Chain saws and the Eucharist

On Saturday we went to the funeral of our co-worker's husband, mentioned here last Monday. The church was full. The evening before, winds from a severe thunderstorm had uprooted trees and broken branches throughout the area. So, while the mourners gathered for the funeral Mass on that warm summer morning, the rest of the town was cleaning up, cutting away the broken limbs and dragging brush to the roadside for the chippers. After the Mass, we went the airport to pick up Mike and Lynn.

M&L had a wonderful time, meeting people, seeing sights. We dropped them off at their house where they could exchange cuddles and kisses with their children and then we went off to the camp. We were tired from the week and it was barely dark when we went to bed.

There was an interesting, if somewhat flawed article in yesterday's BostonWorks about depression and work. It's flawed because some of the facts about depression aren't presented quite right. The article claims that 15% of clinically depressed people commited suicide; it's more likely that 15% attempt suicide. The author also mixes up anxiety attacks with depression; they are related, but separate illnesses. The article cites a book named Working in the Dark: Keeping Your Job While Dealing With Depression, which I have ordered.

Anyway, it's an interesting piece, made more so for me because I had a chat with my manager about my health last week. I needed to have that talk because my health was starting to have an affect, at least from my perspective, on my ability to do my work. He was very supportive and assured me that my performance was still what he was expecting of me. That was encouraging. When I look back at my time at my previous, I can see that I was starting to go into a skid during my last couple of years there. I made some bad decisions and dug myself into a few holes. Had I known and been able to talk about it, I might have saved my manager and myself some embarrassment.

In one more example of Google not being like the rest of us, think about what Google expects of its chef the next time you go to lunch at your place of employment. BTW, C|Net got into some trouble with Google for this story

I was working at a diner on August 8, 1974 when Richard Nixon announced his resignation. The restaurant, which would normally be fairly busy, was empty, except for the two waitresses, the dishwasher, and yours truly. We listened on the radio as this Shakespearean character stepped from the stage, an odd, misshapen, seemingly friendless man who could see poetry in the histrionics of Mao and Zhou.