Category Archives: work

Your turd shoot ain’t gonna wipe itself…

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I wasn’t part of the conversation, mercifully, but it strikes me that people who should have better things to think about spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide where they’re supposed to sit… or instructing their functionaries to spend time thinking about where they’re going to be sitting at some point in the future.

Rank, privilege, order of precedence, protocol, say what you will but from my observation nothing productive ever came from worrying too much about those things. I’ve met presidents, potentates, and captains of industry, but none of them have really overawed me. That’s probably because no matter how they rank among the great and the good, I know they still look ridiculous dropping a deuce or having an orgasm. It’s the human condition. Best not to forget that despite what ornamentation you might be wearing, your turd shooter ain’t gonna wipe itself.

Although some of the high and the mighty might even be nice enough people, but I’ve still never met one I like more than I like my dogs. I guess maybe there’s just too much Western Maryland left in me to care much about where I sit or who’s on my left or right. There are enough real, honest to God issues in the world that need dealing with. It seems that the least we might be able to agree on is that as long as there are enough chairs in the room, who’s sitting where really, truly, doesn’t make any difference.

Sell out…

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The big three-day not-a-conference that I’m nominally charged with planning has turned out to be a bigger draw than I expected based on last year’s numbers. That is to say that just before I left the office on Friday, one of the three days dropped into the “sold out” column. Since the powers at echelons above reality frown on advertising anything as standing room only, I have very little doubt that my inbox is going to be filled to the brim with all manner of email – from pleading to threatening – making the case for why we need to squeeze in just one more person…

In turn, those emails are going to open the discussion about changing the venue to somewhere larger, a pissing match as we define what “sold out” really means, and the inevitable intercession of senior leaders who don’t want to tell anyone (except their employees) no. So here I sit on Monday night, knowing the shitshow that’s waiting at the other end of the commute.

It’s too much to hope that the team will get an attaboy, a pat on the head, and marching orders to hold the line and sell out the other two days. No, tomorrow will be an exercise in spinning the wheels at a hundred miles an hour but going absolutely nowhere.

Sometimes it makes me sad that having a smoke and a highball at your desk has gone out of fashion. It would make those eight hours in the middle part of the day far more tolerable.

Adventures of a half assed event planner (Part 1 of ?)…

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I could write another post about today’s dealings with even more corporate “executive” types who are challenged with reading the English language. There’s a fair chance I could turn that into the story of the week. I’ll spare us all of that unhappiness, though.

Instead, let me tell you a little tale about scheduling… specifically any effort you may be tempted to make to negotiate, coordinate, synchronize, or otherwise cause agreement with half a dozen organizations about the event schedule. During that process you’re going to have a moment when all seems right with the world, when all parties have agreed and the two-month effort to reach that agreement feels like it might almost have been worth it.

That right there is the moment when at least one major moving part is going to utterly and completely fail and threaten to drag the entire effort back to the beginning. It’s the moment when VIP Speaker #1 sends you an email effectively saying, “Yeah, I know we all agreed to this, but even VIP-ier people in Arlington want me, VIP Speaker #2 and VIP Speaker #3 to be there for some other random video conference that we can’t possibly change the time of to accommodate the 500 people we’re going to have sitting three hundred yards away in our own venue.”

No problem, I’m utterly ecstatic to chuck out the entire day’s schedule. I look forward to begging, pleading, and threatening everyone we’ve finally gotten in line and having the outstanding opportunity to rework the damned thing for the 83rd time in the last couple of months. It’s absolutely my pleasure.

Reading is fundamental…

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I currently have the great joy and high honor of planning a “not a conference.” The requirement to talk to people is an unfortunate and unavoidable consequence of this situation. I can usually struggle through making the best of it, but today is special. Today we opened registration. Because we are who we are, there is a very specific way that has to be done in order to ensure there isn’t the impression that one group of attendees is being given preferential treatment over any others. Essentially, once the “registration open” sign starts flashing, it’s like firing a starter’s gun – all interested parties are off to the races.

The problem there, of course, is that all interested parties are not equal. Apparently some are gifted with the ability to read and understand the written word, follow instructions, and achieve their heart’s desire. Others most assuredly lack that particular gift. I know this second group can’t possibly be able to read because my in box fills up with a metric shitload of questions that were very plainly spelled out using real English words directly underneath the flashing “registration open” sign.

So please, ladies and gentlemen, I beg of you, if you are a regular attendee of conferences, workshops, training events, not-conferences, or any other meeting of multiple hundreds of people, please for the love of God, His saints, and all things Good and Holy, please read the registration material. Read it. Understand it. Consult it a second time to ensure full understanding before firing off an email to the poor planner who’s going to be on the other end of that message. You’re saving him or her from answering the same question for the 328th time and you’re saving yourself from his everlasting judgment and damnation. Believe me, it’s a fair trade.

A minute to breathe…

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The hardest days aren’t necessarily the longest ones. They’re not necessarily the ones where the most important decisions are made. There not even the one where there is a crisis around every turn.

The days that cause me the most trouble are the ones where you never manage to come up for air. Nothing I’m doing is especially hard – I’m not unlocking the secrets of the atom. Nothing I touch on a daily basis could even remotely be considered a matter of life or death. Even so, that doesn’t mean that it’s not without its pitfalls.

The pitfall today was a simple matter of volume – of too many people wanting too much information compounded by the fact that it’s utterly impossible to really concentrate while sitting in a cube farm. The layout simply isn’t designed for that. In fact, they’re designed precisely to encourage “collaboration” (read, idle chatter). As wonderful as a team may be, there’s no greater killer of focused concentration, in my considered opinion, than cramming as many people as possible into a given area and telling them then to go forth and do great work.

Today was mentally exhausting even though I have precious little to show for it. Tomorrow will be mentally exhausting too. So will the day after that. It’s possible that every time you see me my brain is just a little more exhausted than it was the day before.

Even on the mundane days, I think all I need is a couple of minutes to breathe between the endless rounds of pointless questions and unstoppable conversation. It’s the kind of wish only a fairy godmother could grant, because there isn’t a chance of it happening in the real world.

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…

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Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk, 1978.

Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk, 1978.

I’ve always had something of a temper. It’s a family trait. Over the years I’ve learned, mostly, to suppress the worst of it. I’ve got plenty of tells if you know what you’re looking for, but for the most part I get away with it. Any facial expression that ranges from indifferent to annoyed and you’ve basically strayed into the red zone. It’s hardly the work of a zen master, but it’s what I can manage.

My carefully cultivated facade cracked for a moment today. I found myself halfway down the hall in what could generously be described as a blinding fit of rage before that small voice of reason cut through to remind me that grabbing someone by the tie and bouncing their head off the closest available wall is considered inappropriate… and probably detrimental to my career. I reigned it it, walked it off, and seethed quietly for the next hour.

I’ve spent my adult life working on the art of mastering my temper and learning what I need to do to keep it in check. I slipped today and I hate myself for it – not so much that it happened but because it offered up a brief glimpse at what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Warning signs…

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I should have known the kind of day it was going to be when the first two alarms failed to coax me from sleep’s comfortable embrace. The day started behind schedule and never recovered… late to lunch, then a two hour soul suck of a meeting that ran late, then another meeting that should have lasted 5 minutes ran over and promptly spawned another hour-long meeting later in the week, and by that point I was already late for end-of-tour. Blasting out emails for the next thirty minutes in order to make sure the later-in-the-week meeting actually took place then put the day further behind. Or more specifically it put the end of the day even further behind. And that, obviously, is where the real snarling started.

As perfectly willing as I am to admit that some things are unavoidable, I’ve always thought the total number of those unavoidable things is pretty small. Most things, with a bit of planning, are utterly an completely avoidable if you just pay a bit of attention. For instance you can count on one finger the number of times in any give year I show up at the office late. I build in what some would consider excess time in order to make sure I hit the mark as expected. It doesn’t feel at all unreasonable to expect a bit of consideration coming back the other way, though recent history leaves that in doubt.

I guess it’s my fault for not seeing the warning signs. I don’t want to have to make a scene to remind anyone that there’s a holy line of demarcation between “my time” and “your time,” but I absolutely will if that’s what needs doing. I’m in no way above making an ass of myself to make a point when it needs made.

100 bottles…

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Somewhere, somehow, someone is lurking around our building complex sucking down cheap liquor like it’s their job. No. Literally. Like it’s really their job. Most people might say that’s pure speculation, but I know it’s a fact. I know it because the facilities people blasted out an “all hands” fireball-liqueur-shot-300x300nastygram informing us that in excess of 100 “miniature” bottles of Fireball (empty, of course) had been found making a mess of the local sewer lift pump station… which means the individual in question is hanging around in the can to get their morning eye opener or afternoon pick me up and then flushing the evidence.

As a tax payer I should probably be profoundly offended. As a professional I should be ashamed at the actions of someone who is nominally my colleague. But really all I really am is pissed off that this asshat has managed to sneak a little happiness in a bottle into the place and they haven’t been polite enough to share anything. That’s just rude, because God knows most days the sun isn’t even over the yard arm before I start feeling like it’s time for a cold one… or a warm one, depending on how the prick is smuggling in his contraband.

Trusted professionals, indeed.

LinkedOut…

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In an ongoing effort to un-muddle my digital footprint, I deleted my LinkedIn account over the weekend. I talked about doing it a year or two ago but didn’t get around to it. A spate of emails from the service this week drug it back onto my list of things to do. I wanted to like LinkedIn – and maybe if I worked in a universe that traded on creating a massive professional network I would have. But for what I do, and the scope of people I need to interact with, it just wasn’t doing much for me other than sending a dozen emails a week to my inbox. I don’t need that kind of help.

I have to think LinkedIn is so popular because it creates a benefit for people in a sales environment, or those interested in building their professional network, or those who have any kind of professional ambition left. Since I don’t fall into any of those categories it was just one more extraneous feed of information I wasn’t using.

The simple fact is I don’t really identify, even “professionally,” with my 9-5 self. If someone wants me in their network it should be as a sometimes writer, a blogger, an opinionated blowhard, a reader, and hopefully, in some small way, as a thinker. That other stuff, how I whore myself out to pay the bills, is entirely secondary to what I consider the “real” me.

It’s just the most recent bit of transition from a guy who long ago thought what he did for a living defined who he was to a man who’s trying to define himself in some other – if far less tangible – way. What that definition is, what it will become, remains to be seen.

Whatever the definition, I know with certainty that future self doesn’t require an account with LinkedIn.

The illusion of interest…

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I could probably fill a book with number of bits and pieces of daily ephemera I declare “one of the hardest things I do.” Somehow that doesn’t keep the list from growing. In that spirit, one of the hardest things I do currently is simply pay attention. Actually it’s not even that so much as it is just trying to look interested.

Once the charts start flipping, I’ve got a window of 20-30 good minutes where I’m attentive and focused. After that it’s a doodle-fest or I start making notes on whatever it is I would be working on back at my desk. Either way, whatever is on those slides is barely getting a head nod. I’m basically doing whatever it takes to keep my eyes from glazing over and accidentally falling out of my chair. Nodding off and landing on your ass is considered bad form at meetings. I’ve seen it happen and it’s not pretty – although it is completely, gut wrenchingly hysterical.

The challenge to look interested doesn’t discriminate between my own material and stuff that has no impact or influence on my day-to-day existence. After the 30 minute mark everything falls into the category of probably interesting, but irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant by nature, but simply because my brain has lost the capacity to receive new information while struggling mightily just to give the illusion that the lights are on upstairs.

If you see me in a meeting blinking rapidly, shifting in my seat every 30 seconds, or jabbing a #2 pencil into my thigh, try not to take it personally. It’s probably not your subject matter, it’s just that you let your meeting run way, way too long and I’m doing my level best to offer the illusion of interest or, if that proves impossible, to not fall asleep and start drooling all over myself.