Promenade à seize ans - by Guy de Maupassant

Promenade à seize ans 

Guy De Maupassant

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La terre souriait au ciel bleu. L'herbe verte
De gouttes de rosée était encore couverte.
Tout chantait par le monde ainsi que dans mon coeur.
Caché dans un buisson, quelque merle moqueur
Sifflait. Me raillait-il ? Moi, je n'y songeais guère.
Nos parents querellaient, car ils étaient en guerre
Du matin jusqu'au soir, je ne sais plus pourquoi.
Elle cueillait des fleurs, et marchait près de moi.
Je gravis une pente et m'assis sur la mousse
A ses pieds. Devant nous une colline rousse
Fuyait sous le soleil jusques à l'horizon.
Elle dit : "Voyez donc ce mont, et ce gazon
Jauni, cette ravine au voyageur rebelle !"
Pour moi je ne vis rien, sinon qu'elle était belle.
Alors elle chanta. Combien j'aimais sa voix !
Il fallut revenir et traverser le bois.
Un jeune orme tombé barrait toute la route ;
J'accourus ; je le tins en l'air comme une voûte
Et, le front couronné du dôme verdoyant,
La belle enfant passa sous l'arbre en souriant.
Émus de nous sentir côte à côte, et timides,
Nous regardions nos pieds et les herbes humides.
Les champs autour de nous étaient silencieux.
Parfois, sans me parler, elle levait les yeux ;
Alors il me semblait (je me trompe peut-être)
Que dans nos jeunes coeurs nos regards faisaient naître
Beaucoup d'autres pensers, et qu'ils causaient tout bas
Bien mieux que nous, disant ce que nous n'osions pas.

Pesky and Intolerable! - by TPO

Pesky and Intolerable!

by

TPO

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It has now been slightly over four decades since I started working for a living in professional fields. I have been under the supervision of a variety of managers, and I have been a manager myself although I never enjoyed the role all that much. Of all the situations I found myself in, the best ones were those where I have been my own manager. Be that as it may, I am now happily anticipating my retirement which is possible in about eleven months. I am especially relishing the prospect that I will then be free and not have to endure those pesky and intolerable people, those bad managers!

How do you tell if a manager is bad? Simple: by the things the manager says!

Liz Ryan of Bloomberg Businessweek has written a piece about "ten things only bad managers say."

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Ten Things Only Bad Managers Say

by Liz Ryan, http://www.businessweek.com/management 

September 23, 2011

We know the kinds of things good managers say: They say “Attaboy” or “Attagirl,” “Let me know if you run into any roadblocks, and I’ll try to get rid of them for you,” and “You’ve been killing yourself—why don’t you take off at noon on Friday?”

Bad managers don’t say these things. Helpful, encouraging, and trust-based words and phrases don’t occur to them.

….

If you don’t want this job, I’ll find someone who does.
[….] Good managers realize that to get and keep great people, they have to move past the dollars-and-cents transaction and let people own their jobs. Good leaders give people latitude and let them know that their contributions have value. Lousy managers, on the other hand, love to remind employees that it’s all about the transaction: “You work for me.” [or, they might even be more offensive: “This is what you are paid for!”] [….]

I don’t pay you to think.
This is what a bad manager says when an employee offers an idea he doesn’t like.  [….] It screams, “Do what I tell you to do, and nothing else.” [….]

I won’t have you on eBay/ESPN/Facebook/etc. while you’re on the clock.
Decent managers have figured out that there is no clock, not for white-collar knowledge workers, anyway. Knowledge workers live, sleep, and eat their jobs. [….] If a person is sitting in the corner staring up at the ceiling, you could be watching him daydream—or watching him come up with your next million-dollar product idea ….

I’ll take it under advisement.
There are certain words that we never use in real life—only in business and only in ways that let us know that the speaker is shining us on, big time. “I’ll take it under advisement” means “Go away and die, and don’t speak to me again unless I ask you to.” It means “I am not going to do whatever you just suggested that I do, and I want you to know that I value your opinions less than I can tell you.”

Who gave you permission to do that?
[….] […] a manager walked into the conference room. “Who called this meeting?” he asked. “Only a grade level E5 can call a meeting.” My brother left that job a few months later. [….]

Drop everything and DO THIS NOW!
Any manager can have a last-minute emergency that pushes everything else out of the way. Good managers pull this move sparingly and only in real crises. Poor managers do it every day [….]

Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.
This chestnut showed up during the era when people were beginning to think about business process and realizing that employees could often solve their day-to-day problems in the moment and on the ground, rather than having to go upstairs to get help. That’s O.K., but too many managers have reinterpreted “Bring me solutions, not problems” as “Don’t complain—shut up and deal with it.” [….] Managers who say, “Bring me solutions” are often really saying, “Stop telling me what I don’t want to hear.” Working for a person like that will shorten your lifespan.

Sounds like a personal problem to me.
[When a manager treats the chaff and the grain equally, and demands or expects harmony] [….] If your manager can’t see misbehavior [abusive behavior] and snuff it out, you have a problem.

I have some feedback for you … and everyone here feels the same way.
Good managers give their employees feedback when it’s warranted, and they try to emphasize and reinforce the good things. Bad managers don’t give praise, but they ladle on the criticism, and the really bad ones add an extra twist of meanness: They say, “Everyone here feels the same way.” [….]

In these times, you’re lucky to have a job at all.
The funniest thing about a manager who would open his mouth and say, “You’re lucky to have a job at all” is that these managers never seem to think they’re lucky to be working—just [as] everyone else. “You’re lucky to have a job at all” in an era of more than 9 percent unemployment is the same as saying, “I can’t believe you manage to stay in that 90 percent of the population that is working.” It’s a huge insult, but worse, a statement of personal failure on the manager’s part. [….]

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