This and That & That and This
Here we are the end of February. Valentine’s Day has passed us by, and I hope all of you who love to spoil someone on this day went ahead and did so. Whether you went and bought flowers that day for 3 times more than the week before, went out for a nice supper, bought a special gift – or perhaps a simple I love you was good enough. Between the pandemic and the higher cost of living staying home with a glass of red wine was suffice for me. Not to mention when you have an alcoholic beverage you have to think about the safe ride home. Sometimes it’s just easier to stay home and make a good meal.
Once more the world around us is changing. We are leaving 2 years of a pandemic, mask wearing and recommended vaccinations. Majority of people have adapted to what our government mandated us to do, whether we liked it or not. And now change is upon us once more. Time to remove the mask and forget about showing your vaccination card if you had one. We can wander around freely like we used to do. For some this will be easy, for others they will work into their comfort zone one day at a time. I must say though the mask has come in mighty handy on these cold winter days. Lol!
This blog you are getting a little bit of this and a little bit of that – I decided not to nail down just one topic. So here is one of the topics I want to talk about. What are acronyms and why have they become such a big part of our language? An acronym is formed from the initial letters of other words and then pronounced as a word. For example, I have a really long name, which most people can’t say or spell. I get tired of correcting them, so it is easier to say just use “MLA”, which is the shortened version (acronym) of my name. I find it less annoying than hearing my name misspelled and mispronounced. Here are some other very frequent used acronyms. DIY – do it yourself, BLT – bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, EUC – excellent used condition, VL – vacation leave, SL – sick leave, NASA – National Aeronautics Space Administration, and the list goes on. With the wide use of texting, we now use even more acronyms. Such as TTYL – talk to you later, LOL – laugh out loud, BTW – by the way, FAQ – frequently asked questions. The list goes on and on. I so dislike it when I don’t have a clue of what the acronym means. Pretty hard to understand something when the abbreviated letters mean nothing to you.
And what is the EDO? It is a new experience for me. The majority of my life was spent working for private business. No such thing as an EDO there. And what is the EDO – an Extra Day Off or in some cases an Earned Day Off, depending on where you work. Frequently associated with government jobs. In my case the EDO is an extra day off – no pay. I work 72 hours every 2 weeks vs a standard 80-hour work week. Why does this matter? Well, a taxpayer is not paying for my EDO, even though this is a common misconception. I get paid for what I work – 72 hours and not a penny more. Working 72 hours can also be a challenge for some people as they would really like 80 hours of work every 2 weeks vs 72. But man alive – once you get used to having an extra day off every 2 weeks; I just don’t think you can go back to the good old 80-hours of work every two weeks.