Author Archives: jdtharp

Post holiday meh…

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It’s officially the time of year when there’s really nothing to look forward to. I’ve burned off my mountain of annual leave and I’m sitting here looking at a calendar with way too many meetings and far too few days off marked up. There’s something bad for the soul about staring into the teeth of too many five-day work weeks in a row. Maybe it’s time to start plotting where I can sneak off to for spring break. Just because I finished off my undergrad degree the better part of two decades ago doesn’t mean I should go somewhere warm and enjoy the sights, right? Now that I think about it, it’s possible I have something to look forward to after all. Besides, Martin Luther King Day is coming up next week. That’s as good a reason for a long weekend as any.

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.

Three Weeks…

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2012 has not been off to a shining start. Eight days in to the new year and I’m still feeling like dirt. Sure, it’s a better grade of dirt than I felt like a week ago, but still dirt. With the pre-Christmas never ending headache added on, I’ve pretty much lost the last three weeks to laying around on the couch in some state of general disrepair. For the record, I’m tired of it. Better or not, I need to do something other than sit here. The walls aren’t exactly closing in, but I’m pretty sure I’ve reached my limit on how much time I can spend reading and watching reruns. Well or not, I’m going to work tomorrow. I’ll probably feel like a warm steaming pile of poo, but at least the scenery will be different. I’m sure everyone there will be thrilled to have be there hacking and wheezing all over the office. Unless they force me out, that’s just the way it’s going to be. I don’t know exactly what bug has managed to get me, but starting tomorrow, it’s not going to run the show any more.

10K…

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According to the handy little section on metrics that WordPress provides, I’ve been plugging away here for 24 months now. The reason I bring that up is that sometime in the last day or two, the page passed the 10,000 visitor mark. As always on these little occasions, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who’s playing along at home. Sure, Google hits that in a fraction of a day, but since I’m not really providing any function or service other than freelance ranting, I’m plenty pleased with the numbers the way they are.

After the week long break for Christmas and the eternal head cold that made focusing on writing something close to impossible, I’m hoping that thing will get back to what passes for normal around here pretty quickly. Since the sick appears to be passing from debilitating to merely annoying, I’d say we’re on the right track. So that’s a long way of saying I’m hoping to ease back into the whole writing thing. Bear with me as I blow out the cobwebs and get back to business.

Moment of Clarity…

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There are few moments in the year more disappointing than when you come back to work after new years and discover that for all the talk about new starts, peace, love, and good feelings, absolutely nothing has changed. Your work is piled just where you left it. The things that bothered you in the old year will be the things that bother you in the new one. None of the problems has been solved while you were away ignoring them.

Maybe vacations work for some people, but if you’re supposed to come back reenergized and more effective, I don’t think they work for me. Whatever restive effect my time off had on me has bled away within 20 or 30 minutes of getting to my desk and plowing through a week’s worth of email. So yeah, for me, it’s back to the grind just the same as if I’d never left at all.

All things considered, I’d have rather stayed home this morning. Then again, I also like getting paid, so here I am.

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.

A little unwell…

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Some people go to work when their sick to prove some kind of warped sense of dedication to their employer. I’ve never really been one of those people. Hanging out the office, sneezing, wheezing, hacking, and generally spreading my ick all over the place never seemed like a particularly good idea to me. It almost feels downright irresponsible when you think about how many other people you could end up sharing your joy with in the course of a couple of hours. Under most normal circumstances I try not to be that guy, but it was unavoidable today. Even I feel a little guilty about pulling the sick leave card after being off for a week and a half. Since what I’ve got is probably not catching at this point, the better part of valor seemed to be in sucking it up and getting on with work.

My coworkers, however, were not particularly charmed by my nose-blowing, loogie hocking, and insipid mouth breathing. “Ummm… Do you think you should be here?” was more or less the question of the day. I’m pretty sure that translates into “get the hell outta here before you contaminate the whole place.” I appreciate their concern. Really. Believe me when I say if I weren’t just coming off a week’s vacation and my doctor weren’t closer to the office than to the house, I wouldn’t be here at all today. Those two factors conspire to make it worthwhile being miserable here at work for a few hours on the off chance that I can get in and see someone for some meds that might make some of this congestion go away.

As it turns out, ironically, my doctor was home sick today (like I should have been) and I got the pleasure of seeing his temporary replacement… Who appeared to be a high school sophomore wearing his father’s lab coat. Junior had a particularly difficult time understanding that the usual over the counter decongestants aren’t really putting a dent into whatever surly cold bug has taken up residence in my head. I really wasn’t asking for a cure for the common cold, just something to dry things up a bit. Apparently no such thing exists… Which means I’m left to my own devices in combining different colors until I strike on something that does the trick.

Looking…

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If you stopped by looking for some new foolishness, you’re going to be disappointed. I haven’t gone back to work since Christmas. And when it comes to work, out of sight is definitely out of mind. Except for the fact that I have to go back on Tuesday, I haven’t given the office so much as a thought for the last week. It’s been nice. Of course I know there is a mound of stuff piling up on my desk that will demand immediate attention when I wander in, but just now it’s nowhere near the top of my priority list. This is yet another strong indicator that I’m better suited to a career as a lottery winner than as an actual productive employee. When it comes to work, my apathy indicator is blazing green.

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.

Back at it…

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You’d think taking a week off from writing would mean that I’d be bursting with things I need to get off my chest. I thought so too. Reality is a little less interesting. I managed to get sick two days after Christmas and since then the most productive think I’ve managed to do is a couple of loads of laundry this morning. Laying on the couch sucking down DayQuil and cough drops doesn’t tend to make for interesting stories and just complaining about being sick has pretty much been over done.

I guess my point here is that it’s a new year and while I’m not feeling 100% yet, I’m better than I wasI think it’s safe to assume that things will get back to normal around here soon. I’ll spare everyone the requisite year in review or year ahead predictions and just say that 2012 will be what it is, good and bad. Unless something changes, I plan on being right here to write about it as it happens.

I hope everyone reading this has enjoyed their New Year’s celebration with family and friends, because the break is almost over. Rest up, relax, and get your head in a good place, because it’s just about time to get back at it.

Better than average…

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Now that the sappy sentimentality of Christmas is behind us and the drunken orgy of New Years still lies ahead, it’s the time of year when we look back at what made the year memorable… Yeah, I’m coming up blank on that, too. Fact is 2011 was pretty much identical to 2010 and there’s every indication that it will be substantively similar to 2012. I’m not making a judgment call about that so much as I’m just letting it lay there as a statement of fact.

2011 had something in the neighborhood of 104 weekend days, 10 paid holidays, 19 vacation days, and about 6 sick days. That leaves about 226 work days. That’s 62% of the available days in the year spent sitting in a cube, playing with PowerPoint, trying to wordsmith every outgoing email to reflect a bold, can-do attitude, and generally trying to convince ourselves that what we’re doing really makes a difference to more than the 2 or 3 people on our left and right who actually know what we’re working on. A handful of those days were really, really good. Another handful were really, really bad. The vast majority were just somewhere between the two.

I have no reason to think it won’t be the same in 2012. The only difference is 2012 has a head start on the number of good days because I’m not going to spend a third of it trying to escape from the hellish clutches of the Uberboss. The long painful job search and transition process is over. I’m settled in to the new job and back in the part of the country I never should have left in the first place. All in all, maybe that’s not such a bad kickoff to the new year. If I can manage more average days than bad ones and find myself home every night in the right part of the world, I guess I’d have to say I’m pretty happy with good enough.

Here’s to the new year. Best of luck at keeping things better than average.

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.

Wishing…

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From the editorial staff at jeffreytharp.com, a merry Christmas and totally excellent new year. Enjoy the time off and visits with friends and family. After the 2011 we’ve had, lord knows we’ve all earned it. Let’s see if we can prove the Myan calendar wrong, shall we?