Coming down off a 4-day glut of not having all that much to do is a tough one. I don’t exactly want to hang out at home doing nothing for a fifth day, but I don’t exactly want to go to the office and sit at my desk doing considerably more than nothing either. I was just starting to get use to a non-geriatric bedtime and not being awake for two hours before the sun even bothered to come up. The only thing that’s certain is that tomorrow is going to be tough… but it’s a toughness tempered by the fact that it’s only going to be a three day week for me and then I’ll roll back into the happy embrace of another long weekend.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Logic doesn’t live here…
I’ve been doing this long enough now that I’m always a little surprised when something is ridiculous enough to shock me. That’s why I could only smirk when someone came by and asked me if I was going to training this morning. After explaining that I had just taken that training last month, my esteemed colleague looked around nervously before explaining that last month’s training covered me only for last fiscal year. This month’s training was required to cover me for the current fiscal year. By some fluke of scheduling it was just pure chance that the exact same class happened to get scheduled in back to back months.
Some people would find this odd, perhaps, but I’ve been a cog in Uncle’s machine long enough to know when I won’t get ahead by asking any more questions. This morning was one of those times and I dutifully went to the auditorium so they could update my now 42 day old certification. The snores coming from the guy beside me and the one two rows over fed into my hunch that I wasn’t the only one sitting here for the second time in as many months. Like the good troopers we are, we checked the box and hopefully won’t see this class for another 13 months.
So much for a productive morning.
Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.
Feeding addiction…
I got up at 2:45 on Friday morning to order a cell phone that not one living consumer has actually gotten a chance to hold in their grubby little hand yet. Websites ground to a crawl, crashed, reloaded, and then crawled again, but I stuck with it for almost four hours. Some people might call that obsession, but I like to think of it as dedication to the task at hand. Sticking with it was better than the alternative of getting up the following Friday to go stand in line at an Apple Store or AT&T retailer in the hopes of getting one on the first day of release, like I have the other four iterations of the iPhone.
My precious, precious iPhone 4S is, even as I write this, sitting on a pallet somewhere in Eastern China waiting to be loaded onto a Fedex jet and flown to Alaska to clear Customs, then on to the Memphis hub for sorting, and then into Philadelphia for local routing. Not that I’ve looked into how this usually works or anything. Assuming there are no hiccups with Fedex getting from there to here, I should have my shiny new bauble delivered right to my door around noon next Friday. From manufacturing plant to consumer on the other side of the world in a week and all synchronized to happen the fay the item is first available in stores. You’ve got to admit that’s pretty slick. Who says international commerce doesn’t work?
Maybe it’s just one more addiction I’ve gotten myself into. Fortunately it’s mostly harmless to everyone else and doesn’t leave that hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach the same way putting $500 on red tends to do. So yeah, after 16 months of waiting for the next great thing, I’m just a few days from getting a fix to carry me through another year. Then I’ll be after the next big thing. When you’re feeding addiction, that’s just the way it goes.
What Annoys Jeff this Week…
1. Waiting. Whoever said “patience is a virtue” was a tool who clearly didn’t have enough going on to keep him occupied. I don’t see the problem with wanting what I want, when I want it. We all know some things don’t happen overnight, but that isn’t any reason we have to pretend that we like it.
2. Cluelessness. When I’m focusing on my computer screen, the sandwich I brought for lunch, or something else on my desk, and don’t seem to be paying much attention to what you’re saying, it’s a fair assumption that I’m not looking for an in depth conversation. State your business and move on. Do not stop and tell me Parts 63-77 of your life story. Get a clue.
3. Opinions. Yep, they’re like assholes. We’ve all got at least one. Please do not assume yours are facts unless you have supporting evidence to substantiate your claim. In the absence of supporting evidence, I’m just going to think you’re a moron.
4. Aging. When I read that Steve Jobs was 56, my first thought was “Damn, he wasn’t even old.” That was the first time I really consciously recognized that I’m easing in the general direction of early middle age. Apparently in my mind people in their 50s have stopped being ancient. I’m not ok with the implication that has.
5. Helpdesks. Taking three weeks to get someone networked to a printer is not, by definition, “helpful.” Now if their name was Pain-in-the-Ass-desk, I’d let it slide. There should at least be a grain of truth in what we call things.
And that’s what annoys Jeff this week.
Overkill…
Everyone likes to feel like they are an important part of what’s going on around them. Even though most people wouldn’t be missed much if they spun off into oblivion, organizations everywhere help mollify their workforce by engaging in the ridiculous pantomime of holding “town hall” meetings where everyone troops into the auditorium and tries not to look too bored as executives click through several dozen slides that someone made for them. Then they open the floor for a handful of delusory questions, give the shiny happy answer, and close the meeting because 99 times out of 100 no one in the room wants to ask what’s really on their mind. Most of us leave with no more information than we had when we showed up, but at least marched an hour or two closer to the end of the day. That’s a mercy at least.
Of course it’s only a small mercy if it’s not a two hour town hall scheduled to start an hour before most of your employees are supposed to be heading home. There’s also a good chance that if it’s the third “mandatory” meeting in the last four weeks to cover the same general set of topics and it’s just being presented by a different talking head, it could be overkill. As good an idea as these meetings were when they were held by our sainted forefathers in New England, they’ve lost a little of their zip. Maybe it’s time to get out the ol’ thinking cap and come up with a better way to engage the people.
Of course if you’re not actually looking for input from anyone, then feel free to disregard this idea in its entirety.
Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.
Goodbye.
Increment…
It would be easy enough to climb up on my soapbox and do a hack job of dismissing the iPhone 4S as an incremental upgrade. It would be easy because, let’s face it, that’s exactly what Apple rolled out today. Bump up the processor, tweak the antenna, and roll out a spiffy new version of iOS with a few new capabilities and call it a day. The company will make billions, investors will be happy, and in another year or so another incremental improvement will roll off the line.
Today’s update wasn’t the iPhone I wanted, but it was the one I expected. It’s a nice little upgrade from the one I’ve been carrying around for the last 15 months and It’s the one I’m going to take pains to get my hands on when it shows up October 14th. If this iteration sticks around for a year, the cost breaks down something like $17 a month. I guess that’s not a bad price for an incremental improvement.
That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s enough to let Apple dig a little deeper in my wallet. Technology is a painful, painful mistress.
Disappearing act…
Reading blogs can give us a window into what someone half a world away is thinking about. It’s fascinating in its way. It’s not without its problems, though. One that’s been troubling me lately are the blogs that have been around for years that suddenly just disappear. It’s frustrating because you’re invested in the story the author is telling and when it goes away it’s like you’ve been cheated out of learning how the story ends. For some of them, the troubled ones, you wonder if they finally found peace in their writing or if the end of their blog means something more ominous. Because the can be such a transient place of broken links and bad URLs, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that some pages just up and vanish.
Still, it’s disturbing in its own way, because it represents years of work gone in some cases. I think the thing that bothers me most is the not knowing. Did the author just decide it was time to move on or did something horrendous happen? Maybe the only thing any of us are doing here on the internet is building a monument to our own electronic egos, but now that I’m closing in on 500 posts, I’d like to at least think that I’ve put together something permanent here – a record of what, at any moment in time, mattered to one person. If I decided to stop writing, I mean, geez, I’d at least leave a note or something.
In the files…
There’s generally a right way and a wrong way to do everything. I’ve found that as a rule, we don’t like to do things the right way until we have exhausted all possible alternative courses of action. In either situation, it’s almost always helpful to know at least a little something about whatever it is you happen to be working on. That’s why I instinctively flinch when I get an email that says something like this:
Jeff,
We have to have a point of contact for XYZ Project. I’m not really sure what it’s all about, but we just need to have a name listed in case anyone comes along and asks who the point of contact is. They’ll probably just put your name on the sheet and stick it in the file.
Thanks,
Bossman
Now I don’t mind wandering out into the tall grass when I need to, but just randomly putting us on the hook for things no one understands doesn’t seem like a best business practice. Maybe it would be a better idea to, you know, actually have someone look into this project a bit. But, hey, I’m not the boss, so that falls deeply into the category of not my problem. At least until someone drops by and starts asking questions.
Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.
Score…
One of the unforeseen perks of moving this summer and forgoing my usual spring trip was the recent discovery of an almost 70-hour balance of vacation time that I have to take between now and the end of the year. Of course it could also have something to do with needing to take way few Mental Health Mondays too. Whatever the case, if it all gets approved as requested, the last few months of the year are looking like a bonanza of 3-, 4-, and 5-day weekends. Maybe it’s not sitting on a beach somewhere, but it’s a definite score. The Annual Burning of the Leave begins Friday.
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