The Tyranny of the Queue

Despite the great lengths we took to speed through the pharmacy line, there was a hiccup at the counter, and I was the cause of a quickly growing queue snaking behind us. As I growled my displeasure, hubby tried to shush me with mild threats, with little effect.

This should not have happened.

It matters, and I'll tell you why.

I decided some time ago that a passion to carry me through retirement might very well be to shorten these lines, in any way I can. It was a pharmacy failure that inspired me to start this blog years ago. The queue is dispiriting, it deadens the soul. Temporary strangers are caught, helpless, in a chain of events out of their control. In the heirarchy of petitioner and petitioned, the pharmacist has all the power. Social constraints keep us bound to the other side of the counter, unable to leap the barrier and rifle through the baskets ourselves. No matter how broken the process, all of us on the other side of the line are caught until someone untangles the mess.

I care because I carry some chronic health conditions. I will be spending time in lines. If there is a queue, I want someone to be alert, to parse the business process to catch the failures, and to make it better. I want my humanity to be recognized, to never be reduced to a number. I will not stand by, deadened to passivity.

From bureaucracy by dudayaduda

(Bureaucracy by dudayaduda)
I've had it very good the last few years, by the way of a small town pharmacist who remembered my name from the first day. He would see us coming from our entry in the store, and our medications would be waiting for us by the time we arrived at the counter. When we discussed the nuances of insurance or drug interactions, I felt like I was in the care of an informed professional, and that I received respect as a fellow human being. I knew from that first meeting that Jaime Fournier of Fournier Drugs, Grande Cache, would spoil me for any other sort of service.

So. Well. We leave my beloved small town, and it is big city again. I had a plan to conquer the queue, and I did so with a vengeance. Insurance plan cards and drug lists in hand, Jaimie's phone number displayed on my iPhone, I introduced ourselves to our chosen pharmacy. For that initial visit, there were no prescriptions to be filled. I was giving ample notice of our existence, to be vetted through the system. The attendant was a tad frazzled, I'll give her that. Two other pharmacists were busy at the filling station. An equally frazzled line had formed at the receiving end of the counter. That first visit was successful, and I made a mental note never to visit at "rush hour".

It's been a few weeks, and a small pile of vials were due for refills. Determined to bypass the rush, I had hubby drop off the prescriptions first thing in the morning.

So far, so good.

Granted, I took the chance at arriving after work, but things were looking up. There was but one customer ahead of me. Our prescriptions were found quickly. But.

But hubby's insurance had not gone through.

My strategy crashing around my ears, I am the outraged diva. Of course his insurance should work. I still had his card on me, and I made the girl look it up again. After some rushed number crunching, she calls out, "Good news, it took!".

"Of course it took," I growled. Hubby made nervous shushing sounds. A line started forming at our back.

Some further frantic number crunching, "And yours took, too!" Bravo, I silently rumble, the system works.

I fuss over payment, and we clear the counter to freedom.

I had done everything in my power to smooth the way for a speedy delivery. Insurance information was provided weeks ahead of time. Our orders were placed seven hours in advance. What went wrong? In my opinion there were two fails on Seth Godin's list, "It's not my job", and "I am not a fish." The attendants that day had the time, the process, and the tools in place to get the job done. What was missing was that element of humanity. The first time the insurance did not clear, during a slow period of the day, the attendant did not take a minute to put herself in my shoes. How might I feel at the end of the day if the insurance had not cleared? There's a husband and wife team here, on the same plan. Could something else have gone wrong?

She had done all that was required of her at the time, following process, and doing it efficiently. But she effectively doubled her effort at the worst time of day by not taking a moment to see not papers and slips but a human being at the end of the line.

The Almighty Signature, Last Stand for Paper Forms

Hubby and I have spent the past month preparing to move from Grande Cache back to Edmonton. There's a lot of paperwork from here to there, as we put our home on the market. Living in so remote a location, real estate forms, financial applications, rent applications, and leases all had to be done online. I have over an inch of paper generated in the past month just to get through this.

 The bugbear is the requirement for a signature.

This back-and-forth necessitated the printing and re-scanning of the forms multiple times, the quality degrading through each pass-through. How can integrity be maintained if the document is no longer readable?

 The process was so painful I was wondering if I might help industry take the leap to e-signature. Electronic transactions are legal, most governments having some form of electronic transactions legislation to ease the way for commerce. The process, however, must be proven confidential, secure, and valid. There must be some sort of validation to confirm that the Jane Doe signing is truly Jane. The signing must be password protected, and the transmission encrypted. Privacy watchdogs must be reassured that the identifying information and passwords are protected from loss or misuse.

I believe also there is public hesitation to trust an online process with their signature.

The potential benefits outweigh the risks, in my opinion, as society greens up, and is switching to electronic media wherever possible. Paper elimination saves trees.Crossing this final hurdle of e-signature could finally move offices to paper-free.

I was pleasantly surprised to find in my final transaction, a property management company that uses an online signature service. I initialed and forwarded my final forms completely online. The service is docusign, and it gets an excellent rating from PC magazine. A similar product for comparison is RPost Office. With several products out there, it is time to make the move to e-signature.

...........................................................

As a post-script, I followed up this blog with an e-mail to the Alberta Real Estate Association, and I received a prompt and thorough reply. The ARCA has been hampered by legislation, specifically the Statute of Frauds and the Real Estate Act of Alberta, which requires "wet" signatures. Changes are in the works and the ARCA will be publishing forms that allow for e-signatures this September.

Kaizen Motivation

It has been an eventful few days as we travelled at times only hours ahead of floods and road closures in Calgary. What a spectacular flood. Now we are heading north to home and hearth. I am finishing up a borrowed book on Kaizen and I came across a quote I must not forget. "Individual-oriented Kaizen is often regarded as a morale booster, and management does not always ask for immediate economic payback on each suggestion. Management attention and responsiveness are essential if workers are to become "thinking workers" always looking for better ways to do their work"

I think of my time with the government, and the supreme effort required to being in the smallest change. I think of the bright recruits who sincerely asked why we might do a job differently. They were absolutely right, but the effort to implement would freeze me to immobility.

Stop employees often enough and they simply quit trying. The bold ones leave, the ones who stay a sepia portrait of their former selves.

I ran in to that same blandness at the town office. I needed to talk to Taxation, but their number is buried under the general directory, not under the department listings. It took a couple calls to figure that out. I mentioned this to the town worker. She admitted that more than one person has commented  on this, and then changed the subject. She treated this small issue as insurmountable as the Rockies visible out the window.

Am I exaggerating to think that an atmosphere where the individual employee is so disempowered, cannot build, grow, thrive, energize?

What does 100 calories look like?

I love 100 calorie snacks. Be a virtuous snackist and have your fun, too. Not only that, but the marketers of these reduced packages have convinced us to pay more for the privilege.  But of course the foot pundits must spoil our fun. They may be 100 calories, but are they good calories? Being a type-2 diabetic complicates things further. I am also supposed to make sure it is balanced. I am to pack in a carbohydrate, a protein, and roughage in to that teeny tiny bundle. There are days, well, the thinking needed to put together the perfect little snack, while my body rages to be fed, is more than I can handle. On days like that, I throw the marketing model in to my lunch bag.

I got to thinking, what's stopping me from putting together my own 100 calorie wonders? I document the creations as I go, and I never have to measure a second time. A happy by-product of this exercise is I got a better picture of what a hundred calories looks like. It's little.

One Wasa rye cracker, 2 tablespoons hummus, sliced bell pepper, and five Wasabi peas (hot!)

One Kavli cracker, 1/4 pepperoni stick, two skinny cow (lite) wedges, and carrot peels.

A great bedtime snack, shared by a type-1 buddy, is half a protein bar with 125 ml of (1%) milk. This tides over to breakfast very nicely.  It comes out to about 200 calories.

An egg is fifty calories. I paired it with half a crusty bun and a little ketchup. Salsa or fresh tomato would look better. I really wanted to show off my microwave egg cooker. One minute and fifteen seconds!

Two measly dates, stuffed with Laughing Cow cream cheese. Yum, tasty; a calorie punch in a tiny package.

Ten peanuts, count them and weep. Maybe measure with a tablespoon, no cheating!

Edamame, 1/2 cup. Now this is more satisfying! Break open one end and suck the seeds out. Try with parmesan cheese or a little hot sauce.

Half an energy, protein or health bar. Taste of Nature; nuts and agave nectar. Another favorite of mine is The Simply bar, carb-free and fiber-full. These bars are handy portable snacks, but typically about 180 calories each. Cut them in half for a home-made hundred calorie treat.

Chickpeas, 1.2 cup. High in fiber and protein, low in fat. So satisfying! Roast them, munch on them like nuts. I buy dried and reconstitute them overnight in water. Here's a fabulous oven-roasted recipe by Chris Rochelle.

Bad news, cheese-lovers. Due to its high fat content, cheese is a very dense calorie choice. This is Armstrong Extra Old low fat cheese, 3 cm, 80 calories. I fleshed it out with two croutons. Cheese is still great for its protein content, and it is so beautifully portable. And tasty. To keep from over-eating, I precut my block in to squares, line five cubes along a strip of plastic wrap, and wrap them tightly. I store them all in a Ziploc in the freezer, and take out a few at a time. If I am using a previously frozen cube in baking, it crumbles rather than shreds.

Four walnuts, or eight halves.

http://frugaledmontonmama.com/2014/03/make-these-simple-chocolate-100-calorie-snacks-at-home/

Under 50 calories:
http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/diet-weight-loss/50-Best-Snacks-Under-50-Calories?click=ht

I will post more.

Feel Free

Chances are if you have wandered here you found one of my Feel Free cards.

Be free to dance, wherever you are.

roll those shoulders

jiggle

laugh

Feel free to set aside the burdens of the week, the daily worries, and responsibilities. 

Have fun.

Children play in the park, shrieking, running, rosy cheeks, gushing adventure

 Today, take play back.

relax

soak

Take in the beauty of a scene. Be still. 

Taste it, savor it, roll it on your tongue. Promise yourself not to forget.

Open your new freedom account at a bank.

Dream a new dream that is all your own.

Allow the intimacy of massage, a fragrant oil maybe.

Whatever free means to you, do it. You have my permission.

There is time enough to take up your load again.

Irate Taxi Services in Calgary

Company threatens legal action over new taxi rules, shrieks a Calgary Sun article this past June. "The proposed bylaws will require cab owners to electronically submit vehicle GPS and other data from existing taxi meters...Some of the data the city wants submitted electronically include: the status of the cab’s availability, trip volumes, dispatch response times, in-service vehicle counts, average seconds to answer customers calls by dispatchers, abandoned call rates, hold wait times and detailed records of customer complaints."


Could these demands be met by a business bound by traditional paper-based forms and logs? If any current cab companies have not embraced the digital age, these new requirements would indeed be nearly impossible to satisfy. 


But if this information is collected digitally - and if all cab companies are on the same platform -  the value of having this data could transform the way cab services operate in Calgary. I would suggest further that City council go a step further and make this data available on an open platform to allow innovators to build new apps. Getting ahead in the data game may even be critical for the survival of the industry (Uber Expands to Canada).


Even more critical, however, is a shift in the way institutions work together. There has to be a fundamental trust between council and the taxi companies to openly share this data. This trust is obviously missing.


Could another forum be organized, other than rounds of council meetings and litigation, where both parties be introduced to the innovators and the big ideas and opportunities latent in this data? An UnConference or Hackathon might just be the thing.

Day 13 - A Rollicking Trip Home

It was 1:00 in the afternoon, and I was sitting in the lobby of our Best Western, surrounded by our luggage. I suddenly flushed, and my breath became ragged. Unnoticed by others, my heart raced, and my thoughts went wild. I was checking our boarding tickets again and realized I had made a mistake. We weren't leaving Nanaimo at 3:00; the flight from Vancouver was leaving at 3:00. The flight from Nanaimo had left at ten that morning. We were going to miss our connecting flight.

I quickly worked out our options as I waited for Art to return. I thought, perhaps, if we were lucky, we could take a sea plane (twenty minute flight) to Vancouver and catch up with that connecting flight. I alternately scolded and pleaded with Art to hurry, as we trundled our luggage to the harbor to get our tickets. I usually appreciate his easy-going pace. Not this day. 

As I sat impatiently in the Harbour Air waiting room, my neighbour touched my arm. Her mother is deaf, and she was wondering if I might watch out for her to make sure she caught her shuttle at the other end. At the word "deaf", my focus instantly shifted. I don't have as much opportunity to practice my ASL these days, and I delight in the opportunity to practice. As the daughter talked, I signed to the mother. The mother signalled to her daughter. The woman asked, "My mother says you can sign".

"That's right," I say, "aren't we lucky?" Then rushed down the ramp with the mother to the waiting plane. Art followed.

The flight was as much adventure as Art and I would dare, dipping in the air pockets, bobbing and weaving in a most queasy way. Art is white-knuckled on such trips, and this was no exception, great views notwithstanding. I was wonderfully distracted, chatting away in a combination of lip-reading and sign with my companion. Noisy little airplanes are no obstacle for the deaf. I translated the pilot's instructions. The mother chatted happily with me, and every time we dipped, she joked we could swim the rest of the way. This mother, deaf from birth, was not introduced to sign until she was in her forties, so she is not fluent. Nevertheless, she is very skilled at communicating in a hearing world, lip-reading where sign failed. She is the mother of seven children, from South Africa and travelling to London next to visit one of her other children. She lost her husband of many years to cancer, I think. I could see that without her companion, finding people to chat to, to connect, is an ongoing challenge. The hearing can be so blind. 

She let me know that our finding each other was the work of the Lord. I can barely argue. What should have been an anxiety-filled trip quickly evaporated. Her daughter should not have worried. The mother found the shuttle driver and had her luggage in order before Art and I were fully out of the plane.

Despite our best efforts, we were still ten minutes late for the connecting flight. This meant another interminable line-up, a grim-faced Air Canada worker doing more than she needed to, rearranging our flights. Instead of leaving at 3:00 that afternoon, we left at 10:30 that evening. I took the opportunity to set myself up at a wi-fi bar and marked papers. Art watched the hockey game.

The flight was hot, close. We dragged our luggage (with some practiced ease, I must say) to the final cab ride to my friends' house in Northeast Calgary. Art and I whispered our way to the ready guest beds, and crashed.

P.S. Guess where our luggage is stored on the sea-plane? In the floats!