Who Wins?

The fight goes on, and it's gotten more dirty and brutal. Deplorable as the mud-slinging and lies are during voting "season", the fact that our government has become so terribly ineffective of late is quite distressing.

Now, my goal here is not to post anything of a political nature, but every day I read more about he-said-she-said-he-said-she-said nonsense that our elected political officials engage in. Apparently, nobody is telling the truth about anything, and everyone on the opposing side is less than patriotic, not a real American. 

There are good and bad on both sides, and as members of other less significant political parties as well. With less than two weeks to go until the extremely important midway elections the pandering, slandering, glib fibbing and disjointing finger-pointing has become completely out of control. Each party knows how important it is to have control of both aspects of Congress, and they're all posturing to rouse their base constituents to vote, and to try to sway the Independents to their own brand of dirty politics.

Anyone that knows me knows my affiliation, but this is not the forum for that. I don't want to engage in any political debates in my blogs, as there are plenty of other venues on line for that sort of thing. No, this is to just bring to light that we all need to take anything these power-hungry A-Type personalities have to say and investigate the veracity of their rhetoric. Regardless of our political leanings. Information is the key, and making an informed vote is imperative to ensuring that our system works how it should. Research, read, investigate the genuine facts. Get information from unbiased sources. Doveryai, no proveryai. Trust, but verify.

Finally, vote. Vote vote vote! Everyone's vote counts, everyone's. Just because you may have voted in other elections and your candidate lost, or the referendum didn't pass doesn't mean that your vote didn't mean anything. It was just our system of Government, OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people was working. If every one of you who decided not to vote for whatever reason, understand that if you want things to go the way YOU think they should, then YOU need to vote. The more YOUs that do, the better chance YOU have of your candidate being elected. Vote. When you do you'll feel great!

(C)Brooklyn Boy Marketing Solutions 2014

 

 

Moon Over the Lake

The wonderful thing about school, for me, is that I can take advantage of my professors' knowledge, and interpret it in a way that reflects who I am. Not that I even have that quite figured out yet, but that's one of the other great benefits about being back in school. I have the chance to really find the true Perry Marshall Snitkin. 

Yes, my middle name IS Marshall, and, yes, my initials are PMS. Enjoy.

Anyway, as mind rumpling as all this may be, I'm having a great time learning new software, like Photoshop, and how much work it takes to create a viable website. Without drag-and-drop features of course, with actual coding. By December I will have my first hand-made website up and running. I will be coding the rules, styling and content in their entirety. I just need to check my stash of Xanax to make sure I have enough to keep me from smashing my already damaged head against the sheetrock. 

The photograph above is one I took recently. Actually, it's two photos. One of the lake and one of the moon. Photoshop allowed me to take two good photographs and blend them into a good third image. 

 

 On an unrelated topic, I've been told there is some confusion as to how one can post comments on these blogs.

 

 When you get to the Comment as: part, there's a drop-down menu. Click the arrow and choose Name/URL. Then just type your name in the Name: box, click continue, post your comment and click Publish.

 

Thank you all for your kind words, love and support. They make a confounding task so much easier to navigate. 

 

 

 

 Decisions, Decisions . . .

 

 Sometimes making a decision isn't just a simple this-or-that. Sometimes it's this or that or the other thing, or maybe something else. It is tough enough deciding on a new piece of furniture, a movie to see, a place to eat, but when the decision could possibly impact your life, well, the deciding becomes angst laden.

2014 has been a year of some truly life changing decisions for me. When I lost my job in March I had to decide whether to jump back into the same industry I'd worked in, and hated, for years and years. In fact, the decision to even go back to work in any type of sales position (I sold cars, advertising, body jewelry, shoes and furniture) made me a wreck. 

After 40 years as a grown-up, after who knows how many jobs, after working at jobs I thought I was supposed to be, I decided that I needed to decide what to do from here. I knew I did not want to sell stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty good salesman, and I did my job with tremendous integrity and dedication, but the whole process really went against everything in which I believe - candor, honesty and truthfulness. That made me take personal inventory. What do I have to offer aside from knowing how to sell stuff?

As it turns out I have a creative facet. I always knew I could write, and I have had a few news articles published in a local paper, but perusing the job ads I knew I needed to have more to offer than just being able to put words together in a seemingly pleasing fashion. So, what else? I'm no dummy, I know that. What else though? What more did I need in order to not only earn a good income, but to ensure that I was feeling fulfilled? 

I decided to approach the decision making process from a different perspective. Sometimes there's more to see in the negative space. The want ads began to tell a story, a story of how things have changed, a story of what it would take to best market myself. Suddenly things started to come clear. 

I needed to fill in the blanks. Learning how to work within the guidelines of 21st century technology was more than I could handle on my own, so, here I am, an almost 60 year old community college student, working to fully embrace the things that will make me more embraceable. 

Ultimately I will be able to not only create websites for people and businesses, but I'll be able to write all the copy and market their sites on various social media platforms. But, baby steps, right? I do need to create my first website on my own, without dragging and dropping, and that's what this blog has been leading to. What should be my first actual site? I do have two that I put together the easy way, and one of them was going to be my maiden coding voyage. One, www.focalfusion.org is something I put together to attempt to start an Adult ADD support group in Sussex County. 

The other, www.brooklynboymarketingsolutions.com is a website I began as part of a potential advertising/marketing company. Thanks to the advice of one of my great professors my decision was glaringly clear - organize and categorize all of my years of photography and writing and market my history via the future. 

Brooklyn won. The next two months will be filled with hard work, frustration and a sense of self satisfaction I can't remember ever feeling. From this point on my blogging will be focused on my progress during this, what should prove to be, most daunting task. It was a decision hard found, but well made.

Whom Do You Trust?

. . . Seriously . . .

Okay. Whom DO you trust the most? The least? How much do you trust, say, your dentist, clergy person, car salesman, attorney, local politician, your boss? Civilized society is based on a great deal of trust, both blatant and unknown.

 

Trust is defined in The Merriam Webster dictionary as: belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc. A very simple definition for what is actually a very complex concept. After all, none of us trust everyone or everything fully, nor do we distrust that which we feel deserves that faithlessness 100%. We all maintain different levels of trust, from implicit to impossible.

Trust begins the moment we emerge from the warmth, comfort and endless supply of nourishment our mothers provide us for nine months. It's then when we begin a life of trust and faith. Faith that we will be fed, clothed and sheltered. Faith in our parents to care for us when we're ill, to ensure we have shoes that fit, to protect us from the unknown dangers that seem to be lurking around every corner and under every bed. We, most of us, learn to have faith in whatever deity colors our cultures and lifestyles. Teachers, doctors, friends and family are all objects of our naive and untainted faith of our early childhood. As we grow up, and we experience disappointments - betrayal of our blind faith - we begin to mistrust. The more we learn, the more we realize that the world isn't rainbows and unicorns, for the storm clouds enter our lives at the most inopportune moments, and unicorns . . . well, we all know that the Tooth Fairy rode off on its back into the setting sun of our faith and imagination. 

It all begins to wear on us, and we start to question our very existence. What is life? Why are we here? What's the point? Who can we turn to? The answer is, of course, a simple one. We turn to ourselves. The big question is, how much do we trust ourselves? Being our own most stringent critics, our self-trust is as up and down and rickety as the Cyclone in Coney Island. However, even with the bad decisions marbled with the good, like a premium steak our lives tend to be filled with tremendous flavor. Savor the moments, and never second guess yourself. If you think about it, any lack of trust you've grown to perceive is because you probably forgot that the one person you can always count on is you.

Customer Service

Make That Customer DISservice!

Problem? Find the number to call for customer service. Enter the number, enable the call, and be prepared with a jar of Xanax and the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, for your journey into the bowels of Hell has just begun!

Your first robotic prompt is whether you'd like English (press 1) or Spanish (pulsar dos). Then you're informed to listen carefully as their menu has changed. You listen, carefully, the vast menu of prompts sweeping by without anything that remotely matches up to the reason you called. So, you press 0, hoping to get the operator. Nice try. The menu prompts begin once again, so you press #. ##. ###############, but the blathering recording continues. You decide to wait until the end, and then you hear " . . . or remain on the line to speak with one of our customer service specialists." You acquiesce, and the horrible music begins. Actually, the music isn't bad, but the degradation of quality from the initial recording, filtered through their system, through your cell phone and into your ear turns it into a CIA torture device. This audible abuse is interrupted by a recording telling you that their agents are all busy helping other customers, but your call is very important, so please wait on the line. After about four or five minutes of this you hear the phone ring, and a person speaks! You've just won the lottery! Or at least it feels that way, you imagine. You hear her voice, but her words are mashed together like Thanksgiving yams, and all you understand is Thankyoufor . . . . . HowcanIhelpyou? She said her name, but you neglected to bring your tape recorder so you could tape it and then listen to it in a slower speed. No matter, you start to tell her your troubles with the company, and she tells you she understands and she's sorry you're experiencing whatever it is you're experiencing and she can imagine how frustrating that must be for you. But, you know she doesn't really get it, she's handling you with what has become the current standard for problem resolution. 

I could keep going, but I think you get the gist. Customer service is anything but. It's become less about servicing the customer and more about overcoming objections and conflicts. Allow me to explain.

Conflict resolution has become big business in the USA. Management Consultant companies have successfully sold corporations on the idea that the best way to remain profitable is to best learn how to handle customer complaints. The operative word is "handle" and this is what we experience. 

Does this sound familiar?

• Repeat the complaint. (Just so I understand, your new non-leather simulated rubber-soled shoes have caused your feet to emit excessive odors?)
• Apologize. (I'm sorry you're offending people with your stinky feet.)
• Empathize. (I understand how having smelly feet can be a problem, especially in social situations.)
• Inquire as to the customer's expectations. (How can we help you with your smelly feet problem?)

 You've been handled, and you keep being handled, for their primary objective is to defuse your anger as opposed to genuinely helping you. So, you ask to speak with a manager. Sometimes you'll be placed on hold again, until a supervisor comes on and handles you some more, only this time with a more authoritative approach. And on and on it goes. You may as well be speaking with the customer service representative in the moon. (See how I tied the graphic in?!)

 

There are exceptions. There are some companies that will go out of their way to ensure your satisfaction, or you may get lucky and connect with someone, in a bad company, with a great attitude and the temerity to push the procedural fundamentalists to step outside of the constraints of the script. That's when you know someone is truly working with your best interests in mind.

 

Businesses have reached a crossroad. The direction they take now will determine their future, for as technology grows exponentially, so does the savvy of the consumer. Keeping customers on hold for five, ten, fifteen minutes, telling us they can't help us, bouncing us from department to department all contribute to customers defecting to other companies. The businesses that hire and properly train ample and capable personnel and maintain a corporate culture of the customers being their strongest assets will realize a loyal and dedicated foundation of satisfied clients.

Attention Deficit Disorder

It's Not Just For Kids!

(C) focalfusion.org 2014

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, like all aspects of mental illness, is sorely misunderstood, even by those that struggle along every day with their scattered and lost thoughts. For those of you that escaped the scourge of mental illness, trying to comprehend the world in which we live is like a pre-schooler trying to capture the concept of string theory.

Kids have been diagnosed for ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - since 1902. Benzedrine was given to children as early as 1937, and Dr. Charles Bradley observed that the children that were given the medication were more attentive. Ritalin was introduced in 1955, and in 1968 Hyperkinetic Impulse Disorder was finally recognized as a mental illness. The name was changed in 1980 to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The human brain is an intricately complex network of interconnected parts, run by electrical currents that can readily be redirected for myriad reasons. Even with our current advanced technology, we still are befuddled by why certain people end up with certain mental illnesses. Is it genetics, environment, both, neither? Why is it that some of us can co-exist alongside our ADD, and others have a most difficult time coping with life as we suppose it should be? As Kramer said to Jerry when he was redesigning his apartment: "It's all about levels!"

ADD in adults takes on a bit of a different dynamic. Children are fairly closely monitored - at home, in school, etc. - and any seeming abnormality can be detected and addressed, and with ADD/ADHD, catching it in children will help make them better adults, for they'll know how to best control their impulses and attention spans. With grown-ups it's different. I wasn't diagnosed with ADD until I was 57 years old. My entire life was me trying to understand why I couldn't remember facts and figures, why I wasn't able to step on the proverbial gas and place my life and career into overdrive, why I couldn't begin what I wanted or continue what I began. The frustrations of the disease shadowed me and tainted my existence.

For 16 years I was being treated for clinical depression. Actually, it's Dysthymia, what has actually just recently been renamed to Persistent Depressive Disorder. Essentially it's a low-grade, chronic and pervasive form of depression. I went through psychiatrists, psychologists, treatment and a tremendous amount of different medications before I found a psycho-cocktail that seemed to work for me, but I still didn't feel as if things were quite right. I chalked it up to my Dysthymic disorder and resigned myself to the probability of living with it forever. Then one day - the story is just way too long to include here! - I ended up in the ER, my mind and body just about ready to burst at the seams. 

A very nice woman - an on-duty psychologist - finally came to speak with me in the examination room and began asking me such on-point questions that I finally asked her: "How do you know all this about me?! (Jokingly . . . ) Have you been following me?" As soon as the words left my mouth it dawned on me that I was in the hospital emergency room speaking about my issues with a psychologist, and maybe asking her if she'd been following me wasn't the best question I could have posed to her!

Ultimately, she  asked if anyone had ever spoken with me regarding ADD, which nobody ever had. Her recommendation was to get tested, which I did. Turns out, i was told by my psychiatrist that I have ADD, without the 'H'. She prescribed medication, I started taking it, and an amazing thing happened! My head cleared, I felt like a normal person, probably for the first time in my life. The problem, though, has been trying to let go of a lifetime of bad habits and behavior patterns. It's been tough, granted, but I can see not only the present, and a more clear image of what the future can be, but I can see back through my time on this planet, and understand why I'd done the things I did, and why I couldn't do the things I desired.

There are countless books and websites dedicated to Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder. If you think you may have a good number of the symptoms, please have yourself tested. You'll thank yourself for it.

ADHD in Adults

If you have exhibited at least twelve of the following behaviors since childhood and if these symptoms are not associated with any other medical or psychiatric condition, consider an evaluation by a team of ADHD professionals:

• A sense of underachievement, of not meeting one’s goals (regardless of how much one has actually accomplished).
• Difficulty getting organized.
• Chronic procrastination or trouble getting started.
• Many projects going simultaneously; trouble with follow through.
• A tendency to say what comes to mind without necessarily considering the timing or appropriateness of the remark.
• A frequent search for high stimulation.
• An intolerance of boredom.
• Easy distractibility; trouble focusing attention, tendency to tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or conversation, often coupled with an inability to focus at times.
• Often creative, intuitive, highly intelligent
• Trouble in going through established channels and following “proper” procedure.
• Impatient; low tolerance of frustration.
• Impulsive, either verbally or in action, as an impulsive spending of money.
• Changing plans, enacting new schemes or career plans and the like; hot-tempered.
• A tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; a tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about, alternating with attention to or disregard for actual dangers.
• A sense of insecurity.
• Mood swings, especially when disengaged from a person or a project.
• Physical or cognitive restlessness.
• A tendency toward addictive behavior.
• Chronic problems with self-esteem.
• Inaccurate self-observation.
• Family history of AD/HD or manic depressive illness or depression or substance abuse or other disorders of impulse control or mood.

 www.drhallowell.com

Myths and Facts about ADD / ADHD in Adults

MYTH: ADD/ADHD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD/ADHD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.
 
FACT: ADD/ADHD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.
FACT: ADD/ADHD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD/ADHD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD/ADHD diagnosis.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD/ADHD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.
FACT: A person with ADD/ADHD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD/ADHD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.
FACT: Many adults struggle all their lives with unrecognized ADD/ADHD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to usual treatment.

Source: Dr. Thomas E. Brown, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults

The Start of Something New - and Scary!

A Journey From Sales to Social Sites

As a long-time professional salesman, misery was my company for a very long time. Selling things, like shoes, cars, radio time, etc., created an angst within, as if I was doing something I shouldn't. What drove me though was my passion for the reasons why. What prompted people to enter my place of business, to trust me enough to hand over their money? It was marketing, and it will always be marketing, something I enjoy and have a certain knack for.

I now find myself beyond the crossroad of "What else can I do?" and "Holy Crap! Am I really doing this?!" I am. I took the new path toward a new career, and boy is it daunting! New always is, right? The thing is, if I didn't take the risk, if I didn't make the decision to make a major change in my life, I would be truly babbling, likely in tongues.

The creative part of us is essentially a virtual muscle, and, as all muscles, needs to be exercised regularly. I was experiencing C.M.A. - Creative Muscle Atrophy. My mind was becoming less and less virile. So here I am, at community college, learning Website Design and Social Media Marketing. 

I'm a mid-generation Baby Boomer, and, as such,  realize that the world I grew up in is no longer viable. Dial phones (I still remember the phone number we had when I was a little kid!) morphed into touch-tone phones. Touch-tones brought us call waiting, which was one of the most amazing technological advances I had ever seen at the time! Then things began to move at breakneck speed. Walkman, VCRs, CDs. It wasn't easy to keep up. Eventually we had cell phones, personal computers, iPods, iPads, smart phones . . . a whirlwind of technology at my feet. 

Always being a tad cynical, it took me some time to truly embrace the 21st century and all it has to offer. Once I did though, I was hooked. Well, don't get me wrong, I still lament the fact that the art of conversation has been lost to texting, and that schools across the country are poised to eliminate cursive writing from their curriculums. Sometimes new isn't always better.

But, I digress. The future is now, and I am here, arms and mind open, fully ready to embrace it, and I hope to have you all at my side, letting me know what I'm doing right and what I need to improve. Welcome to my world!