Chronicles from a Caribbean Cubicle
New Thinking from Framework Consulting
Recently I posted a request for volunteer Contributing Writers to assist in providing content for this blog.
Michelle Graham Day, a Jamaican living in Tallahasee, Florida is an MBA student at FAMU, and is job hunting, working, studying and now blogging all at the same time.
A big welcome to her as our first Contributing Business Writer.
For the first time in a very long time, I will be away from the internet for 9 days.
Be back after that!
I recently added a new feature to this blog: the ability to receive an email with the latest entry from this blog. The feature is free, and is designed by Feedblitz.
I rarely post more than a few times per week, so emails would come at most 3-4 times per week.
It provides a level of convenience that I find quite useful, and the output is also very well designed.
To add your name to the list of subscribers, fill in your email address in the form at right.
My two blogs seem so lonely nowadays.
The irony is that I have been writing more than ever (I think).
What has changed is that I am writing more for publication to my ezine and in white papers, and while I can throw out a blog here and there with little or no editing, I find that I cannot do that with my other publications.
So, I have been writing and writing, and editing and editing. Just as much activity as before, but much less to show for it.
I hope the quality shows, at least!
For the past month or so I have been trying to call Cable and Wireless here in Jamaica to cancel my DSL service.
It happens to come at a time when the competition is heating up, as a new service called Flow is about to offer cable, DSL and local phone service bundled in one. In anticipation, C&W has been ramping up its advertising, with full page ads in the press and online.
When I say, I have been “trying to call” I mean that I have been calling their lines to try and reach someone. Anyone.
I can reach no-one. Once I spent 120 minutes on the phone, with headset on … determined that I would get through. A pre-arranged phone appointment forced me off.
At other times I have called only to hear from a pre-recorded voice that “our circuits are busy.”
This last time, the phone just rang without an answer.
Is it any wonder that I am going to try a different company?
I wonder if the people doing the advertising have any idea that they are producing more and more upset customers with their slick ads convincing customers to call their 888 number?
I sent in the article below: The Source of Crime in Jamaica, but I think it may have been too long for publication to the Gleaner and Observer, or just not what they wanted, or something else was “wrong” with it, like they were not ready to publish something like it. Nevertheless, I’m going to to go ahead and expand on each of the three points, if only for the fun of it, and to submit it again at a later date, or to submit it to the Jamaica Journal, which is the only other magazine of it’s kind that I can think of.
I could also cut it down to size, to make it fit some smaller needs. Or I may also expand it using data gathered from recent science…. Hmmm… whichever makes the most sense and provides the most fun — that’s the one I’ll do!
At the moment, I’m jsut checking to see if this actually still works, even when I’m not using it. I’m going over in my mind all the different things I’d like to blog about, and who the readers might be.
I’m wondering if it should address things Jamaican, or more universal subjects that I’m interested. Probably the former.
I know I’m interested in us all creating peace in my country, and in the region. I love the work I’m doing with my friend SHC. I love Carnival, especially in Trinidad and had a ball this year as usual. I love God, and my fairly new-found New Thought Christianity.
All these are possible subjects… or maybe I should just let it run like a stream of consciousness?
Welcome to Francis’ Blog.
I’m starting this blog with really no idea about what exactly I’m going to say. Well… that’s not strictly true.
I do have something to say about a variety of different things, but I’m wondering whether or not I should restrict my thoughts to a few important things that are work related… but nah, I think I’ll just let the mind meander. If nothing else, it will be something interesting for my (one day) kids to read!
I invented something interesting the other day — a “breadbox” meditation.
In my mind I form something looking like a breadbox at the start of the meditation, and then I allow the thoughts to be contained in the breadbox, which happens to be translucent.
Because it’s “see-through,” I can see the thoughts as they pass through the box, bouncing around inside. Any new thought that comes up is bounced around inside the box. Thoughts don’t leave the box.
I’m bigger than the box, much bigger, but sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking that I AM the box, which can be deadly to how I feel at the moment.
Inside the box sometimes I imagine a little “thought generator” that is just creating more and more thoughts, pushing them out into the space of the breadbox. It runs on automatic, and I have no power to stop it from going. All I can do is observe it endlessly creating thought after thought, many of which have some start in a fearful feeling.
I think I’ll call it the “BreadBox Exercise” for my training.