Category Archives: work

The scores are made up and the points don’t matter…

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Maybe the worst thing you can do in a room full of people who analyze and evaluate information for a living is walk in and show them a presentation while telling them that you don’t know how the data was processed to arrive at the stated conclusion you want them to believe. Most of us are already cynical from long years of having people try to convince us that “this time is different” or “shit doesn’t stink and I have a comprehensive study to prove it.” When you, the peddler of snake oil wrapped in a pretty PowerPoint covering, basically tell us that the scores are made up and the points don’t matter all you’ve really said is you’ve wasted an hour of our time. You see, that’s what happens when you pass along data that’s impossible to validate, from sources that are impossible to verify. Now that might not have been your intent, that was most assuredly the result.

In this line of work, credibility is pretty much the only coin of the realm. Once it’s lost, it almost never comes back without a massive effort and wasting even more time. It’s my estimate that avoiding that path from the outset is the better, more practical, course of action.

But what do I know? I’m just a guy sitting here with 105 minutes of his life gone today that he’s never going to get back.

Gratification…

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I know my sense of how the universe works is probably a little off by “normal” standards, but I find something deeply gratifying about telling Outlook to turn on my out-of-office message. It’s one of those rare bits of the day that feel like I really got something accomplished, namely that I’ve officially told anyone trying to track me down that I won’t be checking voice messages or email for the next seven days.

That’s not strictly true, of course. I’ll still be tethered as tightly as ever to my own electronics, but for these next few days anyone looking for me at my desk or eagerly awaiting a response is going to have to cool their jets while I go do other, more interesting things.

Because there are no free lunches in this life, I know all this means is the pile of things on my desk, jammed into my inbox, and waiting on me to “push three to hear your messages now” will be immense by the time I get back next week. That’s just going to have to be next week’s problem. I’ve only got the RAM onboard to be concerned with so many things at one time and frankly none of the issues on or around my 50 square feet of cubicle are even close to making the cut.

The wrong metric…

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It occurs to me that when it comes to the amount of time we spend at work that it could all come down to tracking the wrong metric. Since early in the 20th century the “standard” has been the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week. That’s well and good I suppose if you’re churning out Model T Fords by the million on an assembly line. In that kind of work there’s no allowance for people working at varying speeds. Most of the people I know these days aren’t working on a 1920s assembly line, though.

Instead of manning the line at the Rouge River Complex, we’re all sitting at our keyboards banging out emails and memos and slides. If I happen to be super efficient and complete my assigned memos and slides in six hours, I’m still at my desk for two hours regardless of whether I’m doing anything constructive or staring blankly at the ceiling. The reverse is true as well. If I’m an utter slacker and can’t get all my emails sent in eight hours, there’s no force compelling me to stick around until they’re done. As far as my unscientific observation of the eight hour day and 40-hour week is concerned, I can only conclude that we’re basing our business model on precisely the wrong metrics. We’re managing to time rather than managing to outcomes.

If I, gods forbid, were a boss, why would I care if someone got their assigned work done to standard in six hours? Maybe in theory I could then assign them 20% more work, but in my experience that almost never happens. If your mission in life is to get X done every day, once X is done, I say go home. Go to the park, the bar, the ball game. The threat of having to do X+20% doesn’t do anything more than make the typical drone slow their roll to make sure they don’t pull too far ahead of the pack. Sure there are a few over achievers out there who throw off the curve, but when I look around they’re the exception rather than the rule.

So there it is – the thesis I should have written for my MBA. A Savage Act of Defiance Against the 8-Hour Work Day: Managing Performance Instead of Time. It feels a little like there’s a “philosophy of management” book in there somewhere… which means I should mention that the thoughts herein expressed are the sole property of the author and protected under the copyright laws of the United States. All rights reserved.

The right cover sheet…

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I wish I’d have had the wherewith all to jot down a few notes today. I think it might be instructive in describing exactly why there is currently so much dissatisfaction with the state of things. To illustrate my point, here is my best recollection of an actual conversation that took place just after I got back from lunch:

Other Person: “Uhhh… he’s adamant that we get that random tidbit of information from that guy who doesn’t want to give it to us.”

Jeff: “Yeah. Well, this report has to be sent in by 1:00, I need to finish that thing that was due Monday but no one told us about until this morning, and that other thing that needs approved four levels above me before I can send it out at noon tomorrow needs finished by the end of the day. Oh, and I haven’t had time yet to prep for the meeting I’m nominally supposed to be in charge of tomorrow, so there’s that… but I’ll add the random tidbit to my list and see what I can find out after I managed to carve out some time to hector the Air Force into doing something they’re probably not going to want to do.”

Other Person: “So… Do you want me to look at the slides for tomorrow?”

Jeff: “Sure.”

As far as I can tell, today was mostly about learning to put the right coversheet on the TPS report. Again. And Again. And Again. And again. I’m fairly sure this is real life, but it feels so close to fiction that it’s almost frightening.

I got mine the hard way…

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So I was sitting in a meeting a few days ago (because that seems to be my professional raison d’être). I won’t go into the specifics of the discussion, but the general topic was the virtue of in person training versus “virtual” training delivered online. As I was only tangentially involved in the discussion, I quickly found myself engrossed in whatever notes I had previously scribbled onto my yellow legal pad.

What pulled my attention back into the conversation was a crack out of nowhere about not really thinking of academic excellence from people who get online degrees. Now what you should do when someone five steps above you on the org chart says something that ruffles your sensibilities is sit quietly and do absolutely nothing, lest in responding you incur their wrath. Sadly, as many of you know, sitting quietly and keeping my mouth shut is something I tend to struggle with on an almost daily basis.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t go to Harvard, or Columbia, or the Wharton School of Business. I took my classes one at a time in the evenings and on weekends, while working full time, and traveling 2-3 weeks each month because that’s what Uncle said he needed me to do… so if you want to talk to me about academic excellence, I’ll be happy to go a few rounds with you on the virtue of an online education. Now I can be as elitist as anyone else, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m the one who got mine the hard way and if that doesn’t satisfy your century old notion about what constitutes “real” education, well that’s ok because I’ll be around long after your Paleolithic point of view is consigned to the pages of history.

I could have said more on the issue. That part of me that likes a good fight desperately wanted to go a dozen rounds, but I had to satisfy myself with looking an individual in the eye and telling them that as the holder of one of these online degrees, I didn’t feel educationally slighted in the least. I scored my point, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying. I didn’t want an apology or even a “present company excluded.” I simply wanted to provide a gentle reminder than no matter how high and mighty, it’s always best to know your audience before firing off at the mouth and losing credibility in the eyes of those who you would lead.

The incredible shrinking staff…

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For most of the last four years my little corner of the bureaucracy has held fairly steady at a total of eight people. Sure that’s a couple short of a full load, but close enough that the job got done without too much trouble. A year ago, one of our host moved on to other opportunities and we were down to seven. A few months ago another chose to go test the waters elsewhere and we were down to six. After that, keeping up got harder. Today, we assembled for the farewell lunch for the next to go out the door and by the end of the week our number will dwindle to five. Life will be harder yet when that work gets farmed out, but I’d be the last guy to condemn anyone for doing what’s in their best interest.

Only a fool would believe that we’ll hold at five for very long before the next departure and the next and the next. There’s a upward limit of doing more with less. There’s an equally fixed limit on even being able to to the same amount with less. Eventually you simply reach a tipping point where you accept less or you apply more resources to bring the scales back into some semblance of balance. At least that’s the way we learned it at my fancy online business school.

Now the discussion focuses on who’s covering what, who’s going to be out when, of needing to look closley scheduled leave, and how many balls we can collectively keep in the air at one time. Those are hard discussions and even harder decisions, but they’re decisions I have the advantage of not needing to make. Giving up my supervisor’s hat strikes me as a better and better decision every single day. I’m just a poor simple working drone, the part of the equation where the “equal and opposite reaction” takes place.

For me that means it’s time to start making my own hard decisions about what the future holds, what I’m willing to accept as a matter of course, and what I’m willing to push back against. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s probably well past time to start filling the options box back up. I can’t help but think that I’ve seen this movie before. I’d just hoped it would be a little longer before I got to see the replay.

Getting physical…

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I had my first meeting with the physical therapist this past Friday. While it wasn’t as god awful as I expected, it didn’t exactly tickle. Plus, strange people touching me. *Shudder* I think the fact that I didn’t either take a swing at the guy or find an excuse to run away should be acknowledged as a major accomplishment for me.

The last thing they handed me before turning me loose into the world was a schedule for future appointments. That’s fine. Although it would have been nice, I in no way anticipated this being a one-and-done kind of endeavor. I didn’t expect, though, that this was going to be a 3-day a week kind of effort. While that’s bad enough, the very best part is that my scheduled start time on most of those days is the same time I’d usually be leaving the office. I’m sure blowing out the door early three times a week for the next four weeks is one of those things that will further endear me to the bosses.

If there’s any bright spot to the next few weeks, it’s that at least for the moment the joys of physical therapy won’t be sucking every minute of free time out of my evening schedule. If that costs me a couple of days worth of sick leave over the course of the month, that’s probably time off well spent. At least it is to me. Like I said, the powers that be are sure to be less than thrilled with this turn of events. This is one of those times when they’re just going to have to learn to live with disappointment, because when it comes to sacrificing my time or theirs, well, it’s not really a contest. We’ll just have to see how well that theory holds up on Monday when a sheaf of leave requests land on someone’s desk.

What do you want?

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Six months ago as part of the annual mandatory evaluation process that pretty much everyone who has ever had a job goes through, I got asked a variation of the most common question ever put to an employee – What do you want out of your career / What are your goals? When faced with that question most people give the stock answer about gaining more experience, growing their position, and taking on more responsibility. That’s the answer everyone expects to hear when they ask that question. The call and response of that question are so ingrained in the professional world that they’re practically boilerplate.

I guess sticking to a script was never one of my strong points. When an idea pops into my head, there’s always a good chance it’s going to come flying out of my mouth in the form of words. The ones that came hurtling out of my face in response to what should have been an no-brainer kind of question still make me smile six months later. That’s probably because they formed the most honest answer I’ve ever given to that kind of question. The look on my interlocutor’s face made veering wildly off the party line all the more worthwhile.

So if you’re asking yourself by this point what is it I want out of my career or what my goals are, the answer is surprisingly simple. As best I remember, it went a little something like this:

I want to stash enough cash away to buy up 20 or 30 acres of West Virginia; a little property, maybe with a stream running through it, with lots of trees, seclusion, and a strong gate at the end of the driveway. A little cabin, a wood stove, solar panels, and not much reason to come down out of my own personal Walden. I want to spend the days writing and the long summer evenings sitting with the dogs on the porch with my feet up watching the sun drop behind the mountains. When it snows I want to not care how long it takes to melt or how long it will be until I can leave. I want to not be driven by a relentless morning alarm, six meetings a day, and an inbox that never empties. I want to balance the scale a lot more towards life and way less towards work. Those are my goals, since you asked.

Trust me, that’s not the kind of answer your boss is looking for when they ask the question. It’s not the answer I should have given and it’s certainly not the one I’d recommend anyone else giving. It does however, have the virtue of being the first time in almost two decades of work that I answered that question honestly. I still feel kind of good about that.

The meeting…

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I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting since about 7:45 Monday morning. If you’re a regular reader around here, I think my general feeling about meetings is fairly well known. What I haven’t done, perhaps, is give you a glimpse into why I think they are enormous time sucks from which there is no hope of escape. The following events are true. They took place in the first week of August 2014:

Monday:
-0745- Received email informing me that I had to attend a video conference on Tuesday afternoon.
-0750- Forwarded video conference information to the people responsible for scheduling such things.
-0900- Followed up via email with the people responsible for scheduling such things.
-1230- Informed that the people responsible for scheduling such things no longer had access to email.
-1235- Contacted the people responsible for scheduling such things via phone. Informed that there were no video conference lines available
-1245- Contacted the people responsible for scheduling such things in three other buildings.
-1430- Received confirmation that there were no lines available anywhere no matter how many times I asked.
-1515- Informed by person scheduling the meeting that they were moving the video conference to Wednesday morning.
-1600- End of Tour.

Tuesday:
-0745- Received email invitation to newly scheduled video conference on Wednesday morning.
-0800- Called the people responsible for scheduling such things and was advised by all locations that I was SOL.
-1000- Contacted by the people responsible for scheduling such things to tell me that a line had become available.
-1100- Advised by echelons higher than reality that we didn’t want to talk about Issue #1 in a public forum.
-1115- Informed meeting organizer that I was not prepared to discuss Issue #1 and requested I be excused from attending the meeting.
-1200- Received email confirmation that I was no longer required to attend the meeting.
-1230- Released the one available conference line back to the people responsible for scheduling such things
-1555- Received phone call from meeting organizer informing me that my attendance was now required, but instead of Issue #1, I should discuss Issue #2.
-1557- Requested a “give back” of the one available conference line from the people responsible for scheduling such things
-1600- End of Tour
-1601- Looked around wondering if I had any of the slides left from the last time I had to discuss Issue #2
-1607- Threw my hands up in disgust and departed for the day.

Proposed Itinerary for Wednesday:
-0730- Check email to see if the people responsible for scheduling such things were able to give me back the one available conference line.
-0735- Begin looking for slides related to Issue #2
-0800- Swear violently and possibly throw something.
-0925- Fill coffee mug with fresh “go juice” in effort to stave off inevitable madness.
-0930- Wander halfway across the county to the place where they keep the one available conference line
-1030- Attend meeting and discuss Issue #2. Or not. Depending on what’s in my inbox in the morning.
-1200- End meeting knowing nothing more about Issue #2 than I did at 0930.
-1600- End of Tour.

So as you can see, my visceral hatred of meetings isn’t just something I came up with as an excuse to write a book. It’s a goddamned self defense mechanism.

Duck… duck…

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One of the perks of working where I work is that the whole area is something of a wildlife refuge. Eagles, turtles, deer, all manner of animals are at home inside the fence. Of them all, perhaps the most obnoxious is the Canada geese that never seem to know what side of the road they want to be on. That’s bad, especially if their wanderings happen to intersect with a road you’re trying to use. It’s like the little hoodlums can sense when you’re in a hurry and take great pains to subvert your efforts.

When they’re on the wing Canada geese are majestic enough; flying in their “V” formation, honking like there’s no tomorrow. On the ground, there’s nothing majestic about them at all. They’re winged shitting machines with no regard for anything or anyone.

I bring that up because this morning the entire walkway from the parking lot to the front of the building was peppered with goose feces. Hundreds of piles of reeking, slimy, stepped in goose turds. That’s what greeted me on the way into the office this morning. If I’d have been caffeinated enough in that moment to realize the universe was sending me one giant, stinking warning sign about what the day was going to be like, I could have avoided great angst and gnashing of teeth today. I’m going to be taking that as a lesson learned.