By Dorothy Rosby

First-timers to the fitness scene are often tempted to ask other exercisers how long they’ve been at it. This question can be interpreted in two ways: Number one, “Maybe if I stick with this as long as you have, I’ll look as good as you do.” Or two, “Wow! You must have looked really bad before?”

I can’t speak for men, but at the gym, like everywhere else, we women tend to compare ourselves to others and we usually come up short—or tall, or fat or thin, though seldom thin. Because comparing yourself to the wrong person can result in a self-esteem-induced craving for cream puffs, I recommend the following when you’re in the company of other exercisers:

Never compare yourself to anyone who puts on make-up to work out. Believe it or not, there are women who shower before they exercise. Or at least, they appear to. They fix their hair and put on jewelry and fashionable, coordinated workout clothing. I don’t know about yours, but the clothes I wear to work don’t even match.

Never compare yourself to a newlywed or even a newly in-love. Romance causes certain chemical changes in a woman’s brain that result in decreased appetite. A newly in-love woman can keep a box of chocolates until they’re stale and turn up her nose at an apple pie. Fortunately, by her second anniversary she’s regained her sanity—and with it much of the weight she lost.

Never compare yourself to what I call a “mathematician.” A mathematician is someone who can tell you at any given moment what her weight and percentage of body fat are and how many calories and fat grams she’s eaten thus far that day. This can be discouraging if you’re pretty sure you consumed as much during your coffee break.

Never compare yourself to a chronic dieter. If she catches you looking at her she may kill you. She hates exercise and she’s cranky because she hasn’t eaten all day. But she has made up her mind to exercise daily and survive on lettuce and diet soda until she is a size six. She will stick with this regimen for three days and lose five pounds. Then on day four, exhausted, famished, and discouraged, she will leave the gym and go directly to the bakery where she will have not one, but two seven-layer bars. After this, you won’t see her at the gym for a very long time, although you may see her at the bakery. Don’t look at her there either.

Finally, never compare yourself to a “convert;” that is someone who once ate large quantities of fried white sugar and now eats only whole grains and organic vegetables. I recently overheard two such individuals talking about how they could never return to their former abhorrent lifestyles. But both admitted there are still some things from their shameful pasts that tempt them. One woman said bacon bits actually call out her name from salad bars.

“What does?” the other said innocently.

“Bacon bits,” said the first.

“Bacon what?”

The woman had never heard of bacon bits. Is that possible in America? Hearing their conversation made me long for a BLT. Extra bacon, extra mayo, hold the lettuce.

If you must compare, compare yourself to the way you were before you started exercising (unless it was better). And if you absolutely must compare yourself to someone else, choose someone in worse shape than you are—me for example. I wear baggy sweats and a ragged tee shirt when I exercise. The last time my abs were flat, I was eight years old. And, by golly, I know bacon bits when I see them.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous including ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate; Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand, now available at Mitzi’s Books in Rapid City and on Amazon in both print and ebook versions.

By Dorothy Rosby

The secret to career success can be summed up in six little words: Fake It ‘Til You Make It. I’ve read many Fake-It-’Til-You-Make-It tips in business publications, and while it should be fairly obvious that none of them have worked for me, I’m going to share them with you anyway.

1. First of all, you must dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Or, to put it another way, look the part, even if you don’t have the part. I’m quite happy with the job I have, but I work at home which is lucky. My dress code could give the impression to anyone in an office setting that I’d like to teach aerobics for a living.

2. You’ll also want to appear busy and in demand, even if you aren’t. That’s why you should never admit that your appointment book is empty. When trying to set up an appointment with a colleague, study your blank calendar, shake your head, and say, “Hmmmm. . . no . . . maybe. . . I might be able to stop by at 10 o’clock on Tuesday. But to be safe, let’s make it 10:15 or even 10:16.” You can see how that would inspire more confidence in a potential business associate than if you said, “My week is wide open. In fact, other than a dentist appointment on Wednesday and lunch with my mom on Friday, I don’t have a single thing going.”

3. On your way up the corporate ladder, you’ll eventually find yourself dining in the presence of other successful people—or fakers, as the case may be. Nothing I read on the subject put it quite this way, but I think the rule for dining on a first date applies to business dining as well: Never order anything that comes with a wet wipe.

4. A small amount of messiness in your office implies friendliness, but too much clutter may cause your visitors to believe you don’t care what they think—which may be true. On the other hand, too clean of an office conveys coldness as well as the impression that you don’t have enough work to do, the danger being that a co-worker might give you some of hers.

5. Walking too slowly in the workplace also gives the impression that you don’t have enough to do. On the other hand, running around like the proverbial chicken with her head cut off may give the impression that you’re disorganized and have no authority, since, as you know, chickens have almost no say in the workplace. I find this one confusing, so I just ask myself how Oprah walks into her office. I’m pretty sure the answer is any way she wants to.

6. Speak up at meetings. Career experts say that employees who speak up first at meetings are seen as more self-confident than those who make comments at the end. So jump right in. Talk about your weekend if that’s all you can think of.

7. Finally, experts agree, you should start earlier and work later than the boss. That means that around 4:30, you should ask your supervisor, “What time do you think you’ll be leaving today? And any idea when you’ll be here in the morning?”

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous including ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate; Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand, coming in November 2022.  

By Dorothy Rosby

I once ordered antivirus software online. As it turned out, it would have been easier and more pleasant to have a virus.

I was unable to download the software so I emailed the support desk for help. Then several days later I emailed again. When no help was forthcoming, I purchased another brand and emailed the first company asking for a refund.

Then they offered to help. Then they couldn’t find any record of my order. Then they asked me to tell them what happened. Then they asked me to tell them again.

After more than a month and a dozen emails back and forth, they sent me a message saying, “Unfortunately, these issues are best resolved over the phone. Please call at your convenience.”

They must have meant at their convenience because they didn’t include a toll-free number and they left me on hold for twenty minutes—twice. Eventually I was able to speak to an actual human, or so I thought. I’ll call him SJ for “Smug Jerk”—because he was one, not because it’s his name. I forgot that, but his mother probably even calls him Smug Jerk.

Anyway, his helpful response was, “You’re past the thirty-day refund period.”

“But I’ve been emailing your company for thirty days.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s our policy.”

Customer service rule #1: Never say, “That’s our policy.” Even if it is. The only thing more infuriating to a customer is spitting on them. SJ probably would have done that too if he weren’t far away, hiding in his little cubicle in the bowels of some giant tech firm.

SJ said his supervisor would email me the next day. I told him I’d rather give him my phone number.

“He won’t call.”

“Why not? Your email said these issues are best resolved by phone.”

“Only within thirty days.”

That’s when I did something that I normally reserve only for the people I love: I yelled at SJ. I told him his customer service skills stink, his company stinks and his cubicle probably stinks too. Actually I don’t remember what I said, but I know it did nothing to change his company’s policy.

And he was right. His supervisor didn’t call. Nor did he email. And I’m still waiting for my refund.

The experience led me to contemplate other customer service nightmares I’ve endured. (I’ve probably been on the giving end of some as well, but I don’t have that much space.)

I was calling the lone hotel in a town I would be visiting the following week. When I said, “I’ll be arriving next Thursday—that’s Thanksgiving,” the proprietress said, “I am well aware of that.” On Thanksgiving I checked into the motel, which I now fondly refer to as the Bates Motel. I commented on her lovely grandchildren who happened to be playing in the lobby. “Yes,” she said icily, “Even people who own hotels have families.”

I was getting the feeling she didn’t want to be there on the holiday. Oddly enough, at that point, I didn’t either. Which leads me to customer service rule #2: The person who has the money you want should be led to believe that you’re happy to see them—whether or not you are.

And finally customer service rule #3: If the customer is upset, give them something free. This rule is also known as: If you work at a gas station that sells watered-down gas to an easily-annoyed customer on a very hot day, and that easily-annoyed customer walks the mile back to your station not once but twice, and while she’s waiting for a tow, that easily-annoyed customer would like a cold drink, never say: “that will be a dollar and 75 cents.” (I’m not easily annoyed, but otherwise this story is entirely true.)

Of course, I’ve had some wonderful customer service too. Back in the days of landlines, I had a cordless phone die after only a few days of use. I called the manufacturer on my cellphone, worried that since I’d screamed at a stranger on the telephone once, it would be easier to do it again.

A recording told me that because of the volume of inquiries, callers were waiting an average of twelve minutes on hold that day, and that if I didn’t have time to wait, I should call later. The recording was a nice idea—but I timed them anyway.

Eight minutes later a very nice man came on the line. He quickly diagnosed the problem as a bad battery and promised to send me a new one, which he did—at no charge.

Alas, the battery was not the problem. Who cares? What customer service!

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of three books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon.

 Dorothy Rosby

Author of Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About

www.dorothyrosby.com

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By Dorothy Rosby

According to the manufacturers of Cascade dishwashing detergent, using a dishwasher to wash your dishes saves 30 minutes a day over handwashing them. I read a fascinating article on the subject while I was wandering around the internet today frittering away the half hour I’d just saved using my dishwasher.

The author went on to say that we save 230 hours a year by letting our dishwashers do the work. I wasted another half hour trying to understand how saving 30 minutes a day washing dishes would save me 230 hours a year. It doesn’t add up, even when you count leap year. The only thing I can figure is that some dishwashers also clear the table, load and unload themselves and put the clean dishes away. 

Mine doesn’t do any of that, but at least I have that extra half hour every time I use my dishwasher. The question is, what am I doing with it? And what am I doing with all the time my other modern conveniences are supposedly saving me? Theoretically, I should have all sorts of free time to accomplish great things—or nap.

I have a washer and dryer so I don’t have to spend entire afternoons beating my clothes on a rock and hanging them up to dry. My refrigerator defrosts itself so I don’t have to stand in front of it for hours with a hairdryer and an ice pick. Quicken saves me 10 or 15 hours every month balancing my checkbook. I know that sounds like a lot, but I’m not any better at math than the good people at Cascade are. 

I even save time every day not tying my tennis shoes because they have Velcro fasteners. This is lucky because I spend so much time looking for them. 

I won’t try to tally up all the hours my modern conveniences are saving me because I can’t find my cellphone. Among its many timesaving apps is a built-in calculator which saves me a lot of time adding and subtracting—when I can find it.

The point is, I should have a lot of extra time. So why don’t I? I can’t be spending it all looking for my cellphone and my tennis shoes.

To make sense of it, I went to Google, that fount of all knowledge and time waster of epic proportions. I was horrified by what I found. One article said that if we’re average, we use two and a half hours every weekday going through our personal email. They didn’t break it down, but I estimate two hours and 20 minutes of that are spent deleting spam.

One website claimed the average American spends more than two hours a day on social media which means social media has replaced solitaire as the most common way to avoid doing actual work on the computer.

Another website said we spend just over three hours per day watching television and more than four and a half hours a week looking for our remotes. That’s about 40 minutes a day looking for our remote if my math is correct. It may not be because I still haven’t found my cellphone. I’m just lucky I have a dishwasher otherwise I wouldn’t have time to look for our remote.

Suddenly I understood. When it comes to time, technology giveth and technology taketh away. And some technology taketh a lot more than it giveth. It only took all the time my dishwasher, washing machine and Velcro tennis shoes have saved me over the last month and a half to figure that out. 

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of three books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon.

By Dorothy Rosby

I always thought that barring risky behavior and runaway buses, lifespan was a matter of genes. But I just came across an article called “9 Habits that the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived People Share.” The author, Dan Buettner, claims that genes are responsible for only about 20% of the average person’s lifespan. I’m relieved to know I might have some say about how long I’m around. I’m so far behind that an average lifespan will never be enough for me to get everything done.

More than 20 years ago, Buettner studied locations around the world where there are low rates of chronic disease and lots of spry centenarians: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California. He and his colleagues named the sites Blue Zones and identified nine habits people living in them shared, none of which was lying on the couch eating ice cream and watching NCIS reruns.

As you’d expect one of the habits is exercise, but you’ll be relieved to know that Blue Zoners aren’t running marathons and training for Ironman Triathlons. Buettner says they simply live lifestyles that encourage movement naturally. They garden, walk where they need to go and don’t rely on mechanical gadgets to do their work. I don’t mean to brag, but I get a lot of exercise naturally too. I mash my potatoes by hand, regularly run to the kitchen for snacks and often go up and down my stairs for exercise. Also, because I keep forgetting why I went downstairs in the first place.

Folks in the Blue Zones have purpose in their lives. The Okinawans use the phrase “ikigai” and the Nicoyans call it “plan de vida.” Both translate to “why I wake up in the morning” and I don’t think the answer is “because my alarm clock went off” or “I had to use the bathroom.”

People in Blue Zones eat a lot of veggies. They also tend to eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then they don’t eat again until morning. I wonder if that explains the real reason they wake up in the morning: breakfast.

Blue Zoners don’t overeat. Okinawans even recite a Confucian-inspired adage before dining, hara hachi bu, which loosely translated means just because it’s there doesn’t mean I have to eat it. Actually, it’s their reminder to stop eating when their stomach is 80 percent full. I don’t know how to tell if my stomach is 80 or 90 percent full. But I know for sure I always stop eating before I’m 100 percent full because I can always make room for pie if it’s offered.

The longest-lived people in the world experience stress like the rest of us do, but they make it a habit to relax. Some pray, Okinawans take a few moments daily to remember their ancestors, Ikarians take a nap and Sardinians have happy hour. I’ve been known to indulge in all of the above. I expect to live forever.

I’m kidding about the happy hour though. One glass of wine and I’m ready to nap. If I drank wine daily as most Blue Zoners do, I’d sleep through any extra years it got me. But if you want to make this a habit yourself, keep in mind moderation is the key. Blue Zoners stick to one or two—glasses, not bottles.

Rounding out the habits of long-lived people are the social ones. Having close family connections and friends that support healthy behaviors can add years to your life. So choose your friends carefully. You may have them for a long time.

Finally, the majority of Blue Zoners belong to some kind of faith-based community. This could be a big selling point for churches everywhere. How’s this for a marketing slogan: We believe in eternal life. Join us and you won’t start yours any sooner than necessary.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of three books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon.

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

A long-suffering reader of mine asked me if I ever struggle with writer’s block. I told her that when it comes to writing, I struggle with many things—laziness, lack of focus, a well-stocked refrigerator just down the hallway—but writer’s block isn’t one of them. That’s because writer’s block is a luxury for people who don’t have deadlines. I don’t think any of my editors would accept it as a valid reason for missing one.

Still I know writer’s block is real. And I can’t help wondering if people in other professions suffer from their own version of it. Do pilots, firefighters and brain surgeons ever feel blocked? I don’t know the answer to that, but for all our sakes, I sincerely hope they don’t.

Writer’s block is a psychological condition in which a writer finds herself unable to create. Her muse has abandoned her. I’m not sure if accountants and emergency medical technicians have muses so it’s possible they don’t experience block—thank goodness. But I think it’s worth exploring the possibility.

Certainly people in all career fields regularly face deadlines and I think most would grudgingly agree that they’re a gift, a practical but not necessarily welcome gift—like getting socks for Christmas. Without some cut-off date, I’m not sure some of us would ever finish anything. I can’t speak for anyone else, but a deadline forces me to engage in the most effective writer’s block prevention technique there is: writing rubbish. I don’t know if there is an equivalent for blocked pilots and brain surgeons, and I never want to find out.

Ideally of course the writer doesn’t stop at rubbish—and neither should the brain surgeon. All my columns follow a very predictable pattern from rubbish to passable: I have an idea I love. I think it’s brilliant. I think it will be the best thing I’ve ever written. I’m excited, inspired and motivated—for about half an hour.  

But sooner or later everything degenerates into work. This is the moment when, were it not for a deadline, I would succumb to a serious case of writer’s block or a rousing game of computer solitaire. They may or may not experience block, but I know for sure there are people in other professions who play solitaire on the job. You know who you are.

When I get to this point, I begin to doubt myself. I wonder why I ever thought the idea would work. I wonder why I didn’t pursue another line of work. Hopefully appliance repair people and trial court judges don’t have to deal with this every time they begin a job.

My deadline is looming so I must resort to writing rubbish until there’s a beginning, an ending and around 500 properly punctuated, grammatically correct but mostly uninspired words in the middle. I’m not happy with what I’ve written, but I could send it off to my editors if something serious came up, say my appendix burst or I had to go to jail for a few days. 

Thankfully neither of these has happened thus far, but if you ever read one of my columns and think it isn’t up to my usual level of mediocrity you can safely assume I’ve either had emergency surgery or I’ve been arrested.

Getting to this stage is always a comfort to me. At this point I start polishing, moving things around, exchanging one thing for another. I hope mechanics and orthopedic surgeons don’t do this. But for me, this part of the process is so fun that if I hadn’t had deadlines for the past 26 years, I might still be working on my first column.

At last I reach the final stage: ready or not, time to send. This is the equivalent of April 15 for accountants, who if they do indeed experience block, can file an extension.

Dorothy Rosby is a humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She is author of three books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books and on Amazon.