The Pen is Mightier Than...Part IV: Ethics in Question

In this case, I use the title in its literal form. The pen just might be mightier as I draw attention to something I have let simmer inside me long enough. Recently a co-worker from my past had the audacity to question both my business practices and work ethic. I have always stood by my work ethic which has been near flawless to a fault. I don't plan on drawing any attention to this particular posting, but those who know me may accidentally find it on their own and will undoubtedly know of whom I speak. Sadly, my mild mannered personality forces me to internalize things rather than speak my mind.
I don't like confrontation.
I don't like rocking the boat.
The recent assault on my character has been all consuming. In typical Morty fashion however, rather than physically stand up for myself, I have chosen to take the coward's way out. Writing about it, while I hope may prove therapeutic will, if nothing else set the record straight. The dramatically creative side of me will take over as I write an imaginary response in letter form. The letter of course will never be e-mailed, nor sent in the traditional sense, but will remain here.
No names will be mentioned.
For all who continue to read this, you may draw your own conclusions.

Former Co-Worker,
Your recent ambush on my current employer while he visited the facility I selflessly and often over zealously gave 18 years of my life to, was unfair and uncalled for. If your desire was to get under my skin, then I offer congratulations.
It worked.
If your despicable plot was to somehow debase my character, or instill in his mind some degree of doubt or mistrust, it failed.
Your delusional rant and factual misrepresentation was met with derision and laughter.
You consider yourself some type of martyr, choosing to accept unemployment in lieu of putting your older and last remaining colleague out of work, while portraying yourself as a victim at the same time. You selfishly insinuated that I was partly at fault for the final demise of the company, a company which was wildly in free fall at the time of my departure. On the surface, my decision to leave may have seemed hasty, but inside I spent many months agonizing over it while simultaneously trying to devise creative ways to keep the business viable. Already inundated with the consistent amount of work that continued to come in, trying to grow (or at the very least maintain) that business on my own proved a near impossible task. Understanding thoroughly that book/autograph signings, abundant personal days following late night shows and the disgustingly inordinate amount of company time you spent surfing the web were clearly your priority, I chose not to inconvenience you with work related tasks, which admittedly can be bothersome, especially when it interferes with far more relevant issues on Blabbermouth.com. Thankfully, the clients I had nurtured for more than a decade (and long prior to your arrival) kept enough work coming in to support your enthusiasm for the World Wide Web while contributing in part to the paycheck you received on a weekly basis. The fact that a small percentage of those very clients chose to follow me in my endeavors is testament to the service and enthusiasm I showed them over the years. I apologize if you mistakenly construed their dedication as theft on my part. Remember how often you would exclaim in exasperation what a pain in the ass the woman from the largest news gathering agency in the world was? Luckily, I handled all of her incoming work following the multiple mistakes made by my predecessor, placated all of her doubts and kept her as a viable customer within our former company. With my decision to find a more stable environment elsewhere, you suddenly came to the decision that she really was not that difficult to deal with after all.
Hmmm.
It was never my intention to take any of the clients with me, although I certainly earned that right without question. I could have been a typical scumbag citing the unwritten rule which says business is business, and taken the entire client database with me, unfortunately the shrewd gene does not lie within me. As I had made my transition prior to the onset of the traditionally slow summer season, there was no reason for me to make contact with any of those clients, short of saying farewell and thanks for the support, at least not until the e-mails loosely hinting that I had also absconded with video editing software started showing up in my inbox. I literally lost sleep for nearly a week, knowing that our former employer may have harbored the very thought that I had stolen anything! A frenzied string of responses followed as I continued to add to the list of places I felt the software might reside within our former office space. Several days later, I took it upon myself to drop by and look for it myself. The proclamation from your last remaining colleague that you had not gotten around to looking for it came to me as no surprise. Even after my absence, Blabbermouth, Break.com and YouTube obviously demanded your immediate attention. In less than the time it took for me to walk out of my way across town, the two of us unearthed the missing discs. For your records it was number three on my list of possible locations. Mere minutes spent away from your vaunted websites would have saved a week of unneeded stress and sleepless nights on my behalf. You can bet if our boss had been in town you would have been on it in seconds, similar to the employee of the month act you would pull every time he was in the office. Disgusted, I would inwardly laugh as I opened the door on a morning when he was due to arrive to find you already at your desk, something that for the most part was a rarity. The staged interest you took in the welfare of our clients was often a brilliant performance that our former employer seemed to enjoy with relish. You often mentioned your 15 minutes of fame spent on the big screen for an independent film. Obviously, you took something away from the experience, because several years later you sure convinced our boss that the salary you were paid was actually worth it. I could go on with a laundry list of further examples, your seemingly endless quantity of sick days for instance (various procedures notwitstanding), but that would fall under the category of sour grapes and nitpicking on my part. I never professed to be the golden boy in that organization, and openly admit to both yourself and the untold millions in cyberspace, that I too spent a fair amount of time surfing the web on the boss' nut. The only difference between you and I was that I EARNED that time, much of it based on late nights, weekends and work brought home (without any compensation from our esteemed leader), not to mention the time spent working durng regular business hours while you pretty much took a pass. In closing, I will say in your defense that there were times when you busted your ass to help get product labeled, packaged and shipped, especially when things were simply overwhelming. You also paid attention to detail and presentation when something left the office. Yes, there were a few shining examples of some actual work and caring on your part. Sadly, those moments were too few and far, too far in between. To answer your accusation that I may have had something to do with the final death throes of that company, I wholeheartedly agree. I should have made the boss aware of your lack of input several years ago, before he literally wasted untold THOUSANDS on your mostly undeserved paycheck. It was he who once told me as I tried to hint what was really going on behind his back, "There's two sides to every story."
You have told yours, and now the world knows mine.
I would tell you that maybe we'll cross paths on Blabbermouth.com sometime, but that's kid stuff. Besides, I have work to do.
It's what I do.
When I'm on company time that is.
Sincerely,
your disappointed, but no longer disgruntled ex-co-worker.

*Blogger's Note
For all of those who patiently made it through this last posting, I apologize for the detraction from my original mission statement to keep this place positive. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Difference

Writing has long been a part of my life and while for several decades I let that passion fester, my mind continued to function in much the same way that I would assume a writer's would. Maybe I am shamelessly humble, or probably lack the confidence that a true writer feels.
There it is right there...a true writer.
While I treat this as more of a hobby, mostly due to the fact that the real world is constantly in the way, this is truly my calling. Granted, the writing has been more about the quick gratification, the personal high that comes from another successful blog posting or magazine submission. I never intended for it to touch the lives of others. My recent past however shows quite the opposite. On a Monday morning, facing the beginning of another lackluster work week, this Letter to the Editor @ Forest Hills Celebrity & Entertainment found its way to my inbox.

Dear Joe,
I am a staff member of St. John's Bread & Life Program. I have never written a letter to the editor before but felt I wanted to tell you how much reading “Just One Life” meant to me. Mr. Mortensen did not write with fonts but with chords of his heart. Having lost two very dear friends this past year, reading the article and the words of Lynda Dobbin-Turner’s songs spoke to my grief and healing. They were inspiring. I appreciate the articles appearing in your magazine. Please know how much they mean to the community – and not just in Forest Hills or Astoria. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Rita Marie Trucios
Director Social Service
St. John's Bread & Life Program

The article she mentions was a labor of love for me, opening up a part of myself that I did not know existed. The woman I wrote about is someone I have never met in person. As a blogger, I often find myself looking for ways to draw more traffic to this site. Selfishly, while perusing the sites of blogger's like myself in an effort to make them aware of my own existence, I stumbled upon the world of Lynda Dobbin Turner. As a big city guy living and working in the metropolitan area, I immediately came to the conclusion that here was a simple country person living a simple country lifestyle. What I found however was inspiration and someone who is far stronger than I could ever imagine myself to be. What follows is my 2009 holiday submission to Forest Hills Celebrity & Entertainment. With no space limitations, I have chosen to include several more pictures which did not appear in the original layout for the magazine.
I am proud,
I am humbled,
I am speechless.
I made a difference.
- "Morty."




“We got a lovely skiff of snow last night which will make a nice quiet day for Shane and me to regroup by the fireplace and get grounded again. Tonight, we're planning to put up our Christmas tree. Maybe that will help fire up the spirit of the season for me.”

I met Lynda Dobbin-Turner in November of 2008, the chance crossing of our paths purely by circumstance. Worlds apart, we have little in common beyond our affinity for country music and our passion for writing, she a songwriter, me…let’s just say I still consider myself in the category of aspiring. While we have never met in the conventional sense, I have found in this remarkable woman a deep sense of inspiration that has reached out across the many, many miles via the World Wide Web and touched my soul.

“It's hunting season around here again. A calf was accidentally shot in our west pasture. Before we could dispose of the remains, a group of Bald Eagles found them. They are awe inspiring in their majesty. Even amid the frustration of needless loss, we are blessed to be living in a place that gives us such beauty in exchange.”

Lavenham, located in the Canadian province of Manitoba is a tiny hamlet with a population of only 50. Microscopic, by borough of Queens standards, it marks the furthest I have been from home while seated at my PC. The incessant pattern of controlled chaos taking place outside my Mid-Manhattan office window infringes upon the landscape she has painted, so openly shared for the world to see via her blog. At a glance, this brief glimpse into a paradise imagined by most, only through the world of National Geographic may seem a simpler way of life, but it is not without its share of hardships. Following the release of her first CD in 2006, the culmination of a thirty-year dream, Lynda Dobbin-Turner knew immediately that it would not be a once in a lifetime event. Caring for a son afflicted with Cerebral Palsy however, would always be her main priority. Shane’s early diagnosis meant that he would never do many of the things that a normally developing child would, but with fierce determination and an undying spirit, Lynda made sure that he would live a life full of love, laughter and adventure. By the age of 16, he had dipped his toes in two oceans, sped on an airboat through the Everglades, ridden horses, snowmobiles, ATV’s and roller coasters. The staff and students of the local elementary and middle schools welcomed Shane openly.
“There were certainly bumps along the way, anonymous letters that pierced the spirit but the effort paid off and I think it was a shining example of what Inclusion can look like”
Shane turned 17 on January 18th, while remarkably, Lynda had a dozen songs nearly completed for her next CD, which would continue along the lines of its predecessor, offering further insight into Canada’s prairie province, and a lighthearted look at what makes this singer songwriter tick. Whether dreaming of a place near the ocean that allows her to “put her gifts in motion”, or looking back at the years of growing pains and teen angst: “If I could write a letter to that girl back then, I’d tell her it’ll be alright,” or the woman over 40, convinced that the inability to make up her mind is due simply to the onset of Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder (AAAD), we find an individual who has lost neither her resolve nor sense of humor in light of the monumental struggles faced in raising a terminally ill child. I grew excited as her second musical outing began to take shape. We would correspond briefly when time allowed, me anxious to learn more about her real “Little House on the Prairie,” while offering my own whimsical thoughts on life in the big city.

“I watched the sun rise up this morning, just like it did yesterday.
It’s funny how so much goes on the same, when everything has changed.
Did I not tell you all I should have; I hope you read between the lines.
We would have done more if we could have, but we just ran out of time.”
- Won’t Say Goodbye (From the CD “Just One Life”)

My world stopped briefly one dreary March afternoon when I checked her blog on a whim. I stared in stunned silence at a picture of the smiling child she had strived so hard for, a boy who had known little of boundaries, because she refused to acknowledge them, a young man who had seen and accomplished more in his brief existence than most ever will. For the first time in my life, I wept for someone so far away, someone I had never met.
In June, still devastated from her loss, Lynda returned to the studio with new songs that surfaced in working through the pain of that loss.

“If you’ll just look inside, soon you’ll realize,
There’s a fire that these struggles cannot kill.
See my heart, see my spirit, see the light that shines in me
See the love I could offer, and the friend that I could be…”
- When You Look at Me (Shane’s Song)

“I’ve seen the difference that a commitment to inclusion made not only in Shane’s life, but in the lives of all the other students he connected with. “Just One Life”∗ is a tribute to the difference that just one life can make.”

Last year I brought attention to the East Coast Car Association raising money for children diagnosed with long-term illnesses in our area. I have witnessed both here and afar the difference that everyday people can make in challenged lives. Maybe by simply using this gift I have been given, the gift to write, I can touch others to do the very same.

Morty 101: Politically Inept in a Politically Correct World

Blogger's Note:
Under the gun and under the wire for another magazine submission, this came to me on the day of the greatest snowstorm seen in the NYC tri-state area in years. The timing could not have been better as just days later, our fill-in governor is under pressure to step down. Call me cynical, but I wholehartedly believe that there is no such thing as an honest politician, and that those who come off as good hearted and squeaky clean simply have not been caught yet.

All right, so it’s tough to sit here and think happy springtime thoughts while outside my window the sound of a passing snowplow briefly overwhelms the echoes of multiple shovels scraping pavement. Admittedly, the snow continues to fall as I type, yet by the time this publication winds up in your lucky hands we will have long arrived at that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Flowers bloom and short sleeves abound under a tranquil blue sky during this early and unusually warm spring season.
Global warming or wishful thinking?
Now, far be it from me to exercise my right of free speech, but coming off both the coolest summer and coldest winter in recent history, haven’t our elected leaders taken this global warming thing far enough? Even southern Texas and sunny Florida saw record snowfall amounts this year, not to mention the rest of us right here at home. Why, even in an unprecedented display of intelligence, our illustrious mayor and designated school officials opted for snow days on more than one occasion. Yes, using the word intelligence in the same sentence with any type of government official can often be construed as a contradiction in terms.
Or term limits?
I never talk politics. I don’t like talking politics. I am thoroughly independent and hate everyone equally. Maybe I am shamefully naïve, but when did politics become an Olympic sport? Finger pointing has created a whole new level of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Does anybody remember “The Name Game,” that annoying old ditty from the 60’s?

“Shirley!
Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley
Fee fy mo Mirley, Shirley”

I am unsure how it might be received today, but I can tell you that with some updated lyrics it just might stand a chance.
I call it “The Blame Game” and it goes something like this.

“Democrat!
Demo, Demo, Obama, walked into a problema
Fingers pointing everywhere
Healthcare.


Republican!
Republican, the GOP, who is watching the money?
Economy is still failin’
Palin”

All right, my future as a songwriter remains in question but don’t stop me now, I’m on a roll, which incidentally is something the MTA is not. We have all reached the conclusion that fare hikes will never be enough to keep the trains and buses rolling, yet it doesn’t hurt in keeping the wallets of the fat cats…well, fat.
It’s time to take a little trip, good people. Now, rather than beat an old cliché to death and tell you how things might be in a perfect world, follow me into a comfortable place of naïveté I call “Morty’s World,” a place where hospitals remain open just outside the shadows of newly constructed multi-billion dollar baseball stadiums.
Your tax dollars at work.
The average employee can actually afford to get to work thanks in part to someone we’ll call “Joe, the MTA worker.” An ethical man tired of greed and mismanagement resulting in un-fare hikes and a budget deficit nearly in line with the price tag of the aforementioned mammoth arenas, “Joe” decides to step up to the plate (pun intended). As a lifelong employee in the transportation industry, “Joe” takes a minor pay raise, ascends the corporate ladder and instills a few ideas of his own with the understanding that if they do not work, he will willingly step back down to give someone else the same opportunity he has been afforded.
The view from the top is breathtaking.
“I can almost see my outrageously overpriced two bedroom apartment from here,” he muses, looking around the new office in which he sits, marveling at the very thought that it alone is far larger than the dwelling he calls home. The wheels in his head begin to turn.
“Hmm,” he thinks, his finger tapping upon the fine walnut desk. “Where can we begin to cut costs?”
He removes the Montblanc pen from the gold plated desk caddy, touching it to the fine textured stationery while CNN inexplicably drones from the 60” flat screen plasma affixed to the wall opposite an oversized gaudy abstract.
Meanwhile, The fat cats have been sent away on extended leave for the duration of this historical experiment, yet rather than whisk them off to a five star tropical resort; they are involved in another type of research. Call it a return to roots as they partake in that great American pastime, Spring Break. They fly coach, stay in cheap sordid motels and the only refreshment they can afford comes in the form of cheap domestic swill, most of which is obtained by entering poolside beer chugging contests. Later they will become disorderly. The cops will arrive and they will forever disappear into a third world prison far off the tourist path.
Unfortunately, the spinning wheels of a car in search of pavement underneath the ice has prematurely interrupted my reverie, roughly depositing me back here in the real world left to wonder if the suggestions of our friend “Joe the MTA worker” may possibly have helped to solve the insurmountable while sparing citizens further inconvenience. Someone once told me that writing could be cathartic.
Visualize with me wisps of steam lazily rising from the warm pavement following a fresh springtime rain, a metaphor for my finally recognized need to vent. Having never visited the offices of the MTA, I can only imagine the accommodations of those who sit at the top, but let’s face it. We all share a similar vision don’t we?
Have I brought us a step closer to world peace or at the very least inspired someone to take a practical stance at cutting the MTA deficit without layoffs or raising fares?
Have I accomplished anything beyond a hopeful smile or chuckle?
I doubt it.
But we can dream, can’t we?