Here’s the flip side of yesterday’s discussion about saying lovely things that people want to hear.

That Guy In The Hat revealed the following bit of information about his role at work:

I am “The Department of No.” I’m the guy that has said to co-workers, “Reality is over here waving ‘hello’ to you. Come join us for a while and then you can go back to where you live.” I’m not a terribly popular person.

Just as it is exceedingly pleasant to deliver the good news that parking is FREE, it can be demoralizing to be forced to play the Messenger of No. I avoid doing it whenever possible, and I know I’m not alone. At the Fringe Festival, venue managers have to stand firm as they enforce the festival’s No Late Seating rule. Rumor has it that harsh words have been exchanged and tears have been shed over this simple regulation.

And yet sometimes “No” is a very useful thing to hear because it can focus your attention. When I was a high school freshman, I wrote a homecoming skit to represent our class at a pep rally competition, but after watching one rehearsal the faculty advisor refused to let us perform it. There was something about the tone and approach that was so wrong he said he would rather that we offer no skit at all than present the one we had prepared. It would hardly matter, he noted, since the juniors or seniors were bound to take first prize anyway. As writer/director, that ticked me off. I had one night to re-write and one morning to rehearse the cast and get approval before we performed our bit for the whole school.

We won, of course.

I doubt that would have happened without a necessary kick in the pants from the Department of No.

When has the word “no” been a blessing in disguise?

I’ve been volunteering at the Fringe Festival the past few days and on Sunday I got the best possible assignment – standing at the entrance of a University Parking Garage to tell people the parking was FREE.

There was no joke or gimmick involved, and no sandwich sign to wear. It was simply an opportunity to make that one – to – one personal connection that means so much.

People would drive up to the ramp with a confused look in their eyes – a look that turned to suspicion when they saw me standing by the ticket machine, and then turned to resignation when they realized I wanted them to roll down their window.

They brightened right up when they heard the message. Parking is FREE!

Why?
It’s Sunday!
Why is the mechanical arm blocking my way?
The garage’s computer thinks the ramp is full, but it’s NOT full!
How do I get in?
You have to go in through the exit! No penalty. Parking is FREE.
OK then. Awesome.

Later, out of fatigue or frustration, the stubborn mechanical arm that was blocking the entrance lifted. Now the people had open access to the FREE parking. I could have walked away at that point but why leave? There might be some lingering confusion or doubt, and I could dispel it with a wave of my hand. So I did. I directed people through the entrance, calling out FREE PARKING as they sailed happily by.

Of course I missed the more intimate human contact of the earlier confused/suspicious/resigned/relieved sequence, but if anything the drivers seemed MORE pleased at receiving this great boon without having to talk to me.

There was no difference in the way people responded to my message. All demographic groups whether sorted by age, sex, skin color, religion, IQ or zip code were delighted to hear that parking was FREE, and I was delighted to tell them. What a lovely afternoon.

I made a promise to myself then and there. I will hesitate to criticize politicians for “telling people only what they want to hear.” I discovered just how much fun it is.

When have you enjoyed the pleasure of bringing good news to strangers?

I’ve had a lot of cards in the mail from politicians lately. Something must be going on! Here’s one that came from Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s liquid 9th district.

Greetings, Constituents!

It’s a beautiful time to be in Minnesota’s 9th, which includes AND is limited to all the water surface area in the state. I agree that it’s an unusual way to draw the lines that divide congressional districts, and if you looked at a map of the 9th it would appear to be a spray of freckles across the face of a perplexed state. But it does make sense on a number of levels.

1 – It brings together many, many sparsely populated areas. There are quite a few Minnesotans who live on the edges of lakes, but their homes are not in my district. The 9th is water surface only, so I represent a lot of houseboat residents and people who list jet skis, pleasure craft and ice-fishing structures as their primary residences.

2- These are often places of relaxation. Beer is the district’s number one beverage all day long, and its effects are cumulative. This makes the 9th a relatively conservative district early in the day, and wildly liberal the closer you get to sundown. After dark, 9th districters rarely say no to anything. It is truly a “swing” district, and the two sides of our personality tend to create a balance.

3 – The boundaries of my district are clear to the naked eye. You can tell exactly where the 9th begins and ends – something that’s not true with other congressional districts in general, even if there are stark political differences on either side of the line. In a logical world, you would be able to tell where Betty McCollum Territory ends and Michele Bachmann Land begins, but you can’t, just by looking at it.

I’m proud to represent Minnesota’s 9th congressional district, and I encourage all residents to get out and vote on Tuesday, August 10th in the state primary.

As an independent, I’m running unopposed this time. But with so few registered voters, even a loosely organized write-in campaign could unseat me. Everybody says incumbents need to look over their shoulders. I am trying to look over both my shoulders at the same time. If you want to know whether I favor the left one or the right one, let’s talk. I can tilt pretty much whichever way you want. That’s public service!

And if you’re visiting the 9th district for summer recreation, have a wonderful time. You should have voted “absentee” in your home district. If you didn’t, please don’t try to vote in our primary unless you’re voting for me, and you think you can get away with it.

Of course I disavow any knowledge of your actions.

Thanks for your kind attention!

Congressman Loomis Beechly.

Are you planning to vote in tomorrow’s primary?

In response to a string of comments from yesterday, here’s an anniversary song for Clyde and the Mrs.

Alongside great art like Paul Robeson singing Shenandoah, the internet is full of strange, inexplicable things that exist only to make you pay attention for a few moments before you share it with your friends. They pay attention for a few moments and send it to THEIR friends, and before long a huge pool of human attention has been collected so it can be sold to advertisers. This is the world we live in.

I’m not making things any better by sharing this with you, but how could I resist?

If this sounds familiar to you, here’s why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThquH5t0ow

Have a wonderful summer weekend!
Name a song that makes absolutely no sense.

Yesterday’s drier, cooler air was an invitation to open the windows and go outside, so I did. What a lovely world we live in. The outdoor spaces are so inviting, and there’s a lot to do out there!

August 5th was the day I finally decided to put out the garden hoses and bring in the extra long extension cord that had powered 2009’s Christmas lights. While I was outside it occurred to me that the lawn could use its annual springtime feeding. And how “pre” does a pre-emergent weed treatment have to occur? Is it too early to put some down for the emergence scheduled for spring in 2011? 2010 is a lost cause, I’m afraid.

When it comes to yard chores I realize I’m late getting started, but in my defense I should point out that there is a certain balance to my calendar. I usually don’t bring the hoses in until November. But getting the house ready for winter is always a challenge. The week between Christmas and New Year’s comes in handy for that, and I do a lot of my autumn raking in April.

The seasons race ahead while I struggle to keep up.

I’d say it’s a fair bet that my Myers-Briggs results will not identify me as a prime candidate to lead a band of primitive hunter-gatherers. Under my guidance, we’d always be late for the harvest and miles behind the herd. For that matter, I would not have made much headway as a Cro-Magnon man either. It’s tough to be successful on a cave bear hunt if you’re just getting around to sharpening the antler points on your jabbing stick when everybody else is set to go.

We all feel pretty advanced when it comes to comparisons with ancient humans who wore animal skins and hunted with spears, but I wonder. Fred Flintstone dressed in a business suit and magically inserted in a downtown Minneapolis cubicle farm or dropped into a board meeting would probably do better for longer than any one of us were we suddenly transferred to the Upper Paleolithic office for a Wooly Mammoth expedition.

I could have done OK during the Bronze Age though I tend to shy away from molten metals. The Roman Empire might have been a congenial place to land as long as I could manage to stay out of the Gladiator business.

Timing is everything.

Historically, what era is your best “fit”?

Here’s a note that came in late yesterday from marketing guru and idea man Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

We’ve got an exciting project underway right now to help some very smart and enterprising people bring back Airships! Several companies are working on it right now, and we have a difficult and challenging assignment here at Spin Williams Ideas and Marketing! Naming!

We’re very, very excited about traveling in these lighter-than-air craft, but please don’t call them blimps, zeppelins or dirigibles! And whatever you do, don’t refer to them as Hindenburgs! All these names are loaded with heavy baggage and you know how it is when you want to go flying – heavy baggage is costly and it slows you down! These are the drawbacks we face:

Blimp – the name sounds round and slow and goofy. In the minds of Americans, “blimp” will always be associated with a tire manufacturer and/or a sandwich shop.

Dirigible – This word is hard to say properly. DEAR-idg-able? Often it comes out as DIRGE-able, and a dirge is always a downer.

Zeppelin – We love the snazzy “Z” at the beginning of this word and the double “P’s”. It has a very nice look and it flies off the tongue, but like so many things, the Nazis ruined it for us! There’s no going back.

Hindenburg – Speaking of Nazis, this name links to a bad memory, even for people who weren’t there at the time and so they can’t actually “remember” it. This name leads directly to visual and aural images of flames and falling and tragedy – unhappy connections, at least until the Broadway musical comes out.

Our assignment is to come up with a new, more popular name to stick on the next generation of lighter than air ships, although our client doesn’t like “airship”. Too much history, he says, preferring “Hybrid Air Vehicle”.

Obviously he is in desperate need of help.

So far at The Meeting That Never Ends, we’ve floated these ideas:

Floater.
Bubble Craft.
Air Cushion.
Pillowcraft.
Helium Rocket.
Sky Liner.
Fluff Train.
Puff Plane.
Buoyant Bus.
Cloud Cruiser.

Just like taking a trip in a new generation Hybrid Air Vehicle, it’s been great fun to take off, watching the ropes drop away as we rise majestically into a clear blue sky, but we’re a long, long, long way from getting anywhere!

What do you think of our ideas so far? If you have a new suggestion, we’ll consider any reasonable offers, and we’ll even look at the unreasonable ones!

I told Spin I’m a bit partial to “Puff Plane”, but he and his team should also consider “Stout Bird”.

How are you at naming things?

Here’s a note that came in early this morning from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hi Mr. C.,

Well, it’s August, and that means summer is almost over. Just four weeks to go until Labor Day. Ugh! I can’t believe I wasted almost the whole thing. No summer job. No summer romance. And I still haven’t managed to crack level 100 in Crime Wave Zombie Spree, even though I’ve spent almost ten hours on it every single day!

My folks think I’m throwing my life away, but I think the eye – hand coordination I’m developing by playing video games pretty much nonstop is going to be a real valuable skill now and in the future years to come. With machines doing more and more for us, the jobs of tomorrow are going to be mostly button-pushing and joystick bumping marathons, so even the long hours are really, really good practice!

Mr. Boozenporn said in Econ 201 last year that we would have to compete for work with everybody in China, which is a lot of people to have to go up against. And he said the Chinese people know how to work hard, unlike the lazy slobs who grow up in the lap of luxury here in the USA. And then my friend Danny stood up and told Mr. Boozenporn he should be ashamed of browbeating us and lowering our self esteem. Danny said if we started to think we were total losers, we’d flunk all our tests and next year’s Econ 201 class at Wilkie High would be taught online by Mr. Chin from Shanghai!

Everybody thought that was pretty funny. And we all got detention that day.

Anyway, I read this crazy article that said teenagers get extra grumpy in the summer because they get too much daylight, which makes us just like vampires, which is incredibly cool! So I try to act really surly when my parents are around so they’ll start to think maybe I am part vampire, a little bit. What with all the movies and books on the topic if the rumor gets out that I’m kinda bloodthirsty and bat-like, it could help meet girls! I know what you’re going to say – that it won’t matter if I don’t ever leave the basement. Well here’s a secret just between you and me. I’ve been sneaking out of the house around 2 pm every Tuesday and Thursday to go to a nursing home just down the street. I’m the volunteer bingo caller! B-7! G-4! The old people are cool and for some reason I really like watching ping pong balls roll around inside their wire cage.

But don’t tell anybody. I wouldn’t want the folks to think I’m being unselfish ’cause they’d get all dewy eyed about me doing a good deed and it and it really makes me uncomfortable when they blubber. Plus, it would ruin the whole zombie killer – basement rat – part vampire image I’m trying to build.

Your pal,
Bubby

Ever sneak out of the house as a teenager?

One job finding strategy for the unemployed in the 21st century involves a process of looking inside to figure out what sort of person you are. This is especially useful for the fortunate ones who do not have to take the very first paying job that comes along and would like to delay putting on shoes and socks for as long as possible.

If I were Congress, I would create a bi-partisan commission to study my joblessness with the aim of issuing a 2,000 page report detailing my options sometime before Christmas. The report would probably tell me I don’t have the resources to support so much dithering, but by the time I read it, we’ll be at the holiday recess, and things don’t really ramp up again until sometime in February.

But I’m not Congress, so for me the next best thing is to spend some time sitting in a beach chair in the August sunshine, poring over a list of multiple-choice questions that will eventually tell me who I am and what kind of job might make me happy. Easy work, and there’s no harm in it as long as I stay under the daily limit for pina colada consumption.

Of course, this relaxed approach assumes there are millions of attractive, available jobs that prospective employers are anxious to fill, and the only problem is deciding which of the ripe, succulent fruit to pick! Nice fantasy! I already feel the drinks kicking in.

So, what sort of person am I, and what would I like to do?

I am the sort of person who does not like self-examination. What I would really like to do is have someone else tell me the answer this question.

One thing I learned about personality assessments is that asking a question only once is for losers. You have to ask the same question a dozen different ways to try to get around people’s strange compulsion to be consistent. As a result, the test feels like having a conversation with someone who is really not listening to you.

I am still waiting for the results, but I have already figured out all on my own that I am the sort of person who would enjoy writing Personality Assessment Tests.

Choose the answer that feels right. Don’t spend too much time thinking about it.

Are you the sort of person who …
Likes to think things through?
Goes with your first instinct.

Do you like to …
Plan things down to the minute?
Make it up as you go.

When you socialize with others do you …
Like to have it on the calendar well in advance?
Organize a party on the spur of the moment.

If you have a major project to complete at work do you …
Make a list of all the steps before you begin?
Start immediately and think later.

Palate cleanser! In each of the following pairs of random words, which is more appealing to you?

Hairspray
Mousse

Grapefruit
Chandelier

Pigweed
Limousine

Regimented
Free

Obvious
Deceptive

Back to the ‘don’t-think-too-much-about-these’ questions!

Are your favorite kinds of questions …
Repetitive?
The same over and over.

When you try to answer repetitive questions do you strive to be …
Consistent?
Quick.

How much thinking is too much?
A lot?
Any amount.

How much did you think about that last question?
Not at all.
More, now that you bring it up.

Placenames! Pick only one! Don’t judge them on how they sound or look, only on how they make you feel!

Death Row.
Copacabana.

Vatican City.
Antarctica.

Beaver Cleaver’s House.
The Bates Motel.

The Rock of Gibraltar.
The Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame.

The Naval Academy.
Disneyland.

Last round! I’ll have another one of whatever it is I’ve already had!

Would you rather have people say you are …
Afraid of change.
Afraid of routine.

When you take a trip do you …
Plan every moment in advance.
Grab a wad of cash and walk out the door.

You would like to have lunch with …
Lindsay Lohan.
Mussolini.

Reaching the last question on the assessment makes you feel …
Like I should re-check my answers for consistency.
Like having another pina colada.

Thanks for completing the assessment. If you’ve thoughtfully answered every question, you are the sort of person who has a lot of time and patience and does what they are told to do as a courtesy to others and possibly out of some weird compulsion to complete every task, no matter how meaningless.

If you skipped past all the above nonsense to get here, you are a free spirit and a line-budger who just wants to get it over with and move on to the next thing.

Really, that’s who you are. Unless you have some other idea?

Here are photos of this week’s new arrivals at Barb and Steve’s farm.
Watch for updates at their blog, Out To Pasture.

This is what Barb says about them:

We are enjoying the two immensely. They are scared. But the bravest one (Lassi) i’m afraid is pretty dumb also (just kidding). Got her head stuck in a narrow part of the fence panel and yelled like bloody murder when I was trying to get it back out. So tonight I’ll be afraid to sleep and will run out every two minutes to check to see what mischief she’s gotten herself into. Kona is more shy and more sensible. Dream and Alba are not sure yet. We will keep the kiddos separate from the Big Girls for a couple weeks.

I don’t know about goats, but that seems like a smart choice to keep the newbies and the old hands apart for a while here at the beginning.

When you are in a brand new place and nothing is familiar, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and a bit dumb, especially if one of your first moves is to get your head stuck in a fence. If you’re lucky, your hosts will be patient about helping you extricate yourself. They’ll even go out of their way to check on you. This is not always the case when you’re a rookie. Those who are already established are required by nature to size you up and to assess your worthiness. Sometimes the newcomer can begin to feel like an imposter.

When I was 12 my family moved from a lovely little spot in the Hudson River Valley just north of New York City to the edge of an agricultural city in central Illinois. I went to school in a small town ten miles outside the city limits – not far but the distance was great enough to reach a whole new level of reality concerning New York and Out East.

Never mind that I had only been to New York City a handful of times. I was instantly popular, and there was a space of about three days where, if I had known what was happening, I could have become the undisputed ruler of my middle school.

My advantage (and curse) had a lot to do with the sounds and sights of NYC that had filtered through film, TV and radio to that small town. Everybody knew that New York City was The Big Apple, populated by ruthless tough guys and wealthy big shots. Business there was conducted under a different standard that virtually required a certain amount of despicable big city behavior. Anybody from New York City was bound to have secret ways of getting what he wanted. It might involve cement overshoes and a body tossed in the river. So be it. People were interested to see what I would do to assert my authority in a place where the nearest river was only 2 feet deep. Dropped into that new environment, I was a dangerous mystery – unpredictable and scary cool.

Given a different personality and a new set of goals, I could have been the Vito Corleone of Macon, Illinois. Instead, I got my head stuck in the fence, and it didn’t take long for people to realize I was the opposite of what they expected. It was a huge personal relief for me when they finally figured it out, though for the kids who wanted to be hit men and gun molls instead of farmers, the disappointment lingered for several years.

Have you ever been the “new” person? How did you adapt?