Glenn Shepard’s Personal Blog

Dr. Larry Sullivan, who attended my seminar yesterday, served as the Director of E.R. at a local hospital for 21 years. He came up to me before the program and  said, “Sewing up lacerations in the E.R. was so much easier than trying to manage employees”. He reminded me of an attorney who attended my seminar at Valdosta State University in Georgia last year, and said, “I can get a man acquitted of 8 counts of first degree murder, but I’ll be darned if I can figure out how to find, hire, and keep employees”. Management really is a tough job, no matter what you do, or what kind of employees you supervise.

USA Today reports that a Rhode Island hospital has been fined $50,000 for operating on the wrong side of a patient’s brain – for the third time this year! This is another reason I never want the federal government – which is known for how well it manages things –  to be responsible for healthcare. They can’t even keep bombs off of airplanes, so I sure don’t want them cutting on my body.

I loooooooooooooooooooove capitalism. Survival of the fittest at it’s best, the way Nature works. I laugh at people who are scared of competition, because it screams weakness. No one has ever succeeded in a big way without it.

Remember the story of the Lowe’s employee who was recruited away by Home Depot (in the Nov 15 posting of this blog)? Here’s an update we received on her story:
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The funny thing is… the day after, I was at work at Home Depot and saw the district manager from Lowe’s walking out the front door. So I went to go greet him. When he realized who I was, he asked why I was there and not next door. So now I have been recruited back to Lowe’s at a lot better pay.
 
Your Poster Child for Employee Poaching,

Jannette in Austin, Texas

Interesting – and I mean reeeeeeeally interesting – article about manipulative employees in HR Executive magazine. It’s based on an article from the Harvard Business Review, and you’ll recognize someone in it. Click here:

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=48175050&query=munchausen

Helicopter Parents have now cost kids who attend the annual Christmas Parade in Clarkesville, Tennessee their candy. Because parents complained that people throwing candy from floats and fire trucks in the parade could hit their kids and injure them, the parade’s organizers have now forbidden the throwing of candy.

How far are these parents going to go in sheltering their kids from every possible danger out there?

Should we make Santa and everyone else in the parade ride electric golf carts to prevent kids from inhaling exhaust ?

Should we prohibit adults over a certain weight from attending the parade, since they could step on a child’s kids’ toes?

Should we prohibit kids from riding in cars with their parents on the way to the parade, since the car could get hit by a drunk driver?

Give me a break!

Russia! This is why it’s important to understand the world economy we live in, and how competition from everywhere has to be taken seriously. The “Millionaire Fair” was held this week in Moscow, where well-to-do Russians shop for everything from personal helicopters to million dollar engagement rings. If you’d like to see what lifestyles of the rich and famous are like in that part of the world, go to http://millionairfair.ru/eng/gallery/?year=2007

In yesterday’s blog posting, I mentioned the sacrifices that spouses of active military personal make, but didn’t mention the kids. Last night NBC Nightly News did a great story on Gail Kruzel, who has raised $789,764 through an organization called Our Military Kids. Go to www.ourmilitarykids.org to see what she’s done.

The U.S. Army reports that because of shrapnel from roadside bombs, serious eye injuries to soldiers are now occurring at nearly twice the rate of injuries resulting in amputations. I can’t get this image of  Army Lieutenant Ivan Castro, who was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, out of my head. I saw it in USA Today last week.

So to balance what I wrote yesterday about some Americans who don’t appreciate the sacrifices that others from the Pilgrims to today’s soldiers made in order for us to enjoy the freedom we have, I thought I should write this.

On this Thanksgiving,  I am thankful there are men and women as brave as Lieutenant Castro. People who believe in honor, duty, and service to country – instead of “what’s in it for me”. I am not as brave as they are, and I doubt that most of you are either.

I am thankful for their parents. The mothers and fathers who took the time to raise their children right, and teach them the values that made them such unselfish, admirable adults. This, as opposed the 35-year-old losers who are still living at home with no future, no career, and no plan, like Matthew McConahey in the movie “Failure to Launch”. Or the parents on the TV show “Super Nanny”, who have just given up on raising their kids and let them run hog wild.

I am thankful to the husbands and wives who remain loyal and supportive of their spouses while they are gone, and when they return. I read in the USA Today article about how Lieutenant Castro’s wife Evelyn has had to adapt too, and realize spouses in her position will also be making sacrifices for their rest of their lives. I can think of nothing lower than men and women who cheat on their spouses while they’re across the world fighting a war, or worse yet, divorce them. These individuals are truly the scourge of society, and should be exiled from the U.S. for being a traitor.

If you’d like to find out how you can help –  and even hire – soldiers who have been wounded in the line of duty, go to www.woundedwarriorproject.org

It drives me nuts to hear people wish me a “Happy Holiday” instead of a Merry Christmas. I understand that everybody doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so wish me a Happy Hanukah or Happy Kwanzaa if you prefer. But not a politically correct “Happy Holiday”. It just sounds so drab, insincere, and boring.

I  thought that the day kids’ Christmas Play became the “Winter Festival” was as far as the political correctness police could go in screwing up a perfectly innocent but meaningful tradition, but they’ve now hit a new low.

Yesterday I heard on the Phil Valentine show  that it’s now politically incorrect to wish people a Happy Thanksgiving, because it “offends” some people.  Are you kidding? What  kind of lunatic finds something wrong with Thanksgiving? It seems to me that some people are so darn determined to paint themselves as a victim of one thing or another, that they waste their entire lives just watching and waiting for something they can claim offense to.

So if any Americans out there are “offended” by the Happy Thanksgiving e-mail I sent at 6:30 this morning, I have three pieces of very important advice for you.

First, unsubscribe from my newsletter, don’t buy any of my products, and for heaven’s sake, don’t read any of my books, blogs, or articles. You’re not the kind of people we want as subscribers or customers.

Second, move to France or anywhere else. If you can’t celebrate and appreciate the significance of what we celebrate on this day, you don’t deserve to be an American. I can’t  imagine how, but I guess the people who are offended by “Happy Thanksgiving” would be offended by “Happy 4th of July” too.

And third, get a life! Life is way too short and too precious to waste looking for reasons to be offended every time you turn around.

Wrong when I wrote in yesterday’s post that “I bet professional athletes in every sport are thinking twice about what they’re doing off the field these days”.  Last night the local news reported that Tennessee Titans cornerback Pacman Jones, suspended for the season for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, has done it again. During a birthday party at Gibson Guitar Showcase at Opry Mills Mall (next to the Opryland Hotel) here in Nashville, Jones gave Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth a fat lip. Some people just don’t get it.