Sorry, but I just have to weigh in here. I just saw a commercial for a major electronics retailer (which I used to work for) that is offering customers help via the Twitter social networking service.

Although I am a former employee, and current shareholder of said company, I can’t help but fear the worst. First off, I do not believe anyone can give sound advice in 140 characters or less – heck I don’t think the end-user could provide enough info in their “question” in 140 characters for the “helpers” to attempt sound advice.

Earlier this afternoon, I made the “mistake” of using Twitter to express my opinion of this new “service” and was quickly contacted by several “members” of this new “team” of “helpers”. What I discovered in a brief “Twittersation” (is that the proper term for a conversation on Twitter?!?), is that hourly employees of this said retailer are doing this, off the clock, on their own time or even worse, on the clock at other jobs.

When I asked one of these employees if they did this on or off the clock, his answer was delivered over 4 tweets, which proves you can’t help someone or even answer a simple question in 140 characters. He basically told me that although some people in some stores can do it on the clock, he can’t because his manager doesn’t approve since it doesn’t affect his store directly. Since he can’t do it on the clock, he does it from home or from his “second job”. He said he does it because he loves his job, and the company.

First, he talks about “his manager”, which tells me he, himself is NOT a manager (who are the only exempt, non-hourly employee’s in a store), so he is hourly. Although he wasn’t “asked” to work off the clock, he, is in essence still working off the clock because when he is “helping” customers on Twitter, he is representing the company – the company is getting benefit from his actions without compensating him for his efforts. It is awesome he loves his employer, but what about his “second job” where he is at helping customers of his “first” job that he can’t help because his manager doesn’t approve because it “doesn’t effect his store directly” (BTW, great job from that “Manager” – you should be focusing more on District, Market, Territory and Company numbers than just “your store”. I know your type – you just care about your bonus )

So we have this guy who has a douche manager that doesn’t care about the company as a whole and just cares about his store, and in turn his bonus. This hourly employee loves the company so much that he is working off the clock, helping customers while he is at his “second job” who is obviously paying him to do something, that he obviously isn’t doing because he is busy helping customers of “first job” on Twitter.

I see this becoming a “major fail” very quickly.

Last night I was chatting with a friend who recently (and successfully) stopped smoking, and they had an interesting plan that they followed; at least compared to things *I’ve* tried before, and I think I’m going to give it a shot.

For me at least, I know it’s not smart to try and just “Cold Turkey” quit – just cut them off. That will never work, and I’ll cave before 1 day is over with – I have to have a plan going in!

On previous attempts, I’ve always cut out “unnecessary” cigarettes, and kept “key” cigarettes.

For me key cigarettes are:

• In the morning before work
• In the Car on the way to work
• 10 AM at work
• Lunch
• 3 PM at work
• In the car on the way home from work
• After Supper
• Before bed.

Any additional cigarettes I’ve always felt were the “habit” cigarettes – something I did simply to “do something” with my hands/mouth. However my friend suggested giving up one “necessary” cigarette a day – perhaps every two days starting with the earliest one and ending with the latest one.

Let’s try it!

Today, I haven’t smoked a cigarette yet – but I will smoke one in the car on the way to work. I’ve just given up a “key” cigarette, and I can smoke as much as I want the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I won’t smoke in the morning before leaving for work or in the car on the way to work, the next day my first cigarette will be at lunch, and so on…

Let’s see how this goes!

Wish me luck! (It worked for my friend).

No, not the John Lennon song…but I do have to start something over.

My diet. My quest to quit smoking. My “lifestyle change” changed itself back.

My ‘New Years Resolution’ this year was not to make a New Years Resolution, but to set some goals for myself. One of those goals was to get down to a (more) healthy weight, and to start eating a more “Heart Healthy” diet low in Fat, Sodium and Cholesterol. The other was to quit smoking.

In regards to the diet, I did really good – for about 5 months (I actually started in December). When did I start falling off of the wagon? Well, it’s kinda hard to put a date on it, but I took a vacation from work back in April, and I’m not sure that’s when I fell off of the wagon, but I’m pretty sure that’s when all four wheels of the wagon ran me over! It seemed that every day we went into town to do something, and while there, ate lunch out – and then being tired in the evening we would get “sloppy” for supper – you know – fix something quick and simple. 

It all started innocently enough – Hot Dogs w/ Chili for supper one night, and then some Chicken Nuggets and Fries (at least we fixed both of those in the oven). Finally my Mom talked me into have Fried Chicken one night (she was really growing tired of all the “George Forman Grilled” food) and it was all over but the crying! It wasn’t too long after that I started getting sloppy with my lunches. It seems my only (still) daily “healthy” meal was breakfast – either having a Special K meal bar or some Yogurt and Juice. My lunchtime fare had quickly morphed from low-fat Turkey on whole wheat to Subway, and then Wendy’s and Burger King “Grilled” chicken sandwiches and finally I realized I was simply just eating the way I used to.

Not only that, but my walking routine started to slip, and all of this coupled with a ton of extra stress that dumped itself into my life over the past 3-4 weeks and it’s all gone downhill very quickly.

It shows too. I’ve gained all but 5 pounds of what I lost back. I feel just as bad as I did when I started all of this – I feel fat, tired, bloated and just plain BLAH!

So, I mark tomorrow, June 1 2009 as National “Start Over” day. Tomorrow I start my diet again, and I start (seriously) trying to quit smoking again. 

Part of the “added stress” in my life over the past few weeks was my Mom’s health. She has a few things going on, but a biggie for me was that she was diagnosed with Emphysema. Luckily, it isn’t “severe” at least at this point, so no Oxygen tank or anything like that – she does get short of breath on long walks though. That hit me pretty hard, especially since I was so proud of the fact that she quit smoking over a year ago. She smoked for 45 years and quit cold turkey, so I think I can do it – I HAVE to do it.

So, if you see me tomorrow, wish me luck. If I don’t seem “cheerful” don’t take it personally. I’m probably hungry, and I’m sure I want to smoke

Yes, I’m a Last.FM addict. I don’t get into the “Social Networking” side of it - I don’t have friends (on Last.FM that is - well I might, but I haven’t looked, and probably won’t), and I still don’t understand what “Scrobbling” is, but I know that Last.FM gives me music I like to listen too, and if I change moods, I can make it change to keep up with me.

Initially after setting up Mandriva, I was using the fabulous Amarok media player to listen to my LastFM streams, but I just didn’t have the flexibility that I have with the official last.fm player. I checked the repositories, and sure enough, Mandriva had the official player packaged.

The official player is really nice, and very KDE centric since it’s written in QT4, but one thing bugs the devil out of me - I hate the System Tray icon - it looks like something “bad”. Even though I know what it is, when it catches my eye, I think I need to install an update, or I’ve got an error of some kind.

Last.FM developers - can’t you come up with something friendlier?

See here for what I’m talking about (it’s the red icon next to the clock):

This could be because I’m getting used to a new distro, and everything catches my eye, but this looks like something important that is trying to get my attention, not a media player chillin’ out playing some tunes!