Does the buck stop here?

The buck stops...

That blog was originally first published on 3/18/2013(I was just getting going then)

And now here we are all the way to 3/28/2024(I've got it going now) and all we really want to know from jump is...

Does the buck stop here?

I would really, really love to discuss this issue since we still live in a world where no one takes any fault or any responsibility for anything if there is any way they can “pass the buck!” And so, I must ask, that while everyone is pointing a finger at someone else to assign fault to so that someone else can deal with it, then where does the buck stop?! For instance, if you call, with a complaint or an issue or a concern, to some large company you will first get an “associate” on the other end of the line who listens to your entire side of  the story and will still happily tell you that the "buck stops" with the president or with the CEO which would be on the top floor of an office neither one of them even visits. Even if they know your complaint or issue or concern is completely valid, they will still just as soon pass it off onto someone else to deal with. And even if you are given the golden direct line to the president or the CEO of such company well goooood luuuuck getting a hold of one of them. You will become fond friends with their voicemail which will most likely not result in a reply. You can have an issue in a grocery store with a product or pricing or such and you ask to speak with the manager and, after some lengthy little wait, some friendly, smiling, apologetic face appears only to explain how this is one of those situations that the district manager would have to handle as that's where the buck stops. We are smart enough to recognize those push offs, pass alongs, and pass on's while being shifted from one department to the next until you are inevitably disconnected. Wonder where the buck stopped on that one?

I am, and have been, convinced for longer than not that the there is barely a right hand out there that has any clue what the left hand is doing and let me assure you right now that neither hand will take any fault, for any part of anything but will helpfully and happily push you right on over to someone else who will also be able to help you. It's just amazing how quick people are to jump up and down to take any credit for something they had no hand in but, when an issue arises then no one wants to be involved, no one seems to have any answers, and no one really seems to care, to put it frankly. So, my questions remain...where do the shove offs end? When does the finger pointing at someone else end? I think it could all end right here and now if we would just get out some markers and draw some lines and buck up and force the ones who should be held accountable made to do their job. I am, however, holding out some faith for humanity a tad longer for the voice of those who have enough fierceness and enough courage and have just had enough to put their foot down and be a trend setter for announcing and abiding to 

“Yes, the buck stops right here.” 

What a welcome and surprising change that would be. We are all beyond tired of having to naturally ask from jump, just out of curiosity, and for the sake of saving time...

”Does the buck stop here?

Pam

State of Panic...Over 10 years later

 

The link below is to the original 2013 blog for State of Panic...

https://mywonderfulworldofwords.blogspot.com/2013/10/state-of-panic.html

written by Pamela Scholes

10/9/2013

Let us fast forward, however, to the new/same State of Panic...

Please, read on...

State of Panic…Over 10yrs later... 

I sit now with my computer in my lap and thoughts in my head. For a writer, a computer and thoughts in my head is an open door to conversation so why don’t we discuss what has and hasn’t happened over the course of the last 10+ years since I posted the original to this blog in 2013. I'm propped against my bed pillow, and I am thinking of the past week entirely and even this very day's events. Normally I let the day go at the end of the day so that it may lead to more positive promise for tomorrow but, there are those times, when distraught enough, that I can't let it go without putting it to paper. I am wondering what everyone else in the world is doing at this moment and what "breaking news" is next to come. For many folks' half of a new day is over or done while for others a new day is just beginning. Time is strange in how it shifts and moves with location. This era of time we are all engulfed in is strange as well and as I ponder back in time in my thoughts, it has been steadily rolling towards “strange” as if it were the only way to go. What began as a snowball, which was paid little attention too, has now become an avalanche rolling downhill and picking up speed as it goes. They say if we do not change it then most anything and everything will repeat itself and I swear, with all of my searching can I find much change about enough needed things…not much change that ended up as good change anyway. We can try to claim that those failed changes for the better began with good intentions, but did they? Our own IRS, healthcare, and too many various areas of the government have fallen under intense scrutiny… a thing I do not think has ever happened to this extent all at once! And too boot none of the above "higher up folks" seem much interested in the plight of us folks out here just trying to make it. It’s a disheartening thing to see endorsements that speak of unity in word and division in practice, hypocrisy is a vein that runs with cold blood. I keep thinking, hoping, and wishing it to be different but we have been forced into doing so much with so little for so long that we have almost become accustomed to the struggle. We all know that struggle…that “keeping my head just above water” struggle. All of the sudden the signs shout that the new normal is odd…I don’t think treading water to survive should be normal at all and it’s an odd fact that we have begun to see it as normal. 

I am not out to do finger pointing or to assign blame to any ONE person or any ONE branch of the "powers that be," or any ONE group of people for these failures are the result of a slew of way too many years of wrongful decisions. Trust me, it’s more than sad at how us folks have become pawns in a chess game we didn’t ask to play in. So many important decisions are made in haste, and nothing serious is given its due serious deliberation as everyone is in such hurry. Just sign it, stamp it, and let’s move on! Why? Why are we steady rushing ourselves into a world we will never be able to keep up with? Technology has both blessed us and cursed us...it has opened so many new doors and yet it has slammed far too many shut. People are desperate, I do not believe I have ever seen such acts of desperation from everyday working people who can't afford to make any ends meet. And then we have those acts of desperation from those who no longer care at all about anything or anyone for I have never imagined a time when people would shoot one another over who got to the gas pump first. People are standing on the edge, and no one is offering any help, any relief, or any logical intent of a turn around. These are desperate times, tough times and instead of banding together most have gone out on their own to survive however they can. People do not know who to turn to anymore and it seems that no one can be trusted, from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest rung at the top. Our media has become such a different kind of a “leading source of information” as it will tend to sway towards the “best-selling” information it can present and then it's game on as to how well they can sell it. We get sold that same false bill of goods under the lemon law of "as is" all of the time and this little catch 22 has brought so many to a dead end. Stop judging people, stop downing people, and stop making brass assumptions about someone just by “the cover of the book” for times are hard all over and people are lost with no one to lead them. I can't understand how it cannot be apparently clear to the upper echelon that this world is still in a state of panic...

And so, it stands now in a very similar, too similar, of a situation of this state of panic. Oh yes, folks everywhere are in a panic spin all across the globe. Folks agree on less all of the time and complicate the same simple things even more than they did over 10yrs ago…and I am supposed to call this progress? I must shake my head on that one. I have never seen such chaos taking place each day, all day over the most insane things and there are too many loose ends floating around that I cannot see getting tied together. It seems, sadly, clear that we don’t address prevention in any way and yet stand ready to pony up a bunch of money to try to fix it after the fact! And that is just patchwork…the whole world is a sinkhole just waiting to cave in for all of us. Seems that by now we would get it that patchwork is always a temporary seam. These are serious times folks and when all is said and done, we are what we have. Take a look around you and whether it suits your fancy or not we are what we have. I suppose I could just keep going on, but I think y’all see the picture I’m painting here…what else can a place be called, that has barely inched forward at anything, other than a non-progressive mess?

We are fighting our way out of that same spider web we have been in for over a decade…when does it change, does it change at all, or will we get those same promised pacifications still yet again?! I think it’s a fair question given that this State of Panic has barely budged towards a remedy. How can a whole decade pass us by and the only things we have to show for it are more homeless, fierce desperation, jobless people who want to work and plenty of jobs for those who don’t want to work, EBT is a fight for families to get and that is on the verge of denying one food! Lord how the list adds up but, on these issues folks, the absolute proof is in the pudding! This may not be what we want to hear but if you will be honest with yourselves and acknowledge the standings on where we were and where we are now and that where we are probably going is not looking good then you can’t help but feel let down. I mean it gets under your skin that we have been paused at a stalemate for some time but if you do not at least entertain the down sloped side to things then you are unprepared for it all. So, take this as what you need to hear over what you would rather hear…for we still live in a swirled State of Panic…over 10 years later.

The revised version of our State of Panic... 

written by Pam Scholes

3/24/2024

Patience...

 Patience…

Oh yes, you better believe I audibly laughed out loud when this discussable subject came into my thoughts. Actually, I’m sure it more like flew in turbulence across my mind. To have patience…every day, every time, with everyone, about everything…is just not a logically, conceivable or achievable concept anymore. Now in a perfect world it just might be commonplace but in this section of years, that has been carved out for us, you are going to expect folks who will shoot you over being first at the gas pump to pause and just have patience? Yes, I audibly laughed out loud again. Now let’s think about this, let’s break this down, and let’s examine this thing called patience.

I can hardly think of one thing out there that doesn’t have a line you can cross, a limit you can over draw, a level where it has to stop…there is nothing, there is no one, there is no situation where ENOUGH IS ENOUGH won’t show up! It takes a lot of used up time and literal abuse of kindness before ENOUGH begins to creep up on you. It generally creeps up slowly cause it takes time for it all to build, to bubble, to boil, and to inevitably blow…and when it does blow…it probably ain’t gonna be pretty. Now some folks possess more patience than others, we are all designed different, but I’m not sure that having a grand supply of patience is a gift or a curse! Being able to have patience at all is irrefutably a gift but if left to the abusive devices of others who will make a mile out of every inch you will spare then it could lean more towards a curse. People will test your patience deliberately just to see how much you can take, how long can you bite your tongue, how many times will you offer another pointless chance! First of all: why do that? Why make it your fancy spot of the day to drive a nail thru someone else's patience level? Just because you may not have one positive molecule of patience about you doesn’t mean that your train wreck ride should come to rest at another person's station of patience and calmness. I’m sure there are words out there to name this disruption, but I just don’t exactly know what to label one who does that…other than disconnected and holding nothing but a balloon of a life filled with impatience. You can be sure that that isn’t going to float you very far.

And second of all: this is a short and sweet one. I like to think that kindness can’t be cured but watch your impatient selves for even the kindest of the kind all eventually reach that plateau of ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Patience is almost wishful thinking these days and I wish it were not, but we are not living in some Norman Rockwell painting. But don’t sit impatiently by and take my word for it…go ahead and keep on pushing the buttons of folk's patience, instead of cultivating some patience of your own, and you will find out in no time at all that you have gotten nowhere at all!

So, my “word” on patience is: if you have it then absolutely exercise it but protect it too…you have to be selective on whom you bless with it, to what extent you will use it, and have zero problem throwing up that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH roadblock!

And if you just smack out do not have any, or damn near any, patience at all then people are probably not for you, and you should consider getting yourself a pet…maybe a goldfish; surely, they don’t take up much of one’s patience! And yes, my final note to this was one more audible laugh right out loud!

Cheers to Patience and a four-leaf clover; you just may need some luck!

Pam

Hidden Treasures...

 Oh my goodness...hidden treasures...are they not just the most precious little things when we stumble across them, out of nowhere, on some unsuspecting day? It's those small trinkets, things figured lost and gone or thoughts forgotten about altogether, thanks to the passing of time, that warms our hearts. Often times memories can fade and there are those things that just somehow get misplaced, but when either of them shows up to pay us a visit...well that is absolutely just the berries. I aim to speak only of the "good, pleasant" side of the coin...this blog is to remind us of how sweet those hidden treasures are to us for they are ours to smile about for all of our time.

Hidden treasures can lay sleeping in so many different kinds of meanings all of which bring something special to our treasure chest of life. Perhaps it was "that one day when we went to lunch..." thing or maybe it was that "remember when we...?" thing or it could have been that "what you said to me was so sweet..." thing. It is like a slideshow of all of those "things" that just flows along as "happy thoughts" kind of things that take us down the traveled paths of memory lane. It is often those fits of laughter between you and your bestie or those certain movies or those perfect sunsets...it is those things that reside in the crevices of our hearts, and we bask in them all any time they come back around and sit with us again. Those are the hidden memory treasures...

The hidden treasures may also be that of some special item as a gift from some special person or some souvenir we collected along the way that sits proudly on our dresser or coffee table or hangs perfectly on our living room wall, reminding us of the memory it is fondly attached to. We keep many of those items on display in our home and the picture slot of our purse or carefully packed and stored for safe keeping in a dusty box that rest in the bottom of our bedroom closet but no matter where they are they shine with bright happiness each time we look at them. When the winds of life move us about geographically then it is easy for items to get lost in transit or have boxes stacked atop them and hide them underneath them until time sees fit for us to rummage around and find them again. Any thought, any item, any flower scent, any sound of music...any anything that strikes to life that feeling that warms you all over and inside out is called by no other name than Hidden Treasures...

Pam