When I can't sleep, I wander around trying to get my body to catch up with my thoughts. When that doesn't happen I sit down and try to get my thoughts to slow down to my body. If I'm fortunate then things will slow down and I'll be able to get a few hours sleep. Usually I just end up on the Internet.
Somehow, Facebook has become my go-to place for late night/early morning visits. I get to find out which friends are also not sleeping. We can sit around playing games and chatting in the courtesy of our own homes. If it wasn't so addicting it would be totally cool.
However, the addiction factor cannot be overlooked. Courtesy of Facebook, my mother has become a Farmville fanatic. She not only has one delightful farm full of buildings, trees, vehicles and animals - she also has a "sleeper" farm she uses to help supply the things she needs to create the products she sells at her store. This allows her to "pay" herself for growing things she needs to make money making the things she can. She is currently a multi-millionaire.
I don't really get the whole Farmville thing, but watching my mother and her machinations I think that she should have been a CEO or COO at some moderate-sized corporation. She has created a network of other Farmville fanatics and has been known to try to recruit people at parties. She has worked hard to get my grandson, Zac, on her team, giving him directions about what time to get into Farmville so he could ensure that he became part of her conglomerate and explaining to him that if he did as she directed he would become part of a very exciting and innovative assembly of individuals. She thought that Z would be an excellent team member because he is amazingly orderly and thoughtful for a teenager and he could give her some insight into the youth market.
My mom was recruiting Z pretty heavily. She patiently explained the advantages he would get if he joined her co-op and he seemed ready to "sign on," but being 14 years old he didn't get on line at the appointed time and my mother was really upset that her merger had failed.
Farmville is an app whose purpose seems to be to amass as much money as
possible while creating a farm that totally reflects the users personality. Since my mother now has three farms (she gave in an opened a farm in England because she just had to ride the blimp), I notice that certain parts of her personality have become more etrenched.
If she is focusing on her "home" farm, she's my mother...the woman I grew up with who likes pretty, shiny things and believes in organization and clustering her things around a theme: Make sure the big bubble gum trees are near the small bubble gum trees, but not too near the mac & cheese trees. She spends a significant portion of time creating an environment that demonstrates her ability to aquire unusual things and arrange them in an exciting way.
When my mother is in an acquisition phase her focus is on her "sleeper" farm (that's not the word she uses, but I can't remember what she calls it) and the necessity of keeping it secret from some of the members of her conglomerate. I found out about this second farm when I tried to login to
FB on her computer and the list of persons who could access the app showed up. Her alias popped up and I asked her about it. She moved closer to me and in a very quiet voice explained that she needed another farm to ensure the flow of goods for her industry, but that there was a need to keep it from other suppliers because if they knew she was doing that they might take their trade elsewhere. Bill Gates has nothing on my mother.
She held out a very long time before getting her British farm. Everytime I'd talk to her she'd tell me about FB friends who "must have nothing else to do with their lives. I don't have time to manage the three farms I have now, let alone a farm in another country!" I forgot to explain that my mother also manages "my" farm. When she first started farming she needed neighbors so she could enlarge her homestead. I sent her a friend request, she accepted, and I became a silent partner in an amazing quest. I think her farm is now the largest possible.
So, now she travels to England when she's got everything under control at her American farms. She doesn't like the British farm as much as the others because "they just don't do things the same way over there." No sense explaining that "over there" is pretty much the same as "over here." There is no here or there in cyberspace.
So, between the farming itself, the coordination of growing and delivery times, the scheduling of product development and manufacturing, the recruitment of other associates, and the remodeling that needs to be done regularly, my mother is running a mid-size corporation.
I wonder if Border's could have been saved if they had invited my mother to virtually manage their company?
No comments:
Post a Comment