Thanks. See you over at the new blog.

Go to http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/ to read more, and then get angry. And you don't have to be American to be angry about this. If you live in Europe or Canada or anywhere, it will be illegal to sell childrens' goods to anyone in America.

Alana

1. Move the blog from Moveable Type to WordPress. (A terrifying prospect, but I think it needs to be done.)
2. Move all the old content in the writing and drawing sections into the blog archives.
3. Move all the t-shirt designs over to zazzle.com because cafepress has been getting on my nerves.

Other things I'd like to do:

1. Start posting some videos on YouTube.
2. Open an Etsy store.

At the same time, in the next year I am, in theory, moving to a new house and possibly attempting a new career (which will involve building and designing a whole nother web site). So we'll just see how much of these things actually get done.

Alana

If you're American, you have a certain idea of what a post office does. It is a place you go to mail things. When I go to the USPS web site, I'm greeted with headings like "plan a shipment", "find a zip code". Under "products and services" there are headings like, "mailing & shipping", "postage & options" and "receiving mail". They do a few other things, like selective service registration and passport renewal. But getting letters and packages from one place to another is the main thing. When you go there, there are things for sale, like stamps and packing supplies, and sometimes they get fancy and sell postcards.

By contrast, if you go to the British Post Office web site, the heading of the page is, "Savings, Life Insurance, Foreign Currency". The headings on that page are "Money & Insurance", "Broadband & Phone", "Travel", and then as almost an afterthought, "Letters and Parcels". The post office does everything. If you want foreign currency, go to the post office. If you want insurance, go to the post office. If you want to pay your gas bill or top up your mobile phone, go to the post office. And on top of all that, they sell all manner of crap there. There are the usual post office things like packing supplies, but there are also greeting cards, wrapping paper, toys, knitting and sewing supplies, costume jewelry, handbags, and calendars.

On the surface, you might be thinking, "That's great, being able to do all those things in one place." But keep in mind that you have to stand in line with everyone who is doing any of those things. I've had to go to the post office two days in a row and the line stretches out the door every time you go there. Yesterday I was in line between a man who was paying his gas bill and buying socks, and a woman who was collecting her pension payment and shopping for birthday cards. I was the only one there who was actually mailing something.

I have really come to hate and dread the post office here, because I know from living in America that going to the post office doesn't have to be that horrible. It can be a clean and efficient process involving sending and recieving of packages only. I think I miss American post offices almost as much as I miss American peanut butter. (And by the way, thanks for the jars of Skippy for my birthday David and Nikki and Kris.)

Alana

In January, my hamster Binky died. He was a sweet little hamster and I missed him a lot. His death led to the later purchase of two Chinese dwarf hamsters (Dru and Fred) and a Syrian named Jayne. It says a lot about Binky that we ended up with three hamsters to replace him.

From January until April I worked at a hospital. It was one of the worst jobs I ever had, and I've been a telemarketer, and I used to scrub my laxative-addicted grandmother's toilet for cash. In April I stopped going to that job. Some of the crappy jobs I've had, I look back and think, "The work was crap, but I really do miss the people I worked with." This was not one of those jobs. There are maybe 3 people from that office that I don't actively hate. I considered sending them all a gift-wrapped box of fresh dog poop for Christmas, but in the end decided that they are not worth the postage, the gift wrap, or the dog crap.

In June my grandfather's girlfriend (or whatever he prefers to call her) passed away from breast cancer. She was the second companion he lost to breast cancer, and it has been a hard blow to him and the family.

In late June, my favorite guinea pig Homer got sick. Well, sicker. He had some kind of chronic kidney problems, probably for about 6 to 9 months before that. I brought him to the vet and did all I could, but in early July he passed away. On the same day, a close family friend, Don Granholm, lost his long hard battle with colon cancer. Maybe Don is taking care of Homer up in heaven.

In later July, I had the first unsuccessful attempt to extract my broken molar. It was unpleasant.

In August, I started my new job. The work is terribly boring, but I love my co-workers. They are all fantastic, bright, clever and intelligent. They accept me for the slightly odd person that I am. Whenever it reaches the time that I leave this job, I genuinely will miss them all. They are the main reason I've even stayed in this country all the way to the end of this year. They have shown me that there are decent people here. They give me hope that someday I might actually feel at home on this damp frigid island.

In September, I went to Minnesota and visited my family and friends. I got to see most of the people I love and miss, like my friends (Sara and Sharla and Mark) and my family (even my cousin Raeanne who came all the way from Louisiana to see me). I finally got to meet my brother's twin babies, Zach and Rissa. They are cute on my brother's blog, but they are way cuter in person. My mom threw me a great party, with the help of my cousin Pedro. It was fun, but there was a bit if a Don-shaped hole missing from it. When I saw his family, I really missed him. I had a great time in general, in spite of having to enter the hell that is the Amsterdam airport. I didn't want to come home.

Upon my return, my tooth was finally successfully extracted. Thus proving that my dentist is incompetent, but not all British dentists are.

The year ended, as they so often do, with Christmas. I got some cool stuff. Neil's family got us Need For Speed Undercover. I got a fabulous cookbook and a knitting pattern book. We had steaks and pumpkin cheesecake, but the cheesecake recipe needs some work. I think more cheese and a more solid crust.

My husband got me a sweater for my birthday, and we had chocolate cake and Chinese food.

Yeah, there was an election in America. Celebrities did things and looked stupid. It was a year, and there is bound to be another one any time now. And I still miss Homer.

Alana

I'm not particularly into Christmas this year. After going back home for a visit a few months back, Christmas just seems like a shiny tinsel-covered reminder of all the people I wish I could see at Christmas. And just after Christmas is my birthday. I'm going to be 32. It feels like I'm crossing that line from "you're still young and you've still got time" into "if you want to have kids you'd better get working on it now." It's gone from all my brother's friends who are a few years older than me having kids to all my friends who are 5 years younger than me having kids. I'm getting old.

I've been trying to get into the Christmas spirit. I loaded my mp3 player with Christmas music, only to find that half of it is deeply depressing and the other half is boring or annoying.

At least I've got some time off work. I have some projects I need to work on around here.

Alana

The first reaction of most managers when morale has declined is to try to do something to raise morale. This is not the right reaction because it does not address the root of the morale decline. Morale did not decline because of something management didn't do. Your team didn't become surly because you haven't brought them paintballing lately. The fact is, 9 times out of 10, a decline in morale is due to something management did.

What new policies have you enacted lately? What do these policies communicate to your team? These are the questions you need to answer to address a decline in morale. In every work situation I have seen that had a serious decline in morale -- the kind that leads to high turnover rates and the remaining staff doing only the "bare minimum" to get by -- the key to improving morale is asking the staff to complete this statement: "I would have worked harder if you hadn't..."

You see, most lower level staff like data entry clerks and data processors have dead-end jobs. Managers may not see it that way, but the employees do. There are few places to go from there, and only one in ten of them will ever rise into management. Therefore, the only motivation they have to put in extra work and go the extra mile to get things done beyond the bare minimum necessary to stay employed is if they genuinely like and respect their manager and they want to see their manager succeed. And most managers would be surprised at how quickly they can destroy that respect and trust.

So let's look at some of the answers to the statement I mentioned. These are all real examples from real jobs where I or someone I know has worked.

I would have worked harder if you hadn't:

* waited until the last minute to give me an assignment you knew about for months.
* stood behind me and nit-picked while I worked.
* banned food/coffee at my desk, without any attempt at logical compromise.
* ignored your own rules while expecting me to follow them.
* talked to me like I was a 5-year-old, including the phrase, "That's a no-no."
* yelled at me for visiting the company's own web site.
* banned talking during certain hours.
* forced me to work overtime, without giving the option of doing it voluntarily.
* timed my tea breaks to the minute.
* monitored my toilet breaks.
* refused vacation requests for no reason.
* paid me less than the new trainees, after I had worked there for two years.
* given me unrealistic goals and quotas.
* refused to listen when I told you an idea wouldn't work.
* yelled at me for "being late" when I work flexi-time.

What do all these policies and actions have in common? They show a lack of respect and understanding for the employees. They are managers showing off how important they are and how they can be pro-active with new policies, without any regard for their staff as people. Remember, if staff isn't happy and isn't producing good work, their manager will fail much harder because of it than the staff will. At the end of the day a manager will be judged by the productivity of the staff. Enacting policies that disrespect staff may look like a way of increasing productivity on the surface, but in the end, if morale falls, productivity falls. Policies that respect your staff as the intelligent adults that they are is the best way to increase productivity.

If you're a line manager, you're probably thinking, "That's not fair. I'm just passing down the policies and instructions I've been given." It doesn't matter to the people under you. If you tell them that you are only passing down instructions from above, they will not respect your manager for coming up with the idea, and they will not respect you for failing to stand up for them against a bad idea.

At the end of the day, the "golden rule" applies in the office as much as anywhere. Do to your employees only what you would want your boss to do to you. Do you want to be monitored like a prison inmate? Do you want to be scolded like a school child? Then do not do those things to your staff.

Before you enact a new rule or a new office policy, ask yourself what that policy communicates to your staff. Does it communicate trust and respect? Or does it just communicate that you want them to know that you are the boss? Keeping these things in mind are key to morale and productivity. Remember that you cannot get the best quality of work from a team that hates working under you. When you abuse your staff, you are sabotaging your own career, and reducing the value of your stock options. Nice managers are successful managers.

I got on my usual bus at 7:40. It took the usual five minutes to get to the town center. Then it stopped. There was an accident or something because of the two inches of snow on the ground. There is really only one road from Penicuik to Edinburgh. There is noplace to re-direct the traffic until you get out to where I usually get off the bus. I stayed on the bus for two hours. That got me to where the bus was still in Penicuik, and a ten minute walk from my house. Two hours, to get a ten minute walk from home. A distance that should have taken five minutes on the bus. If I stayed on the bus, at that rate I wouldn't get to work until noon. And I had to pee. It there were only four people on the bus, so it was freezing cold. My toes were going numb.

So I got off and went home. I called in and took a day of unpaid leave because it is just not worth it today. It seemed like a "know when to fold 'em" kind of start to the day. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll just walk to work.

Alana

* Tesco Cold Relief Capsules. My cold is back with a vengeance. I think I tried to do too much when I was still sick before, and now this virus is totally kicking my ass.

* My job. I was not made for office work. I hate sitting in a cubicle. I hate the random rules that serve no purpose but to make middle managers feel important. The whole atmosphere makes my skin crawl. But for a cubicle job, my current job isn't too bad. My co-workers are awesome. I have lower pay, but I did the math and the amount I'm making less than my last job is almost compensated by the amount I'm not having to spend on bottled water and coffee because they are now supplied for free.

* My brother, and his taste in music. When my computer was stolen I was able to get back a good deal of my lost music from my brother, without having to dig through two dizen dusty boxes to find cd's and re-rip all of them onto MP3. He saved me hours and hours of work. Including most of the Christmas music I really like. Plus, he gave me an Over the Rhine Christmas cd for an early Christmas present. :) (Also, tomorrow is his birthday, so happy birthday Matthew!)

* My trip to Minnesota in September. We had a Thanksgiving dinner with my family when I was there, so I don't feel so bad about the half-assed thanksgiving dinner I'm going to be throwing together on Sunday because I'm too sick (and too busy working) on Thanksgiving.

* My husband. He is very tolerant. I don't think I'll ever understand why he insists on staying married to me.

Unfortunately, some of these assholes have figured out how to use a computer and have found this blog. What I find interesting is that the initial gut reaction from these people is to email me or post in the comments about what a horrible stupid bitch I am, and how I should go f*** myself, and basically dump streams of profanity and insults on me. So to refute my claim that British people are nasty racist assholes, they email and comment, with nasty racist asshole remarks. How does this do anything but prove my point?

It reminds me of those cartoons from Denmark a few years ago. They made a political statement about the Muslims being violent and reactionary. In response, the Islamic community had violent riots and burning of effigies. They basically said to the world, "If you call me violent, I'll kill you!"

I don't have a good summary or punchline for this post. I've got a nasty cold involving a waterfall of snot. I can't say I hate the British. Cause I don't. I just hate assholes, and a lot of them seem to live here.

Alana

First of all, up until the very last minute I was undecided on the presidential election. I could have gotten an absentee ballot and just waited to see and I could have even left that space blank if I couldn't decide. But I didn't. And if I had, I'm still not sure which box I would have ticked.

On the smaller state-level elections, I don't know anything. It's not like they cover Minnesota House District 8 elections on the BBC. I did some internet research on the issues and things, but then I ran into another problem. I was reading up on the issue up for the vote in Minnesota, to raise the state sales tax to invest more in conservation. It struck me: I don't have any logical right to vote on that. Legally, I can cast my vote and no one can stop me, but logically it bothers me. If I vote in favor of higher taxes, it's a tax I never have to pay. And if I vote against it and the wildlife all dies, that doesn't affect me either. It would be so easy to tick that box and raise Minnesota sales tax, knowing that in the next ten years, I might spend up to a month there actually paying that tax.

I don't live in Minnesota. I don't pay taxes in Minnesota. I don't feel like I have a right to dictate how Minnesota is run. The same goes for the national level elections. I'm an American citizen, but is it fair for me to decide the politics of a country I only visit every few years? Frankly, I don't feel right about it. My relationship with America right now is that it's a place where some of my family lives and a place I visit once in a while. I might have family in Sweden too. And it's a lot easier for me to visit Sweden. But that doesn't mean I should vote in Swedish elections.

I'm planning to apply for British citizenship because this is where I pay my taxes and where I live. I won't be renouncing my American citizenship or anything, but I also don't know if I'll ever feel right about voting in a country I will probably never live in again.

Alana

1992: The world's gonna end if Clinton gets elected! He's Satan and we're all doomed!
1996: If Clinton gets re-elected we're doubly doomed! There will be fire and brimstone and babies bursting into flame!
2000: If Bush gets elected, the whole world will collapse! We're all doomed!
2004: If Bush gets re-elected, we're so screwed! Everything will fall apart and we will all die horribly! The French will invade and we will all be drafted into the army.

Today: I'm totally not falling for that again. No matter which festering pile gets elected, the sun will still rise tomorrow. You'll still have to go to work and feed your kids, just like yesterday. It doesn't matter.

Alana

Cash

The British have much better money than Americans. It took some getting used to at first when I moved here, but it is very well-designed currency. With the bills, the smaller denominations are printed on smaller paper than the larger denominations. So the blind and elderly can easily figure out what money they've got. The coins have two things above American coins. First, they have the amount printed on them. Look at your American coinage. None of them tell you in plain numerals how much they're worth. The dime says "one dime" instead of "10 cents". It is unfriendly and illogical. The second thing the British have done with their coins is the one pound coin. Seriously, Americans, ditch the one dollar bill. Dump them all in a giant shredder and switch to dollar coins. It makes bus fare and vending machines and everything so much easier. Plus, coins last longer in circulation, so in the long run they cost the government less to produce.

Dates

Why, America, are you the only country that writes your dates in the format of MM/DD/YY? The rest of the world uses the DD/MM/YY format, which is more logical. The day is the most specific part of the date, then the month is slightly less specific and the year is the most general part. So putting the day, then the month, then the year is the most logical format. Throwing the day in between the month and the year is just confusing.

Healthcare

The National Health Service in the UK is incompetent and slow. But it is available to everyone. On the other hand, health insurance companies in the US are both incompetent and malicious. I have worked for the NHS and US insurance companies, and after experiencing both, the main reason I won't live in the US is the health care system. Profiting from the sick and injured just seems barbaric to me.

Potato Chips

The British insist on calling them "crisps", but if you ignore that irritating terminology, they do them right. They come in a million flavors and they are always sold in little single-serving packets, so you don't end up pigging out and eating an entire family size bag by yourself.

Chocolate

British chocolate is just better. It's creamier and much nicer than most American chocolate. If I ever moved back to the US, I'd be ordering Galaxy chocolate from an importer.

Political Campaigns

They tell you what the candidate stands for, without insulting the opposition or generally being obnoxious. I've been through several elections in the UK, and never felt as manipulated and dirty as I did visiting the US during election season for two weeks.

Working Conditions

Fair amounts of sick leave, shorter hours, more vacation time and a full year (with partial pay) maternity leave. It leads to a less stressed and healthier and happier workforce. By comparison, some of the places I worked in the US seem like slavery.

Mass Transit

In some larger cities there is good transit, but in most of the US, you can't get anywhere without a car. I lived just outside Duluth back in the states, and there was one bus an hour. I live much further outside Edinburgh, in what is termed as "rural Midlothian", and there are four buses an hour outside my house, and if I walk 10 minutes to the main road there are more like 12 an hour.

So there. I'm not all against the British. They do some stuff right. But don't get me started on their inability to celebrate a holiday, or their complete ignorance regarding cinnamon...

Alana

Alana