1. The last minute. Look, when you suddenly realize that we now have a day and a half to do something I’ve been warning you about for six weeks, I hope you don’t mind if my giveashitometer stays somewhere in the “normal” range. Are bad things going to happen if this doesn’t get done in the next 12 working hours? Yes. Is is something that could have been avoided by taking action when I raised the alarm earlier? Yes. Will it result in death or dismemberment of anyone as it goes careening wildly off the rails? No. So is it something that I’m going to lose any sleep over? Not a bloody chance.
2. Gay. Did you see that Tim Cook is gay? Yeah. So what? Straight, gay, bi, undecided, whatever… I just don’t care. Are you a decent human being? Do you pay your taxes and contribute to society? If yes, then I say God bless and have a good life. Who you love or how you get your jollies doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. I don’t want to live your life any more than I want you to live mine, so as long as you’re not a douchecanoe we’ll probably get along ok.
3. Mutual exclusivity. I ate lunch at 2:00 yesterday afternoon. That’s only 150 minutes later than usual and mostly because many people decided that mid-day on Wednesday was a good time to stack meetings and a fire off a half dozen pesky questions that need answers right-the-hell-now. What you shouldn’t do after a day like that is show up asking about some random ass other thing that I was notionally working on before three kinds of hell broke loose. No. I did not get to it. I don’t have that answer. And the likelihood of my getting it in a timely manner (i.e. yesterday) is between slim and none. We’ve had this conversation before, but it’s worth repeating that I can either sit in meetings listening to other people talk or I can sit at my desk and actually get work done. The two options, however, continue to be mutually exclusive. It’s very simple, really. If you want 16 hours worth of work done in an 8 hours period, you can either hire another body or open up the overtime spigot. Failing those options, and given my slacker-like inability to be in two places at once, your courses of action are otherwise fairly limited.