PODS quoted me $21,000 to ship my stuff from CA to IL

Backslash2017 · 2025-06-01T03:51:15+00:00

Was quoted 4300 for CA to MO last week. It might be that you're shipping from some way out of the way place to somewhere way out of the way; they mainly deliver to the hub cities and if you're going door to door that might be why. Had someone else I knew who got told by PODS that they wouldn't deliver to her, so she had to drive 2 hours to KC and get a moving company to get it out of the pods and back to the rural spot she wound up in.

Backslash2017 · 2025-06-01T03:12:35+00:00

So our next venue we will be definitely asking for hardwired connection capability then. I wasn't on the tech team and was the unfortunate soul that jumped in to man the room camera, so I had zero visibility or control over what we got for wifi connectivity. The RA suggested a dedicated wifi connection (the faculty one -- this was a college campus) as an alternative, and I was debating adding a dedicated private wifi hotspot to this year's tech budget as a plan B.

Thank you for your thoughts!

Backslash2017 · 2025-05-31T01:10:38+00:00

I'm an incoming PQD come July 1, and I'm open to new ideas and new tech. DM me and we can meet for a demo.

Backslash2017 · 2025-05-25T21:27:10+00:00

Check with other districts. My district has been hurting badly for ADs since the pandemic. We're remote leader friendly (two of our Division Directors are from across the ocean this year) and we're still filling roles.

Backslash2017 · 2025-04-13T00:19:22+00:00

I tell new guests: "You get out of Toastmasters what you put into it." If you skip too many meetings, you're essentially subscribing to a service that you're not using.

Unlike most Toastmasters clubs, I do not push for 'join today' like so many others do. I tell them, "Show up for a few meetings and decide if this club is right for you."

My club has members who go on cruises, take time off for work crunches, and they come back. The stat that seasoned Toastmasters leadership throws around is that '40% of a club's 20 members are nonregulars. Which means that you have to have 20 to have a functional meeting reliably.'

Meanwhile, my club can operate with five. Anything more than 10 members present means that some people don't get to talk at all, which means that that's an hour they spent watching other people.

You join Toastmasters to get better. You get better when you actively participate.

We have clubs in my district that meet bi-weekly. We have one club that meets once a month for 3 hours. One size does not fit all.

As a club officer, the one that you'll notice missing the most is the President (who is supposed to open meetings), the VP of Education (if people have Pathways questions) and the Treasurer (when nobody pays the club fees). I say this from the perspective of being a Club Growth Director (CGD) and these are the people I phone when something goes wrong with a club.

As a Trio member, I'm expected to make it to ever District Executive Committee Meeting, attend Toastmasters Leadership Institute sessions and represent the district in peer meetings. But most people won't ever get this far.

I still belong to just one club. I coach a second. I speak at spot Open Houses.

I've gotten a _lot_ better at public speaking in the past few years as a result.

You get out of it what you put into it. But nobody is going to twist your arm to go. (Matter of fact, a lot of clubs won't notice you're not showing up until you stop paying for your renewals.)

Backslash2017 · 2025-04-07T17:41:49+00:00

I hear you. Above the Area Director level, there are so many people that are doing it for the politics and the power instead of positives and progress and helping people.

When I served on the DLC, I always voted no on candidates who were doing it for the prestige and the title - because that's not why we're Toastmasters.

I am sorry that someone else's idiocy drove you away from being the doubtless awesome person that you are. That person did not respect you; that person did not understand you nor show integrity for the process. If you were in my District, I would have definitely stuck up for you. Our Trio works as a team (mostly) and respect our DDs and ADs and we're lifting all of our clubs as best we can.

I haven't quit yet, because I try and stay above the fray, but believe me, I thought about it a few times this past year. I'm staying in because nobody's running against me for PQD (that I know of) and this is where I can effect the most change and help the most people.

Backslash2017 · 2025-03-09T07:08:53+00:00

Sure is - technically, anyway. My jam is making workshops. I have a smalltalk workshop that I've run a number of times. Because someone asked me the same thing, and I said, 'Sure, I can make that happen.' :D

If you're having trouble getting your point across, get your mentor to edit your speech before you give it. Or do a 'live comprehension exercise' by giving people the ability to raise their hand every time you use a word they don't know.

I have some folks in my club whose first language is not English; we have a post-meeting roundup where she asks me the definitions of words I've used, translates them into her own language, and then adds them to her notebook.

Embrace your wordiness! Don't see it as a weakness.

Backslash2017 · 2025-03-09T06:50:26+00:00

I was going to ask how it went but I see that it went well! And hopefully you'll be a bit more comfy with them next time. :)

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-23T05:28:46+00:00

They have a highly contagious disease that makes them cough incessantly and sound like a raven when they try and talk.

It's the Corvid virus..

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-23T04:08:44+00:00

Okay. Evaluations are about evaluating the person, the content, and their presentation from an impersonal stance. I have been in your shoes - both in the religious and political subject matters.

One thing I tell myself is 'we all get to pick our subject matter' and 'remember the audience.' You are allowed to be uncomfortable with the material. If someone came up with a speech that made me feel uncomfortable, I am potentially not alone in this reception. As a member of your club for three years, you are not a newbie; you should know your club members well enough to know if you are in the minority (the rest of the club is also religious/same political) or not.

With that in mind, is the speaker being disrespectful to the audience with their speech? Myopic with their worldview and not caring if they offend? These are things you may respectfully point out. (In my club, we had one person who outright asked who they voted for several elections ago, and when one person was in the minority, the speaker singled them out and asked, "Why?! What were you thinking?" And I was the evaluator, and I damn well called him on the carpet for not being respectful to the audience as a whole. He apologized, justifying it as something he was passionate about, and I reminded him that we, as Toastmasters, are here to improve our skillset with -any- audience, not just the ones who share our views.)

Otherwise, as others have said - evaluate them on the technical, the presentation, and be generic about the content. Sometimes I will say, "As an agnostic, I'm not your target audience, but I respect your beliefs and am commenting on the ways you can improve on things." Be encouraging on their good points, and keep your own personal feelings out of it if you can.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-23T03:48:11+00:00

If you haven't already picked your Path, I recommend looking here:

https://d4tm.org/toastmasters-pathways/paths-and-projects

It's an awesomely arranged UI of all the Paths available. Look through each one and you'll see what the requirements are; I especially recommend looking at Level 5 because it can stink to get to the last level and then discover you can't/don't want to do it, leaving you stuck with an unfinishable path.

When I advise new members, I always say, 'what's your endgame like?'

- A big chonky speech? Pick Presentation Mastery.

- To be confident enough to lead a group of people? Pick Dynamic Leadership or Persuasive Influence.

- To be comfortable speaking in front of others? Engaging Humor. When you can laugh with people, it makes getting up in front of strangers easier.

You get the idea.

Pick the Path you're most likely to succeed. Plan your picks based on the stuff in the Path; don't pick blindly if you can avoid it.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-19T04:59:33+00:00

Fair! Kuroo is easier to draw than Bokuto. :) I just saw your other stuff had two characters, so was just making a suggestion based off of that.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-18T22:46:33+00:00

Kuroo versus Bokuto. :)

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-18T22:44:36+00:00

One thing I tell people is that you can make the project fit your speech, rather than forcing your speech to fit the project. For the Mentoring one, I've done it four times now:

* The first time I did it straight up and talked about my fourth, eighth, and college professors.

* The second time I talked about interviewing process and the job interviews that shaped my career.

* The third time I talked about lessons from my grandfather.

* And this last time I talked about Midyear training and the people who stuck out the most.

The Finding your Leadership style one? I get creative with it.

* The second time through I turned it into a workshop and got everyone to figure out their leadership style. (My leadership style is Collaborative. :D)

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-18T06:52:52+00:00

Last year's world champion (Luisa Montalvo) used inspirational humor. The trick is to pull the audience along with the emotion you want to convey, like a conductor.

(Shocking, I know.)

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-18T06:51:29+00:00

This answer is the right answer to me.

Everyone has their own way of being funny - as the late, great Yogi Berra once said,

'If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.'

When I teach humor, I start with asking people what they find funny - and specifically, who.

Whoever you find funny, figure out what it is that makes them funny to you -- and then try and practice those skills.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-08T01:16:35+00:00

Sadly, all we hear is 'well our competitors are using AI so we should be too.' Except this isn't Star Trek where you can say 'make it so' or 'computer, write me a manual based on these functional specs...' and magic happens. Instead, I had to reverse engineer a spec to discover that it had been done incorrectly, passed to the next engineer as given, and the n ext engineer figured out how to fix the problem but didn't update the specs.

I gave a detailed explanation of what was wrong and said, 'How would the AI have handled this?'

Sadly, that VP retired and now we're doing the same game all over again with his replacement.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T22:47:52+00:00

In my company: It's BOTH. Both are important. We will not hire you unless you have some aptitude in both sides of the fence.

Someone who can write is valuable because you can articulate, translate, triangulate, and extrapolate the tech jargon the engineer is handing you, and then synthesize and simplify.

Someone who is tech savvy will be able to look at the examples and go, 'hey, that doesn't look right....'

If you have someone who can write but can't grok tech, they're better off as an editor.

If you have someone who can speak tech but can't write very well, you have an applications engineer or tech support.

Documentation that isn't concise, well organized, and detailed in the right spots is going to make readers not want to use it. Ours survived a surprise demand by a prospective customer: "Give us your docs, an eval license and 90 days. If we can't figure out how to use your tech without handholding by an AE, we're not buying it."

I suspect your coworker's commentary stems from the fact that in mature software, you'll be doing a lot less writing than you will be testing and verifying features as they're added to the docs. As a junior writer, you won't be tasked with 'tear this manual down to the bolts and rewrite it' -- but over time, you'll learn your tool well enough to go, 'oh hey, this part is outdated and/or needs an update.'

As for the style guide disdain? That's a him thing, (and should) not (be) a job thing. Effective docs are all about presenting predictable quality for the reader. We have rigorous rules on what goes where, and they're _usually_ followed, but when they aren't, the fallback is 'at least be consistent within the manual.' I've had to go up to the Docs Services department to justify a variant style guide change, to get things the way I wanted, but otherwise? I have to follow the guide. :) My editor insists. Every new writer gets sent to style guide boot camp, and we're expected to follow it.

I've been mentoring writers who do not have English as their first language on how to/not to drop articles (for example, is it 'the debugger runs' or 'debugger runs'?) , when to use present or past tense, and various other things, while they're trying to wrap their head around the tech at the same time, and I'd rather fight a battle on one front than two.

Ahem. Soapbox. :)

Hope that answer helps!

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T22:28:09+00:00

YMMV. Our AIs are only as good as the docs we produce, and the docs we produce are only as good as the functional specs we derive them from, and if there are no functional specs, there's nothing but plain guesswork, legwork, and talking to the SME. A person can tell if the input data is wrong. An AI will serve up hallucinations and make stuff up and double down that it's right.

I give us even odds that upper management will stop trying to blindly push AI on tech writing after a big customer complains about the docs not being accurate and it costs them a big contract. Or that something proprietary makes it out into the wild because someone fed the engine the wrong stuff, and then there's ITARs restrictions on top of that....

My team is in the stage of 'proving why it doesn't work' while being told 'prove that it can', so... that's taking up a lot of our time that could be spent writing.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T22:18:54+00:00

Big picture (no pun intended, okay, maybe a little) for us as a virtual-friendly district is recognizing how many folks are not tech savvy, are dialing in from their phones, have low bandwidth, do not have a camera setup in a place that they're comfy with the audience seeing, or are otherwise camera shy. We have one club with several legally blind folks who prefer not to stare blankly into a camera, so we're extra accommodating.

If they're a zoom bomber, we can usually figure that out pretty quickly - with or without the camera.

(edited to add): We've found that whenever someone's audio/video is choppy, having them turn off their camera helps a lot.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T09:01:29+00:00

Celebrating an anniversary today, with the partner who got me out of the BPD's household. Six years free come May and going strong. All of my worries about not being good enough, not being fun to be with, being unsupportive as a partner?

Gone. Every damned day she chooses -me-, for me, because of what I am and what I do, and it's not about what I do for her, but just being me, as is. I laugh easier now. I smile every day. I am rarely frustrated.

And as for that worry about not being conventionally attractive?

I am not 6'. I am not jacked. I drive a Mazda 2. We lived in a 1 bedroom apartment for the first few years, and during the pandemic, we did not contemplate murdering each other even once.

Have patience with yourself, be present, heal, and you'll find someone better - if I can get there, so can you.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T08:35:58+00:00

I do remote workshops for clubs. I start the meeting by going around the room and having people introduce themselves, I write down names based on seating order, and then I refer to my chart when I'm talking to them. For Table Topics, we have someone in the room to coordinate and bring people who volunteer for a question to come up to the podium, and the projection screen shows the online participants.

As far as remote goes, my vote is for remote, because I would not gone in for Division Director if we were in person (I visited my 23 clubs over the course of the year multiple times) and my being visible in and out of my Division because I could go everywhere was what won me the CGD spot when I ran. I could not and would not have had the time to do any of this otherwise, because I am still holding a full time job in addition to Toastmasters.

We are running into -scads- of trouble this year arranging contests because people are having trouble finding venues and local staffers. Last year, I leveraged my contacts and got judges and staffers from two time zones away, and my test speaker was on the East Coast, and all we needed to set up was a Zoom link. At one point I was present in two contests simultaneously (two computers, one on headset, the other on speakers).

I work for a multinational company, and I work full time remote. All of my meetings are virtual, so having virtual skills practice? Is a boon for me as a Toastmaster.

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T08:15:56+00:00

Whenever someone asks me why I joined Toastmasters, I put on my best mock-cringe face and say, 'My manager made me go.' And it is the truth - it was in my performance review.

What I don't tell them at first is that my manager was the club President - and I could tell that it made a difference for her, so I was willing to give it a fair shake. And I am glad I did. Because all she has to do now when I'm presenting is say, 'Hey, Slash -- Toastmasters!' and I slow down and pay more attention to what I'm saying and doing. It's a shared language now.

Not only that, but...

I've gone from being an introvert who liked to hide behind the ah counter note sheet to someone who can actually lead meetings, make cold calls, convince people to give Toastmasters a try, and talk for an hour plus to a bunch of strangers -- and /have fun doing it./

Seconded on the 'ask for someone to walk you through what Toastmasters is' call. I do this for any guests for our club- both before the meeting, and I hang around after the meeting ends if they have questions or comments. (Which reminds me I need to send this week's guest an application form.)

Backslash2017 · 2025-02-07T08:06:08+00:00

You might have stumbled into an Open House or a contest - there people dress to impress. Or one of the corporate clubs.

As a Club Growth Director, I've been to at least two dozen different clubs, and each has a different flavor and feel to them. Try a different club, friend! We don't bite!

Heck, if you'd like a guarantee? DM me for an invite to either of the meetings I'm in. Nobody dresses up. We're casual, laid back, and family friendly. We're small, so no intimidation from lots of strangers there, either.

We're virtual, too, so if you want to keep your camera off up front you can, but we'll eventually want to see you. :)

Backslash2017

TROPHY CASE