.” page 219

It made me wonder do I do that? It has always been so hard for me to slow down. My days and sometimes nights are filled with work, which I love. Yet, I also squeeze in my hour run each day, and this weekday blog. It often means I crawl into bed and look over at Chris and say “Before we turn the lights out, can I just catch up with my Words with Friends game? It is the first moment I have had all day.” Then my eyes close and I am quickly off to la la land.

Do we all have a bit of wanting to be wanderers? Do we know when to stop or when enough is enough? Usually I know when I have hit my limit. It happened last week. I came home from work and essentially crawled into bed and fell right to sleep. Chris woke me up a few hours later, and I babbled nonsense to him as I woke from my nap. None of it made sense, and I think it showed just how exhausted I was from my ongoing, never-ending days.

Maybe being an eternal searcher is a good thing, as it means that you are always creatively looking freshly at the world. I would like to think that I am the eternal searcher, content with my life just as it is, but always grateful for that new idea and inspiration that comes as I pop into a boutique, finish that good book, have an aha moment during my run. What I can tell you is that the only way you will find me as a couch potato is if I cannot keep my eyes open and I have to (s)nap out of my long wandering ways.

Toilets, maps, and fizzy water

Posted by random olio

Over 12 years ago, my sister took me on a trip to Italy to belated celebrate my college graduation. Neither of us spoke Italian, but it did not matter. All I needed to know (I know I am a simple one) is: “Where is the bathroom.” Or: “dove è la toilette.” At least that is what Google translate says is correct. We flew into Milan, took a train to Florence where we spent a few days, then off to Venice for the rest of our trip. Each city was so different from the others.

Venice

I loved the food, the people, the shops, the art. I am better at reading maps and navigating than I am speaking a language I do not know, or attempting to order food I want to eat (and not receiving something I do not want to eat). My sister would order our food and I would navigate the many streets and canals. Could we get to where we wanted to go, or would the street be flooded? Somehow splitting duties worked for us.

One of the things I found so comical about eating in restaurants on our trip was ordering water. You always had to tell the server, water with or without gas. I hated water with gas. Yes, water with gas. It must have been an Italian thing. I think my sister preferred water with gas, but me, not so much. If I remember correctly I convinced her to get water without gas because it would be less expensive.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and after all these years, I have become addicted to Perrier or San Pellegrino. Over the weekend someone told me about the Sodastream that turns water into bubbly water. The higher end model has glass bottles, the lower end model uses plastic bottles. Today at work someone told me that you can make sparkling water with a simple contraption called Fizz Gizz. I am trying to decide, do I continue to purchase bottled water, go fancy with a Sodastream, or go low maintenance with the Fizz Gizz? Or are there other potential options?

I am all set for the bathroom with my Sit or Squat app, Google maps helps me find my way, but now I need help with my fizzy addiction. Any sparkling water drinkers out there that can help teach me?

#wantbubbly