Paralegal Pie

Should you dress up for Halloween at work?

Sure you should, just do it right.

Halloween is my favorite holiday!  You can celebrate Halloween with family, friends and even co-workers if you do so properly.

Here is an article with some sound advice, some that I may actually take myself.

http://www.theworkbuzz.com/career-advice/halloween-costume-rules/

Flu Shots

I'm getting my flu shot today, thanks to Berger & Montague, my firm arranges for the flu shots to come to us every year.

I get a flu shot every year, and if you don't you need to read this blog post from Medscape.  It doesn't matter that you don't work in healthcare, if you live among humans you need to get a flu shot.

This post is hilarious and informative.

http://boards.medscape.com/forums?128@910.ETD3aaPHxoR@.2a0e4709!comment=1

I recently wrote a paper on pandemic flu and although this post says the flu, the regular, run of the mill flu KILLS 20,000 people a year, I would argue that the latest statitics state that the flu KILLS 36,000 people a year.

Interviewing Tips

I found this "Tips for Interviewing" at the Glaxosmithkline website.  I believe that it applies to all jobs.  It's very short but very informative.

The first tip was most interesting... reread your resume. 

http://us.gsk.com/html/career/career-search-interview-hints.html

Inter-office envelopes. I had to vent!

What is so hard about writing a name on an inter-office envelope one right after the other, down one column and then starting on the next column?   Maybe we can all make an effort.  If you were meant  to write and draw all over the envelope it wouldn't have lines and columns.

Beloit College Mindset List for Class of 2015

This year’s entering college class of 2015 was born just as the Internet took everyone onto the information highway and as Amazon began its relentless flow of books and everything else into their lives.  Members of this year’s freshman class, most of them born in 1993, are the first generation to grow up taking the word “online” for granted and for whom crossing the digital divide has redefined research, original sources and access to information, changing the central experiences and methods in their lives. They have come of age as women assumed command of U.S. Navy ships, altar girls served routinely at Catholic Mass, and when everything from parents analyzing childhood maladies to their breaking up with boyfriends and girlfriends, sometimes quite publicly, have been accomplished on the Internet.

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit’s former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief and Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride, it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation. Mindset List websites at Beloit College and at mindsetmoment.com, the media site webcast and their Facebook page receive more than a million hits annually.

Nief and McBride recently applied their popular format to 10 generations of Americans over 150 years in their new book, The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal (Wiley and Sons.).

As for the class of 2015, without any memory whatever of George Herbert Walker Bush as president, they came into existence as Bill Clinton came into the presidency. Their parents, frequently older than one might expect because women have always been able to get pregnant almost regardless of age, have hovered over them with extra care and have agreed with those states that mandated the wearing of bike helmets. Ferris Bueller could be their overly cautious dad, and Jimmy Carter is an elderly smiling public man who appears occasionally on television doing good works. “Dial-up,” Woolworths and the Sears “Big Book” are as antique to them as “talking machines” might have been to their grandparents. Meanwhile, as they’ve wondered why O.J. Simpson has always been suspected of something, they have all “been there, done that, gotten the Tshirt,” shortened boring conversations with “yadda, yadda, yadda,” and recognized LBJ as LeBron James.

For those who cannot comprehend that it has been 18 years since this year’s class was born, they will quickly confirm that the next four years will go even faster and, like the rest of us, they will continue to grow older at increasing speed.

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The Mindset List for the Class of 2015

Andre the Giant, River Phoenix, Frank Zappa, Arthur Ashe and the Commodore 64 have always been dead.

Their classmates could include Taylor Momsen, Angus Jones, Howard Stern's daughter Ashley, and the Dilley Sextuplets.

1. There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.
2. Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents.
3. States and Velcro parents have always been requiring that they wear their bike helmets.
4. The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.
5. There have nearly always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.
6. They “swipe” cards, not merchandise.
7. As they’ve grown up on websites and cell phones, adult experts have constantly fretted about their alleged deficits of empathy and concentration.
8. Their school’s “blackboards” have always been getting smarter.
9. “Don’t touch that dial!”….what dial?
10. American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.
11. More Americans have always traveled to Latin America than to Europe.
12. Amazon has never been just a river in South America.
13. Refer to LBJ, and they might assume you're talking about LeBron James.
14. All their lives, Whitney Houston has always been declaring “I Will Always Love You.”
15. O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
16. Women have never been too old to have children.
17. Japan has always been importing rice.
18. Jim Carrey has always been bigger than a pet detective.
19. We have never asked, and they have never had to tell.
20. Life has always been like a box of chocolates.
21. They’ve always gone to school with Mohammed and Jesus.
22. John Wayne Bobbitt has always slept with one eye open.
23. The Communist Party has never been the official political party in Russia.
24. “Yadda, yadda, yadda” has always come in handy to make long stories short.
25. Video games have always had ratings.
26. Chicken soup has always been soul food.
27. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has always been available on TV.
28. Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.
29. Arnold Palmer has always been a drink.
30. Dial-up is soooooooooo last century!
31. Women have always been kissing women on television.
32. Their older siblings have told them about the days when Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers.
33. Most have grown up with a faux Christmas Tree in the house at the holidays.
34. They’ve always been able to dismiss boring old ideas with “been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt.”
35. The bloody conflict between the government and a religious cult has always made Waco sound a little whacko.
36. Unlike their older siblings, they spent bedtime on their backs until they learned to roll over.
37. Music has always been available via free downloads.
38. Grown-ups have always been arguing about health care policy.
39. Moderate amounts of red wine and baby aspirin have always been thought good for the heart.
40. Sears has never sold anything out of a Big Book that could also serve as a doorstop.
41. The United States has always been shedding fur.
42. Electric cars have always been humming in relative silence on the road.
43. No longer known for just gambling and quickie divorces, Nevada has always been one of the fastest growing states in the Union.
44. They’re the first generation to grow up hearing about the dangerous overuse of antibiotics.
45. They pressured their parents to take them to Taco Bell or Burger King to get free pogs.
46. Russian courts have always had juries.
47. No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.
48. While they’ve been playing outside, their parents have always worried about nasty new bugs borne by birds and mosquitoes.
49. Public schools have always made space available for advertising.
50. Some of them have been inspired to actually cook by watching the Food Channel.
51. Fidel Castro’s daughter and granddaughter have always lived in the United States.
52. Their parents have always been able to create a will and other legal documents online.
53. Charter schools have always been an alternative.
54. They’ve grown up with George Stephanopoulos as the Dick Clark of political analysts.
55. New Kids have always been known as NKOTB.
56. They’ve always wanted to be like Shaq or Kobe: Michael Who?
57. They’ve often broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.
58. Their parents sort of remember Woolworths as this store that used to be downtown. 
59. Kim Jong-il has always been bluffing, but the West has always had to take him seriously.
60. Frasier, Sam, Woody and Rebecca have never Cheerfully frequented a bar in Boston during primetime.
61. Major League Baseball has never had fewer than three divisions and never lacked a wild card entry in the playoffs.
62. Nurses have always been in short supply.
63. They won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.
64. Altar girls have never been a big deal.
65. When they were 3, their parents may have battled other parents in toy stores to buy them a Tickle Me Elmo while they lasted.
66. It seems the United States has always been looking for an acceptable means of capital execution.
67. Folks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have always been able to energize with Pepsi Cola.
68. Andy Warhol is a museum in Pittsburgh.
69. They’ve grown up hearing about suspiciously vanishing frogs.
70. They’ve always had the privilege of talking with a chatterbot.
71. Refugees and prisoners have always been housed by the U.S. government at Guantanamo.
72. Women have always been Venusians; men, Martians.
73. McDonalds coffee has always been just a little too hot to handle.
74. “PC” has come to mean Personal Computer, not Political Correctness.
75. The New York Times and the Boston Globe have never been rival newspapers

Need a Process Server?

Keep this web site handy http://www.napps.org/ all you do is type in the zip code of where you need a process server and a list pops up.  I never heard of it before today. What a time saver!

NFPA 2011 Annual Convention

 

Information is available at www.paralegals.org

National Debt Clock

I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat... this is scary.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Google a Day

As a paralegal I always considered myself to be a "Cracker Jack" researcher.  Now every schmoo with a computer thinks that they too are a "Cracker Jack" researcher.  Well that's just not true.  Sure anyone can use the internet to find the answer to a moderately hard question.  But not everyone can call themselves a "Cracker Jack" researcher. 

In order to be a successful reseracher you must first know where to find the information that you need.  As you all know, only a smidgen of the information on the World Wide Web is available through a GOOGLE or BING search.  The rest is hidden in the DEEP WEB.  Not all of us have access to the resources of the DEEP WEB but, for most searches GOOGLE is always a good starting point.

Here are two web sites that will help you 1) hone your research skills using Google and 2) challenge yourself in finding information on GOOGLE.  I urge you to visit both regularly. 

http://searchresearch1.blogspot.com/

www.googleaday.com

 

 

No Pronouns Please

About a lifetime ago I started working with an attorney (who for the record I adore) and the first time I walked in to his office and began to speak he looked me right in the eyes and said "no pronouns please." 

Although I couldn't see my face I'm pretty sure it was saying something along the lines of  what? huh? are you a crazy man? am I on Punk'd? what do you mean by no pronouns?

And my head is spinning -- pronouns are words like he, she, it, them... right?  I begin to question myself and sweat profusely  How in the world am I going to complete a sentence without using pronouns?  He couldn't possibly be serious? Could he?

So I begin again.  "So I called John and he said..."  The attorney repeats back to me "he who?"  I'm thinking to myself JOHN! WHO ELSE COULD HE BE?  I took a deep breath and I began AGAIN! "I called John and John relayed to me..."  I got through the conversation but it took alot of brain matter and super concentration.

From that day on I have always tried to limit my use of pronouns in both speech and writing.  You must try it.  You will communicate so much more effectively you will be amazed.  Its much harder to implement in speech but its fairly simple in writing.  Of course, you can't and shouldn't try to eliminate all pronouns, that would be ridiculous.  And you would probably sound like someone from the Third Rock From the Sun.  But definitely give it a try.