Turn off your cellphones, for God's sake

Fowl, or foul

Whenever my Mom (Constance) would cook chicken for the family, she always asked my Dad "how's the chicken, Pierre Elliot?" Dad would always answer, "it's fowl, Constance".

At Christmas I was home in Moose Jaw (Canada) and Constance (who is losing her memory) told me that "your constant preoccupation with your cellphone is a foul habit, Gloria. Show your mother some respect". Then she would ask me time and time again "are you still in manpower?"

Today, CEO Stan started off our management meeting with a positive statement. Yesterday Stan watched a webinar on "The Power of the Positive". Stan said, "Turn off all your god damn phones during our management meetings. All of you suffer from a foul attention deficit disorder, for Christ sake. Comrade Carl, especially you! I think your foreign nerds might have been sending whatsapp messages while they were writing our software code".

I told Stan that HR business partnership is based on my responsiveness to text messages. Stan countered "but Gloria you are in the meeting with all your constituents. Turn off your Blackberry girl. Better than that, give it to me" And he came over to me, looked at my legs, and took away my Blackberry phone, noting it was "Canadian crap".

I did not panic. True, my hands did shake, but I did some breathing exercises and said to my self, "HR Business Partnership carries a price".