{"id":946,"date":"2010-10-14T14:21:44","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T19:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=946"},"modified":"2012-02-09T22:00:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T04:00:32","slug":"toastmaster-postmaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/10\/toastmaster-postmaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Toastmaster \/ Postmaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, 13 October 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most significant event for me today was my first attendance at a Toastmasters Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I enjoy public speaking, something that makes me a bit of an anomaly in amongst my fellow Americans (or maybe not…?<\/a>). When I was a JW, I used to give speeches all the time. It was probably my favorite aspect of being a Witness. Though, admittedly, when you think about knocking on doors, not celebrating birthdays, and wearing a suit all the fucking time, it’s not exactly a tight contest.<\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/p>\n

Shortly after leaving the Witnesses, my wife suggested that I join a Toastmasters Club, which is precisely what her Dad did when he exited the Witnesses, too. The problem was, though, that her Dad had the convenience of having a Toastmasters Club right there at his job; I did not.<\/p>\n

If I had any common sense, I should’ve looked up the info and started my own Toastmasters Club at my job. But I didn’t do that. Not sure why. It might stem from my being a complete idiot when it comes to anything remotely useful.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, I’d considered joining the Freethought Toastmasters Club<\/a>, which meets right in my hometown. Alas, I’ve never felt like taking more time away from my family.<\/p>\n

But then, a couple of weeks ago, an email came in my inbox from some manger-type person saying to congratulate Tony on his upcoming award. And guess why Tony’s getting an award? Well, there are several reasons, but among them was the fact that he organized and presides over the Toastmasters Club here at work.<\/p>\n

I immediately emailed Tony (who I know, as we worked on a project together a few years back) and told him I wanted to join. He invited me to today’s meeting.<\/p>\n

It was interesting. I sat in the back and was welcomed as a guest. Very organized. Almost too officious. They must be following Robert’s Rules of Order. The President invited the coordinator up, who invited the speech coordinator up, who invited the first speaker up. Then there was a table topics coordinator, then a woman who took care of odds and ends, such as inviting up the grammar cop and a several people who’s jobs it was to critique the earlier speeches. A few people took notes, and one woman was the time-keeper. Most people had books that, I presume, laid out several counsel points.<\/p>\n

I had no idea this club had been going on right at my job and, at the end when the President asked if I enjoyed myself, I said that I wanted to join.<\/p>\n

So, we’ll see where this leads. I wish I would’ve known about it a year ago, as I’ve done quite a bit of public speaking in the past year, and I could’ve used that (presumably) for some of the requirements to advance. Oh well. I’m happy to do more.<\/p>\n

Thursday, 14 October 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

I stopped at the post office today. They have three counters, but only one person was working. There was one man in front of me. He was old, but not elderly.<\/p>\n

He walked up to the postal employee and showed him an email print-out in which he said that the email came with an attachment he was unable to open. The postal employee looked at the paper and said, “Well do you have any ID?” Of course, the old man did, so he gave the postal worker his license and then the worker disappeared in the back to go look for (I assume) a package.<\/p>\n

Another employee walked by, right behind the counters, and I stared her right in the eye in that “Why don’t you help me?” manner. She ignored me, and continued blissfully flitting around, moving boxes from point A to point near-A.<\/p>\n

After about five minutes, as the line behind me progressed from 1 to 3 to 5 people, the man came back up to the front, empty handed, and told the old man he couldn’t find anything for him. Together, they read aloud the email, wherein it said “We were unable to deliver the package you mailed…” I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.<\/p>\n

Then that woman came back around, and, seeing that there were several people waiting, she decided to open up counter #2 and motioned me over. I really hate how the post office’s (and lots of stores’) employees won’t feel compelled to help one person, but when they see a big line, then they suddenly decide to help. That’s a great way to piss off everyone in line.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the old man was shuttled off to another postal employee, who had to open up a counter just for him.<\/p>\n

Man, I hope they figure out how to open up that attachment. I gotta say, I think it’s great that the USPS now helps people open up email attachments. What a great world we live in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 The most significant event for me today was my first attendance at a Toastmasters Club. I enjoy public speaking, something that makes me a bit of an anomaly in amongst my fellow Americans (or maybe not…?). When I was a JW, I used to give speeches all the time. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}