Monthly Archives: May 2011

10 People You’ll Meet in Line at the Grocery Store (Pt 2)

Three is a crowd

Picking up where we left off in Part 1, here are 5 more people you’ll (unfortunately) meet in line at the grocery store:

6. The Price Checker
No, the numbers on the price tag did not suddenly rearrange themselves when you picked it up like letters on your iPhone do when you shake it playing Words With Friends. The cashier is not your doctor, so please don’t make him ask the manager for a second opinion on the price of Cap’n Crunch, OK?

7. The Phone Multi-Tasker
Apparently he is emailing Jack Bauer the abort code for a thermonuclear device that’s been planted by terrorists and about to go off on aisle 5 in 2 minutes. At least that’s the only kind of email I can think of that would warrant bringing a line full of people with perishable goods to a screeching halt.

8. The Magazine Reader
This person is apparently confusing the line here at Stater Bros with the mini Starbucks that’s tucked aways inside Barnes and Noble. No, no, you finish that article on Lady Gaga. I don’t spend enough time waiting in lines anyway. You just take your time and enjoy. I’ll wait.

9. The Coupon Collector
This person has enough coupons stockpiled to make George Costanza’s wallet look like a Four Spiritual Laws Tract. No human being should have single-handedly amassed such a vast assortment of dead tree paraphernalia.

10. The Express Lane Violator (courtesy of Tripp & Tyler)

Who did I leave out?

10 People You’ll Meet in Line at the Grocery Store (Pt 1)

Walmart Grocery Checkout Line in Gladstone, Missouri

Standing in line at the grocery store is excruciating. It can feel like you’re a Forty-niner panning Stutter’s Mill for just one nugget of gold fortune (or in my case a line at WinCo that I can get out of before my milk gets chunky). Unless your last visit was at age five when your mom let you ride the little rocket ship out front, chances are good that you’ve encountered one of these ten people:

1. The Chit Chatter
Anything from discourse on the most recent Rapture False Alarm to showing pictures from their granddaughter’s tonsillectomy is fair game. I’ve found that using the Fake-A-Call app on my iPhone or pretending to be deaf are the quickest ways to sever ties here.

2. The Spiller
This person is most commonly found trying to pull a gallon-sized pickle jar from the bottom of their cart while setting up the little bar that separates their stuff from your stuff and writing a check, all at the same time. It’s like their practicing to win the gold for the Grocery Checkout Triathlon. The best response is to give them lots of space and start looking for another line.

3. The Exact Changer
Typically a retiree or a young 20-something who just completed Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. They’re secretly hoping the cashier will bestow upon them some sort of exact change trophy while trying to finally ditch that Canadian penny they got from the waiter at Red Robin, without getting caught.

4. The PDAer
Completely oblivious to the fact they’re in a grocery store where children are present. In this case it’s best just to pick another line. Any line will do. Better soggy Klondike Bars than the uncomfortable conversation you and your wife will have with little Billy later that night.

5. The Over Packer
Are aliens coming from Alpha Centauri to turn all our grocery stores into factories for their robot armies, forcing the human race to forage through dumpsters for whatever scraps of food remnants we can find? That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when looking at your carts (yes, CARTS). It’s OK if you have to make more than one trip to the store per decade.

I’ll post the other five next week. In the meantime, who else should be added to this list? Write your ideas below.

The Secret to Getting Things Done

Schedule Patients and Resources Easily

Have you noticed how your sock drawer suddenly needs reorganizing whenever you’ve got a big project due?

Happens to me all the time. Unless you’re a robot or a cartoon character that can shift into another space-time dimension to get things done at Ludicrous Speed, chances are you’ve felt the same way too. How do we break the cycle of focusing on the menial when we should be working on the meaningful?

Here’s one tip that has worked really well for me: Break your big projects down into smaller steps with due dates and schedule those steps as appointments on your calendar like you were scheduling a meeting with another human being.

Before I had this epiphany I used to just go off a to-do list. I use a great (and free) website called RememberTheMilk.com (you can read some of my thoughts about it here). But here’s the thing I’ve noticed about to-do-lists: every tasks feels like it gets the same weight and most people start with the easy stuff first. The easy stuff is called easy for a reason. We don’t need help getting easy stuff done. We need to get better at doing the hard stuff.

This week take a look at the gaps in your schedule. Don’t use those times to simply go through your to-do list. Instead, leverage those slots as opportunities to schedule appointments with yourself to get the really important things done.

What tips and tools can you recommend for getting things done?

6 Things to Do After a Rapture False Alarm

False Alarm T-shirt

May 21, 2011 will go down in history as the continuation of life as we know it.

Christian radio host Harold Camping’s prediction that the rapture would happen on May 21, 2011 at 6pm local time, depending on your time zone, (apparently because God doesn’t want a long line of rapturees at the Pearly Gates) has not come to pass. So what do those disappointed by this, or any other, Rapture False Alarm to do? Here’s 6 suggestions:

1. Start putting money back into your 401K.
I know, I know. It seemed like such a sure thing. You’d think that someone with Harold’s long resume of predicting the end of the world would have this whole apocalypse warning system down pat. Alas, it is not so. Much like my Uncle’s claim of being a marriage expert after his three divorces it might be time to get a second opinion and start preparing for the future, you know, now that it looks like there’s actually going to be one.

2. Figure out your post-rapture pet care plan.
Everyone gets excited about the rapture but nobody gives any thought to what’ll happen to their pets after they’re gone. Luckily there’s a group of atheists out there waiting to help at AfterTheRapturePetCare.com. Their philosophy: “Your pets are given to you by God for you to care for. You are stewards of their lives. Should you simply forget them at the Rapture, allow them to starve or worse?” I’m not sure what would be worse than starving for a pet, but I think you get the idea. And yes, this is an actual, real, thing.

3. Re-Read the Left Behind Series.
You don’t want to end up like that one pastor in the books who thought he was a Christian but wasn’t, do you?

4. Keep an eye on anyone you know named Nicolae Carpathia.
Apparently the Antichrist’s cover is blown. Every end-of-the-world book or movie by Christians that I’ve ever seen gives the Anti-Christ the same name. Seems like he would want to do something about that, like put on a pair of glasses and work at an international newspaper conglomerate in much the same way Clark Kent does to safeguard his secret identity as Superman.

5. Learn how to dismantle your computer’s hard drive in case it gains sentience and turns on you like SkyNet.
If 80s movies have taught us anything it’s that technology is out to get us. Oh sure, there’s a couple of nice ones out there like Mr Coffee, Johnny 5, and that robot from “Lost in Space,” but the majority of them are just biding their time so as to plot our downfall. Keep an eye on all your machines and appliances. That’s the healthiest attitude you can have given the machine (and ape) takeovers that are sure to plague the 2000s.

6. Save the date for the next apocalypse.
That would be December 21, 2012. It stinks that there’s only one more Christmas left but at least you won’t have to worry about doing any holiday shopping next year, right?

What are some other suggestions following a Rapture False Alarm?

One of the Best Ways to Build Trust in Any Relationship

~~ TRUST ~~

Being wrong may be one of the best opportunities to build trust in just about any relationship.

That’s kind of a weird sentence. How can being wrong be an opportunity to build trust? That seems to defy the laws of logic in much the same way that Disney continues to allow Goofy to own Pluto. That’s one dog owning another dog. How can that be?

Let me explain (about the being wrong thing, not Goofy and Pluto. I have no insight into that thought process.)

About a month ago my wife and I bought our first house. Everything about the moving process has gone really well except for our internet provider. I was literally on the phone for at least one hour a day, every day, for over a week trying to get our internet set up. Finally I gave up and went with another company (because, you know, it’s 2011 and the internet isn’t just a luxury for scientists or Al Gore anymore).

Once our new internet provider was set up, which was super easy with this new group, I had to call to cancel our old provider. Canceling a service always feels like trying to break-up with your high school girlfriend over the phone to me. I was nervous, but knew what had to be done.

After finally getting through to an actual human being (which took about half an hour) I talked to this really great lady who apologized on behalf of her company. Her willingness to own up to their poor customer service helped me to realize a very important truth:

Admitting when you are wrong may be one of the best ways to build trust between people.

Our mistakes are not invisible. Nine times out of ten our shortcomings are pretty obvious to the people around us. What isn’t so clear to others is whether or not we know about them. When we can be transparent enough to admit where we’ve dropped the ball and take responsibility for our actions it shows that we can be honest even when it’s not in our best interest.

And honesty builds trust like nothing else.