SIX SIGMA TRAINING IS INCREDIBLE
The job I have now is an incredible opportunity. I am only working part time right now, but I have the potential to get on full time with them after school is done. I have worked many jobs in the past and this job is really different. They have something called six sigma training which I had never heard about at any other company I had worked for. They offered this training free to their employees and I am really learning a lot about it. This is a multi level management system that allows all levels to work together for business solutions. Basically how it works is that goals are set by the company as to what they want whether that be a better product or better customer service or whatever their goal is depending on the type of business and then measure your current output then you collect and analyze the data. You use that to determine where you need to make changes in the process and then give it a trial run before implementing the plan to make sure you are on the right track. There is a lot of science behind it and the truth is that it was a combination of other good management strategies all rolled into one great package. It was developed by Motorola and has been used by many companies such as General Electric, just to let you know that there must be something to it, if the leaders in the customer service industry are using it.
Anyway, it is a great program and I am on fire about it. I have learned so much working for this company and I love when companies give you the opportunities of free seminars to help you advance your knowledge. The great thing is that as with most companies, my company is not only paying for me to attend the six sigma training course, but they are also paying me to attend it. In my mind that is like getting an extra bonus, I love to be able to expand my knowledge of the world and if I can get paid to do it, then it is all the better.
Health insurance blunder
Probably most of us here, even the seniors, still take advantage of our own innocence. We assume the we know everything there is to know about everything and that until we stumble across some new fact that it is not worth ever thinking about or trying to discover. I am very guilty of this and I probably always will be. Fortunately for me though I have some self knowledge and I try to work on it, but some will never learn or even try to.
I was reminded of my idiocy during my research for a recent project for my health finance class. I was asked to compare prices and conditions of Pennsylvania health insurance against those of other states. At first I thought that it would be reasonable to look solely at the bottom line and take the price as the basis for my argument of pricing problems. Unfortunately for me I failed to take in to account even events as recent as a couple of weeks ago. My assessments of Texas and Florida health insurance were completely wrong since I totally forgot about their seasonal dangers. In Pennsylvania we have a different climates and different lifestyles. We also have a very low danger of any kind of natural disaster. I don't think that I have ever heard of anyone dying around here from something like an act of god. Around here we probably have more drunk driving issues that anything else.
Of course my naivety left me out to dry when I wrote my research paper and thought I was just blowing everyone else out of the water. I saw that they had all done some research and i had barely done any. I thought maybe that I had managed to find out s=and perceive something that they had all missed, but I guess I was wrong on that one. Now i have to spend the rest of the semester pulling myself out of that whole and hopefully I can get myself back to a manageable grade for this class. I can't let me GPA slip this year, not before I get accepted in to my major.
Finding good parenting tips
There are an endless amount of parenting tips available in the world. Resources like the TV, the web, books and magazines can supply you with so much information about parenting that it can make your head spin. For instance, I am currently in a dilemma about my own children and I am always hearing child psychologist information which tell me two things that I am finding conflicting. The first thing is that I have been told over and over again that it is important to eat dinner as a family every night. This is supposedly the best thing to keep up on what your kids are doing and to create a family type environment, and I whole heartedly believe this. I was raised in a home where we all came together at the table and had dinner, every night, at the end of our day. I try to do the same with my kids.
On the other hand, my children want to play sports, and it is my belief and the research that I have read supports it that kids sports help keep them more physically and mentally fit. Sports also helps keep the kids on a good path, further away from drugs and alcohol and hanging out with kids who have more involved parents. I believe that this is true and know for a fact that especially one of my kids would be in much more trouble if it wasn't for his love of sports.
The problem really is that because we are always running the kids to sporting events and practices through the entire spring and fall, having a good sit down dinner as a family is much more complicated. The problem is getting the sports and the dinners in is just a bit of a challenge, and really which one is serving my children better. Is there more information available on which one holds a higher importance? I am not really sure, but I do know in speaking to one woman she was saying how if she was running her kids to sports every evening, then she felt that she would be giving up quality time with her kids, and I really can feel it. I run and run spending all my time on my kids, but none really with my kids. I just want to know, am I doing things right, or making a big mistake?
Schumacher homes
When my wife's job transferred us to Ohio, I was in a panic. I knew that since I worked from home for myself, that I could really work from anywhere, but yet somehow having lived on the East Coast for my whole life, I was a little concerned about making this total life change and was concerned about the kind of culture shock I would suffer. My wife was a real support though, she knew that I was having some real anxiety about the whole situation and so in an attempt to put my mind at ease, she took me on a weeks vacation the the Cincinnati area of Ohio. Honestly, it was nicer than I expected and not really that different from what I was used to. As a matter of fact, I think that the people may have even been friendlier than where we were coming from. I met so many nice people the first day, and for the second day my wife had set up several meetings with realtor's in the area to see if we couldn't at least narrow down where it was we wanted to live and what we were looking for in a home. We looked at all different homes, none that really caught my eye. Finally, when we were with the last realtor I started to tell him what I was really looking for, and he said that it sounded like we should talk to the people at Schumacher homes and so we made an appointment with them the following day. Schumacher homes were beautifully customized and they seemed to have a lot of different features to choose from. We worked together with them to design the perfect home, and the cost was itemized out, which I really did like because they let me know exactly what I was paying for. I am really glad that we went to them and they also were able to help us find a property for sale in our price range, right in the neighborhood that we wanted to live in. Now I am all ready for our move to Ohio and really looking forward to moving into our brand new home. Hopefully we can get this home sold before we move. I know that the market is slow and we may have to take a little less for it, but that is the way it goes and in the long run it will definitely be worth it.
car insurance
Yesterday was the absolute worst day. I woke up in the morning and the sun was shining and I really thought it was going to be great. I went to classes in the morning which were just across campus so I walked and when I got back it was about 2 o'clock and I had tons of work to do before I had to go to work that night. I went in got ready for work and sat down to finally start working on that report that was due when I heard a crash and a car alarm sounding off in the distance. I went out side to look and someone had smashed in my car window. I didn't really have time to deal with this, so I quickly called my insurance company, who said they were sending out a claims adjuster. Contacted the police department so they could file a report. Once the claim adjuster came he said that my car insurance didn't cover glass unless it was over $300.00 so I would be better off just contacting a glass company to come and fix the window. He said that a lot of glass companies will come and do the work right in the parking lot while I was in class or at work, so this seemed reasonable, except I was not really thrilled that I was going to have to pay out of pocket for this. Then the police finally showed up, and asked me who I thought did this. I told them I really didn't know I was inside when I heard the glass break, and they said there wasn't much chance that they could find out who did it, but they would ask around and see if anyone saw or heard anyone by my car. When all was said and done, I had to call in late to work, put a bag over my car window --- yuck, and then work a shift that was supposed to end at 10pm but ran until 12am because we got slammed at the end of my shift. By the time I got home in my bag adorned car it was 12:20am and I was exhausted and still had all the school work that I hadn't done earlier, before work. I didn't get to bed until 4:30 am and I had class that I had to be in by 7am. Needless to say after my classes, I came home and slept for a few hours before going to work. I still need to call the glass company and get them to come out and take care of my window, but I really don't have the time or money to get this work done.
astrological readings
I have never really been into astrological readings, yet somehow last week a friend of mine convinced me to go to dinner with her and next thing you know she was dragging me off to a psychic. I have to admit that I was really a little bit skeptical, but I have always been just a little bit curious about them and was interested in actually seeing what it was like for myself. Well, she apparently had made the appointment in advance, but knowing that I would say no to her, she didn't tell me about it. It wasn't too expensive, $20.00 for a half hour reading which didn't seem too over the top to me. We went into the room together so that we could hear what the other person was being told. We couldn't say anything to each other and had to sit on opposite sides of the room from one another, so apparently we didn't interfere with the energy that the psychic needed to let us know how our futures looked. In any case, I didn't want to go first so Catrina went first and I waited and listened. The psychic talked about someone whose name began with a J that was either Josh or Jake, but she really couldn't tell which one. Well, Josh was her exboyfriend, or should I say on again off again boyfriend. In any case, the psychic told her that he was not the right guy for her, even though she was having a hard time letting go of him. She told Cat that if she would just let go of him, that there definitely was someone else waiting in the wings. Then she told her a few other things and then it was my turn.
Well, as soon as I sat down the psychic told me that my mother was ill, which is something that I already knew, but I was surprised that she did. She suggested that although she does think that my mother is going to be okay in the long run, she might appreciate you being around a little more. Which honestly was something that I had been toying with. She also said that if I decided to take this route that there may be an opportunity for me to rekindle and old relationship, which had been part of the reason I was considering taking a semester off.
Overall, I did find the whole evening very interesting and whether or not the psychic was right is yet to be proven, but I do know that she was pretty dead on about all the stuff that she already knew about me.
natural diet pill
Being overweight has been something I have struggled with my whole life. When I was about 8 was the first time I really was aware of being bigger than the other kids. My parents always told me I was perfect just the way I was, but as I got older, I started to notice that my body was just to big and that I tired out more than the other kids my age. I wanted to loose weight, but I didn't even know where to begin. I couldn't run and exercising was a struggle for me. When I was 11 my mother took me to the doctor and they tried to put me on a weight loss program, but it didn't really work. I would lose a few pounds and gain them back, probably mostly because my parents kept a lot of junk food in the house, and didn't feel that it was fair to make my brothers give up junk food, just because I wanted to lose weight. Of course, the whole family was overweight, but I seemed to be the only one who cared about losing any. As time went on I began to crash diet, not eat, and even had tried using slim fast to lose weight. Each time I would lose a little, but it came right back and then some. When I left for college I weighed 200 lbs and was miserable. I finally was able to control my environment enough to start to lose some weight and had lost a few pounds when a friend of mine at school introduced me to a natural diet pill that she was taking and I was a little hesitant to take it, but I knew that I had to do something about my weight or I was going to have a heart attack or something. I took the pill for about a week and noticed that my appetite was greatly reduced. Not only that but I felt a lot better and had a lot more energy. Within about a month of taking the very first pill I was down about 25 lbs. I was so excited that I ran out and bought myself a new outfit. Most of my clothes were literally falling off me, and I couldn't have been happier. A friend told me to give my old clothes to goodwill and to go shopping at the local thrift store to pick up some items that fit me a little better, so I could show off my new body. I finally feel better about myself and can exercise. I feel and look so much better, and all thanks to that one little diet pill.
match point network
I recently spent the summer before the semester with my uncle who lives down in Florida in the city of Orlando. I was helping him set up his new business in town where he bought a franchise of a clothing store. I was basically helping him set up his stock room and the front. We also built some shelves and racks for the clothes and tried to create a good layout for the space he had available to him. It was a lot of fun and I learned some things about business that I didn't quite know before.
My uncle has bought this franchise out of a desire for the product. He has always been the kind of person who you would think is like a fashion designer since he knows so much about clothing and jewelry, but he just has a genuine passion for everything of that sort. He never really had the opportunity to do anything with design because of different life circumstances and financial problems that he ran in to in the past. Now though, he finally got to a point of stability and decided to make a go at running his own fashion store. So now he will begin selli9ng clothing, jewelry, glasses, and things like that at his own store.
What I found the most interesting about the whole experience was the business aspect of what he was trying to do. Neither I, nor my Uncle, knew anything about setting up a franchise before this summer. He got the idea and then knew immediately he would need some kind of outside consultation. He signed up with a firm called the match point network, which works with people in his similar situation. They basically talked with him every step of the way all summer long, and probably still are, about how to make his business as successful as it could possibly be. Now he has just about two weeks till he plans to open the store and all he is waiting on is his inventory and for enough employees to really run the place. He wants to run the inside of the shop, but not to be alone. I hope that when I graduate I can have the clarity of vision that my Uncle seems to have right now in his own life.
fitness trainer certification
I have always known that I would go to college and get a degree of some kind. When I arrived as a freshman my first year, I was overwhelmed with the whole experience, and I began to party and drink. I was also over eating and I finished up my first year of college with still no real career direction a few C's and about 50 extra pounds. When I got home, I really hadn't realized that I had put on this much weight but then a friend of mine said that maybe college wasn't really suiting me. I thought about it and knew what she meant. I really couldn't believe that I had let myself get so heavy. Well, I immediately began dieting and working out at the local gym everyday. I really enjoyed it and the environment and began losing weight and feeling more and more confident as I went. I had never really worked out before, but I was loving it. I had my own personal trainer and she was amazing. She knew every muscle in the body and she was in perfect shape. After a few months, and after shedding a few pounds, I was speaking with my trainer and she suggested that I consider going to Personal Fitness Trainer School. I told her I would think about it, but it sounded really good. Then she gave me some free fitness training videos that she had, and I was really into it. She told me that she was in good with the owner of the gym and that if I decided that this was something I wanted to do that as soon as I got my fitness trainer certification done, that she would be glad to put in a good word for me there or to be a reference for me, no matter where I decided to go. I thanked her. I told my mother that I have finally decided what I am going to do with my life, and I think that she was a little surprised to hear that I really want to be a personal trainer. I guess we are both a little surprised, I mean it seems kind of odd since I had never even worked out until about 4 months ago, but we are both really glad that I found something that really motivates me and that I really love. That is the great thing about my mom, she is very supportive.
computer technologies
My father is always updating me on the latest technology news every time I talk with him. I personally don't really know much about computer technologies and I really am not very interested, but he just loves the subject and loves to research information in the local paper and online to keep up on the latest and most amazing things that people are learning to use computers for.
There was like a week straight that all he could talk about was cloning. I guess it was a time when people were really on that topic, and he kept letting me know about what we going on in labs around the world. I keep trying to tell him I am sure that there are more people doing these things then we are even aware of, but he doesn't believe that.
His latest thing that he is into is BOB. I know this is not new, but since my dad found out about BOB a week ago, he has looked into every aspect of this thing. In case you don't know BOB is a gizmo that you plug your TV, computer, or video game system into. Then you plug BOB into the wall. What he does is he sets limits (pre set by you of course) that limit as many as 6 peoples activity on that device. For instance if you set the BOB to shut the TV off at 6pm he does it automatically and he won't allow it to come back on until the time you tell him to. So of course he thinks that I need about 5 BOB's in my house to regulate the kids use on just about every possible device. I don't think it is a bad idea, but I do think that he is being just a little gung ho about the whole thing. Anyway, knowing my father he will probably give each one of the kids one for Christmas. Won't they be thrilled to have something that will cut them off of their gadgets and make them live in the real world. LOL Anyway, dad has his heart set on BOB and there is no stopping him once he gets his mind made up.