I'm just saying -- how not to advertise a job

"The job description read 'wanted, go-getter with leadership skills and 3-5 years experience for job with a corporate future.'  Six months later my boss tells me I am 'trying too hard' and am 'abrasive.'  I'm totally discouraged.  What do I do now?"
Well, it's not necessarily your fault.  The company put out a generic ad knowing they were going to assign you to an office where the boss can't stand a challenge.  This boss, we'll use X, had an opening for somebody who needed help and support and not somebody who might actually be able to do X's job.

X might be giving you blowback from a mistaken idea of what mentoring is.  Mentoring isn't changing somebody to conform to your idea of what an employee should be.  It's fostering somebody's capabilities.  Sometimes that person has strengths you don't have.  You don't squash them, not if you're a real mentor.  You learn from them as you expect the person you're mentoring to learn from you.

There are companies where X's get into supervisory positions because of longevity, and because more talented people leave holes by going elsewhere.  X's are not mentors.  They sometimes get strokes from above by being told that they will mentor the new hire, but sometimes those above ignore or are totally unaware that X is not capable of real mentoring.  Or else they themselves are happy with the idea of square pegs having their corners shaved off to fit into round holes when it's the holes that should be enlarged and squared off.

So all in all, don't believe the advertising.  Use your networking.  See what people in your field say about the company running the ad.  If you find that people you respect decided not to work there, find out why.  People you respect may have realized that this is a company that doesn't "walk the talk" as we used to say.  Keep your resume up to date, learn what you can from this job, and save money so you can leave if you find that your worst fears are true.

I'm just saying...

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- timing is everything

We’re working on the laws in Deuteronomy 22:13-29.  The first issue when a groom thinks his bride wasn’t a virgin on the wedding night is, did he put down too much on the bride price assuming she was a virgin.

That’s a civil law question, and only needs three judges to decide.

But there’s also a criminal issue: did she commit adultery?  If she had sex with anybody except her betrothed after the betrothal, that’s considered adultery.

But remember, adultery is a capital crime and both the man and woman have to die.

Since it’s a capital crime, there have to have been witnesses that the girl was secluded with a specific man long enough for sex to occur, and the witnesses have to have stopped both of them beforehand and told them what they were risking.  You remember all that from the discussion of murder about a year ago.

If there are no witnesses, there is no crime and the groom cannot charge adultery. 

Even if there are witnesses, there have to be enough non-bonded men, who are not relatives of the parties, to judge the case.  By Mishnaic times, remember, there had to be 23 of them. 

Mishnaic law records that girls who were reputed virgins were married on Wednesday nights.  Talmud (Ketubbot 2, IIRC) says the reason is the parents may be arguing about the ketubbah and dowry up until the last moment.  It also says that the mother is with the girl the whole day making sure she is well dressed and groomed for the wedding.

The girl is considered betrothed whenever the families come to an agreement.  If they haven't agreed, they can't write the ketubbah.  If they haven't written the ketubbah, they can't sign it.  Until the ketubbah is signed by the guy and the girl, the marriage can't take place.  If that happens Wednesday during the day, and the wedding takes place that night, and the groom cries mekher taut the next morning, there's a very good chance that a charge of adultery will fail because there was no way for it to happen.

But the families can also reach agreement as much as a year before the date of the wedding ceremony, and that's the timing that Deuteronomy has to deal with. 

Next, another issue that separates Jewish family law from western family law over the last, oh, 25 centuries.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:17

Genesis 2:17

 

יז וּמֵעֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמוּת:

 

Transliteration: u-me-ets ha-daat tov va-ra lo tokhal mi-menu ki b’-yom akhalkha mi-menu mot tamut.

Translation:    From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will not eat of it for on the day of your eating from it MOT TAMUT.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

 

MOT TAMUT is the phrase I mentioned in the last lesson and I wanted to talk about it in detail so I left the last lesson short.

 

This is the one case where the adverbs don’t work, and that’s because the rest of Torah doesn’t allow the translation “definitely die.”  There's a grammatical clue for that which I will discuss a year from now.  I want to have you reading Hebrew really well before I discuss something I just learned in 2014.

 

The other contexts in which this phrase occurs all have to do with the death penalty in Jewish law.  They include Exodus 21:15-17, Exodus 22:18, Exodus 31:14-15, Leviticus 20:2, Leviticus 20:10-13, Leviticus 20:15-16, Leviticus 20:27, Leviticus 21:9, Leviticus 24:16, Numbers 15:35, Deuteronomy 13:1-12, and Deuteronomy 22:20-21.

 

As I discuss on the Fact-Checking page, the death penalty cannot be inflicted in Jewish law without due process.  That requires at least two witnesses to the transgression who stop the transgression, warn the people involved about what they’re attempting, get a verbal rejection of the advice, and see the crime go to completion. 

 

So when this verse uses the same phrase, Jews throughout time would have gotten a clue that the rest of the story was going to proceed according to Jewish law.

 

You may understand it differently, but you should also be watching the results closely, and then you will have to ask yourself a couple of questions.  Which I will point out when we get there.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Garden -- February

The number one thing you should be doing right now is pruning hedges and shrubs.
Today is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees.
Any day now, you will be seeing buds on hedges, shrubs and trees.  You have to finish up before the end of the month if you live south of the Mason Dixon line.
By the end of the month, the insects will be coming out and the birds will be nesting.
Guess what, the two things are related!
The birds are going to start building nests, mating and brooding just as their food supply comes out of the egg.
Prune now and get out of their way.

The next thing you have to do this month is get your mower blade sharpened.
Paying somebody to mow?
Tell them now that they have to set their blade at 3 inches, no more, no less.
They don't want to do that?
Then you need to buy a mower.
They agree to that?
Now tell them you won't pay them to mow during the summer drought. 
Not twice a week, not once a week.
They don't like that?
You need to buy a mower.
Finally, tell them they have to fertilize according to what kind of grass is in your lawn.
They don't know what kind of grass you have?
Then you need to take a sample to your garden store and ask them what it is.
See Mike McGrath's YBYG archives for where to go from there.
If asking questions makes your lawn service mad, you  don't have a lawn service, you just have somebody trying to make a buck off the fact that you don't know how to take care of your lawn.

For my grass, when the forsythias bloom, I will be putting down cornmeal gluten.
I have to measure how much I put down, so that I don't put down too much nitrogen.
It's state law.
Maryland and Virginia are trying to preserve income from crabbing and sport fishing in the ocean.
They can't do that if homeowners are shoving nitrogen into the water system.
Your lawn fertilizer should have 3 numbers on it: X-zero-zero.
The X is a number showing the amount of nitrogen.  Check your state law to see how much you can put down legally.
The zeroes are for phosphate and potassium.
In the Washington DC metro area, it is illegal for homeowners to use lawn fertilizers with anything but zeroes for those second two numbers.
For the same reason as the nitrogen issue, only more so.

Think globally, act locally.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Outdoors -- Squirrels

I named two of the squirrels.
Snigglefritz -- OK I know that's really German for rabbit but -- is small with a turned up nose and a short tail.
I mean, it's straight at the top and just barely as long as her body.
I think this is a female.  Could be wrong.
The first time I met Snigglefritz I was chasing her away from the feeder.
She didn't run.
She stood there and she had this look on her face like, "I'm a squirrel.  People love me because I'm cute.  Why are you doing this to me?"
She's well-trained now, in fact one day last week all I did was open the door and she went airborne trying to get away from me.

Tigger is larger with some red on him.  I could be wrong about the gender.
Tigger runs very very fast with his tail straight up in the air and when he runs away from me,
he deliberately (I'm sure of it) caroms off the old tree trunk to get to a gap under the fence into the next yard.
Tigger bounces.
Now you know why he got his name.

There's also a large squirrel who moves slowly; I think she's an old female.
Didn't name her.
Perhaps "Madame".

There are two more who only seem to show up when the other three are trying to steal food so I can't tell them apart.

I'm sure my garden guru, who calls squirrels "tree rats", is shaking his head sadly if he's reading this.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

DIY -- dryer balls

I wrote in the last post about laundry balls, the real name for which is dryer balls.  Sorry 'bout that.
These are balls of felted wool that you throw into the dryer with your wet clothes.
The felt takes up the static and helps the clothing turn out soft.
You can buy them at $20 for two from a famous houseware seller who will remain nameless.
You can also spend $8 on two balls of Wool of the Andes
but it has to be the non-superwash version.
Each ball of yarn will produce one dryer ball.
Wrap the yarn into a tight ball.
Slip into the leg of an old pair of panty hose and tie the hose off so each ball is in its own compartment.
Wash in HOT water at least once.
Scratch to see whether the balls unwrap and if so, wash again.
You can use these naturally unscented balls for about 5 years or until they unwrap.
Check your favorite dryer treatment and see if it's $8 or less for 5 years' worth.
If it's cheaper than the dryer balls, fuhgeddaboudit.
You can also scent the dryer balls yourself with a few drops of some essential oil.
Lots of websites sell essential oils for use in aromatherapy, candles, even as perfume.
Just another thing to do for yourself that might save you money.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Knitting -- new yarn

OK I told you about the Perly Perle so that you could get some in time to try a summer tee.
It knits fine; you could also crochet some fairly nice tablewear with it in dozens of colors.

Now I'll tell you about Wool of the Andes which is 100% Peruvian wool.
A lot of people have wool allergies or sensitivities, like some relatives of mine.
If it's really an allergy, you don't want to use Wool of the Andes.
If wool prickles you, you might want to try it.
I bought 4 balls of the worsted weight to see how many socks I could get out of them.
It looks like I'll get two pairs.
I used the crew sock pattern I bought years ago, which I have memorized.
If you could spend 8 hours a day at it, you would make up a pair in less than a week on this yarn.
I love the softness.
There are dozens of colors; the Blossom Heather I used is a lovely pink.
There are 3 weights and my plan is to replace a couple of experiments that used a rather prickly wool
with things in Wool of the Andes, like a garter-stitch all-knit light coat with a hood.

By March I'll be able to tell you how well this wool wears; soft as it is, it might pill up quickly
and those pills mean that the yarn is wearing out
and that would mean you want to save it for things you wear on special occasions.
According to reviews on the website, however, it felts well and felt is more durable.
p.s. if you've never felted your knitting before, do NOT buy the Superwash versions of this wool.  Superwash is deliberately made to avoid felting.
p.p.s.  This would also be good yarn for making felted laundry balls because it's not very expensive given the quality but, again, do NOT buy the Superwash version for that.  More on those in another post.

Stay tuned!
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved